Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

"Mmh, this is beginning to look a bit troubling," Vasta muttered as the clock continued ticking down.

It was a sentiment all of them could share. With half of their time used up in their search as they flew across the endless plain of platforms, they hadn't found so much as a glimpse of an exit despite the fact that they were covering distances that regular parties taking on the challenge couldn't imagine. A distance that would have taken anyone else days to traverse had been examined and explored but didn't leave them with a drop of hope for getting out.

"What else can we do then?" Jake asked. "If we can't find it then we're missing something."

"Maybe it's because we haven't been interacting with the trial in a normal way?" Ben offered. "Most parties wouldn't be flying across all of this, they'd be moving platform to platform. Maybe there's something that we should have activated that we've missed out on."

It was an idea that brought a grimace to all of their faces. With half of their time gone, if it was because they'd simply failed to find and interact with some pivotal part of the trial then all of their searching until that point had been nothing but a waste.

"Thera, bring us down," Vasta said after grappling with the idea Ben put forth. "Better to see if something happens."

Giving a nod, his girlfriend brought them down, all of them waiting for a moment on their new platform but with no change to come. If there were platforms that would activate in some way with their presence, it wasn't that one.

That didn't mean the idea was wrong though and they kept trying. The gaps between the platforms were big enough that anyone could have fallen through if they weren't careful but with Thera still there to move them it was easy to jump from one to the next, even if there was still no change and left them standing in silence after their sixth attempt.

"...Maybe if there was some sort of activation condition it was around the one we started on?" Amy offered. "If we skipped whatever it might have been then maybe nothing further down would activate first."

The idea brought a frown to Vasta's face. "I'd prefer to think the gods wouldn't be so careless to build a trial where the conditions we'd need to conceivably finish it could be bypassed."

…I can absolutely believe the gods of this world could fuck up on building a core feature of one of their trials.

"Okay, well only one way to know for sure," Ben told them. "I can remember how many platforms we passed and if we're not slowing down to search then Thera can get us back there in fifteen minutes, easy. Unless we have any better ideas?"

"...No, I suppose we don't," Vasta sighed. "We'll have to keep thinking on the way I suppose but for now I vote we'll do as you suggest if everyone else is in agreement?"

With no other ideas, there was no argument, thereby beginning their journey back.

"Still nothing it looks like," Ben muttered as their search went on.

They'd gotten back to their original platform and they'd searched not only every one around it but every one around all of those ones as well, getting no change to hint at wherever they were meant to be going. They were by all accounts stuck.

"Do we just keep moving then?" Jake asked. "We're already back, might as well explore the opposite way in case it's as simple as that."

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"...I do wonder if the solution could really be so simple," Vasta muttered. "There's nothing to give it away, no hint or clue or anything. You'd expect a trial to have some way to actually solve the damnable thing instead of being forced to wander random directions with the hope we might get it right in some stroke of luck."

She's right.

As much as the overall designs of trials annoyed him, built to harvest faith in exchange for a blessing and level in a way that left the participants putting their lives on the line, the gods would get nothing from killing their believers, especially not when they were in the middle of the war. There had to have been a way to solve it.

"...Unless this tower is so rarely challenged that we're literally the first people to attempt this floor and discover that it doesn't work…"

"Hmm, what was that Ben?" Vasta asked him.

"Oh, nothing. Just thought out loud a bit. Ignore me."

The idea may have felt unpleasantly possible as soon as he'd thought of it but operating on that assumption wasn't useful. If that was the case then there was nothing they could do but if he was wrong and everyone started thinking like that then it wouldn't help anyone.

Which means we just need to consider other options, which means first…

"Hey Thera, can you try destroying the platform beside us?"

"I don't think that's something a normal person taking the trial could pull off."

"Yeah, I honestly agree but it's something different than what we've been doing."

"...Okay, yeah, sure."

It was better than nothing and she held forth her staff, pouring mana into the attack as she tried to squeeze the cube with her magic as it slowly drifted up and down, finding it more resilient than she'd expected. She'd started casually but eventually began to strain.

A result that should have been an answer in and of itself. If she of all people was struggling to break it then it wasn't something meant to be broken, but he was still bitter about having his heart destroyed and didn't bother bringing that fact up, seeing that the lack of immediate success had stroked her competitive spirit and motivated her to go on until a loud crack echoed through the floor, the platform splitting down the middle and freezing in place.

"Well, that did nothing," She sighed, even if there was a small edge of pride to it after proving she could overpower the platform. "So what now?"

It was a question they were all wondering as Ben continued to stare at the broken platform, frozen where it had cracked amidst a sea of movement as a question came to him. All of the platforms were moving at fixed intervals, having high points and low points, but each one was moving in a specific way, keeping one singular feature of them obstructed from view.

…Oh, fuck me. It can't be that easy, can it?

There was only one way to find out and feeling so incredibly dumb, he turned to Jake and Vasta.

"Guys, you think you could clairvoyance a look on the bottom side of some of these platforms?"

"Wait, you don't think-"

"It's the only reasonable place we haven't checked. There's enough space to fall between them and with the way they're all moving, nothing gets high enough relative to the others to see if there's anything on their underside. Plus, it's something that a person challenging could be expected to find and reach with their non-affinitied magic. It unfortunately makes sense."

A part of him wanted to be wrong, if only because that would excuse him for not immediately thinking something so obvious but it was easy to see from both Jake and Vasta's faces that they'd found it, leaving him to pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"Okay, how far off is it then?" He sighed, with Vasta being the one to answer, even if it was hesitant.

"...It looks like there's an exit under every one of them."

Oh, motherfucker!

"A normal exit then? Not something that's going to lead to a second part for this floor?"

"I'd say so, I haven't seen the gods treat doorways as continuations before. They're pretty firmly exits."

Yeah, of course they are.

"Okay, in that case, we have an hour left in here then. I say we use half of that to relax and then from there we make our way through."

He got no arguments, all of them wanting a break after finding the solution right under their noses the entire time.