SWNOVELS Chapter Al Haud
You nod slowly, allowing the girl to raise her modest scepter. The sorceress chanted a few words and the coding slowly peeled and flaked away like it was old paint being removed with a scraper.
After a few moments, a new pathway has opened before the sorceress. Taking a second look, you notice that though the doorway has opened, the sorceress is no longer there. The only that remains of her is the basic staff with which she allowed the rest of the party to continue on. The somber twin is the first to move, picking up the object and holding it out to you. You shake your head, and the scepter dissolves into coding and disappears much like the wall had.
Is this the only way to move forward now, you ponder with a heavy heart. You look at the companions you gained, and sigh. The swordswoman makes a shrugging gesture, as if the inevitability is fine with her. The somber twin and the shielded man stay taciturn.
What do you do?
After following the semi visible girl in a direction all of them swore they had gone, they found themselves in a completely new area with multi colored tiles scattered across the floor. Shades of green, blue, red, pink, and every other color decorated the floor like a child had spilled their paint set. “Okay, Amaya, we’re here now what?” Myos called, cautiously eyeing the ground before them.
“Okay, don’t step on any of the colors yet! If you step on the wrong ones, I don’t know what’ll happen but it most likely probably won’t be very good,” She warned, stopping Achernar in her tracks. The tall woman took a step away from the blue panel, wringing her hands as if she had just been caught with them in a cookie jar.
“So what colors are safe?” Razzy asked, pursing her lips and looking at the room before them with her leather gloved left hand on her slim hip.
“Just step on any of the pink ones,” Amaya instructed. “But there’s biochemical software in the room and it can detect the presence of heat, so it knows how many people are in the room and all of you have to step on the right colors or nothing will happen. But yeah, if you all step on the pink ones it’ll be fine no problem,” she explained with a small giggle.
“Sounds easy enough to me,” Myos grinned, walking over to a pink panel before his wrist was grabbed in a strong grip.
“What if she’s lying to us, Myos,” Zeke warned, narrowing his dark eyes. “She could work for the Empress for all we know. Pink is probably the wrong color.”
“What other fucking color would it be, dumbass? There’s so much fucking pink around this ship. I mean the bitch probably bathes in pink water,” Achernar snorted at the audacity of the other, taking her place on a colored tile. Adjusting the turtleneck of her midriff baring red sweater she shifted her weight from one foot to another, even jumping up and down a few times. “Nothing’s happened, pink must be safe.”
Razzy nodded in agreement, stepping carefully over a baby blue tile to reach a rose colored one not far from Achernar.
“Dude, let go,” Myos said, shaking his arm out once he got to his own pink tile. “You’re the last one, it’s not gonna work unless we all stand on one of these tiles, man,” he said, creating a quiet moment between himself and his best friend.
“What if I’m the one saving all of you from being captured by the Empress, hm?” Zeke asked, raising his chin in entitlement and tensing his body.
“Please trust me,” Amaya pleaded again, looking at the tall, muscular man through the wall in front of them. “You have to work as a team, we have to from here on out or we don’t have any hope of defeating her.”
Zeke steeled his gaze, looking around at the unlikely group he had gathered before him. Taking a deep breath, he trusted his life to the word of a girl he barely knew and gave his heart to a team that formed by circumstance to take down an enemy that may or may not actually exist. Holding the breath he had taken, all his weight was placed on the small pink square in front of him.
An affirmative beeping noise sounded, and the semi transparent, white concave walls around them opened up to reveal a silvery hallway.