Zero Escape: Chambers of Nightmares

I did not realize we lost that much time.

"Let's hurry!"

None of us question Gallus. Rain, Smolder, and I follow him to the 2 door, while the others go to the 7 door. We waste no time scanning our bracelets in. I pull the lever and we dart through the door.

*Beep beep beep*

"The DEAD! Where's the DEAD?"

I see a blinking red light. "This way!" I rush over and scan my bracelet in... Huh. There is a skull on it.

The others scan their bracelets in, and Gallus pulls the lever. The skull disappears from my bracelet, leaving the 5 all alone.

"Woah. Plants for days."

I turn around. Smolder is right. This place is packed with all kinds of flowers. Bright ones, dim ones... Oh my gosh! I recognize the ones in the aquarium over there!

"Hey, check this out!" Huh? I look over at Smolder. She's standing in front of a table with six indents and a violet on it. I head up beside her. There's a note on the table.

Roses are red,
That much is true,
But violets are violet,
Which is not blue.

... "Something tells me Zero doesn't like that popular rhyme."

"I mean, they're right."

"Call it hauch, but this may be puzzle."

I look at Rain. "Hunch. But yeah, this looks like the puzzle."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Gallus cracks his neck. "Time to search."

TIME TO SEARCH!

I look at the violet on the table. I wonder what the puzzle is exactly.

"Hey, what are those shutters blocking off?" I look where Smolder's pointing. "Eh, it's probably not important." ... Then why point it out!?

I look at the shutters Smolder pointed out. There's a panel in front of it-

"Yeow!"

...? Rain is dragging Smolder off to a corner. I wonder why.

Anyway, the panel looks like it belongs to a computer. There's also a hatch that one of us could probably fit through.

*Clang clang*

"No dice?"

I shake my head. "It feels like it's locked pretty tightly."

Gallus taps my shoulder. "What do you think they're talking about?"

I look at the other two. "No idea. See if you can find something that will fit in those indents on the table, I'll go talk to them."

"And by "talk," you mean "listen in from under the table they're next to," right?"

"Please get out of my head." I head over without letting Gallus respond.

I duck under the table they're next to.

"So just find the flowers and let me point out the other things."

"Are you sure that will work?"

"Well, you're acting..." Rain is looking at me. "How long you down there?"

"I just got here."

"Wha-" Smolder looks at me and leaps back. "Oh geez! What the heck?"

I step out from under the table. "So what was that about flowers?"

"Table has flower. We in room full of flowers. Ego, we need flowers."

Smolder scratches her head. "I think you meant to say "ergo"."

"Okay, but what about-"

"Hey, you three think we should be looking for flowers?" Buh, Gallus! I was about to- That's a pretty flower.

"That Delphinium."

"Why would we need a blue flower, though?"

Gallus and Smolder look at me, then at each other. "Well, it's not like she would have much reason to know about that."

I tilt my head. "Know what?"

"Roy G. Biv."

"Who's he?"

Smolder chuckles. "I wouldn't be shocked if there was someone called that, but we're referring to an acronym."

Gallus lifts a talon and starts poking like he's spelling something out. "Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet."

"... Oh! That's why there were seven indents, with the far left one already filled with a violet." Of course. Gallus draws in his free time, and Smolder spends a good bit of time with Professor Rarity. They would know about color stuff.

"Yeah, it's pretty easy to get." ... Did he just take another jab at my intelligence?

I turn back to the table with the indents... wait. "How do we know the blue flower isn't one of those two?"

"Left flower Bellflower, right flower Balloon flower."

"That doesn't solve the problem, Rain." I pick up the flowers. The pots they're in are the exact same as the one Gallus is holding. "Is there something else that would indicate which one is right?"

"Look at you. You know what the word "indicate" means." That was a jab at my intelligence.

"Not now, Smolder!"

Gallus groans. "Let's just gather any flowers in these kinds of pots we can find."

Gallus and I set the flowers we're holding on a table next to the one with the indents. I look around. There are a few clay balls hanging from the ceiling. I fly up to one.

"Hey, Silver!" Smolder flies up beside me. "I feel very strongly and for no particular reason that you should smash that on the ground!"

... !?!?!? "Smolder, please keep your destructive habits in check."

Smolder chuckles nervously, then grabs the ball from me and thro- Wup- "HEY!"

*Crash!*

"Hey!" Gallus starts waving his fist around like an old man would at brats on his yard. "Be careful! You almost hit me!"

