xp_logs | The Witches' Road: Topaz's Trial

xp_topaz posting in

One down, how many more Trials to go? This time, it's Topaz' turn.

Further down the road, Pixie spied a door. It was perfectly ordinary, like a front door to a house. "That looks... strangely inviting," she said.

"Trial Number 2, here we come," Amanda muttered as they approached. She reached out for the handle and tried to turn it, but it stood firm. "Huh. Not mine, then, I s'pose." She glanced over at the rest of the group. "Trial and error, excuse the pun. I'm guessing only one of us can open the bloody thing."

Clea walked up and tried the door and shook it. "No. But the door looks different than the first. Maybe it is a clue of whose trial it is." She stepped back from the door.

"It's mine."

The quiet voice comes from the very back of the group, where Topaz had been hiding, determined not to acknowledge that she knew that door. That stupid, simple door with a brass heart-shaped knocker.

"It's the front door of my parents' house," she explained curtly as she walked past everyone to stand in front of the door. "I guess the Road has a sense of humor."

She grasped the knob and turned it. The door opened with a slight creak that sounded ominous in the current space it occupied, but had been so normal at one time. There was a maze waiting just beyond the entrance. A maze? Really? That was her trial? What was even the point of that? Maybe she had to lead the others out to... prove something?

"Okay, well-" She turned back to the group and paused when she saw only Clea. "Where... Where'd everyone else go?"

Clea looked around and saw everyone standing nearby and turned back to Topaz, "They are right here." She said concern was laced in her voice. "You don't see them? Can you hear them?"

Meanwhile, Amanda was waving her hands almost frantically in front of Topaz' face. "Topaz? I'm right here! Can't you see me?" She reached over to tweak her "padawan's" nose, but was unable to touch her - it was like there was an invisible force field at her skin level. Like Cecilia's, Amanda thought wildly. She looked around the rest of the group: "Maybe she'll hear one of you?"

"Hey Topaz!" Pixie exclaimed, turning a loop in the air. But neither her voice nor the stunt seemed to register.

Rictor repeated the call but was also greeted with nothing. "We're still here, wherever 'here' is," he insisted, tapping the ground with the toe of his shoe. "Why can't she sense us?"

Emily had been quiet since they'd finished her trial and started back down the road but at Amanda's words she sang out to Topaz, only to be greeted by the same reaction as everyone else.

"Alright. It seems that indeed you can't see or hear anyone except for me." Turning her attention back to Topaz. "Can you sense them with your empathy?"
"No." Topaz didn't love that. But it had happened as soon as she'd opened the door so it probably had something to do with that. "Let's... figure out what this maze is, I guess."

"That's lovely." Clea said dryly. "Well, if it is a maze, maybe we will find what you are supposed to look for at the center of it."

Topaz took the lead, walking into the maze and assuming everyone else was following even if she couldn't see them. She didn't like that she couldn't even sense them either. Had the Road done something to her empathy? Now that she thought about it, even Clea felt a bit like a blindspot...

They turned a couple corners, then ran into a wall. Topaz backtracked, but the only other path also ended in a deadend. She joined Clea back at the wall.

"All right... so there's probably something we're supposed to do here," she muttered, reaching out to touch the wall. It glowed, and a box appeared in the middle. It looked like a rubix cube with symbols instead of colors. "Lovely."

Clea dug out her own witch's book from her side bag and started to flip through it, dozens of pages of her own handwriting of things she has learned over the years."What do the symbols look like?" She knelt down beside Topaz to show her the pages of symbols she had copied over from the library of the Ancient One and most recently the Paris HFC Library. "Or are these completely new ones that we have to actually decifier?"

"I think we just have to match them," Topaz said slowly, using her finger to slide a couple squares around and frowning. "That's... easy enough, I guess? Does the Road think I just don't know about arcane runes? Kind of insulting."

Clea looked at her notes and back at the runes, "I don't think it is trying to be rude. I know that there are different types of arcane runes, especially with different cultures around the world. And we have the power to create our own runes and fuel it with power. They do all have similarities, like patterns. Try these two together. Does that do anything?"

Topaz switched the two squares around, and they glowed as they settled into place. "Okay, that's a start. Let's see..."

It took a little bit of work and a lot of referencing Clea's book, but finally the last squares fell into place. The wall glowed, and disappeared, the squares flying ahead of them. "Why do I feel like we're going to see those again," Topaz said dryly.

Clea made a note in her book and stood up, her legs had fallen asleep while in that position. "Because I think we are." She tilted her head to the side, "What does that look familiar? Another puzzle. Is...is that a fucking wordle?" She ran her free hand through her hair. "Okay. We have the symbols, this should be easy, right?"

Topaz raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Did you really just say this should be easy?"

They made their way to the next wall and... yes. Yes, that was a wordle. Topaz sighed, rolling her shoulders and looking around again, as if she thought the others would maybe come back into view to help. They did not. Damn. "Okay, Archaic Wordle, let's go."

Together they went through the Archaic Wordle and came up with a few possibilities. "Okay. So it could be this." Clea circled one in the book and then circled another, "Or this one. I don't think it is this one because that one doesn't make sense. Which one calls to you? This is your trial afterall."

