V2Ch38-Assistance is Futile

“I hope everyone enjoys their breakfast,” DaSilva said, beaming at the Cook. “You should all thank Alba for cooking for us after this.”

“It’s really my pleasure,” Alba said evenly. “Please enjoy. I have to go and find my own team.”

“Well, if you ever want to ditch them, we could definitely use someone like you!” DaSilva said.

She gave the group a little smile and walked away.

“Isn’t it nice, all of us getting together like this?” Karen said.

“Mm hm,” Frank nodded in agreement, mouth full of food.

The group’s rations had gotten a little tighter rather than looser since the last challenge, despite their unbroken winning streak. But today, they were eating more freely. They would need energy for the challenge they were about to face, after all.

They had just gathered for the team breakfast when the announcement rang out.

[Attention all survivors! The next challenge will begin soon. Unlike previous challenges, all survivors must participate in the upcoming event. You have thirty minutes to prepare yourselves.]

Since the announcement, everyone was either speculating on what the next challenge must be, or they were studiously avoiding commenting.

“I’m betting the challenge is a team sport,” Cara said. “That’s the only reason I can imagine why everyone would have to play. We seem to be such a strong team, it’s hard to imagine us losing.” She smiled with such sunny optimism that even DaSilva, despite his generally positive outlook, couldn’t help envying it.

“Such a beautiful day when we walked over here,” Frank said.

“I think the snow might be done for the season,” Karen added. “Assuming there are seasons in this place, and it’s not just endless winter.”

“Or it’s no-holds-barred combat in an arena,” Paulo suggested, replying to Cara. “Maybe we’re not allowed to opt out, because they don’t want only the strongest members of each teams competing.”

“That sounds terrible,” Jean said, paling visibly.

“I don’t think they’d make us all participate in such a violent competition,” Frank said, giving up on ignoring his teammates’ speculation.

“No, that’s exactly the sort of thing they would let us opt out of,” Karen agreed, speaking through her food. “Think about the last dungeon. It was only slightly dangerous, but the System gave us a warning so we didn’t take in anyone who didn’t want to be in that situation.” Her eyes cast only a flickering glance in Mina’s direction, but DaSilva noticed it, and he didn’t think he was the only one.

“Last time, there were parts of the dungeon that I almost couldn’t imagine us completing without Mina,” Yulia said quietly. “I’m relieved she’ll be with us this time. Hopefully there are riddles or other puzzles. Then we’ll have the advantage.”

You have a lot of faith in your sister, don’t you? DaSilva thought, looking down at Yulia affectionately. It was not the first time he’d noticed this, and he doubted it would be the last. Right now, however, Mina was straining his faith.

She was supposed to use her Investigate Skill on each member of the team, then signal to DaSilva which of their colleagues had tried to kill him. But so far, she hadn’t given the signal. And it seemed to DaSilva that she was staring at her plate, trying not to make eye contact with him or anyone else.

She looked up for a moment at the mention of her name. “Whatever the competition is, I’ll try not to slow the rest of you down.” Her eyes dropped right back to her food.

Okay, what am I missing? Does her Skill not work as well as it’s supposed to or something?

It was frustrating. He wanted to know who had tried to pull him off the bridge, into a river of lava, in the last challenge. If he didn’t know, he’d have to watch his back relative to everyone in the next challenge.

Kind of makes me wish I’d switched to another team, but that would leave everyone on this team wondering why. And I would have only made it harder on myself trying to find the murderer.

—

Yes, Detective, Mina thought, I can feel you looking at me. No, I don’t know who the killer is, or I would give the signal. She had used Investigate on every member of the team already, as they arrived at breakfast. Then she had double checked her work.

Everyone’s Status information seemed normal. Either Detective DaSilva’s reckoning about who the killer might be was off, or someone on their team had a Skill to change the appearance of their Status information.

Mina finally made eye contact with DaSilva and gave him a subtle shake of her head.

He seemed to understand. He stopped giving off all his little signs of impatience. His face and body language shifted to signaling puzzled and concerned resignation.

