Riddle looked at his dorm with absolute disgust. The sheer number of students who wanted to disregard the very rules they were honor bound to follow the moment they became Heartsabyl dorm members was appalling.
Ace's complete disdain for him upholding the Queen's rules royally angered him.
Riddle honestly contemplated walking away and being done with them all. The only thing that kept him from completely snapping and possibly falling into Overblot was the fact the headmage was there.
"You want me to be easier on the rules?" growled Riddle.
"You are being a little too harsh on the freshmen," said Trey tactfully.
Such an unexpected betrayal hit hard. Something in Riddle absolutely snapped.
He allowed the collars to drop, before he used a bit of magic to summon a book.
"You want me to ease up on the rules? Fine, but we'll do it my way," said Riddle angrily. "I am going to give you all a choice... You can continue following the current set of rules, or..."
"Or what?" said Ace.
"Or I'll reset the entire dorm back to the way things were back when it was first opened, with a few modifications to suit modern standards," said Riddle. Inwardly he cackled darkly, as he knew the lazy students would jump on what they would assume was the easier choice.
Trey looked a tad confused by this.
"So you're saying you'll reset us to back to the default conditions of the dorm, rules wise?" asked Cater. "How is that any different from the way things are now?"
"The current set of rules that the dorm follows are translations from when the Queen of Hearts fell into actual madness following the disappearance of her son," said Riddle without hesitation. "What I'm suggesting is that everyone follows the rules from before she took the post from her mother, as well as everyone following the rules of Wonderland before it was sealed off."
"What's the difference?" asked Ace.
"The current book has over eight hundred rules," said Riddle. "The original rules of Wonderland was almost half that, plus the maze was altered. From what I've found, one of the past housewardens turned off a few features because he found them annoying."
"So less rules to follow and a few new features?" said Ace. "Sign me up!"
Riddle was inwardly laughing darkly in his head. He turned to the headmage.
"Headmage, you've heard their agreement to follow the original dorm rules and conditions, correct?" he asked.
"Heard and witnessed," said Crowley, unsure why he felt a pervading sense of paperwork looming over his head.
Riddle turned to his dorm mates.
"So everyone would rather follow the original rules and conditions?" he asked. He was positively gleeful when it came to a near unanimous vote. "Then this Unbirthday Party is over. I'll reset the dorm in the morning, and we'll do a trial run of a month for now, no exceptions."
As the entire dorm wound down and went to bed, Riddle stayed up. He waited for the last student to buckle down for the night, before he took his school things and a few changes of uniform...and walked out of the dorm. He didn't need any light, as he knew the path by heart, and the moon was full.
Seeing the path ahead, a dark grin filled Riddle's features. Without a second thought, he began the odd, intricate dance across the pavement stones until he entered a secluded area. There was a building covered with roses in full bloom, lovingly cared for. He calmly walked up to the door, and turned the knob.
Inside was a quiet little room filled with many, many knicknacks, pictures, and the cozy ambiance of a pleasant study. There was a couch with a clean blanket and a few pillows. Not really big enough for someone like Trey, but more than sufficient for someone like Riddle. There was a small cabinet with a selection of non-perishable snacks beside it.
There was a bookshelf with an eclectic selection of books to read, some in an ancient language most students would need a professional translator to read.
All in all, it was Riddle's private sanctuary from the world, and he was fully prepared to bunker down for at least a week in here.
Once he settled his things down for the night, Riddle went up to a wall of odd looking knobs and switches.
He reached up to one of the smaller knobs which had indecipherable writing...and began to slowly turn it until he heard a firm 'click' indicating something had been switched.
Task done, Riddle promptly settled on the couch before falling asleep after a few minutes. There was a satisfied smile on his face knowing that he was going to get his payback on those lazy fools in short order.
Riddle walked to the dining hall and was among the first to reach it. He paid no mind to the other students meandering in, and began to eat his breakfast. It wasn't until lunch that people began to notice something was...off.
Yuu walked up to Riddle by dinner asking if he had seen Ace or Deuce. Riddle informed the odd prefect that he had not, as he had left extra early that morning.
Yuu and Grim left, disappointed.
By day three, Professor Trein approached Riddle directly.
"Mr. Rosehearts, a word."
"Yes, Professor Trein?"
"Is there any reason that you are the only Heartsabyl student to be present for the past three days?" he asked bluntly.
"I imagine they're finding it awkward leaving the dorm at the moment," said Riddle. "Though I must admit, I'm more surprised it's taking this long for them to figure out the proper paths."
It honestly baffled him that it had been three days and not one of the other students had managed to make it past the entrance traps. He would have assumed Cater at least would find a way out, with those clones of his.
"I see. I expect them to be back in class by Monday, and to make up the lost work," said Trein.
"Of course. I'll have a word with them later, as I have club meetings," said Riddle.
Trein nodded, believing the matter to be solved. Riddle was very strict on his dorm members and had personally insured that none of them failed their exams.
Riddle waited until morning before he headed back to the dorm proper.
What he found was absolute chaos, with the dorm members looking like they had seen hell.
Cater looked absolutely relieved to see Riddle.
