It's settled then.

We decided that, according to the riddle, it would be a maze (Felix and Aisha are going to strangle me if I were wrong here).

We're also not clear on when the next game will begin, and we're going to cherish these few minutes we have, to plan up something that could help us during the game resides. And hey, my palace does look like a maze, and there are lots of cases that some servants got lost at some points, I bet that there are still some parts of my palace that I never knew had existed.

I'm no expert at mazes. After finishing our lunches, we decided that we need to think of something to reduce the chances of us getting lost.

"And, since this is a tournament. Do you guys think that there will be a time-limit for this? So that, it would stress us out and would make us want to complete the game as fast as possible?" I asked, "Maybe, or maybe not." Aisha replied. "But I think you might be right though, I don't think the organizers for all Magician Games are evil enough to let groups of kids and teenagers to navigate a maze for all of eternity."

"What you're saying is, that they would give us a difficult maze to complete, in a few minutes?" Felix said, "I... guess so." I think that I'm making too stress-worthy predictions for the next one, I can actually think of running around in circles in a maze for hours. "Any tips on navigating mazes?" I asked, just to be sure that we can make it through together.

"Guys, remember the riddle: Man, it would be easier if you stick with your friends." Felix said, with a confident boss's voice. "I think there's more meaning to that other than to stick together. so besides from saving each other from any obstacles in this maze, we should help to check for dangers for each other."

"Isn't that the same thing as to order someone put themselves in danger to check whether the threat is present?" Aisha asked. Felix slammed his head, face first, to the table as a response to Aisha missing the point. He raised his head, "No Aisha, that's not what I meant. What I was saying is that, we should help others to check for traps and dead ends. Like, to protect them. And not to waste time trying to check the same room again."

Just as I was about to agree with Felix, we heard the sound of a satisfying ding from a bell.

A man in a white shirt with a red tie, walked towards the us, and said, "Contestants of The Magician Games, it is time for your second game, please follow me." He bowed after finishing his sentence, and as he started to walk back from the direction that he came from, we all started to follow him, like everyone at once. I hope that the guy won't feel nervous or awkward with a bunch of teenagers following him as if we wanted his autograph.

We followed him for a while, and he l us downwards and we stopped. And I saw what was in front of us, a door in a tunnel. Is this it? Is this the maze? But it's so, dark... with the only light sources being the torches in there, and they're only slightly lit.

"HELLO! MY FELLOW CONTESTANTS!!!" All of us covered our ears, which could bleeding on the insides due to how loud that voice was when he spoke. "Oh! Sorry about that!" It was no other but our favorite announcer and Guardian, Owen Adamson. He did some adjustments to his trusty microphone and spoke again, "Yeah, I apologize about that..." He cleared his throat, and spoke again. "Hello! My fellow contestants! And the ladies and gentlemen who are watching this from behind the scenes. How are you all doing? And welcome to the second game of The Magician Games!"

"And now, let's introduce, The Endless Rooms!" Sadly, we can't hear any cheering since there aren't any viewers as they are watching this somewhere far away from here, and the name, The Endless Rooms... to be honest, it sounds creepy. And the door leading us into the dark unknown approves that. "According to the riddle that I gave you, the answer for the riddle, is... a maze!" So he was the one who made this riddle, no wonder there was the word, man, in it.

"All you have to do is to navigate through the dark maze and reach the end! But there's one thing, you will have to escape the maze in one hour and forty-five minutes!"

As I predicted, there's a time-limit for this, but through this? We have to navigate through a maze, with only torches as the light sources? It's going to be very dark there, and I don't like dark stuff... "Now! Contestants! Are you ready?" Owen asked with his loud microphone. We stared at him blankly, and we all gave him a blunt 'yes'. " Now! Good luck everybody!" I saw Owen mumbled some words, possibly a move for his Element, and he tapped his staff to the ground.

We all plunged into our own shadows, and re-emerged to somewhere new.

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I looked around, and saw that all of us were in a large dark room that is able to hold all of us, and there's still lots of space. Torches illuminated the surroundings, there were three doors in front of us, and to the left and to the right, three doors appeared as well. "Okay contestants!" We heard Owen's voice, it seems that it was coming from a loudspeaker somewhere, this guy really like loud noises. "And now, it is time, for you to escape The Endless Rooms!"

"All of you can choose any door that you see to begin!" Did he say that we can just choose any door? Does that mean that, any door is safe for us to enter? We just need to hope that there's no traps waiting us in there...

