You rise up, panting, looking down at the crumpled robes of the fallen Necromancer. How strange to see the weaver of life and death, now lifeless, unable to resist an eternal sleep of his own. He lies pitifully in the dust, surrounded by a ghastly filigree of his victims: behind him, an altar of bone, adorned with skulls.

You notice a strange glow emanating from the altar. A pool of light appears and forms into the shape of a glowing golden orb. You reach out tentatively, unsure whether to accept its invitation. Before you can change your mind, it seems to grab your hands, pulling them towards it. You grasp the sphere, and the dark room is flooded with brilliant light.

You have finally defeated the necromancer and lifted the curse from the midnight valley. As you looked around, you could see that the moonlit darkness that surrounded it was fading. In its place are beautiful mountains bathed in the sun's golden rays. You now know where you must go.

Your surroundings are ever changing. The light fades into a perfect white sky. Soon you are high in the clouds, atop the Golden Mountains. They seem to stretch to infinity, a stunning range of glowing peaks blasted with sunlight. Wind whistles in the crags, and in the distance, you see the black, jagged outline of the Millennium Tower. Your final destination is within sight – it doesn’t feel quite real to be this close.

There is no time to feel victorious. A screeching sound in the near distance stalls your triumph. You reach out to steady your blade. Something is close, and carried on vast wings, by the sound of it. A sudden streak past the corner of your eye. You spin around and are faced with a long-limbed cloud of bony, winged creatures. They split and dive in opposite directions as you pull at your sword.

The first harpy swoops in, and its massive talons snag you immediately. You stumble to the ground but manage to catch it with a wild stab. It howls in protest, before a second harpy snatches you from the ground, dragging you high into the air. You thrust the blade into its soft belly, bringing it crashing towards the ground. You roll away, helpless, into the grip of another creature, pulling it back down to the ground in a pile of dust and feathers.

Back on your feet, you slash wildly at the harpy, and then another. They are beginning to back off, wary of a lunch that insists on putting up such a fight. With a bitter shriek, they tear away into the mist, set on more acquiescent prey.

Mildly scratched and more than a little perturbed, you continue down your path towards the tower. The altitude begins to plummet, and the clouds darken as you draw closer. The tower, once miniature on the horizon, grows bigger and blacker, enveloping the world around you and draining the golden warmth of the mountains, replacing it with gathering mist. Your mood is similarly bleak. You feel increasingly robbed of your confidence, as if nothing will ever be right again. The tower is playing tricks on you, and you feel a loosening grip on your own bearings as the tendrils of mist swirl around you.

Just as you feel your feet begging you to turn back a gargantuan iron gate looms out of the mist before you. You feel cold and disorientated. As you move closer you notice bodies – bodies everywhere. The shattered skeletons of other adventurers who have passed before. You feel sick. They were just like you. They took a dangerous path, and they paid the price. What noble aims did they have? They took every risk you took, learned everything you have learned. How can you look upon their fallen bodies with anything other than despair? And- wait… was that… wait. Did that body…move?

One of the bodies visibly twitches. A ranger, hand-crafted crossbow at the ready. A sprawling limb stretches out and she rises to her feet. Steadily, another body begins to rise. A figure in some sort of magical armour tinted with deep blue . The shattered gold-encrusted armour of a fallen knight behind him begins to knit together, and the crumpled knight, too, comes to standing. His heavy, golden blade is soaked with blood. The reanimated figures stare at you, dead-eyed.

Well, what’s one more death to a corpse? You lunge skilfully, ducking their meagre attacks. Their fighting is clumsy and uncoordinated. The ranger fumbles her bow and staggers as if drunk. The wizard’s pale, gnarled hands and long staff can only summon the most desultory of sparks. The knight stumbles blindly behind his golden armour shell.

Exasperated, you dance nimbly between them, dashing the ranger’s bow against the rocks, ducking under the wizard’s feeble attacks and pulling the knight’s sword from his sheath. They crash into one another in the melee.

Once defeated, you look upon the spoils of battle. The ranger’s crossbow looks sturdy and useful, a mix of dark wood and ruddy metal. It’s surprisingly light, but lacking ammunition. Her armour is made of some sort of unusually tough material, infused with emeralds. The knight’s armour seems heavier, weighted with thick bands of gold over an unknown base metal of great strength. It matches the enormous gold-trimmed blade, its bloody tip a harbinger of its grim potential.

The wizard’s staff has a blue coloured orb sitting on top of it, surrounded by a golden sphere for what seems like protection. Its stem is dotted with intricately carved patterns of no doubt magical significance. Wielding the staff, you can feel an immediate sense of power coming from the blue orb. As you hold it, the orb begins to slightly glow.

Your confidence swells. You gesture to the other corpses with the staff, lest they too rise from the ground and take their turn.

“Come and try me!” you cry, laughing madly.

But the laughter catches in your throat. An enormous groan behind you, and the gates begin to swing back. You turn to see a fantastic giant, as big as the gates themselves. Oh no…