Magician's Puzzle

Amie looked around the room to see if there was anything out of place. She walked up to the tile grid and scrutinized each tile, but none of the tiles appeared to have anything unusual about them. She turned her attention to the empty tile space. Now that all of the tiles had been moved to their respective positions, the space without a tile was set in the middle of the puzzle. She examined the empty slot closely. Just when Amie was about to give up, she noticed something.

Looking closer at the tile space, it appeared there were small holes throughout it, almost invisible without a magnifying glass. Amie moved a few puzzle pieces around to see if there were holes anywhere else. After concluding there were no other holes, she carefully organized the tiles back into position.

Amie wondered what the significance of the holes were. She also thought if she missed this, then what other secrets did the room have that she could have missed? Amie looked around again. Her attention turned to the communication pipes. If Jacques and Amie were so close to each other in the palace, then why did they need two pipes? Typically communication pipes only have one pipe for each room they were communicating with. Amie decided to do a test.

She went over to the pipe on the right and whispered into it as quietly as she could, "Jacques, can you hear me?"

Jacques was quick to reply, "Yes, but why are you whispering?"

Amie did the same thing to the other pipe. Careful not to allow the other pipe to carry sound, Amie whispered into the left pipe. This time there was no reply back.

A moment passed before Jacques called down the pipe, "Amie? Can you hear me? Is everything all right?"

Amie's voice went back to normal, "What? Now you're concerned? You didn't seem too worried when you dragged me in here earlier."

It was Jacques' turn to grow annoyed, "Alright, I get it. Could you please tell me why you've suddenly appeared to have lost your sanity? Hear I am staring at the board moving creepily and then suddenly you're whispering. How can I even be sure I'm talking to Amie anymore?"

Amie retorted, "Do you remember how you learned my real name?"

Jacques decided to be sly and test her, "Yes, King Osred shouted it by mistake in the middle of his climax."

Amie was embarrassed at the mention of King Osred, "You pervert! That's not true! You were eavesdropping on my conversation with King Olaf, being the creepy little stalker you are!"

Jacques was insulted, "I'm not creepy!"

Amie wanted to continue to return the embarrassment, but she wished to complete the task at hand, "Anyways, I need you to do something. I want you to whisper into each pipe separately, making sure the other pipe doesn't pick up your voice."

Jacques whispered, "As you wish."

Amie was already close enough to the pipes to tell his voice was coming from the right pipe. She heard nothing for a moment and then asked, "Jacques? Are you done?"

Jacques burst out laughing, "I guess you can't hear out of the left pipe then?"

Amie was suspicious he was playing another one of his games on her, "I'm not sure I would like to know what you said."

Jacques replied, "Don't worry, it was nothing bad. So, the left pipe isn't a communication pipe?"

Amie said, "No, I'm not completely sure what it is, but I think I might have an idea. Jacques, could you gather the green stellar mist into the pipe on your end?"

Jacques was enthusiastic with his response, "So I was right about the magic after all!"

Amie rolled her eyes before getting to work, "Let me know when you've started."

Jacques replied back, "Just starting now."

Needing to start at the same time as Jacques for her plan to work, Amie began to gather white mist into the pipe. Once enough mist was flowing into the pipes, she noticed the puzzle on the wall was glowing. She kept her focus while talking to Jacques, "Is your puzzle glowing too?"

Jacques answered with a quick, "Yup."

Judging by the short reply, Amie decided it was best to allow Jacques to concentrate and not ask too many questions. She continued to focus on her own mist-gathering as the puzzle pieces illuminated brighter and brighter. Mist was beginning to come out of the hole in the center while some of the puzzles pieces started to move outward. Soon, the four symbol tiles were floating in the air with white and green mist surrounding them. The air and nature symbols flipped, revealing the backs of the tiles. The nature symbol had an air symbol on it's back while the air symbol had an nature symbol. Once the pieces flipped, they withdrew back into the puzzle slots they came from and the illumination from the mist ceased.

Amie called to Jacques, "I think we can stop now."

Jacques let out a sigh, "Good, I was starting to feel exhausted!"

Amie asked, "Hey, Jacques? Did your tiles flip?"

Jacques responded, "Yes, but just the nature and air symbols."

Amie then asked, "So the fire and water symbols remained the same?"

Jacques confirmed, "Yes, it was just nature and air, no water or fire."

Amie was perplexed, "Well that doesn't make any sense. They're still opposite of each other, just fl-"

Before she could finish her sentence, the giant vault-like door began to creak open. Jacques was just barely audible when he asked, "What's happening?"

Amie looked around after the door was fully open. The room in front of her was dark, it didn't look like there was anything in it.

Amie was about to call to Jacques when Jacques shouted to her, "Amie! There's a giant library up here! The books are all green, I think these are plant magic books! There must be thousands of them!"

Amie called back, "Really? It doesn't look like there's anything down here."

Jacques said, "Maybe we only solved half the puzzle? Hurry up and get up here! This place is incredible!"

Amie was about to turn around when something in the empty room caught her eye. Amie was hesitant to move forward, from a distance it looked like a single speck of green mist. She didn't want to enter the vault, but at the same time she was curious about the lone wisp. She approached it cautiously.

Jacques was wondering what was taking Amie so long, "Amie? Are you still down there? What's taking so long? There's so many different types of books in here Amie! Not just plant magic, but all different types of nature magic! Come see! Oh hey! I found a beginner spell!"

Amie watched the little wisp of mist float up and down. She imagined it was riding an invisible wave. After a moment, however, the mist suddenly started to pick up pace. Amie jumped a little. She wondered to herself if she was the one who accidentally made the mist move. She couldn't figure out why the mist suddenly picked up pace. More mist started to surround Amie that she didn't notice until she turned to leave.

Startled, she called out to Jacques, "Jacques!? What are you doing up there?"

Jacques replied back, "I found a spell tome for plant magic! Come look at it!"

Amie shouted back, "You need to put the book down! There's a bunch of green mist down here!"

Jacques was too excited about learning plant magic to fully listen to what Amie said, "It's not like it's going to do anything. If you're so worried, then just get up here already!"

Amie began heading for the door when suddenly the green mist began to swarm. It was chaotic with rivers of mist appearing then disappearing while individual wisps were darting back and forth around the room in every direction. The gentle fog had turned into a storm while calm rivers turned into rogue waves in an ocean.

Amie was starting to panic, she tried running for the door, but the mist picked her up and threw her to the floor on the other side of the room. She tried to get up, but every time she was almost to her feet, a wave of mist would knock her down. She started to feel as though she was drowning. In a desperate attempt to control the mist before it overtook her, Amie tried to calm it down. She focused on the mist just like she had done with the healing mist, but it didn't work. Instead, the mist became more vicious and picked Amie up off the floor. Amie let out a blood-curdling scream right before she was hurdled across the room head-first into a wall.