Mage Palace of Lutetia

The interior of the palace was mesmerizing. The walls and floors were made of ice blue crystal and a massive chandelier reflecting blue and purple floated above Jacques and Amie. A double staircase stood opposite of the two, with a doorway above and below. The doorways' designs were identical to one another.

Jacques pointed to the doors upstairs, "Amie, I need your help with something. I believe there is an entrance to a secret room up there, but I cannot access it alone."

Amie wasn't paying attention to Jacques. Before he had finished talking, she was already wondering to the left of the entrance. Enamored by the delicate designs covering another door, Amie asked, "Where does this go?"

Jacques sighed in frustration, "I don't know, the only doors in this palace that aren't locked are those two." He gestured to the two doors he was trying to get Amie to pay attention to.

Amie's gaze lingered a little longer on the intricate details of what looked like waves in an ocean. When she was done examining the doorway, she turned to an increasingly impatient Jacques.

Glaring at her in annoyance, Jacques asked, "Are you done?"

Amie couldn't help but feel something was off, "Jacques, aren't you the least bit concerned about what ancient mages could be hiding?"

Jacques' impatient attitude was quickly replaced with an air of deviance, "Well it would be pretty boring if they were hiding nothing."

Amie rolled her eyes, "I should've known. Jacques, what are you up to?"

Jacques replied, "The two rooms that are open? One of them looks like it could be the entrance to a library. Could you image an archmage's personal spell collection?"

Amie nodded her head, "Now it's making sense. I'm going to leave now."

Jacques stepped in front of her as she tried to exit, "Pretty please, do this one favor for me? It'll make up for your little scheme with King Osred."

Amie's eyes narrowed, "I didn't need your help to get out of that."

Jacques retorted, "Yes, but you still asked, and I obliged."

Amie was now the one growing frustrated, "Fine, I won't forgive you though if anything happens."

Jacques mumbled under his breathe, "You won't need to forgive me if we're both dead."

Amie shouted, "What!?"

Jacques pushed her along, "Nothing, let's go!"

Amie was attempting to pull back, but Jacques was able to push her into the room under the stairs. Before Jacques closed the door, Amie turned to him and asked, "Wait, what do you mean we'll both be dead?"

Jacques, in a very halfhearted effort to comfort Amie, replied, "Don't worry, nothing's going to happen. Just pretend I didn't say anything... or else I'll bring up King Osred again."

Amie glared at him as he shut the door, "You'll regret this!"

Amie was now alone in a room in a secret mage's palace underground, far from where anyone would even try to look if the two of them went missing. Not even Julia knew where she was.

Amie was both excited and scared. She thought of how she ended up in this predicament, but at the same time a sense of adventure took over her. She was no longer trapped inside her room, unable to escape. She was now in a different room, possibly unable to escape. Amie laughed to herself when she came to her realization. While she had enjoyed the journey so far, she couldn't help but think of the irony of the situation. Somehow, in a desire to go on an adventure, she found herself facing the same problem she had in the palace above.

Not wanting to dwell on it too much, and also looking for an escape just in case, Amie decided to explore her surroundings. While the palace entrance had an ice theme, the room she was currently in had a more natural theme. The room's color scheme was green and brown, with paintings of trees adorning the walls. There were two doorways in the room. One was the door she came from, the other was on the opposite side of the room. They both had trees engraved on them.

Amie was beginning to inspect the door when the voice of Jacques startled her, "Amie! Can you hear me? Are you down there?"

Amie looked around the room trying to find Jacques, "Jacques? Where are you?"

Jacques shouted, "Open the door!"

Amie first went to the door she came from and opened it, but Jacques was nowhere to be found, "Stop playing tricks! Tell me where you are!"

He shouted again, "Open the door Amie!"

Amie realized just then that his voice wasn't coming from the palace entrance. It was coming from behind the other door. She turned around to face it and cautiously approached. She was trying to think of what trickery it could be, but nothing good was coming to her head. Amie slowly opened the door, expecting to be greeted to a terrifying sight.

To her surprise, there was nothing horrid behind the door. There was another door in front of her and to the side of it were two large brass pipes. The pipes were open at head height and extended up through the ceiling.

