"Good morning Impulse!"

Impulse turned around, realising that his friend was awake.

"Good morning! How'd you sleep?"

"Good! Very good actually!" His wide-eyed friend responded cheerily.

Impulse chuckled as his companion sat up with a start. His bewildered expression slowly faded as he remembered where he was.

He sat up and grabbed his bed, stowing it into his inventory. After the last green bedsheet was safely tucked away, the friends left the balcony. Impulse went first, cautiously edging his way up the glass steps.

He could hear Bdubs' footsteps tapping behind him, the only other sound was the gentle bubbling of lava nearby. As they made their way farther, a new sound began to grow louder.

The chorus of groans and wails grew almost deafening in volume as they approached a new pair of doors. The walls shifted abruptly into spiky, black obsidian before arcing over two doors that stood before them. Two pressure plates sat on the floor before the doors, tempting the men to walk forward.

Bracing himself, Impulse walked forwards. Bdubs drew up next to him, and they both entered the room. Once they went through, the doors snapped shut behind them, barring the way back. The moans and keens were even louder here, and another set of doors and plates stood in front of the hermits. Beyond the iron barriers, Impulse could just barely see a writing mass of green, decaying flesh, pounding at the doors hungrily.

"Are you ready, Bdubs?" Impulse said, loading a crossbow.

Bdubs nodded, retrieving a sword from his inventory, "Yes. Yes I think I am."

With that, they opened the doors.

They were immediately separated by the flood of zombies. Impulse kept them at bay with his sword.

How are there so many?

"BDUBS" he hollered, "BDUBS, YOU OK BUDDY?"

A few seconds passed, and Impulse struck down droves of foes. However, several still managed to smack his face.

8 hearts left.

"YEAH I'M—" his friend cut off abruptly. Impulse could just make out the sounds of fighting from the other side of the room.

"I'M OK YEAH!" Bdubs finished exhaustedly.

Impulse fought his way through the writhing horde of monsters. A few made it past his defence and bit him. He grunted in pain, and tossed the zombies back.

7 hearts left.

He could finally see Bdubs, cowering in a corner, barely keeping the mob of creatures at a distance. Immediately, Impulse leaped into action. He swiped his sword through the air. Slicing through the gruesome wall of undead. Bdubs smiled at his friend. He looked considerably more bedraggled, with only 4 hearts left.

"Let's find the door." Impulse said, offering his friend a hand. Bdubs took it and struggled to his feet. They turned towards the horde with Impulse in an attempt to hold them off. Another group of zombies made it past Impulses's defence, and overcame him for a moment. Bdubs tore the vile beings off of his buddy and fought them back again.

"Are you alright?" he asked worriedly.

"Yeah... I think so..." he responded shakily.

6 hearts left.

Slowly but surely, they fought off the horde of beasts. During the battle, Bdubs accidentally slashed his sword in the wrong direction.

"Sorry! Didn't mean to hit you." he sputtered quickly before turning his attention back to the horde.

5 hearts left.

Now, the path out was clear. A set of doors stood at the end of the long hall, and the two friends began to work their way toward it, abandoning the fight to focus on running.

4 hearts left.

He shoved open the doors, and let Bdubs through first.

3 hearts left.

They ran through the doorway, but the zombies flooded in after them.

2 hearts left.

He faltered as the horde pressed in around him.

1 heart left.

A flash of metal, the slam of a door. It was over. Bdubs stood over him, holding a sword. He had slashed them back just in time, and closed the doors.

"Hey... thanks..." Impulse muttered wearily.

Bdubs grinned, dusting his sleeve.

"It's what friends are for, right?"

Impulse sat up, and Bdubs helped him prop himself up against one of the obsidian walls. They both took a moment to eat. The superficial injuries on their skin faded away, and their hearts regenerated slowly.

They both sighed, feeling the ache of their injuries ebb away. The hall was made of obsidian. However, ahead it transitioned into a cobbled tunnel. Moss clung to its walls, and dust coated every surface. Cobwebs hung about the tunnel, But they seemed to have been long abandoned by the giant arachnids that made them. They sat for a bit, regaining their strength.

~ ⬩ ⍑ᒷ ⬩ ~

Once they had both fully recovered, the two men took tentative steps forward. The click of a tripwire made them tense, but when no tell-tale twang of a trap answered, they let out a sigh of relief. As they went farther, they tripped over multiple fake traps, which sent shivers up their spines and put their nerves on edge.

Finally, after continuing down the tunnel for what seemed like ages, they came to a vast moat of magma. There was no bridge, no buttons, nothing. The gap spanned across 6 metres, the molten rock within bubbling slowly.

"Well how are we supposed to get past this?" Bdubs sighed in exasperation.

Impulse was already wandering about, craning his neck to inspect the nooks and crannies of the room.

At one point he got himself stuck in one of the giant cobwebs, and Bdubs had to come to the rescue, slashing through the sticky fibres to free his companion.

"I dunno Bdubs, this has me stumped."

"Maybe we should try looking at this from a different perspective. "What if there's... er... a hidden pressure plate or something? Like the first floor? We should look, just to be safe."

"Hmm... maybe. I'm- I'll try it."

Craning his neck in an odd position, Bdubs used his peripheral vision to examine the lava.

