The fifth corridor seems relatively normal but I knew better.
I checked around to see if there's a button that might trigger the death trap but could find any. With that I dug into my pocket and fished out a penny, toss it into the floor, and few seconds later, the floor sunk few feet below and was quickly filled with boiling green liquid. I looked at the penny I threw and the coin started to melt away like a gummy bear being dissolved in a cup of hot water.
I leaned against the wall on the side and carefully move on the thin strip of the ground that happens to be inches above the acid. I had to move slowly or otherwise I could have fallen and there are several occasions where I nearly slipped. After making it to the other end of the corridor, I walked into the entrance on my way to the sixth level of hell.
This corridor would prove to be by far the toughest one of all, not because it's the last one where it tends to be the most difficult, it's because you'll never know what lies ahead.
At first I fished out another coin from my pocket, toss it into the ground, and waited for few seconds. After few seconds it became few minutes, after few minutes it became several minutes which is then followed by another few more minutes, but nothing happened!
But I still felt that there's a catch when it comes to walking down this corridor so I looked around but didn't see anything moving. Still, I couldn't take chances just yet, what if a trap springs up in the last second?
There's got to be a catch!
I picked up a small rock and toss it into the corridor and nothing still happened.
After deciding that I waited long enough, I took one slow step with the same result. After taking another step, I carefully walked along the corridor when I heard a snap, causing me to retreat back in a matter of seconds.
It turns out the sound came from the rock I accidentally kicked, making it sounded like something snapped.
Once I got back to the corridor, I walked slowly and carefully, hoping that the trap won't come up. As I nervously paced toward the other end of the corridor, all I could hear is series of echos from my own foot steps. By the time I made halfway through the corridor, I suddenly couldn't take it anymore and dashed to the entrance at the end of the corridor, making my way to the seventh level of hell.
As I would realize, there's nothing strange about the sixth corridor, no traps and everything. All that time I have been freaking out for nothing when I could have just walked through without trouble. However, at the same time when considering what happened in the previous encounters I had, this was unexpected and made me believe that maybe this is the end.
But as the seventh corridor would reveal, it wasn't the case.
The seventh level started out the same way as the previous one and I started to relax until I made halfway through when I heard a loud tumbling sound. I turned around and saw the hold in the ceiling just in front of the entrance I came in minutes earlier. Soon a large rolling boulder came down and started to roll toward me like in the Indiana Jones movie.
After narrowly escaping from the rolling boulder, I climbed up the stairs and headed to the eighth level of hell. The eighth corridor is by far the longest one and forgetting to be wary of what could happen, I walked right in. Minutes into the path, I notice the corridor started to become narrower by each step and stopped for a moment where I realize that the walls are slowly closing into each other!
I made a run for it and by halfway, my arms could feel the wall pressing in and I had to raise them up in order to create more space for my sides. As I get closer to the other end, I turned in order to squeeze through and was able to make it through seconds before the walls closed in.
Mentally and physically exhausted from the ordeal, once again I had to stop and rest up for a moment before moving into the next level of hell.
As I entered through the small room and onto the ninth corridor where much of the floor happens to be covered with glowing blue bed of spikes. Not sure why the spikes glowed but one thing is for certain, I do not want to find out. There are some small uncovered spaces admist the spikes and knowing that in order to get to the end of that corridor, I would have to hop onto the space and try not to fall or make a misstep. Fortunately, some of the empty spaces are close by together so all I had to do was to walk over the glowing spikes.
The real problem was the last few spaces as they are too wide apart for me to walk over, forcing me to jump. Once I reached the last empty space, I looked up and realize that reaching the other side without touching the glowing spikes is the toughest part as it is few feet from where I am at this point. I dove toward the entrance and made it...but the next problem was that not only the spiral stairwell goes down, each of the steps sunk in, causing me to slide down head first right into the darkness until...I reached the flat ground.
I got up and wondered where I was went the floor suddenly tilt, causing another slide, this time into a tunnel where I could see a light ahead. Then I realized to my horror, the tunnel leads out of the building!
I dug the heel of my sneakers on the stony tunnel to slow down my slide and quickly turned around before I could get shot right out like a garbage from a garbage chute.
After climbing my way back up, I realize that it wasn't the same room I slid down from before. Somehow I ended up in a different room and became confused for a while until I heard someone yelling, "Hey boy, want to buy something!"
