Chapter 22

  What am I?

  Something loud and golden. Elijah rushed over to the brass section; everything there fit the descriptor, golden. It had only been 33 seconds since the teen had set foot inside the room, but already 1/9 of the sand had fallen; he didn’t have long to decide.

  His eyes scanned over the tubas, trombones, trumpets, carnyx horns, cor anglais, and, finally, the french horns. He was looking for something delicate; this instrument was probably the closest in sound quality, at least in the brass family. It was supposed to be easily broken; Elijah didn’t imagine all those valves would make the thing particularly robust.

  His finger was an inch away from touching the instrument when he was struck by a bout of second thoughts. A french horn wasn’t really gold; it was made of brass, an alloy of copper and zinc. It could be loud, but it was far from the loudest. It didn’t fit. This wasn’t the answer.

  Elijah cursed himself as he looked around the room, frantically trying to find something else that matched. There was still time; the sand was still mostly full. He didn’t need to rush, but he couldn’t deny the pressure a ticking clock placed on him.

  A number of things caught his eye. He bounded through the rows of instruments to the percussion section. There was a triangle that appeared to be made of solid gold.

  The sixteen-year-old picked it up, and the weight proved that it was actually made of the valuable metal. It fit none of the other criteria, so he stored it in his Inventory. There was just something precious about gold; he wanted it; it was his!

  Elijah shook off the trance-like state and returned to his search. There was a thing like a wooden sunflower with flaky golden paint, a flower made of stained glass, and an old, rusted curtain made of brass.

  All of them fit at least some of the riddle, but none fulfilled it completely.

  Elijah checked the hourglass for the hundredth time. Exactly half the time had passed while running about in vain, zipping from one potential solution to the next. That left only two minutes and sixteen, now fifteen seconds.

  The teen paused. He was sure of the amount of time he had left; he had been counting. It was a habit he picked up as a young boy when he heard the phrase, “A watched pot never boils.” From then on, he would count whenever he was nervous.

  If he wanted more time, he was sure to pay close attention to the time he had.

  The young man’s Intelligence was quickly able to work out how much time he had at the beginning of the test: four minutes and thirty-three seconds, 4:33. It was a clue!

  He had no idea how a Trial in another world knew about the contemporary piece of music; perhaps it didn’t, or perhaps it had only created a clue using his memories. It didn’t matter.

  Elijah moved to the centre of the stage and stood there without making a noise. He waited. If he was wrong about this, he was sure he would regret it when his time ran out. This Trial wouldn’t pull any punches, if the Minotaur was any indication.

  Just to be sure, the sixteen-year-old ran through the riddle one last time. Something golden, loud but easily broken. There was only one answer: silence!

  The last grains of sand trickled out of the timer; he held his breath, and for a moment nothing happened. Elijah was sure of his answer and remained silent. Even so, he couldn’t help but shake slightly; was he about to be struck down by lightning? Was the room about to shrink and crush him? Was his answer wrong?

  A chime rang out, the lights went out, and a door opened behind the stage, revealing more tunnels, this time green in colour. He had done it; his answer was correct!

  Air rushed out of Elijah’s lungs as he stopped trying to be silent. Now that the test was finally over, he did what he wanted to do at the start; he walked over to the grand piano. His fingers tingled as they hovered over the keys; it had been too long.

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  He started with a B major scale before switching to the arpeggio. He wasn’t as rusty as he had expected. His movements were practised, but slightly less tight than he would have liked. He tried again, and the tempo was more consistent.

  When he was limbered up, he began to play. There were only a few pieces that he remembered well enough to attempt after such a long absence; he decided to try Schubert's 9th piano sonata.

  There were moments where his recollection was lacking, and he was forced to rely on muscle memory to get him through. The average listener would not have noticed, but to him they were glaring holes in the musical canvas.

  He played the final chord fortissimo, then sat back. He needed more practice; he needed a piano; he needed this piano.

  He tried to store it in his Inventory but a message popped up.

  Overweight:

  This object has too much mass to fit in your inventory at present; maximum capacity 120 kg.

  That made sense; his limit was ten times his Strength, and a full concert grand like this was far heavier than that. As nice as the instrument was, he couldn’t take it with him. Thankfully, there was more than one piano in this room.

  Elijah walked around one of the rows, moving past the baby grand, the upright grand, and finally to a smaller piano that looked like it had been made to fit into tight spaces. It didn’t even have any sides or back; it was just pure mechanisms and strings, nothing else.

  Unfortunately, there were no electrical instruments in the room; everything was acoustic. If there had been, he may have selected a keyboard; it would have been far lighter. On the upside, Elijah preferred the sound and feel of a real instrument.

  The stone that had slammed into place when he entered was shattered with the sound of a rockfall. The teen’s head snapped towards the noise. The Minotaur was walking through the dust, its red eyes glowing threateningly.

  Its steps were faster than before, though it could still be said he was walking, just quickly. Elijah couldn’t tarry. He placed a hand on the skeleton piano, causing it to turn into pixelated particles as it transferred to his inventory.

  He spared a moment to check his Inventory as he fled from the room. His weight was 64.3/120; he still had tonnes of room.

  The teen would have liked to have found a guitar, but there was no time. As soon as he stepped on the slick ground of the new corridor, he nearly slipped. That would have likely led to a nasty death. It was good that his Agility was able to keep him steady on the slippery surface.

  Elijah hadn’t realised until he had entered the passage that there was life everywhere in it. Damp moss grew on the floor, causing his near fall. Vines covered the walls, making the bricks beneath hard to identify.

  It was illuminated by glowing bugs that buzzed between yellow and pink blossoms which grew on the ceiling and filled the tunnel with floating pollen.

  The teen had no time to stare in wonder at the nature-filled hallway because the Minotaur was still in hot pursuit. It may have only been power walking, but it was a good two feet taller than him, and he had to run to stay ahead.

  So run he did. Skidding down verdant corridors, around corners, dodging dead ends that frequently contained ponds replete with life, frogs and the sort, before his Stamina finally ran low. By this point, he couldn't hear the monster any longer and assumed he had time to recover.

  Elijah slowed to a walk as he pressed through the sweltering corridors. He was sticky with sweat, and it felt like he had returned to the jungle island in the Treasure Sucker’s Trial, sans insects, mercifully. The glowbugs didn’t count; they didn’t swarm or pester like mosquitos did.

  Just as he was dragging his sandaled feet through a bushel of particularly fluffy moss in his search for a path forward, the sound of an axe scraping against stone echoed from one of the tunnels. Elijah’s Stamina was only half full, but he had to take flight once more; the bigger the gap between himself and the monster, the better.

  Having not fully recovered, it was surprisingly difficult to run. He threw himself over fallen logs, which was strange, as there were no trees. With focus, he managed to dance his weary legs between the gaps in a blanket of roots. With determination, he was able to push until his green bar was completely empty and even slightly beyond.

  Endurance +1

  Elijah smiled as he felt his body grow stronger; the stat gain did nothing for how tired he was, however. He threw himself around another vine-covered corner, then threw up. When he finally raised his head once more, he was greeted by another chamber.

  This one was nature-themed, naturally, though it had the appearance of a gym. There were weights made of rocks attached to green branches by roots that grew out of them, a pool of water covered in lily pads with just enough room to get a couple of laps in, resistance bands made out of long, stretchy leaves, and a whole host of other oddities that looked nearly normal.

  When Elijah clawed himself into the room, careful to step over his vomit, vines swarmed to block his escape, trapping him once again. The room rumbled, and a stone emerged in the centre.

  On it were carved three simple words:

  Prove Your Strength

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