The door within the sphinx was sealed by two locks. One was a golden heart carved into the doorway, chains extending out to stab into the sands and anchor the double doors shut. The second was a drifting barrier of System-runes, indicating a challenge beyond.

Room Challenge:

Navigate the Maze of the Ushabti

Reward - Quiver of Feather-Flight Arrows

First Clear Reward - The Spoils of the Warmage

As he set his hand on the seal, a voice echoed down from above. The earth shivered as the sphinx spoke:

SPEAK THE NAME OF VENGEANCE.

There were rips and tears in the stone surrounding the door, shards of ice still embedded into the wounds. Sula grimaced. “I uh- may have set off that whole ambush by trying to tear my way in. The door is locked, and to be honest, I’m hoping you’ve got the answer.”

Nic nodded.

He set his finger on the golden heart, feeling heat within the metal. System-runes drifted around his fingers, covering them in a soft span of white light that swirled around each digit like seafoam gathering around the breaker rocks of the shoreline.

“Anet-Mu.”

The heart beat, once, and the resonating thud made the chains explode into pieces. The door swung open, revealing darkness behind.

“Knew I gave that stardust to the right person.” Forming a knife of ice in her palm, she stepped through. Nic followed behind with his Eight-Eyed Mantle extending in all directions.

Beyond the gate was a huge stone chamber, bigger than should have been able to fit inside the exterior structure. The floor dropped away after a few feet, leaving a great dark chasm, with a glowing golden gate at the far end. The shadows in the pit were supernaturally dark and Nic’s adapted eyes couldn’t see through at all- the blackness in the pit gave him a strange, twisting sense of unease, like it was a physical creature rather than a mere lack of light.

Standing at the lip where the floor gave way was a lamp on a stone pillar. It blazed with a soft, comforting light, the color of melted butter.

As Nic reached out and picked it up, the floor began to shake. They both dropped into ready stances, but no enemy emerged.

Instead, stone platforms rose out of the dark, thin roads of weathered orange-gold stone emerging from below to form a maze-like tangle of routes, dead ends, and twisting paths. With a grinding from below, eight statues rose up- four on each side of the maze. They were in the shape of enormous men wielding blackened, rusted blades, the heads on their shoulders broken away to leave chipped stumps. Their feet were rooted to plinths of heavy stone.

Nic stepped forward to the edge of the maze, looking out. He hopped up onto the wall, getting a higher perspective with sticky mud wrapped around his hands to scout a way forward- all three of the initial paths would eventually lead to the end.

The only problem was the door at the end was sealed.

Set along the maze were colored tiles pressed into the paths. They came in three colors. Deep red tiles marked with a hearts. Golden tiles marked with feathers. Blue tiles marked with a bird.

“Do you understand what we’re meant to be doing here?” Sula asked from below. “Because all I know is those statues are going to come alive and attack us.”

“Hhhuhhh. Those statues are definitely murder-statues. Actually, I’d like to meet some non murder-statues, once in a while.” Nic opined. “But as for what we’re supposed to do, I think those tiles are some kind of trigger. Maybe we move across the three in some kind of order?”

“Right. I’m looking for something colorful, some kind of pattern, to let us know the order…” Experimentally, Sula flexed her hand. A bridge of ice shot across the gap-

And a huge, shadowy claw erupted upwards. The bridge shattered into pieces with force and fury enough to make them both stumble back.

“Doesn’t look like going over is an option…” Sula sighed.

Nic dropped down beside her. “I think if there is an order, we won’t see it until we start the challenge.”

“I’m thinking the same. You ready?”

Nic nodded, and as one, they both stepped forward onto the maze- taking two different paths.

Instantly the statues began to move. Instead of stepping off their plinths, they moved forward atop the stone blocks, taking up all of the narrow walkways of the maze as they scraped along with a rumbling stone grinding against stone.

And the colored tiles lit up. There was no order, no hints. “Fuck.” They said in unison.

Sula shot forward. She barely made it to the first turn before the incoming statue cut the intersection off, slowing briefly as it touched upon the crossroads. It swung its sword as she dodged past, taking the fork that led away from the murderous golem. Two more were heading towards her, threatening to cut off her escape.

The challenge wasn’t the statues’ ability to attack. It was their ability to block the way forward and pin her between two golems coming from each direction, leaving her trapped on the narrow paths, doomed to be crushed between them.

It was a challenge to stay ahead and keep from being caught out with nowhere to run.

Nic was faced with his own challenges, statues winding around the bends of the maze to reach him. Every time they hit a turn they had to grind slowly in place to change facings, but they would quickly make up for lost time as they accelerated down the straight paths of the maze.

Nic pushed his cultivation into his legs and shot forward, making it to the first crossing before the statue could cut him off. They slid into a row of three, one behind the other, chasing him as he bounded down a long road through the maze’s center.

