Carrying a heavy wooden candlestick, Noah knocked its shaft against the floor. Whether there was a hollow space beneath or not, the sound told him nothing.
Then he tried turning the globe back to its previous position, but it refused, spinning only in one direction, while clicking softly. Even after he’d completed a full rotation and returned Africa to where it had been, the door remained locked and barred. No secret passage opened.
“Nothing here either,” Gaudemunda muttered, shaking her head irritably as she pulled books from the shelves—as if some secret mechanism might be hidden inside them like in a treasure-hunt movie. “We’re never going to make it at this rate!”
“We can still run ‘home’ in six or seven hours,” Noah said calmly. “We’ve still got five, maybe six hours before the critical point. I planned for that—just in case we got stuck somewhere like this.”
“And what if there’s no method at all to open these doors?” she pressed, still pulling books and examining the carved details of the shelves the way he’d instructed.
“There’s always been a method so far,” he replied evenly.
Her rising panic grated on him, but he fought to keep his voice calm. She needed focus, not hysteria.
After feeling every ridge and bump on the globe without finding anything, he scanned the tower walls for metal or wooden parts. He clearly remembered hearing two clicks—one above, one at the doors. The mechanism was obviously built into the tower itself. Which meant the solution could be anywhere.
That click from the tower’s peak nagged at him. What did it mean? Was something else about to happen? Would the ceiling drop and spikes shoot down like in some cheesy movie trap?
For now, the tower’s dome remained where it was. It didn’t even look like something that could descend.
* * *
When he’d finished checking every obvious detail in the walls, Noah moved on to the walls themselves, pressing on every suspicious stone, probing every crack.
“That’s it. Last one,” Gaudemunda sighed. She stood among a chaotic pile of books, watching him, waiting for some plan.
“Just a second,” Noah muttered.
Moments later, he shook his head. Nothing.
He walked back to the globe, closed his eyes, and drew a few deep breaths. Four hours left before the critical moment. Still plenty of time. They’d make it.
“The carpet,” he said, opening his eyes. “Help me move the globe. We’ll roll it up. Maybe there’s something underneath.”
They lifted the heavy tripod and dragged the globe to a clearer patch of floor. As Gaudemunda began rolling the carpet, Noah suddenly froze.
They had moved the globe.
Shouldn’t it have been connected to the tower somehow? Was the door-locking mechanism radio-controlled or what?
“Wait—stop rolling!”
He stepped over to inspect the spot where the tripod had stood. Three deep impressions marked the soft carpet. If the globe were mechanically linked to the tower, those were the only three contact points.
“All right, keep rolling,” he told her.
When she unrolled to the first indentation, Noah marked the floor with soot from the candle wick, then the second and third. Under the carpet, a fine layer of stone dust covered the floor. Wiping it away revealed perfectly seamless stone—no joints, no seams, no sign of any mechanism.
Unless it’s magnetic, Noah thought. Maybe one of the tripod legs has a hidden magnet interacting with something below the floor.
He rapped the floor with the candlestick again. Nothing.
They finished rolling the carpet and brushed off the dust. Still nothing worth noting.
All right. What next?
With no better idea, he walked to the doors and opened the tablet’s points program. Three points left. He tapped “Open black doors” again.
Beep beep!
Command cannot be executed. No locked doors detected.
Noah frowned. He’d clearly heard the lock click—but the tablet claimed otherwise.
“Got any ideas?” he asked Gaudemunda.
“Ah… not really,” she murmured, rubbing her forehead and pacing in slow circles. Then she stopped, staring at the bars. “What if we just… lift them? Maybe there’s no secret mechanism at all?”
They tried. The bars rose a few centimeters—no more. Something anchored the spikes deep into the floor.
Gaudemunda even reached through the bars and turned the handle. It moved easily, but the door itself didn’t budge. Like the bars, something held it in place.
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“‘Unlocked,’ huh,” Noah muttered. “Okay. What else?”
They looked around again, panic and frustration creeping in. Gaudemunda kicked a book and swore under her breath. Noah said nothing. If swearing at books helped her calm down, fine.
“Wait—the books,” he said suddenly. “If the globe wasn’t directly connected to the mechanism, maybe the unlocking system isn’t either. Maybe it’s hidden in one of these books. Why else leave them here?”
“You’re kidding!” she threw up her hands. “There are over a thousand damned books!”
“We’ve got three and a half hours to test every loose object in this room. We’ll start with the chairs, tables, and candlesticks. If that fails, we’ll tear through as many books as we can. Maybe we’ll find a clue—”
“Or nothing,” she cut in. “Maybe this place is just a trap with no solution at all!”
He swallowed the retort she’d almost provoked. Then walked to the nearest table and began methodically testing it. The table, the candlestick, the chair…
He opened a couple of especially thick books, but found only yellowed pages inside, the script and language completely alien. No secret mechanism.
