Chapter 15: Walking the Difficult Roads!

It’s settled then.

We decided that, according to the riddle, if it is a maze, then it will be better to stick together for a better advantage. If something bad happens, which is the probabilities are quite high, we can work together to overcome those situations.

We’re also not clear on when the next game will begin, and we’re going to cherish these minutes or hours we have, to plan up something that could help us during the games. The castle that me and my family resides does look like a maze, and there are lots of cases that some servants got lost at some points, and I’m no expert at mazes. We really need to think of something to reduce the chances of us getting lost.

“Okay, if it really is a maze for the next game, then… guys, look around.” We didn’t get it for a split second on what Aisha said, but we started to realise it. “So many people, if there were so many contestants that are going to enter the maze, they might make it more difficult to prevent many contestants from passing…” “And, have you guys ever heard of ‘time-limits’?” I asked, “Yeah. What about it?” Aisha replied. “There might be one for the next game, so that it will make the game much shorter.”

“What you’re saying is, that they would give us a difficult maze to complete, in a few minutes?” Felix said, “I… guess so.” I think that I’m making too stress-worthy predictions for the next one, I can actually think of running around in circles in a maze for thirty-minutes. “Any tips on mazes?” I asked, just to be sure that we can make it through together. “Um… I think that there are going to be… patterns in the maze, I suggest that we should… follow the rhythm?” Felix answered, sarcastically, very sarcastically.

A rhythm? I thought. “Is it like, we have to, for example, go left twice, then turn right like once?” “Um, no, not like that.” Felix answered, “I mean like, there might be patterns, like maybe there might be dead ends on the left side, so we move to the right…” Aisha and I tilted our heads in confusion, but just as we were about to ask like a billion questions…

We heard the sound of a satisfying ding from a bell.

A man in a white shirt with a red tie, walked towards the contestants, and said, “Contestants of The Magician Games, it is time for your second game, please follow me.” He bowed after finishing his sentence, and as he started to walk back from the direction that he came from, we all started to follow him, like everyone at once. I hope that the guy won’t feel nervous or awkward with a bunch of teenagers following him as if we wanted his autograph.

We followed him for a while, and he l us downwards and we stopped. And I saw what was in front of us, a door in a tunnel. Is this it? Is this the maze? But it’s so, dark… with the only light sources being the torches in there…

“HELLO MY FELLOW CONTESTANTS!!!!!!” All of us covered our ears, which is bleeding on the insides due to the loud voice that just spoke. “Oh! Sorry about that!” It was no other but our favourite announcer, Owen. He did some adjustments to his trusty microphone and spoke again, “Yeah, I apologize about that…” He cleared his throat, and spoke again. “Hello! My fellow contestants! And the ladies and gentlemen who are watching this from the televisions that we provide, and welcome to the second game of The Magician Games!”

“And now, let’s introduce, The Dark Rooms!” Sadly, we can’t hear any cheering since there aren’t any viewers as they are watching this somewhere far away from here, and the name, The Dark Rooms… to be honest, it sounds creepy. And the door leading us into the dark unknown approves that. “According to the riddle that I gave you, this one is maze-related! All you have to do is to navigate through the dark maze and reach the end! But there’s one thing, you will have to escape the maze in forty-five minutes!”

As I predicted, there’s a time-limit for this, but through this? We have to navigate through a maze, with only torches as the light sources? It’s going to be very dark there, and I don’t like dark stuff… “Now! Contestants! Are you ready?” Owen asked with his loud microphone. We stared at him blankly, and there’s no response from any of us. “Dang, that’s harsh. I’ll take that as a yes! Now! Good luck everybody!” I saw Owen mumbled some words, possibly a move for his Element, and he tapped his staff to the ground.

The environment around us had changed.

I looked around, and saw that all of us were in a large dark room that is able to hold all of us, and there’s still lots of space. Torches illuminated the surroundings, there were three doors in front of us, and to the left and to the right, three doors appeared as well. “Okay contestants!” We heard Owen’s voice, it seems that it was coming from a loudspeaker somewhere, this guy really like loud noises. “And now, it is time, for you to escape The Dark Rooms!”

