The doors slammed shut behind Austin’s group, and they found themselves in a dimly lit hallway. The walls and ground were made of gray stone brick. Hanging on the walls were several torches that lit the hallway. Austin continued to walk forward down the hallway. It was currently a straight path, and he figured he just needed to continue forward.
“Stop,” Sean said to the group with more insistence than his voice usually had. “We should be careful.”
“Why? It’s just a hallway,” Austin raised an eyebrow. “We just need to keep going forward until we make it to the end.”
“This is classic RPG stuff. It’s just like a dungeon in a game. Which means there definitely are traps,” Sean explained. “If we aren’t careful, we will spring one.”
“Not everything is going to follow video game rules,” Josh said. “I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Can you just trust me? If I’m right, then we avoid traps. If I’m wrong, then nothing bad happens,” Sean insisted.
“Let’s just go with Sean’s suggestion,” Austin declared. “I can’t be sure if he is right or not. But he is right that it won’t hurt to be careful.”
“Fine, we will be careful of traps,” Josh relented. “What should we do to check for them?”
“Well, they are usually motion or pressure-activated. So, we probably need to set them off before we get to them,” Sean explained before he whispered to himself. “This would be a lot easier if one of us could disarm traps like a rogue.”
“Oh, that should be easy to do,” Austin said as he raised his palm up. Essence flowed into his palm and filled his hand with tiny metal balls. “I can just flick these forward to check for traps.”
“That sounds perfect,” Maya smiled. “We’ll get through this in no time.”
Now that the group had a plan, they continued forward. As they walked, Austin periodically grabbed a ball from his palm and flicked it forward. The ball hit the ground and skipped forward across the floor. Each time Austin threw a ball forward, the group stopped and watched it carefully. With bated breath, they waited to see if a trap was sprung. Once the ball came to a stop and no trap was sprung, they continued their walk forward.
After several more attempts, Josh started to get frustrated. “See? There are no traps. We can just continue forward.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Sean argued. “They could be further down.”
“This isn’t some game! I’m sure there is something to this so-called dungeon, but a bunch of traps aren’t just gonna spring and get us,” Josh said with even more frustration. “If we keep going slowly, Natasha and her group will beat us to the end.”
“And if we spring a trap, then they definitely will beat us,” Sean snapped back, his voice starting to rise in anger.
“You both need to calm down,” Maya turned around swiftly to look at the two. “You are acting worse than children. Isn’t that right, Austin?”
Austin had ignored Sean’s and Josh’s bickering. Instead, he focused ahead and continued his process of flicking balls forward and waiting to see if a trap was set off. Once Maya mentioned his name, he snapped out of his focus. “Uh, yeah, what Maya said.”
“Were you even paying attention?” Maya asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Not really,” Austin shrugged. “I was focused on moving forward. Let me guess, Josh is getting impatient and they are arguing?”
“Yeah, and I said they are worse than children,” Maya responded.
“Well, if we stop to argue, it’s gonna take even longer,” Austin said before turning to look towards Josh and Sean. “So, why don’t you guys zip it and continue walking?”
“Fine,” the pair said in unison as they held their heads low.
Honestly, Austin was starting to get annoyed himself. They continued forward with no traps, and Austin started to doubt there were any. Even with that thought, Austin still felt that it was better to be safe. Not to mention, they were just moving straight ahead with no changes. Just as Austin felt his annoyance hit its peak, he could see a crossroad in the distance. He hoped this meant there was some sort of change to the dungeon.
Once they arrived at the crossroad, Austin could see rooms at the end of each way. He then turned to address the rest of the group. “Which way should we go? Right or left?”
“Why don’t we let the balls decide?” Josh suggested sarcastically.
Sean rolled his eyes at Josh’s response. “One side could be trapped. So, it’s not actually a bad idea. Even if Josh wasn’t serious.”
“I agree with Sean,” Maya nodded. “If a trap doesn’t spring, then we’ll just figure out another way to narrow it down.”
“Alright, let’s try it,” Austin said as he flicked a ball down each hallway.
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The group turned their heads back and forth as the balls skipped down each hallway. The ball continued to bounce on the stone floor underneath until it finally started to roll into the rooms. Austin let out a held breath as nothing seemed to happen. The balls just continued forward into each room until they finally stopped.
“See? No traps,” Josh said confidently, like he was proven right. “Now let’s decide another-“
The hallway started to violently shake and interrupt Josh. Austin quickly identified that the shaking started in the left room. As he turned his head to look towards the room, spikes started to erupt from the ground. The room was filled with spikes, and then the spikes started to erupt in the hallway. One after another, spikes moved down the hallway.
“Told you there was a trap,” Sean said to Josh.
“No time for I told you so,” Austin said urgently. “Let’s run!”
