“Nathan, Nathan, look over here!”

  Nathan turned away from the yellow brick podium and the system window and toward the source of the voice.

  Emi stood five feet from him. She looked just as disoriented as Nathan felt, her hair standing on end and a shaky look in her eyes. Like him, she was in front of the podium made of yellow brick.

  She shifted on her feet. “I don’t suppose you know where we are?”

  Nathan shrugged.

  “We’re obviously not inside of that weird black void place,” he said. “Either that or we’ve died.”

  “Don’t joke about that!”

  Nathan coughed into his hand. “Sorry.”

  “He’s just trying to diffuse the tension.”

  Nathan’s eyes widened. He turned around and faced behind himself.

  Bjorn was standing in front of his own podium, his back straight and his eyes steady.

  “Bjorn.” Nathan shook his head and rubbed his fingers against his temples. “Okay, what on earth is happening? Why are we in front of a bunch of podiums? Where are we right now?”

  “I don’t see any exits,” Emi said. “The entire room is closed off—”

  Nathan looked over at her. She was staring at the rear wall. Nathan’s gaze followed hers, and when he saw what she was looking at, his jaw dropped.

  Row after row of square tile covered the back wall.

  But that wasn’t what shocked Nathan.

  No, what shocked Nathan was that there were numbers written on the tiles. Each tile on the top row was marked with a one-hundred. On the middle row, they were marked with a three hundred. On the bottom row, they were marked with a five hundred.

  Nathan had seen this format before.

  “Guys,” he said. “I think we’re on a game show.”

  “You have those too?” Emi’s eyes widened, and she covered her mouth. “I’m a huge fan of those, I didn’t know humans had them too!”

  “Yes, the ancient custom of Shalak-ba,” Bjorn said. “Even among the orcs, we respect this most honored of rituals.”

  It was then that Nathan’s universe was shattered for the five-hundredth time since he entered the apocalypse.

  Jeopardy is apparently a cross-world constant, he thought. Good to know.

  The whole room shook, and Nathan grabbed onto the podium for stability. The ground to their left and right cracked and shattered. The bricks went tumbling down and splashed into a red liquid.

  Lava.

  On the other side of the room, there was a rumbling. Three hourglasses flashed into existence, filled to the brim with sand. Inch by inch, the bottom began to fill up with the tiny grains.

  Nathan finally looked back at the window.

  [Final Quest of the Sixth Circle] – Activated

  Welcome to the final quest, adventurer! Your mission, should you choose to accept it (I totally didn’t steal that from a certain media franchise you may or may not be thinking of), is to participate in a question-based game show. Every time a question is asked and answered, grains of sand are added to the hourglass.

  But only for your hourglass.

  If you run out of sand…

  Well, take a good look at what used to be the ground. I think you get what I’m going for.

  Last one standing is the winner not only of the game, but of the Sixth Circle. You’re fighting not just for yourself, but for every member of your species. Oh, and you’re going to accidentally commit genocide along the way, but no big deal, right?

  As for the questions themselves, I’m sure you’ll have plenty of fun with them.

  WARNING: VISIONS OF THE PAST MAY LEAK INTO THE PRESENT. SUCH BEHAVIOR IS COMPLETELY NORMAL.

  Also, if you skip ahead to the next row, all previous rows are completed automatically! If someone were to pick five-hundred, all the three-hundreds and one-hundreds would be disintegrated! So, uh, don’t do that!

  The window disappeared.

  Nathan looked between Bjorn and Emi. Sweat formed at the top of his forehead.

  Nathan supposed that he could try to avoid his fate by transforming into water and blasting his way out of the room. But he strongly suspected that such an action would be unsuccessful.

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  He sent a small blast of water into the air, where it landed against the roof. The yellow brick cracked and fell into the lava with a splash.

  Up above, it was the same bedrock that had proved invincible against all attempts to break through it.

  They were trapped.

  Even if they could get out, what would be the point? Someone’s species would be perishing.

  Unless…

  “Nathan,” Emi said. “Now would be a good time to mention that your plan to avoid anyone dying is almost finished.”

  Nathan nodded. “Let me check on the numbers.”

  He opened up Dither.

  The latest message from Gius.

  Nathan’s teeth clacked together.

  Ten thousand.

  Ten thousand left. The vast majority of humanity was inside Soulbound Towns. Apparently, Finny was with Gius at the current moment, waiting for Nathan to give the word.

  He sent another message.

  Are Mara and Chad there?

  A few seconds of silence.

  They’re in the middle of an unexplored area of the Sixth Circle. They’re trying to get back as we speak.

  “Nathan?” Emi said.

  Nathan chewed his bottom lip.

  “We need to buy time,” he said. “As much time as possible.”

  Emi gave a hesitant nod. “If that’s the case, then we’ll need to play the game.”

  Nathan looked behind himself, then at his podium.

  He looked over each of the podiums and noticed something off.

  “Bjorn, your podium is glowing.” He pointed at the podium. “Just a little bit.”

  “What could that mean?” Bjorn said.

  Nathan shut his eyes and thought back to his handful of sleepless nights watching Jeopardy when he’d been a tween.

  “Bjorn,” Nathan said. “Repeat after me: I’ll take column one for one-hundred.”