"Thank the Seven! Trey was starting to get really worried."
"What in blazes happened here?" demanded Riddle.
Cater had a haunted look in his eyes as he explained. It had started out simply enough.
A few of the more minor traps caught some poor bastard off guard, and a few laughs were had.
Then someone attempted to go through the main entrance...and found out that it wasn't just the dorm proper. It was the entire dorm, especially the maze.
They had made a little headway, mostly because some of the older students recognized a few of the traps from the lesser used shortcuts through the maze.
However none of them had managed to make it to the dorm mirror to beg for help. Cater had come the closest, as Riddle predicted, but he had been unable to get past the last traps due to hunger mostly.
Anything edible had been wiped out by day two.
Riddle was utterly exasperated with them all.
In short order, the entire dorm was in the Judgment Hall, where Riddle could sentence the misbehaving students.
"So let me get this straight...none of you have any idea how to get past the traps?" he said in disbelief.
"How are you looking so fresh and well rested?" demanded Ace loudly.
Riddle stared him down incredulous.
"I've been attending classes the past few days," he said. "Professor Trein isn't the only one who's noticed your absence."
Everyone stared at Riddle in disbelief.
"Wait...you know how to get past the traps?" said Trey slowly.
"Of course I know how! I told you after the Unbirthday Party I was resetting the dorm back to Wonderland rules, rather than the Night Raven ones that we had been following so far! That includes resetting all the traps!" said Riddle irate. "I just assumed one of the previous housewardens had turned them off for maintenance, and forgot to turn them on again since I had to bring everyone back up to standards."
"Wait...there were supposed to be traps on?!" said Cater incredulous, his face in complete shock.
Riddle just looked done with everyone. He could see the freshmen having issues getting past the traps, but he had assumed the older students would at least know how.
Hearing the near synchronized growling of empty stomachs, Riddle looked at them all exasperated.
"Everyone follow me. I'll show you how to get past the main entrance ones at least. And I am not cleaning up this mess or paying for the food bill!" he said.
The entire dorm followed him tired and starving.
They watched as Riddle effortlessly bypassed and disabled the traps to the mirror.
"They'll be off for at least five minutes before resetting. There was an automatic function that reset the traps to keep the card soldiers on their toes and to insure that unwanted intruders didn't simply try to follow them."
There was a near stampede to the mirror, as the Heartsabyl dorm descended on the dining hall in droves. The ghosts in charge were hard pressed to keep up with the unexpected demand.
Meanwhile Riddle went to investigate and find out exactly how long those traps had been turned off in the first place.
In the dining hall...
Lilia was chuckling darkly as Cater devoured his food. Mostly because he had planned to 'rescue' his friend at least. He scrolled through the pictures Cater had taken of the traps he had managed to get past.
"I'm not surprised you had such issue. The man who made these traps is rather notorious for making them difficult," said Lilia.
"Please tell me you know how to get past them," said Cater, almost pleading. "Most of us were too hungry to really pay attention to what Riddle did to get past them."
"Wait...your housewarden already knew how to get past them?" said Lilia in surprise.
"Yeah, apparently he'd been getting past them no problem the entire time while we were trapped in the dorm," said Cater. "He also did some weird dance to get past the one that kept tripping me up to the mirror."
"Judging from the trap, he must know how to do the Flutterwacken. It's not exactly a popular or well known dance," said Lilia.
"The what?" said Cater, baffled.
"Flutterwacken," said Lilia, as if it were the most obvious thing to know. "Used to be quite popular a while back, but it fell out of favor."
And by out of favor, he meant about a hundred or so years ago. He was rather surprised Riddle knew how to dance it.
When everyone returned to their dorm, they all collectively groaned when they realized the traps reset.
What they weren't expecting was Riddle to apologize, just not for the reasons they would like.
"I must apologize to you all. When I turned the traps on, I was unaware that the housewarden who turned them off did so about two hundred years ago. I had assumed that at least some of you would know how to bypass most of them."
Trey's face twitched, just a bit.
"So you're going to turn them off?"
"Oh heaven's no," said Riddle. "I'm going to have to show everyone how to properly get past them, otherwise you'll never make it to class. I was serious about returning the dorm to proper Wonderland standards, not the Night Raven one that you've become accustomed to."
Cater had the most incredulous face when he saw Riddle use a rather odd and very obscure dance to bypass a good third of the traps. His only thought was that Kalim would probably love to learn it, as he was a really good breakdancer and this was exactly his sort of thing.
"What in Seven's name is that?" said Ace.
"The Wonderland Hop," said Riddle.
"Isn't that just the Flutterwacken?" said Deuce, scratching his head.
His great-grandmother used to dance like that, but half the family thought she was having fits or something. She had tried to teach him, but she had died before he fully got the hang of it.
"They might have changed the name," shrugged Riddle. "Though that does explain why they kept implying the dance was popular with the Queen of Hearts."
That, and Flutterwacken sounded exactly like the sort of name someone from Wonderland would rename the dance if they had to do so.
Either way Deuce ended up being the first to get the hang of the odd dance and successfully manage to get out of the dorm outside of Riddle.