Austin quickly turned in the opposite direction of the oncoming spikes and ran down the hallway. Everyone else quickly followed him. The spikes were closely behind the group and continued down the hallway. If they slowed for even a moment, they knew that the spikes would skewer them.
Austin was the first to enter the room, and the rest of the group quickly followed. Austin urgently looked back and forth to see if there was an exit of some sort from the room. He worried that the spikes would continue into the room. Luckily, once the spikes reached the entrance, they stopped moving forward. Unluckily, they could not go back if they needed to because the spikes blocked the entrance.
The room appeared to have no exits besides the way they came in. The square room had two marble pedestals on each side for a total of eight pedestals. Austin continued to take in his surroundings and saw that there were several statues on the ground. The small statues looked like they could fit on top of the pedestals.
“Oooh, looks like we have a classic dungeon puzzle,” Sean said with excitement.
“Are RPGs the only thing you get excited about?” Josh asked with annoyance.
“I get excited about other things. I just really like RPGs,” Sean said.
“Well, this is the first time I’ve seen you excited about anything,” Josh said.
“Well, sorry that the Survival Game and surveillance don’t get me hyped up,” Sean responded.
“Corners,” Maya said as she pointed towards the corners of the room. “Both of you.”
“We aren’t kids. You can’t make us go to the corners,” Josh pointed out.
“If you are going to act like children, you are going to get treated like children,” Maya said. “Now, stand in the corner until I say otherwise. I’ll give you to the count of three. One, two-“
“Fine, fine, we are going,” Sean relented as he walked to one of the corners. Josh sighed and walked to the corner opposite Sean.
Maya sighed in relief as she turned in Austin’s direction. “With those two quiet, we can try to figure out this puzzle.”
“We might need their help at some point,” Austin said as he walked towards one of the statues on the ground.
“Yeah, we’ll get to that when it comes,” Maya shrugged.
Austin nodded and picked up the marble statue. The two of them walked around the room to pick up the statues. They placed each statue in the center of the room so they could get a better idea of what they were working with. As Maya set the last statue down, they finally decided to look at what each statue represented.
Each of the statues depicted a different animal in motion as if they were running or swimming. The animals included a rabbit, a fish, a deer, a mouse, a bear, a cat, a wolf, and a fox. Austin tried to make sense of the animals, but he felt like the choices were random. He could almost say they were all woodland animals, but the cat and mouse broke that commonality.
“Prey and predators?” Maya suggested as she looked over the statues.
“Oh, you might be right,” Austin said as he snapped out of his focus. “Does that mean each prey pairs with a predator?”
“That’s probably part of it!” Maya exclaimed. “So, let’s just sort these by which prey goes with which predator.”
The pair knelt down in front of the statues and gave each another look. Once they were clear on what animals there were, they started to arrange them in pairs. The first pair they made was the cat and the mouse. That felt like the most obvious pair to them. After that, they paired the wolf with the deer, the bear with the fish, and the fox with the rabbit.
“This isn't fair. I wanted to be part of the puzzle,” Sean mumbled to himself in frustration.
“I heard that,” Maya called to Sean. “You’re supposed to be quiet.”
Sean turned away from the corner and walked towards Austin and Sean. “We aren’t kids. I’m not going to keep standing in the corner.”
“That’s fine,” Austin shrugged. “I think you guys learned your lesson.”
Once Josh realized that Sean left his corner, he did the same. “If we are kids, then you guys just can’t help but act like parents.”
“We are parents,” Maya rolled her eyes.
“Yeah, yeah, doesn’t mean you always have to act like it,” Josh said.
“Moving on,” Austin said with annoyance. “Let’s get this puzzle figured out. You were the one who was talking about Natasha beating us to the end, Josh.”
“Right, sorry,” Josh said. “Well, now that we have them paired up, what should we do?”
“Maybe there is a specific order that we need to place them,” Sean said. “I guess the questions are how do we know where to start, and what is that order?”
“The order could be the size,” Josh suggested. “The fish makes that hard, but if we go by predator, each one is bigger than the other.”
“I think that makes sense,” Austin nodded. “So, now we just have to pick a starting point.”
“What if the starting point is the first wall we would see in the room? So, the one opposite the entrance?” Maya suggested.
The group agreed on their plan. They would go clockwise from the door opposite the entrance and go from smallest to largest for the predators. This meant the order was the cat, fox, wolf, and then bear. They went around the room and set the statues on each pedestal. The pedestals each had an indent that allowed the statues to sit perfectly inside them.
Maya and Austin grabbed the last two statues, the bear and the fish. With bated breath, they walked to the last wall. If the spikes were any indication, there probably was a trap if they failed. So, they both could feel the stress rise inside of them as they approached the pedestal. Austin looked towards Maya and gave her a nod and a smile before they set the final statues in. As the last statues were placed, they heard a loud click.
