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A few crystal flowers grew around a seemingly unassuming hole in the side of a small hill. They emitted a delicate light of intense blue. The ones back in the Fesai archipelago tended to be red or white, so these were new to Lirai, but he didn't focus as much on them as he did on the echoes coming from inside the hole: their voice told him that this was an entrance to a huge maze of galleries that extended beneath their feet and far beyond that.

Heleine reached his side and he noticed that her whiskers were glowing again. It was a different, paler shade of blue compared to the flowers.

"I can sense several growths of crystal flowers in the galleries beneath us, a few of them of respectable size. My guess is that one of them must be within the chamber that the old lady mentioned."

Leewa inquired, "You can sense the position of crystal flowers with this amount of precision?"

"As I said before, Shountu allows me to commune with the Mother Goddess of Earth, Shouna, and the shamans in my culture often say that the crystal flowers are her eyes to see her children and her mouths to speak to them."

"Does this mean that you could help us navigate through the maze, together with Lirai?" Inquired Gyvar.

"I can try," she hesitated, "but I can't sense the galleries in between the chambers like Lirai does."

Leewa asked, her eyes still focused on Heleine, "Since these flowers are the mouth of your goddess, are they saying anything of interest right now?"

Heleine hesitated. "I… I think that we aren't alone in the galleries, someone else may already be way ahead of us. I can't say much more than that, because the flowers are… how should I put it… in turmoil."

"What do you mean in turmoil?"

"I mean… it's like they're excited but also afraid, and they don't respond to my interrogations, as if their full attention was somewhere else."

"Enough dilly-dallying, dears, we can carry our conversation on even while we keep on walking." Prompted Gyvar.

Leewa nodded with decision. "Right. No time to waste."

Heleine invited Lirai to get ahead of her. "Come on, lead the way."

"Okay." He sighed nervously as he walked in front of the group.

Nova merrily pranced inside, her tail up in the air with a globe of intense light hovering right above its tip. "So do crystal flowers have feelings and thoughts like us?" She asked when everyone entered the cave.

"Eh, I wouldn't quite say like us…" responded Heleine slowly, as if she was trying to find the next words as she went. "They are very different from all other living beings, so much so that I don't really have the words to describe it to someone who didn't experience it in first person. However, they are very much aware of their surroundings, more so than regular plants, and I can sense their consciousness much clearer than anything else through Shountu."

The conversation was interrupted by the thunderous roar of one of the giant creature's steps. It was way louder in there, to the point that, even with his ears as closed as possible, Lirai felt physical discomfort. He vacillated for a moment, but he managed to keep his footing and, as the echoes died down, he was able to sense the way forward.

They were right in front of a fork, and Lirai pointed to the path on the right, since he had sensed that the left one eventually led to a dead end.

"Be careful of where you're walking," he said, "there are some holes and crevices in the ground further down the line."

The cave's ceiling got lower and lower as they proceeded, and Lirai worried a bit about Sychrill and his antlers. He turned one of his ears back to try and sense what the dorpatchi was doing, and he found that he was uncomfortably, but effectively, walking on fours. He had to turn back, curious about what that big shy guy had done with his shield and weapon, only to find out that both had been placed on his antlers. The sight was a little funny, but Lirai tried his best not to laugh.

Soon, a few turns and diverging paths later, they found themselves in a gallery with a ravine on the right side, going surprisingly deep.

Nova had her little glowing orb hover right over the brink, revealing the depth of the crevice to everyone else who couldn't perceive it by ear. "Yikes," she exclaimed, "this looks like a pretty bad fall!"

Lirai nodded. "It gets way closer to the heart of the maze than the way forward does, but I doubt it would be wise to go down this way."

Leewa glanced down the ravine and added, "It's way too narrow in here for me to safely fly down too."

While their attention was mostly on the ravine at the right side, a few dark stone-like vines grew on the left side wall, with more of those blue crystal flowers they had seen at the entrance sprouting from them. That's when their light flickered.

