A Visitor to the Future - 109 - The Heart of the Maze
Gatecrash offered me a hand, helping me to climb up onto the top of the pillar. To my surprise, the broken remains of the Proxy I had tangled with were tucked under Gatecrash's arm.
"Is that safe?" I asked, worried about another potential fall.
"Yeah, completely knocked out," answered Gatecrash, tapping the Squire Proxy's head to demonstrate, "I'll leave them on more stable ground. It doesn't seem fair to let them fall - they're already beaten."
I wasn't sure that I would have done the same in Gatecrash's situation. Even without the pressure of chasing our opponents across the pillars, they were still difficult to navigate. However, with a few well-placed leaps we managed to reach the other side safely, and Gatecrash propped the Squire Proxy against one of the arena walls.
With that done, there was no more time to waste. We'd lost precious minutes in recovering from my fall, and had to redouble our efforts to catch up. I fell into step behind my teammate, trusting their sense of direction over my own.
As we reached another intersection, there was another loud crunching sound, like the one we'd heard earlier, this time no more than seventy-five metres away. As the noise echoed throughout the maze, the was another cacophony of clattering as it sounded like one of the stone walls gave out.
"Something's attacking the walls," said Gatecrash, "I'm sure of it. It was a little too far last time for me to tell, but now I'm sure."
"That's what it sounded like to me too," I agreed, "We should go in the opposite direction. That's a maze creature that I don't want to tangle with."
Gatecrash nodded and we changed direction to move away from it. In a stroke of luck, it was the right call to make - only two turns later, the maze opened up into a wide room, more ornate than those we'd seen before.
The room had two entrances - we were stood in one, and the other was directly opposite us. Wide, decorative pillars filled the room, obscuring sight-lines across the space. We stepped into the centre, onto a series of centre tiles were painted red in the imitation of a red carpet. All in all, the room looked much like a throne room. As we looked to our right, however, in the place of of a regal throne was a raised marble plinth. On it sat a large scabbard that looked like it would hold a sword about two metres in length.
In front of the pillar was the opposing Proxy. But as I scanned it's hands, and then the plinth once more, I saw no sign of the sword itself. The scabbard was empty - the sword itself was nowhere to be seen.
It was hard to read the emotions of those controlling opposing Proxies, but as the red form of our opponent turned and looked towards us, I thought that I could see the tell-tale signs of confusion or panic. Their diminutive head looked left and right, their gaze darting around the room, scanning our Proxies for signs of the sword, looking behind us - and finding nothing. They were effectively trapped here. The Proxy took three steps forward and began fumbling with their left forearm, pulling back a piece of armour plating...
Tungsten's Proxy stepped out from behind one of the pillars, long sword held firmly in both hands. He leapt forward, closing the distance with a sideways slash. Our opponent barely reacted in time, though they did manage to pull themselves away from the brunt of the blow. The sword barely grazed them, opening a horizontal scar in their front chestplate.
"Nice, Tungsten!" said Gatecrash, "And you had us worried! You could have told us you got the sword, though!"
I could hear the deep sense of satisfaction in his reply, "And ruin the surprise? Chances like this don't come very often. Now, help me corner this one - don't let them escape!"
It wasn't particularly a job that Tungsten needed help with. The opposing Proxy had two choices - either back up towards the wall or risk Tungsten being able to land a blow with the extremely sharp edge of the sword. It had cut through the armour plating like it was nothing but air.
Step by step they backed up as we closed in. Tungsten struck an imposing figure, shining blade in hand - his green and silver Proxy covered in white rock dust, giving the impression that he was some sort of phantom duellist. It was in briefly inspecting his appearance that I realized the source of the dust - climbing claws now protruded from the forearms and feet of his Proxy. That was how he'd beaten us here! Rather than make his way through the maze like the rest of us, he'd climbed the walls and moved across the top, allowing him to head straight for the centre of the maze. I recalled how easily he had climbed the building in the Anchor challenge - it made sense that his chosen gimmick would play to his strengths.
Still our opponent scanned the area, looking for some sort of way out even as their back was now actually against the wall. But suddenly, they stopped, and reached for their left forearm again. In one smooth motion, they lifted their left arm skyward and hit some sort of mechanism with their right hand. There was a small flash, as the jet of a rocket emerged and shot skyward.
Tungsten brought the sword forward and impaled them against the wall in one smooth motion, electronics sparking, and then growing still and silent. He withdrew the sword, and with a flourish brought it back to his side.
I was close enough to the defeated Proxy now to pick out more details - it was almost identical to the one we had beaten on the pillars. The same joint structure, head design, armour plating. Both were the smaller design that I'd guessed might serve a scout role.
I didn't realize.
In fact, I'd dismissed my single scout idea earlier as there were clearly two of them - both following the same minimalist design. If you designed two of your Proxies like that, you'd have a lot of spare parts left over.
I still didn't realize.
Now that I saw it, this Proxy was also labelled Squire, just like the other one. How odd.
Somehow, despite seeing that, I still didn't realize.
It was only as the small rocket finished it's ascent, and detonated into a red flare, that the flash of realization echoed through my mind, like an explosion in its own right. The blocks all fell into place, all too late to really do anything about it.
Something big was moving through the maze. Something big enough to smash walls into rubble. I'd thought that it was another maze beast of some kind.
I was very wrong.
The wall behind the impaled Proxy shattered as it was cleanly smashed through from the other side, pelting us with debris. A large, dust-obscured form followed the destruction through, easily twice the height of our own Proxies. I backed away instinctually, but Tungsten was too late. Before he could react, one of it's hands lashed out and closed around his Proxy's head. There was a metallic scrape and a crunch as the head came away from the body, Tungsten's Proxy falling to the ground, sword falling out of it's grasp.
We scrambled backwards as the dust cleared, our opponent standing up to it's full height. It was a magnificently ornate design, adorned in salvaged armour strapped on from defeated maze beasts and secured with cables, wires and twisted pieces of metal. In one hand it held a large piece of plating as a sort of shield, stripped from the T-rex-like beast we'd seen earlier.
It was only fitting for it's namesake, as the master of the two other Proxies - the word Knight shone in silver lettering on it's lapel. It rolled its shoulders and assumed a fighting stance.
Gatecrash swore loudly in several languages, and I heard a gasp of amazement from Tungsten at what had just happened. My heart pounded in my chest, the burst of adrenaline causing the moment to seem longer than it should have. If Proxies had facial emotions, I was certain that the Knight would be giving a determined smile.
In the back of my mind, I knew that we could concede this match. Even if we conceded, we'd still enter the next phase with two wins and one loss. It took less than a second for me to dismiss the idea. I looked at Gatecrash's Proxy and gave them a nod, which they returned. We were just having too much fun to stop now.