That, of course, was timed for when we were out in the middle.
We’d been braced for blasts, of course, but low gravity was our undoing. I let out a startled yip as Arlen stumbled and lost his shield, and then Silent’s shield took on a barrage and his feet slid from under him. All our shields struck each other—and us—as he went down, and then I was falling too, my ears ringing, to plunge into the pool below.
I’d lived by enough beaches to make swimming no issue, but I was dazed, and slow to surface, and then had to contend with Nova, who had found me as the nearest handhold, and was trying to climb. I went back under, tried to remember what I should do to rescue a non-swimmer, fought to get my head above the surface, and then the weight of panicked party member pulled away, and I gasped, coughed, breathed.
Silent’s long arms to the rescue. He’d found the edge, and then dragged Nova across to it. Arlen and Imoenne were further out, but were dog-paddling gamely in the chop caused by the water plunge from above.
Recovering enough to make it to the side myself, I coughed some more, then checked that Arlen and Imoenne were making progress. Only when all five of us were clinging to the wall did anyone speak, and that was Silent.
"Well, shit."
I coughed some more—I’d breathed in at just the wrong moment—and managed a croaky: "Definitely."
"Embarrassing, would it not be, to survive the blasts only to drown?" Arlen said, though without his usual ripple of laughter. "And the question now is whether it is possible to leave this water without further attack."
"Hold a couple of shields up there, and I’ll climb up to check whether it triggers the blasters?" I suggested.
"Right," Silent agreed, and built a shield.
Imoenne added one on top, and I clambered up into a glimmering tent. Nothing shot me, so I reached down to Nova, still clinging in grim, shivering silence to the pool’s edge.
It took a combination of Imoenne and Arlen gently helping her to coax Nova to release her grip. And when she was out, sitting on the edge of the pool, I surprised myself by curling an arm around her waist and tucking her against me. I’m far from a touchy-feely person, but Nova’s transformation from mature and collected to small and bedraggled called for something more than a let’s get going.
Truth to tell, I wasn’t really ready myself, and appreciated that the rest of my group simply joined us in a line on the pool’s edge until the immediate shock had worn off. The cool light breeze discouraged anything but a temporary lull, but we still waited until Nova finally straightened up.
She’d deactivated her focus, and now squeezed water from hair that had fallen out of its twin tails, tidying it as best she could. Then she took a deep breath. "Let’s not fuck up like that again."
"One bath per Challenge is my limit," Silent agreed.
"This is the second time lower gravity has nearly been my downfall," I said, and entertained everyone recounting how I’d made it through stage one.
"Speed’s not a bad idea, but I don’t think we’ll be outrunning these blasters," Nova said, now sounding as dryly unperturbed as she’d begun. "If four of us stay on the bank and firm footing, we can keep a shield over someone while they check if there’s an exit."
"Me," I said. "Everyone else is higher rank." And only Silent and I seemed to be strong swimmers, I added to myself.
"We’ll keep one shield over us and three over you," Silent said.
With a little experimentation, we put this into action, and I walked across the bridge to find a wall, and no way to go either forward or sideways. I repeated this beneath the lotus and then the circles symbols, and then we paused to consider the enormous curve, and all those symbols with their slippery bridges.
"Pick nearest or revise our choices?" Silent asked.
For a moment no-one answered, every one of us aware that three bridges had already taken too much energy. Then Imoenne said, barely audible: "That one, please."
We looked where she pointed: a symbol only five bridges to our right. One large star surrounded by five tiny ones.
"Could represent the dawn star, I guess," Silent said, after a moment’s hesitation. "Let’s give it a go."
It hadn’t been on our original list of symbols, but Imoenne was normally so quiet that I think we would have tried it even if we hadn’t been able to see any connection at all. It was at least nearby, and we’d found that the blasters by the pool only triggered if you went onto the bridges.
Except for this bridge, where no blasters triggered at all. I stopped in the middle of the flat arch, started to speak, but then kept going forward so that I could confirm that the pleating of the wall on the far side of our fourth attempt was in fact two angled walls that did not quite intersect, but instead simply concealed the fact that they were an exit.
"Imoenne, you are awesome."
I doubted she could have heard me over the roar of the falls, so I repeated myself once everyone was safely across in the inevitable tunnel.
"What made you so sure this was the right one?" Nova asked, giving Imoenne an approving little nod.
Imoenne ducked her head, and told her feet: "The descriptions, they always, they better fit the previous Challenge."
"They do?" Silent said, then paused, clearly looking back over his Challenge log. "Enter the Maze; Choose a Path; Find Your Way Down; Behind the Shadows; Beneath the Stars; Where the Meadow Weeps, And the Dawn Blooms."
"It’s true that we found a way down in the Behind the Shadows Challenge," Nova said, thoughtfully. "And everything was shadowy in the Beneath the Stars. I don’t remember much down in the Find Your Way Down Challenge."
"They was maybe a slight downward curve to some of the paths," Silent said. "But it did match Choose a Path way better."
"Hm." Nova shrugged. "Let’s shield up and confirm that this is officially the way out first. If it is, then I think you might have handed us the key to the whole Challenge series, Imoenne."
"Yes, dry clothes and proof of my sister’s genius, this way," Arlen said proudly, and was very shortly rewarded.
Gauntlet Successful.
Gauntlet Success Rate: 7/7 100%
Challenge Success Rate: 13/14 92.8%
Lux Points Earned: 5
Total Lux Points: 57
Challenge Reward:
[Tier 1 Consumable Pattern]
[Tier 1 Apparel Pattern]
"No-one else here," I said, gazing around the inevitable staging area. "Not that it necessarily means other groups haven’t made it this far, then logged or gone ahead already."
"But no, I am sure it means we are the first," Arlen said, bouncing ahead of us with redoubled enthusiasm. "And now that Imoenne has given us the key, we will have an advantage for the last parts, and we will be the first to unlock the System Challenge, and everyone will know our names!"
I wondered whether I’d like that—the kind of notoriety that only a couple of players had so far faced in-game—and thought it would at least be good advertising for the Bio of The Synergis and My Core Unit is a Lie patches I’d added to my uniform.
"I’m starting to believe a first is actually possible," I said.
"If unlocking the System Challenge has a custom ship reward, then I absolutely want to push hard to get it," Silent said. "If everyone’s not feeling too tired, want to take a half hour break and then take on the next stage?"
Achievement
First to unlock System Challenge
[Redeemer]
[Dread Pirate Roberts]
[Spaceman Spiff]
[Fuzzy]
[Weak Sauce]