Heleine stared at them, hardly blinking. "This is… concerning. I've never seen crystal flowers behaving this way before."

A new step happened. The ground shook harder than they had felt before, and Lirai had to forcefully close his ears with his hands, instinctively closing his eyes as well. Again, the powerful noise made him vacillate, but this time something caught onto his hind legs, causing him to lose balance.

He opened his eyes wide in surprise. The brief instant before falling felt strangely long to him, and he saw a crystal flower vine that he had tripped into, one that he had curiously not noticed before, whose flowers emitted a wavering dark red light that he seeing for the first time. Yet that strangely long moment ended before he was able to process it, and he fell right down the crevice.

***

Lirai groaned, as his whole body was sore. It was already the second time that day that he had a pretty bad fall, but this time he didn't lose consciousness. He was still wrapped himself around his violin case, which he had consciously done immediately upon realising he wouldn't be able to avoid the fall so that he could protect the precious instrument. He had tumbled for who knows how long, but now he was more or less safe on level ground. He felt like he had fallen for far longer than he should have, and not nearly as hard. In fact, it was highly surprising that he was still alive.

He shouted, hoping to reassure the others that he was fine, for the most part. "Hey, I'm alive, do you hear me?"

The echo didn't return, almost as if the cliff was infinitely high. His eyes could barely make out the feeble glow of some crystal flowers dotted along the stone walls, but no sign of Nova's light. He felt a chill down his spine. He was sure that, when he listened for the bottom of the ravine before, it wasn't nearly deep enough to justify the echo not coming back, nor the fact that he couldn't see Nova's light, however faintly. Did they fall down too? No, there was no sign of them down there, so they had to still be up there. Maybe there was something preventing him from hearing noise and seeing light coming from above a certain point?

"Hey!" He shouted again, "If you can hear me, I can't hear you back. Try to reach the heart of the maze, I'm sure Heleine can find it. Hopefully I'll be waiting there!"

He got up and found that his right hind leg was hurting pretty badly. He could move it and it didn't feel like it was broken, but walking would probably be a painful process for the foreseeable future. He limped through the galleries, occasionally resting against the wall whenever he thought the massive creature was about to make another one of its deafening steps, allowing himself to protect his ears with his own hands, which did help a little. The pain and exhaustion were the two foremost thoughts in his mind, continuously chasing away any other lines of thinking that might pop up, but he trudged on following his instincts and the bouncing echoes all throughout that maze of stone galleries. Sometimes, he could almost swear he heard a weird chime coming from the galleries in front of him, a sound so crystalline and pure that made the way ahead surprisingly clear and easy to follow even in the almost complete darkness.

Eventually, he could hear himself approaching a pretty big chamber, and in fact he was able to see some pale light coming through the corner. He couldn't quite figure out its shape with precision, because the echoes bouncing around its walls made their surface sound strangely fuzzy, as if they were mostly covered with… with something, he wasn't sure what. He almost reached the edge of the chamber before stopping dead in his track. Someone else was in there. He hadn't noticed it before because, whoever it was, wasn't moving around too much, but now that he was closer he could finally pick up on their nervous breathing. The other creature was muttering something under their breath, with clear signs of urgency and panic in their mannerism. They appeared to be alone.

This had to be the one behind the awakening of the Beighal, right? Who else could be all the way down there? Lirai didn't dare make himself known; after all, for all he knew, someone who would go out of their way to awaken an ancient weapon of war could be dangerous. Tired and afraid, the only thing Lirai could think of was to remain hidden and wait for an opportunity: if his friends managed to reach him, he might be able to use some basic musical enchantments to help them even if they had to deal with something dangerous, or, given how afraid the other creature also sounded, maybe they would eventually run away from there.

It was during these musings that a sickly sweet voice reverberated from a different entrance to the same chamber. "And what exactly is happening here?"

The voice was… strangely familiar. Lirai was sure he had heard it recently, but something in the tone made it difficult for him to place.

