Author's Note: Hope this quick turnaround makes up for the long wait last time. Enjoy!
Nonary Game: Resonance
(Current path: 5)
"I guess it's time to go forward again," Boxcars stated.
"As it always seems to be, in life," Delta mused.
"Alright, Confucius. Let's see if we can get our asses out of here." Boxcars reversed and headed back, passing the gym as the other three trolleyed behind him. Unsurprisingly, the stretch of hallway past the exit to the room was also fairly nondescript.
"Wouldn't you think there'd be more classrooms around here?" Leo asked. "Like, so they'd maximize the use of their space, or whatever."
"There's probably just a lot of, like, ventilation and plumbing stuff around here," Boxcars shrugged. "But there's gotta be doors to that stuff somewhere. Not that that's anything we'd be interested in, unless our captor's hiding in the water heater."
"I've seen weirder things," Delta sighed.
In spite of the initial apparent lack of anything noteworthy, it seemed that there were, in fact, a few doors sparsely populating the hallway. Robin was the first to happen upon one, but he found the handle was stuck fast, much like those in the original hallway. He found himself somewhat disappointed; after entering the numbered door, he'd gotten quite used to door handles turning as one would normally expect.
In the front of the pack, Boxcars and Robin were the ones to repeatedly check the doors on either side of the hallway, continuing to find them unworthy of their time. However, there was one final door at the end of the hall, which had something oddly shaped near the middle. Leo paced ahead to check it.
"There must have been some sign taped up here that someone ripped off," he called back. "There's just one corner left." He flicked at the flap left by the unremoved tape to make his point as the others made it to the bend.
Robin tested the handle, a tad bit surprised to feel it turn. "Guess our kidnapper wanted to build the suspense," he said.
"I hope we don't have to solve another damn puzzle," Boxcars groaned.
"Yes, I'd say it's about time we rejoined the rest of the participants," Delta agreed, crossing his arms.
"You mean the people who went through Door [4]?" Robin asked, glancing at the number on Delta's watch. "What makes you so sure we're meeting up?"
"It's only logical," Delta replied. "Our group has a digital root of 5, and theirs has a digital root of 4. There's no subset of them that can go through Door [9], and the same is true for us. That is, unless we're willing to leave Leo behind."
"Hey," Leo retorted. "Besides, you're wrong, for once. Basilio, Lucky, and Cody could definitely go through Door [9]."
"Hmm," Delta followed. "Fair enough. Then, we move on to another point. When we get to Door [9], we all have to be together. There's no way that one of our groups would be lucky enough to choose correctly, and the other would be screwed. That wouldn't be fair."
"What gave you the idea that our kidnapper is fair?" Leo asked.
"Well, it's been a few hours since the game started, and they haven't interfered once. I think it's safe to say they don't intend to." Delta's face remained perfectly composed. "Besides, they gave us all of the rules for this game at the onset, along with all of the warnings about what could potentially get us killed. Nothing is left up to chance." He stopped for a moment then. "That is, except for the other participants' actions. But let's not worry about that."
"Wait a minute, I think we should worry about that," Boxcars interjected. "We could supposedly end up killing someone, couldn't we? There's all kinds of shit we could have grabbed: a weight plate, a damn… dumbbell…" He didn't seem able to think of any other effective weapons.
"All I have is the cinch bag with the notebook and stuff," Robin said, holding up his hands to show innocence.
"And a pencil. Which could be dangerous, if you happened to know where to stab someone with it," Delta chuckled, "but I doubt that."
"Ouch," Robin mumbled.
"And none of the rest of us have anything," Leo said, his mouth forming a tight frown. Robin's left eye narrowed slightly in response, as he was quite sure Leo had gone to retrieve one of the bottles of vitamins back in the locker rooms. What does he think he's gonna get out of hiding that? Robin thought.
"I figured as much. You all seem to be quite a trustworthy sort. But, back to what I was saying, we surely will all meet up again. We've gone through Door [5] and [4], but I assure you the number [9] door is not the next one we'll be seeing." Delta had a solid point, and none of the others could think of a logical reason to counter him.
