Olly Briggs

Olly blinked desperately, trying to process what had just happened. He was still seated at his desk, finding it had remained mostly in place despite the tremors they had felt. As he gained vision in the low light, it seemed like the four walls of the exam room had turned to dirt, which surrounded them on all four sides. He observed that there was a faint golden glow to the walls themselves.

He wasn’t alone, to his relief. As he got to his feet he could make out at least several dozen other human-shaped forms around him. They stirred and got to their feet, one by one. Some cried out in fear, while others seemed shell-shocked.

“Olly!” a voice sharply called to him. It was Sarah. He extended a hand out to help her up, hoisting her gently to her feet.

“The proctor is injured!” someone exclaimed from somewhere near the front of the dimly lit chamber.

Without wasting any time, Sarah rushed over with Olly in pursuit. They found the proctor propped up against the wall, a rivulet of blood trickling from his hairline. There was a nasty gash on his thigh, visible through the torn fabric of his pants.

“Go find something to wrap his wounds!” Sarah called to a bystander. They snapped into action and hustled off.

This was enough to send Olly into action. “You three,” he pointed at another huddled group, “Go look for anyone else with injuries, report back here when you’re done.”

“Sir, what happened?” Sarah demanded, gently shaking his shoulders to get him to wake up.

His eyes seemed slightly unfocused. “Don’t know,” he mumbled weakly, “We need to find a way out of here...”

He trailed off, his head lolled to his chest. Sarah felt for his pulse.

“Still alive,” she said, relieved.

“What the hell happened to us?!” The boy with the private school uniform made his way over to them. He looked furious rather than afraid. Olly decided that he might be more useful than the people milling about.

“Well, the proctor says we need to find a way out, so we might as well get started if you want to help,” Olly suggested, “I’m Olly and this is Sarah. What’s your name?”

“Bowen. Ugh, this is a disaster. I didn’t even want to be here, my father just wanted me to write this stupid test. If I die down here I bet he’ll regret it!”

A lump inadvertently formed in Olly’s throat. He wondered if his uncle was worried. Worst yet, he wondered if his uncle had been part of the collapse. The thought immediately rocked him, and he felt an inherent urge to go lean into one of the walls for support. They could all be in danger, which meant they were totally cut off and didn’t have a way to call for help.

Before he could get too far down into his spiral one of three students came back. “No one else is injured,” she confirmed.

“That’s great,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady, “What about an exit? Did you see any?”

She shook her head no.

His heart sank. “We could run out of oxygen down here. We don’t know if anyone else is safe either or if help is coming.”

“So we better not panic then,” Bowen chimed in. He deftly maneuvered over to them, his anger apparently dissipating at the idea of potentially calling the shots.

Sarah nodded, “Good idea, I’m going to see what sort of skills people have, or look and see if there’s any types of tools we can use down here.”

“I can do crowd control,” Olly offered, “I’ve worked in a games room, things have been getting dicey lately,” he admitted.

“You work in a games room?” Bowen asked, there was surprise in his voice and, to Olly's immediate displeasure, the hint that he found it distasteful.

“Is that going to be a problem?” Olly practically growled back in response.

In the back of his mind, he knew that the people in the sixteenth borough calling him out for believing he was above them wouldn’t be the worst of his problems. He knew that the mayor only backed him as a favour to his uncle, and he never would have given Olly a second glance otherwise. If he got into the Academy, he would have to face the prejudice of people who came from higher social backgrounds than him.

He would have to be prepared to deal with it there, but he was not about to take it here. Not while they were underground in what could be their potential grave.

Bowen froze, seemingly unsure of how to respond. Olly didn’t know for sure, but if he had to guess he thought that Bowen probably never had many people talk back to him. “If we die down here, there’s no difference between you or me,” Olly said darkly.

“Bowen, why don’t you go check for injured people?” Sarah suggested lightly, before either of them could escalate the situation.

Bowen nodded and slipped off without another word.

“Are you still good for crowd control?” she asked gently.

Olly relaxed his shoulders, realizing he was clenching his fists. “Yeah, yeah I’m good. What should we do once we’ve gathered helpers and kept the room calm?”

“I think we’ll need to start looking for weak spots for a potential way out. I suspect since we seemed to have fallen down, and the room is relatively intact, we might be able to go up.”

“Yeah, sounds likely.” He looked around. It was strange, he thought as he looked closer. The floor still had the same appearance as the original room. It even looked clean, if not for the desks and chairs scattered in a panic. The walls looked earthen and felt cool, as he reached out to touch one. He couldn’t really see the ceiling in the low light.

They parted and he went from group to group, asking people how they were and trying to see what kind of skills they had. Most had formed clumps of two or three, and when he found stragglers he ushered them into other groups, assuring them that help would be on the way and that they had a plan to get out. It was better for people to not be alone, and he tried to find the calmest people of each small group to keep everyone else's minds off of the situation.

