LOCATION: THE CRUCIBLE, 100TH FLOOR
PLANET: LAPIS DIVINUS, ORION LUMINARY INSTITUTE
YEAR: 1 | DAY: ?? | TIME: ??
The safe room was the same as it had been since the 25th floor, when The Crucible began including cots to rest and showers to refresh.
Kaela needed the time in between these floors less for regenerating resources, and more for recalibrating her mind. When she spent so much time on those floors, sometimes a year or more, she had to pull herself out of those situations and remember who she really was.
And what she was doing there in the first place: working through the many floors of The Crucible. And hopefully, proving herself worthy while she did so.
The floors weren’t like reading a book or watching a movie, where you could put it down and walk away. They were true, lived-in fully immersive experiences.
It was incredible the way in which the designers had varied the themes to include and measure so much. Kaela didn’t feel like she had used any particular strategy twice to solve a floor yet.
Although she did give up and fudge through one more floor. The 99th was one where she would have been required to interview twenty-thousand on a list of persons of interest, then piece together the threads of some grand conspiracy.
After that, she had to prove the case in both the court of public opinion, and in the actual legal courts.
Kaela was no attorney, but she began conducting the tedious interviews, each one lasting several hours. Then one night, while out for drinks at a pub, she was approached by an underground network offering to handle the entire thing if only Kaela did them a single favor.
One of their own had been kidnapped, and she had to track the man down and free him. She readily accepted the counteroffer.
It took her three days, and the hostage rescue got quite bloody. But when she returned, true to their word, the entire thing was already done for her.
As she stepped through the portal on that floor, she had to admit her solution was more expedient and in her own personal style than spending years engaged in constant interviews, press conferences, and court appearances.
She got a speedy completion bonus and had achieved exactly one out of over one thousand objectives. But she didn’t care. It all just seemed like too much work.
Kaela remembered reading the legend of the Gordian knot. An oracle had said the one who untied the impossibly complex knot would become future ruler of Asia. Alexander the Great simply sliced through it with his sword.
Essentially Kaela’s solution in this case. Not that she was a brute, unwilling to do hard work when it was needed, but twenty thousand interviews?
Yeah.
Fuck that.
Moving on.
Now she stood in the safe room, recalibrating her mind and preparing to enter the 100th floor. She wasn’t sure how long she had been inside The Crucible by now.
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The High Warden had said there was time compression, so it’s not like so many years had gone by outside. But to Kaela, it had definitely been far more than twenty years since the High Warden had nudged her through that first portal.
That was her eighth day on Lapis Divinus. She remembered her roommate, Milanon Stormsong and wondered once again how he did in his own trials.
Kaela hopped up and down, shaking out her arms and legs. She thought of Elena and their parents.
“I miss you all. This one is for you…” she whispered as she pushed the door open and walked through.
Her senses were overwhelmed as perfume filled the air, and incense burned on censers in the corners of the elegantly appointed room.
Kaela heard someone practicing the piano in a distant room, and golden sunlight shone in through the open windows. A light breeze caused the long curtains to ruffle back and forth.
Outside those windows, people dressed in top hats and frilly gowns walked the streets, whispering the latest gossip. She heard her own name twice just as she was peering out at them.
Kaela looked down at herself.
She was wearing an intricately woven, elegant dress. Her chest heaved over the top of the bodice. Long, white silken gloves covered her hands and rose just past her elbows.
Deep inside the folds of her dress, a corset was tied tightly against her back, restricting her breathing. Kaela chuckled, trying to imagine herself fighting in this getup. She’d probably die from asphyxiation before her opponent could even strike the killing blow.
She turned toward a full-length mirror in the corner of the room, on a stand several feet from a four-poster bed.
Her long hair, normally wavy and down past her shoulders, was pulled into a formal arrangement of braided coils and pinned ringlets, all crowned with a miniature hat trimmed in silk and pearl.
She turned her head side to side, admiring the work someone had done.
I didn’t do this, did I?
She heard hushed whispers in the hallway just before a knock sounded at the door.
“Your Highness?”
Kaela spun around.
Did she say—
Another knock.
“Your Highness? May I enter?”
Kaela cleared her throat.
“Uh, yes.”
Three maids dressed in plain, gray dresses entered and began fussing over her, fluffing the hem of her dress out, making small adjustments to her hair, and touching up her makeup.
What the hell is going on with this floor?
“Princess Kaela,” one of the maids said, “the King awaits you in the throne room.”
They finished with their ministrations and stepped back. The maid who was talking gave her a final once-over and nodded.
“You’re ready. Follow me.”
Kaela thanked them and followed the woman out of her room and into a long hallway.
The walls were adorned with wooden wainscotting, and each section featured a large, centered painting of people or landscapes.
The one nearest to her bedroom was a gorgeous piece depicting Kaela herself. A strange scene entered her mind at that moment.
She was riding in a horse-drawn carriage with her older brother, the Prince and heir to the throne. They were having a heated discussion about something… What was it?
But the more she tried to reach for the information, the further it slid away.
“That one always was your favorite, Princess,” the maid said, ushering her down the hallway more quickly now. “We can move it to your bedchambers, if you wish?”
Kaela shook her head, swerving to the left to keep her billowy dress from brushing against a half-rounded table by the wall with a gorgeous flower arrangement atop it.
“That won’t be necessary, thank you.”
Since the 25th floor, The Crucible had been dropping Kaela into these scenarios without any context or background information. She had grown accustomed to paying careful attention to her surroundings to piece together what was going on.
“So, what does my father want to meet with me about today?” she asked, assuming that with her being a princess, the king being her father was an easy gamble.
The maid rushed down the hall with Kaela in tow, turning right, then left.
“You don’t remember? He has arranged a marriage for you, and wants to talk about your departure.”
Kaela stopped walking.
“What?”