Meanwhile, Efrain was sitting in silence outside in the ziggurat's nexus. He had gotten fed up with people-watching after the tenth individual, and there was nothing else for him to do. Waiting was the hardest part, and he had to trust that his siblings and the other two were capable enough to come back with a keystone. There were several people going into the trials, some on their own and some in groups. After a while, he began to notice a few things. If one person entered the trial alone, they left with a keystone. But when two people or more went in together, upon their exit they all had the same thing. It would seem that keystones were given per individual. Then there were those who went in to take on the seventh door. When a person approached, once all six were put into place the door would open and they would be allowed entry. But when a group attempted to go in, it was different. Everyone who planned on going in had to have all six of their own.

This was an important detail. They had been under the impression that they just needed six to pass, but if his observations were correct then they would actually need thirty if every one of them was planning on entering the Treasure Room. With four of them in the maze, they should gain four more once everybody was out. And then they would gain five from the Trial of Insight. Despite their decision, they ultimately needed more than one full set if more than one person was going to the final door. Efrain kept observing to see if his initial theories were right, and planned to share this with everyone once they were all gathered here. Even though he himself had no interest in treasure, the others would likely want to see what was inside.

Chrys stopped when she heard the chanting from before, this time much louder and with war cries in the mix. This wasn't good, from the distance of the voices, that meant the twins were spotted. "Lys we need to move, fast! Whatever's in the maze, they've found Bel and Cyril. Come on!" Yanking her brother along, the Rosenite girl was running at full speed. So the pictographs did mean something after all. There was a buzzing in the back of her mind as she heard Belen's voice inside her head. 'Chrys, are you guys alright? Cyril and I ran into those masked midgets you brought up earlier. They're still after us, and they're rolling boulders! Do they know you're here?' "No, we haven't seen any and vice versa." 'As soon as you hear anything near you, just run the opposite way. Split up if you can, it's a race against the clock now.' "Ok, I'll tell him too." Turning to her brother, she passed on Belen's message in as few words as possible. "The masked men saw them. They didn't catch them yet, but now they're going to tear up the place just to find those two. Bel said if we have to, we need to split up. We're running out of time…"

Making wild turns and moving through the maze with fingers crossed, each move they made hopefully wouldn't throw them face to face with the masked gremlins. She was using the strategy of staying close to the right wall and walking all the way down until she reached a dead end or found another way through. The grinding stone echoed throughout the maze, making it hard for her to pinpoint how far they were from their pursuers. When they came to a split in the path, she knew they had to make a decision. "Lys, I'm going this way and you take the other side. I'll try to set some traps to slow the masked gremlins down while I'm at it. See you at the exit." She gave her older brother one last smile before running off down the left pathway. It was for the best; they had no time to lose.

Her brother took her suggestion by shifting into bat form, and was flying as high as the maze would allow. He would be less noticeable to the masked men and harder to crush like that. Chrys was doing a quick run down every nook and cranny she could find, doubling back out of dead ends as fast as her legs would allow her. Hearing the tribal chanting again, she scattered some seeds on the ground and made them sprout. They formed a long, thin vine perfect for a tripwire and she left it at a height where it would go relatively unnoticed. The plant was springy so if a boulder rolled over it, it wouldn't be flattened so easily. Taking whichever way was the safest, she continued her frantic search for the exit. She hoped the boys would be alright on their own.

Everybody was on the same page, which meant it was every man for himself. He wasn't too worried about Cyril; he was the one who prevented him from becoming a pancake stuck to the side of a boulder. But for Lys and his sister, they couldn't just teleport away. Left, left, left, another left. Back up, make a right, then hug the left wall. Running from something you couldn't see until you were in the danger zone was not what Belen considered exciting. Even with his portals, he could only open them up in places he had been. Opening portals with no clear destination in mind was risky and absurd. What if you ended up stuck halfway in a wall? Being buried alive like that was one of the worst ways to go. The masked men with pointy sticks were marching around, and it was unnerving to hear them so close. The only thing separating them was a few feet of stone and narrow passageways.

