Chapter 34.5- Doom Days

I marched towards it, waiting for the next challenge I would face. It was a door. A locked door from which the red light leaked through its edges and bottom. It was obvious that passing through the door was the only way to the next test, and passing the door was easy to see as well. There was some sort of runic puzzle on either end of the door. I tried a basic unlocking charm, far from surprised when the door failed to even budge. Next, I tried a more advanced variation, before unleashing every spell in my arsenal for unlocking locked objects to no avail. I tried a risky blasting curse as well, but the second I finished the incantation, the orange jet of poor hit the door and ricocheted, heading back in my direction. I ducked underneath it only for it to hit the wall and be reflected back at a different angle.

The spell gained speed as it reflected off surface after surface, quickly becoming an orange blur bouncing from point to point and in the end I only managed to get rid of it by jumping right in front of it with a mage shield when it was about to hit the wall. If I had let that continue for much longer then it would have become too fast and too unpredictable to survive without injury. Well, that struck off direct means of making it through the door. That only left the puzzle.

I turned towards the puzzle. It was made of runes in different areas that was clearly supposed to come together to represent something else. The puzzle was about 64 squares— eight by eight. Each go the runes meant a different thing— I could see the runes for fire, water, air, and some other popular ones that got my attention almost instantly. Trying to translate them one by one made it pretty clear just what exactly the puzzle was trying to say. In a manner of minutes, I had managed to arrange the first half of the puzzle that had been delivered to us ahead of the task—

“Stand firm at destiny’s gate this day:

Prepare yourself, Champion,

For you shall dance with the elements

To save and protect that which one holds most dear.

Swim in the water,

Fly through the air,

Dig beneath the earth

And brave the hottest flames”

I took a step away, and went to the next puzzle, the one on the other side of the door. This time, the puzzle took even less time to arrange in the desired format—

“While the sky weeps thunder

To prove your mettle on the biggest stage.

Let the winds herald your courage,

Let the waves salute your will,

Let the embers burn with your resolve,

Let the stones remember your tread—

For in the crucible of trial

You rise, a true Champion.”

I expected the door to swing open with little fanfare, only to be faced with disappointment as it remained stubbornly closed. I looked at the puzzle in front of me and it remained complete. I took a step to the other side and noted that the puzzle had scrambled itself again. I growled before fixing it. Still, no opened door greeted my effort. When I went over to the other side, I was almost unsurprised to find that it had been scrambled again. I growled with irritation before fixing it and then hitting it with a stasis charm to stop it from scrambling itself as I went over to the other puzzle and fixed that one. No door opened.

I went back to it and found it scrambled, regardless of the fact that my spell remained in place.