"Blue, Alex? It's time to wake up. We have to go," Hera shook them gently, trying to wake the two.
"Five more minutes," Blue mumbled and turned to the side.
"Man, I needed a nap," Alex sat up while stretching, "I don't remember when was the last time that I slept in the middle of the afternoon. It still is the afternoon, right?"
"Yeah, don't worry. You slept for like, 20 minutes or so," Hera replied.
"And unlike someone else, you didn't snore," Bonnie rolled her eyes and poked Blue, "C'mon, we have to go. This is your last chance."
Blue mumbled something but didn't wake up. In response, Bonnie made a small spark of electricity on her hand and shocked the sleeping controller with the spell.
"What was that for?!" Blue jolted up, some of her hair standing up because of the static.
"This is what happens when you don't wake up, and we are in the middle of a dungeon," Bonnie scoffed.
"Ok, OK. I'm up," Blue grumbled as she left the bed and walked towards the bathroom, "Can someone give me a light here? Also, does this place have heated water?" Before she finished the question, Hera already had sent one of her dancing lights to the controller.
"No, it doesn't," Bonnie replied and then turned to the rest of the group and whispered, "Don't tell her. Cold water is good for her to wake up."
To turn on the hot water in this place, you had to press a panel inside the first drawer by the sink. It wasn't the most intuitive system, but it somehow felt on par with what was going on in the dungeon. Hera looked over to the remaining bed. Surprisingly, all of her blades were there, lying on the mattress. It wasn't something she ordered, and according to Daskka, they didn't need to rest, but still, they were just enjoying the comfort for a few moments. During the time they were resting, Bonnie, Helena, and Hera came up with a plan to find more rooms that could lead them to their destination. Helena took some time to twist the packages of the snacks she got into numbers and used a few shadow spells that allowed her to expand her perception to familiarize herself with the shapes. Hera did the same, but she used her sensory net. The idea was to use their abilities to increase the area they could survey and, potentially, make finding the next room easier. But she didn't have anything to look beyond the range that Hera or Helena were already working with, so she focused on trying to find a pattern or at least the beginning of one. Even if that was supposed to be a fool's errand, it was the only thing she could think of, and she had to do something. Unlike Blue or Alex, she couldn't just rest in a place like this. It just didn't feel right.
When everyone was ready to leave, they stared at the timer one last time. Now they had 37 minutes and some change to look for their room. It was not much longer than they expected, but every little bit will help. When they opened the door, they found themselves in a large circular room with no corridors or exits. There were only about 50 doors to different rooms.
"Well, that was a waste," Helena sighed.
"We managed to rest a bit. And the snacks weren't that bad," Hera tried to cheer the mage up.
"Are we sure that we can't find a corridor here?" Blue asked.
"I guess we could. Maybe behind one of those doors, there is a path that we can keep moving through. But we have to find it, if that even exists," Helena started walking towards one of the doors to check.
It took them just 10 minutes to confirm that no there were no exits from this area. Their only option was to go inside a door, and this place seemed to have removed all choices from their hands. There was only a single vacant room among all those 50 doors. Even the room that they just had come from was now locked, and they couldn't go back. However, when seeing the room number, no one wanted to go in. It was 8591B. According to the statue, if they went inside a room that was too close to a match and had the same letter, they would end up splitting up somehow, and that seemed like a bad idea. But there didn't seem to be any other options. Every single one of the other 50 doors was locked and wouldn't budge. It didn't matter how much they tried.
"Let's just get this over with," Alex sighed in frustration. No one was enjoying the idea of splitting up, and she somehow felt responsible for it. After all, she was the one who came to the conclusion of what the letter would mean.
With a nod, they all went inside the room. The place was, again, very different from the hotel. Instead of being in a comfortable room, they were now on top of a stone pillar with several stone platforms spread out in a hexagonal pattern. In front of them, there was a coat hanger with a piece of paper dangling from it. Bonnie picked it up and read it aloud, "The test for this room is to reach the center of the arena. Only one person can be on a platform at a time, or the platform will collapse. When a person leaves the platform, the platform will collapse. When all five members of your group reach the central platform, the test will be over."
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"It doesn't say we have to touch the platform, right?" Blue asked.
"Apparently not," Bonnie nodded. As soon as she finished speaking, the controller jumped on top of her flying nimbus and went to the center of the room, which was about 100 meters away from their location.
Everyone stopped for a moment expecting the test to act up in some way. But that reaction never happened. Apparently, flying over the platforms was a completely acceptable way of passing the test.
