[https://img.wattpad.com/story_parts/1368377899/images/177707efe711f76c386532457965.png]

Sophie and Trom were standing on top of a frozen waterfall. Sharp daylight was shining down, reflecting off the ice. In front of them, right at the waterfall's edge, was a gate made out of ice. It was locked, but through the carvings in the gate doors they could see a series of small, rectangular platforms that were hovering in the air, together forming a staircase that led up into the sky.

It was locked, but through the carvings in the gate doors they could see a series of small, rectangular platforms that were hovering in the air, together forming a staircase that led up into the sky [https://img.wattpad.com/f44c19fd5d0e1f17ce3b34e5a913de8bd7c29ae2/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f325651396e33485f7247627862513d3d2d313336383337373839392e313737373037633236333834623835623638383536313834373037392e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"Where do you think we are?" Sophie asked.

"No idea," Trom replied, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the intense glare of the icy reflection. Luckily a cloud soon passed in front of the sun so they could stop squinting.

"Trom! Sophie!"

They both turned to look and saw Loki skating towards them. Trom raised his hand and waved to him.

"I wonder how come he can remember both of us? It's not like we were there at the same time when we solved the first riddle," Sophie wondered out loud.

Trom just shrugged. "I'm sure there's some complicated magical explanation. It's easier not to think about it too much."

Loki came to a stop right in front of them.

"How did you guys get here?" he asked, sounding impressed.

"We went through another door from the Dimension Room," Sophie answered. "Um, where is 'here'?"

"Here? This is the place that the heavens guided me to!" Loki said.

"So you found all the lights!" Trom said excitedly.

Loki nodded, pride clear on his face. "I did! Let that be a lesson to all those old Jotuns and trolls that didn't believe in us! They don't know when they're in the company of real genius!" Loki placed his right index finger on his nose and pointed towards Trom with his left. Trom smiled and returned the odd gesture.

"Is that some kind of troll greeting?" Sophie asked, trying to keep up with what was happening. She felt a little bit left out by how close Trom and Loki seemed already.

"Just a thing we made up," Trom said casually. "How long did it take you to find this place, Loki?"

"Just a couple of weeks. But that's nothing compared to how long it took me to find the first flames!"

"A couple of weeks!?" Sophie exclaimed. From her perspective it couldn't have been more than 20 minutes since she'd last seen Loki, and for Trom it had to be minutes. "What ARE those doors?"

"Like I said: It's magic, it's complicated."

Loki walked over to the icy gate. "Now, how do we get through this? I don't suppose you two have the key?"

"I guess we could start by reading what it says," Trom suggested, pointing at some words written above the gates.

Nine identical empty circles adorn this gate,

But the gate will not open until the nine spaces are no longer circles

The nine circles were placed on the frame of the gate. Three on the right side, three on the left, and three on the icy frame above the gate doors.

"So it doesn't like circles, does it?" Loki muttered, scratching his head. "What would it prefer, triangles? Octagons? An exquisitely carved ice miniature of Odin's private privy?"

"Probably not the last one. But it'd be nice if it was more specific," Trom said grouchily.

Sophie walked over to the right side of the gate, where three of the circles were. Trom trudged over to the ones on the opposite side.

Sophie looked closely at the carved ice circles. There was a thin layer of frost on them, like on the windows of her parents' car in winter. She'd always use her finger to draw images in the frost. Could she do the same here?

She raised her hand and ran her finger down in an arc from the top of the circle to the bottom. Now it looked like a crescent moon. The circle that Sophie had been drawing on lit up with a blue glow.

"What did you do?" Trom asked, but he quickly caught on when he saw Sophie's drawing. "Is that all it takes?"

He walked over to another circle and drew a spiral inside it. Once he finished, his circle lit up as well. Sophie and Trom started work on the next ones right away. Loki climbed up to reach the three circles at the top, and soon he had drawn a rune, a castle and a crown. Sophie drew a sun and the yin and yang symbol, while Trom drew a river and a bird.

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

All nine spaces shone brightly and the gates opened up before them, granting access to the floating staircase that led up into the sky. Loki and Sophie eagerly stepped towards it, but Trom kept looking around like he was searching for something. With a disappointed look, he gave up and followed the other two.

"What were you looking for?" Sophie asked.

"The door back. I was hoping that opening the gate would be the challenge and we could move on."

"But we haven't found the bird that was on the door yet... Wait, was that why you drew a bird in your circle?"

Trom shrugged. "Figured it was worth a shot."

Sophie agreed. Even though it hadn't worked, it was a good idea, and one that hadn't occurred to her at all. Honestly, she was a bit surprised that Trom had thought that far ahead.

"Do you think the bird will be at the top of the stairs?" she asked, as they started walking up the steps, which continued so far up into the sky that they broke through the clouds.

"It better be! My legs are already tired from walking across all those bridges, and now we've got stairs too. Once we get home, I'm not walking for a week!"

"I wonder what kind of bird it is we need to find. Do you know any birds that live near the White Desert?"

"Before today I'd never even heard of the White Desert. So if you want to hear the local trivia, you'll have to ask Beto once he makes it out of that first door."