“What sort of challenge do you think it’s going to be, Mina?” Adelaide asked.

“If I’m lucky, it will be puzzles or riddles like Yulia said,” Mina replied. “Hell, I’d settle for video games, or a poetry slam!”

“Now that would be nice and relaxing,” Derek said. “Video games and a poetry slam. Not exactly what they’ve got us used to doing so far, but I think I could manage.”

“I think I’d prefer the fighting,” Paulo said. Then: “Ow!”

Jose had elbowed him in the ribs.

“Whoops,” he said. “Sorry.” He gave Paulo a stern look. Paulo’s eyes darted toward Mina.

“Ah, yeah, it’s probably not that anyway,” Paulo said.

It’s a little annoying that everyone’s looking at me as if I’m made of glass, Mina thought. I can’t deny that I’m vulnerable right now, but I still don’t want them to think I’m a burden. And I don’t want to be a burden either.

“Everyone get ready!” DaSilva called out.

“Oh, right,” Mina said. The timer.

[00:00:45]

Mina reached over and took Yulia’s hand, and the sisters smiled at each other. Then Mina gave the table a last look. Everyone looked at least a bit apprehensive. She was glad it wasn’t just her.

And then they were gone.

Mina blinked, and at the same moment that she opened her eyes again, she realized her hand was empty. Yulia was gone somewhere else.

There was a moment of fear, before she realized everyone was gone. She was alone. In front of her was a seamless stone wall. Nothing but pure gray rock that gave no indication that it had ever held any shape but the current one. Its texture seemed to be perfectly smooth, unlike cement. Mina felt an almost irresistible urge to run her fingers across it, and before she knew it, she did. The stone felt just as smooth as it looked, more like a pane of cold glass than a structure of rock.

“Hey Mina!” a voice called.

Mina jumped slightly and turned toward the sound.

There stood Cara Dahlhaus, looking like a fierce Valkyrie in her armor, long blonde hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. Thank goodness! I thought I was going to have to complete whatever challenge this is by myself.

“Good to see you!” Mina said.

“Yeah, you too!” Cara said, smiling.

[You find yourselves isolated from most of your teammates, scattered within a grand maze.]

The voice of the Proctor came from all directions, as if the walls, floor, and ceiling were speakers. Perhaps they were. As Mina and Cara looked around, looking for landmarks and signs of life, the most striking detail was that the walls, floors, and ceiling were all made from the same material. The floor was slightly rougher than the walls, probably because people needed to be able to get traction when they moved across it.

The ceiling sat ten feet above the floor. As if the System had to accommodate something unreasonably large that lived in the maze.

And there was an almost imperceptible gap between ceiling and wall, where some form of artificial lighting came through. It felt like that fluorescent lighting that always made Mina feel like she looked ten years older than she was.

[Your task is a deceptively simple one. You must escape the maze within the time limit. Simple tasks are not always easy, however.]

A timer appeared in the corner of Mina’s vision.

[05:00:00]

[You are not alone within the vastness of the maze. Your fellow challengers are scattered within the same structure as yourselves. Other life forms stalk the corridors of the maze. This challenge is primarily one of navigation. Those who are among the first to complete the maze will be handsomely rewarded. The teams who have the most members complete the maze will be the winners. Naturally, anyone who dies within the maze is disqualified.]

Mina shuddered slightly at those last words. Then she felt a hand on her wrist, and she almost jumped again.

“Sorry,” Cara said. Naturally, it was her hand on Mina’s wrist. With her other hand, she rubbed the back of her neck, a sheepish look on her face. “Just wanted to get moving now that the announcement seems to be over.”

“Yeah,” Mina said. The silence had only lasted a moment before Cara approached her, but now it felt almost deafening. A creepy void in the air whenever neither of them were speaking. “We can get a head start if we’re smart.”

I need to stick close to this girl, Mina thought. Up close, it was obvious that Cara was physically more imposing than Mina. She hadn’t been this muscular on the first day, Mina seemed to recall. The Warrior Classes probably got some amount of physical growth when they leveled up. DaSilva was a bit bigger than he had been on the first day, too, now that she thought about it. And his jawline was slightly more defined, his physique less pudgy than it had been.