Topaz looked between the two, tilting her head. One of them was some reference to Balance, while the other was almost stereotypical magic stuff. She directed the squares to fall into place with her answer; the wall dissolved, the squares flying off ahead of them again.

"Brilliant. Let's keep going."

They walked ahead a bit, turning a corner, then another and finding a dead end with no magical glow. They backtracked and went the other way until they found the right wall waiting for them with another puzzle.

"That's... a scrabble board."

Clea looked back to the others who Topaz couldn't see and then back to Topaz, "It is official. I bloody hate your trial the most. Don't even care what the other future trials are, this one is laughing at us." She wasn't annoyed at Topaz, she was getting annoyed at the trial.

Topaz shook her head, sighing heavily. "Let's just get this done."

There were seven tiles that could be arranged in a multitude of ways, but none of the ones they came up with used all seven tiles. "Of course it has to be difficult," Topaz muttered, swapping tiles around again to make a new word. Six tiles. "Damn it."

A few more tries which lead to more swearing from under Clea's breath. "Okay. Wait. The last puzzle. It has to do with Balance, right? Does that mean anything to you? Maybe there is a connection?"

Topaz frowned, looking around the maze slowly. Balance. She paused on where she was pretty sure the others were standing, even if she couldn't see them, then looked at Clea. She was accustomed to Clea's presence and could usually tune her emotions out, but right here in this moment she couldn't feel the other woman at all. Could the Road turn off her mutation like that?

She started rearranging the squares again, head tilted, until she found the answer she was looking for - something that roughly translated to Empathy. The wall glowed and melted away, revealing a large courtyard with a fountain in the middle. Across the courtyard was an entrance back into the maze. A silvery blue cat was sitting in the entrance, waiting.

"Oh brilliant," Topaz said as she started forward. "We must be halfway there."

She paused when Clea didn't say anything, and turned to realize the woman was gone. She turned a bit more and her eyes landed on her new partner.

"Rictor?"

"You can see me?" His voice went up an octave in surprise, but he coughed forcibly lowered it. "I thought we were fading away! Good, then that must mean you can . . ." He gestured at the rest of the group next to him.

"No," Topaz said, a bit of frustration leaking into her voice. She looked around again to confirm that she couldn't see Clea anymore either. "And now Clea's gone. God don't tell me I have to get through a different part of the maze with one person at a time helping me. We'll be here forever."

She started forward, going slow to let Rictor follow. The cat spirit just stared at them, not moving an inch even when Topaz was nearly right on top of it.

"Cute cat. I hope it doesn't reveal itself to be a monster, too." He walked up beside her, eyeing the creature suspiciously, but it did not transform or otherwise behave like Sharon on a catnip bender. It simply stood and meandered off, looking over its shoulder once or twice as if to signal they should follow. He did. But when Topaz took a step, too, it froze. "I . . . don't know what's happening."

"Magical nonsense," Topaz said. She sighed and held out her hand, intent on summoning a ball of light to try and startle the cat into moving forward... nothing happened. "Are you kidding me?"

She tried to summon up any magic, but nothing happened. At the same time, however, she realized she could feel Rictor beside her. His hesitation, his confusion, his uncertainty...

So the Road had turned her empathy back on and taken her magic away. The cat wouldn't move if she followed it.

"Rictor, follow the cat until it stops. Please."

So he did. He had to start jogging to keep up with its pace, and he risked a glance over his own shoulder like Lot's wife to confirm Topaz was in pursuit, too. He could not discern if the cat had a destination in mind or if it just wanted to explore, but there appeared to be no danger.

Topaz was not in pursuit - every time she tried to move, the cat stopped. No matter what it was doing, whether she was in view or not, the cat would stop the moment she took a step, then start again when she stood still. Clearly it didn't want her following it while it moved. So she waited, and she followed Rictor's emotions instead. She let them make progress together, then started following, catching up after a minute or so to where Rictor was standing while the cat sat and licked its paw.

"Okay. I think we have to trust the Road on this one - and that is not something I say lightly. Keep following the cat, and I'll be right behind you."

"If you say so." He trusted her, even though he was so much farther out of his depth than anyone else here. "You should come back to the real world with me, kitty. Sharon won't believe any of this happened unless I prove it to her. Heh, and even then, she'll deny it and claim we're all suffering a mass hallucination." He paused in consideration and then quickly caught up with the creature. "We're not, though, right?"

Topaz once again followed along slowly until she was sure Rictor wasn't moving anymore. She caught up and nodded for Rictor to keep moving and following the cat.

And on they went, Topaz only able to trust her empathy and Rictor to keep her moving through the maze. And also trust that the damn cat wasn't leading them in a circle or into a trap. That part was a little harder. The cat continued its merry little game of Follow The Leader as if completely unaware of the humans behind it. Every now and again it would stop and wind around Rictor's ankles while giving Topaz a chance to catch up, then dart off again when it was ready to resume the fun.

After what felt like forever - but was really only ten minutes - the cat turned one final corner, into a walk away that ended in a door. It ran to the door and went right through it, disappearing into a puff of sparkles and magical wisps. Topaz came to a stop beside Rictor, watching him carefully to make sure he didn't disappear the way Clea had, until she felt a burst of emotions behind her. And she knew, without turning, that everyone else was visible to her again.

"Excellent. Let's get the hell out of here."