He had no idea how strong their boulders were, and he didn't want to figure that out. "Come on, please show up–please show up! Where's the exit? Where's the exit?!" He quickly backpedaled, and ducked behind a corner as one of the many boulders roaming the maze thundered past. Good thing those midgets had a very one-track mind. The next time he saw them getting too close to his location, he'd throw a familiar their way as a distraction. It would seem they targeted anything humanoid that moved. The maze walls were all blending together, all the corridors were starting to look the same. He had no idea how long he had been wandering around in here, and stopped keeping track of how far he had gone. His attention was divided between navigating and evading. Any path that allowed him to move further was the right one.

He was so dazed that he nearly ran by a door he hadn't seen before. Throwing himself at it, he pressed his face against the cold stone while muttering to himself. "Please be the exit door. Please be the exit door! Open up, let me out! Get me out of here!" The door retracted into the ceiling and he fell through, rolling out back into the nexus with a keystone beside him. Looking up, he saw he was safe at last, and threw up his hands in joy. "Yes! YES!! I made it! Ha ha–WHOO!!!" Picking up the keystone he had worked so hard for, he went over to the surly-looking boy sitting by himself with their pile of collected keystones.

The masked men had found him again, and this time they were hell-bent on bowling him over. He had been running like mad for a while, and his legs were getting heavier with each step. He had to distract them, and buy a few minutes of time to rest. When he went around a corner, Cyril stumbled and tripped, his legs tangling themselves with exhaustion. Out of breath, he didn't have the strength to run away in time. Clasping his hands together, he shut his eyes and hoped that this would work. He didn't have any nearby shadows to hide in, so the only thing left was to use that thing his mother had given him for times like these. With a ring in his hands, he curled up as small as he could make himself as the rumbling of the boulder drew closer. When the sound was ringing in his ears, he squeezed the ring tight and he disappeared.

In the blink of an eye, he vanished. The timing couldn't have been closer, as he was just a few moments shy of being pummeled. The masked men chanted and shouted as they continued plowing their way down the maze corridor, and didn't notice he had slipped between their fingers once again. Minutes later, Cyril reappeared in the maze still curled up in a ball. When all was quiet, he slowly uncurled and opened his eyes. Giving the immediate area another quick scan, he dashed off in the direction he had come from before his disappearing act. The ring truly was a godsend. 

Hearing footsteps again, he closed his eyes and focused his mind. The aura he was detecting was familiar, but not hostile. Could it be? "Lys? Chrys! Are you there?" Chrys's voice shouted back: "Cyril, we got your brother's message! Me and my brother split up, I don't know where he is. Have you seen Belen?" Cupping his hands he replied: "No, I haven't seen him since we separated. The boulder rolled past me, I'm going in the opposite way." Chrysanthe was relieved, and said she was going to follow him in the same direction. She hadn't found the exit yet, and neither of them knew how their siblings fared. The best they could do was hope that they made it, and carry on. 

"Oh, be careful when you're running around–I put down some vines as tripwires to stall the masked gremlins." She added. "I'd put up walls if I was the only one in here, but I don't want to risk blocking any of you off." "Ok, I'll be careful. Good luck!" He called over the wall. They went their separate ways again, reentering the fray.

"We're going to need more keystones." He said bluntly. Belen was the first one out of the trial, which came as a surprise. But then again the twin did have a metaphorical bag of tricks to pull from, so perhaps he was being too critical. "What do you mean more keystones? After the last trial we should have all six!" Efrain sighed and rolled his eyes as he had to explain so the older boy could understand. "I saw a few people enter the seventh door while I was waiting. Contrary to our beliefs, each person who intends to enter must have their own full set of six." Belen's face turned to an expression of despair. The last thing he wanted to hear was that he had to go through the trapped gauntlet again. "You're kidding, right?" He asked, eyes begging him to say yes. Efrain didn't mince words with his response. "I'm not."