Turns out there's another potion vendor in this building.
"It's impressive how you have managed to get that far, only one to do that was the overlord as he comes and goes everyday." said the vendor.
It was a relief to find another living soul in there, especially after being in here for who knows how long and I had a feeling that the deadline have passed a while ago...making it too late for me to stop the blackout. I became at the thought on this until the vendor patted me in the back and said, "Don't be down boy, a little of these potion can cheer you up."
Then he stopped for a while which was then followed by minutes of awkward silence.
"Wait a minute, sometime ago I received a message from this strange device (iPhone) that someone stiffed him...it was you wasn't it?"
The vendor walked back to his stand and opens the box where he takes out an axe.
"You better get out of my sight or I'll chop ya!" he yelled.
I backed away and ran.
Later I entered a room that has six entrances, making me wonder how is it possible for anybody to not notice something about this building, I mean it's huge!
I had a strange feeling about that fact.
Looking at the entrances, I scraped the floor with the tip of my sneaker in front of the one I was going to enter knowing that one of them might lead to the right path. Never thought it would turn out to be a maze though.
After getting lost for I don't know how long, I made my way back and found myself in the entrance next to the one where I marked it. After marking the one I came out of, I enter the next one with the same result.
This would leave two entrances.
I entered one and...nearly got myself killed!
What happened was that the entrance started out as a maze like the others, but the walls are completely decorated with rusted razor blades. I had to move slow and steady in order to avoid getting cut. After several turns and dead ends, I finally made my way out of the maze, only to find the window that leads to outside, reminding me of the slide incident and shuddered at the thought of what happened.
As I turned to head back, the path I came from was closed!
I had no idea what was going on since I didn't recall a door in the maze, but at the same time another path was opened. Having nothing to lose, I entered that part of the maze and made sure to avoid getting cut by rusty blades. All of a sudden, I tripped on a dead rat and fell with my face less than an inch away from the wall covered with blades.
Minutes later, I was carefully navigating my way through the deadly maze when I met a dead end in which the term became almost literal when the wall started to fall toward me. I was able to push the wall away from me, causing it to topple onto the others like a stack of dominos, freeing me from the maze but at the same time, it left some gashes on my hands as well.
Making my way out of this room, I knew where to go as the remaining entrance is pretty much the only choice I have. Trying to ignore the pain in my hands, I didn't pay attention to the corridor I was sprinting down until I heard something swishing behind me. Not wanting to take any chances by stopping, I kept on going until I made it to the end of the corridor where I felt pains on my right arm and saw several small arrows sticking right through the sleeve of my jacket. I winced each time I pulled an arrow out of my arm until last one of them were gone and that's when I felt the pain on my sides as well, making me realize that I was also hit in the both sides of my torso!
I wasn't sure to whether I count the maze as one of what I would dub as "Levels of Hell" so I consider it as 9.5 with the one after that as the tenth. On the eleventh corridor, with my blood bleeding through the jacket, I could feel the warm liquid slowly seeping out and began to feel dizzy but was able to pull myself together with sheer will knowing that I couldn't give up just yet.
As I started to drag myself through the corridor, the floor begins to shake.
I looked down and notice the floor starting to split, revealing a bed of spikes right underneath...
I tried to hurry up but it felt as if my legs became heavier for some reason, slowing me down. Even an attempt to run felt like jogging and it wasn't even halfway when the floor finally became completely separated, leaving me to try to walk on the bed of spikes and hope that none of them will pierce through the sole of my sneakers. Once I got close to the other end of the corridor, I suddenly felt an intense pain on my right foot, causing my tears to run down my face as I looked down to see one of the longer blades on the edge of the bed sticking right through.
The next corridor wasn't much of a corridor at all, it was a ladder I had to climb in order to reach the room at the "other end" if I were to get to the next one up. The stab wound on my foot was unbearable and few times I nearly let go of the ladder as I climbed. After slow and agonizing minutes, I was close to the tunnel where the ladder leads to, only to accidentally let go for a second and fell halfway before I grab ahold of the rung, only for it to come off, causing me to fall a bit further down before I could grab ahold of another one. It would take me a while longer in order for me to get back up before the rung of the ladder started to loosen up and I had to grab onto another one just before it comes off.