Soon, Gaudemunda joined him. If she wanted to survive, she had no choice.
* * *
Two heaps of books rested on the tower floor. The books continuously flew from one pile to the other, pausing briefly in the hands of Noah or Gaudemunda. Each of them was opened, scanned for anything unusual, then tossed aside.
Thousands of pages of unreadable text...
* * *
At last, only one pile and two very disappointed people remained.
Noah checked the time and let out a long sigh.
“That’s it.”
“That’s it?” Gaudemunda echoed.
“Time’s up. Six hours left. The absolute minimum to run back.”
But they couldn’t run back. The bars still blocked the door.
“We could make it in five if we ran at full speed,” Gaudemunda offered.
Noah noticed she’d stopped grumbling. She wasn’t panicking now—almost as if she’d decided to do whatever it took to keep him searching.
“Fine. But… I’m out of ideas,” he said. “Unless you’ve got one.”
“What if you asked your online viewers?” she suggested.
“No chance. I’d have to upload a new video explaining everything first. Then wait at least an hour for someone to respond. And the first comment would probably be, ‘Wow, great CGI,’ or something.”
As he spoke, he kept scanning the room, hoping his eyes would snag on something they’d missed. But everything had been pressed, tapped, and prodded multiple times. The floors had been rapped, the shelves pulled from the walls, the walls themselves caressed.
“There’s one last option,” he decided. “I can sacrifice the three points for a power boost and see if I can rip the bars out.”
“But that would cut our time even shorter, wouldn’t it?” she asked.
He nodded grimly, opening the program. There was no other choice.
Moments later, the tablet chirped cheerfully, congratulating him on three new strength points. In theory, his power had nearly doubled. In practice, he felt no different. Even when he tried lifting the bars again, they didn’t budge.
He tried pulling them inward. Nothing. Not even a groan. As if all that “power” applied only to carrying buckets and nothing else.
* * *
They lay together in the middle of the unrolled carpet, staring up at the glow in the tower’s peak. When only half an hour remained, they stopped searching and decided to spend the last moments like this—talking idly about nothing.
Noah found it strange how quickly she’d accepted their fate compared to him. Perhaps because she’d already “fallen asleep” once. He wondered silently if he’d wake up alone in a cage—or with her. Would the Admins drop them into some other newcomer’s chamber? Or would they simply be turned into glowing water—fast and painless?
Beep beep!
“Warning: Only 10% charge remaining!”
Noah glanced at the screen for a second, then tossed the tablet away.
“This is my fault, isn’t it?” Gaudemunda asked suddenly.
He stayed silent. Her fault? How could it be her fault?
“What do you mean?” he asked finally.
“I don’t know… I just feel like it’s all because of me,” she sighed.
Noah stared at the pale glow above.
“I think I turned the globe and locked us in,” he said after a minute. “Shouldn’t that make it my fault?”
“True,” she answered after another minute. “Your fault…”
But her voice didn’t sound convinced.
“Or maybe the doors closed because I moved a book,” she went on. “Or maybe they were programmed to close automatically after a certain time. Who knows.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because the globe isn’t connected to the tower. Sure, it clicks when you turn it. But probably only because it spins one way. The mechanism doesn’t let it spin back. It just clicks, that’s all.”
“You think the tower locked itself?” Noah frowned. “But… why?”
“Who knows…” she murmured. “But now neither of us is guilty, right?”
He rolled his eyes. Women… they’d invent anything just to have something to argue about.
“Right?” she repeated, when he didn’t answer.
“Yes, yes, you’re absolutely right,” Noah gave in. “As always.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she pouted.
The tablet saved him by beeping a five-percent warning.
The light at the top of the tower flickered.
Noah blinked. Apparently, the mysterious “charge” reached even here. Maybe this whole vast underground belonged to him, stone by stone. All the books, all the furniture… and the traps.
“Ah. Guess that’s it…” Gaudemunda exhaled.
“Maybe not,” Noah said. “Listen… We might wake up in a cage again. Either together or separately. Maybe they’ll drop us into someone else’s chamber. If that happens, don’t wait for me. Try to break free by yourself. We’re already dead, so wounds shouldn’t matter. If I’m not there, escape and show the next person what to do. Maybe we can still find the real way out. ”
“That's only if we wake up in the cage…” she began after a long pause.
“If we don’t wake up, then we’ll turn into glowing water—painlessly,” Noah muttered. “Almost a happy ending.”
“I… I don’t want to die,” she admitted. “I know how stupid that sounds. I’m already dead, but I still don’t want to die.”
“Yeah. Me neither. Not until I see the end of this road.”
The tablet gave one short beep and went dark.
The light at the tower’s peak flickered once, then died, plunging the fortress into perfect darkness.
“Good night, Noah,” she whispered.
“Mhm. Good night, Gaudemunda,” he replied.
No sound disturbed the tower again.