Chapter 23: The Cage
There was a labyrinth of nets ahead of us. The floor, the walls, the roof, it was all made of nets suspended in the air in a giant concrete box. There were so many nets it was impossible to see how to get through, but we could see it, the other side of the room, at least twenty metres away from us.
Prassus and Ratfinch were still fighting their way through it.
"Alright, this is just ridiculous!" I said. "What sort of environment is this meant to be simulating?"
"Huh?" Egeers said, placing a foot on the netting and withdrawing it almost immediately when it sunk alarmingly deep.
"All of these obstacles and challenges, they're meant to recreate things we might encounter on the battlefield, yeah?" I said, kneeling to touch the netting. The floor was made of fine mesh netting, like a trampoline. "So, what sort of environment is this meant to be?"
"I don't know. How are we going to cross it?" Egeers said, sitting down next to me. I put my leg onto the netting and breathed out slowly as I slid more and more weight onto it. I did not fall through, I merely sank like it was a trampoline.
"It's safe," I said, standing. The netting dropped, but it held. "We can stand on it."
"Uh…yeah, I just…won't look down," Egeers said, wincing as he wobbled his way onto the 'floor'. Below us, there was a second net, a few metres beneath, and then…nothing, just a drop of at least twenty metres.
A trampoline and a safety net was all that stood between us and death. Those good old Imperium safety standards back at it again.
"Hey, look who it is!" Prassus called out when he saw us. Ratfinch was busy trying to climb over some nets. Great. This maze was 3D. Wonderful.
"Yeah, we're gonna get you!" Egeers responded cheerfully.
"Sure you are!" Prassus shot back, stumbling over netting I couldn't see through the sheer quantity of net walls between us and him.
"Alright, let's get to it then," I said. "How do we get to him?"
Egeers shrugged. The first obstacle was a net wall that seemed pretty impassable vertically, so clearly we had to go around it. There were a few walls of netting on either side, but one seemed more open then the other. Even though we could see through every wall in this accursed maze, it wasn't easy to navigate.
"You're going the wrong way!" Ratfinch said, but Egeers just shook his head and ignored him.
"No, we're not," he told me. "I can tell we're not."
I decided to trust his instincts.
Turns out, I was right to do so.
We found our way past the first wall and were then confronted by a choice. One going straight ahead, the other following the edge of the netting.
"Stick left. That gets you through mazes," I told Egeers.
"What? How does that work?" he said.
"It just does, trust me. Keep your hand on the wall and follow it through."
"Alright, we'll see," he muttered. Grabbing onto the net wall, he took the lead, our balance constantly disrupted as the floor sank unevenly around us.
"Don't look down, don't look down, don't look down!" Egeers muttered over and over again, and I had to remind him there was another net below us to catch us if he fell through. Probably not the best encouragement, but I didn't know what else to say.
"Uh, wall," Egeers said suddenly. I looked past him and saw we were at a dead-end, with a net wall we could apparently climb. There was a hole in the netting above us.
"Looks like we go up. Seems we have to climb," I said.
"Yeah, but how?"
"If we can climb up a concrete shaft with tiny handholds and the strength of our arms and legs, climbing a little bit of net shouldn't be a problem, right?" I said, grabbing on and climbing up. My foot got caught several times but I managed to reach the second level, which, to my immense displeasure, we had to crawl through.
"God damn it," I muttered, sliding into the layers of nets. They shook and sank as I crawled through it, with Egeers close behind.
"Don't kick me in the face," he said. I nodded and crawled as quick as I could without getting tangled.
"There's a drop here, but also a corner," I told him. Egeers grunted.
"Do we go left again?" he asked. I didn't know. Would it work in 3D?
"Yeah, let's keep going. It's too obvious to be that way, right?" I said, pushing onwards. We didn't go far when there was another drop, this time with no alternative.
"Down we go," I grunted, rolling off the netting and onto the 'floor' below, where I bounced several times before I could stand. Egeers closed his eyes and lowered himself down, always keeping a tight grip on the netting.
"You good?" I asked him. I noticed we had made quite some progress. Ratfinch and Prassus hadn't moved far, but we'd covered some distance. Which meant we'd found the quick route, or that it gets much harder the further you went.
"I'm good, I'm good," Egeers reassured me as he set his feet down. "I'm good."
"Let's keep moving on. This is timed, remember, it's not just about beating the others," I said, making sure to keep moving left.
"The sergeant didn't tell us this was coming up. This is way more complex then most challenges we've done," Egeers pointed out, and I had to agree. This seemed like an awful lot to drop on us all of a sudden.
There were more walls to climb or circumvent ahead, and each time, we always went left. Sometimes we climbed, sometimes we crawled, but always, we stuck left. Soon, we found ourselves hugging the outer wall.
"This doesn't seem like its working," Egeers said as we started going back into the maze.
"It might not be the fastest, but it works, which is better then going all over the place," I said. "Trust me, it'll work."
Sure enough, we soon found ourselves only a few walls away from Prassus and Ratfinch, who were…below us.
"I see there's even more layers to the maze here," I commented idly as Egeers and I had to crawl to get into their section of the maze.
"Yeah, we've been here for ages and still can't get through," Prassus muttered. It didn't take long to see why. Not only were there so many layers to this section, but some were also diagonal. Getting through this would be a nightmare.