I point at Smolder. "She threw it!" Oh, don't make that innocent face!

"I don't care who threw it, don't throw that kind of stuff-"

"Guys, look!"

I look at Rain. She's holding a small piece of paper. I land next to her and read it.

Five bells ring for the second prince.

Uh... what? "Does that make sense to you?"

"Yes." Rain turns around and picks up the... Bellflower.

"So it was referring to the Bellflower?"

"Bellflower and..." She lifts up a flower that looks like a poppy. "... Prince of orange."

"That looks like a poppy."

"Prince of orange type of poppy." She places the poppy in the second indent and the Bellflower in the fifth.

"Look out below!" *Crash Crash*

!!! "Smolder, I don't normally say this, but what the fuck are you thinking?"

Rain puts her hooves to her face and Gallus glares at Smolder as she lands with a goofy grin on her face. At some point, Rain picks up the papers that were in the clay balls Smolder hurled to the ground, picks up a few flowers, and puts them all in their place in the indents.

Gallus breaks the silence. "Smolder, why?"

"Well, there were clues in them."

"But you wanted to break one BEFORE WE KNEW THAT!" I don't know what's worse. The fact Smolder got me to raise my voice like that, or the fact Smolder got me to be the voice of reason in this situation.

*Chchchchchchchchchchchch*

I look at the opening shutter. "Forget it." I head over to the window that was just behind the shuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh... That doesn't look nice.

"Those are..."

"Bear traps." Gallus starts nodding his head. "Those are bear traps lining the floor of that room down there. Specifically designed for warding off Ursa Minors. If one goes off, they'll all go off."

*Chink*

That sound came from the hatch. I guess it's open. And leads to... that mess of horror.

"Look there. Across room." Rain's pointing at something, but it's not clear to me what she's pointing at. "There's switch on far wall."

I scan the far wall for whatever she is talking about. The only things I see are the door and a green thing that looks like a RED or DEAD. Is she referring to that second thing?

Smolder shrugs. "Easy enough. We just fly over and trigger the switch."

"It's not that simple. Look up." I follow Gallus' gaze to the ceiling of the room through the window. There are some pretty large fans up there. "Those will blow any creature smaller than a ten-foot dragon down in a heartbeat, no matter what they are."

I look at the sides of the room. "There are also fans on the walls, just as large. If the ones up top will blow you down fast, the ones on the walls will keep you from going where you want."

"So? I just need to be faster than the fans."

Gallus raises his eyebrow. "Who do you think you are? Rainbow Dash?"

I hear a soft humming. Is that Rain?

"Well, I just need to get across before the fans turn on."

I look at the fans. "Too late. They're already on."

"Well... I just need to outfly them?"

Gallus grabs Smolder's wing. "And how do you plan on doing that, baby girl? You're not big enough and you're not Rainbow Dash. If you try to fly in there, you'll be lucky to get off the ground, let alone get to the switch."

I look through the window at the kirin bouncing between the traps. "We're going to need another way through."

Smolder grunts. "What do you propose? Dropping a flower down there and hoping it springs the trap?"

"Well, Rain seems to be getting through just fine-" Wait, what am I saying? What did I see earlier? I look through the window again.

Sure enough, Rain is jumping and bouncing between the traps with the grace of a swan.

"When did she get in there?"

I would call out to her or be more concerned, but she's basically two jumps away from the switch.

"Go go go!"

Maybe I should try to... No, she's already at the switch. She pulls it and a couple of steel walls come up around her like a pyramid. I'd be more worried, but-

*CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG*

OW! MY EARS!

"Argh! That was so loud!"

"Well, at least the danger is gone!" Smolder doesn't seem to be affected by the sounds. She moves over to the hatch and hops in. Gallus and I share a look before following her.

The fans turned off (I guess that's where the humming was coming from), so the three of us fly over the mess of metal traps on the ground.

As soon as the walls around Rain lower, Smolder flies over and hugs her. "That was so awesome! I love you even more now!"

Gallus and I share another look. "Smolder, are you alright?"

She looks at me. "What do you mean?"

"Well." Gallus starts counting on his claw. "You beelined to the table with the flowers on it, you saw the shutter before us and immediately wrote it off, you had that weird discussion with Rain earlier, you somehow knew that those clay balls had clues in them, and what you just said makes it sound like you already knew Rain, even though we just met her. It's almost like you knew what would be in this room."

"Well, I just wanted to get through the room."

