Once that ornate wooden door closed behind us, we found ourselves in a two or so meters wide semi-circular room. Torches lined the walls, held upright by hand-shaped hooks. Their yellow flames, powered by tiny gems encrusted in each torch, illuminated the room and part of the hallway ahead.
I grabbed a torch, not for myself, but just in case, as I was fairly certain neither Etienne nor Cain could see in the dark. Then, I watched with an amused smile as Cain each of the irregular rocks that stuck out from the exposed ground, as if checking if they’d trigger a trap.
“I think it’s safe to go,” Etienne spoke, “they usually never put traps this close to the entrance.”
Cain nodded, leaning the sword against the wall, before diving into the hallway to the left of the main corridor.
“Psst,” I called out to Etienne, as I tugged onto his sleeve.
He had just picked up a torch himself and raised an eyebrow in question at my gesture. I promptly pulled out the map I’d been given – a small A4 brochure folded thrice – and showed it to him. He glanced at the map, then shone his torch further down the hallway. The faint yellow light reflected off a thread stretched across the floor, several meters ahead, in the exact spot where a ‘T’ was written on the map.
“Don’t tell Cain.” I whispered, before walking a bit further down the hallway, so I could have a good look at what the kid was doing.
Cain was currently exploring a small makeshift bedroom, the kind one would imagine seeing in an average fantasy dungeon. Two straw mats laid over a worn-out carpet, with a small chest by their side. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected from this dungeon, but so far the decoration had been pretty much on par with a medieval fantasy-themed escape room.
“Isn’t there supposed to be treasure here?” Cain asked as he lifted the dusty carpet, checking under it.
“There might be some further down.” I replied as I glanced down the corridor.
After the trap, which was not visible when light wasn’t directly shone on it, the hallway continued for a good few dozen meters, before ending in a stairway. Other than the room Cain was currently searching with growing disappointment, there was a nook, and one other passage on the left-hand side of the hallway, and another nook, followed by a passage and a door on the right side.
Etienne was currently searching for something in the nook closest to me. Noticing my gaze, he said:
“What? I’ve gotta check if this chest isn’t a mimic.”
“Admit it,” I smirked, “You’re into this.”
I could have sworn his face briefly turned red, but with the poor lighting, I couldn’t be sure.
“Well… what do you mean?” He asked.
“She means you shouldn’t be stealing all my loot!” Cain spoke, as he finally came out of that bedroom, and headed towards where Etienne was.
He carefully checked the decorative chest that Etienne had failed to open, and was ready to move on by the time I joined them.
“Careful, there’s a trap ahead,” Cain said, as he turned towards me, and gestured towards where the thread was.
Then, he proceeded to jump over it, before running further down the hallway.
“Hurry up, I need your torches to see properly!” he called out before diving into the passage to the left.
“Madame?” Etienne asked as he extend a hand, to ‘help’ me over the thread.
“Oh, what would I do without you?” I sarcastically replied.
“No calling me your ‘prince charming’ this time?” He asked, with a tone that wasn’t quite as joking as it had been only seconds prior.
I didn’t say anything. Those words had come out so naturally, just like every time that I spoke with him, but … this time it seemed my subconscious had taken over in establishing boundaries in our relationship. Perhaps the events, and his tone, from Notre Damme had finally sunk in.
We carried on walking in silence until we reached the corridor Cain had vanished into. I was walking behind Etienne, as the passage wasn’t wide enough for both of us to walk side by side comfortably, so I could not see his expression, but his posture and his grip over his torch seemed tense. Figuring out what was causing this tension was another question.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Hey, so, I know this isn’t the ideal place for this kind of talk,” Etienne suddenly began, in a quiet tone, “But I think we need to continue our conversation from Notre Damme.”
“I think so to.” I replied.
We quickly crossed the passageway that Cain had taken and found ourselves in a decrepit dining room.
"There’s a puzzle with this candle holder.” Cain called out.
He was kneeling on the old wooden table, with a large, almost as big as him, candle holder before it. It held three unlit candles, with rings of various widths on them. There were four rings in total, with runes engraved along each of them.
This immediately reminded me of the very first algorithm I’d programmed when I was just getting into data analysis and thought (falsely so) that Python was a language I needed to learn. That algorithm was called ‘Tower of Hanoi’ and was actually quite straightforward once you understood what you were meant to do. So, with a smile, I held out my torch, illuminating the puzzle, and let Cain figure it out for himself.
The smile slowly vanished off my face, as my thoughts returned to Etienne.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about what I said to you on the bridge,” I quietly began, all while keeping my eyes on Cain. “I don’t think I should have told what I did back then, and if doing so has put any sort of burden on you, I apologise.”