The one who had been muttering under their breath let out a brief scared shriek, evidently startled. Lirai could finally place their voice as masculine.

"I…" the startled creature started to respond, before being interrupted by a booming step.

As the echoes died down, the newly arrived voice sighed and said, "Hold on a moment."

After speaking, she moved from the other entrance right inside the chamber, and from the way she walked Lirai guessed that it had to be a loghra. His eyes opened wide and he had to repress a gasp as he realised where he had heard her voice. It had been that other loghra, the one who first spoke to Nova and had been so rude to her.

Before he could finish processing that realisation, the slow movement of the Beighal came to a halt. If the rest of what was happening didn't already leave Lirai speechless, this would have. How did she instantly cause the Beighal to stop dead in its tracks?

"There, much better, don't you think?" The loghra calmly intoned.

Her tone… it was completely different from when he had heard it a few notches prior. The small inflections in the way she spoke, the subtle emotional cues, everything felt wrong. Even the accent… he was pretty sure that, when he first heard her, she didn't slightly emphasise occlusive sounds, like "t" or "k", like she was doing now. It was almost as if a completely different individual was now speaking from the same mouth as that rude loghra he had met earlier.

The male voice stuttered, "A-are you… Are you… M-master?"

The loghra chuckled with genuine amusement. "Of course it's me, you silly thing."

"I-I… I swear I did exactly what you told me how you told me," slurred he in response, "not a single detail differently, but this thing started walking and nothing I could do would stop it and…"

"Hold on a moment," she interrupted with a deceptively warm tone, "I'm sure you did nothing wrong. I mean, you wouldn't have the capacity to accidentally awaken the Beighal even if you wanted to. Something clearly went wrong, but even if you had messed up as much as you could have there is no way you could have caused it, so I'm not mad at you at all."

She spoke slowly and deliberately, with a tone of almost over the top fake kindness and exaggerating every single emotional beat in her sentences. Lirai shuddered, unsettled by that.

The male voice sighed in relief at the news that his "Master" didn't blame him for things not going as planned. The loghra continued, "Before we do anything else, I'll just check if I can see what did cause things to go wrong, so you stay quiet and let Master make it all right."

The young fei heard her approaching the wall next to where the male voice had been coming from.

"Ah," she marvelled not a few moments later, "I see what's going on. Hmm, maybe this wasn't a waste of time after all."

"Really?" He asked with a hopeful tone. "You mean that the plan could be salvaged?"

"What?" She burst in a merry chortle. "Oh no, absolutely not. The very moment the Beighal started walking around when it wasn't supposed to this plan was immediately and irreparably ruined. However, I might just be able to turn this all in our favour…"

Lirai had to purposefully stop himself from gasping again. He had no idea what they were referring to, but he was sure it wasn't anything good. Also, her laughter sounded… weirdly sincere, almost childlike.

"Oh, please tell me how, Master!"

"Shush." She then harshened her tone considerably. "I want you to go into hiding until further notice. Don't come looking for me, I'll come for you. Be it a full term from now, or ten, or even fifty, don't you dare leave your hiding spot until I reach out to you. Understood?"

"Y-yes, Master."

"Such a good boy!" She singsonged as someone would to their pet after it obeyed to a simple order.

Lirai then heard a distinct fluttering of wings as he quickly took his leave. Lirai did take notice of the fact that those wings sounded way smaller than those of a loghral.

After a silence that lasted a little too long for comfort, the female voice playfully called, "Tell me, did you have fun eavesdropping?"

Lirai's heart almost stopped and his limbs almost went numb from how tense they had gone.

"Yes, I'm talking to you, my big-eared friend. Come out, don't be shy, I promise you I won't bite."

