It has been nearly an hour since I left the village. Every single of my attempt to chat up the coachman was either answered with silence or dismissive grunts.

"We've arrived," said the coachman as he pulled the horses to a stop.

I glanced down at my referral letter, then the coachman, and finally at the creaky wooden sign outside.

"Fickleland Research Institute (FRI). Est 566."

This can't be right. My hopes at a glitzy, bustling and modern research facility right in the middle of a cosmopolitan city, not a weathered wooden sign at the bottom of a hill.

"Get down kid," he gruffly announced. I wanted to ask him if this was his idea of a practical joke, but the look in his eyes made me hold my tongue.

I scrambled down and unloaded my luggage. The coachman helped me too, sweating profusely from the afternoon heat. I could sense his aid definitely wasn't out of charity or professionalism, but a desire to leave as quickly as possible.

"Just stay here, Leroy will come in a bit," he said and nodded to a small hut a few feet away. "Wait inside if it suddenly gets dark, just don't stay outside without any light."

"Surely it won't get dark so quickly?" I asked in surprise. The noontime sun was piercingly bright.

He barked out a mocking laugh and drove away.

I watched his coach disappear into the distance, half-expecting him to suddenly turn back and inform me that this was all a mistake. Unfortunately he didn't return, and I sat glumly on my suitcase by the roadside.

I glanced at the village in the distance. While I am certainly no city-boy, this place was very remote even by my standards. Asides from one or two slightly crowded main streets, most of the buildings in the village were isolated homesteads surrounded by farmland, orchards, or swamps. I could see people working their farms or milling about in the square, but was too far to make out any clear sounds or faces.

After absentmindedly looking at the village for several minutes, I sensed a brief tremor beneath me which gradually increased in strength and frequency. The sweltering afternoon heat was replaced by cold and clammy air.

I stood up in surprise, and soon noticed that nearly all activity in the village below stopped as everyone went indoors. The sky started changing too, as its bright blue colour turned orange, red, dark purple, and finally inky black within the space of several minutes.

Feeling a suffocating sense of unease, I hastily dragged my belongings to the wooden hut. After lighting up a lantern inside, I quickly closed the door and heaved a sigh of relief.

Despite being a well-travelled, this is the first time I actually encountered such strange weather. I held the lantern to a window, but to my surprise it couldn't illuminate anything outside. Asides from the flickering light from the lantern, the hut seemed to be draped by a thick, muffling black curtain in the darkest shade of black.

The weather suddenly changed again after a minute or two. The darkness retreated as swiftly as it came, and warm sunlight streamed into the hut. Signs of life returned to the village too as everyone continued on as if nothing happened.

Knock knock!

I hesitantly reached forward but stopped, still unnerved by the abnormal weather changes previously.

"Oi! I will blast this open if you don't open up by the count of three," a husky voice shouted.

I quickly opened the door. While I was expecting a grumpy man, it was instead a pretty woman around my age. Her fashionable red coat and sunglasses seemed jarringly at odds with the rusticity the hut.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Leroy?" I asked.

"Which part of me looks like a Leroy?" The woman frowned. "I'm Janna, Leroy is waiting for us back in the institute. Move." I stepped sideways as she entered into the hut and closed the door.

"Erm..." I suddenly felt extremely self-conscious when I smelled a whiff of her perfume.

Janna rolled her eyes and turned to face the door. As she mumbled something under her breath, the metallic doorknob started glowing with a pulsating blue light. She held onto the doorknob for several seconds and looked at me with a twinkle in her eye.

"Welcome to Fickleland Research Institute." She grinned.

Janna opened the door and a strong breeze blew into the hut.

* * *

Instead of a leafy dirt road in the countryside, I was greeted by a long obsidian wall with two imposing bronze gates leading into a maze-like hedge. In the distance was an equally impressive brick mansion with ridiculously high white turrets jutting out into the clouds above.

Despite being impressed, I put on my best poker face and looked impassively at Janna. As she tutted in displeasure, I started lugging my suitcases towards the door.

"No need, just stand there," Janna tilted her head towards the bronze doors.

I raised my eyebrows and followed her instructions. She then stepped back into the wooden hut and closed the door.

"By the way," Janna poked her head out, "I'll send your stuff to the main building. You just make your way through the gates and the gardens. See you later."

She quickly shut the door and a bright light flashed from inside the hut. I rushed over and looked through the windows, but all my luggage and Janna were already gone.

"Oh for f..., must everyone here disappear when you need them?" I complained.

I looked around me. Asides from the ominous bronze gate and a dilapidated hut, everything else was covered in an impenetrable grey fog. Somehow I felt that it would be a terrible idea if I were to get lost.

Sighing, I walked towards the gate into the mansion's compound. As the gate suddenly slammed itself shut, I would usually be freaked out but the day's trip and events had numbed me.

Tall, leafy green walls dotted with white flowers surrounded me. I walked forward and soon found myself at a junction.

Damn it, this isn't a hedge-like maze, it is a maze.

I considered my options and checked the belongings in my pockets. Thankfully, I still had charms and dowsing pendulum. I frowned upon realising that I left my wand in one of my suitcases, but that said I don't think I will need it anyway.

I held out my pendulum and closed my eyes, channeling a trickle of mana into it. However, to no one's surprise, the pendulum didn't move at all.

After putting the pendulum away, I leafed through the charms on me. Unfortunately, all of them were either for flares or igniting things. Common sense dictated that I light up some flares to ask for help, but then common sense also meant that Janna should have led me directly to the mansion, and not leave me stranded alone in the maze.

I decided to burn a path and pointed an ignition charm towards the direction of the mansion, definitely not out of pettiness. However, thick vines suddenly shot out from the wall beside me and snatched the charm away, while another hit my butt.

Rubbing my ass, I grumpily looked towards the mansion and started walking. Although I formed a map in my head as I wandered about, occasionally retracing my steps, the mansion still seemed equally distant as it was since the beginning.

After what seemed like several hours of walking, I raised my hands in frustration and sat against the hedgewall. I gathered myself after several minutes and turned around the corner.

"Are you lost?" Said a wooden sign nailed to the ground.

Haha, very funny.

I walked back and just took a different turn.

"Just give up, and you'll know where to go." Another signpost appeared.

Damn it.

I walked away and took another turn. As I attempted to find an exit, these signposts continued to appear intermittently every few turns or so.

Two hours past. After stomping around for nearly an entire afternoon, my brain was too tired to even think and I decided to just wander aimlessly. Much to my surprise and annoyance, the very next turn led me to the maze's exit.

Lifelike, ferocious-looking bronze creatures lined the pathway all the way to a flight of steps leading up to the mansion's door. As I walked towards the building, the wooden doors flung open and colourful fireworks erupted above the mansion.

"Welcome, welcome!" A voice boomed from within the mansion. "Janna, stop the fireworks." Instead of fizzling out like regular fireworks, the rays of light just froze midair before fading away.

"Do come in, quickly." The voice said again softer this time. A strong wind suddenly pushed against my back and I sprinted towards the building, trying my best to not fall over.

I managed to glance backwards as I ran. The thick clouds of fog from outside the walls had already swarmed in, covering the maze and the entire outer compound of the mansion. Everything outside was soon covered in depressing plumes of grey, as if the only real thing in the world was the building in front of me.