Chapter 60

Day???

“Well, that was ... interesting.” John said to Adam as he approached from the floor’s entry spot.

The SEAL was leaning against the opposite side of the corridor by the now blank door that had borne Dulgan’s name.

“Can you ... talk about it?” Adam asked.

John shook his head. “I got a headache last time, so let’s go do yours.”

“I wonder.” Adam mused. “Do you think all three of the hidden doors are on this level?”

“Let’s keep an eye out.” John suggested.

Back in the SEAL’s pitch-black room, everything was reset to the way John remembered.

“Okay,” John instructed, “I’m going to sit in the center while you do your thing.”

“Sounds good.” Adam agreed.

He moved to the first button, crouching to feel the floor and make sure his feet were in the right spots. As soon as he pushed it, the boom of the entry door slamming shut reverberated throughout the space.

“I think that’s a clue.” John snarked.

Adam made his way along the wall to the second button, and as he did so, John rotated on the cube to track him. When John ended up with his knees pointing at his friend, the footprints Adam had to stand on gave off a dim glow. In the room’s total darkness, it might as well have been a strobe light.

“What did you do?” Adam asked in amazement.

“I’m still sitting here.” John protested. “Well, I’m facing you now, but that’s it.”

“Face some of the others, see if you can get them to do it too.” Adam urged.

John obediently inched his body around, staying seated on the uncomfortably hard cube. As his knees oriented on each set of footprints, they would light up. But when he moved on, the glow would slowly fade out.

“It’s supposed to be a clue, but makes this a lot easier with two people.” Adam remarked.

John nodded, then felt stupid. “Yeah. It’s almost like somebody spied on us during our first room, and specifically constructed this to be harder on your own.”

John spun himself around twice, keeping an incremental pace. They counted ten sets the second time, realizing that there were a pair of final footprints directly in front of the locked door. It took John a minute to figure out that those prints weren’t visible to him in any ‘spectrum’ unless he was sitting with his body oriented on them.

“If you hadn’t have found that, I don’t think I would’ve ever gotten out of here.” Adam breathed.

He moved over to check, and sure enough these were the only set without a smooth physical indicator.

“All right.” John spun to face their second button. “Let’s do this.”

The SEAL continued his circuit around the room, aided by John’s help, lighting up each new set of footprints. When he pushed the octagon button, Adam watched in amazement as the footprints he was standing on walked away in concert with the sound of them. As they departed the line from John’s knees to him, they faded away.

Meanwhile, John stared as the dragon sculptures decorating the walls began to move, unmistakably this time. Flying, floating and crawling they all made their way to the same wall as the sleeping dragon. None crossed his space, circumnavigating the room’s perimeter going the other direction to cluster in a separate, tight group occupying the rest of that wall.

As John’s eyes tracked that movement, he realized four one-foot-thick columns were rising from the floor. Leaving enough distance for someone to walk along the wall without running directly into them, the square posts connected with the ceiling before stopping. Once all the movement had ceased, he Scanned the room for what else had changed. The only other thing was the footprints’ new locations.

Half of them (four) were now surrounding the cube John sat on. At each corner they occupied the position where his feet would naturally rest if he faced one of the columns. The other half (four also) were each positioned at one of the columns themselves. Those second sets would only light up if he put his feet exactly onto the first set of prints by the stone seat that corresponded with them. And for his own confirmation, John lit back up the ones next to the ‘reset’ button and those by the locked door.

“Go stand exactly on those prints.” John ordered.

Adam situated himself. “Okay, now what?”

John stood up and walked over. The column was divided into sections, each eighteen inches in height. Four of those sections, from Adam’s knees to above his head contained odd partial sections of a serpentine dragon’s body carved out of the stone itself. Some ended at the dividing groove between each section, while others terminated with a head or tail.

He took Adam’s hand and dragged it across the carvings.

“What are those?” Adam wondered.

“It’s a puzzle, I think. Try to turn the sections.” John guessed.

Each carved piece spun freely in the SEAL’s hands. On a whim, John moved to another column, with similar, but differently-patterned dragon carvings. They would only turn if he stood on the footprints, which were only visible right now in one of his ‘magic-oriented wavelengths’.

He moved back to help Adam out, since the puzzle was a lot easier when he could See it. As soon as they rotated the last section into its correct position, the footprints sounded again, and John Watched them moving towards the locked objective. The duo moved on to the next column and repeated their actions. John sat to illuminate the footprints for Adam, then helped his friend solve the puzzle. Again, the sounds headed for the exit, accenting the move in John’s Sight.

Once they’d completed the fourth column, and the walking sound died away they waited but nothing else happened. John returned to the cube, pointing his body at their exit.

