The room beyond the third door was a simple greyed hallway. It stretched off into the distance and disappeared beyond their sight. The hall began sloping down, and the girls could clearly see that the road began dipping into a crevasse, spiralling down inside the rock before disappearing beyond her sight. She looked around and quickly began walking forwards, testing out with earth to make sure there were not any traps ahead of her. Cleo was not as gifted with earth as she was with fire and wind, but her anger gave her a clarity that she had not had before. It allowed her much smoother control overall the elements, but especially the two that she had already mastered.

“This seems far too easy Cleo”. Said Winoa as they began descending into the rock.

“All of the tests here have been relatively easy. They have just been messing with our heads and how we see things. I expect this to be no different.” She strode onwards as her friend ran to catch up. After roughly five minutes of walking the two girls felt a sharp twisting in their guts. There was something wrong but they had no idea what it was. A few seconds later they began exiting the other side of the tunnel, where they were presented with a round hill that they had to walk up. The angle of their path had not changed, but now they were walking up instead of down. It was disorientating, but they adjusted quickly. Seeing that this was effectively the only gimmick, the two girls began picking up the pace. They both pushed their senses through the earth to make sure that they were safe, and walked on their way.

After another twenty minutes the path led inside the hill once again, and the girls felt that strange sense in their gut. Winoa buckled and tripped at that point, falling towards the floor. However the moment she left the ground she began floating. It was as if gravity only paid attention while she was touching the ground. She quickly dove for the ground she was on and touched it without the momentum that she had when she fell.

“Oh damn!”

“What is it Win?” Replied Cleo.

“I the earth just stopped holding me down for a second. It was incredible!” She sighed. Winoa would have liked to play around with the idea that she could just float off and fly about, as even masters of wind on the chaos tree can only begin removing the shackles of gravity when they truly reach Heaven rank, but she had to pass this test. It was a necessity. Once she began mastering «The Book of Chaos» she could play around with flight all she liked.

The two went on, testing the ground once they got outside the tunnel. It seemed that gravity would only affect things that were touching the ground once they left the tunnel. If they left the tunnel while touching the floor then they would begin floating away. It was something odd about the material of the land they were in and the fact it had no natural gravity. Couple that with the fact that every time they went through a tunnel the world would turn upside down, and the place became a pain for the girls. The quickly ran through the area, being careful during the tunnels, and eventually reached the top of the mountain they had been climbing. It could have also been the bottom of the gorge they were descending into but neither of them were quite sure. Pushing open the door labeled four they were confronted with the last room of the test. What lay in front of them was a large gorge. Neither girl could see the bottom of the pit, nor could they even see the other side. The vista was obscured by a broiling stormfront that stretched far and wide. Occasionally one of the girls would see a spark skittering across the dark clouds, looking like it could jump out at them at any time. It was a fearsome sight.

On the floor was an odd map of the gorge. It had over a hundred caverns scattered all over the place, each one connected to another two or three by a ledge. The girls could see from the map that the exit to this bizarre zone was one ledge away, but they had no idea how far the ledges were from each other or how safe just jumping off the side of the wall would be. Every other route so far had been laden with odd and unpredicted dangers, so anything could be a trap.

“What should we do?” Said Cleo, starting at the distressing map.

“You might be happy to jump towards that storm, but I am not going near that thing.” Replied Winoa. At this point she was actively reigning in Cleo’s will to complete this trial with very little regard for her life. “I'm going to look at these paths. Are you coming?”

“Alright. Without flight this place seems like the best option.”

The two girls moved into the nearest cave and followed the path in front of them. There was not much around them but they were both quite tense. There could be a trap at any point, and the innocuous nature of the paths they were on made them feel like there was something coming just round the corner. Finally they exited the tunnel and were presented with a very similar experience to when they entered the area. In front of them was a veranda, much like the first area but rather than the odd map was etched on the floor, it was presented neatly on a dais. The map was exactly the same it just showed that the girls were on the the far left of the area rather than in the bottom-centre where they started. They had walked for less than three minutes but they had managed to cross the entire area. It was as if space was being stretched and squashed.

Under the sign there was a little plaque with the phrase ‘To get to the fifth you must go back to the start of this.’ Cleo would have not noticed it if she had not seen the plaque glint when they were deciding the path to leave.

“Hey, Win, look at that. To get to the fifth? Does this mean the door?”

“Looks like it. Does that mean we have to get back to the first room we started in?”

“I guess so.” Cleo said. She looked at the paths and decided to walk back the way they came. The path this time was about five minutes of walking, but no less tense. The girls were even more on their guard now that they had walked though the path before, but they were no slower. Once they realised the path was longer on the way back they became suspicious.

“There is something wrong with this.” Said Win.

“Yeah,” Said Cleo, “I don’t understand. We went down the same route right?”

“Definitely.” Winoa looked at the map on the dais in front of them. She studied the image in front of them and said “If the map was correct then we have travelled onto the far side of the gorge in way less time than it should have taken.” They had travelled tens of miles in five minutes by walking. In any world that would be incredible, but they had no idea where they were going. The paths seemed to lead where they wanted to, not where you needed them.

Winoa looked around the area for any sort of clue while Cleo continued to peruse over the ‘map’. She scoured the room before turning to the dais that had grabbed their attention so easily beforehand. It quickly gave them an answer that was no clearer than before. Embedded into the ground by the back of the podium was another plaque. This time it said ‘sometimes the only way to go forward is to go back’.

When Winoa read this she stopped and thought for a moment. Both these plaques were suggesting that they should retrace their footsteps. Perhaps in a place where the route changed depending on how one entered the cave the best bet really was to just repeatedly re-enter the way they came out.

“Cleo, I have an idea about how we get out of here quickly. It sounds odd but I think we just need to repeatedly retrace our steps and we will get out of here in no time.” Said Winoa.

“Well it beats the idea of just picking things at random.” She smiled. Cleo did not realise it but Winoa liked to see that smile. In Winoa’s mind she did not smile anywhere near enough. They walked back the way they came and were once again confronted with an area that looked the same but said they were elsewhere. They quickly walked back the way they came and found another different room. Neither girl knew whether they were going the right way but they were making progress of a sort. The two girls spent an hour just walking back and forth between entrances until finally they reached an area that looked different to all the rest. In front of them was the final door. Unlike the other doors, which had been rather plain, this door was ornate, red and had a big number five on it. It was without a doubt the exit, and after finding it the girls could not be happier.