"No?" Ria asked, a little disappointed. No doubt she wanted to at least pass by the Gilded Feast. "So, you want to go through the stalls? They have everything you can imagine."

'If only.'

Somehow, I doubted I'd find a tool that could send me to Earth or a cell phone that could reach my family, at least to give them a call.

"Really?" I asked, nonetheless.

"Um-hmm, they belong to the merchants looking to buy labyrinth materials from seekers or to sell them anything useful in delving into the Labyrinth: armor, weapons, potions, food, various tools ..." Ria told me, paused, and giggled. "They even sell magic tools that wipe your bum."

'Huh?'

On second thought, that sounded kind of useful. You only had to carry one tool, and not rolls of toilet paper, which was not a thing here, by the way - so much for finding here everything I could imagine.

Still, it couldn't hurt to take a look, right?

'No, not now!' I held back my urge to head out to explore the stalls. Reminiscing about the good old days on Earth and its many department stores was something I could do later.

"Okay, Ria, I'd love to see the butt-wiping tool, but now, please lead me to the entrance of the Labyrinth."

Not what my heart longed so badly to see, but visiting the beating heart of Castiana, Fallen's Cry, as the Labyrinth was apparently called, was my main reason for suffering the crowds. Rayden said, and Marcus agreed with her, that it was where one can become stronger - quickly. Yes, there were supposed to be beasts, lots of them. Unsurprisingly, then, the seekers' main goal was to FIGHT them and break through them to the lower floors. Yet the two claimed that it didn't matter so much what array one had, but how one used it, that all it took was an open mind and one like me, a slave, could become one of the most fearsome warriors.

Did I believe that?

Well, I really wanted to because the other option was simply unacceptable to me - there was no way I would willingly be a slave again, regardless what the Lattice said.

"The entrance?"

"Yes, take me there."

"Alright!" Ria beamed, a mischief flashing briefly in her eyes. "Korra, Sage, follow me!" she commanded, ignoring the fact that the name was supposed to be a secret. Instead of showing remorse and apologizing, the little kitare turned on her heel and headed for the center of the square.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Honestly, Ria had my admiration for how fearlessly she made her way among the seekers, some of whom were three times her height and so strong that the sight of them gave me goosebumps.

However, fearing that I wouldn't be able to find my way back if I lost sight of Ria - a stupid fear - I kept up with her, looking ahead. Somewhere out there in front of us was an ancient structure, a gate, maybe even a portal. However, nothing of the sort seemed to tower above the heads of those in the square. Instead, I got surprised again when we arrived at the threshold of the entrance.

It did not look like anything I had imagined.

There was no frame, no doorway to the depths below the city. What I was looking at was a huge hexagonal hole in the ground in front of me. Well, calling it a hole was a bit of a stretch. First of all, it was massive, wide enough to build several houses. Second, the hole wasn't that deep; it was only two to three meters below the level of the cobbles in the square. Nevertheless, it seemed to be the depth at which Fallen's Cry, the Labyrinth, the ancient structure, lay.

Unlike the pavement up here where Ria and I stood, the bottom of this sinkhole was a monolithic black slab. Stairs ran down the entire length of this hexagon, twenty-four of them to be exact, making me feel like I was standing on the sidelines of a football stadium. Except I've never been to one.

'Football was not my favorite sport.'

Though, I would give anything to watch a game on TV with my dad again.

'Or go to the theater with my mom.'

Actually, the place kind of looked like one, a theater of sorts with seekers down there like stage actors busy with their performance. I took a few steps down, descending closer to the show. Seekers were entering the stage in groups of various sizes, only to disappear a moment later in a flash of white light. At times, they disappeared right after their feet touched the black monolith. Occasionally, they'd get almost to the center before stopping and vanishing in the bright white flash. And sometimes, they didn't disappear at all. Actually, some of the flashes I noticed signaled the return of seekers from the depths beneath the city.

Whether there was any order to the chaos down there, I didn't see. Yet, somehow, it worked.

'Unwritten rules?'

Or maybe they were written somewhere - that would explain why there was no pushing, shoving, or arguing for spots between all those armed people down there. No one was trying to prove their strength. There was just a constant stream of newcomers and returnees entering and leaving the black monolith through the stairs from all six directions.

Taking a few more steps down, smelling beast blood on a group walking past me up the square, I noticed there was more to the flashes and that the black monolithic floor wasn't as simple as I had thought. Its opaque black surface was laced with what could only be runes, thousands of them in patterns that were eerily familiar to me, not the same for sure, but familiar. And they must have been familiar to everyone with access to the Lattice. I saw similar patterns, circles of all shapes, and grids of rune lines every time I delved into my mind, into the Grid Forge.

But unlike those, the ones on the black monolith appeared to be dead. That is, until they flared briefly around the seekers standing there before the white flash engulfed them or where the Labyrinth spat them out of its bowels.

'Huh? Was it there the whole time?'

Fascinated by the chaos, I only now noticed a statue standing in the middle of it all. Made of the same material as the monolith, it blended into the background. But now that I knew about it, I couldn't take my eyes off that dull black piece of finely carved work of art.