Dex Warrior (Libertas Online)

10: Traitor

Even though my journey through the portal is over in the blink of an eye, it still feels like I've just taken a freezing dive into the coldest ice water ever. When I emerge on the other side, I crash, hands and knees on a hard stone floor, and shiver like a geek about to ask the homecoming queen for a date.

The sensation slowly fades away, and I'm left standing on a circular balcony surrounded with stone handrails and nowhere to go. Even so, I'm not alone and completely useless. There's a marble panel with six candles. Three of the flames are an unnatural yellow, three are pulsating green, and below each of them it looks like there are more slots to insert weapons into. These look bigger, like they are meant to accompany a wider variety of weapons. In the center of it all there's a big fist-sized red button, and I realize I'm looking at some kind of control station.

I bend over the handrails to look below me and realize the balcony is actually a free-floating platform, and down below there's an even bigger circular platform that's surrounded by hot glowing magma beneath it. In the faint red light, I can see small details engraved in the platform floor below that makes it look like it's a maze. Initially, it looks like there are six figures standing in it, but as it turns out, there are actually three statues and three players. My favorite band of goons. Which isn't saying much when they are the only band of goons I know.

"Hey!" I shout.

Finn and Alloy look right up at me, while Lenard is scanning everywhere but above him, confused.

"How did you get up there?" Alloy asks.

I hold out my hands. "I have no idea! How did you guys get down there?"

"The portal took us here. What's up there?"

"Well, it almost looks like there are controls with more weapon slots. I don't know what they do yet. There's also a big red button up here."

"Uh," Lenard mumbles. "Don't push that red button just yet. Something tells me it's not turbo mode."

"Okay," I say with a chuckle. "What about you guys? What's up with those statues?"

"I haven't had a chance to look at one yet," Alloy says. He begins to walk towards the closest one "This one looks like—" He lets out a grunt and jerks back as his nose smashes against something invisible. He cusses, then holds out his hand, then cusses again. "There's some kind of invisible barrier here. See the marks on the floor? We can't navigate over them. We have to stay in the maze even though we can see through it."

"Well," Leonard says, "that's actually pretty considerate of the developers. It would be a lot harder if we couldn't see each other."

"Try out some of those controls up there," Finn says. "We need to know what they do."

"Okay!" I say, turn my back to them, and draw my sword.

If I stretch my arm out as far as possible I can slightly see over the handrail as I slip my sword in the closest slot. When I do, the candle-light above it changes from yellow to green. Nothing else happens, either up here or down below.

I wonder if there is a correct combination, but try the other slots at random and every single one only toggles from either yellow to green, or turns to a mysterious blue. I have no idea what these are supposed to do but I figure green means go and I don't have six swords to activate them all at once.

"Hey, Aiden!" Someone yells from below. I stick my head over and see Finn waving up at me. "There are six spots on the edge of the maze where the tile in the floor sits lower. Each of the tiles are about the same size as the statues' bases, and at each of those spots there are carvings on the wall past the magma that look just like in the last room. They are portraits of the classes in the game."