“Am I your servant, my lady?” I asked with a bit of sarcasm.

Rose ignored my remark. She was too lost in her thoughts, likely thinking about her parents, her brother, and the blue light that consumed her family. A gloomy expression was smeared across her face, she hurt. Her family had disappeared like a ghost in an exorcism: gone forever. But now she was not so sure. And the implications of that haunted her. She stared at the ceiling, but I knew she was really looking inward.

“Rose.” I said, as I poked her dejected face. “Are you even listening?”

No response. Great. I pivoted my head to look at Dren. I didn’t dare poke his face. He looked like he wanted to bite me. Greenish foam oozed out of his slack-jawed mouth.

I gritted my teeth as I realized I was the only sane person here. Some people might point out that would make me the least sane one here considering a confrontation with a terror bunny. They’d probably be right.

There was much to solve and little time to solve it. While the Terror Bunny would likely honor his agreement, that agreement didn’t extend to the other cutthroat mercenaries likely sent after us. This was not paranoia. It was a healthy bit of skepticism.This interactive story experience needed to be solved now. I was certain the trackers were still embedded in our magic, relaying the signal of our location back to the Church, the Lawyers, or whoever in heaven was trying to murder us. Ok, that might’ve been paranoia.

I stared at the picture trying to make out what the sun had anything to do with this chamber, or the ruins, or the statue. I was certain the ruins were the same as the ruins in the picture book, an archaic and ancient depiction of what Nosturdam used to be. The rising and setting sun was something that greeted me daily throughout my life before I took the path of mucking around with dead things. Frankly, I’d become accustomed to dark and damp places, and didn’t care for the light. It was… overwhelming. Sort of like how salt on scrambled eggs was too spicy for old hag Gertrude.

Nevertheless, I looked at the rays of sunshine the man was pointing at. I strained my eyes as I stared at it. Maybe if I strained my eyes harder, I’d somehow figure it out. That was, unfortunately, not how puzzles worked.

“What if the sun is not the sun? What if it is a giant tentacle monster?” I surmised, desperate to uncover the truth. Admittedly the sun looked more like a sun than a tentacle monster; the rays of sunlight shooting were straight and not tentacle-like. Also, there was no face. It was a well-known fact that tentacle monsters had faces. How else would they devour sailors?

So as my mind ineffectively wandered away from tentacles (No, I don’t have an obsession with them.), I began taking in my surroundings. I finally decided to look up.

“Took you long enough.” Rose remarked with an attitude I didn’t appreciate.

“Took me long enough? I just discovered how this puzzle works, while you’ve been lying on the floor looking at the ceil… Oh, well.”

I deflated just a little bit.

“Isn’t it a bit too obvious?” I asked.

“That was what I was thinking.”

“It’s cus they already figurreed it ouch.” slurred Dren.

“Pardon? I didn’t quite catch that?”

“It bercuz they alrreaaady fookin solved itch.”

“Who?”

“The ded purple, geeenus.”

“What does a genie have to do with any of this, Dren? Maybe clean the foam off your mouth before you spew more stupidity.” Rose interjected.

I nodded in agreement.

Dren let out a deep sigh. There was no point in reasoning with idiots.

On the roof of the building, was a glowing stone that shone dimly, as if its power source was slowly fading. Asymmetric etches were like paths winding to the Capital; they flickered as the residual power wormed its way into the much larger sun. It was known that no spell could be woven to defeat the constant instability, erosion, and behind the back snickering of father time. Even the greatest Archmage’s magic ran their tongues and ran wild eventually.

I felt a hint of sadness at the thought of losing this remarkable, if somewhat useless dungeon. But the present pushed on and so did I. I heaved myself onto the handsome statue, climbing his well-sculpted back. The ridges of his flexed metal muscles were like hand holds. I made short work of his legs, breezed by his back, until my feet stood atop his head. With on glorious motion, I punched the ceiling. I yelped as I felt my knuckles bruising.

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“Twisst iittt.” Dren insisted.

Even Dren had good ideas sometimes. I twisted the light with all my might, grunting as I watched the orb slowly rotate. Moving was not something old untouched magic objects did lightly, so it took awhile before an audible click clicked around the room.

Darkness enveloped the room.

“You broke it!” Rose panicked.

“I … Well… Yes, I did.” I said matter of factly.

Rose sighed. Dren clapped, or rather tried to clap the control of his muscles hadn’t quite come back to him yet.