Upon making it to the top, there's a tunnel in front and I crawled in where it would reveal to be another maze. As before, I ran into some dead ends and it wasn't easy navigating through several passages let alone retreating back from a dead end with a pain in my foot. At one point I came face to face with an enormous rat who at first was sniffing at my nose, then it bit me in the nose and I yelled. The rat then runs off for a bit before coming back and I think it was taunting me before turning back to leave, turns out it came to fetch some friends after me.
After some encounters with a gang of rats (even getting attack by them on several occasions), I finally made my way out of the twelfth level of hell and stumbled into the thirteenth corridor.
Remember how the parents would tell their kids to calm down or that there's nothing to be afraid of while riding on a roller coaster at the amusement park?
This is the thirteenth level of hell.
The corridor has a railroad that extends all the way to the room at the end, as I would learn, through the next corridor as well. The thirteenth corridor isn't the issue for me, in fact, right next to the sixth corridor, it's actually the safest one. When I got in, I made a mistake of putting my right foot down first and I screamed in pain before accidentally slipping out of the railroad car, falling on my back.
Funny thing is that compared to the pain I had on my foot at time, the arrow wounds didn't felt as bad.
After getting into the car, it automatically moved and slowly proceed toward the end of the corridor. It's probably the slowest ride I have to date as it felt like an hour by the time the railroad car made it to the end of the corridor. However, once it passes through the room and into the fourteenth corridor, the car suddenly picked up as I was jerked backward while the vehicle sped right into the darkness. I had no idea what happened but as I could vaguely recall, I tried to hold onto the car only to be dragged, jerked around, tossed, and at one point fell out before landing back into the car. I was both frightened and confused by the experience, even ignoring the pain I had on my left foot for the duration of the ride.
Once it was over, the vehicle stopped right in front of the entrance to the fifteenth level of hell. But it would take a while for me to start moving again as the shock I had kept me frozen. It's also that point that I realize what happened in the thirteenth was meant to lull you into relaxation, causing you to drop your guard until the terror in the pit of fear that is the fourteenth corridor.
This in a way makes the thirteenth corridor much worse than the fourteenth level of hell.
When I tried to climb out of the railroad car, I was still shaking to the point that not only I pissed myself, I also tumbled out and begin to crawl before stopping for minutes just to scape in what was left of my composure.
It would take every once of strength I had just to get up and start limping to the fifteenth level of hell where I could see the the path lined with of all things...rotten durians.
Rotten durians...
FUCKING ROTTEN DURIANS!
I threw up and stumbled backward from the combination of the pain from my injuries and the disgusting smell of the most vile fruit known to mankind, maybe even the entire universe for all I know.
I decided that I couldn't give up just yet, I mean if I'm going to die, there's no way I'm going to die like this. Figuring that what lies beyond that corridor couldn't be any worse than the hall lined with rotten durians, I limped down the corridor before my legs finally gave away. Then I continue to move my crawling toward the other end of the corridor before the pain from my wounds became too great that I passed out just before I could get to the entrance of the room leading to the next corridor.
I don't know how long I was out for but when I woke up, I found myself on a bed made of straws covered with a piece of cloth and heard a voice saying, "Oh, you're up?"
I turned and saw a young woman who looked in her late teens to early 20s in an old medieval peasant garb preparing something in a small pot.
"Couldn't believe that you have made it that far, I didn't believe it when my brother called me about a stranger who stiffed them." she said.
I'm more worried about the fact that while her brothers seems more adapted to modern times judging by their outfits though she seem to know how to use an iPhone as well as they do.
"Stay still, you're not completely healed yet, if you move now, you won't even make it through the next trap."
The bandages on my upper body made it difficult for me to move anyway as well as my right foot that have been bundled up. At least she didn't took off my jeans though I did imagine what would happen had she done so and relaxed for a while until...
"It's finished, be sure to drink the entire bowl so your remaining wounds can finally heal, it works faster than what you took from by brother." the woman said.
The potion tasted nasty but I forced it down knowing that I couldn't wait any longer if I were to bring down the person in charge of all this mess.
"I was also told that your friend contacted the authorities, but the overlord have made sure to cloak the building so it can never be found, I'm sorry."
It does explains a lot, but still...how can he afford these?
It wasn't until it was over that I would find out.