Chapter 23: Trial of Wisdom

Atlas walked through yet another hallway, and watched the torch's colors change color for the fourth time, this time going from green to blue. Atlas nodded to himself, it was just as he had expected, the next color was blue, which could mean either wisdom or intelligence.

He kept walking until he found himself in another generic room with yet another portal in the middle.

The Trial of Wisdom starts as soon as you enter the portal. Your goal will be revealed after you walk through.

Atlas nodded, having expected as much. So it was wisdom after all. What exactly would it be testing? His gut instinct? He strode over to the portal and hopped in.

After another bout of confusion and disorientation he found himself standing at the entrance of a large labyrinth.

Reach the center of the labyrinth within 24 hours. Evade or disable all traps in the maze, getting “killed” will send you back to the start of the labyrinth. If you die 3 times, on the fourth time you will not come back to life. If you get through the labyrinth with less than 2 deaths then a second challenge will not be assigned.

So pretty straightforward then. Atlas thought to himself. He stepped through the labyrinth gate and found himself standing at a crossroads almost instantly. Left, forward, or right? He had no idea what direction would lead him to the center of the labyrinth, and for a couple seconds he just stood there thinking.

After a couple more seconds of thought, he remembered a tip that one of his school teachers had said randomly. “In a maze, you can pick the left side and put your left hand on it and you will get out eventually, or you can do the opposite with your right hand and the right wall of the maze. Take your pick, as either will lead you to the same exit, though one might take more time.”

Atlas nodded to himself. Yes, that was it. He needed to pick either left or right and follow that wall until he reached the middle, it would take a while, but he would eventually get there. He had a day after all.

Atlas stretched out his left hand and rested it on the leftmost wall. Taking a deep breath, he started to walk. He scanned the walls as he walked, trying to catch any hint of a trap before it could be sprung on him. He wanted to get through this trial and not have to take a second challenge, as that would make his life a lot harder than he cared for.

Atlas reached a dead end, but he continued to keep his hand on the wall, not even letting himself skip parts of the maze and just chugging on. He soon came upon his first trap, the classic trip-wire trap. Atlas didn’t know what would happen if he tripped on it, but he wasn’t ready to find out just yet, or ever for that matter.

He would rather keep his insides inside of him, as they were meant to be.

He scanned the path briefly to check for any other traps before lightly hopping over the string and making sure not to accidentally activate it.

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He continued to walk with his hand placed firmly on the wall. Time dragged on and more and more traps started to appear in Atlas’s path. He barely avoided a pit trap that looked like it had no end, jumped back as spikes shot from little holes in the floor, and narrowly escaped a boulder smashing into him by jumping off of the wall and landing on the other side of the massive rock.

Atlas continued to ceaselessly press on, avoiding more and more traps. There were poisonous snakes, vats of very suspicious fluids that fell down from above, more spikes, arrow traps, and a couple more trip-wires, each more hard to see than the last. It was getting to the point where Atlas would find a trap every time he turned a corner, so he had to be on constant vigil.

As time passed, the traps continued to get denser and deadlier, and Atlas’s speed was slowed to a crawl. At one point, he was bitten by a snake and had to spend almost an hour recovering so that he could devote all of his attention to the traps that barred his way.

Atlas found himself having to stop every few steps to avoid traps that were scattered every so feet. Atlas slowly walked through the minefield of traps, until he heard a *snap!*

He looked down and saw a thin transparent wire that lay broken at his feet. “Oh-”

There was a loud bang, and Atlas’s vision was filled with deep red fire and pain, lots and lots of pain..

Atlas found himself standing once more at the beginning of the labyrinth. Atlas shivered and felt cold sweat drip down his back, that had been terrifying, and he had been certain he was dead. Atlas cursed softly to himself, he had been doing so well, but he had missed the transparent wire that had lay at his feet. If only he had been even slightly more observant.

Atlas started again, dragging his hand along the wall, but this time he went faster, covering a distance that took him almost an hour to travel in just under twenty minutes. He found out a very nice tidbit after travelling the same path.

All of the traps that had been expended were still out of use, meaning that only the traps he had left alone, such as the trip-wire traps, were still there.

That didn’t mean he shouldn’t be careful though, and Atlas took great pains to keep an eye out for any potential traps that still stood in his way. He arrived back at the spot where he had failed before and found scorch marks running up and down the walls. He shivered again as he saw the destruction that had ended his life, and even though he had been resurrected, it still scarred him.

Atlas’s frightening pace slowed dramatically as he once more came upon the endless traps that spanned the labyrinth. He avoided each and every one, watching for any trip-wires with extra care.

Twice more he found thin transparent wires running across the labyrinth floor, and twice he evaded them. After an hour of slowly moving forward, he found the middle of the labyrinth, and was not pleased at what he saw.

You have completed the first half of the labyrinth! To open the portal out, you must drink the only antidote on the table. If you die you will not be resurrected. Trust your gut instinct to find the antidote.

Before Atlas was a long wooden table with 6 different chalices, each with a different liquid.

Atlas slowly approached the table, looking at each chalice in turn. The first chalice was a simple wooden cup holding what looked like wine. The second cup was a fancy golden cup filled with murky grey liquid. Then a stone cup with deep purple liquid, a glass goblet filled with green liquid, a steel cup with what looked like water in it. The final cup looked as though it was carved out of a skull, and was filled with a mix of blue and grey.

Atlas surveyed the liquids instantly discounting a couple of them. He ignored the one with water, and the one with the murky grey liquid. The reasoning was simple, he knew far too many poisons that were colorless (and/ or odorless) and the murky grey liquid seemed to glow with potent power, and he doubted that it was the antidote.

That still left 4 out of 6 though, and that was 3 to many. After some deliberation, he also crossed out the skull goblet mentally, as it seemed to dumb to put the antidote in the skull cup, as that was easily the most suspicious cup, which made people think of it first.

That left three cups, and that was still too many, he needed to get rid of at least one more. After scanning the three final cups, he picked up the one with the purple liquid, as it was the least likely to be the antidote in his mind.

That left just two more cups, the wooden cup with the wine, and the glass goblet with green liquid. After some deliberation, Atlas picked up the glass goblet and gulped it down. A dreadful feeling spread throughout his body and he instantly picked up the wine cup before draining it. A calming surge spread throughout his body and he felt relief, so it had been the wooden cup after all. Atlas had wondered if the system counted alcohol as poison, but that was obviously not the case.

A portal appeared in front of Atlas and he unhesitatingly stepped through, once more appearing in a drab blank room.

You have completed the Trial of Wisdom!

Atlas watched as the hallway to the next room opened, and he strode through confidently.