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He contemplated running away, but his instinct told him that it would be futile, so he slowly turned around the corner and he finally entered the room. The walls of the chamber were covered in some kind of writing, faintly glowing with white, but most of the light came from a massive growth of crystal flowers covering almost every bit of surface that didn't have writing on it, including most of the ground. Those writings had to be the activation poems old lady Vinthre had mentioned, which meant that he had reached the control room. There was only a relatively small circle of naked rock in the middle, and within it, sitting atop of a stone, the purple loghra looked at him with a smirk. Even though he was pretty sure that Leewa had mentioned her name, he couldn't remember it at that moment. It certainly did look like her, but her expression and mannerisms just seemed… off. And it wasn't the only thing that looked off: normally, a crystal flower would just sit quietly in its spot and emit a rather faint light of just one specific colour, which would be different from species to species. However, these crystal flowers almost appeared to be subtly trembling, and their light flickered and wavered between an acid green to a sickly shade of purple. Even the dark stone-like vines that made up the main body of the crystal flowers seemed to be faintly shivering.

"There you go!" She mockingly encouraged him. "Why don't you come closer, so that we can make acquaintance with each other?"

He did as he was told, almost as if incapable of disobeying.

She carefully scanned him, then asked, "So, what is a young and handsome little fei like you doing all the way down here?"

"I, uh…" He started responding automatically, before even forming an answer in his head, but then decided to try and go on the offensive, almost scared by how easily he had been obeying to her commands, "D-didn't we already meet on the airship?"

"Hmm? You mean you already met with her? Oh, I see. No, I'm afraid I didn't meet you, but it certainly is possible that you would have met with this loghra on that airship, yes."

"What does that mean? Are you, like, mind controll…"

She interrupted him, "What's with all these questions? Don't you know it's rude to get so personal when you just met somebody new? Ah, you know what? Fine, I'll answer your questions, but only if you agree to play a little game with me."

"A… game?"

She nodded. "Indeed. Nothing more than an innocent little mind game, in which you get to ask me something and I may very well provide you with an answer. But, like all good games, it has a few rules."

"Wait, wait, I haven't accepted to participate yet."

"Of course." She agreed. "And the game won't start unless you do."

"Well, why would I want to accept playing any game with you? I don't know you, nor do I know if I can trust you."

She laughed. Like before, her laughter sounded genuinely gleeful. "I completely agree, and, in fact, I feel the same way. Games are the way through which I like to establish trust with someone I just met. What better way to know each other than to see what you're willing or capable to do in order to win?"

"Well, what happens if I win? Or if I lose, for that matter?"

"Oh, it's very simple: if you win, I'll answer truthfully to a question of yours. And if you lose, well… that depends."

Lirai gulped. "On what?"

"Hmm. Why don't I just tell you the rules? This way you'll know for yourself."

He hesitated, but didn't really feel like he had a choice. "Alright, go ahead then."

As soon as he pronounced those words, he had an ominous feeling, almost as if something invisible and untouchable had grabbed him by the neck, and, in response, she laughed once more. Her laughter was even more joyful than before.

"Very well, here goes then. Rule number one: if either of us, at any point until the game is officially over and the winners got their rewards, breaks one of the rules of the game, then the game is over and the other player becomes the sole victor."

Lirai nodded. That one seemed rather reasonable: after all, it did make her as accountable as him, right?

Her smile turned smug just before listing the second rule. "Rule number two: listening to the rules is already part of the game, therefore voluntarily agreeing to hear them gives tacit approval for the game to start and to become a player."

His heart almost stopped again, just like when she had called for him to get inside. "Wait, wait, I didn't sign up for that!"

She chuckled. "Oh but you did. I'm sure you felt it, yes? That sensation of something closing around your neck?"

His eyes widened and his ears dropped backwards.

"That was a sign that the contract has been sealed," she continued, "and these aren't the rules of any simple game, but the binding terms of a magic contract. You have to abide by them, as do I, for that matter: every magic contract is a two way street."

"Are… are there more rules?"

"Why, of course: we haven't even gotten to what the game actually is, these are just preliminary principles that make the game exciting. So, may I continue?"

Reluctantly, he nodded.

"Rule number three: no running away; if either of us walks away from the other with the intention of never coming back to complete the game, then they have broken the rules."

