Chapter 16: What It Takes to Lead the Team!

“Two… Four… Six… Eight… Ten… Twelve…”

Felix started counting the tiles of the corridor that we need to pass, which one of the tiles just broke for the first step, and there’s still, “There’s a total of twenty steps that we need to cover.” Felix told us. “Twenty?!” I heard one dude complained, which I did recognize it from somewhere before. “What you’re saying is,” I heard another voice spoke, which is sounds similar to the first one, “That we need to make it through this corridor,” A third one said, “With the risks of falling through?” They spoke together harmoniously.

“Um… yes?” Felix answered, it was silent for a moment, with the only sounds being the timer ticking. “Well boys,” The second fellow said, “I don’t think we can make it through this time.” “Don’t say that, Jeffery.” The first fella comforted the one named Jeffery, “We can probably figure this out, right?” He’s right, I thought. There must be a difference between the ‘nice’ tile and the ‘not so nice’ tile.

“Okay ladies and gents.” I announced, and the others turned their attention to me. “I’ll go first, and I’ll try to find the differences.” “Edward?” Aisha asked, “Wait, y-” “I’m going first,” I replied before she could finish her speech. “And there’s only two tiles, so we have to go one by one.” The others stood at their spots, making no noise at all. Did I mess up? I hope I can lead these guys out of here, I’m a prince after all, a prince who could be the ruler of Paxsalam eventually…

I took the first step, the one next to the tile where Aisha had destroyed. One down, nineteen more to go. I looked forward, to the two tiles laying ahead of me, one of them is the one that can’t be broken, and the other is the one that can collapse under a single step… I thought for a moment, and remembered the hole traps during my trainings in the good old days. I raised my staff, and tapped the tile on the left.

Creak. Creak. Creak.

The sweet sound of wooden floor echoed the area as I tapped on it. I turned to the one on the right and did the same thing. Creak. Creak. Creak. Wait… I raised my staff, and tapped on the tiles again. The same sound emitted from the wooden tiles. Damn it, they look similar and sound similar too. What now? What else can I do… Hold up, I have a plan, but I could accidentally destroy both of them. Now I just need to hope that the right one can withstand it.

I raised my staff again, and chanted softly. “Element of Ice, Third Position, Zero Creation: Ice Hammer.” A hammer, forged from ice, appeared in my hand. I wielded the hammer, raised it, and smashed the tile on the left, after I smashed it, a dent appeared on it. I did it to the one on the right, unlike the tile on the left, there’s not even a dent on it. Okay, here I go.

I leaped to the right tile and, it didn’t break. I turned to the others who were watching me from the back, “Alright guys! One of you can start to follow me!” I announced to the crowd. They all looked at each other, expecting someone to go next. One of them stood forward, it wasn’t Felix, nor Aisha, I remember that was one of the people just now that complained that there were twenty tiles ahead of us. “Yeah!” The one named Jeffery cheered, “You got this Jerome!” The other one continued.

“Jeffery, Jeremy, just follow my lead.” The dude named Jerome called back. I admire their triplet relationship and it reminds me of my sibling relationship with Claude… “Sorry to interrupt, contestants. All of you still have, thirty-minutes to escape the Dark Rooms.” Owen’s voice filled the quiet corridor with loud voice, “Owen out!”

I kept repeating the same thing, hammering the tiles to check whether it will make a dent on it. I need to make this quick, I want every single one of these guys to make it out with me. And sometimes I would have to make a new hammer just because of the coldness of it, hey, even though I have ice magic, it doesn’t mean that I’m immune to the cold of it. And that costs us a bit more time.

I looked back, just to check how many people are following me now, I saw Felix and Aisha just behind Jerome, and there’s Jeffery and Jeremy were at the first and second tiles. There were about eleven of us, and there’s only two and the starting point. I have to speed up, who knows what else could be waiting for us at the end… “Element of Ice, Third Position, Zero Creation: Ice Hammer.” I created another hammer for the third time. There’s just one more tile ahead of me, “Twenty minutes left!” Owen’s voice echoed. I smashed the perfect tile, and I made it across.

“Everybody! Now’s your chance!” One by one, they made it across with me. The others cheered in relief. The JJJ triplets patted me on the shoulder, “Good one man.” Jerome said, “Thanks for leading us.” Jeffery added, “We didn’t think about the strategy that you did,” Jeremy continued, “We could have been eliminated without your help.” I smiled, I actually managed to help out people for once. I wanted to give everybody here a hug, but we knew that we don’t have the time for that.

We kept on, encountering more traps in the process, like there were some hidden riffles that shoot out tranquilizer darts at us when we get too close, “Element of Fairies, First position, Elusive Floating.” Felix chanted, and the darts fired at us, just floated in mid-air, and I still managed to trip over a dart in front of my legs.

Then there was this huge gap between us and the other side, about fifty metres in length. Aisha manages to create a bridge made from water to the other side. “Where are the handles?” Jeremy asked, “Huh?” “Where are the handles?” He repeated, “Don’t all bridges are supposed to have handles to hold on to?” “We don’t have t-” “If there aren’t any handles, it won’t be safe for us to cross.” “Ugh, for god’s sake,” Aisha manages to create handles for the bridge, she turned to Jeremy, “Satisfied?” She hissed. “Fair enough.” Jeremy replied, and he started to cross the bridge.

“You have ten more minutes!” I have a feeling that we’re almost there, since we ran into so many dead ends and traps and obstacles… “Hey guys!” Felix called out to us, “Is that it?” He pointed to a door in white, white always means good stuff, right? We decided to take a risk and we rushed towards the white door, Aisha opened it, and we all rushed through, what appeared before us, is a bunch of other contestants, about thirty of them. And we knew, that we had managed to escape the Dark Rooms.

We sat down together, and I just realised how much sweat has been dripping down from us. We received some water and a few other cold drinks, and they taste good when you’re tired. “We made it.” Felix said, “We passed again.” A few people fist-bumped each other, some gave each other a hug, which is quite awkward and gross since we’re all sweating and stuff. I looked at the sky, we entered the rooms like at two o clock, almost three, and it looks like it’s four right now. I heard that the third game is the last game, and the last ones always means the most trickiest ones.