Arthur's feet hit the third platform harder than intended.
He stumbled forward, arms windmilling for balance. The stone disc tilted under the impact, rotating faster than the previous ones. Arthur dropped to his knees, hands slapping down to steady himself.
'Okay. That was not as graceful as I had hoped. Let's work on the landing.'
The platform continued its rotation, carrying him in a slow circle while it descended. Arthur waited for it to stabilize before standing. His heart was hammering. The jump had been at the absolute edge of his capability. Any less momentum and he would have missed entirely.
He looked back at the platforms he'd crossed. Two down. The entrance corridor was already distant, maybe forty feet away.
Ahead, the remaining platforms stretched across the chamber in an increasingly complex pattern. Some rotated clockwise, others counter clockwise. Heights varied more dramatically. The gaps between them got wider.
'Lloyd used fire to boost across these. I get to do it the fun way.'
Arthur studied the next section. Four platforms arranged in a diamond pattern, all rotating at different speeds. To cross them, he'd need to time each jump to catch them at the right angle.
The alternative was the rope and grappling hook.
Arthur pulled the coil from his pack and examined the platforms more carefully. Each one had a small protrusion at its centre, maybe six inches tall. Probably decorative, but it might catch a hook.
Worth trying.
He attached the grappling hook to the rope and tested the weight. The hook was basic iron, three prongs.
Arthur waited for the nearest platform in the diamond pattern to rotate into position. When the centre protrusion lined up, he threw.
The hook sailed through the air, trailing rope. It caught on the protrusion and held.
Arthur pulled. The rope went taut. The platform wobbled slightly, but the hook stayed secure.
'Alright. Let's see if this works. Or I'm just a failed Indiana'
He gripped the rope with both hands and stepped off his platform.
The swing was immediate and disorienting. Arthur's stomach lurched as he dropped, then swung forward. The rope carried him in an arc toward the platform he'd hooked. His feet hit stone, and he let go, rolling forward to absorb the impact.
The platform tilted under him, but he was already crouched low.
'That actually worked. Nice.'
Arthur pulled the rope. The hook came free and he reeled it back in. The next platform in the diamond was fifteen feet away and rotating in the opposite direction.
He hooked it on the second throw.
The pattern continued. Hook, swing, land. Sometimes he missed and had to throw again. Once the hook slipped off mid-swing, Arthur barely caught the platform's edge with his fingers, scrambling up before he could fall.
But it worked.
The final platform before the exit was the largest. Maybe ten feet across, positioned directly in front of the doorway to the next chamber. Arthur landed on it with his last swing and collapsed flat on his back, breathing hard.
'Trial one complete. Only almost died twice. That's a new personal record.'
He lay there for a moment, letting his heart rate slow. His arms ached from gripping the rope. His hands were raw where the hemp had rubbed against his palms.
But he'd made it.
Arthur stood and coiled the rope. Secured it back to his pack. The doorway ahead was dark, carved from the same stone as everything else. No light beyond it. No indication of what the next trial held.
'I guess there's only one way to find out.'
He stepped through.
The second chamber was smaller than the first. Maybe forty feet square, with a normal floor this time. The walls were covered in the same glowing script, providing dim blue light.
The floor itself was divided into a grid. Thirty-six squares, six by six, each one carved with a different symbol. Some symbols glowed faintly. Others were dark.
On the far side of the chamber, a door stood closed. Heavy stone.
Arthur approached the grid carefully. His boots touched the edge of the first square and nothing happened.
'Pressure plates. Step on the wrong one and bad things happen.'
He studied the symbols. Most were geometric shapes. Circles, triangles, squares. A few were more complex. Spirals, intersecting lines, patterns he didn't recognise.
The glowing symbols formed a path. Not a straight line, but a winding route through the grid. Starting from where Arthur stood, the first glowing symbol was a circle. Three squares away, diagonal, another circle glowed. Then a triangle five squares further.
'Follow the glowing symbols. Seems Simple enough.'
Arthur stepped onto the circle.
The square sank slightly under his weight. A soft click echoed through the chamber.
Nothing else happened.