A few people came forward offering help, and he sent them to Sarah. She was spearheading the stacking of desks and chairs towards the top of the ceiling in one spot.

He had just finished his rounds, when Bowen intercepted him again. “Look, I just want to tell you that I don’t have a problem with you, sorry about that. I was just surprised, that's all.”

“Didn’t expect someone from a games room to be taking the aptitude test?” Olly asked wryly.

“A bit, not that it’s a bad thing!” he said hurriedly, trying hard to avoid a confrontation in a way that made Olly smirk, “For my last year of schooling, I went to a prep school that specifically readied students for the Cartographers’ Guild. They assessed your readiness to take the aptitude test and sponsored the registration fee if you met their expectations. If you didn’t qualify at the school level, they didn’t cover the fee or endorse you. They only wanted those who had a chance of success so that they could maintain a high acceptance rate claim. So if you got this far without any of that, I’m impressed.”

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Olly frowned. “Registration fee?”

“Yeah, it’s a bit astronomical. Most people and their families can’t cover it themselves so they seek sponsors. Didn’t you know about that?” Bowen looked confused.

“Sure, yeah, sorry. That detail slipped my mind,” Olly said dismissively. He hadn’t known about that detail. It was another thing to ask his uncle if he ever got the chance. The thought once again caused his chest to constrict tightly. He hoped he was alright. For a brief minute, he thought he felt the embers of something igniting, deep within his mind. The whispers of something licked at his senses, fuelling a compulsion he couldn't quite understand.

"Are we good?” Bowen asked hopefully.

“Yeah, yeah, we’re good,” Olly assured him, still deep in thought, reaching out a hand once more to touch one of the walls. He let his hand rest on the earth; it struck him as odd. It had the appearance of earth, but it was smooth to the touch, and he couldn’t pick off flecks of dirt.

“Doesn’t this look… weird?” he asked Bowen cautiously, gesturing around, “It feels weird, something about this doesn’t seem normal. If this was a true cave-in I’d expect the roof to cave in and for there to be dirt and debris everywhere. This just seems too clean.”

The proctor was nearby and he seemed to stir, though when Olly looked over at him he stilled once more.

Bowen frowned. “Maybe it was a type of space-time collapse, like that fatal tunnel collapse? We studied them in school. They don’t collapse like a hole in the ground would. And we did feel those tremors; it felt like I was freefalling for a moment.”

“Maybe…” Olly acknowledged, but he remained skeptical, “But there was no crash, no landing. We all were in our seats, weren’t we? If we actually fell, wouldn’t we be scattered about? Wouldn't we expect more injuries?”

“I guess. Hey, wouldn’t it be easy if we could just punch a tunnel out of here? I wonder if that’s how they’re going to find us?” Bowen suggested.

The answer struck Olly right then and there. A tunnel! Yes. If this was a tunnel collapse, there would have to be a tunnel in the first place.

“This wasn’t a collapse, it was a test!” Olly exclaimed, “It must be the magical portion of the test. So that means there should be a way out.” He was sure that was the answer.

The mental sensation he had experienced disappeared immediately with the thought. He was certain it was telling him he had found the answer to this puzzle.

Bowen looked incredulous. “They have never done a practical component of a test before, my tutors would've told me about that! They did everything they could to prepare us for the test so that there wouldn't be surprises."

“First time for everything. Let’s go back to Sarah, there’s got to be a way out somewhere, so let's find it.”

They hurried their way over to the makeshift pile of desks and found Sarah at the top.

“I can hear something!” she exclaimed, the crowd around the pile of desks began shushing themselves as she strained to listen.

Olly scrambled up to meet her. As he looked at the ceiling he realized it was just the exam room ceiling, though the gold glow didn’t quite extend up far enough to illuminate it properly. “Listen, this isn’t what we think it is. There’s a way out, they’re testing us to figure out how.”

“Huh,” she wrinkled her nose distastefully, “Seems shady, but I might believe you if not for this, listen. Can you hear that?” She pointed upwards. Olly strained his ears, he could just make out a voice.

“Is anybody down there? If so, help is on the way. We’re going to begin rescue extraction efforts momentarily. Make your way over to the emergency tunnel site.” The voice kept repeating itself periodically.

He frowned. It poked holes in his theory immediately. “But... it feels wrong. How did you know to come up here? And what emergency tunnel site could they mean?”

“I don’t know, it just felt like it made sense to me to go high. Like something told me I should be up here, so I just started stacking because this spot seemed as good as any.”

Yes, that made sense to him. “Okay, so you just knew that this was the right spot. You felt the pull. I experienced it, once, when I was out in the woods. It’s like it called to me. Was it like that?”