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

We heard the sound of ticking, like a clock or something. Escape the maze in one hour and forty-five minutes! It has begun. The time for us to escape has begun. Now, which door should I choose? We can start from any of them, but I want the one that can lead us to the end much quicker. "I think we should take the middle one." I heard Felix whispered to me, we turned to the middle door, and saw that Gunther has just entered it. We just noticed, that half of the people with us has started to open doors and enter it.

We can't waste a minute or two anymore, we rushed towards the door in the middle, and we stepped into another room. There is one door for each side, and there were a few others with us. Okay, this is where the fun begins, we have to start choosing. "Guys, I have an idea." Aisha whispered to us, we leaned in closer to hear her out. "I'll go in one first, to check whether it is safe or whether it is a wall or a dead end or something." "Sounds good." I replied, "Good luck."

Aisha decided to enter the door on the left, we watched the others enter the middle door or the right door while some had decided to follow Aisha. "Alright guys!" We heard her call out to us. "I think it's safe!" And so, we entered the door and into another room. There were surprisingly lots of other fellows in here with us, I remember seeing some of those guys just entered the door next to the middle. "Oh, this is, the room next to the other door." Felix said, "But, we're fine for now..." We turned to the doors on the middle and to the one on the left, now which one should we choose?

I thought for a moment, the ticking of the timer is really loud and is disrupting me from my thoughts. I think I have an idea, but it won't be effective. "Let's try the middle one." I told them, I opened the door and rushed in, followed by Felix and Aisha and maybe the rest of the people. "Now, maybe we should take the one to the right..." And we did exactly that, I made a little rhythm about that. I decided to we take the middle door again, then the left door, and then left again and...

We discovered our first dead end.

Once we turned to the second left, it was a room, but this one doesn't have doors besides the one that we had used to open, so this must be a dead end. I apologized to the people that put their trust in me, and I chose another door. And I had also learned something from that mistake; when you find a dead end, it will not be the first and last one that you will find.

We ran into multiple rooms without any doors, and sometimes, there are two doors that will lead us to two dead ends. This is starting to get on my nerves, we are probably also wasting time just to enter a dead end or more. "Alright contestants! You have one hour and twenty minutes left!" We heard Owen's voice from a loudspeaker from somewhere. We had already spent minutes running into dead ends, we can't afford to lose just because we had kept running in circles or into dead ends.

The others, probably tired of me leading them all to dead ends and wasting our precious time, had decided to make a vote for our group's new leader. Felix, who got the most votes, became the group's leader. Despite me being a prince, Felix is actually a better leader than me, as he made better plans. He told the group to wait as he and someone he picked (mostly me and Aisha) entered doors and we will call out for them once he's done checking them.

We would then tell them about what we saw behind the rooms we had entered, like how many dead ends and other rooms are there. Felix would then decide on which side we should go through. We did this for every three rooms that we entered, Felix might enter a few dead ends, but I realised that we had encountered fewer dead ends than I did.

The plan was going smoothly, that is until we had met our first trap.

We had entered a room, but this time, it was a long corridor instead, the width isn't wide, there were only two tiles for the floors. "I have a bad feeling about this." I heard a person spoke behind us, "Corridors are always the places for bad stuff to happen." Another replied. "My claustrophobia might be starting to kick in." A person added.

"Alright guys!" Aisha announced, "You all might be right, there could be traps here. Anyone who is claustrophobic, please calm down. We're going to be alright. Let's-"

No offense Aisha, but I don't think you should talk and walk and the same time, cause you won't be paying attention to what is going on outside your conversation. As she walked forward and she stepped on one of the tiles, and it collapsed under her feet.

"Aisha!" Felix and I called out as the others gasped.

"Element of Water, First position, Aquatic Forgery!"

We heard her chant from the tile, which was now currently a pitch black hole. "Alright guys! I'm good! Pull me up!" We rushed forward, and saw that she is suspending in mid-air. No, she created something big enough out of water to make a floor in order to stop her from completely falling to the bottom, we reached out for her hands and pulled her up, and the floor that she created melted back into water and disappeared into the darkness.

We collapsed to our feet after we managed to save Aisha, with the others rushing towards us to help us to get up. "You alright?" Felix asked, "I'm fine." Aisha replied and panted, "Thanks for helping." We looked ahead, with steps to cover in order to make it across the corridor. "Great." I mumbled, "This is going to suck." Everyone else nodded in agreement and we all sighed.