But these things were only obvious now that she was up close with Cara. The blonde woman had once been noticeably shorter than Mina. Now they were almost eye to eye.

I could probably get that if I invested a few extra points in Strength, too, Mina realized. But she had been determinedly building up her Intelligence and Will, the better to double down on her strong suit: magic.

“Where do you think we should go?” Cara asked.

Mina realized she’d been thinking silently to herself for a while. And Cara wasn’t the leader type. Despite her well-muscled arms and confident pose in her Light Warrior armor, her tone betrayed a lack of confidence. She needed Mina’s wits.

“Let’s start out by just walking down this path to see where it goes,” Mina said. “I’ll keep one hand on this wall, and you keep one hand on the other wall, and once we see if there are any openings on either side, we’ll decide what to do next.”

Cara nodded and smiled. The pair began walking.

Looking down the path a little ways, it was obvious that this part of the maze was curved. Mina already had thoughts on what that might mean, but the only way to test those out was to maneuver some distance along the wall and see what they found.

“Hey, I found an opening!” Cara said after a minute of walking.

“That’s great!” Mina turned to look at Cara’s wall. The opening was a perfect rectangular cutout from the stone.

Too smooth of a cut for a human tool, Mina couldn’t help but think. Just like the walls were smoother and more featureless than human-carved stone would normally be.

“Well done, Cara,” Mina said after examining the opening and poking her head through. “Can you mark this opening, and we’ll explore for a few minutes more?”

Cara nodded. Then she drew her sword and slashed fiercely downward at the wall.

I’d hate to be on the wrong side of her, Mina thought.

Despite the visible Strength on display, she only made a small knick in the wall. Cara frowned as if disappointed, but Mina smiled.

“Good job! I think these walls are made out of something super tough. Now we’ll know which opening this is if there’s more than one exit to this section of the maze.”

Cara looked satisfied at that, and the two women continued walking.

Several minutes passed.

“I found another—no, wait, this is the same opening!” Cara declared.

“Hm. Well, we have to go through this one, then. We’re already figuring this maze out!” Mina said. She walked on through with no hesitation.

Did I just waste the last few minutes? I could almost tell we were walking in a circle, but it was difficult with how big the loop was. How big is this maze if this is just one section? Is it more like a labyrinth, or just a maze? Labyrinths, Mina knew, typically had only one entrance and exit. If this maze was really a labyrinth, then there was only one possible route. If that was the case, then this was a race to be won rather than a puzzle to be solved.

No! Mina shook her head. That would be so stupid! The System wouldn’t waste our time like that. Right?

She looked at Cara, following behind her. Mina faked a smile and gave Cara a confident thumbs up.

“Let’s keep doing the same thing we did in the last section, Cara. Could you mark this wall like you did on the other side?”

“Sure thing!” Cara swung her sword down and made a slightly bigger scratch on this wall than she had on the last one. Mina had the distinct idea that Cara was trying to show off, so she tried to give off impressed-looking body language.

Once again, Cara took the outside wall while Mina took the inside wall.

At first, they walked in silence. Mina took advantage of the quiet and continued trying to unravel the mystery of the maze inside her own mind.

It can’t be a labyrinth, Mina thought. If it was, we would have all started in the same place. You either start on the outside of the labyrinth or in the center, everyone knows that! Which means there are correct routes and incorrect routes, and there must be a logical way of deducing them. You can’t just speedrun this maze. And if Cara’s difficulty in even scratching the walls is indicative, you can’t smash your way out of it either. I don’t think she could chop through that stone even if her Strength was ten times what it is. This is a battle of pure wits.

“I’ve realized we’ve never actually had a one on one conversation, Mina,” Cara said.

“That’s true,” Mina said, hoping Cara would take the hint and stop talking.

Nope.

“Where are you from?” Cara asked.

“Bulgaria originally, Orange County now,” Mina said. She paused for a moment, then reluctantly asked, “Where are you from?”

