thanks to my co-author N. Polsteam, without her you would be reading something of a 2 levels worse quallity (even though for this one it took her 2-3 weeks)

After she spent the entire night calling, texting and waiting for Vlad to respond, all the while cursing at his forgetfulness, Darya finally went to sleep. She woke up some eight hours later, feeling about as fresh as a month old, stale cracker. Yawning, she scratched her head and checked her phone one more time. Utter disappointment.

'Bastard completely forgot.'

Annoyed, she clicked her tongue. The tournament was starting in an hour and he still didn't get back to her. After a quick breakfast, she made her way to the gym. The front of the building was jam-packed with people, some wielding random sticks which looked like they were torn from brooms, shovels and the like. Darya guessed that yesterday's tournament had to do with sticks, or jo's as Vlad called them, meaning he probably won the thing. He might be a forgetful jerk, but the guy was a genius with his stick. She chuckled at her own innuendo and stopped for a second to observe men "practicing" with their broom handles. Despite their enthusiasm, they had no skill whatsoever. Also, the tests were supposed to be a surprise, so she doubted they would repeat them.

'Well, some... 2, 4, 10... 26 people are gonna be very disappointed when the test starts', she thought, doing a mental count of the stick guys.

After dealing with a huge crowd and quite a bit of waiting, she entered the Spectrum lobby. First groups were already coming out, and she was proven right when the first batch of people announced that the test comprised of, how they put it, "ninja stuff". They wouldn't say more. She turned to the stick guys. Their faces: priceless.

Darya's turn came up after 3 hours and she was in the last group. She cursed the long waiting time, not knowing that yesterday was much, much worse. The 20 pushups rumor had reduced the number of participants by a lot. As she walked in she noticed that the gym was divided by curtains. There was a personallity test again and an illusion test instead of an IQ one. After all that, Frank pulled at the curtains to reveal a maze of sorts. Lots of obstacles, lights turned off. Darya swallowed. This ain't gonna be easy.

Each participant was given a lenght of rope with a grappling hook attached and a stamper. The stampers were all flourescent yellow but each had a different number.

Frank explained that they are to stamp other participants and survive without getting stamped. Also there will be guards patroling the hallways and kicking out anybody they catch. 12 entrances, 50 participants and 2 guards. Time to hide is 5 minutes.

Set by her entrance with 3 other participants, Darya waited for the starting signal. Frank just said : "Go hide...", and they were off. One guy in their group was rather slow so he got stamped 2 times before they could even properly start the test, but unfortunately for one stamper the slow guy wanted retribution so he stamped him back. Darya didn't bother with them, instead running as fast and deep into the maze as she could.

There was a rather large number of participants compared to the not-so-large maze.

'There's gonna be some crowding problems', she thought. Luckily, she noticed a way to avoid the meandering stamper-armed people, namely a support beam at around eight meters height. It was barely noticeable even from the outside, and practically invisible from inside the maze. She guessed at its location and her grappling hook caught the beam on the second try. Quickly, she pulled up some 3 metres and saw people pass underneath her. In danger of being discovered, she wound the loose rope around her hand and, more or less secure, slowly made her way up.

Breathing heavily, Darya rested on the beam. She glanced down below and suddenly it hit her: 'This... was the dumbest idea ever. The hook could've loosened and I would have fallen to my death. This height ain't no joke, and there's maze walls down there just waiting to break someone's spine!'.

Still, reason couldn't lessen her pride. For her, this was one hell of an achievement. When she recovered a bit, Darya proceeded with her plan which was - waiting. Yes, she would wait until those idiots down there stamped each other out, and come out as the winner, almost no effort spent. Well, maybe a bit of effort.

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There were sounds of running, shouting and guards throwing people out, flashlights illuminating the corridors like two giant, demented fireflies. Or those glowy fishes maybe. Darya was never much good with metaphors. If one of those lights were to turn up, she'd have nowhere to run. But the guards were so preoccupied with the people on the ground, none thought to look up. But then again, it would be strange if noone else thought of climbing onto the beams, considering they were all provided with grappling hooks. Some people did use them to climb over walls, but most threw them away since they were extra weight.

Suddenly, Darya saw movement from the corner of her eye. She turned her head and caught a glimpse of a person on the beam next to her. And that person noticed her as well. They threw their grappling hook onto Darya's beam and tied the end of the rope onto their own.

'Shit. I don't like where this is going. Fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuck!'

The other participant stepped onto the streched out rope and not only did they balance on it but actually started running in midair, toward Darya's beam.

'Fuck fuck fuck, okay, tactical retreat, gotta get away quick.'

Darya uncoiled her rope and started descending fast, swinging all the while. As she came close to the walls, her momentum made her smash her knee into a wall. Pain shot through her and she nearly let go of the rope, but somehow managed to get herself on the wall. Now limping, she searched for a new place to hide.

Meanwhile, the crazy acrobat person stamped another person hiding on the beams, and in the maze around 10 participants remained. Darya looked around, her eyes more or less used to the darkness by now. There weren't any proper hiding places in the maze really, so she just settled for a safe distance from the acrobat.

Slightly panicking, Darya racked her brain for a solution for this situation. The dull pain in her knee didn't make it any easier to think.

'Ok, ok, I need a new plan. How the hell do I get rid of the acrobat? Guess I should somehow separate them from their hook then stamp them on the ground, but what if they stamp me out of spite? Not everyone plays fair. People in the maze are also a problem, but this takes priority.'

Then it hit her.

'I'll just follow them and steal their rope while she's busy stamping people! Then I can just go up and wait it out! Brilliant if I do say so myself.'

Barely managing to resist striking an evil genius pose, Darya set out to look for the acrobat. She figured it would be hard to notice anyone on the beams above so she instead found two of the remaining four participants walking together. One of them was out - a stamp on his arm emanated a pale light – apparently supporting the other one. She almost felt bad for using them as bait, but they were a slow-moving, glowing target. Sneaking close to the walls, she followed them for a few minutes when she heard a swooshing noise. Her heart in her throat, Darya's body when rigid, but when nothing happened after a few seconds, she figured it was just her imagination working overtime. Then, another noise, this time real, and the shadow of the acrobat descended upon the two men.

'Oh how very convenient, she left her rope just dangling there', Darya smirked as she waited for the stamping to begin. The acrobat displayed some amazing skills, jumping around and painting the men flourescent yellow.

'Aaand... now!' - Darya jumped away from her wall and rolled on the ground, an Aikido move Vlad taught her once, her knee protesting with pulses of pain. Even though the acrobat was distracted, they still heard her landing, and as she stood up the acrobat paused for a second, thinking she might try and initiate a stamp-off. Instead, Darya ran for the rope. The acrobat started after her, but she had some good head start and one of the stamped guys decided to take revenge. Noticing that, Darya pulled herself up to sit on one of the walls. Frank probably got tired of waiting because the maze was brimming with guards leading people out. It was over.