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Chapter 456 - Alone in a hotel
🕑 Added 2022-05-23 13:01:03 +0000 UTCWalking out of the door, the first thing that Hera saw was a very wide corridor with a surprisingly small amount of doors on each side. The ceiling of this area was also lower than one would expect. She would even have to dodge or duck under some low-hanging lights to not hurt herself. After walking around for a bit, she could confirm that a couple of rooms here were either open or had a small do not disturb sign with a big bright yellow sticker that read 'vacant room' hanging from the doorknobs, but none of them were the room she was looking for. One of the doors did have a decent match to the numbers in the key that was currently with Helena, which meant that she might be able to get closer if she went inside. However, doing so might cause problems for both the test and her friends. There was a very real chance that the trial would take more than an hour, and adding that time to the time other people would be in their rooms had the potential of hurting someone. She had no idea if the time would add, be averaged out, or just become linked to the longest room. While thinking about that, a thought crossed her mind. What if someone ended up in a test that would take much longer than the rest? What if someone had to spend 6 hours somewhere and someone else had a particularly complicated test where it would be impossible to survive for the same amount of time? This could be an unforeseen death sentence, and there was nothing she could do about it.
Hera took a deep breath and pushed those thoughts aside. As she said it herself, there was nothing she could do about that situation, so worrying about it now was completely useless. Focusing once more on this area that she was in, Hera noticed that near what should be the middle of the room, there was a hole in the ceiling. She sent Beam towards it and told it to look around and see if there was anything dangerous there. Even if she was worried about changing her blades and being kind to them, Hera wasn't about to put herself at risk when she had an option that, in the worst-case scenario, could be revived.
It didn't take long for her to get a reply. This hole was actually a passage. Beyond it, there was a staircase leading up, and after that, another room very similar to the one she was currently in. It only took her 2 minutes to search the entire area, which gave her more than enough time to look into the passage she had found. She sent most of her blades to this next room and told them to start looking for the numbers on the doors. Lurize was the only one that she asked to stay behind. It was weird that this hotel had changed so much, and she wanted to be sure that it wasn't changing just because she left an area. If it did, she would have to change how she approached her search. Apparently, that wasn't the case. She even called the sword over and waited a few minutes before sending it back down, but the room was still the same. Not even the door numbers changed.
During that time, the rest of the blades were also working, looking at every door and trying to find either a match or the room that they were looking for. Here there were no matches. Her court could only find rooms that had one of the digits of the one she was looking for, which didn't amount to much. There was even another hole with a staircase leading up inside it. Feeling she had no other option, Hera went to the next floor. There was yet another hole in the ceiling. She ended up repeating that process another 12 times. Halfway through that, she noticed that each room was a little bit bigger than the previous one, almost like she was climbing an inverted pyramid. On the 13th floor, she found four elevators on the corners of the area and no hole in the ceiling. This begged the question, would an elevator be considered a room? Would she have to go through a test while in there?
"What do you think? Are we going to see a test there?" Hera turned to Daskka.
"Don't. know," Daskka spoke in that growly tone.
"Should we take that chance, or do we look for a room and hope it's an easy one?"
"Can. Leave. Room?"
Despite the words not coming out right, Hera understood what Daskka was asking, "We can leave the room we enter after we finish the test."
"Before. Start?"
"Before we start the test?… I don't know," Hera looked down, she didn't consider that possibility, but it was valid. If she had enough time and no one else was inside a room, could she walk in, check the test and decide if she wanted to do it or not?
"Call. Lena," Daskka spoke, sending an image of the communicator that was on Hera's neck.
"I'll try, but something tells me it's not going to work," Hera replied and pressed the button, "Lena? Can you hear me?"
There was no response. It was like she was trying to use it when they were too far away. With a sigh, Hera turned to the elevator once again, "Screw it. Let's try. Everyone, follow me, and stay close. I don't know if the doors will wait for everyone," she called her blades over and pressed the button to call the elevator.
She didn't even have to wait. As soon as she pressed the button, the door opened, revealing a pretty standard elevator, although slightly bigger than she expected. It still had the same odd wave pattern on the walls and a large mirror on the back. Hera walked inside, followed by her blades, then looked at the panel. There were only two floors to choose from. Top floor or ground floor. She pressed the ground floor since, by all logic, this should be the top floor, but nothing happened. Finding it odd, Hera pressed the top floor. This time, the elevator started moving down. The ride seemed to last a while, which made sense since the staircase between each floor was considerably big, and nothing weird was happening. If Hera was to nitpick, there was a surprising lack of music in this elevator which wasn't usual for a hotel or a public space, but that was it.
She turned around, looked at the mirror, looked at her blades, tried to tidy up her hair, which was a mess, and tried to distract herself while waiting for the elevator to arrive. After around 2 minutes, she started to get restless, and she tried to look for something in the elevator that could tell her exactly how far she was from the top floor. While doing so, she also realized something was off. The elevator was moving, something was off. She wasn't feeling as if it was moving down but up. There wasn't a doubt in her mind that when she got in the elevator, it was going down. She even remembered seeing the light of the room she was in passing by the small gap on the door and going up instead of down. Noticing her worry, Daskka and her court started looking for something to show her where she was. Ooze found something odd in the mirror and told Hera about it.