Lirai tilted his head. So, did that mean that walking away with the intention of coming back at some point wasn't against the rules? Some part of him wanted to ask that question, but he was too intimidated to do so.

"Rule number four: neither of us is allowed to lie; and, by "lie", in this context I mean specifically trying to say something you know to be true as if it was false or something you know to be false as if it was true; in other words, if you say something that isn't true but you're convinced that it is, that is not considered lying."

"A-and this goes for you too, right?"

"But of course! One of the main reasons this rule exists is to act as a guarantee that, if you do win, I'll answer to you truthfully. Unless you can fully trust that I'll be truthful, this game won't be nearly as fun."

"Any other preliminary principles?"

Another giggle shook her body. "Oh no, now we actually get to the meat of the game. Rule number five: the game consists in setting up a mutually beneficial contract. How this works is you'll have to decide a piece of information you want me to provide you, and I do mean any information. Then, I'll establish a price for you to pay in order for me to provide what you asked. Until the contract has been explicitly agreed upon by you, I won't have to answer your question, nor will you have to pay the price I asked of you."

His ears and tail worriedly twitched when she uttered the word price. "Wait, what kind of price?"

"Any price. You get to ask me any piece of information you want, so it's only fair that I get to ask any price I want in return. Oh, but don't look so worried: the guarantee that I can't ask you anything too unreasonable is that the contract won't be valid until you expressly agree to it."

Lirai wondered if it really was that simple, but she relentlessly went on.

"Rule number six: no haggling. I can't haggle on your request and you can't haggle on my price; the only way for you to change my price, if you think it's too much for you, is to change the question."

He nodded gravely. So, if he asked something she didn't like, all she had to do in order to discourage him was to ask for an outrageous price in return. He was right to doubt that it would be as simple as she had just made it seem moments prior.

"Rule number seven: After you present your question and I respond with my price, you can either accept or refuse; if you refuse, as per rule six, you'll have to ask a different question; if you accept, then the game officially ends and we're both considered winners!"

"Wait, really?"

She nodded with a huge smile. "Yes, really. This doesn't have to be a zero-sum game, we can both get what we want out of it. Didn't I say that this is the game I like to play to get to know a new friend?"

Lirai thought that that hadn't quite been the wording she had used before, but decided to gloss over it for the time being.

"Rule number eight: after the game is over and the winner or winners are established, it is time for the rewards; if I win because you broke one of the rules, you'll have to pay the last price that I proposed or, if no price had been proposed yet, I can make it up on the spot; if you win because I broke one of the rules, I'll have to answer your last request truthfully, as per rule number number four, and if you hadn't presented your first request yet you get to ask whatever you want; if we both win because you agreed to my price then I'll have to give you a truthful account of the info you asked me and you'll have to pay the agreed upon price."

After she finished describing the eight rule, she stopped speaking and stared at him with a content smug on her face.

"Um, i-is this," he stammered, "is this all the rules?"

She shrugged. "I stopped listing, didn't I?"

He immediately fell silent, as he didn't even know where to start. He simply had too many questions, and even trying to put an order of priority to them was difficult. Who and what was controlling that loghra, and how? What was happening with the crystal flowers and their odd behaviour? What did she want with the Beighal? She had mentioned that something had gone wrong with her plan but had also figured out what, so what was the deal with that? And speaking of the Beighal, what was that consciousness that Heleine had perceived in it? And why was it in pain, as evidenced by its terrible cry? And, for that matter, how did she stop it from moving? What happened to its consciousness after she did?

Trying to rack his brain to find the best question to ask, he thought that maybe he should start from the boldest one, to see the baseline price for a question she wouldn't want to answer to.

Nodding for having found his next course of action, he started, "I want you to tell me who and what are you, and by that I mean you, not the loghra you're controlling."

She nodded slowly, her smirk never wavering. "Hmm, you're starting off bold, aren't you? Heh, and to think that I took you for being somewhat of a wimp. See what I mean when I say that a game is the best way to get to know each other?"