“Go stand on them.” He instructed.

The SEAL moved over and planted his feet on the last prints. He stood still for a second, and a beam of light shone down on his head. Its illumination let him see that the doorway was clear, once he’d blinked away the spots decorating his vision.

“You did it!” John complimented him.

“We! Did it.” Adam corrected. “Is that it?”

“I don’t know.” John admitted. “That was a lot easier than Dulgan’s room.”

“Yeah, but you were mostly doing the swimming by yourself.” Adam argued. “If I’d’ve done that by myself, it would’ve taken a lot longer.”

“Good point.” John agreed, standing up to walk over by the new mural.

Though they were tightly packed, weaving around each other, the dragons still made room for the eight buttons. This time they were lined up with the octagon farthest from the sleeping dragon, and the oval closest to the ‘reset’ button.

“Why did these move over here?” John asked aloud.

After being in complete darkness, then blinded by the completion light, it took Adam a few seconds to see what John was talking about.

“Do you have to push them again?” Adam guessed.

“I think so.” John said. “But in which order?”

Adam walked over to the sleeping dragon. “This one didn’t change, right?”

“It’s the only one that didn’t.” John confirmed.

“Start at the other end, then.” Adam supposed. “It’s the only thing I can think of.”

“Here goes nothing.” John braced and pushed the octagon.

Instead of the barely-audible clicks they’d heard when Adam activated them, this time the button remained pressed, flush with the mural around it now. John made his way down the line, pushing them into place in sequence. But after doing the oval last, nothing else happened.

“Damn.” John grumbled. “I thought for sure that would work.”

“John.” Adam pointed at the ‘reset’ button. “There’s one more.”

“Wait!” John cried out, as Adam moved to activate it. “What if that resets the whole room?”

“I’ve only done it once.” Adam argued. “And I’ve been thinking, maybe pushing the reset doesn’t count as a failed attempt, since I did it voluntarily. Maybe it’s a way to start over if you lose track or get confused. It makes sense, given how difficult it is to navigate and keep it all straight in the dark. Plus, there wasn’t anything added when I pushed it, like ... Besides, even if I’m wrong, we have one more chance anyway. I highly doubt it’ll be too tough to redo.”

John didn’t argue. “I hope you’re right.”

Adam pushed it, and this time there was a click, louder than before. The dragons on each column glowed with soft silvery or gold light and the sleeping dragon woke up. It gave a single nod before trundling off into the distance. Once it vanished, the entire section of wall swung inward.

Beyond was another mirror-lined hallway.

“Well, you’re last, so let’s do this.” John rubbed his hands together after entering Vorigan’s room. “What have you found?”

The Vampyr was still using the magnifying glass to examine a section of the mural.

“Nothing.” Vorigan answered. “I can find no clue or symbol in this picture. Even in scenes where I would expect to see one, there is nothing. It is very curious. And I am unable to discern a path for our solution.”

“Nothing, really?” John rubbed his head. “There’s got to be something here. Trust me, we just don’t see it yet.”

“I do not know how.” Vorigan protested. “I have even examined the floor, pedestal and sundial themselves. There is a single button on the back of the pillar, but it bears a skull, which I take to mean pushing it would kill us.”

“Probably return the room to how it was when you first walked in, actually.” John replied absently.

He moved over to where the lantern still hung from its hook.

“Did you look behind here?” He asked, grasping the loop on top that functioned as a handle.

He lifted it up and held it out to one side while he Looked at the wall behind. A definite hot-spot glowed where it had been. But the surface there was smoothed over, almost like it had been...

“Melted!” John exclaimed.

He rubbed the spot with a finger, and sure enough a thin, slick film coated his digit. He laughed.

“We’ve been checking the picture out for clues, but instead we need to melt it off.” John told the Vampyr. “Can you bring the lens over here?”

Every boy has used a magnifying glass to burn insects or leaves or whatever.

“All right,” John explained patiently, “one of us needs to hold this lamp, and the other needs to use that glass to focus the light and melt the wall. Which do you want to do? I can’t do both.”

The Vampyr was clearly uncomfortable with doing either part of his plan, though he didn’t question John’s instructions.

“I will hold the lamp.” He decided. “Though it is hot, I will wear my gauntlets. At least then I will not have the light at my back.”

“Great, here you go.” They traded objects and Vorigan held the light up for John to experiment with.

It took a few minutes of maneuvering before they determined the optimal distance for both the lantern and the magnifying glass. John would direct the focal point in a sweeping line, starting at the highest point he could reach on the mural and snaking his way down. The wax melted quickly, revealing a wire grid behind that provided structure.