"Anyway, instead of going on theorizing about what's gonna happen here, why don't we just keep going and get to it?" Boxcars replied. "We still haven't even looked behind this damn door yet. Topaz?"
Robin nodded once, returning to his task of opening the door. The room it contained was fairly small, by high school standards. "I'm not even sure what the purpose of this is," he sighed.
"I'll hazard a guess it's for storage," Boxcars deadpanned, eyeing several shelving units that had been constructed around the room's walls and in the center.
"But it wasn't made for storage," Robin replied. "These are the same shelf things you can get at Tesco for thirty quid."
Delta scratched his head. "I have to agree. This hardly fits the level I'd expected after seeing other rooms in this building."
"Maybe that's why there are no classrooms around here," Leo mused. "The school didn't want the students to know they were so bad at planning." A grin spread across his face, but the others paid him no mind.
"There's all kinds of random junk on these shelves," Boxcars noticed, digging through a layer that seemed to be filled with boxed light bulbs and spare switch plates.
Delta hadn't moved beyond a couple of steps since the door was opened. "There isn't an exit door anywhere. This is the only one that goes to this room. So, fortunately, it looks like we don't have to solve a third puzzle just yet."
"We should still take a good look around," Robin said. "If our kidnapper left it unlocked, it must be for something."
Leo nodded. "Yeah, what do you bet there's like some kind of hidden key or something that we need later. Maybe that one we gave to Topaz has a triplet." Robin couldn't be sure why, but he had the hint of a feeling they would find no such thing.
"Whatever makes you happy," Delta conceded, moving to search a shelf near the back.
Spreading out was a good idea, Robin agreed, so he moved to another corner, out of the way of the other three, beginning a lengthy search of his own.
However…
"I don't think any of this stuff is gonna be useful at all." Leo's tone gave the impression that he'd had the idea for the majority of the time they'd spent searching the room. Robin's skill at estimating time wasn't the strongest, but he figured the group must have spent at least fifteen minutes giving the packed shelves a hearty investigation.
"This isn't a thing like the other two rooms we searched, that's for sure," Boxcars added. "Nothing here really stands out as important, huh?"
Delta's head was leaned back, as though he were somewhere between deep thought and sleep. "Actually, that's what we did wrong." He paused for only a second. "We looked at every shelf instead of what stood out, didn't we?"
"Uh, you wanna clue us in, dude?" Leo asked.
"It's darker over here than it is in the back there, where Topaz and I started," Delta sighed. "Something is in this light fixture, obscuring it just a bit."
"Huh," Boxcars said, looking up at the large, translucent panel above them. "Yeah, there's this roughly rectangular blockage."
"I want to know how you even noticed the difference," Leo said, "and why you had to bring it up like you're the damn riddle master."
Delta shrugged, as a magician might when an audience member asked how they pulled off a trick. "How about we see if we can take out this panel and find what the problem is."
"I don't see any ladders in here," Robin sighed. "And it's probably not a good idea to try climbing any of these shelves. There's probably already like fifty kilograms of shit on some of them, and I'm not about to test their strength."
"What, do you think we should climb on each other's shoulders?" Boxcars said, doubtfully.
"Actually, that's not a terrible idea." Delta immediately turned to Leo. "Leo, hoist me up."
"Excuse me?" Leo asked, clearly not expecting to be drawn into the idea.
"I mean, it's obvious. You're the strongest one of us here, and I'm the lightest. Ah, no offense," he said, turning to Robin and Boxcars, who simply made a face with an expression of slight judgement. "I'm sure I can reach those latches."
Robin found it hard to believe that the storage room could lack a step-ladder, especially after there had been one in the room he'd awoken in. He went to look for it, expecting Boxcars to join him, but the man seemed far more interested in watching the amusing spectacle of Delta trying to negotiate his way up Leo's brawny frame. Robin wouldn't admit it, but the majority of his attention stayed on the two as they awkwardly shuffled around the light, Delta straining to reach the latches with one hand while his other pushed at the top of Leo's head.
"Got it!" Delta's call had eliminated Robin's need to search any longer, and as he approached, he heard the soft sound of something clacking on the ground.
