“At least no more of those golem things appeared when you pushed the doors like last time,” Ryn called up to Sagar where the skypirate stood at the top of the flight of earthen stairs.

“Yeah, that’s something…” said Elrann nearby.

“Sure,” Sagar called down, “but how are we going to get through these doors? They’re shut fast, I tell you!”

“Maybe Huld can try them?” Ryn suggested.

“Rrrr,” came Sagar’s growl of irritation from above, echoing through the large hall. Despite himself, the side of Ryn’s mouth twitched into a grin. “Fine! I wouldn’t say he’s much stronger than me, though!”

Ryn turned to the monk, who wore his blank smile.

“Do you mind having a go, Huld?”

“I will try.”

The monk plodded up on the steps and stood next to Sagar. He put his hands on the doors and pushed on them too.

“No,” he confirmed, “I am not strong enough to move these either.”

“See?” said Sagar, holding out his hands sanctimoniously.

“Why don’t you try your special technique thingy?” yelled up Elrann.

“You mean The Strike That Moves Mountains?” Huld spoke back.

“Yeah! That one.”

“Hang on,” Sagar called down, “the last time he did that, those golem things appeared and attacked us! We don’t want that to happen again!”

“I am ready with my fire,” Ryn said.

“Yes, but you are meant to be conserving your mana,” Nuthea said to him, shaking her head at him like he was a naughty child. Annoyance tightened Ryn’s jaw, but it quickly turned to a suppressed laugh. Nuthea could be so bossy and superior sometimes he just had to laugh at her.

“Right,” said Elrann, “that could happen, but this is the best bet we’ve got at the moment.”

“So would you like me to try?” said Huld deferentially from the top of the steps. He was the picture of politeness, but Ryn just wondered if underneath that gentle giant exterior the monk was experiencing any irritation with them.

“Yeah,” said Elrann. “Go for it!”

“Rrrr,” said Sagar quietly.

Huld set his feet, pulled back his hands behind his body and breathed in loudly, sucking in air.

Ryn braced himself. His fingers tingled, ready to summon flame if need be.

Huld drove his open palms into the stone doors.

An almighty boom resounded throughout the chamber.

Cavernous silence followed.

“Well that’s done absolutely nothing,” said Sagar. “Again.”

The skypirate marched back down the stairs and Huld followed after him.

“Anyone else got any smart ideas to try?” said Sagar exasperatedly as the two of them rejoined the circle of the group in the faint glow-worm light.

“It’s a puzzle... said Cid, stroking his beard. “Like the last floor. Although it seems we may not be able to solve this one by just blasting through it, since the doors are made of stone.”

“Rrrrr! growled Sagar loudly, turning purple in the light from the glow-worms as he lost his temper. “This is a load of chocobo-poodoo! I’m sick of puzzles! There must be a simple way through!”

All of a sudden he turned and ran back up the stairs, so fast he must be calling the wind to assist him. When he reached the top of them, this time he shouted “WIND!” and flung his hands forwards at the doors.

They didn’t see the gust but they felt the disturbance in the air even from where they were sitting down on the floor.

The back-blast of his own wind attack off the doors knocked Sagar backwards, and he flew into the air away from them. His hands waved around frantically for a moment, but then he managed to convert his momentum into a backflip and put them out on either side of him to raise a smaller gust below him and...

Sagar touched down on the ground almost gracefully.

“Godsdammit!” he yelled all the same, apparently frustrated that his attack hadn’t done anything to the doors. Ryn wasn’t sure why he evoked the gods, or the hells, when he didn’t even believe in them. Or so he claimed.

“That was pretty cool too,” said Elrann.

That seemed to calm Sagar down a bit. He sighed, and let his hands drop to his sides. “It didn’t work, though...”

“Of course not,” said Cid. “We’ve established that the element of Earth is highly resistant to the element of Wind.”

“Yes thank you, Old Timer,” said Sagar, completely unthankfully. “I’ve just about enough of you stating the bleeding obvious. I’d figured that out by now. So how are we going to get through them? Hey--you try your fire, pup.”

“You reckon?” Ryn said. For once the skypirate had spoken to him almost like he was an equal, even if he still used the same term of address as for a baby dog.

“Well why not?” Sagar said. “Earth is supposedly weak to fire, or so we’ve seen.”

“But they’re made of stone.”

“Have you got any better ideas?”

Ryn shrugged, and walked up the steps to test out a small fire attack on the stone doors.

It didn’t even mark them. They remained exactly as they were, indifferent and immovable.

Next Elrann tried shooting them with one of her pistols. Then Cid tried saying some more magic words and passwords. Even Vish had a go at trying to work his blade into the very thin crack between the two doors and prise them open, but to no avail. For some reason Nuthea refused to even bother to try a lightning attack, though Ryn supposed that was fair enough. It made sense to him that lightning was likely to be completely ineffective against earth as an elemental pairing.

Eventually they all found themselves sitting or lying in a circle on the worm-lit floor, tired, fed up and at a complete loss about what to do about the doors.

“Welp, this is fun,” Elrann said sarcastically. “I guess we’re going to have to retrace our steps and find a way out of here, or else we’re going to die of starvation or thirst in here. Or boredom.”

“Raarrrrr!” Sagar said. That was a really big one, Ryn thought. “There’s got to be a way through!” He slammed his fist onto the floor next to him where he lay in frustration.

As he did so, Ryn noticed that the floor got a bit darker for a moment where he had hit it.

“Hey…” Ryn said. “Do that again, Sagar…”

“Do what?” said Sagar.

“Hit your fist on the ground.”

“Why? Are you going loopy, pup?”

“Just do it,” Ryn said impatiently. Then he thought he better add, “Please?”

“Well, since you asked so politely…”

Sagar hit the ground with the side of his fist again, even harder than the last time. “There. Happy?!”

This time Ryn saw them. When Sagar’s fist connected with the floor, the glow-worms nearest the place that he hit wriggled quickly away from the point of impact for a moment, then slowly came back to it.

“They’re moving!”