We stepped through the shimmering portal, and the vibrant chaos of the Gauntlet Hall instantly vanished, replaced by a suffocating, absolute darkness. The air was thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth and something acrid, like old metal and forgotten magic, pressing in on us. My boots landed on uneven, rough-hewn stone, the sound echoing ominously in the sudden void.
It was a maze. Walls of solid rock stretched endlessly in every direction, twisting and turning into an inscrutable labyrinth. No light pierced the gloom save for a faint, ethereal glow emanating from the moss growing in cracks along the walls, casting eerie, shifting shadows that seemed to writhe with unseen things. The silence was absolute, a palpable weight that pressed in on us, broken only by the sound of our own ragged breaths.
"Jove," I whispered, my voice sounding unnaturally loud in the oppressive quiet, "what's the first challenge?"
Jove, however, didn't need to be asked twice. With a flourish that was entirely too dramatic for the suffocating gloom, he pulled out a rolled-up parchment from beneath his robe, a smug grin playing on his lips even in the dim light. "Got this from the Headmaster's office," he whispered, his eyes gleaming with mischievous triumph, unrolling what was clearly a stolen, intricately detailed map of the Gauntlet. "Turns out, even the Headmaster's filing system isn't Jove-proof."
Henry, beside him, let out a low, exasperated groan. "You stole the map, Winderaand? Seriously? I told you not to do anything stupid!"
"Stupid?" Jove retorted, puffing out his chest. "This, my dear Henry, is called Dolorian ingenuity! Why walk into a trap blind when you can walk into it with a blueprint?" He jabbed a finger at the parchment, tracing a winding path. "This maze," he explained, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, "needs Kayn affinity to Earth to find the way out. It shifts occasionally, just like our dorm. A little trick Bernard Dolores put in, no doubt, to keep things 'interesting.'"
My gaze immediately snapped to Yor. Her usually impassive face held a rare flicker of determination. She simply nodded, closing her eyes for a moment, her brow furrowed in concentration. I could almost feel her senses reaching out, mapping the subtle vibrations of the earth, the shifting currents of the stone around us, a silent communion with the very rock.
"Alright," I said, a wave of confidence washing over me, a grin touching my lips. "Yor leads the way. Leave it to the Dolorians to cheat the system before we even start."
And she did. With an uncanny instinct, Yor moved, her steps deliberate and precise, her hand occasionally brushing the rough stone walls as if reading them like braille. She navigated the shifting labyrinth, her quiet presence a beacon in the disorienting darkness. Whenever a passage seemed to close, or a new wall emerged, she would pause, her eyes momentarily closed, before pointing to a new direction, her voice a soft, flat murmur of directions that we implicitly trusted. The maze, which had seemed so daunting moments before, yielded easily under her guidance. We moved with a silent, efficient purpose, passing by dead ends and illusory paths that would have trapped us otherwise. The first challenge was overcome with surprising ease, thanks to our quiet Kaynari, a testament to the unique, unconventional strengths of our Dolorian family. We might be weird, but we get results.