“What’s your problem, Dren! Why’d you give him that terrible idea!” Rose shouted. Her voice strained as the panic began to set in.

“We haft to solve it backwards.”

“And how do you suppose we do that? We didn’t even take enough time to look at how it was solved in the first place!” I argued.

Dren scratched his head in contemplation. Like me, he had been a little too overzealous. While it wasn’t like Dren to think about consequences, even he could reflect on the fact that destroying the puzzle was perhaps nonoptimal. He shrugged nonchalantly.

“Maybe if we work together we can solve the damn puzzle and then unsolve it backwards or whatever. Well, do you have any thoughts, Rose? You were looking at the thing for the longest. ” I said.

“I’m not sure. It was pretty and calming. ” Rose reckoned. “Now, all that is left is darkness and two bumbling idiots.”

“You’re talking about yourself and Dren, right?” I asked.

Rose let out an audible sigh that echoed throughout the puzzle room.

In the corner of the room, I spotted small wisps of off-colored light.

“Does this puzzle have something to do with those lights?” I asked.

“What lights? It’s pitch black in here.”

“The ones in the corner of the room.”

“There aren't any lights anywhere. Just darkness as far as the eyes can’t see.” Dren stated, matter of factly.

“Do you see the lights, Rose?” I asked.

“No. Don’t drag me into your madness.”

As I crouched atop the head of the statue, I came to realize that those lights must have been mana. Unlike most mana, however, the mana didn’t move. It was as if the light was woven into a spell, but if that was the case, then wouldn’t Dren and Rose be able to see the lights? Also, if the puzzle expected you to have mana sight, then who was the target audience for the puzzle room? Certainly, limiting the puzzle to only those with mana sight would limit the reach and popularity of said puzzle, therefore limiting the amount of gold pieces you could charge for entry. Azog would die a little on the inside if we were here, I figured. This would be a proverbial gold mine for his guiding side gig.

I buried those thoughts and reached out to the mana with my will. By now, my grasp over the stuff was that of a drunken novice. Stitching together bones with dark mana was one thing. Dark mana was a type of mana I was familiar with. Mana, however, has different wants and needs. Strange mana found in corners of ancient ruins had needs that I didn’t yet comprehend.

I grimaced as I struggled to get the strange mana to do anything. It was not pliable. It didn’t want to move to me as I pulled it towards me. Next I tried pulling from all four corners at once. If only for a brief second, I felt it give.

“I think I figured out how to get us out of here!” I shouted, exhilarated.

“So you solved it! For a second, I saw some light come out of the corner of the room.” said Rose.

“Err no. I figured out that it's a maze. A four way maze!”

Once again, I reached out towards all four strands of mana. Realizing I could only pull the mana through the etches in the ceiling, I slowly and methodically pulled the mana towards the center. It was rather easy. I came to the conclusion that it might’ve been difficult when I was forcibly given mana sight by the Dark One. But I had practiced since then, and now could move mana somewhat effectively.

But that begged the question. Why make the puzzle so niche, yet easy to complete? If the puzzle maker was trying to create the hardest puzzle to ever be puzzling, then wouldn’t said puzzle master want to make the puzzle actually hard. I was definitive proof that the puzzle wasn’t hard. Even if it took me forty minutes… or two hours… or even five hours…

In the end, it took me 7 hours to guide the mana down the right channels. Maybe there was an easier way of going about the problem than forcing mana down every possible path. By now, Rose was slumped on the floor, snoring. Dren was even only slightly foaming as he shuffled back and forth, like a potion addict. I felt relief as I guided the mana into the center light, which glowed with a dull brilliance.

My fingers curled and grew stiff from constant use of mana. While the etches didn’t take much mana, keeping it controlled for long periods of time wasn’t exactly fun.

The stirring and screaming behind the stone walls began again as if the ancients gears wanted to retire eons ago. The secret to the puzzle had been turning the sun. Slowly, the wall behind the handsome statue pulled open, revealing a purple hue similar to that of the dark one’s chambers.

It made me shudder and back away as if I had seen a ghost. Oh, how I wished that it had been a ghost. The glow brought memories of the beast, Alric, and George’s undeath. It took a minute, but I gathered my senses, kicked Rose awake, and followed Dren into the opening. At least whatever lay on the other side of the purple light, was not a Terror Bunny.