She seemed like she could be convinced. “Yeah, that's kind of what it was like. Okay, do you feel a pull now too?”

“I… I don’t, that’s the thing.” Without warning, tears prickled at the corners of his eyes. He was so sure, he wanted so badly to be right. But he didn't feel anything. No pull, certainly not one up here at all. “Something seemed to react within me, earlier. It led me to reach out and touch the wall over there, but then nothing. I’ve experienced magic, but I can’t control it. It’s so pointless.”

She softened. “Hey, it’s okay. One way or the other, we’re getting out of here. Either it’s a test and there's nothing to worry about, or it’s real and they’re on their way right now.”

Bowen made his way up to them. “Any luck guys?” However, before they could respond he spun his head around wildly.

“Do you feel that?” he questioned, grabbing Olly’s arm, hard.

Olly knew what he was feeling. “Bowen, you said you were in a prep school for potential Cartographers, right? Does anything around here stand out to you?” Olly probed, gesturing around.

Bowen looked around, unsure. “Yes, but I can’t pinpoint it exactly. I think something’s up there potentially.” He pointed at the furthest corner. It was shrouded entirely in darkness.

Sarah scrambled down and immediately began giving directions. “We need a new stack in that corner, but make it safe enough for everyone to be able to climb up it.”

The crowd of helpers obliged and within minutes the makeshift scaffold of desks was in place. Sarah, Bowen, and Olly climbed up as a group.

They had reached the top; squinting through the darkness, Sarah pointed at something beyond Olly’s vision.

“There,” she said definitively, “I can see the golden outline of a door. Do either of you see it?”

Both Bowen and Olly shook their heads. Olly couldn’t see or feel anything, but his heart rate quickened at the prospect of them potentially escaping.

“Okay, we’re going to try it together first, and then we’ll come back for you all if this works!” Sarah called down to the crowd.

She extended her hands to the both of them, and they each took one. “Okay, count of three. Three. Two. One.”

They stepped forward, blindly trusting that some kind of doorway would open for them. As he felt his face collide with the wall, Olly thought it had failed. However, he realized quickly, as he opened his eyes, that it had only failed for him.

Sarah and Bowen were gone and seemingly weren’t coming back. He froze but then slammed his fists into the wall Sarah had declared an outline to exist.

“No. NO! Fuck!” he swore.

He stepped back but caught himself before he could stumble off the stack of desks. That was it. Either it was a test, and he had failed, or they had been swallowed into an abyss of collapsed tunnel. He had pushed them into this, he had been so sure it was the right move. He wanted to vomit, he wanted to cry, but found he couldn’t do much except walk away and run his hands through his hair.

The other students looked equally horrified. No one seemed to be able to see what Sarah was referring to; some ran up to investigate the area, but none found the resolve to attempt to touch it.

Wails cut through the room and panic began spreading around him. He tried to put aside his own fear and do more crowd control.

“H-hey, listen, I’m sure it’s fine. L-let’s all just sit back and wait for rescuers to find us. We know they’re coming now that Sarah and Bowen escaped,” he tried to soothe a group that had begun to sob.

They didn’t listen to him. Nobody was listening to anyone. The helplessness became stifling. He wished he was at home, dreaming of a lifetime where he hadn’t gone down this pointless pathway.

Through the darkness, his uncle came to his mind once more. But this time it wasn't just the idea of Olly seeing him again, instead his voice rang through Olly's mind.

“Come on kid, you can do it.”

Olly opened his eyes. The helplessness in his chest was being emptied and replaced with resolve. He felt the pull, it took him away from the stack of desks and to a spot in the opposite corner of the room. The long-forgotten proctor was still in his spot, but instead of remaining unconscious Olly found that he was watching him intently.

“What are you doing?” the proctor asked, looking confused.

Olly ignored him and squared up with the spot that called to him and put his hand in front of him. Digging deep within he felt the warm rush of magic to his fingertips and unleashed the power building behind it.

There was a mighty crack as the wall before him seemed to morph and tear, revealing the very entrance they had entered into the original room. With another surge of magic he blasted the door apart, a golden fractal pattern striking brilliantly across it before it splintered into thousands of pieces, revealing the way out. The earthy-looking walls seemed to dissolve and reform back into the normal exam room walls. He felt his strength zapping quickly, and he lowered his hand, feeling vindicated. The way out that had always been there, just obscured from them.

He turned to see his fellow exam takers, looking stunned beyond words. The proctor got to his feet, “injuries” long forgotten. He saw the stack of desks at the far end and could indeed see a hole in the top, previously covered by a now tattered-looking piece of fabric.

The last thing he saw before he passed out was the Grandmasters, Tarry Bennett, and his uncle rushing towards him, wearing stunned expressions on their faces.

The world went black.