“All of you can choose any door that you see to begin!” Did he say that we can just choose any door? Does that mean that, any door is safe for us to enter? We just need to hope that there’s no traps waiting us in there…

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

We heard the sound of ticking, like a clock or something. Escape the maze in forty-five minutes! It has begun. The time for us to escape has begun. Now, which door should I choose? We can start from any of them, but I want the one that can lead us to the end much quicker. “I think we should take the middle one.” I heard Felix whispered to me, we turned to the middle door, and saw that Gunther has just entered it. We just noticed, that half of the people with us has started to open doors and enter it.

We can’t waste a minute or two anymore, we rushed towards the door in the middle, and we stepped into another room. There is one door for each side, and there were a few others with us. Okay, this is where the fun begins, we have to start choosing. “Guys, I have an idea.” Aisha whispered to us, we leaned in closer to hear her out. “I’ll go in one first, to check whether it is safe or whether it is a wall or something.” “Sounds good.” I replied, “Good luck.”

Aisha decided to enter the door on the left, we watched the others enter the middle door or the right door while some had decided to follow Aisha. “Alright guys!” We heard her call out to us. “I think it’s safe!” And so, we entered the door and into another room. There were surprisingly lots of other fellows in here, I remember seeing some of those guys just entered the door next to the middle. “Oh, this is, the room next to the other door.” Felix said, “But, we’re fine for now…” We turned to the doors on the middle and to the one on the left, now which one should we choose?

I thought for a moment, the ticking of the possible timer is really loud and is disrupting me from my thoughts. I think I have an idea, but it won’t be effective. “Let’s try the middle one.” I told them, I opened the door and rushed in, followed by Felix and Aisha and maybe some of the others. “Now, we take the one to the right…” And we did exactly that, I made a little rhythm about that. I decided to take the middle, then to the left, and then left again and…

We discovered our first dead end.

Once we turned to the second left, it was a room, but this one doesn’t have doors besides the one that we had used to open, so this must be a dead end. I apologized to the people that put their trust in me, and I chose another door. And I had also learned something from that mistake; when you find a dead end, it will not be the first and last dead end that you will find.

We ran into multiple room without any doors, and sometimes, there are two doors that will lead us to two dead ends. This is starting to get on my nerves, we are probably also wasting time just to enter a dead end or more. “Alright contestants! You have thirty-five minutes left!” We heard Owen’s voice from a loudspeaker from somewhere. We had already spent ten minutes running into dead ends, we can’t afford to lose just because we had kept running in circles or into dead ends.

We decided to let Felix lead us instead of me since I kept leading the others into random rooms with no doors. Despite me being a prince, Felix is actually a better leader than me. He told us to wait as he entered doors and will call out for us once he’s done checking them. We did this for every three rooms that we entered, Felix might enter a few dead ends, but I realised that we had encountered fewer dead ends than I did.

It all went so well, that we had met our first trap.

We had entered a room, but this time, it was a long corridor instead, the width isn’t wide, there were only two tiles for the floors. “I have a bad feeling about this.” I heard a person spoke behind us, “Corridors are always the places for bad stuff to happen.” Another replied. “Alright guys!” Aisha announced, “You all might be right, there could be traps here.  Let’s-” No offense Aisha, but I don’t think you should talk and walk and the same time. As she walked forward and she stepped on one of the tiles, and it collapsed under her feet.

“Aisha!” Felix and I called out as the other people gasped, “Element of Water, First position, Aqua Crafts!” We heard her chanted from the hole which was formerly a tile. “Alright guys! Pull me up!” We rushed forward, and saw that she is suspending in mid-air, no, she created something big enough to make it stuck in order to stop her from completely falling to the bottom, we reached out for her hands and pulled her up, and the object that she created melted into water and fell into the darkness.

“You alright?” Felix asked, “I’m fine.” Aisha replied, “Thanks for helping.” We looked ahead, with steps to cover in order to make it across the corridor. “Great.” I mumbled, “This is going to cost us lots of time,”