Part 2

The walls of his prison reached well beyond the building's base, into a looming tower which top long ago fallen apart. He found a long bronze pole fixed to the wall opposite the entrance. The entire room was covered by reliefs, like he had seen before.

So… By the sound of it, the snakes had plans to mobilize their forces. They probably planned to move their entire sect through the tunnels to capture as many of their ranks as possible. That meant he had time.
All he had to do was get the wheel out of the way.
That turned out to be easier said than done. Its bottom had sunk well underneath the sand. Through the gap between the round cylinder and the rectangular entrance, he spotted deep furrows where they had pushed the wheel. The wheel was the size of an elephant, and at least as thick as his forearms.
How strong must the snake girls have been to be able to push it around so effortlessly? That’s why one shouldn’t play around with monsters.

So he tried to push it. Nothing doing. He tried pulling it instead, the other way. Wouldn’t budge as much as an inch. So he tried making it topple. Nope. Next, he tried pushing himself through the square hole in the center. That wasn’t going to work. He could hardly squeeze his arm through there.
Maybe he could pry off the bronze pole from the wall and use it as a lever. But no matter how much he pulled or even jumped at it, the lever wasn’t moving as much as an inch.

Already Rob had exhausted himself. And he still did not have a clue on how to get out. Maybe he could climb out of there, but it was a long way up to the edge of the walls. And it was going to get risky.
Before resorting to anything that dangerous, there was one more thing he wanted to try out.

“HEY!” He shouted, but only the silent night air answered, “HELP ME! IS ANYBODY THERE!?”
He continued to shout through the gaps in the door. It didn't take long before it became perfectly clear no one was coming.
Until, that is, a young lady with black hair and a large black bow passed by.

“YOU THERE! PLEASE HELP ME!”
She turned towards him. And descended the stairs.
…He might be able to make it after all.
“Oh, hey there, mister.” She said calmly, as if nothing about his predicament was even remotely strange.
“Thank the Chief God! You must go and get help! It’s…”
“Don’t worry.” She greeted him with a smile, “I saw everything that happened. I know exactly what you are wondering.”
Rob let out a sigh of relief, “Thank you so much…”
“You’re thinking, ‘why do those girls wear panties? They don’t have any legs.’”
He cocked his brow, “...No. Not at all. I was actually thinking that those lamia trapped me in this room, and unless I escape, they are going to have their way with me. Just as soon as they have raided my camp and enslaved my comrades.”
“Oh.” She scratched her head, “Yeah. That makes sense too.”

He looked at the girl through the hole. A gnawing feeling was eating at him from the corner of his mind. Did he know her somehow?
That didn’t matter. He had more important business to attend.
“So here’s what I need you to do; I want you to go back to camp and…”
“Nah.” She shook her head, “Don’t think I wanna do that.”
Rob opened his mind to protest, but it occurred to her she might have a point. If they noticed that Rob was gone, and then a random girl from out of nowhere claimed to know where he was, or that there was going to be an ambush, they would not take her at face value. They likely would take her prisoner and interrogate her. If she could even get the message across in time.
“Besides, I’ve got a better idea.” She unlatched a pair of hooks from her belt and tossed them through the gap.
Rob looked down at them, confused, “Just how will these help?”
Before she answered, she looked over to the moon and saw that it was just about settling over the horizon, assuming a deeply red colour, “Yeah… Sorry. I was kind of in a hurry over here. Gotta leave, so… Yeah. You're on your own. But, hey! I’m sure you can figure it out.”

She ran up the stairs swiftly.
“Wait! Come back!” Rob yelled, but she was already out of sight.
Well, he at least knew there was a way, and it had something to do with those hooks he was given.

Were they meant to be used for climbing? No. They were far too awkward for that. There was a pair of holes in each end of each hook, as if it was supposed to be attached somehow.
And he could not use them to move the wheel either. For a moment, he thought he could use them to pry out a floor tile, but that idea died when he ended up with a scratch on his hand trying to.
He sat down on the floor, his back slumped against the wall. Did he know that woman from before? Had they met?

