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1068 Words
Minkalla had clearly given them a riddle challenge, but with the floor theme, they were unable to hear said riddle, which meant that they were attacked for failing the puzzle. To add insult to injury, they didn’t even earn any Genesis Energy from the gargoyles.
After searching, they found a number of pictures carved on the wall that they interpreted as the questions the gargoyles asked, but none of them were able to identify the question or guess the answer. The puzzle may have been theoretically possible, but it might as well have been impossible.
Eventually, they succeeded and progressed on, spending another three days working through various puzzle rooms while climbing ever higher with each completion.
If they weren’t earning large amounts of Genesis Energy for each successful completion, they might have resented the time loss.
Still, they estimated that they were doing well in their collection of Genesis Energy, considering that they had only been on the planet for less than a week. Most people took months to complete a single floor, after all, though Pathers were expected to take less time. But a floor in this context meant the three sublayers that comprised each true floor.
Finally, after they solved a complicated puzzle room where they needed to direct a flow of water to a reservoir through a series of broken and blocked pipes, they were given an exit to the top of the pyramid.
They hadn’t been able to see it from the ground, but along the top, near the peak of the pyramid where the two hands seemed to clasp each other, there was a little ledge for them to stand on.
Liz pulled out a mana stone, and before it was drained by Minkalla, she tossed it into the clasping hands. Once it passed the point where they met, instead of falling back to the ground at their feet, it fell onto the pyramid above them.
Gravity had righted itself on the other side of the pyramid, it seemed.
As the others discussed the best way to cross the plane of changing gravity with no ability to fly by either item or Concept, Matt was focused on the hands.
Even with just his spiritual perception, they seemed too real.
When they had been at the bottom of the pyramid, the hands looked as if they were made from Genesis Energy and served as a connection.
Matt got a feeling these hands, or rather the gloves, were the real reward of the pyramid, more so than the Genesis Energy they earned.
Interjecting, he said, “I think the gloves are the final puzzle, and if we complete said puzzle, we get the gloves.”
That caused the three of them to pause.
Aster spoke first, “That seems probable enough, but how do we get them? My Concept can’t grab them at all.”
Liz asked, “Should I test it with blood?”
Matt and Susanne easily agreed that it was worth a shot, but they found that Liz was entirely unable to get her blood to approach them. It was like she was trying to push two magnets of the same polarity together.
No matter how hard she pushed, they refused to touch.
Except, it was worse for her blood; it was unable to get closer than within five feet of the gloves.
Susanne tried next with her manifested sword, but even its non-physical self could approach the gloves any closer than Liz. Her spatial abilities got it two feet closer, but that was all.
Aster tried to use ice to encase the gloves, but her ice just shattered as she tried to approach.
Matt went through all his manipulation skills to the same result, and eventually, they decided it was better to just move on.
They secured a rope to the stone pyramid before tossing it up and through the plane of gravity change, where it fell and kept itself pulled up from their perspective.
Liz tried to grab the gloves, but while her physical body could get closer, she was still repulsed by a few inches.
Matt went next and paused between the gravity changes that let him hover with only an arm wrapped around the rope to anchor him.
His gut told him that there was a way to take the gloves, and he wanted them.
If his suspicion was correct, this was their reward, and they just needed to figure out how to take it When he got close, he could feel the Genesis Energy flowing from the pyramid they had exited and the one above him.
The flows of energy felt distinctly different. The one from the pyramid they had solved felt somehow…completed.
It didn’t take a genius to suspect that they were supposed to enter the other pyramid, complete all of its puzzles, and then return here.
That would have been the normal and acceptable answer, but Matt refused to spend another three days doing inane puzzles for the gloves.
On a hunch, he sent a little Genesis Energy into the gloves, but instead of being absorbed as he expected, it was just eaten by Minkalla.
Next, Matt tried mana to the same effect.
Cursing, he tried to reach the gloves once more, but he found that he was still repulsed.
Sighing, he climbed down the rope and let Susanne and Aster make their own attempts, but neither had any success.
The problem they found was that the door that had let them out on the previous pyramid was entirely absent on this pyramid, and they would need to climb down the second pyramid’s outer steps to reach the bottom.
Liz looked up at the gloves but shook her head. “I don’t think it’s worth going through the pyramid again. We need to move deeper.”
Matt fully agreed.
He was about to step down and follow the others when he turned around and grabbed the rope.
Leaving the gloves was against everything he knew about Minkalla, and he asked, “Give me five more minutes to do some tests.”
He climbed the rope to reach an equilibrium and spread his spiritual sense in a tight net around the gloves but found nothing new.
Matt locked down space, and while it didn’t let him fly, it gave him a bit of leverage, and he was able to get within inches of the gloves.
- Writer
