“To master time is to abandon idleness; to achieve mastery, a life must bend to its proper flow.” — The Maker’s Code, Chapter 7, Line 3

The door shut behind me, leaving me with just the sound of an irritating ticking echoing through the white room like a hundred little needles tapping against glass.

“You know, I don’t think it counts as Dungeon Run when you’re literally kidnapping a guy and forcing him through it!” I yelled at no one in particular.

I turned around, giving it the biggest world-weary sigh I could manage. If the Dungeon cared any about my histrionics, it didn’t show any sign. I was tempted to sit down and wait it out – it was surprising how effective passive non-compliance could be in almost all circumstances – but one look around the room suggested this was not going to be one of them.

The space in which I was trapped was pretty empty - all white walls and flat stones underfoot - save for the enormous, suspended hourglass at its centre. The sand inside was flowing upward, defying gravity in a slow spirals.

And beneath the soft tick of the hourglass – “still shouldn’t be fucking ticking, dude. Pick an horological vibe!” - a different beat thudded, one heavier and deadder. A low, steady tock joining the annoying tick.

The repeat notification – how I was loving all these thoughtful reminders about how doomed I was – blinked in my vision.

> First Challenge: Concept of Time

> Objective: Master the flow of time within this room. Escape within one cycle, or become part of the Well of Ascension indefinitely.

‘Become part of the Well indefinitely.’ Wonderful. Keep those stakes nice and low. However, before I could even think about exploring further, another set of rules appeared. Say what you like about The Maker, he does love a rulebook.

> Dungeon Mechanics Activated:

> - Time Distortion: The room operates under non-linear time flow. Expect variations in the speed of actions.

> - Success Threshold: The chamber requires completion within the designated time. Only strict adherence will yield passage.

> - Penalty for Idleness: Stagnation in action will increase the difficulty of the trial.

“Penalty for idleness?” I said to the hourglass. “All a bit petty, don’t you think? I get you don’t like me, but specifically designing rules to throw shade my way . . .”

“Time is a resource to be spent,” a replying voice echoed through the room. “A wise man extracts every ounce from each moment.”

“Yep, which is absolutely why a lie-in is the best possible start to a day.”

Silence.

Apparently banter time was over.

The sound of the tick and the tock intensified and the far-too white walls appeared to be pressing in around me. I could swear the rhythm of that noise grew faster as I waited to see what would happen next. Then a low buzz joined the sound of the tick-tocking as the base of the hourglass began to rotate and I could see a glowing series of footprints surrounding it - toes facing in the opposite direction of the rotation - like the perkiest treadmill in the world.

“Okay. Fine. I get it. Look, mate, this isn’t a subtle puzzle. I see the point. You want me to move around the hourglass and keep in time with the clock’s pace, right? I guess I’m supposed to learn something profound about the nature of time whilst having a jolly little jog?”

This didn't fill me full of joy. Back home. It won't surprise you to hear that, back home, I had a pretty flexible relationship with time. Days could come and go, but as long as I did the bare minimum to get by, I’d be absolutely fine. I get that this wasn’t an especially dynamic way to live my life, but - counterpoint -neither did I ever find myself having to go for a run too often. So who's the real winner here?

In fact, now I think about it, my impromptu little dash on that final morning is kind of the whole reason I ended up in this world in the first place, isn't it. When you look at it like that, me jogging has a literal fatality score attached to it . . .

But, irrespective of my musings, the tick and the tock carried on pulsing, and now the sound was starting to press down on my chest, building an almost physically uncomfortable pressure. It felt like the passing seconds themselves were leaning over my shoulder as they vanished into the distance, poking me in the heart and screaming, 'Stop wasting us!'

I suddenly had a whole new appreciation for 'killing time'

Then, just when I was sure I couldn't stand the drama anymore, the sand in the hourglass turned bright blue and an elaborate clock face shimmered into being in the air above it. This clock was ticking backwards from sixty seconds. Because, of course it was.

> Task Activated: Synchronize with the Maker’s rhythm for sixty seconds. Penalty for pauses.

Okay, so we were doing this are we?

I took a step forward onto the glowing treadmill and began walking, noticing a slight delay. It was like I was moving through something thick and invisible, but I was able to keep stepping. And as I did, the tick sounded, and the delay vanished.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

So the catch here was to move exactly in time with the ticking sound, was it? Not too tricky. Maybe I could blag my way through this . . .

“Fine,” I said, “I’ll play this your way.” But then my foot dragged slightly and missed the beat by half a second.

A notification appeared in bright red.

> Penalty Triggered.

> - Time distortion increasing by 10%.

And then the treadmill sped up. It was still nothing much worse than walking pace, but I wasn't wild about that turn of events. I tried to step off it, but my feet wouldn't detach. Oh, great. My day is just getting better and better. I had a brief - very visual - image of a decaying corpse spinning round and round on this thing long after it had walked me to death.

I brought myself into rhythm with the ticking and tocking, this time stepping precisely in time with the beat. There was no further speeding up in the pace. I exhaled, feeling the pressure ease up slightly. Just keep moving, just keep moving.

But a voice in the back of my mind grumbled in protest, reminding me that this entire room, this entire exercise, was everything I despised.