He knelt down to examine it, finding it to be another card key. It was overwhelmingly plain, marked with a bold "5" on the side opposite the stripe. "Do you think we can use this to get back through Door [5]?" he asked.
"Actually," Boxcars started, "I bet this is like, the proof that we've been through this door. I bet we need it to move on."
"Which means we're free from these puzzles?" Leo asked, a bit optimistically as he lowered Delta back to the ground.
"We should really relatch the light…" Delta started, trailing off as the others glared.
"For now, I'd figure," Boxcars answered. "At least until we enter another numbered door. Of course, there are still plenty of questions. For example, what the fuck was our captor thinking putting it in a light? Was he trying to waste our time or our will to live?" He'd clapped his hands together, and a few seconds after he finished speaking, he spread them apart, shrugging widely.
Leo, however, seemed ready for their experience in the storage room to conclude. "Who knows. Come on, let's see if there's another locked door across the hall." Robin nodded once, tapping the card into his right hand and moving to open the door back into the hallway with his left.
There was little more to the hallway past the bend, although Robin supposed they should have looked into it before ducking inside the storage room. In any case, there was nothing urgently awaiting them, excepting another wooden door. It was double-wide, much like Door [5] had been, with the presumably glass windows painted over in black. "That hardly seems necessary," Boxcars lamented.
"Surely you've noticed we can't see from any rooms into any other rooms," Delta added. "I mean, unless the door's open. That must have been intentional on the part of our kidnapper."
"I mean, you usually can't see into halls from classrooms anyway," Leo responded. "But this does seem pretty intentional. I guess he doesn't want us to know what anyone else is up to unless we're in the room with them."
Boxcars chuckled once. "That's nice and ominous. But, uh, there's the swipe right to the right of the doors. Or, rather, it's kind of like a chip reader. Topaz?" Wordlessly, Robin slipped the 5 card into the reader.
"Here we go." Instinctively, Robin made to pull the card back out, but it remained stuck in the reader slot. "Well, guess we won't need this one again."
The door opened into, exactly as expected, another hallway, but there was little to it. Directly in their line of sight sat another double door, much like the one they'd just crossed. To their right was a wall, looking utterly plain, as though a poster had recently been torn down.
On their left side, however, was another set of double doors that was locked into an open position. "About damn time we got out of this basement," Boxcars cheered. Indeed, the stairs were a good sign; the group would be advancing in the game and hopefully catching up to the others soon.
Robin could feel himself getting closer and closer to freedom with each step he climbed, perhaps the most joyful he'd been since waking up. "Don't get too excited," Delta reminded him. "We've still got six doors to find before Door [9]."
"Spoilsport," Robin said with a slight laugh. Delta clapped him on the shoulder as they neared the top of the stairwell.
Leo was the first to reach the doors at the top, which, for some reason, had not been open like those at the bottom, but Robin figured it hardly mattered. Without waiting for permission, Leo pushed the door open, swinging it wide and immediately finding…
"Whoa!"
"Cody! Oh, sorry dude," Leo called out. "Guess you were right, Delta." The man nodded once, and Robin could imagine him winking in self-satisfaction.
"Leo, good to see you. I guess you're all safe, then?" Cody's eyes jumped to each of the four as they exited the stairwell, finding themselves in another main hallway.
"Are you with anyone else?" Delta asked.
"Right here," Basilio's voice rang out, from a few steps away. He quickly jogged over, offering a weak wave. "We just thought that we should wait here by the stairwell, since it could not be long until you finished Door [5]. We were a bit worried that the rest of you might have been having some trouble, although I admit my sense of time is not the best."
"Nah, nothing to worry about," Boxcars reassured. "We just spent too damn long looking for that 5 key card."
"Ah, I hear ya," Cody nodded. "Come on, everyone else went that way. They'll probably be waiting." He pointed along the hallway before leading the charge.
Within thirty seconds, they found themselves walking through quite an expansive area. "This must be the foyer, or… entryway," Boxcars said. "Wait, what do they call this room again?"
"Beats me," Cody replied.
Robin looked around, somewhat impressed by the large fans affixed to the ceiling, which must have been at least two stories high. He could see a row of benches along one wall, on the opposite side of the room from the hallway they'd just exited. The wall adjacent to it was entirely metal, leading him to believe that it blocked off what must have been the main entrance to the campus. He gave it two moderate knocks, and it replied with a dull enough sound to convince him that it would not be moved any time soon.
