The holding room’s stone doors fully receded, revealing a long, narrow corridor lined with pale limestone.
It was unnervingly uniform. Every block of stone seemed to be cut with surgical precision, making it virtually impossible to distinguish one section of the hallway from another.
Ella raised her hands, channeling her essence, and a gritty shifting mass of sand started to slowly shift into shape in front of the group. A six-foot-tall sand golem took shape, its bulky, faceless head locked into a forward position as it shuffled forward into the lead position.
’Man I need one of those. Wait what If I tried to Reave it?’ thought Tristan
He immediately shook his head, ’That would be dumb.’
"Well," Rowan muttered, adjusting his grip as they began to march. "At least we have a meat shield. Also if we get trapped or jumped by something crazy, it was nice knowing you all."
Ella chimed in, "I don’t care for any traps, as long as we don’t get stuck in one of those forever looping tunnels. I’d be bored out of my mind!"
Lily nodded in agreement.
"Focus," Oliver snapped, his voice sharp and dismissive as he swept his eyes across the walls. "Save the stupid talk for after we get out."
A few dozen paces deeper, the pale corridor branched off into three separate, identical archways.
Oliver came to a halt, resting the shaft of his steel polearm against his shoulder. He turned his head slightly toward Tristan, a cold smile on his face. "Alright, genius. Show us what that fast brain of yours can do. Which path is the correct one?"
Tristan held back an amused smirk.
While he couldn’t actually process millions of geometric calculations in his sleep, he didn’t need to. He knew the level design like the back of his hand. In Flamecrest Legacy, the game developers had designed this initial split to teach players a harsh lesson: there was no clean, ’correct’ path in the Labyrinth.
Every single tunnel was engineered to deceive. The left path was ever so slightly descending, the middle was subtly curved to the right, and the right path dipped down while veering left. It was designed to completely screw with the candidate’s internal compass. Making it really mentally hard to map the maze.
’But I’m a cheater.’
"The middle," Tristan said without missing a beat, tapping his temple with two fingers. "The air pressure is marginally higher, meaning it leads into a larger subterranean chamber system. Higher chamber volume equals more monster spawns and puzzles. If we want points, we go down the middle."
The monster and puzzle part was all true, but the air pressure stuff was complete bullshit Tristan made up.
Oliver stared at him for a long, quiet second, trying to spot a lie. Finding none, he grunted and motioned forward with his chin. "Middle it is."
The middle corridor proved Tristan’s theory almost immediately.
Five minutes in, the sand golem stepped onto a slightly raised stone slab. "Click."
A dozen steel arrows shot out from concealed murder holes in the limestone walls, embedding themselves deeply into the golem’s chest with heavy, dull thuds. The sand monster barely flinched. Its body absorbed the arrows and grinded them into splinters.
"This golem is an absolute cheat code! Nice one Ella!" exclaimed Tristan.
Ella slightly blushed and raised her hand to her cheek. "Thanks."
"Nice call on the vanguard, Ella," Rowan whistled softly.
Before the words had even left his mouth, a hidden trapdoor in the ceiling hissed open.
A shadow dropped like a stone, landing squarely on top of the sand golem’s head..
It was a Threadling, a nightmare-fuel creature that resembled a grotesque hybrid between a tarantula and a centipede. It had dozens of wriggling, chitinous legs and two massive, dripping mandibles that secreted a dark, paralyzing venom.
’I preferred these things when they were on a screen’
"Get it off!" Ella yelled, her hands glowing with magic as she forced the golem to raise its bulky arms and pin the thrashing monster down against its neck.
Rowan manifested his weapon in a flash of light, a sleek, light-wood bow. In one fluid motion, he drew back an essence-infused arrow and let it fly.
"Thwack!"
The arrow shattered one of the Threadling’s thick, armored legs, causing the beast to let out a wet, unnatural screech. But before Rowan could line up a second shot to finish it, Oliver surged forward.
With a fierce burst of speed, Oliver lunged, driving his steel polearm straight through the Threadling’s soft abdomen, pinning it to the ceiling. The monster twitched violently once, twice, and then went completely limp.
A small, cloudy gray stone popped out of the monster’s crumbling corpse, clattering onto the floor.
Oliver smoothly scooped up the low-grade essence stone, tossing it into the spatial pouch at his hip before turning to give the group a confident, triumphant grin.
"That’s one point," Oliver declared proudly. "Let’s keep up the great work."
Tristan couldn’t help but let out a small eye-roll. Oliver conveniently waited for the best moment to get the Threadling. Classic kill steal.
They pushed deeper into the maze. The pale limestone corridors grew longer, colder, and increasingly dark. The flickering, sparse wall torches cast long, dancing shadows that kept everyone’s nerves strung tight.
’I swear I can hear everyone’s heartbeat’ thought Tristan, even his own nerves slowly starting to wear down.
Finally, the tight hallway opened up into a sprawling, vaulted chamber.
The moment they stepped over the threshold, everyone paused.
The room was trippy. Every single surface, the walls, the high ceiling, even the floor beneath their boots, was constructed out of towering, seamlessly joined glass mirrors. Dozens upon dozens of infinite reflections of their 5-person group stared back at them from every conceivable angle.
Ella shuddered, hugging her arms tightly around herself as she looked at her own endless reflections. "This is kind of creepy, I think I preferred the hallway before."
Tristan chuckled, casually adjusting his leather satchel as he looked around the disorienting room. "I don’t know, Ella. Personally, I kind of appreciate being able to admire my good looks from all angles."