Chapter 14: Clues! That’s it.

“Number four, you pass!”

We just watched a fellow just blocked his (or her? It’s quite hard to tell from this distance…) broke his/her fall with a splendid spark. “And, that’s all of them ladies and gents!” We heard Owen shout from above, and the crowd applauded. “Congratulations for those who passed! And for those who failed,” All of us, turned to the yacht, with a red flag, is where the fellows who failed the test were supposed to swim to.

“It’s alright! You don’t need to be saddened over your loss! There is always a next time to try again!” Owen said. “And now, that is it for the first task! Please head to the arriving yachts to leave the platform!”

“Man, that was not as easy as I expected.” I said, “Say, what do guys think that the next game, or match, or task, or… whatever, what do you guys think?” Felix scratched his chin, and replied. “Who knows, these events are mostly from the Magician Games in the past years. The next could possibly be the same too.”

From the Magician Games in the past years. “Do you two know what the, past events were?” I asked again, Felix and Aisha stared at me blankly, and I think that shows me… “Oh, we know a lot of them.” Both of them spoke simultaneously.  “You want us to list them?”, after hearing them list down so many games like The Man with an Umbrella, which is to solve a puzzle starring a man holding an umbrella within an hour, and it involves many pieces and many of them look alike due to ‘The Man’ wearing an entirely black suit. Or The Missing Symbols, which you will have to find the symbol that represents the Twelve Olympians around the area and place it in that god’s or goddess’s hand (they’re aren’t real, they’re statues), I knew that I’m pretty much screwed in the next games…

The yacht has finally reached the harbour, and the people onboard started to get off the yacht. We made it through this one, but I bet everyone is thinking that it will not be the same for the next one. And just as we walked a few metres away from the harbour, Owen, was standing in front of us, and there were two people beside him, and those are: Claude and Trad.

“Greetings! Fellow winners!” Owen greeted us and took a bow. “I don’t think that was… necessary.” Trad told him, Owen have him a look, which probably says: It’s called being nice. He turned back to us, and continued, “Before you guys go for lunch, let me give you all something, everyone, held out your palms.” We did exactly what he told us to, and he took his magic staff, and tapped it to the ground. A piece of paper appeared in our palms.

“Now, if you guys want to know the next game, you must solve this clue! Or riddle for some of you.” Owen said, “Good luck guys!” The rest continued to walk ahead of them, as I was about to, Owen spoke. “Number eleven.” I halted on the spot, and turned to them. “Y-Yes?” I asked nervously. Owen stepped closer to me, and gave out something, and I immediately realized what it was. “Oh, my top hat! Thanks man!” He gave me my top hat, and I wore it on my head, and I started to follow the others back.

“Wait!” I heard Claude called me from behind, and turned back, and I can’t believe what I was seeing; my older brother was giving me a thumbs up. “Well played back there.” He said, I can’t stop smiling back, Claude was proud of my performance back there. I waved at him, and ran off, with a huge smile on my face.

I finally managed to catch up with Felix and Aisha, “Hey! Where have y- Why are you smiling like that?” Aisha demanded. Oh nuts, I’m still smiling after that moment. I slapped myself, and answered. “Oh, um, yeah, my brother praised for that move back then.” “Yeah, it will be a once-in-a-life time experience to get noticed by a member of the Twelve Protectors.” Felix agreed. “They rarely get impressed, except for Claude or a few others.”

We noticed it was one o’ clock, exactly the time when we received our lunch. As we lined up at the cafeteria (which was for the contestants only, and that makes us VIPs), we can hear the others gathering conversations like “Dude, these are so obvious, and they call it a clue.” or “Even a ten-year-old could solve these!” We didn’t know what they were talking about until we remembered Owen’s words: you must solve this clue!

I remembered keeping the small piece of paper in my top hat, which to me, it’s safer in case somebody takes it… which it will be disappointing if the criminal realises that it is just a paper with a riddle to solve instead of a million bucks. I took it out from my hat and opened it. There were words implanted into it, and it wrote:

A square with many paths,

One leads to the end, while one leads you around a loop,

If not careful, it could lead to your loss,

And beware of the obstacles lurking in the square.

Oh, I see. I used to play riddles when I were just a kid with my parents and Claude, and sometimes the servants or guards in the castle. And the others were right, this is easy to solve. The next game is related to… “Oh, a maze.” Felix interrupted, “Yeah, this is easy if you like riddles.” “Also, why did they make it this easy?” He added. That is a really good point, why would whoever made this would make it this easy to solve? Unless there’s something behind it and it want us to think it’s just a maze with traps…

We sat at the same table, and we started to think about strategies, and we decided not to speak too loudly otherwise others might eavesdrop on us. “Okay, there are definitely going to be traps there.” Aisha said, “So, I say that we team up and so that our chances of winning are higher.” “Good idea,” Felix replied, “But there are traps, but what traps are they?” His words got me thinking, that is a really good question, so teaming up is a good idea, and I have plans for that.

 “Whatever the traps are, I think we should think about what moves to use against them.” I said, “Like, if there were monkey bars hanging above an abyss, maybe Felix, you could your Fairy Element to make us float, or I could just make a bridge across, or Aisha could just create a slide for us to slide to the opposite side.” Felix and Aisha looked at each other, I think that they were thinking that I do have a good point. “Nice one bro.” Felix patted my back, since he was the closest to me. “Let’s just hope that our Elements have uses to the obstacles or traps we face.”