I ran until my lungs hurt, and then I kept running, because Agnes was somewhere back there and I was the idiot who'd brought her.
 
The hallway had changed. Where the doors used to be, there was just more brick. No torch holders. No empty spots. Like the rooms had never been there at all. I didn't stop to think about that. I didn't want to.
 
Then I saw a light.
 
It was way down at the end of the hall, small and orange and flickering. The first new thing I'd seen in what felt like hours. I ran at it like a moth.
 
It was two torches. One on each side of a pair of big white doors. Marble, smooth and shiny, way too fancy for the rest of this place. Anybody who's been in a dungeon before knows what fancy doors at the end of a long hallway mean.
 
Boss room.
 
A smart person would've stopped. Caught their breath. Made a plan. Maybe checked for traps, since the last door I touched put me to sleep.
 
I shoved them open with both hands.
 
They swung easy, like they weighed nothing. The room on the other side was huge and almost empty. High ceiling. Smooth stone floor. On the far wall, a set of tall gold doors, shut tight. In front of those, a big stone box with its lid pushed off and lying on the floor beside it.
 
And in front of the box, lying on her side, was Agnes.
 
“Agnes!”
 
I don't remember crossing the room. I just remember being on my knees next to her, pulling her up into my lap.
 
She was soaked. Covered head to toe in clear, sticky slime, thick as honey and cold. It was in her hair. It was dripping off her veil, which had slipped half off her head, and for the first time in two years I could see her hair properly. Blond, and a lot longer than I'd thought. Her habit was torn in a few places, at the shoulder and the side and the knee, and there was more of Agnes showing than I had ever seen. More than I was ever supposed to see.
 
I slapped myself in the face. Hard.
 
“She's your teammate,” I said out loud. “Calm down.”
 
I put two fingers on the side of her neck. Slime squished under them. Gross. But under the slime there was a pulse. It was there. It was just wrong. Fast, then slow, then fast again, like it couldn't make up its mind. Her muscles kept twitching, her arm, her leg, her jaw. Her breathing was rough and wet.
 
Alive, though. She was alive.
 
I sat back on my heels and just breathed for a minute. Then I finally looked around.
 
No monster. No bones. Nothing moving. Just the open stone box, the gold doors, and a trail of slime on the floor that went from the box to Agnes and stopped there.
 
Whatever got her, it wasn't here anymore. Which was good. It also meant it was somewhere else, and I didn't know where. I pulled her closer and put my hand on my sword.
 
That's when the gold doors started opening.
 
They made a deep, grinding rumble that I felt in my teeth. I had my sword halfway out and Agnes pinned against my chest with my other arm, and I was ready for anything. A dragon. A demon. A really angry alchemist.
 
The doors finished opening. Behind them was a small room, and in the small room was a chest.
 
A gold chest.
 
Gold chests only show up after the boss is dead. Everybody knows that. Something had already handled the boss, one way or another, and I decided I didn't want to know which way.
 
I got Agnes up onto my back. It took three tries, and on the second try I almost dropped her on her head. She was a lot heavier wet. I put one hand on the stone box to push myself up, and it was cold and slimy too, and I wiped my hand on my pants again.
 
Then I walked over to the chest, one slow step at a time, with Agnes dripping down my back.
 
I lifted the lid. Light blasted out so bright I had to shut my eyes. When I opened them again, it had faded.
 
The chest was full of gold.
 
Not a little gold. Not a nice pile of gold. Full. Coins and gems all the way to the top, spilling over the sides. Rubies. Emeralds. Big fat gold coins with some old king's face on them.
 
“Holy shit,” I said.
 
I did some math. Eleven copper for the goat. One silver a month for the whole party. This chest was more money than the five of us would make if we worked until we died. Twice. We'd never have to walk behind a goat again. We'd never have to work again, unless we wanted to, for fun.
 
Agnes started sliding off my back while I stood there with my mouth open. I caught her just before she hit the floor.
 
“Sorry. Sorry.”
 
I got her settled again. Then I held open my adventurer's sack over the chest, and it did the magic thing. The gold just went in. All of it. It poured into the bag like water down a drain, way more than should have fit, until the chest was empty and the sack still looked half full of slippers.
 
Under my feet, the floor started to glow.
 
A circle of light, with lines and shapes inside it. For a second my heart stopped. Then I recognized it. It was a regular teleport circle. The exit kind. The kind you get at the end of a dungeon.
 
I checked that Agnes was on my back. I checked that the sack was on my shoulder. Then I checked both of them again.
 
“Hang on,” I told Agnes, who couldn't hear me.
 
I shut my eyes and let it take us.