Never mind the exercise. It was the enforced structure. The discipline. The minute-by-minute self-management. There was no room for idleness here, no space for detours or reflections. No time to stand and stare.

This wasn’t just a physically hum drum task - and that was pissing me off as it was - but there was something about complying with this that felt like I was going against . . . did I have principles in this world? I couldn’t even imagine what the Great Slacker would think about all this. Probably some variation of “What a load of bollocks,” if I had to guess. Or perhaps something a touch more mystical than that.

“Time waits for no one,” the voice rang out, breaking my attempts at concentration. “And in its waiting, nothing is gained. Purpose requires movement, always forward, always aligned.”

Yeah, I wasn't feeling that at all. If you were your Class, then I was very much not home for all this 'purpose requires movement' bullshit. “Oh, do fuck off, you giant killjoy!”

In response, the timer flashed twice above the hourglass - speeding up the treadmill - and then, as well as the increased exertion (thank the Slacker I'd stuck a bit more into Stamina before dropping down in here), I felt a more metaphysical struggle begin. It was all I could to do to ignore the crushing need to be on schedule, to fixate on meeting the deadline of one heartbeat after another. Of moving forward because the room demanded it and it was the only way to live my life.

A headache started to form - but nowhere as mundane as in the centre of my head. It was like my Core was being squeezed tight. I got a wild thought in my head that it was like something was trying to . . . what? Dislodge my Class.

Nah. I wasn't having this. Running around on a treadmill to a beat wasn’t mastery of time, was it? This was pretty much the embodiment of being enslaved to it.

Yet, despite my growing ambivalence, I forced myself to keep going, to walk in a circle around the hourglass in time with the ticking. But every time I misstepped, the penalty pinged again.

> Penalty Triggered.

> - Time distortion increasing by 20%.

Everything - apart from the treadmill - slowed and each of my steps started to feel heavier. I could feel exhaustion creeping into my arms and legs now, a sluggish ache that seeped into my muscles, binding me tighter to the ticking sound, forcing me to keep in time or suffer worse.

And that’s when the absurdity of it all hit me.

Here I was, doing exactly what the room wanted, following a rhythm just for the sake of it. Where was the value in it? How did this make me stronger, wiser, or any of all those other things I was supposed to be learning? This wasn’t mastery; it was mindless adherence.

“Enough,” I said aloud, stopping dead in my tracks. I felt a moment of pressure as my feet tried to keep following the rhythm, but they finally obeyed me and stopped.

The ticking, though, intensified, hammering through the room.

> Severe Penalty for Stagnation

> - Time distortion increasing by 50%

> - Failure imminent. Resume movement.

"Fuck. You."

I might even have started to give a tuneful little whistle.

The pressure in the room increased and my head pounded with the rhythmic drum-beat assault. My every instinct screamed to move. To avoid the punishment. To take the path of least resistance. After all, sometimes knuckling down and doing what you were told was as much the point of slacking as it was refusing to engage.

But wasn’t that exactly what this room wanted? To turn my actions into automatic, mindless reflexes? To kill any spark of idleness or doubt. Or freedom. “If you’re listening, Maker,” I said, “you can take this rhythm and shove it.” Hey, it wasn't Mel painted in blue with a giant sword, but it was the best I could do in the circumstances.

The room responded with silence, the ticking paused as though it, too, was considering what I’d said. For just a second, I wondered if I’d somehow broken the game – yay, go me! – as if my outright rejection of its commands had triggered something within it.

But then a notification appeared, cold and final.

> Severe Breach of Protocol

> Consequence: Final Trial Initiated

The hourglass exploded. Its sand suspended in the air, hovering in a slow, surreal pattern. Then the ticking resumed, louder than before but now irregular, echoing erratically in the space around me.

A new timer appeared, this one counting down from thirty seconds.

> Final Trial: Resist the flow of time.

“You know what, mate? I reckon my only winning move here is to ignore 'the flow of time'. I repeat my earlier commentary. Fuck. You.”

And in that moment, I let go of any thought of matching the ticking rhythm. I was not here for falling into line with any of The Maker’s imposed structures. If there was one thing everyone knew about James Brooks, is was that he was absolutely not a slave to the clock. I let my mind drift, not toward any goal in particular, but away from the need for any goal whatsoever.

And slowly - ever so slowly - something strange happened.

The tick and tock grew softer. Becoming background noise I no longer needed to listen to. The terrible pressure on my core lifted and all of the resistance against me moving faded. A wonderful calmness settled over me. It wasn’t surrender; it was something else—it was a release from the need to participate.

The room shifted. The fractured hourglass - and all the sand - was gone. That awful ticking had silenced.

In its place, on the far side of the room, was suddenly a door. As with the one that had suckered me in here in the first place, its edges were faintly glowing as if inviting me to pass through.

A new notification popped up.

> Challenge Complete: Concept of Time

> Insight Gained: True mastery of time lies not in controlling its flow but in knowing when to let go.

The last part made me grin.

It sounded almost like something the Slacker would say. Him or Elsa.

But, as the cold very much was bothering me right now, I thought that maybe - just maybe - the lazy old codger wasn’t completely out of the game, after all.