Underdepth

Chapter 15: How Puzzling.

Marie made her way out of Zachary's rabbit hole, giggling at the thought of the date. Her phone rang once more. Peppi's calling again! Marie happily picked up "Hi, Peppi! I made it safely!" Peppi contently sighed. "Good, very good... Where are you now?" Marie looked ahead of her. It looked like one huge puzzle. Orange and and Cyan flickering lights. A treadmill with explosive mines on it. And a timed bomb puzzle.

.....

"I'm near a giant... Sciency... Place...." Peppi knew exactly where she was. "Redman... He built this for security reasons... I have to go for now. But if you do manage to make it across, give me a call." "Okay. Talk to you later.." *Click* Peppi hung up. Marie called up Recluse. "Come on... Please pick up..." And that he did. "Oh, hello Marie! What's going on?" "There's a big, bright puzzle in front of me. What do I do...?" "Hmmm.... Since I built it, I'll be able to help you. Just keep going forward, okay?" "Okay. But... The lights are scary..." "look, just let me help. The lights are Orange and Cyan, right?" "Mm hmm. Is it for something important?" "Sort of. Listen closely. When the lights turn cyan, dont. Move. A muscle. If you do, a laser will attempt to paralyze you. When the lights turn orange, move as fast as you can. Same rules apply if you don't move. Did you get all that?" "I guess so. Okay, I'll do my best!" she went towards the puzzle. And payed close attention to the timing of the flickering lights. When the lights were Cyan, they would blink for a second and turn Orange. And when it was orange, it would blink for a second and turn Cyan. The lights turned orange and she moved quickly before they would turn Cyan. She saw the lights flickering and immediately stopped. Lucky, the lights turned Cyan right on time. She stayed frozen until the lights flickered and turned orange. She repeated this process until she reached the treadmill.

"Um... Mr. Recluse... What do I do now? There's bombs on a thing that it looks like my friends daddy exercises on..." "Oh that puzzle I designed it to be physically impossible for people to get across. But don't worry, the only reason I did that is to trick them. There's actually a switch near the puzzle to shut it off!" he made a smug little grin. "It should be right near the end of the light puzzle." Marie walked towards it. "You mean the button that says "HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE. DO NOT TOUCH."?" "Yep! Because I tricked the mind of common sense!" Marie pressed the button. The treadmill puzzle stopped moving. She jetted towards it, only to see it speed up more. "UM. MR. RECLUSE!? SOMETHING'S WRONG!" Recluse immediately sounded stressed "Wait what!? That's impossible!" the treadmill stopped again. It suddenly broke down and exploded, leaving some parts intact. Marie had no time to waste. Who knows, it might start running again. She leaped from safe panel to safe panel without touching a mine. She was now at the final puzzle. The timed bomb puzzle the timer was 40 seconds. There was nothing else to do to the bomb. Except to make it smaller. She figured it out by hitting it with Peppi's rolling pin in frustration. The more she hit the bomb, the more pieces flew and the smaller it got. Finally, with the last hit, the bomb defused, and the puzzles were completed. She cheered "Recluse! I did it! I stopped the big puzzles!" Recluse laughed in joy "Excellent job, Marie! You're almost far enough from the queen!"

Menacing, metallic footsteps approached behind her.

E.C.H.O. and Julius. His footsteps were silent. E.C.H.O. towered over her. Meanwhile Julius was shorter than her."SO... IF IT ISN'T THE RUN AWAY HUMAN! I WOULDN'T HAVE EXPECTED YOU TO SOLVE THESE PUZZLES!" Julius just sorta looked at Marie. Another human he had to destroy. He clearly had to save his energy for a later encounter. For Mumbo still had him under control. "Listen, kid. We're gonna do this the easy way, or E.C.H.O's favorite part... The hard way. So just come with us, and nobody will get hurt..." "N-No.... I don't wanna go...."

"E.C.H.O.... what you must."