His foot hit against a red tile-

With a splintering noise, a distant part of the maze cracked and fell down into the dark.

And at the same time, a flash of light descended from the ceiling.

Nic looked up to see a massive stone head staring down at them, its eyes blazing red. Motes of crimson light shot downwards and into his body, and he reeled, suddenly weighed down by an immense pressure that felt like it was crushing him from above.

He stumbled, and the statues crashed down. A rusting blade swept for his back and he barely rolled beneath the blow and back onto his feet. It was already swinging again, relentlessly fast, bearing him down towards the edge of the path. Nic had a dozen steps before he plummeted over the edge.

Sula slammed into him from the side, carrying him down a side path as she skated along the ground on a footing of ice. “Did you see that?” She asked, dropping him onto his feet. “The door opened when you stepped on that tile!”

It was true. The door had slid just a few inches upwards, exposing a dark corridor beyond. Nic and Sula split apart as the statues turned at the corner and came grinding after them. They were being hemmed in, stone guardians sliding around the periphery paths to cut off escape, slowly winding in a net tighter and tighter.

And Nic had slowed down. The red light that had entered his body was covering him with a pressing weight, adding resistance to each step he took forward. He rotated his cultivation to try and break free, but there was no breaking the curse- he had to stumble along weighed down, trying to keep ahead of the guardians as they ground against the path behind him.

Sula slashed the air with a trio of ice knives, but they shattered against the guardians without effect.

“The tiles don’t do anything when I step on them!” She called. “It must be the lantern! I’ll try to distract as many as I can, you hit more tiles…”

“Right.” Nic croaked, turning his path to head a blue tile. It wasn’t far - but there was a statue dead in the path, threatening to meet him head on. He pushed his cultivation forward in a desperate attempt to reach the intersection before the guardian could block it off.

But as he stepped across the tile, another burst of light shot from the face in the ceiling. Motes of blue raced through the air towards him, and Nic pushed harder than ever, trying to stay ahead of the descending curse.

He reached the split in the path instants before the statue did. Its sword swept outwards, and as he stumbled to change directions, using sticky mud on his feet to halt forward momentum, the scimitar ripped down and cut a sweeping gash across his face. One of his axolotl gills was scythed away, blood oozing from the stump as he rolled down the side passage.

The blue sparks entered his skin.

He was slumped on the ground, and suddenly it felt impossible to get up. The weight on his body was something he could bear. But now a cold, relentless pressure had settled onto his mind.

He could see the door sliding partway open, slowly lifting upwards now that the second tile had activated.

He could hear the statue behind him, grinding against the earth as it turned on its heavy pedestal.

But even while he took in these facts, his mind was dizzy, reeling, barely able to focus. His body refused to obey as he frantically tried to remember what he was doing, why he was fighting so hard. The lantern rolled out of his hands and towards the edge of the pathway...

With an ominous click the statue finished turning.

Nic bit down on his arm with his new teeth, and the burst of pain and the taste of iron-rich blood in his mouth made him shock awake. He had a brutal, throbbing headache, and his vision was blurred till he could only see vague shapes. It didn’t matter-

His hand shot out and grabbed the lantern instants before it fell into the dark.

As the statue rushed towards him, he fought his way to his feet, running full tilt. The blade swept the air behind him.

For a second he crossed paths with Sula. She was leading the remaining statues, dragging them on a wild chase. When he’d stepped on the tile more of the maze had fallen away, narrowing the paths, and now they were running out of ground.

He wove left. Sula wove right.

There was only a single golden tile. It sat at the very core of the maze, and Nic groaned, seeing it surrounded by enemies. The half-suicidal plan would be to rush for it and hope the statues stopped as soon as the door opened.

But Nic was trying to quit making suicidal plans, and there was no point in doing that by halves.

“Sula! I need a ramp over and out!”

“Right!” She called back.

He ran for it. Ice was forming on the path, turning the stone slippery, lifting up into vines with frost-tinged blossoms. A statue was heading straight for him, another grinding into place to prevent escape. He was caught out.

But he wasn’t done yet.

Nic stomped down on the tile and felt it click downwards underfoot.

The maze cracked, Sula nearly toppling into the dark as pathways fell and the remaining roads were cut down to a scarce few, barely enough to contain the statues closing in on them both.

As Nic rushed headlong towards the enemy, the ice-vines lifted upwards and formed a huge, towering ramp. He leapt from the top just as the stone guardian crashed through, smashing the vines into shards of ice and sprays of cold vapor.

He landed, and together with Sula, rushed for the gate as it slid open. The guardians were close behind- there was only one road to the doorway, and one by one they snapped into place, chasing them in a long row of glinting swords and faceless, headless bodies.

But as they stepped off the final tile of the path, the door slammed shut behind them.

And they were safe-

Nic hoped-

For the moment.