  Bjorn nodded.

  "I'll take row one for one-hundred," he said.

  A brick slab shifted from behind Nathan. He looked over at it to see that it had turned a full one-eighty degrees, revealing more text written on the front.

  This famous game show was once one of the largest cultural phenomena of the United States. It involved a format extremely similar to this one.

  “Now say ‘what is Jeopardy?’” Nathan said.

  Bjorn opened, then shut his mouth, then opened it again.

  “What is Jeopardy?” he said, in a tone that indicated he was genuinely asking the question.

  A loud ding came from out of nowhere, and Bjorn’s hourglass flashed a bright white. More grains of sand were added, nearly topping it off.

  Nathan had been right.

  “You have to put all your answers in the form of a question,” Nathan said. “Like 'who is,' or 'what is.' I’m pretty sure you’re going to get penalized if you don’t do it that way.”

  Bjorn and Emi both nodded.

  “Right,” Emi said.

  “We won’t make that mistake,” Bjorn said.

  Nathan opened his mouth to speak. A wave of foreign sensations hit him from out of nowhere. He was in a room with a blue background. A man with graying hair and white teeth stood in front of him, dressed to perfection with a black suit.

  “Welcome to Jeopardy! I’m your host—”

  Nathan blinked again, and the vision was gone as quickly as it had appeared.

  “Okay,” Nathan said. “That was weird.”

  Nathan’s podium lit up. He looked over the different columns, then nodded to himself.

  “I’ll take column two for one hundred.”

  The slab twisted around.

  In the ballad of Alma and Genal, this famous incident occurred in the first scene, to be both celebrated and parodied throughout Elven culture for the next five hundred years.

  Nathan didn’t know this one.

  Obviously.

  He looked over at Emi. She seemed to be hiding her face from him, staring stubbornly at the wall.

  He tilted his head. “What—”

  Nathan stuffed his fist into his mouth.

  He almost fell for the classic blunder.

  Speaking a false answer in question form!

  Granted, he didn’t know how closely the rules of this particular game show followed the rules of its Earth equivalent. But he wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Emi awkwardly looked back at Nathan. “I suppose I should give you the answer, shouldn’t I?”

  Nathan nodded.

  She twiddled her fingers. “You see, the ballad depicts a—” She paused and turned a little red. “An act of the utmost lasciviousness! And between a commoner and a princess as well!”

  Nathan made a rolling gesture with his hands, indicating for her to go on.

  “They… They!” She shut her eyes and clenched her fists at her sides. “They kissed!”

  Nathan stared at Emi for several long seconds before rubbing the bridge of his nose.

  Okay, he thought. Elves are a little prudish. I mean, that’s not that big of a deal.

  Nathan then remembered the time he’d accidentally exploded all of his clothes away while running around using his newfound water transformation abilities.

  I must’ve totally embarrassed her!

  He shook his head. There would be time to apologize later.

  Nathan opened his mouth. “What is a kiss?”

  Another loud ding. Nathan’s hourglass flashed white. Grains of sand appeared along the top.

  Sweet, another success—

  Another image.

  Two elves. A young woman dressed in resplendent green and pink. A young man kneeling before her, dirt smudged across his face. He stood and took her chin in his hand.

  Nathan blinked. He blinked again. He scratched at the edge of his eyelid.

  Bjorn and Emi twisted around in circles, eyes squinted.

  “I’m going to take a guess and say that you guys saw that too?” Nathan asked.

  “You mean that detestable show of degeneracy?” Bjorn scoffed. “Unfortunately, I did.”

  Emi squealed and covered her eyes with her hands. “How could they do such a thing! In public?!”

  Nathan racked his brain to understand what was happening. The answer popped into his head as quickly as the thought began.

  The system window had told them, hadn’t it? Visions of the past may leak into the present. This was what they meant.

  Bjorn’s podium lit up. He turned and looked at the columns of stone tiles.

  “I’ll take column three, for one-hundred.”

  The brick slab turned around.

  A cross-circle terrorist group led by a man named Gabriel. They had dreams of reaching the Ninth Circle but were stopped by Nathan Lee.

  Nathan stiffened.

  Their past would be on display? Their personal past, not some distant, ancient trivia?

  Nathan had a very bad feeling about this.

  Bjorn glanced toward Nathan. “I believe I already know the answer to this.”

  “Chad was streaming the entire thing, so I’d find it hard to believe that you didn’t notice.”

  Bjorn nodded. “What is the Harrowed Hand?”

  Bjorn’s hourglass flashed and filled with sand. Nathan gripped the edges of his podium, bracing himself for the vision.

  I really hope I’m wrong, he thought. Because I really don’t want to see that again.

  The vision flashed into his head like clockwork. One second, he was standing in the game show room. The next, Gabriel was at his feet, his body broken and crushed by the combined pressure of Nathan and his sister.

  Gabriel’s eyes were bloodshot, maybe even warped. Throbbing veins from the nitrogen buildup in his blood pressed against his skin, threatening to rupture his the flesh like a blocked up hose.

  Nathan was back in the game show room. He squeezed harder on the podium. Miraculously, it didn’t crack.

  So that was their game, huh?