"What's the price then?" He pressured her.

She sighed. "Must you really be in so much of a hurry? Part of the fun is getting to do some chit chat in between each exchange, wouldn't you think?"

Her gaze really intimidated him: he felt once more as if he was being stared at by a predator, even though this time it wasn't the kind that would literally eat him. Still, the vague nature of the threat certainly didn't ease him at all, in fact it might have made things even worse.

Even so, he pressed on. "T-the price?"

"Ugh, fine." She rolled her eyes, but then her smile grew wide again. "In exchange for that info, I want you to agree to a magical contract in which you surrender every last bit of your free will to me and become my pawn, my puppet, for the rest of your life."

Ah, so now he knew what was her baseline price for a question she wouldn't want to answer.

"What? Who would ever accept to those terms?"

She shrugged. "That's my price for that information. See, I really do value my privacy, so that's not the kind of information I would surrender to just anyone. Only someone who can be fully dedicated to me can have it, so I think it's a pretty fitting price. Well then, you refuse my terms, I take it?"

"Of course I do!"

Her smile seemed really pleased for some reason. "I do like that you value your free will enough not to even consider that someone else could agree to my terms. Now, for your next request?"

"Can… can I take some time to think about it?"

"By all means, take all the time you need." She responded with a dismissive wave of her hand.

He really needed to sort this out. At that point, what he wanted more than anything was get out of that situation, so much so that he'd gladly renounce getting any answer to the many questions he had. However, he realised that, until the game was over, he couldn't get away. With that in mind, his next course of action would be to try and end the game by getting the best piece of info at the lowest possible price he could get her to propose. What piece of information did he need more than anything from her? Probably something about the Beighal and her plan with it, as that was the point of him even being there in the first place. He couldn't go straight for that, he needed to test the waters a bit more to see how much he could get away with asking and still get a reasonable price.

His ears twitched. Maybe there was a different solution too, though. Heleine and the others were coming right that way, and they may very well be able to reach them if given enough time. Leewa was some kind of powerful magic user, right? Maybe she could undo the contract. All he needed to do was buy enough time for them to reach him. Once that happened and the contract was broken, he had no doubt that the others would be more than capable of restricting the loghra and get all the answers they needed from her.

He nodded, set on his next course of action. He would buy as much time as possible while also trying to see how much he could get away with in terms of price for the needed information.

"Who was the other creature that was helping you?" He asked, eventually.

"Who indeed?" She calmly responded, "To tell you that, I want you to agree to a magic contract in which, while you do get to keep your free will for the most part, you become my subordinate and have to obey direct orders from me. This contract would last ten terms, after which you'd be free to do as you please for the rest of your life."

A pattern was beginning to emerge. It would seem that all her prices would come with some form of servitude or another. Maybe he could put that theory to the test.

"No, thank you. I, uh… I'd like for you to tell me which language is the official language of the Princedom of Valdhea."

She raised her brows. "Huh-uh, you don't plan on accepting my price on this one no matter how mild it is, do you? You're trying to put me to the test, aren't you? Either that or you want to trick me into give you a trivial price to pay so you can end the game."

The way her amused gaze pierced him made him feel guilty for a moment, as if he was the one doing something wrong. And yet, once more, her smirk didn't waver at all, while the facade of calm that he had been trying to sell completely crumbled as his ears dropped backwards and his eyes widened at being called out.

"Because of the intent behind your request," she continued, "I will ask you to renounce music. You'll become tone-deaf and unable to appreciate or play music ever again."

"I-I…" he gripped harder his violin case, "I refuse your terms."

She leaned her head on top of her hand, and he had the distinct impression that she was telling him "I got you completely figured out" with that motion.