"Ughhhh!! Why? Why couldn't mom and Goddess Angela have made this easier?!" The half-fey boy complained loudly. Efrain made no effort to comfort him, and cleaned out one of his ears with the tip of his pinky finger. "When everyone else is out of the maze we need to tell them. If we continue with our current plan of action, we at best will have four sets of keystones partially collected. We will need to simply run through the four previous trials three more times." Having recovered from his moment of despair, Belen sat next to him cross-legged. "Why don't we just get five sets of six while we're at it?" Efrain made a face at the suggestion. "I'm not going in the seventh room. I've overheard what we'll find in there–it's a trial of combat. I'm not a fighter, you know that." 

"Alright, alright. I get what you're saying. You're just not interested in fighting and taking unnecessary risks." Belen replied back. "Me and my brother'll probably go, and so will your older brother. I'm not sure about Chrys though, I'll ask once she's out." He nodded, as this was exactly why he said they needed four sets instead of five. Efrain had already assessed the possibility of them entering combat, and determined his siblings and the twins to be best suited for such a task. As the youngest and weakest physically, there wasn't much for him to contribute in that type of situation.

It was like hide and seek, but with less of an advantage for the hiders. She had run into a few of the gremlins who weren't rolling boulders, and had tied them up with vines. It wouldn't hold long though, and eventually they'd spread the word among their tribe. "I'm sure I've went this way before, not having landmarks makes this a lot more difficult." She started making notches in the walls with her axe, anything to give her an idea of where she had been. Her brother was too far from her to know how his status was, and using a network of plants wasn't much help when there wasn't enough for them to put down deep roots. Making a turn, she was out in a three-way intersection and saw the boulder for the first time. 

"Ahhh!!" She ran back, as the rolling stone was now after her. How did they know? Were they moving around at random, or did they have some sort of telepathy like Belen? To make matters worse she heard yelling from somewhere else in the maze, but it wasn't clear enough for her to determine who it was. She hoped they were alright, and weren't cornered. "These little guys sure are persistent!" Chrys shouted to herself. Throwing a quick glance behind she gasped as the boulder was speeding up! She wasn't going to make it! Swinging her arms and legs as hard as she could, she cast a spell, calling forth several tentacle plants from the ground. In such a narrow space they all clustered together, and she whistled for them to keep the boulder busy. The boulder-rolling gremlin wasn't stopping, but just as reached the plants, they curled together to form a larger mass and smacked the boulder back with great force.

There was a small shriek as something was hit, and the boulder was hurtling backwards. As it rolled where it came from, there was a squashed gremlin stuck to the boulder's side. "Sorry!" Chrys yelled before making her escape. The grinding noise didn't stop there, and soon she ran into two more of the boulder-rollers. They locked on as soon as she was in sight. Right then and there, she had to make a move. It was a huge risk, but if it worked she would take out two with one blow. Standing a few feet before her route of escape, she allowed the two boulders to pick up speed. When a collision was unavoidable, she jumped backwards and the two boulders smashed into each other. The force sent both boulders ricocheting down the opposite sides of the straight corridor like marbles falling down a tube at an angle. They stopped moving afterwards, so it was safe to say the masked gremlins moving them were unconscious.

At long last, she made it to a door. There weren't any pictographs by it, so it certainly was the exit. Completing the trial, she received her keystone and left. Rejoining the others she saw everybody else was there. Belen waved to her as if he wanted to tell her something, and everybody was standing. "What's going on? Why the long faces?"

Belen rubbed the back of his head and sighed. "Well I have good news and bad news. What do you want to hear first?" Efrain and him had gotten everybody else up to speed on their situation, and Chrys was the last one left. "I guess let's start with the bad news then." The blonde girl stated. "Ok, so we need to redo the previous four trials again–at least three more times." He paced around with arms crossed, looking at the floor. "Efrain found out everybody who wants to go in the seventh door needs to have six keystones of their own. Six stones per person for admission." The Rosenite girl looked unconcerned. "And how is that a bad thing?" Her brother then spoke up. "But you'll need to go through the trials again. That means the four of you have to push through trials where you don't have an advantage." Chrysanthe still didn't seem worried in the slightest. "That's not so bad, is it? We already know what they're like now, so it should be at most a bit easier to figure out. And who says we can't just run the same trial again?" 