Alas, the open area extended far to the other side. The walls natural to the school were overwhelmingly plain, constructed of white and gold painted bricks but bare in the wooden plaques or computer-paper posters that one might expect to see in a high school's main area. A small alcove, fenced by about five feet of brick, sat a short walk away from the group, and Cody lead them over to it.
"Ian, they're here," Cody said.
The man in the pilot uniform stood slowly from the large bean bag chair he'd been resting in, looking quite pleased to see the others. As though his joy had given him a bit too much energy, he stuck out his hand to shake that of the first person before him, which happened to be Boxcars. Awkward as Robin was sure he might have been had Ian greeted him, Boxcars took the handshake with a grin and heartily patted Ian on the shoulder. "Good to see you're all safe."
"Judging by your demeanor, you have all gone unhurt as well," Delta noted.
Ian gave a quick nod. "Yeah, the other three are just right down the hallway up that couple of steps," he replied, pointing firmly. "You'll probably want to see what they're looking at, and we can exchange stories once we get there."
"You've been up to a lot since we split up?" Leo asked, a bit skeptical. Robin figured there couldn't have been much more to their story than to his own, but in any case, everyone was happy to see each other still safe and sound, and so he could stand to hear a bit of lighthearted chatter.
However, their stories would not be the first thing the group discussed. A series of steps stood along a hallway at the backside of the entryway, and after climbing them, the group had rejoined the rest of the participants. Basilio, Marcus, and Lucky, however, had not been waiting for them with bated breath. They were staring down two large doors, which blocked off paths diverting down hallways perpendicular to each other. Each was painted with a familiarly messy red digit. The one on the left was labeled [2], and the one on the right was labeled [6].
"Two more numbered doors, huh," Robin mused.
"Actually…" Marcus started. "You must have missed it, but there's a third one. Door [1]. If you head back to the main entrance and then turn back to the way you came immediately, you'll see it on the wall you came through from the staircase." Robin and the rest of the Door [5] crew noticeably frowned, and Marcus offered a weak smile. "Uh, don't worry. I'm not all that observant either."
Robin allowed his attention to drift from Marcus for a few seconds, over the others who had gone through Door [4]. At the surface, they seemed fairly content, but Robin could sense some kind of resentment resonating off of Lucky and Cody.
"Looks like you found a cinch bag," Boxcars noticed, somewhat quietly to Marcus. As the other participant responded to him, Robin leaned over to whisper to Ian.
"What's the deal with them?" he asked, widening his eyebrows at Cody and Lucky, who had visibly shifted to not face each other.
Ian's first response was a smirk and then a shrug. "Hard to say, really. Their personalities just don't click even a little bit. We split up in the kitchen, and I happened upon them talking in some sharp hushed tones. Couldn't make out what they were saying, though. But I wouldn't bother trying to get that out of them." He crossed his arms then, his focus returned to the rest of the group.
Delta had been describing the events after the split, but he seemed to finish shortly after Robin began paying attention. "Our story's basically the same," Lucky responded. "First the kitchen, then the cafeteria, and here we are. But we didn't have nearly so much trouble with our 4 key."
"Did you maybe find anything else that might be important?" Leo asked.
"There was one key we couldn't find a lock for at all," Ian added, reaching within his jacket to look for it. He seemed to be having a bit of trouble, but he eventually fished out a fairly fancy, old-fashioned key.
"What's that symbol on it? Like a woman with a crown?" Boxcars asked, pointing to a clean, black carving on the head.
"It's Mercury, the planet. Or so I assume," Marcus answered.
"Yeah, probably not a whole lot of other things that use that symbol," Lucky said.
"Maybe the element," Delta mused. "We did find some back in the storage room on floor 0."
"In any case, we can't use it now," Ian sighed. "Topaz, since we gave you that other key, can you hang on to this one too?" Robin looked around the room, ensuring none of the other participants were going to speak up against the choice. After a few seconds, he gave a solid nod, slipping it into his pocket alongside the mystery key.