Odditor let out a maniacal peal of laughter.
“Ooh, this is always one of the best parts. You know what’s coming, don’t, don’t you, stream?”
The labyrinth continued to shake and then, all at once, it was moving. All of it. The walls around Zelda slid into the ground, hissing and venting great plumes of steam and dust.
“Titus!” Zelda said as the tremors grew more severe and she fought to stay upright. “Mark the time!”
“Got it,” he said. “Just about ten minutes since you started.”
“Thank you,” Zelda said. Kaiden could tell she was distracted. Her eyes were fixed on the wall closest to her. But no, not on it; over it. It sank all the way into the ground, as did the others, and for one brief moment, the entirety of the labyrinth was one flat plane. At its center, standing tall and unchanged, was the bright red flag Zelda needed in order to win. She took two quick steps toward it, unsure at first, then broke into a full sprint.
In the distance, Kaiden could see several grachnids and other mobs which must have been roaming the corridors of the maze. He made a mental note of that. Good to know they’re not just triggered as traps but sometimes roam freely. The mobs had spotted Zelda and were charging toward her, including the grachnid punishers she’d left behind several turns ago. They were some distance away, though, and didn’t make it far before new walls rose from the ground.
Zelda ran faster, sprinting straight toward the flag, but there were still two hundred paces between her and it – and the new walls were coming up fast.
“Damn it!” Zelda cursed as she tried to cut across one more quickly-forming corridor but didn’t make it in time. The walls in front and behind her were too tall. She was trapped, back in another corridor.
The labyrinth stopped shaking as the last few walls settled into place, and then silence descended as the newly configured maze became inanimate once more.
“I think our ‘always turn right’ plan just got scrapped,” Thorne said through comms.
Zelda nodded at that but stood unmoving, still facing the direction in which she’d last seen the flag.
“Left, right, right, left, right. I think,” Zelda said, more to herself than anyone else.
“Come again?” Thorne asked.
“She counted the turns,” Kaiden said as the realization struck him. “While the walls were rising.”
“I tried,” Zelda confirmed. “Not sure how reliable it was, though.”
Thorne shrugged.
“As official navigator, I say go with it.”
Zelda took off at a sprint toward the next turn. After Zelda took it, she skidded to a stop.
“That’s going to make things a bit more difficult,” she said, then cursed under her breath.
The corridor in front of her was not a usual one. It was split. One half of it continued as normal, stretching into the distance before running into an intersection. The other half, though, had sunk into the ground. The path sloped downward until it disappeared in a cave.
“Choices, choices,” Odditor said. “But simply left and right gets so dreadfully dull. How about up and down?”
“Or backwards,” Kaiden added. “Hey, technically it’s an option!” he said as Titus gave him a look.
“I don’t look the like of that thing,” Thorne said, frowning at the camera focused on the deep darkness of the cave.
“Exactly why I’m choosing it,” Zelda said and jogged forward. “It looks intimidating, which makes me think it’s the route I’m not supposed to take. Unless this is reverse-reverse psychology, in which case I guess I’m getting outsmarted by a labyrinth.”
“Into the cave?” Kaiden looked at the others. “Seems risky.”
“What part of this whole thing isn’t?” Thorne asked.
Well, she has a point there.
The darkness of the cave swallowed Zelda up and for a few moments Odditor’s monitor showed nothing but blackness.
“This is not, uh, not a technical problem,” Odditor relayed to his stream. “This darkness is intentional. After all, it’s in the dark that we, that we learn to face our greatest fears. Or just get eaten by them.” As he spoke, something moved in the dark. A light, faint and small. It came to life with a soft, warm glow. Daylight, it almost looked like. Several long, curved stalagmites and stalactites were visible just at the edge of it.
Zelda stood silhouetted by the light as it pulsated and grew. No doubt in the deep dark of the cave it was a welcoming sight.
“Yeah, that’s bait,” Zelda said and turned away from it. “What else is down here?”
She flicked her shield on and its soft blue light splashed out through the dark, just enough to illuminate the area immediately around her. The glow reflected off of shiny rocks and puddles of still water. In other places it bounced from the slick surface of stalagmites and stalactites.
The entrance behind Zelda groaned, then slid shut, a wall rising to block it off.
“Well, that’s comforting. Any ideas?” she asked, frowning at her blocked retreat, then reluctantly moving deeper into the cave.
“Probably don’t go toward that pulsating light?” Kaiden said, eyes still glued to whatever it was.
“Yup, figured that one,” Zelda said. And then something moved above her.
It was small and quick, fluttering across the ceiling, visible as nothing more than a flicker of movement. Zelda snapped up toward it, hammer-gun raised.
Kaiden’s visor tried to give a readout on it but whatever it was disappeared too quickly.
“That’s not creepy at all,” Zelda whispered, but the flying creature was gone.
Right up until it wasn’t.
It returned, flapping and fluttering, and dived down right at her face. Something slashed out from it and Zelda’s health bar dropped by a percent – down to eighty-six.
“Ah!” she shouted in surprise, then pulled the trigger on an Improved Scatter Shot.
The attack blasted upwards and the cave was lit, if only momentarily, with a blinding light. In that moment, everything around her was visible.
The flying thing was some sort of bat or bird or... winged nightmare. It was all fur and claws and wings, thrown together at seemingly random angles and
