"You know what to do, Squeak."

  "Squeak!" Squeak was on the job.

  Jeremy's familiar carried his shoes down the cliff face to the ground far below and slammed one shoe down, then the other, to imitate Jeremy's walking.

  The Sand Monarch struck like a supercharged snake, her body moving effortlessly through the rocks, seeming not to notice as she set off Jeremy's traps. Her mouth came down on top of Squeak and Jeremy's shoes with a deadly silence. Fortunately, Jeremy's familiar was noncorporeal and inedible to normal lifeforms.

  This was Jeremy's chance. There was a small gap in the Sand Monarch's armor directly behind her head. If he could stab it with sufficient force with his spear, it should penetrate her brain, killing her.

  He leaned over the rocky cliff face, spear pointed down at the Sand Monarch. And let himself fall.

  Wind rushed past Jeremy's body, and fear made time slow until he felt as if he were sinking through water, giving him longer to think about how bad an idea this was. The Sand Monarch raised her head, then lowered it, spitting out Jeremy's shoes and sniffing them.

  The gap in the armor behind The Sand Monarch's head was much smaller than Jeremy's skill book would have led him to believe, maybe a centimeter across.

  Jeremy angled his spear to follow the Sand Monarch's movements. He aimed for the tiny gap in the armor. His spear point hit the Sand Monarch with the speed of his fall and his body weight behind it.

  He missed.

  The spear hit the armor next to the gap, but somehow his spear slid over the Sand Monarch's armor and into the gap. The speed of his fall and weight drove the spear point and shaft deep into her head.

  Her response was instantaneous. The Sand Monarch's body hit him like a train, slamming him against the side of the cliff. As he bounced off the cliff, her stinger struck him with tremendous force, sending him flying.

  He awoke to the sound of the Sand Monarch pounding the rocks.

  He lay in the sand with a broken arm and the taste of blood in his mouth. Her stinger had also poisoned him, but that was the least of his concerns. He was in so much pain that he could barely move. By rolling his eyes, he could see the Sand Monarch at a distance, sniffing at a narrow crack between two boulders. Footprints led to the crack.

  Squeak must have somehow used Jeremy's shoes to convince The Sand Monarch that he'd run away and hid in the crevice.

  Soon, the Sand Monarch would tear away the stones in the crevice and discover he wasn't there. The spear was still sticking out of her neck, and Flint was pushing against the butt with all his strength, trying to drive it deeper. Being noncorporeal, he made little progress.

  Jeremy watched with icy detachment. If he moved, she would be on him in an instant; if he didn't move, he had a minute at most before she realized she'd been tricked and figured out where he was.

  The Sand Monarch tore into the crevice, her head pushing underneath the overhanging boulder. He had time to watch her movements. If she moved her head in just the right direction, the overhanging rock would catch on the spear in her neck, pushing it further into her head. He waited... her head needed to move a little farther... farther... Now!

  Crying from pain, he forced himself into a half-crawl, half-run away from the Sand Monarch.

  She twisted, her head swinging toward Jeremy with insane speed. The spear got caught on the rock, her own strength driving the spear deeper into her neck and head.

  There was a boom as her head and body pushed the boulder out of her way, and she was on Jeremy, her tentacles grabbing him in a steel-like grip. He groaned as more bones broke and the broken bones grated on each other.

  At first, Jeremy thought he had failed, and he was going to die. Then, with a ponderous groan, her tentacles relaxed, her head and body fell on top of him, smashing him against the sand. That was all he knew for some time.

  He awoke more slowly this time, feeling an insane itch in his flesh and bones as they healed. Opening his eyes, he found two empty gold potion vials next to him.

  “Squeak!” Squeak said from underneath the dissolving sand queen, using the enormous monster for shade.

  “Thanks, Squeak,” Jeremy moaned. Even with the gold healing potions, it took time for his body to mend.

  When he was strong enough to move, he found the Sand Monarch had left something. A second book. “The Child's Way of the Sand Monarch. Journeyman.”

  He put the book away. It would take time to absorb, and would only slow him down.

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  “Your continued survival is, as always, miraculous,” Flint said. “Do you suppose we can get the treasure we've heard about and move on to the next floor?”

  “I hope so,” Jeremy said. “Go investigate, Squeak.”

  “Squeak!” His familiar reentered the chamber. The door to the boss's desert home had turned into a stone wall, and a single chest rested in the middle of the chamber.

  “It would be nice if that's the treasure, but I have a feeling we won't be that lucky,” Jeremy said with a sigh.

  As the Sand Monarch continued to be absorbed into the dungeon, Jeremy regained the strength to enter the passage a second time.

  After determining the large, locked chest wasn't a mimic or trap, he used his magic key from the second floor to open it.

  The treasure chest held a large knife that Identified as Child's Venom Dagger of the Dragon Queen, named Sslithera's Fang. Legendary grade.