No. They hadn’t.
He realized what it was. The woman was the one depicted in the relief before. The one it seemed was winking at him. Was she the one who made that happen somehow?
Or…

He looked back at the pole, following it with his eyes. It ended in the wall, where it met with a furrow that extended horizontally along the wall, into the room beyond the wheel.
He knew what he had to do.

Those hooks, they were bilboes. He inserted the hole of one of them through the pole, at which point he could slip his hand inside of the cuff, and then slip its other hole as well. The result was that he was effectively cuffed to the pole by one of his wrists.
In that position, it was only with great difficulty that he could attach his other wrist the same way. But in the end he managed.
He found his arms suspended in a kind of fork pose, attached to the pole. He could still move along it, but in no other direction. Almost as if he had turned one-dimensional. He shifted himself, step by step, away from where he started, to the corner of the room where the pole ended. When he got there, he found himself phasing through the wall, as if it was but a mere illusion. Only he did not emerge on the other side. Rather, he became part of the wall. As if he himself was a relief.
So that was how she did it. She used the bilboes to turn herself into a relief.

As a wall statue, he continued to shift along the wall. Slowly but surely, he moved towards the wheel, and then past it. As a two-dimensional figure, it no longer stood in his way.
When he managed to move past the wheel, he could see the end of the furrow in the room. He kept shifting towards it, one step at a time. When he reached the end of the furrow, he fell out of the wall with each of the bilboes-rings landing beside him.

He did it.
He solved the puzzle. The magic of the ancients was not to be messed around with.
He wanted nothing more than to lie in the sand and enjoy his triumph. But if he was to have a sliver of a chance to save his camp, he had to hurry up. He couldn’t leave the gift that had saved his life though. He picked up the bilboes, and scampered off…

Yes, he had been able to warn his commander. Yes, they managed to chase the snake girls away and destroy the tunnel.
But that did not change the fact that Rob had abandoned his post. There had to be consequences. And after telling his story, his commander found no better punishment than to suspend him in bilboes outside the camp. This time, the distinctly non-magical variety.
But even as he was left to bake in the desert sun, he couldn’t help but to smile. He had to congratulate himself on the triumph of solving the puzzle and saving his camp.

“Nice job there.”
Rob looked over his shoulder. The woman from before approached.
“If this is what a good job gets you, then I think I prefer doing a bad job.” Rob said with a scoff, “Did you really need to leave me to fend for myself though?”
“Yeah… not really me at my best hour there for sure.” She looked down at her feet, “I should probably be honest with you… I’m a monster girl too. You… You’re not upset are you?
“No.” Admitted Rob, “But I am somewhat confused. Doesn’t that mean you’re on the same side as those snakes? And on the opposite side of the Order?”
“Nah, not all monsters are the same. Me? I’m called Medjay. I’m kind of the tomb guardian of these ruins. I couldn’t let them do whatever they wanted with you and everyone else here, even if you guys would want nothing more than to see me dead. Not while you’re in my domain.”
“I see.” Rob chuckled, “You’re very different from how you’re presented by the church. Still, that doesn’t quite explain why you left.”
“Yeah… That’s because…” She said with a sigh, “I’m what you humans call a Doppelganger. I assume the most alluring shape of any human, no matter what that is. But in the light of the full moon, my true shape is revealed. That’s how you saw me last night. When the moon disappears, my shapeshifting returns. And… I wasn’t ready for that back then. I know. That was selfish of me. Can you forgive me?”

Rob laughed, “Oh, but of course. You don’t have to tell me. I know that us Orderites can be very… Dedicated. But I can't say I see any difference from how you were last night. Does that mean you didn’t transform?”
“Oh,” She grinned, “You’re quite mistaken. Right now, I've taken the shape of the most alluring woman you could ever imagine.”
Medjay raised her shirt. Underneath she had the most ripped abs one could imagine.

“...Yeah, I think I could get used to that.”