Before I continued, I took a moment to dig through my backpack. I extracted a permanent marker and stuck it in my pocket, offering silent thanks to Byron for its inclusion. He’d wanted us to bring one to make it easier to share information with others, but now I needed it to share information with myself. I’d seen the way to the center, but my subsequent injury, discussion, and departure had made me uncertain as to which way it was. I was willing to risk popping my head up quickly once to reconfirm my direction, but doing that over and over was unacceptably risky.

I think it’s… that way. Huh. Nope. Glad I checked.

I dropped down to the ground and looked up, just in time to see something small fly through the space I’d occupied and hear a sonic boom.

Yeah, definitely not worth staying up there.

I took my marker and carefully drew a large arrow on the wall of the maze, pointing toward the center. If I drew another every time I turned a corner, I’d be able to keep my bearings.

Hopefully.

My sense of direction wasn’t the greatest, but the markings would at least give me a chance. Without them, I was sure I’d get turned around after the first monster fight and spend hours walking in the wrong direction. Whether it was video games or real life, Meghan could always count on me to choose the wrong direction to head in.

Getting turned around might still happen, but if I saw my own markers, I’d at least know I’d doubled back.

I had mixed feelings about the fact that the marks would make it easier for others to follow me. Anyone tracing my footsteps would definitely be moving faster than I was, since I would have cleared the monsters already. That was great, if the people behind me were my friends. Terrible, if they were hostile.

Since I had zero confidence in my ability to head toward the middle without extreme care, the markings were necessary. I’d just have to watch my back and move as fast as I could.

I started killing my way forward. At first I saw only familiar enemies. My progress was pretty fast, even though I detoured around the slimes, floating gas monsters, and insect swarms. The detours often took me away from the center temporarily, but perhaps it would help throw off anyone following: those particular monsters were tough for me to handle, but easy for a lot of people.

Eventually, I stopped finding singletons and started encountering packs, groups of two to five monsters.

I could take out five spacedogs in my sleep, possibly literally: my Resilient Skin was invulnerable to their scratches, so if my eyes were closed I wasn’t sure if they could injure me at all. I was fast enough to dart through a small pack of fragile wostriches and break their necks before they could hurt me. The big cats were tougher. I had to stab deep into their torsos to bring them down, which occasionally led to my spear getting caught or pulled aside as I tried to withdraw it. These moments were dangerous, as my quick movements were slowed or even halted. After a missed stab and a dropped spear led to a five-minute dance against a pack of three, I decided that it was a bit risky to take on so many monsters if I wasn't sure I could kill them quickly.

The number of detours I took kept increasing.

I’m positive there’s more than one route to the center, but it’s definitely possible that they guarded all the routes forward with large packs. Do I fight five crocosnakes on my own? Four cat-monsters? Maybe it’s worth the risk of trying to go over the wall again… Or maybe I should head away from the center and look for allies? Maybe I should have stuck with the Japanese people. They seemed friendly enough… I just thought I’d do better on my own.

I resolved to head back if my route forward was stymied once more, but the next new tunnel I headed down wasn’t filled with a slew of familiar foes: instead, a ropy mess filled the hallway from top to bottom, like someone had vengefully unraveled and re-tangled my mom’s entire crochet stockpile.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I’d have been willing to fight a new monster alone, but I hesitated to engage that thing. How did you even kill it? Where was its heart? How did it attack?

I couldn’t even guess.

Just then, a flash on the ceiling caught my attention and I looked up to see an ellipse of light appear briefly. I recognized the Searchlight ability. Could that be Byron? I could send three messages to my followers, but Byron wasn’t one of them…

“Byron?! Is that you? Can you hear me?”

There was no response, but the light appeared again a minute later in a slightly different location. The edge of the spotlight was crisp; it wasn’t being shined at a monster. Someone must be using it to try to contact others! They hadn’t responded to my shout, but… the light hadn’t been perfectly circular either. It could still be from Byron, if he was farther back.

I started working my way toward the source of the light, retracing my steps, but the next time it appeared I was no closer. Whoever was using the ability was moving away.

How could I communicate back?

My eyes fell on the dead bodies of a pack of spacedogs. I’d killed them earlier, but the bodies hadn’t disappeared, as seemed typical for Challenges and Trials. I reached down to grab one, hefting it thoughtfully.

Hm. A bit gruesome, but shouldn’t be worse than carving a turkey.

I used my dagger to slice off one of the animal’s legs and chucked it the last spot I’d seen the light. My accuracy was off, but the animal’s limb still smashed into the ceiling, leaving a smear of oddly-colored blood behind.

This could work.

I repeated the process several times, chucking limb after limb upward and imprecisely painting a gruesome line of meat and fluids between the last location of the light and myself.

Whoever was doing the spotlight didn’t seem to notice what I was doing immediately, but the next time a light appeared, it stayed for more than a second, clearly tracing over my grisly graffiti. There was a pause, then the light appeared again, outlining an arrow and then a question mark.

No.

Not an arrow! A V!

I had two unmutilated corpses left, and I grabbed them both, chucking them skyward. Neither quite hit the same spot as the V, but I hoped Byron understood.

I started working my way over, keeping my eyes on the ceiling, but took a moment to toss off a Message to my followers since they included John and Davi.

I think I’m in the same Challenge as Byron! Keep your eyes on the ceiling. He’s been flashing his Searchlight and I’m throwing monster corpses.

Saving the Message until I knew for sure might have been better - I only had one left after this - but the odds that it was Byron seemed high, and I didn’t want to wait and risk my friends not seeing our signals as we moved away. Even if the spotlight hadn’t been Byron, he could start blasting his now that I’d suggested it, and we could all keep an eye out for it, so there was some value.

Don’t see Byron’s lights, but I’m passing your message on. If he’s here, he’ll know it was you for sure.

John again. His ability made him the only one of us who could communicate freely, and I could only contact him a limited number of times. Just once more, now.

I hurried toward the light, only slowing to fight monsters and keep placing my arrows on the walls to my right: not the way I was going, but hopefully still the way to the center.

Eventually, I turned the corner to see Byron’s lanky frame at the end of a straightaway.

I cheered. “Byron! I knew it had to be you. Not a lot of people with Searchlight! How’d you figure out it was me? I sent off a couple Messages earlier, but I know you didn’t get them, and you wrote that V even before John said he told you.”

“He told me earlier that you were here, when he passed along your warning not to climb the walls. But even if he hadn’t, I’d have known.” Byron threw his arms around me, clapping me on the back.

“Oh?”

“Come on, Vince… Do me a Venn diagram of people who can throw monster body parts that far and hard and the ones who would think it was a good idea. I’ll tell you the overlap: the overlap is you.”

“It worked, didn’t it?”

“Yeah. I never said it was dumb. Just… really you.”