A moment of silence passed as they came to that realization. "…Hey you're right. Why can't we just repeat the ones we've done to get another keystone again? There aren't any rules for how many times we can attempt them." Things were looking up, and his frustration dissolved into his usual grin. "Chrys, you're a lifesaver you know that?" She smiled back, leaning against a wall. "I do what I can." Her brother shot him a look. "Stop making eyes at my sister." Belen raised his hands in defense. "I'm not, I'm not. Sheesh." They were just friends. Sometimes her brother would get a bit touchy whenever anybody besides him or Efrain got too close. Belen figured he was at that age, and shook his head. "Now if you'd say the same thing when you're with Poppy, that'd be great." 

"What was that?" Lys asked. Belen looked away and acted nonchalant. "Nothing, nothing at all. Anyways, where were we? Redoing the trials for more keystones. I'll start mine right away, no need to wait for me. Lys is going to be our designated keeper of the keystones, until we take on the Trial of Insight." Running off before Lys could press him with more questions, he entered the Trial of Forbearance once again. Everyone else dumped their keystones into Lysandre's hands and left him sitting by himself in the nexus, speechless.

Everybody went in and out of the their trials until they had three keystones. After each completed attempt, they deposited them with Lys. He ran through the Trial of Knowledge once more, while Efrain repeated the Trial of Memory and his older sister redid the Trial of Perception. Belen finished his three additional runs through the Trial of Forbearance quickly and was waiting in the nexus with Lys. Chrys finished second, since her attempts grew shorter with more experience. Cyril and Efrain both finished at about the same time, theirs being more stressful. Once they were all together, they sat down and separated the stones by trial. Counting them over, they came to a grand total of twenty. "Only four more and we can see what's behind the last door." His twin said, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "I can't wait, who knows what we'll find? Didn't Efrain say it was a treasure room or something?"

"I never said it had treasure, just that I saw people leaving with things they didn't have when they entered." The dark-haired boy corrected him. "Don't forget a trial by combat. Are you sure you're not coming with us Efrain?" Lysandre asked his younger sibling. Efrain confirmed his intent to stay behind after the Trial of Insight, and they were getting ready to for their penultimate challenge. "Alright, here goes nothing." Belen took the lead, and they all entered through the door. The trial chamber was wide, and perfectly square. A series of panels before them were arranged with symbols, bearing resemblance to the Trial of Memory. However this time, there were no prompts, no clues. The rest of the walls around them had thick partitions made of frosted glass. When he tried to use aura sight, he could only detect something on the other side but nothing else. 

"Something's blocking my magic. I can't see what's on the other side." He reported to the others. "Probably anti-scrying measures. It wouldn't be fair if some people could see what was coming and other groups without mages couldn't." Chrys said thoughtfully. "Mom really did think of everything, huh?" Belen groaned. "At least it's fair for everyone." He added. "I know…" His brother grumbled. "Well Efrain, you're up. You push the panels, and we'll watch for what happens." Lysandre put a hand on his brother's shoulder, then drew his sword and shield. Belen readied a fireball, while Chrys took out her bow and notched an arrow. Cyril chose to wait until he saw a threat before deciding whether to attack or defend.

There really wasn't any rhyme or reason to the panels they had to press, so he would need to begin the tedious process of trial and error. Without further ado, he picked on at random. A click was heard, and the others waited. Nothing happened, so he moved on to pick another. Another click, but this time there was a grinding noise as something was moving. His first correct selection remained highlighted, indicating he wasn't being sent back to zero with each mistake. Much more forgiving than the Trial of Memory, but that trial didn't have bloodthirsty creatures out to tear you apart for each error you made. One of the frosted glass panels went down, releasing a warg pup. Still much larger than a full-grown wolf, it snarled and leaped at them madly only to get its eyes shot by arrows. His older sister had dealt the first blow, and with its eyes out it was writhing in too much pain to do anything. Belen and Lys grimaced at her marksmanship, and the former covered his brother's eyes so he wouldn't see.