Jacques' voice startled Amie once again, "Amie! Are you in the other room? Can you hear me? Can you see the pipes?"

Amie replied, "Yes I can hear you! Where are you?"

Jacques responded, "I'm upstairs talking through the pipes! Get closer to it so we don't have to yell!"

Amie was relieved. It wasn't some sort of evil sorcery. It was just ordinary communication pipes, albeit ancient ones. She walked towards the pipes to communicate better with Jacques, "Jacques, what is this room?"

Jacques finally felt the need to explain something, "You're in a puzzle room. The door in front of you has a puzzle on it that can only be solved with two people."

Amie examined the door in front of her. She was too terrified to notice earlier that there were eight tiles on it. They were on a 3x3 grid, "It looks like there's a piece missing."

Jacques continued, "No, it's supposed to be like that. You're supposed to use the open space to move around the other pieces. I'm running into a problem. Every time I try to solve the puzzle upstairs, the pieces downstairs move and lock both doors. The same things happens vice versa. I was wondering if you could help me set it?"

Amie studied the pieces, "Well, I can give it a try. Could you tell me the order of your pieces?"

Jacques began to read the pieces off, "From left to right, top to bottom, it's an NE symbol, a fire symbol, a symbol that looks like waves of water, an SW symbol, a NW symbol, and a symbol that looks like it might be wind, an empty space, a SE symbol, and a tree symbol."

Amie followed along with what Jacques said, "The wind and tree tiles, are you sure those aren't reversed?"

There was a moment of silence before Jacques spoke again, "No, it's what I said. The wind is above the tree."

Amie then asked about the other pieces, "And the fire and water symbols?"

Jacques replied, "The fire is to the left of water."

Amie was starting to understand the puzzle, "Right, so it looks like the symbols with letters on them are the four ordinal directions."

Jacques seemed confused, "You mean cardinal?"

Amie replied back, "No, cardinal directions are north, south, east, and west. The ordinal directions are northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast. Those letters on the tiles stand for each of the ordinal directions. There's something else too. Your elements are opposite mine on the tiles. How do the tiles above move when a tile below moves?"

Jacques responded, "They move the same. If I move a tile to the right, both tiles in that position move to the right."

Amie couldn't find a good solution right away, "Unless these tiles are meant to be opposite of each other, there is no solution to this puzzle."

Jacques took another moment before speaking through the pipe again, "Well... what if there's a magic component? We're in a magic palace after all."

Amie thought for a moment before replying back, "Let's set these tiles in order first before turning to magic."

Jacques asked, "Well how are we supposed to do that? The directions are easy, but how do we know which way the element symbols are supposed to go?"

Amie recalled the door she looked at when she first entered the palace, "I have an idea. Don't touch the tiles yet."

Jacques stood back from his door and watched Amie make short work of the puzzle. On her side, she organized the elemental tiles the same way the rooms in the palace appeared to be organized. If the room from the front entrance was water, then the tile should be on the left. If the room she was in just a moment ago represented nature, then the nature tile should be on the bottom. She paused for a moment to ask Jacques something, "Hey Jacques? What does the room upstairs look like?"

Jacques asked, "What do you mean?"

Amie clarified, "Like the decorations. The designs on the door, can you describe them to me?"

Jacques sounded as though he walked away for a moment.

Amie called out his name, "Jacques? Are you there?"

Jacques' voice sounded far away, "Yes! I'm just looking at the door! It's decorated with clouds!"

Amie shouted back, "Thank you! That's all I needed to know!"

Her theory was confirmed. Air is opposite of nature in this palace so it should be above nature on the puzzle. That just leaves fire, opposite of water. She completed the puzzle with the ordinal directions in their positions, air replacing north, fire replacing east, water replacing west, and nature replacing south. Just to make sure it was correct up top, she called up to Jacques, "Are the ordinal directions in place?"

Jacques confirmed, "Yes. Do you want to know about the elements?"

Amie responded, "Yes please."

Jacques rattled off what Amie expected, "Nature on top, water to the right, air on bottom, and fire to the left."

Amie made it as far as she could without using any magic, "Alright. There's something we're missing, I just can't figure out what."