"AHA!" He cried out in triumph. He refocused back on Impulse and grinned broadly, "There is something under it!"

Impulse smiled back, "We make the best team! What is it though?"

"Not sure," Bdubs responded promptly, "but I don't think it was pressure plates."

Both buddies sat back down and began to think.

What could be under there?

They tried reaching under it for a chest, but came back with nothing but a burnt hand.

They tried to find hidden levers or buttons with the same result.

They even tried throwing some odd bits and bobs from their inventory into the molten mess, but to no avail.

Hot and tired, they lay down on the dusty floor.

"Man, this is a hard one." Impulse lamented.

"I just- I've got nothing..." Agreed Bdubs, closing his eyes and sighing.

Suddenly, Impulse rose. Bdubs cracked his eyelids and watched his friend.

Impulse craned his neck, looking across the lava to the other side. After a moment or two, he crouched down.

"What're you- IMPULSE!" Bdubs shouted as his friend launched himself into the boiling pit of molten rock. Impulse winced as he fell into the lava, but began sinking down through it with a determined look.

"IMPULSE! ARE YOU OK?!" Bdubs called, his eyes wide with panic. It hurts to die in lava. It's one of the most painful ways to perish. After several long moments, Impulse answered

"I'm fine! The door up there is a decoy! There's water right under here. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book!"

Bracing himself, Bdubs leaped too with a wild yell, trusting that his friend was right. Sure enough, after a few moments of painful burns, he sunk into a layer of cool and refreshing water. He sighed, letting it cool his blistered skin.

Impulse was waiting for him when he dropped down. A real doorway led out to a staircase of dusty grey clay just behind him. Bdubs healed up with a bit of food, and approached his friend.

"Well that was awful." he stated, "What do you think is next?"

Impulse shrugged.

"Let's find out!"

~ ⬩ ᓵ∷╎ᒷᓭ ⬩ ~

"Hugging the wall is better! In the long run, you'll go faster."

"But what if it's- what if the exit is in the middle?"

"It's never in the middle!"

"Oh yeah? I'll race ya!"

"It's on!"

Bdubs turned right, Impulse turned left. It had begun.

After swimming up an old-fashioned water-and-sign elevator, they had been presented by a large maze. It was made of an odd combination of snow pillars and clay walls. Impulse pressed his hand against the smooth grey surface. He was gonna beat Bdubs. He followed the wall, on and on. He turned down dead ends, around loop-dee-doos, and even found stairs once. He had gotten so excited, thinking that he had beaten Bdubs to the end, until realising that it was a multi-layer maze. Eventually, he stopped, breathing heavily.

Where the heck is the exit?

He sunk to the floor with a sigh.

I wonder how Bdubs is doing.

~ ⬩ ⎓𝙹∷ ⬩ ~

Bdubs was not doing much better. He had been taking random turns for so long. The expanse of dusty clay seemed endless. He kicked a pebble on the floor absentmindedly as he walked. He had found some stairs leading down and leading up, and one time, he had glimpsed Impulse walking through an adjacent hallway. Bdubs had continued forwards, paying no heed to his friend.

Impulse didn't notice him, set as he was at the task at hand.

It seemed like he had covered the entire three-floor maze. Every turn seemed to lead to a dead end. He had even started marking off tunnels that led nowhere with a torch, but he had almost run out.

Right now, he was at a four-way intersection. Three of the paths had flaming torches marking them. Every path those led to was a dead end. Now, there was only one option left. Sure he had finally made it, Bdubs strode forward, turned the corner, and immediately smacked into Impulse.

Both men fell over, rubbing their foreheads where they had clashed together. They met eyes and laughed.

"You're going the wrong way!" Bdubs taunted him good-spiritedly.

Impulse frowned, "Well I've checked all of the paths in this direction..." he gestured behind himself with a thumb.

"We're- I suppose we're going in the same direction now!"

Bdubs placed a torch at each of their feet, and they continued down the one remaining hall, all the way back to...

"The start? What?" Impulse exclaimed angrily, "How is there no exit? How do we get out?"

Bdubs cocked his head to the side, "I have- I'm clueless, Impulse. Maybe we should go back down."

Impulse paced for a moment, thinking, then sighed, "Alright."

As Bdubs stepped into the cool water, however, Impulse seemed to notice something.

"Bdubs, wait! There's a button here!"

Bdubs hurriedly backed out of the elevator and pushed the button. There was a faint click, and a door opened on the other side of the water. He dove though the stream and arrived at a ladder, leading up into another room.

Impulse followed, swimming across just as the stone slid back over the entrance.

He sighed. "So I guess that entire maze was a pointless distraction. How many have we done?" he asked.

Bdubs took a moment, ticking it off on his fingers, "Six, I think."

"So this next floor is the last one..."

"The rewards better be good, after all went through!"

Both men sat for a moment and laughed.

"I wonder what the final puzzle is." Bdubs mumbled.

"It's probably pretty hard." Impulse responded, closing his eyes.

"Lets... let's just take a little break..."

A third person, hiding invisibly, began to panic. Empty bottles cluttered his inventory. The other two needed to hurry. He was almost out of time. 

...

One floor left... Leave a vote, I'm sure that's going to be the key!

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