Each of the grid squares near the center had a color-coded tile, and each tile had a foreign symbol within.
I really hate color coded tile puzzles.
I’d read a lot about this style of puzzle, and even tried a few practice ones. I was terrible at them.
I stepped away from the door, shaking my head. It closed without any further interaction my part.
I walked over to the red door and opened it.
It showed a long, narrow hallway, wide enough for two people to walk abreast. I could see the door on the opposite end, but just barely.
In the middle of the path, however, was a monster.
The world’s most adorable monster.
It looked like a big house cat, with gray and white stripes, sitting with its front paws raised. It had three long, bunny-like ears and a trailing rat-like tail. It tilted its head to the side as it saw me, giving me a quizzical expression.
It was too cute to die.
I stepped away from the door, chuckling to myself.
It’s possible I am the world’s worst adventurer.
One door left.
The red door slid shut as I headed to the yellow and touched the final gem.
The last room was square, about twenty feet across. The same size as the first one I had opened.
This one was divided into smaller squares too, but in a very different way.
A solid third of the squares were missing. From my vantage point in the doorway, I could see nothing below the gaps in the floor but darkness. I assumed, to be safe, that it would be certain death if I fell in one of those holes.
Directly across from me, blocking one of the room’s three exit doors, was a mirror. It was taller than I was and nearly twice as wide.
This seemed like the most appealing option. Visible pit traps didn’t worry me anywhere near as much as stepping on the wrong tile in some kind of color puzzle.
I didn’t step into the yellow room. Not immediately.
First, I needed to map those squares.
The left and right half of the room were almost symmetrical. Not quite, but it took some observation to spot the differences in the paths. Two paths led to two doors on opposite ends of the room.
The third door had only a single square of floor in front of it, with no solid path to it. I’d have to jump, or otherwise problem-solve, to make it to that one.
The doors were, of course, also color coded. The green door was the isolated one, on my left. Orange was on my right. Gold in the center. Two were clearly combinations of the colors from the first room, and I had seen green as an option in the room with the colored squares... Would both green doors lead to the same place? I wasn’t sure.
And it wasn’t easily testable, since I knew there was a good chance the door I used to enter this chamber was going to vanish the moment I walked in. The goddess disapproved of backtracking, apparently.
The room seemed too simple at a glance; the mirror probably had some kind of function that wasn’t obvious from a distance. Maybe some of the tiles were illusory, and some of the “gaps” were actually solid, and I’d have to look in the mirror to see the true path. That seemed like a valid puzzle, and it scared me a lot less than the colored tiles.
It scared me more than the cat-rat-bunny, but I really wanted to avoid killing something without cause.
I scanned the room for anything I might tie my rope for a lifeline if I fell. No handrails, no obvious protrusions from the floor. Just squares, some empty, some apparently safe. And the mirror, of course.
I had brought a lot of rope. Nearly fifty feet, coiled up, high quality. The tower was notorious for having pits, many of which would be fatal.
I tied one end of the rope around my waist with a climbing knot. I prepped the other side of the rope as a crude lasso, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.
As I expected, there was no exit when I turned around.
I did not, however, expect the shadowy simulacrum of myself that appeared in front of the mirror.
Oh, resh. That’s bad.
I raised my rope, preparing to throw it at the mirror.
The duplicate copied my motions exactly, holding an identical rope.
Ah, the “killer shadow that mirrors what I do” puzzle. A classic.
I slid my foot forward, not taking a full step in case the ground in front of me was illusory. Fortunately, the next square proved as solid as it appeared.
The shadow creature mirrored my movement.
I waved.
It waved.
“Hi,” I said. Even if I knew it was going to try to kill me, there was no need to be rude.
It opened its mouth, mirroring me, but no sound emerged.
Creepy.
There was nothing overtly dangerous about the duplicate, but I was confident bad things were going to happen if it got too close. Or possibly if I took too long in solving whatever I was supposed to solve.
I continued to slide my foot, moving to the right side of the room. I wanted a clear throw at the mirror with my rope, without the shadow throwing a rope in my direction. I had no idea what a shadow-rope might do if it hit me, or how the shadow would react if it touched my own rope.
Once I was in position, I threw the rope at the mirror.
And missed.
The shadow mirrored me, throwing its own rope, with equally useless results.
I threw the rope a second time, missing again.
The tile that I had stood on when I entered the room broke away from the others, plunging into the darkness below.
Oh, resh me. I have a time limit.
I finished reeling in the rope, tossed it lazily over my shoulder, and pulled the dueling cane off my belt.
The shadow mirrored me. If I fired at him, he’d probably fire something back at me. I didn’t know if the shadow cane would produce a projectile, but if it did, it might be more dangerous than my own.
I aimed at the mirror instead, pressing the button.