He waited. Five seconds. Ten. Still nothing.
'Okay. Good start.'
Arthur moved to the next glowing symbol. The circle is three squares away. He stepped onto it.
Another click. The first square rose back to its original height.
The pattern became clear. Step on a glowing symbol and it is activated. Step off and it deactivated. As long as he followed the path, the door would open.
Probably.
Arthur continued. Circle to circle. Circle to triangle. Triangle to square. The path zigzagged across the grid, sometimes doubling back on itself. He moved slowly, checking each symbol before committing his weight.
Halfway across, he stepped on a spiral.
The click sounded different. Louder. Wrong.
Arthur's eyes widened.
The walls began moving.
Not the whole walls. Just sections. Stone panels slide inward from both sides, closing the chamber. Slowly, but steadily.
'Shit. Looks like I'm going to die again'
Arthur ran. Jumped to the next glowing symbol without checking, then the next. The path became a blur. His boots hit squares in rapid succession, clicks echoing like gunshots.
The walls kept closing. Five feet from each side. Then four. Then three.
The door was still shut.
Two symbols are left in the path. A triangle near the far corner. Then a final circle directly in front of the door.
The walls were two feet from crushing him. He could reach out and touch both sides.
One more jump. The final circle.
He launched himself forward.
His boots hit the symbol and the click was different. Final. Complete.
The door ground open. Stone sliding into the wall with a deep rumble.
The walls stopped moving. Locked in place with barely eighteen inches of space between them.
Arthur squeezed through the gap sideways, his pack scraping against stone. He tumbled through the doorway and the door slammed shut behind him.
He lay on the ground for a moment, breathing hard.
'Note to self: don't step on the spirals. They're bad.'
Trial two complete.
Arthur pushed himself up and looked around.
The third chamber was different from the others.
Smaller. Circular. The walls were smooth stone without any script. The ceiling was lower.
In the centre of the room stood a statue.
It was carved from the same dark stone as everything else. A robed figure, tall and weathered, its features worn smooth by time. One hand raised, the other resting on a pedestal beside it.
On the pedestal sat a small crystalline sphere.
The skill core.
It pulsed with faint light. White, with threads of gold running through it. Beautiful.
Arthur approached slowly.
When he got within ten feet, the statue's eyes opened.
They glowed the same blue as the script on the walls. The light intensified, and then the statue spoke. Its voice was hollow, echoing as if coming from a great distance.
"Seeker of knowledge. Answer my riddle, and the skill is yours. Fail, and you will leave empty-handed."
Arthur's heart pounded. This was it. The moment from the novel.
He knew the riddle. Knew the answer.
'I have cities but no houses, forests but no trees, water but no fish. What am I?'
He waited.
The statue's mouth didn't move, but its voice filled the chamber.
"I am not alive, yet I grow. I have no lungs, yet I need air. I have no mouth, yet water kills me. What am I?"
Arthur's blood went cold.
That wasn't the riddle from the novel.
That wasn't the riddle Lloyd had faced.
'What? No. That's not right. It's supposed to be .....'
His mind raced. The statue waited, its glowing eyes fixed on him.
'I am not alive, yet I grow. I have no lungs, yet I need air. I have no mouth, yet water kills me.'
What grows but isn't alive? Plants were alive. Crystals grew, but they didn't need air.
'Water kills it. Fire? Fire isn't alive. Fire grows. Fire needs air to burn. Water extinguishes fire.'
That had to be it.
Arthur took a breath. "Fire."
The statue's eyes flared brighter.
"Incorrect."
The pedestal began sinking into the floor.
The skill core with it.
'No!'
Arthur lunged forward. His hand shot out, fingers closing around the crystalline sphere just as it dropped below the pedestal's surface.
He had it.
The chamber shook.
A grinding sound filled the air. The walls began to crack. Dust fell from the ceiling.
The statue's voice boomed, no longer hollow. Angry.
"THIEF."
The floor beneath Arthur's feet split. A chasm opened, spreading outward from the pedestal in a web of cracks.
Arthur ran.
He sprinted for the doorway he'd entered through. The door was already closing, stone sliding down from above like a guillotine.
