Thorn Bronzefist tore down the dungeon hallway with his sword held high, the Arcane Skeleton Knights behind him. Their hollow bones rattled inside their enchanted armor as they pursued the thieves who made off with their Channeling Stone, and hissing cries echoed from the wet brick walls, sending a shower of dust and pebbles down around his burly shoulders.
"Can't you do something about these bastards?" Thorn shouted to the woman sprinting along beside him.
"I can guide, or I can incinerate -- pick one!" His elven partner Celeste Kintar clutched the Channeling Stone in one hand, its orange glow lighting the ancient hallway sprawled before them. Her shapely legs pumped as hard as his thick ones, carrying them through the collapsing dungeon with magical haste.
Even sprinting from death, she managed to toss him a wicked grin with a catty remark. "Magic can't make up for stupid choices, Thorn!"
"Ha-!"
Thorn turned on one heel and slashed the air. Perfectly attuned to his every motion after years of working together, Celeste ducked at just the right moment. His blade caught a poisoned arrow aimed at their backs.
Thorn braced his sturdy legs, ready to meet the Skeleton Knights head-on. He tossed his head back and roared the cry of the elders to summon strength to his lanky arms, well-muscled from hundreds of scrapes worse than this.
Celeste hurried a few more steps past him and then got down on her knees. She ran one hand along the wall, where the orange light trailed through an arch-shaped crack.
"Door, door!" she shouted.
Thorn covered her while she frantically worked the fingers of her free hand against the stone. His sword sliced through the neck bones of an Arcane Skeleton, and his booted foot caved in the chest of another while she worked.
The undead shrieks of the warlock's knights brought a hail of dust from the ceiling. Rocks fell from just overhead as the secret door sprang open.
"Got it!" Celeste shouted.
Thorn felt the ground beneath his feet shudder as the walls around them buckled. Thinking fast, he looped one strong arm around Celeste's trim waist and hurled himself through the door just as a beam came tumbling down.
He lay on the ground of the hidden room, panting. The warlock's dungeon groaned around them as the walls outside the hidden room collapsed, burying the doorway behind them in a wall of ancient brick and shattered bone.
Celeste squirmed out from beneath him with a sharp elbow to his side. Thorn grunted.
"Oh hush, you big baby." She held the Channeling Stone aloft and murmured a word to brighten it. The room around them sprang to life at her spell, filling cobwebbed sconces with warm orange light. "Great... another dead end."
Thorn studied her regal face, flushed from exertion and streaked with dust. She worried one full lip between her sharp teeth. He knew her look of embarrassment.
"What's wrong, Celly? Spells getting sloppy?" Thorn brushed tower dust from his hair and looked around the secret room. Like most things in the warlock's tower, it was old and forgotten. A desk, a chest, and some chairs gathering dust. "Was that why you dragged me all the way down here? Is that Stone worth it?"
"You bet your ass it is," Celeste answered. She lovingly traced her fingers over the orange rock, then handed it to Thorn. "It can abjure, conjure, and even teleport! Once I master all its spells, I could enchant a unicorn to run the dungeons for us -- what do you think, Thorn?"
"Why not sell it?" Thorn scowled at the Channeling Stone. The orange bulb fit neatly in his hand, flared at one end where his callused fingers curled around it. "It's worth a fortune, Celly. You could buy your own wizard's tower with what we could get for it. Hell, I'll buy you a tower with my half!"
"You buy me a tower?" she laughed. "That'll be the day."
Celeste set her torch across the unused desk and unslung her pack. She dusted her hips and checked the buckles of her tunic pulled tight across her chest. When running dungeons, she dressed more like an Iron Rock mercenary than a mage -- all her glorious curves and sensuous limbs strapped down in armor.
"When I get my own tower, Thorny, it'll be cozier than this -- and no dead ends, ever. Look at that hole over there! It's the only way out of this room..."
Thorn followed her gaze to the space by the desk. The wall had a hole about a foot wide and a few feet off the floor. Celeste walked over to it and bent down to test the broken stones, tugging on them to see if any would give.
"Nope -- can't widen it. You have anymore of those alchemist bombs?"
"Fresh out," Thorn said. He studied the hole and thumped his boot on the ground. "Sounds like a room's underneath. If you can fit through here, you might end up there. Find a trapdoor or something from that side..."
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Sure, right. You can stare at my ass while I crawl through a dark hole. Why don't you go through it, and I'll hang onto that stone? I could teleport straight to you."
Thorn couldn't keep her wicked green-eyed gaze when she grinned at him like that. Celeste knew she was attractive. When they'd met years before at the College of Blades, he'd barely been able to get close to her with all the swords knaves buzzing around her like flies lured to honey.
"Well, we know I won't fit," he said, running a hand through his hair. "Our fate depends on your skinny arse and whatever you can do without that stone."
She snorted and set the Channeling Stone on the desk. She stripped down her armor, removing the bulky hide jerkin and the heavy medallion belt full of her amulets. Underneath, she wore a simple linen shirt and soft leather breaches that hugged her curves tightly.