Rolling his eyes, Efrain waited for the sounds of battle to cease before making his next choice. Picking one in the far corner, he pressed it with a click. Fortunately for everybody else, it was the right one and they could move on. The opened part of the wall stayed that way to show them how many chances of error they had left before they failed the trial. The body of the dead warg pup disintegrated into thin air, but not before something left its body and entered Belen's anima ring. "I'll keep this for later." He said, justifying the act. Taking his choice for the third panel, it was another wrong one as he heard the same sound of something being released into the room with them. This time it was a wraith, howling and wailing like a storm. It was making an unbearable racket, forcing Efrain to cover his ears. Belen and Cyril went after it on both sides, the older twin trapping it within a magic field and the younger twin performing the last rites for the dead. Unwillingly, it was purged from the mortal realm back whence it came.

"Are you done?" He asked impatiently. "Yep, we got rid of it. Carry on." Belen said, waving at him to continue playing the guessing game. His next selection was yet another wrong one, and this time a giant spider skittered into the room. "Hey is that a taran–" Chrys was then interrupted abruptly by a fireball hitting it in the face. "KILL IT WITH FIRE!!" Belen shrieked as he sent a blast of fire, roasting it to a crisp. Cyril didn't seem too pleased with his brother's actions and crossed his arms. "Belen, you should've let Lys take that one." "But it's a giant spider! It could've burst into a pile of smaller ones as soon as he killed it!" The brunet explained waving his arms frantically. "Cyril, it's fine. I'll take the next one." Lys said, and the silver-haired boy was satisfied with that.

Before she could get a better look at the spider, Belen had incinerated it to ash. A bit disappointing, since she thought they could have handled it a bit differently. When the ashes of the spider disappeared too, she decided not to think too much on it. "All the monsters here look like…what's the word? Replicas or imitations, sort of." She stated. "Simulacra." Her younger brother corrected without turning around. So far they had taken on three. There were plenty more panels of frosted glass unopened, which made her wonder: what would happen if they made a mistake after they were all open? It was quiet as her brother tapped away, clicking sounds telling things were going well. Their luck was improving, as he hadn't hit a single error after the spider.

"How much further Efrain?" She asked. "Not yet. There are a few left to choose from." Came the reply. Belen was walking around in circles staring at the ceiling, clearly bored out of his mind. The others were relaxing now that they were safe for the time being. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw it was down to two. There was a fifty-fifty chance of it being right, which were pretty good odds. A click and the grinding of another panel made everybody return to attention. "Here goes nothing. What's it going to be this time?" Her older brother asked aloud. The ground began to shake with tremors, and she had to crouch to keep her balance. Eventually she took out her staff to lean on while moving her footing. "What's going on? What on earth is behind that door?" Lys yelled over the rumbling. "Beats me! But it sounds like something very big–and I think we're not going to like it!" Belen quipped back.

From behind the frosted glass burst forth a rose hydra, with dark petals almost black in color. Three heads all angry and voracious thrashed about, screeching. The middle of the heads then spat out something, and Chrys immediately raised a stone wall to shield her brother. Everyone else dove to the ground as the liquid hit the stone with a hiss, and melted through the barrier. Her little brother was alright, but this was a bigger challenge than either of the previous creatures. Her brother charged forward with sword and shield, and one of the heads lunged towards him. "Lys, wait!" She shouted. "Don't cut off the head!" Her warning came a moment too late, as his katana tore through the hydra head's neck. "Attack the body, not the heads! They're going to grow back!" Belen wailed as two new heads were budding from the stump where one used to be.