They returned to the chamber.

  Same stone. Same glass wall. Same faint blue hum threaded through everything.

  Different occupants.

  Harlada noticed it first. Her eyes narrowed, tracking shapes that weren’t there.

  “The reptiles are gone.”

  Leo stepped closer to the glass. “And the dimensional ones. The orange bodywarmers.”

  Bert adjusted the hat on his head out of habit—then froze.

  “So the Maze removes winners,” he said. “Or survivors.”

  “Or problems,” Harlada added.

  The barbarians were still there.

  Only two of them now.

  They stood farther apart than before, shoulders slumped beneath their fur-lined cloaks. One stared at the floor. The other gripped his axe so tightly his knuckles had gone pale beneath the grime. They didn’t thump their chests. They didn’t laugh.

  They looked… bereaved.

  “Yeah,” Bert muttered. “They lost one.”

  The chamber felt heavier for it.

  Leo exhaled slowly. “That means the fight happened. Just not with us.”

  “And they didn’t win,” Harlada said.

  Bert nodded. “Which means we wouldn’t have either.”

  Something shifted at the edge of the room.

  A new group had taken shape where the reptiles once stood.

  They were… unimpressive.

  Shorter than the barbarians. Uneven in posture. Weapons mismatched—clubs, dull blades, something that might once have been a farming tool. Their armor, if it could be called that, looked scavenged, dented, and worn in ways that suggested poor decision-making rather than experience.

  They grinned at each other.

  One waved.

  “Oh,” Bert said, delighted. “I like them.”

  Harlada blinked. “You like them?”

  “They look honest,” Bert said. “Like they run straight at danger yelling their own names.”

  Leo squinted. “They look stupid.”

  Bert nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly.”

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  Harlada took Bert by the shoulder. “Do not get attached to our opponents.”

  Leo joined in, his voice heavier, whispering the last word. “Remember the children.”

  Bert fell silent.

  In the far chamber beyond them, something else waited.

  Three figures stood perfectly still.

  Fully armored. Plate from head to toe, polished dark steel catching the chamber’s light in sharp lines. Their helmets were closed. No faces. No movement. Each held a weapon with ceremonial precision—swords planted tip-down, hands resting on pommels.

  They didn’t pace.

  They didn’t gesture.

  They watched.

  Harlada felt the familiar tightening in her chest. “Those are not decorative.”

  “No,” Leo agreed quietly. “Those are end-state enemies.”

  Bert looked between the groups—the sad barbarians, the eager idiots, the silent knights—and grinned.

  “Well,” he said, “this is a much more interesting lineup.”

  The maze pulsed.

  Run #70840 commencing in 5 minutes.

  ***

  “Exploration?” Bert asked.

  The other two nodded.

  “Perhaps find the friendly ones?” Bert added hopefully.

  The other two shook their heads violently.

  “And please stop yelling ‘sneak mode’ every few seconds,” Harlada said.

  When the doors opened, they moved as slowly and carefully as they could muster—peeking around every corner, sometimes stopping completely to listen.

  Bert checked every trap three times, under Harlada’s unblinking supervision.

  “This takes forever,” Harlada muttered.

  “But we are still alive,” Leo observed.

  “We will never progress like this,” Bert countered.

  Leo stopped. “Do we really want to?”

  “Of course we want to,” Bert said. “That’s the whole point of this.”

  They entered a large room.

  “Ah. The puzzle room,” Bert said contentedly. “Let’s get us some loot.”

  “How do you know?” Harlada asked.

  Bert pointed at the sign on the wall.

  It read: PUZZLE ROOM.

  “Ah.”

  The room was large and circular, with two exits—one behind them, one directly opposite. In the center stood two massive trees: one dead and twisted, the other lush, bursting with green leaves.

  “Great,” Bert said, rubbing his chin. “So what do we need to do?”

  “No sign other than ‘puzzle room,’” Harlada said after scanning the walls.

  “Deduction suggests we either kill both trees or let the other one bloom,” Leo said, already scribbling notes in his notebook.

  The three of them stared at the arboreal problem.

  “I do not see it,” Bert said after a generous fifteen seconds. He wandered off to inspect the room for traps.

  “What do you see?” Leo asked Harlada, unwilling to admit he was equally lost.

  “I think it has something to do with the mirrors,” she said, pointing upward. “Perhaps there’s a switch or something?”

  Leo looked up.

  Four massive mirrors were embedded in the domed ceiling.

  He frowned. He had no idea how he had missed them.

  ***

  The maze pulsed.

  Run #70840 completed.

  Reset in 1 minute.

  “How long have we been searching?” Bert asked. “That felt longer than the first run.”

  Harlada nodded once. “Let’s see who survived.”

  “If we get a chance,” Bert said, smiling, “we go for progression?”

  “No,” Leo said firmly. “First, we make a map of the Maze.” His gaze lingered on the mirrors. “Figure this puzzle out.”

  “Nowhere else to go,” Harlada agreed.

  The room faded to black.

  Once more, they felt the weight of the routine settle in—the relentless rhythm of the Maze.

  And the quiet certainty that it was learning faster than they were.