He felt like the opening he had thought he'd seen before was getting smaller and smaller. Now she was on the lookout for him testing her, so trying to get information out of the deal at a reasonable price became a less tenable prospect. As badly as he wanted answers, his priorities needed to shift, or he would probably lose his freedom by the time the game was over. At that point, the only possibility he could see was to keep buying time until the others found him, but he was a little afraid that she'd find a way to shut down that option as well if it became too obvious what he was doing. As long as he could confide in that line of action, he still had hope.

So he began asking questions again, careful to only ask something he could reasonably expect her to believe he'd actually want to know the answer to. Furthermore, he always skirted around the topic of her identity, of the Beighal, and the mysterious behaviour of the crystal flowers, so he could expect her to keep on offering prices he could believably shut down without giving away the fact that he didn't have any intention of accepting them to begin with. Every time, she did as he expected and asked some form of servitude, some more severe and some less, in exchange for that kind of information, and he shut them all down. This kept going for way longer than he was able to keep track of.

Eventually, he asked, "What happened to activate the poems in this room to awaken the Beighal?"

She raised her brows again. "Hmm, didn't you ask that one a couple of notches ago?"

"Huh?"

"Yes, I believe it was about two or three questions after your ridiculous request on the official language of the Princedom." She then sharply accused him, "Are you trying to get me to lower my price by asking the same question with slightly different phrasing over a long period of time so I wouldn't notice? That would be haggling and against rule number six."

He vigorously denied, "No, no! I wasn't purposely trying to ask the same thing again and again in the hope you'd lower your price, I swear! I'm just… starting to get tired, I don't remember exactly everything I already asked you."

She visibly relaxed. "Well, the game didn't end just now, so I know you're telling the truth, since knowingly breaking a rule would instantly end the game. My price for that question hasn't changed, do you still refuse those terms?"

He nodded: even though he didn't remember the exact specifics of her terms for that question, they definitely hadn't stood out to him as particularly reasonable, or he would have remembered that.

After a brief silence, in which he went back to thinking about his next question, still visibly shaking, she spoke again, "And, tell me, is there a chance that you're only buying time for the rest of your friends to reach you and find a way to get you out of trouble?"

No doubt, the utter panic that struck him from the inside out became immediately obvious from his expression, because she once more laughed a viscerally sincere and cheerful laugh before telling him, "Oh, if that's the case I'm afraid you'll be waiting for a while. Since playing with you so far has been very fun for me, let me give you a little bit of information about myself for free."

She raised her hand and slowly curled one finger. The crystal flowers around him, as if prompted by her, slowly moved in waves, almost as if a very gentle breeze had brushed past a field of regular flowers. During that motion, they turned the same shade of dark red he had seen when he tripped down the hole that separated him from the others. She snapped her fingers, and some of the flowers produced the same chime that had eventually led him there. There was no doubt, she was controlling the crystal flowers.

"And I can do much more than this too. So, you see, you only got this far because I wanted you to. I led you here. I can keep your friends running in circles, preventing them from reaching us, for as long as I want."

She joined her hands by interlocking her fingers and rested her head on top of them. "In other words, you are all alone."

The muscles in his joints almost gave up. He was one breath away from falling down to the ground, utterly crushed by the weight of his last hope being snuffed out in front of him.

He didn't know for how long he remained silent, utterly defeated, in front of her, before she asked, "So, what's your next request?"

That's when he kind of woke up from the crushing sense of annihilation that had taken him over. The game was still not over, and it wouldn't be over until he agreed to one of her unreasonable set of terms. He was almost ready to accept that, in order for the game to end, he would have to accept some form of servitude to that creature. The only way he could escape that fate was if she broke one of her own rules, but it had become clear to him that she had chosen a set of rules she was very comfortable following, so he couldn't imagine her accidentally breaking one.

In that moment, his ears perked up. Was it possible? Could it work?

Noticing his change of attitude, she asked, "Oh, did you just think of something?"

He raised his eyes to meet her gaze once more, and his heart accelerated exponentially with every instant as he did so. He hadn't had the time to fully consider the consequences of his next action, but he felt compelled to act anyway.

"I want you," he declared, "to tell me something you know to be false."