Looking at that finding, she realized it was just a power button labeled 'Elevator Mirror'. Since it was on the mirror, it was very unlikely that this would turn off the entire elevator. If it did, this would be the worst setup ever created, not to mention it felt like something that would go against the rules of a dungeon. Despite everything, dungeons were fair. The things inside it would never kill someone out of the blue. Well, maybe monsters would but not the environment, not if it wasn't something there was clearly made to kill them. Pressing a button shouldn't cause any problems. There was even a label, and Hera was starting to freak out. Taking a deep breath, she pressed the button, hoping that it wasn't a trap. A green circle appeared around the label and the walls vanished, showing now that this was a glass elevator, but both the button and the writing were still evident on the glass. Now she could confirm that she was, in fact, going up. From her point of view, she could only see an endless expanse of hotel rooms and oddly shaped structures. There was a place that looked like a giant mall, another that looked like a warehouse, and even one that was just a giant sphere with a spiral staircase around it. Looking back to the structure she was just in, Hera saw a pyramid. A normal pyramid with the smaller point on top. It was made of 14 floors, but it felt like it had the exact dimensions as the rooms she had just passed by. And now she was going to the top floor where there were four connected corridors to the small print in the pyramid. Elevator was also moving very slowly, that's why it was taking so long.
Pulling up her tablet, she double-checked the timer she had set up, and there was still around half an hour for her to search for the room. As a way to take her mind out of the waiting, Hera asked if any of her blades felt off. They asked what she meant, and she just said she wanted to see if she could polish them a bit, sharpen their edges, or make herself busy while they were waiting. As per Helena's advice, she didn't have the glaive that she just bought on her. The mage suggested that since she still wasn't used to the new weapon, taking it to a place like this could be detrimental to what you could do, and considering how tight some of the corners in the staircase were, Hera had to agree that it was a good idea.
Daskka turned back to Hera, "They are always sharp. It's part of the legacy. When you summon them, they are always in the best shape possible."
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean they couldn't be better. I mean, they've been moving around, and there was the whole 'trying to carry me' fiasco. Maybe one of their edges is a bit chipped or something. I don't know," Hera explained.
"Well, I guess. But this feels more like something else," Daskka shrugged.
"Anyway, I need something to distract myself, and I have a piece of cloth here. So, who wants a rubbing?"
Daskka laughed, "You know how that sounds, right?"
"Take your mind out of the gutter," Hera rolled her eyes.
Lurize ended up offering itself to be polished, and Hera managed to focus on something else. She had enough time to clean one of the sides of the blade when the elevator arrived at the top floor. It was a long hallway devoid of any doors, and Hera quickly dashed through it. Since she was alone, there was no need for her to worry about getting lost, and right now, she just felt like moving.
Looking at the time, she was getting close to the 20 minutes mark, which was when she would have to search for a room. When she reached the central room, she could see the four corridors connected to the edges of this area, a fifth one in the middle going slightly up. Directly in front of this 5th hallway was a door with the number 69X.
"He, nice," Hera and Daskka spoke at the same time before turning back to the new passage and sprinting up. This led them to another open area, and for the first time here, it actually felt like she was in a hotel. Not inside one but in front of one. There were two buildings that looked like those hotels you could see in resorts, with all the corridors open to the view and the doors facing outside. Hera ran to the first open door she found now that she had an idea in mind. She told all her blades to hold the door in a way that would stop it from closing, just in case it would try to close on its own. With the door still open, Hera looked for the piece of paper that would tell the test of this room. The place was again very similar to an actual hotel room with green walls, a single king-sized bed, a television, and some curtains hiding a window overlooking a marvelous beach of crystal blue water.
Inside the dresser drawer, she found the paper explaining the test. The gravity inside this room would get stronger and stronger and whoever was inside it only had to wait 30 minutes before going out. Hera didn't like this idea. Staying in a place with increased gravity could get really bad really fast. Especially since she was wearing some armor.
While she was reading, a voice came out of her communicator, "Hey, can anyone hear me?"
"Alex?"
"Hera! Good to hear from you. I'm guessing we are close enough to talk. Did you end up in the desert, or did you have to go through some tests too?" Alex asked.
"Desert? What are you talking about? I'm in the… resort, I guess," Hera replied.
"Aw, man. I hoped you were close. That's still far away."
"How do you know that?"
"I was there. It took me like five doors before I could get here."
"What? How?"
"I just gambled. I went into doors that had quick tests and matched the numbers. It worked. I'm already in our room. It's a good thing that the Housekeeper can't enter this place. There was a notification about it," Alex explained.
"Really?"
"Yeah. You should see the view we have from here; this place is so cozy. It's kinda like a wooden cabin by a mountain. It has like, winter vibes."
"You could try to send me a picture? Maybe I can look for rooms that are similar and end up there. Or even better, do you remember the number of rooms you went in?"
"I don't remember. It was the only room in the five-story tall resort."
"Five-story? This place should have at least 20 floors, and there are two buildings," Hera gasped.
"Oh, I guess it's not the same place I passed by then," Alex replied.
"Right. Send me the picture. I'll try to find a room like that and a room I can actually stay in."
"Sure. Do you think it's going to work? The picture, I mean."
"I don't know. But maybe we can talk because we are inside rooms. Like this is a 'safe' place," Hera emphasized the word safe to try to convey the quotes through her voice.
"That makes sense. Like not a lot of sense, but what does in this place? There, just sent the picture in the group chat," as soon as Alex replied, Hera's tablet rang the notification sound.
Hera pulled up the device and opened the group chat. Just as Alex told her, she was inside a cozy cabin with five king-size beds in a circle, a fireplace, and a large TV. There was also a window in the frame showing the mountain in the background. If she couldn't find a place like that, maybe finding the view was a way to go.
"I'm going to run to look for a better test. Talk to you soon," Hera said and left the room without even waiting for Alex's reply. This place was fun and all, but one of them had already arrived in the room, and her competitive side wouldn't let her be the last.
