Huh. That’s interesting. I wonder how he managed that?
“Now, aside from these rules,” Odditor said, “it gives me great pleasure to say that, within my labyrinth… anything goes.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zelda said. The camera captured a close-up of her face as she did. She was smirking slightly.
She has something in mind, Kaiden knew. But knowing her, it wasn’t just one something, but several.
“Well, then.” Odditor leaned forward in his chair. “Let… let us begin.” He flicked a switch on his control console and a little blinking red dot appeared in the corner of the main monitor.
We’re recording. No turning back now. Kaiden made sure to turn his proximity chat off so he’d only be speaking to the others via comms.
“Well, uh, hello there,” Odditor said to the viewers who’d be watching tomorrow. “The menagerie is hungry once again. It’s time they were fed, wouldn’t you, wouldn’t you agree? Today we have a special challenger.” The camera had been showing a wide shot of the labyrinth but now it began zooming in slowly on Zelda. As it did, she drew more and more into focus.
“You may have heard of, of her before. She’s something of a celebrity right now and I don’t think you’ve even heard the half of her story.” Odditor was clearly in his element now, having too much fun building up the suspense.
At the entrance to the labyrinth, Zelda shifted from one foot to the other, looking impatient. Kaiden couldn’t begin to imagine what was going through her mind as she waited.
“Today’s competitor has taken a break from her seemingly full-time career of being a thorn in the Warden Corps’ side to join us. She’s a one-woman force of chaos.” He paused, and the camera angle now showed Zelda’s face clear as day. “Or maybe she’s just grachnid lunch? Today’s competitor is none other than Zelda the free warden, and it’s time to find out what she’s going to be. Victor? Or victim?” With that, Odditor waved his hand over the holotable and the bridge in front of Zelda whirred and extended until it spanned the rest of the trench to connect with the entrance to the labyrinth.
Zelda didn’t hesitate, leaning forward into a jog and making her way into the labyrinth.
“Titus,” she said through comms as she crossed the bridge. “Do me a favor? Start a timer as soon as I set foot in there.”
“You got it.”
She stepped off the bridge and officially entered the labyrinth. Titus nodded and his eyes flicked off to the side, looking at a timer only visible to him.
Towering walls rose on either side of Zelda. From afar they’d looked like they were made of some sort of patchwork of stone. With a closer view now, however, Kaiden could see they were anything but. They were stone, but veins ran through them all along their length. And not veins of minerals, but veins of – well, it looked like blood. Or maybe oil? Kaiden didn’t know how much was stone and how much was machine. On stream he’d seen them move – it was a fairly common trick of the labyrinth’s to reconfigure itself – so probably they were mostly machine. Still, Kaiden couldn’t deny there was an organic look to them.
The whatever-they-were-made-of walls guided Zelda ahead, forming a corridor that, like the rest of the labyrinth, was open to the sky. The sun of the star system they were in shone down with morning light that created long shadows from the towering walls of the labyrinth. And Zelda as well.
“Kaiden,” she said as she jogged. “My shadow’s off to my left, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Remember that for me. Or better yet, screencap it.”
Not sure why that’s relevant, but sure. He snagged a quick screencap of her in the corridor, shadow stretching off to her left side.
She continued down the corridor, then slowed as it came to an end at an intersection. She had two choices: turn left or turn right. Both directions just led to another corridor, each about fifty paces long before ending in intersections of their own. Zelda contemplated a moment then peeled off down the right-side corridor.
“Which path to choose? Which path, hmm?” Odditor asked to his stream.
“Thorne, make sure I take the right-most route at every intersection I come to. I have a feeling things are going to get hairy down here, so you’re going to be my navigator.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she said, her voice taking on the sharp, precise tone she’d used when she’d been a warden captain.
“This way, she doesn’t get lost,” Kaiden said, thinking through her plan aloud. “She’s going to keep herself aligned with the same wall the whole way.” Work through the labyrinth slowly but surely. He wasn’t sure why he’d expected anything less analytical from Zelda.
“It’ll work as long as this is a simple labyrinth. If it has islands – smaller sections that aren’t connected to the exterior wall – then we’ll have a problem. But we’ll tackle that issue if it arises,” Zelda said, then slowed as she reached the next intersection. She was staring down two options again. Not right or left, though. This time, both turns forced her to the left.
“Still gotta go with the right-most,” Thorne said.
“A calm start so far, it seems,” Odditor said. “But I think we all know that’s not, not the way this game of ours goes.”
As he spoke, Kaiden spotted something several paces in front and off to the side of Zelda. A rough spot in the dirt floor where the ground had been disturbed.
“On your left,” Kaiden said, making sure Zelda saw it.
“I see it,” she said then raised her hammer-gun and fired an Improved Warden’s Bolt at the patch. It detonated with a burst of electricity and a series of piercing shrieks filled the air.
Grachnid assisted kill –