“Well, I was born in California, but I love to travel!” Cara gushed. “I think of myself as something of a citizen of the world. This country alone is so big, and there’s still so much I haven’t seen. So I don’t stay anywhere long.”

Please, some god or other, kill me now, Mina thought. I’m never going to solve this maze with her going on like this!

“Where did you go to college?” Mina asked, trying to be curious.

“Oh, I like to think of myself as a student of life, you know?”

Kill me. Kill me now.

“I see,” Mina said, trying to fake a smile.

“I guess you went to school, though? You seem very book smart.”

“Well, thank you.” I think? Or is she implying that I’m not some other kind of smart?

“I always thought I’d go to school, but life’s just got so much else to do,” Cara said.

“How did you find yourself in Florida when this whole thing started?” Mina made herself ask, trying to cut off whatever rambly narrative Cara was about to spin out of her decision not to decide to go to college.

“Oh, that’s a crazy story!” Cara launched into a narrative about a friend of her cousin who won the lottery and decided to fly out everyone she knew to Disney World.

“Oh, wow,” Mina said halfheartedly.

In the midst of the narrative, Cara had located a door and marked it. Mina thought it would be wise to keep walking and see if there were further doors once again. She was now counting her footsteps between doors while trying to keep vague track of Cara’s story.

This girl is going to kill me, Mina thought. She was good at dividing her attention, but this seemed like a waste of her willpower and patience, so early in the challenge. Yet she was too polite to tell Cara to shut it. And Cara was helpful. Sort of.

“Oh, a second door!” Cara exclaimed.

“Alright, mark this one too, okay?” Mina said. “But find a different way of doing it this time, if you can.”

Cara nodded obediently. She swung her sword at a different angle this time, using it almost like a baseball bat. This time she left a very horizontal scratch, easily distinguishable from the first one.

The two women continued walking and lapsed into silence for a little while. Long enough for Mina to decide what theory she should act on if they came upon the first outward-facing door again, as Mina began to suspect they would.

Sure enough, after a few minutes of walking, Cara burst out: “Look, I found the first door again!”

“That’s perfect,” Mina said. “Poke your head through and tell me if you see anything interesting?”

“No problem,” Cara said. She raised her sword again and held it in a ready position in front of her as she advanced through the door.

“See anything?!?” Mina called.

“Just a hallway like the one we were just in!” Cara replied. “Except this one has a dead end on one side.”

“Alright! I know just what I want us to do. Let’s go back to the other door you marked.”

“Sure.” Cara walked back into the hall where Mina was and shook her head as if she didn’t get why one door was any different from another. “Say, Mina, is there anything I can do to help you figure this place out?”

“You’re already doing it, honestly,” Mina said. “I couldn’t ask you to do anything that’s more helpful than marking doors and quietly leading the way into unsecured places.”

“Oh, well I’m glad to be helping, then,” Cara said. She looked thoughtful. “Quietly, huh?”

Mina tried not to look too pleased that Cara might be taking the hint. If the other woman would be a bit quieter, that would undoubtedly be the best assistance she could give.

I’m starting to have a hypothesis about the structure of this maze, Mina thought. Really just a wild guess based on nothing but my imagination and wishful thinking, but maybe the System has an architect somewhere who built this thing. Maybe the architect is as nerdy as I am. And maybe the maze is constructed the way I’m imagining.

They proceeded to the other opening, and they walked through. It was another, almost identical, hallway. Curved like the previous hallways had been.

No dead ends in sight, Mina thought. Not like the exit that Cara explored for a moment alone. She considered this difference to be a good sign. The best test of my theory is to figure out if this section has three, four, or a different number of exits.

The two women walked until they found the first opening on the outside wall of the hallway. They stopped so that Cara could slash another marking into that wall.

Cara started walking again as soon as she’d made her mark. But Mina lingered beside that opening. It was identical to the other rectangular holes in the walls that they’d seen thus far, but there was something about it that made Mina hesitant to leave.

It took her a minute to realize what it was that held her attention: the sound of footsteps. Something was walking toward them on the other side of that wall.