That- I- Grr. "That just sounds even more suspicious!"

"You see-" *Whump*

Rain is dragging the dragon by her tail, letting her face slide along the ground. "Let's get going."

Gallus and I share one last look before following them.

"Hey, are you two going to tell us what's going on?"

"No." At least Rain is honest. All Gallus and I can do is follow her down the hallway.

Smolder says something, but the ground is a better gag than I thought it would be.

Rain drops Smolder. "What was that?"

Smolder sits up. "Can we get some bandages for my face?"

"Sure. Infirmary right there."

Yup. That's the infirmary alright. The others go inside. I step towards the doors.

"Come on! This way!"

!? What was that? I look to my right. That hall... The others aren't watching, so I rush over and into the hallway.

After going up some stairs, I find the door... how do I know that it's this door? I push it. The room it leads to looks like an empty apartment aside from the glass orb in the middle. It looks kind of like Aunt Novo's orb did. I go in and touch it.

"Then tell him exactly what you think of him."

"I'm sorry I caused all of this."

"Well done. You've all done wonderfully this year!"

"There may be a majority of ponies joining, but they don't even make up half of the new students."

"Anyway, I can help you make a shrine to your gods or something if that will help you settle in."

"Wow. The buffalo sound very resourceful."

"Those two are like oil and water. Even ignoring that she's a princess and he's a thief."

"Let's make sure that she doesn't get in too much trouble."

!!! Those were... I... Wow...

"Silver?"

I turn around. The other half of our group is there.

"Is something wrong? You look like you saw a ghost."

I sit down. "I remember. What happened in the basement. The Tree of Harmony. Our second year. I remember all of it!"

"What? How?"

I look at the orb. I don't say anything before they rush over to it and touch it. Cozy has her back to me, but the other's eyes are glowing. Once their eyes stop glowing, they all step back.

"I can't believe my memory theory was right."

"Miss Anita, Mister Hector, Miss Strongheart... I wonder if they're alright."

"Yak hopes they're still at school."

"Hey, Silver?" I look at Cozy Glow. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just... processing that."

"SILVER!" Someone is calling out. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

Sandbar rushes to the door. "IN HERE!"

I watch him step back towards the orb right before Smolder, Rain, and Gallus enter the room. "Woah. What's with the congregation?"

Sandbar puts his hoof on the orb. "This is why."

I watch the other three approach the orb, then cautiously touch it. After a few seconds, Smolder screams and falls flat on her ass.

Gallus stares at her. "Good job, Smolder."

"NO!" *Crash!*

I look over. The orb is in pieces on the ground.

Rain tilts her head. "That was brittle."

"It's alright. We got what we needed out of it." Cozy floats over to Gallus. "Is there anywhere better we can talk?"

Gallus nods. "The infirmary. There are cots and chairs to sit on, medical supplies if you need them, and, oh yeah, the next set of doors is there."

"That sounds perfect." Sandbar turns to the rest of us. "Come on, guys. Let's get going."

We all head to the infirmary. Sure enough, there are three doors there. Er, my mistake, apparently there's a fourth door, but it doesn't have a number on it.

"1, 3, and 5." Sandbar scratches his head. "Why does it add up to 9 again?"

"Because our bracelets add up to nine." I hold up my bracelet. "If the doors didn't add up to 9, some of us would be forced to stay behind. For example, any combination that adds up to a group adding up to 5 and a group adding up to 3 would leave one or more of us adding up to 1."

Ocellus stares at me in shock, but Gallus just nods his head. "That's exactly it. Little shocked Silver was the one to point that out."

"Well, I know some things."

Smolder clears her throat. "Well, since I'm choosing who goes where-"

"Actually, I'd like to look around first. See what's through the other hallways." We all turn to Ocellus.

"No." Something tells me Smolder doesn't want to do that.

"We should keep moving." Gallus doesn't either.

"Well, we found that orb. Who knows what else we'll find." And Sandbar is on Ocellus' side. Big shocker there.

"Yak want to look!"

"I say we look."

"We probably should."

"Sorry, Miss Smolder. I want to see what's around."

Gee, thanks for making my opinion count... Hmm. "Alright. Let's look around."

"Come on, Silver! You could have at least made me feel like someone was on my side!" Hehe. Smolder's scolding me.

"Alright, we'll meet back here at the four hour chime."

"Why not the third-"

*DING DING DING*

"That's why."

I swear these hours feel like they're passing by really fast.