  “Suppose this is the Dragon Queen's treasure?” Jeremy asked.

  “If I said yes, would you leave this dungeon?” Flint asked.

  “If you said yes, I'd accuse you of lying,” Jeremy replied, putting away the dagger. “Where's the real treasure?”

  “I don't know,” Flint said. “But I will point out that Greater Draconis, the race that supposedly gave the dungeon the treasure in question, has flame comparable to a sun and teeth able to crush diamonds—but no venom.”

  “That's what I thought,” Jeremy said. He searched the chamber and passageway with extreme care, and aside from the key to the treasure chest in one corner—the one he was supposed to use rather than his universal key from the second floor—he found nothing. There had to be a hidden entrance or treasure chamber. But where?

  Flint cleared his noncorporeal throat. “I have a suggestion. And I'm making this only because I know you won't leave until you find something, and I'm sick of watching you search.”

  Jeremy lay on the stone floor, gazing up at the ceiling, searching for anything. “What?”

  “Get your stuff, get into the chest, and close the lid.”

  “Well, I've tried everything else.” Jeremy grabbed his pack and bag of holding, then slipped into the chest. “Come on, Squeak.” Squeak joined him and closed the lid behind it.

  Nothing happened. With a sigh, he pushed the chest open. “Okay, Flint, anymore...” he said, then noticed the door to the Sand Monarch's realm had returned. And the stairway back to the dungeon desert had vanished, a stone wall taking its place.

  Flint said, "The surface exit vanished, suggesting we are not finished with this part of the dungeon."

  “Good thing you're here to tell me stuff like that,” Jeremy responded.

  “Indeed.”

  Tired and not about to risk meeting another Sand Monarch, he spent what passed for night in the treasure chamber.

  The next morning, Jeremy pushed open the door.

  No desert sand this time. He cautiously entered a long hallway. As he walked down the hall, the temperature dropped. What began as a pleasant chill turned cold, then freezing. Soon, ice covered the stone of the hallway, and his elemental resistance failed to prevent his feet from growing numb with cold. Shivering uncontrollably, he put on his bearskin parka. To warm his feet, he tore strips from his dungeon cloak and wrapped them around his feet. This failed to warm his feet but prevented him from getting frostbite. By the time he made it to the end of the hall and opened the door to the outside, the cold made the winter sections he'd encountered feel positively warm. Though it appeared to be night, there was enough light from the stars for him to look out at the barren, snow-covered wasteland. There wasn't the slightest sign of life.

  “It's extremely cold, and I don't see the slightest sign of monsters,” Flint said. “Fascinating.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don't feel the cold,” Jeremy grumbled.

  “Well, let me remind you once again that you could be at home drinking hot chocolate with your mother. But you insisted on staying here.”

  Not bothering to respond, Jeremy ate a food ration and drank some water, putting the water bottle away when it began to freeze in his hand.

  It was so cold that Jeremy might have turned back if there had been anywhere for him to go. Not seeing what else to do, he stepped out into the winter night.

  “I'm here to tell you to turn back,” Banxi said, appearing in front of Jeremy with a grim look on his face. “This part of the dungeon is hard to find because it is extremely dangerous.”

  “How is it dangerous?” Jeremy asked. “That is, more dangerous than the rest of this dungeon?”

  “I can't tell you that,” Banxi said with a sniff. “When you arrived in the dungeon, you were told to stay on the red path, and you would get home. Instead, you insisted on leaving the red path at every opportunity.”

  “We've been through this before, Banxi,” Jeremy said. “What do you want?”

  “In this part of the dungeon, you must fight your way through to the other end. Or die. And far stronger, better prepared adventurers than you have died attempting to do this.”

  Jeremy looked at Banxi. “Let me ask you this. If I fight my way to the other end, will I be stronger?”

  Banxi sighed. “In the extremely unlikely event you survive, yes.”

  “Then I'm going.” Struggling to control his shivering, Jeremy stepped forward.

  Banxi held out a medallion. “If you grab hold of this medallion and say 'return,' it will take you to the last safe room on this level of the dungeon, and you will never see this place again.”

  “Go away,” Jeremy responded.

  Banxi thrust the medallion into Jeremy's hand. “Please use this if you need to. Better to miss out on treasure than to be dead.”

  “That's a matter of opinion,” Jeremy responded.

  Banxi vanished.

  Jeremy threw the medallion as far as he could into the snowy wasteland.

  Flint let out a loud noncorporeal sigh. “If it weren't a complete waste of effort on my part, I'd tell you how stupid you're being.”

  Jeremy didn't respond. After a bit of exploring, the only way forward not blocked off by walls of ice was a downhill path into a canyon.

  He didn't know how long he'd been walking. He didn't dare stop, because if he did, he'd never get up again. This insane cold would kill him as fast as any monster. He continued, putting one leg after another, dimly aware that the canyon had turned into a cave.