The apology was insincere but well-practised. I hoped it’d come off as honest enough for Etienne not to suspect me of lying again. Of course, I could actually tell him the truth, but that was something I could always do later, once I’d get a better gauge for what he himself was hiding, and where he wanted this relationship to go.
I wasn’t a people pleaser, and perhaps it was one of my many passive skills talking, but I did give a lot of weight to Etienne’s position in this situation.
“Lords no!” He exclaimed as he raised a hand to rub the bridge of his nose. “No, what I mean to say is-”
“That you two should be helping me with this instead of playing out your melodrama.” Cain dryly interrupted.
“In retrospect, this is not a good place not time to talk.” I said with a sigh. “Let’s dump him at a park and get some coffee after this.”
“Hey!” Cain protested. “I’m not some dog you can leave outside to play.”
“The obscene amount of red fur in my flat says otherwise.” I said, attempting to lighten the mood, as I approached the table.
“You’re right.” Etienne spoke. “But also, what fur, if you don’t mind my asking?” He added, joining us by the table.
I climbed onto the table and handed my torch to Etienne.
“The rings are enchanted, you can only lift one at a time. And the candles aren’t made of wax-”
“Watch and learn.” I cut him off.
With a quick, but not very dexterous, succession of hand gestures, I rearranged all of the rings, from largest to smallest, on the central candle. However, once that was done, nothing happened.
“I think there’s one more step.” Etienne said.
He leaned over, and firmly pulled the candle towards him. It moved down, along with the rest of the chandelier. Once it reached a critical point, a mechanism below the table activated with a loud click. I jerked up, in surprise, but Cain had already slid under the table, and almost immediately back up, with an old, silver-plated, key in his hand.
He quickly glanced around the room, and, having not found anything the key could open, dashed back outside. His eyes were sparkling with excitement as he did so.
Etienne and I exchanged a bemused look, before following him.
----------------------------------------
“It’s for this chest!” Cain called out.
He’d run all over the place, first trying the door in the main hallway, then each of the rooms near it. He ended up finding his luck in the shape of a large oak chest hidden in the corner of a hunting-trophy room.
While Cain was unlocking and rummaging through the contents of said chest, Etienne and I went on a quest to find the key to an identical chest that stood at the opposite end of the room. While Etienne checked the mouths of the animal heads that hung from the walls, I looked under the animal skins thrown over the floor and poorly-made wooden chairs. But, neither of us had any luck finding anything.
“Do you think there’s a secret passage here?” Cain asked, pointing towards the general area around him.
He had fished out a blue wizard hat, and a matching cape from the chest. He’d put the hat on, and draped the cape around his waist, in a way that might have looked cool had he used a belt, and had he been a few dozen centimetres taller. Seeing those items, I understood what that employee had meant earlier, by ‘you’ll know that it’s not part of the décor when you see it’. The clothes looked brand new, although perhaps not of the best quality, as even from this distance I could make out a few open seams on the hat.
“What makes you say that?” Etienne asked.
“The wall here has a different texture, and I found this inside the loot chest.” Cain replied.
He lifted up a large oval metal medallion, with a dragon engraved on it. The dragon had three necks, but only one head, making it look like the pattern was meant to continue on a different surface.
“Let me see.” I said, before examining the medallion.
It didn’t have any runes or inscriptions on it. When I lifted my eyes away from it, I was greeted with the sight of both Cain and Etienne meticulously tapping along the wall behind the chest.
“What are you…”
“Looking for the pressure trigger,” Etienne winked at me.
I shrugged, and after handing the medallion back to Cain, joined them with a resigned smile. To my own surprise, I almost immediately felt an irregularity in the wall. It was as if there was a void behind it and it was sucking me in. It really was a strange sensation.
I hit that spot with the palm of my hand, before hitting it again with my fist.
“Did you find it?” Cain excitedly asked.
I nodded, and Etienne gave me a questioning look. It was clear that he’d made this pressure trigger-point thing up. Perhaps from his point of view, I was playing along too much.
“Step back.” Cain ordered.
“It’s here.” I tapped the spot once more, before joining Etienne on the back lines (aka a meter or so away from the wall).
Cain got up on the chest and punched the wall with all his strength. The grey and brown mixture of earth and concrete crumbled away, revealing a dark passageway.
“What-” Etienne never finished his question.
“Come on,” I gestured for him to follow, as Cain had already run off into the darkness.
I would have been lying if I said that I didn’t start enjoying this game as well.
[https://i.imgur.com/OHMyQo0.png]