10 - Speed Run

In all, the path was maybe five hundred feet. Track runners sprinted that with ease. I should know. I ran track in high school. I darted forward, and the arrows started firing behind me. I heard a gasp, but it was too late to look back.

Dart left, the path two feet wide.

Hop across four tilted steps four feet apart each. They brought me back to the center.

I had gained some distance from the arrows, which seemed to fire at a fixed rate.

I got a slight break as the path widened again.

Then, up a ramp, and leap a five-foot gap.

I could do this.

The path zigzagged, narrowing to a foot wide. I stepped over the first one. I leapt the second. I jumped the third, crouching on impact to stay balanced. I glanced back to see the arrows catching up.

I stood, and darted forward, to the left. When the gap was the same width as the second zigzag, I leapt, and repeated for the other side. It brought me back to the center.

My breathing was already heavy. When had I gotten out of shape?

Hop across circle platforms.

I couldn't see the bottom of the pits.

One foot in front another. Walk the balance beam. Left. Right. Left.

The arrows were sounding closer, but if I looked, I would lose my balance.

My foot slipped. I fell face first on the balance beam, and started sliding off. Someone screamed my name. I grabbed the square platform and pulled myself straight. I was almost there.

I pulled again. Twice. Three times. Four. I jammed my fingers against a wall. The arrows were almost upon me. I slapped the platform I had jammed against.

...

Arrows had stopped. I pulled myself up to the firm ground.

I looked across five hundred feet to see Katie pressed against the barrier at the entrance of the room. I gave her a thumbs up, and turned to find another door, which opened with a push.

I looked around before calling back. "They connect. Silence is here too."

"Okay!" someone shouted back.

About an hour later, Juliana was through the Intellect door. Thomas made it through the power door some time ago and out of breath. Katie made it through the intellect half an hour later.

She stormed right up to me. "What on Earth were you thinking? You idiot! You could have died!"

"I didn't, though." I pointed out, in a feeble attempt to defend myself.

She threw her hands in the air and stormed to another corner of the room that seemed to mirror the room on the other side.

"So... Um... How was the trial of intellect, Juliana?" I asked.

"It was actually kind of fun. We didn't have to do just one puzzle each, but there were lots of puzzles, and each one was a different number of points. The puzzles each had this crystal orb that gave me the rules of the puzzle when I touched them. There were some patterns, some more mathy."

"That sounds like it was easier than what I went through."

"Actually, once I started a puzzle, I was stuck in its working area until I finished it."

"That can't have been too bad."

"I actually spent half the time in there one one puzzle. It was enough points to get me through the door, but I look forward to not thinking that hard on a riddle for a long while."

"I don't blame you. How was the test of power, Thomas?"

"I had ta' fight a man made of stone two feet taller than me. Thankfully, I found myself a hefty axe that did the trick. Sadly, I couldn't bring it out."

"That reminds me," I said, "did you try to bring the sword through the other doors?"

"Yes," Juliana answered, "but it wouldn't pass."

I grimaced. "I hope we don't need it."

We regrouped and advanced through the one hallway, which was just as uniform as the previous ones. Except this one had a repeating mural. Maybe it wasn't called a mural, because there was no art. Three lines of runic text were etched on either side. The lines wove like a sin curve, that started at high, wove down, up, down, and broke. From the casual examination I could give while we walked, they seemed identical.

"What do you think it says?" Juliana wondered aloud.

"Something important. Possibly religious. It could also be magical, we aren't in a nonmagic reality anymore."

We continued speculating as we walked, our voices echoing down the relatively narrow corridor. Perhaps ten minutes had passed, maybe longer due to us being wrapped in conversation, but we arrived at the end of the hallway.

It opened into a small room. A grand pair of doors at least twenty feet tall and thirty feet wide stood ominously. One more mural was etched in the giant doors, filling their entirety. A man in a cloak stood, like many of the people in the other murals, his cloak billowing in the wind. He stood over a simple sword with a jeweled hilt. Like the others, rings of Runic text formed the background to the two images.

"I know you." I said in awe.

The others' chatter stopped.

"What do you mean?" Juliana asked, "How do you know them? We haven't met anyone other than each other since we got here."

"This..." I said, "is the one who has been calling me to this place. I saw him in a dream yesterday."

"Can we trust him?" Thomas asked.

"I think so. In my dream, he was protecting a group of people."

"That seems rather shallow." Thomas refuted.

"It's that, or we turn around and hope all the voices stop pestering us."

No one had an easy response to that. So I said, "Then let's go."