Follow Blythe to the key door

It takes significantly longer to reach the door than it did the key alcove. Blythe leads you by the hand for almost an hour, and chat is kept to a minimum to allow her to concentrate on where to go. Eventually, you arrive at a lit section of corridor. The light is coming from a glowing outline of an arched double door on the wall, and the light reaches about twenty meters down the corridor in either direction, but there’s nothing else of interest anywhere to be seen. The glowing lines are blue, like the runes on the door that led you into the labyrinth, and in the center of the magical drawing are three silver keyholes.

Blythe squats down in front of the magic door and gestures for you to join her. Once you’re at her level, she starts tracing out an imaginary map on the floor with her finger. “If we are in the center…” She traces her finger in a complex route over the stone brick floor. “…then the key location we came from would be here.” Again she follows her mental map with her finger to another location. “This would be where I found the first key. I cannot be sure I have not made a mistake, but surely you see the pattern.”

The two points that she traced out are equidistant from the center, and you instantly see the unique angle they create. If the third key was in the right place, the three points would create a perfect triangle centered over the door. You place your finger on the spot it would have to be at to make this happen. “Seems a bit too perfect for a maze,” you say.

“Perhaps you are correct, but listen to my reasoning,” says Blythe. “It is a trial of the mind. Using a pattern like this to deduce the locations of the keys may be intentional. Finding the correct path to reach there would still be quite the task.”

“I guess that’s fair,” you say. You remember walking through the back streets of Evris with Blythe, knowing the whole time where you needed to be but not understanding how to get there. “My mental mapping skills aren’t anywhere near yours, Blythe. I’m really impressed by all this.” She smiles at your compliment, a touch of red surfacing on her cheeks.

“You should stay here, Evan,” she says. “I will go find Ms. Lia and bring back the last key.”

“That’s okay,” says a feminine voice from the far end of the hall. You look up to see Lia walking towards you, once again wrapped in Blythe’s cloak. “I already got it. Evan gave me the answer before… we got separated.” Both you and Blythe stand as Lia makes her way over. She’s walking awkwardly, and the cloak is held tight over her body. Before you question it, you remember how the tentacle monster ruined her gown earlier. She’s practically naked under that cloak, and of course that wouldn’t excite her like it does Blythe. The shame is probably killing her. You decide not to say anything to bring attention to her struggle, and instead fish out the key that Blythe handed you earlier.

Each of you places a key in its respective slot and turns it. As the last key turns, a white light spreads from the locks, until a sheet of radiant, white energy covers the entire door. You glance over at your two companions, and the wonder is plain to see on their faces. You imagine you look the same as them. This is crazy. I’ve actually performed magic in this world, but it still amazes me every time I see something like this. Blythe mutters pretty much what you just thought, in not so many words, and Lia forgets about holding the cloak tight for a few seconds. You don’t take advantage of the poor catkin’s slip up, but you do notice a nipple peeking out for a moment.

It takes nearly ten seconds for the white light to begin to fade. When it does, it leaves behind a door-shaped hole in the wall that leads into the first properly lit room you’ve seen since leaving Evris. From where you stand in the hall, you can only see the right side of the room. Even so, you can see that the room beyond the doorway is spacious. Elaborate sconces line the walls, each containing light crystals the size of your head. The floor of the room is made from smaller bricks of stone than in the halls, and they are arranged in a complex pattern of interwoven spirals that makes your head spin if you stare at it too long. You can’t see the left side of the room, but you imagine it’s similar.

Since neither of the girls appear to be moving, you are the first to step through the doorway. At the back of the room, you expected there to be another door, but there is not. Wasn’t this supposed to be the end of the first trial? They said get to the middle, you think. Was Blythe wrong about where we are? Blythe and Lia shuffle in behind you, taking up positions to either side as you all look over the room.

“There’s nothing here,” says Lia, her tail audibly batting at the cloak at odd intervals. Her violet eyes dart around the room, stopping for a second on each and every crystal sconce. After doing a full sweep of the room from her post beside you, she bites her lip and her tail thrashing increases. “What the fuck? The lady in the cloak said to go to the middle!”

“Don’t give up yet,” you say. You automatically go to pat her shoulder, but at a flinch from the cat-eared woman and a clench of her grip on the cloak, your hand stops short and hovers over her for a couple of seconds. We can’t carry on like this, you think. I hope this is just about some ruined clothes and not some bigger issue. I really didn’t like how far that tentacle beast drove her back there. Maybe she’s still thinking about that? I think I would be. “Blythe?” you say as you retract your hand. Lia definitely sees the motion, but she looks too distracted by her own thoughts to comment. “What do you have in the way of extra clothes?” Lia’s eyes widen at those words, if only slightly, her gaze refusing to turn in your direction. Refusing to believe that someone might be offering her help.

“I do not have much,” says Blythe. “Only a few undergarments and a spare skirt. Why do you ask?” Her head tilts to the side, eyes meeting your own with innocent curiosity.

You smile at her. “That’s good enough,” you say, pulling off your rucksack and pulling out your own red tunic. “I wasn’t going to bring it up because I didn’t want to embarrass her, but Lia’s really struggling. I’m sure you noticed, too. Thing is, her clothes were ruined by that monster I told you about.” You feel the catkin’s stare turn in your direction, her eyes burning a hole in the back of your skull. Is she angry, relieved, embarrassed, or surprised? I’m afraid to turn around and find out. “Take this, go out into the hall, and help her out, okay?” Blythe dutifully takes your tunic and you hear the two of them walk out of the room. They start talking just outside the door, and you hear clothes shuffling around, so you decide to look around the room to distract yourself from the image of a naked Lia forming in your mind’s eye.

With seemingly nothing else in the room, your eyes are drawn to the spiraling brickwork in the floor. Seven different spirals interweave with each other, their center points spread evenly in a circle around the room. An eighth spiral then connects with all of the others, resulting in a pinwheel pattern of four bricks at the very center of the room. You move forward to take a closer look, but are stopped in your tracks by a sudden flicker in the magic crystals around the room. Behind, you can hear Blythe and Lia reentering, but your eyes are drawn once again to the center of the room. Suddenly, a spiral of white-blue light spins out from the pinwheel bricks on the floor, and out from the light rises a familiar wizard wearing orange and blue robes.