Caution and recklessness are two extremes a warrior must overcome. If a warrior is too cautious, they will give up any advantage. If they are too reckless, they abandon all ability to fight.
~Lugh, God of Battle and Craft
Coyote appeared in the sky covered with a robe, and his head hidden the shadows of his deep hood. No one could see his actual appearance, but Crow knew the face under the cowl. Yellow eyes glared from within the darkness of the hood.
Crow found it strange that a beast-god like this was in charge of the Clocktower. It made little sense as he felt the god had little to do with the concept of time. However, Crow had little information on tribal clans. The only coyote god that came to mind was the Chirich from the Arikara people. Chirich guided his people by creating cautionary tales—in other words, he’d punish inappropriate behavior with inappropriate behavior. In truth, if Coyote was Chirich, Crow liked the beast god’s style. It’d also make an odd sort of sense that he was placed here to challenge the character of the younger generations.
Still, all the contestants were unusually silent after his announcement. Death was a severe consequence because every failure ended by getting kicked out of the Clocktower before now.
“You may choose to leave. Forfeit your chance at another reward. Those that want to go back, speak.”
Silence settled over them like a stifling fog. Finally, one brave soul spoke up, and a handful more followed. By the time Coyote spoke once more, there were only fourteen people left. Of those, four were the remaining Vodun, and three were Crow and his friends.
“Those that remain, congratulations. Your reward potential has increased. This challenge is simple. On your platform is a puzzle—solve it to reach the tower. Once inside the tower, you must find your own exit. If that is too vague, remember the door you chose. Entering that, you’ll find yourself in the treasure room. Fate, time, chance, karma, luck… maybe a helping hand? These are all good things to have right now.”
Crow felt like the last line was a stab at him. Or maybe a hint? He wasn’t sure, but it was the mention of fate that made Crow pay attention.
“What puzzle? Crossing that water is impossible!” A pock-marked man cried out. While he had no Shield and wasn’t much older than everyone else, his craggy face made him appear twice as old.
“Everything you need to cross is at hand,” Coyote laughed, and Crow turned around to see the platform he was on had a podium in the center and several wood chests nearby.
Crow would be lying if he said this trial didn’t make him nervous. Life and death situations weren’t something he’d take lightly. Especially since Mara was here with him. He gave her a quick glance and saw she was already opening the chests, so he did the same.
Inside each chest were dozens of objects, so he quickly memorized the contents before checking the podium. On the podium, there were three holes. Each had a strange shape. In the center, there was a small circular hole with a notch on the bottom.
Activating Sage’s Mind, he analyzed everything he saw in the chests and quickly found two items. So he went and grabbed them. After slotting them correctly, the objects glowed intensely before sinking into the podium and sealing the hole behind them.
Dumping everything out on the ground, he tried finding the last two pieces. Only one of the objects, a music box, shattered as it hit the ground. The key used to wind it up popped out and bounced across the solid platform with a ting sound.
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“Clever,” he muttered under his breath as he picked it up. The problem was he was sure it would not work without the last object. Looking at the hole once more, he scanned all the items and couldn’t find anything that matched at all.
Placing his hands on the raised podium, he glanced at the back of his hand and saw the gears before his eyes settled on his knuckles. Curling his fingers into a fist, he grinned. He remembered what the trickster said, and almost laughed at the ‘helping hand’ comment.
Lining his fist up with the hole, he hesitated. The podium took the other two items. Did that mean this challenge wanted to take his hand?
After several seconds, Crow felt there wasn’t much option. Die or make a sacrifice. So he placed this fist into the hole, and it matched up perfectly, but there was no response. There was no way he was wrong, so he inserted the key into the remaining hole in the center. Still nothing. He turned the key like he was winding up a music box.
Click! Click! Click!
However, nothing happened once more. Placing his fist inside the hole once more, a glowing white barrier surrounded Crow’s fist. Inside the spherical shape, he couldn’t see his own hand, but more alarmingly, he couldn’t flex or feel it either.
In that microscopic bit of time, he felt panic, but then the platform started moving. The key clicked as it rotated back to its original place, and then the platform stopped. The barrier disappeared as if it never existed, and Crow’s hand was free once more.
This time, he cranked the key all the way around multiple times and placed his fist in the hole once more. The barrier went up, only this time his entire body shuddered as mana was sapped out of him. The platform shuddered as it shot forward, and Crow tried to take back his fist before his Source was completely drained, but it held fast. Crow started shaking as his knees went weak, but then he saw the key stop in its original position once more, and the podium released him.
Crow collapsed to the ground and cultivated.
He gathered mana into his Source slower than others because of his curse, but he had a massive head start on everyone else. It was his own saving grace. Despite that, he still had time to try to project the solution through the Constellation. Acco wanted to teach him and Mara, but there wasn’t much time, so his understanding of how it worked was rather crude.
Either way, his allies seemed to gain an edge. Because by the time he stopped cultivating, they were both moving forward too. Crow stood up and proceeded forward once more. This time he did one full rotation of the key only and then stopped to cultivate. Moving the entire platform was a slow and arduous task, especially since the mana drain was intimidating. Crow was careful about keeping some reserve mana in his Source.
As he approached the tower, he realized it was much larger than he’d thought. There was some kind of distortion or optical illusion that made it appear much smaller until he crossed a certain point.
Up close, the thing was dozens of stories tall, and the door was twice as tall as an average person. Crow felt the Coyote wouldn’t make it this easy, so he remained cautious the closer he got.
Almost an entire day passed before Crow finally felt his platform bump into the platform that surrounded the tower. Sadly, his massive lead had dwindled. He was still the first to reach the tower, but the others were not far behind.
Despite that, Crow didn’t rush into the tower like an idiot. Instead, he shot his soul-linked arrow through the open door. After it returned to his hand, he shot it once more, but nothing came out. With a shrug, he nocked the arrow and entered the tower with his bow up and drawn.
Inside, the room was empty except for a set of winding stairs. Crow went upward but failed to notice the spatial ripples as he climbed. After a few more steps upward, he reached a point where he could no longer see the room below. The space before him appeared empty, too. The next set of stairs was directly across the room, but at least a hundred meters separated the two.
Crow used his footwork and visage to turn into a ghost essentially. Make it hard to hear or see him. He even activated his Ghostly Aura in case something could track him by his heat. Cautiously, he moved forward, but the tip of his arrow constantly moved, pointing toward any shadow, breath of wind—anything that seemed remotely out of place. By the time he reached the center of the room, he was beyond tense, so when a faint sound came from behind him, he spun and released his arrow.
A throaty moan escaped the woman’s throat, and Crow’s eyes widened as he saw Mara standing there with an arrow in her chest and blood spewing out of her mouth.