Ten feet away. The floor buckled under him. Arthur stumbled but kept moving.
Five feet.
The door was halfway closed.
Arthur dove.
He hit the ground and slid, the skill core clutched against his chest. His pack caught on the descending door. The strap snapped and the pack was crushed, but Arthur was through.
He rolled to his feet in the pressure plate chamber. The walls were still close together from his earlier mistake. The path glowed faintly.
Behind him, the third chamber was collapsing. Stone crashing down. The grinding roar of the rift destabilising.
Arthur didn't look back.
He jumped onto the first glowing symbol. Then the next. The path was fresh in his memory from minutes ago. He moved fast, not bothering with caution. Circle, circle, triangle, square.
The glowing symbols flickered. The rift was failing. The whole structure was coming down.
Arthur reached the exit and threw himself through.
The platform chamber. The floating discs were still there but shaking violently. Some were cracking, pieces breaking off and falling into the darkness below.
Arthur pulled out his rope. No time for careful throws. He aimed for the largest platform cluster and hurled the grappling hook.
It caught. He didn't check if it was secure. Just grabbed the rope and jumped.
The swing carried him across three platforms at once. He landed badly, his ankle rolling, but kept moving. Hook the next platform. Swing. Land. Again. Again.
Behind him, platforms began falling. The first chamber was collapsing too. The whole rift was coming apart.
The entrance corridor was ahead. That golden shimmer of the exit.
One more swing.
Arthur hooked the ledge near the entrance and jumped. The rope pulled taut. He swung across the final gap and hit the corridor at a full run.
The golden shimmer was ten feet away.
Five.
The corridor ceiling cracked. A chunk of stone the size of his torso crashed down inches behind him.
Arthur dove through the exit.
The world lurched. Space twisted. Then he was falling.
He hit the grass and rolled. Kept rolling until he crashed into something solid. A tree.
Arthur lay there, gasping. His whole body hurt. His ankle was screaming. His hands were bleeding.
But he was out.
He was alive.
And clutched in his right hand, the crystalline skill core pulsed with gentle light.
Arthur started laughing. Couldn't help it. The sound came out half-hysterical, but he didn't care.
He'd done it.
Stolen a skill core from an ancient rift and lived to tell about it.
Arthur's laughter faded as something occurred to him.
What was the actual answer to the riddle the statue had asked him?
Arthur's mind worked backwards. 'I am not alive, yet I grow. I have no lungs, yet I need air. I have no mouth, yet water kills me.'
Fire made sense. But the statue had said he was wrong.
What else grew without being alive? What else needed air but died to water?
The answer hit him.
'Rust. Rust grows on metal. It needs air to oxidise. Water accelerates it, but pure water in the absence of air doesn't cause rust. Technically, water alone doesn't kill rust, but...'
No. That wasn't quite right either.
Arthur lay in the grass, staring up at the sky through the tree branches, and realised something.
He had no idea what the correct answer was.
And he never would, because the rift was gone.
'Well. At least I got the skill.'
Arthur held up the crystalline sphere. It was beautiful up close. The white core with golden threads running through it like veins.
He had no idea what skill it contained.
Lloyd had never bothered to properly use it in the novel. Just mentioned getting "something from an ancient rift" once and then never brought it up again.
'Guess I'll find out. But first I need to make it back home.'
Arthur sat up slowly. His body protested every movement. He was covered in dust and scrapes. His pack was gone, crushed in the collapsing rift. His rope was probably still hanging somewhere in the void.
But he had the skill core.
And he was alive.
Arthur looked back toward where the rift had been. The stone pillars were still standing, but the golden shimmer between them was gone. Just normal air now. The rift had collapsed completely.
One-time opportunity. Used up.
He'd succeeded where Lloyd had succeeded. Just in a messier, more desperate way.
'Par for the course, really.'
Arthur stood, testing his ankle. It hurt, but it held his weight. Nothing broken. Just twisted. Again.
The healer was going to be so thrilled to see him.
He started the walk back toward the Academy, the skill core tucked safely in his pocket.
Time to figure out what he'd actually stolen.