"OK, Blue, now make that big cloud bridge that you did when we were in the Wailing Valley so we can go there without any issues," Hera yelled.
"Good idea!" the controller left the nimbus and started creating a bridge for the rest of the party.
At the same time, Hera asked her blades if they could somehow carry her in the air. She could see how much fun Blue was having and wanted to try to fly too. Daskka agreed that it was very fun to do so, and she started coordinating with the court about how they could do it. While the cloud was still being made, the flying weapons that Hera could control approached her and informed her that each of them would be carrying a part of her body. Brute and Executioner would be under her feet, while Ooze and Beam would be on her hands, trying to pull her up. Lurize and Swift would be around her making sure she wasn't going to fall in either direction.
"You know. A previous holder had a titled blade that doubled as their flying mount," Daskka told Hera while she tried to step on her blades and maintain her balance.
"Really? How did that work?" Hera asked Daskka, but everyone else could only see the explorer awkwardly trying to climb on top of her court.
"There's a skill for that. Two, actually, but they are expensive, so it's going to be a while before you can get them. One skill makes your blade bigger, big enough so you can stay on top of it like a surfboard, and the other is the actual mount skill. The titled part doesn't seem to be necessary, but it does help," Daskka frowned.
"Good to know. I'll keep that in mind," she managed to get in a stable position with her blades. She told them to move slowly, and they did. In a way, this was similar to using roller blades, but the type of rollerblades that you didn't know how to use, and someone else pulled you so you could move. Another issue was that it was clear that Brute and Executioner were struggling to keep her floating. In the end, Hera gave up that idea for now. She wasn't going to stop looking for ways to fly, but he was best not to do it now in the middle of a dungeon.
A few moments after the Hera finished testing this idea out, Blue finished the cloud, which allowed the entire group to walk above the platforms to the center of this room. Arriving in the middle, they heard a rumble, and all the platforms surrounding that place started to fall, one by one. In about five minutes, the only place still standing was the central stone pillar.
"This pillar is not going to..." Blue started speaking but was quickly cut off by everyone.
"No!"
"Don't say it! We are all thinking that, don't say it," Alex gasped, hoping their fears were unfounded.
The stone pillars started to shake, and the group got ready to be dropped to the bottom of this place, whatever that may be. Instead, what happened was the exact opposite. The pillar started to rise slowly, almost like it was presenting something. When it broke through one of the clouds in the sky, they were met by a view of a sea of clouds and five doors surrounding the platform. Each of them with one of their names and the clock above it marking 1 hour and ticking up.
"So... Does that mean that we need to get out of here through the door with our names?" Hera asked.
"Maybe, but what's stopping me from going to a different door?" Blue took a couple steps towards the door with Alex's name, but she was stopped by an invisible wall, "Seriously?" she gasped and tried to step back, only to be stopped again.
"Ha, it seems like you can only move towards your door, and if you try to move back, this room won't let you," Bonnie explained after doing a couple of tests.
"Then we are going to have to figure things out on our own? How is the timer going to work? Aren't we supposed to all be inside a room for the Housekeeper to stop chasing us?" Alex asked.
"Yeah. Each of us is going to have to manage our time properly. Set up an alarm, and do not miss it!" Helena stared at everyone and stopped anyone from moving until they all set up their alarms.
"Should we stay here for longer? That way, we can have more time to work with," Bonnie suggested.
"I don't know if that's a good idea. We're still going up. Slowly, but we're still going," Hera gestured to the clouds, and they were, in fact, starting to lag behind the pillar, "And, if you pay attention, the air is starting to get weird."
Helena nodded, "It's the same thing with the thin air in the room I mentioned. This is how it starts. I agree with Hera. We should move now. Use the last 20 minutes to search for a room, and let's hope that we find a way to group up again."
"OK. Everyone ready?" Blue asked before turning to her door.
"Ready!" Alex nodded.
"Ready, I guess," Bonnie had a worried expression. She was the only one in the group who never fought against a monster that was stronger than her, and it seemed that the idea of being alone wasn't sitting well with her.
"I'm not ready, but let's do this," Hera tried to cut through some of the tension, but it didn't seem to work.
They turned around and waited for everyone to reach their doors. They needed all the time they could get, and if one of them rushed ahead first, the timer would start counting down. With a deep breath, they all counted down from five before opening the door and stepping outside to the hallway of the No Hotel.