{-Casrane-}
Bezyu led them through the first room of the temple then abruptly stopped. If she thought anything significant about it, she didn’t show it. “This is where the first trial is,” she explained. “I’ll… leave it to you to figure out on your own.”
Casrane only had to look around to take a guess at what they were supposed to do, though. She glanced at Llewel and Myr. “Do you two see those glowing spots on either side of the wall? Could you walk towards them?”
That was the upside of looking through everything she’d do here: she knew how to quickly solve most of the puzzles.
The twins both nodded and each went to a different wall. They waited for further instructions and she didn’t think much more of the silence.
She looked back at Bezyu. “There’s two more spots on the floor there, could you stand on one of them? I’ll get the last one.”
“A-alright.” Bezyu looked like she might’ve had something else considered, before she took a step toward the spot. As soon as she was on it, she stopped again.
Casrane went over to the last spot, then watched as an entrance slowly opened up. Cautiously, in case anything else was triggered, she moved off of the spot. When nothing happened, she gestured to the others to follow her again.
The next room was completely dark, for a moment, before it lit up… from whatever was glowing in the pit beneath it. She decided then she wasn’t going to spend too long trying to figure out what the source was.
“It looks like the path’s blocked,” Llewel remarked. “But I’m guessing you know what to do for this one, too..?”
“A good enough idea, yeah,” Casrane responded casually.
There was a large gap between the place where they were on and the other side. A lever of some kind was next to the exit, but she knew all that did was open the door. Nothing important was on the ceiling, but there were markings etched into the walls—markings that matched those found on the floor below them.
She stepped on one of the markings, and watched as a smaller platform rose up in the gap. When she stepped off, it went down again after a moment.
Bezyu tried to make a step forward to offer, “You should—”
“I know.” Casrane offered a kind smile, but otherwise didn’t dwell on it. She figured Bezyu just wanted to try to be helpful.
Then, turning her attention to the others, Casrane continued, “We’re going to need to put something on these spots so they stay pushed down—but we should avoid the markings that don’t have something matching it on the wall. There’s some rocks right over there, if we can all carry one we should have enough to walk across the gap.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Llewel and Myr both took one of the rocks and moved it to a marking without question. Casrane went to do the same, thanking them as she passed by, and still didn’t mind how Bezyu stood there.
“Could you get the last one?” Casrane asked gently, looking at Bezyu. Slowly something clicked to her, and after a moment she added, “It’s not that big of a deal if you can’t. I can get it.”
“Th-that would be appreciated.” Bezyu, evidently, wasn’t the best at forcing smiles. “I can’t say I’m good with that kind of thing. I probably shouldn’t interfere, anyway. These are supposed to be your tests, after all…”
“But you mentioned earlier about how it would understand if you helped us, right?” Myr asked. “You’ve barely moved from your spot. Did you change your mind..?”
“The… truth of the matter is, I would love to help,” Bezyu said nervously. “But it seems that I cannot. I don’t know why, or how. Just that moving at this point only keeps me in place. I know the answers to these puzzles, yet I can’t seem to speak the words. So, it seems I’ve mostly been resolved to watching. Even if I would most certainly help if I could…” A kind of distress seeped into her tone, too, at the thought.
Casrane acknowledged the reason, somewhere in her mind, but chose not to dwell on it. It was only going to distract her. “It’s alright. You don’t need to worry about it—we can take care of this on our own. You’re still helping, just… not with this part, and that’s okay.”
Bezyu nodded, even though she didn’t seem to completely believe it.
In another minute, Casrane had carried over the other rock, and a clear pathway had presented itself. She somehow managed a smile as she looked at the others and said, “We can go ahead now. I think there’s only one more trial we have to do.”
She walked across, pulling the lever when she got to it. The exit opened up, revealing the last remaining trial. This one had another gap in it, but several spots were spread out across it—close enough to be in stepping distance from one another. There were more markings on the walls, blinking one by one before blinking together; every marking blinked once, then they all blinked, and a new one restarted the cycle. The same marking always blinked at the same time, she knew. The order was just randomized for every player.
“Is it just me, or did the temple definitely not look this big from the outside..?” Myr asked. “How’s all of this stuff in here? Are we secretly underground or something?”
“I think it’s better not to question it,” Llewel remarked somewhat dismissively.
“I had the same question, once,” Bezyu said casually. She still seemed a bit nervous from before, though. “I was told it was just something special to the temple. Something about where or how it was built…”
Casrane mumbled a general comment, but decided to settle this puzzle first. “Do you all see those markings? Pay attention to which ones blink when. We’re going to need to walk on the tiles with the same markings in the same order. They’re going a little too fast to try to walk with them.”
They nodded and watched. In that silence, though, it was clear they only half paid attention to the markings—or at least, that’s what she felt.
Bezyu had wanted to do something, but she couldn’t… because she wasn’t supposed to. It didn’t matter how much she wanted to, it wasn’t meant to happen. And only because she was aware was she bothered by the fact that she was helpless here. But this still had to be a good thing.
Casrane hadn’t gotten this far just to admit her father had been right.
Right?