Nancy Drew: Mystery of the Six and a Half Keys
Chapter Sixteen

Nancy found herself trapped in the Dean's office. There was no way she could leave, without the secretary noticing her. She'd either have to wait for the secretary to leave, or she'd have to find another exit.

Nancy considered throwing one of the statue heads through the expensive-looking stained glass window, when she heard a cat meowing.

"Kitty kitty kitty kitty!" Nancy cried, clapping her hands together.

The cat sounded like it was on the other side of the wall. Nancy looked for a way to reach the cat, when she saw a tile puzzle built into the wall behind the desk.

"Oh jeez," Nancy said. "It's Yumi's bento boxes all over again!"

There were twelve different tiles, which were a combination of three different shapes, three different colors and four different symbols. Nancy stared at them.

"Okay, what am I supposed to do with this?" Nancy asked.

The tiles didn't answer her.

"What are the rules of the puzzle? Is it something like 'no two pieces of the same shape can be next to each other'? 'Each piece must share a shape or color with the piece next to it'? 'Each column needs to have an even number of sides'? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO HERE?"

It took Nancy a while to notice that someone had carved faint instructions on the wood paneling, on both sides of the puzzle. One instruction said the square crown piece was under a sword. Another said a triangle was next to a sword.

They weren't very helpful, but they were better than nothing. Nancy's annoyance increased when she realized the colors were totally irrelevant to the puzzle solution.

In the end, Nancy didn't solve the puzzle. She had the right solution, but the cabinet wouldn't accept it. In a fit of rage, Nancy started throwing books all over the room. She discovered a hidden passageway behind a cabinet, when she knocked it to the ground.

"Marias! Be quiet in there!" the secretary yelled from the other room.

Marias the cat came bounding out of the hidden passageway. Nancy opened her arms to pick up the cute orange cat. Marias completely ignored her and went straight to his food bowl instead.

"Fine, I didn't want to play with you, either!" Nancy said to the cat.

Nancy entered the hidden passageway, which was a spiral staircase. At the bottom she saw a playing card and two footprints.

"Crap, maybe this Leo guy was kidnapped, after all," Nancy said to herself.

The staircase led to some sort of ancient tunnel system, built over a thousand years ago. It was surprisingly well lit, although Nancy could see some spooky-looking fog building up in one of the tunnels.

"I've gotta get out of here!" Nancy cried.

Nancy took a few steps down one pathway, when a shadowy skeleton knight appeared out of the darkness. It groaned and walked straight towards her.

"NOPE!" Nancy said. She threw a coffee mug at the skeleton and ran back up the staircase behind her.