"I still don't see what this is meant to test us on," I said, "aside from our ability not to get lost."
"Who knows? Don't worry, there is a purpose here," Egeers said confidently. "The Imperial Guard doesn't train people for pointless tasks."
Biting down a scathing retort that would likely get me executed for insubordination, I started climbing up the leftmost diagonal path, Egeers in tow. Prassus and Ratfinch looked up at us, and were surprised when we started to overtake them as we crawled through the series of criss-crossing diagonal paths.
"Ok, how are they doing that?" Ratfinch muttered.
Whatever satisfaction we had at taking the lead temporarily was abolished when we started backtracking, and soon we were behind them again as our slowly but surely took us to the end. We could be here for ages, but Prassus and Ratfinch might just chance upon the exit. My mood got even worse when I heard some shouts from the other end of the maze.
"Well, well, well. Looks like all of you are slow today!" Clauda crowed as she and Temond entered the maze.
"Throne damn it," Egeers hissed as they began to make their way through the course. Worse yet, Prassus and Ratfinch had just a few walls between them and the exit, while we were no closer now then when we first entered this last section.
"Why don't we just cut our way through?" I joked, patting my knife. Egeers smirked.
"I already tried that," he admitted. I paled.
"You did? And you didn't tell me?"
"You didn't ask," he said innocently. Damn, this guy…he was quite the shifty sort. But he hadn't let me down yet, so I wouldn't hold that against him.
We made our way down another diagonal descent, which took us under the entrance to this section. Some meandering through the bowels of the nets on our stomachs gave Clauda and Temond time to creep forward, not as fast as we did, but fast enough to make the gap seem a lot smaller then I would've liked. They must be making good time. Whatever lead we had on them was likely obliterated by this maze. The fact that Prassus and Ratfinch were still here indicated this maze must take something like ten minutes to complete. I had no idea how long we'd be here, but I knew that those two should be getting out soon.
"How long will this take?" Egeers hissed as we climbed up a net wall, the same one we saw Ratfinch climbing earlier.
"I have no idea. I just know it works."
"Well, it better work faster," Egeers said. "The others are almost out!"
Sure enough, Prassus and Ratfinch were just one wall away from escaping. Damn them.
"We're close. Look, we saw what way they went, so we'll just follow them. We know they went right here, so let's do that. They stayed close to centre so I think we go up and over here, right a bit, then drop down, and we'll have them," I surmised. Egeers looked at me oddly.
"Not going to get left anymore?" he asked.
"Not needed if he know the way out," I said, grabbing onto the net walls and pulling myself ahead. Egeers nodded along, pushing forward behind me.
"Clauda and Temond are gaining," he said, looking back. I nodded.
"It looks like they'll get close, but we know they'll probably make a few wrong turns here and there. They didn't see how we got here so they don't know our route. We can still do this, Egeers."
"Never doubted we could. Your words, remember?"
Damn. They were.
"Yeah. Yeah, you're right. No doubts. No doubt."
"Doubt is the enemy. Doubt is the weakness. Doubt is the sin of a failing mind," Egeers recited, eyes closed. Was that a prayer? I had no clue, and wasn't about to find out, because all that mattered right now was getting out of this accursed net maze.
"Ha! We're out!" Prassus shouted, clambering onto solid ground, Ratfinch in tow.
"Don't wait, go, go, go!" Ratfinch yelled, pushing Prassus into the exit. He shot me a wink as they disappeared into the narrow walls.
"Damn it!" Egeers snapped.
"We're going to beat you!" Temond shouted from somewhere behind us, but I didn't care. I could see the way out. The way down.
"Look, Egeers, there!" I pointed to a drop into the corridor of nets below us. That's where Prassus and Ratfinch were. We had found it. The shortcut.
"Quick, go, go, go!" Egeers said, urging me on. I needed no further encouragement, crawling as fast as I could to the hole, dropping down, then navigating the last two walls to the exit, closely following what I saw the other two do.
"What is this?" I heard shouting from the far end of the room. Another group had made it to the maze. Oleev and Evet, from the sounds of it. That meant that Burtrus was going last. Poor Burtrus, doing this alone.
"C'mon, Clauda, which way!" Temond shouted, midway through.
"I don't know, keep looking!" she snapped back.
"Go, Sent, run, catch them!" Egeers said, barely out of the last wall, waving me on. I didn't bother waiting for him to untangle himself from the maze, sprinting into the narrow walkway between the high walls. I rounded the corners, Egeers catching up to me quite swiftly, flushed with excitement.
"We can do this," he said fiercely.
"Never had a doubt," I smiled back. Egeers laughed and nudged me in the ribs, poking me onwards.
"Probably have a dreadful time, but what of it, eh?" he said. "We'll always get to try again."
"I'd hope so," I muttered. "But that maze…that was pretty atrocious."
"Yeah, it was…quite the big-ass maze, as you say," he smirked. I just rolled my eyes at him.
When we cleared the narrow corridor, we came to the final challenge. This time, I didn't have any wisecrack comment to make. The sight of the challenge alone made me stop in my tracks, legs shaking. I had feared something like this. This was the sort of thing I didn't ever want to do.
"What is it…oh, by the THRONE!" Egeers yelped, as he stopped by my side, teetering on the edge of a thirty-foot drop into the dark churning waters below.