Sophie was a bit disappointed by that. Since she'd only studied at the School of Wonders for a week, there were limits to what she knew about the magical world herself, though she'd read as much as she could to make up for it. In fact, it felt like she'd read as much in the past week as she had in her whole life.

They walked in silence for a while. Loki was looking upwards, following the stairs with his eyes, Sophie was busy working through her thoughts, and Trom just stared down at the steps as he struggled to jump from one to another.

"Trom?" Sophie asked.

"Yeah?" he wheezed.

She looked at Loki as he leapt from step to step. "Is it true that people in the magical world aren't very creative?"

"Most folks there are about as creative as Loki is – and a lot of them are much, much worse."

"The people at school don't seem that uncreative, though."

Trom sighed. "If you wanna know this kinda stuff, you should really ask Beto or Nimum. But I think it's something about Unum being connected to the human world, which means that the creativity kinda... flows through to the students. And the magical world desperately needs more people who can be creative."

"How come?" [https://img.wattpad.com/16e281e4838557512ec7437abc8c185aa8f6bbe2/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f6345736c676b6a6f6b52545141413d3d2d313336383337373839392e313737373037633739383362343532313838343338363935363832352e6a7067?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]

"How come?"

"Because something that you humans can achieve in a decade would probably take us hundreds of years. So our world hardly ever changes or advances in any way... Then again, some people prefer it that way. They like it when things stay the same and they don't feel the need for new ideas, even if they'd make their lives easier." Trom grimaced, like he was reminded of something unpleasant.

"But Loki is trying to do something. He wants to find that power source and create a great kingdom. That sounds like something new and different!"

Trom shrugged. "Stuff like that hardly ever works out. And if the odds of success are that low, what's the point of even trying...?"

Sophie sensed a deep sadness in Trom's voice.

"But you've still gotta try though! Otherwise the odds will definitely be zero!" Sophie said, trying to sound as encouraging as possible.

"Usually it'd be better to not even try."

She looked at him, puzzled. "Why would it be better not to try?"

"'Cause when you fail, the consequences can be much worse than just doing nothing in the first place."

A couple of puzzle pieces suddenly clicked together in Sophie's mind. She turned around to look directly at Trom.

"Trom, did you get into trouble because something went wrong with one of your ideas?"

The question seemed to take Trom entirely by surprise and he grew quiet. After a while, Sophie thought he wasn't going to say anything at all, so she turned around and started to walk up the stairs again.

"I tried to build a raft, but it sank along with all the stuff I was transporting," he said tersely.

Sophie spun back around. "Why were you transporting things?"

"So, the place I'm from is called the Swirling Valley..."

"Why's it called that?" Sophie interjected.

"'Cause there's a river that runs through the whole valley in a spiral shape and ends in a lake in the middle. It's a huge hassle."

"Why? I think it sounds neat with a river like that."

"Just let me finish. So, the trolls in the Swirling Valley are mostly farmers, and every time we need to transport something, we have to walk for miles and miles along the river just to get to the other shore. But then, after I started studying at The School of Wonders, I suddenly realized how we could solve the problem. So I suggested that we could build a bridge across the river, made out of stone and wood, and then our lives would be so much easier. But the adults all thought that it'd go against tradition. They said they'd always transported their wares the long way around, and they wanted to keep it that way."

Sophie thought back to Loki and Trom's odd greeting. Maybe having their ideas rejected was something they had in common.

"That's a good idea, though! They'd save so much time on their work. You should have just built it yourself and shown them all how wrong they were!"

"Psh, yeah, like I'm just gonna build the whole thing myself. Do you know how much work that would be? But I figured it'd be easier to build a raft, so that's what I decided to do, one week ago. I found a whole bunch of branches and tied them together with some rope, and then I had a raft. That way I could transport goods up and down the river much faster, and the raft could carry much more stuff than a single person could."

"Great idea!"

"It was until it sank. I guess the branches I'd collected weren't strong enough, and the knots I'd tied on the rope weren't any good either."

"Then what did you do?"

"I gave up on the whole stupid idea. It had taken me hours to even find those branches, and even longer to put together the raft! Just imagine how long it would take to find enough proper wood and learn how to tie everything together just right. It's just way too much work!"

"But wouldn't it be worth it if it actually worked? Everyone in the Swirling Valley's lives would be so much easier!"

"Doesn't matter. Everyone in the Swirling Valley hates me anyway. They all got furious when my raft sank with their stuff on it, and my parents had to take on extra work just to make up for the stuff that I'd lost the valley. So even my family is mad at me. That's another reason why I stopped."

Sophie grew quiet. It certainly didn't sound like a good experience. There was more stuff she wanted to ask, but Trom seemed to be done talking about it.

There was more stuff she wanted to ask, but Trom seemed to be done talking about it [https://img.wattpad.com/43b6f7e4fff2689ad2e7555e001f1e23d0cf2dfc/68747470733a2f2f73332e616d617a6f6e6177732e636f6d2f776174747061642d6d656469612d736572766963652f53746f7279496d6167652f6542673869726c377678354454773d3d2d313336383337373839392e313737373037643661303362636166353539353934313633383633352e706e67?s=fit&w=1280&h=1280]