The rooster preened in approval as the exit door revealed itself before turning to his Attendant.

  “Bawk.”

  “Well, I’m glad that you think I’m pulling my weight around here. Maybe you could show your gratitude by sharing some of the rewards with me?” Josephine suggested.

  “Oh, no,” Phatagin gasped.

  A bleak aura tinged with the threat of eternal hellfire surged out from the rooster. Both Josephine and Phatagin gulped in terror.

  “Never…nevermind. I’m getting paid well as it is,” the Attendant choked out.

  The dreadful feeling subsided.

  “Perhaps if we come across something we truly have no use for,” Phatagin added, looking meaningfully at his boss. “Such a chivalrous act could augment our total reward, making it a net gain for Charlemagne.”

  The rooster nodded curtly and moved to the next room.

  “That was certainly a close call,” Phatagin said with relief after Charlemagne had disappeared. “You must learn to watch your words. I’m not entirely certain that he does not possess a way to harm you permanently.”

  Without waiting for a response, the Squire hustled through the doorway as well. Josephine scoffed to herself as she watched the pangolin scurry off.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she declared to the empty room. But a shudder of fear ran through her body despite her bold words, and she wondered if what Phatagin had claimed could be true. After all, the rooster’s power was in a class of its own. Suddenly realizing that Charlemagne might be waiting on her, the Attendant ran back to grab her discarded heels. Holding her skirts in one hand and the shoes in the other, she hurried to catch up.

  Passing through the doorway, Josephine found herself in total darkness. A strange, drum-heavy musical score filled the room, followed by a very enthusiastic fanfare. The Attendant, who was well versed in musical theory, caught the notes: C, E, and G as the drums quieted and the gloom lifted as the dim orange glow of a reluctant sunrise appeared on the horizon.

  The trio was in what appeared to be a dusty waste, with a rocky outcropping behind them and the sun to their faces. A black pillar that seemed starkly out of place stood a dozen steps away. Not only did it cast no shadow, but it seemed oddly translucent to the group’s mundane and magical senses. While Charlemagne and the others were still acclimating to the sudden change of scenery, the Squiggles arrived.

  Charlemagne did not exactly understand what the Squiggles meant by “obelisk”, but it seemed clear enough that he was supposed to go to the black pillar. He promptly complied and waited to see what would happen next.

  A bolt of lightning fell from the open sky with an enormous crash, slamming into the rooster and surging through his body before forcing its way out and into the ground. Charlemagne squawked, more in surprise than in pain, at the ill treatment. When he thought about attacking the strange pillar, however, his instincts screamed at him. He sniffed in disdain and fixed his feathers, which had been rather ruffled by the burst of electricity. Then a deep, strong voice emerged from the pillar.

  “What is broken by naming it?”

  Charlemagne turned toward the other members of the group, clearly looking for assistance.

  “Don’t say anything yet!” Josephine called out. “The first thing you say will be your answer.”

  “I do believe our Attendant is correct,” the pangolin added. “Just please grant us a moment to think. It seems like this is one of those ‘riddles’ that Ndiogou mentioned.”

  “Y’all don’t know about riddles?” Josephine inquired. “From what I’ve seen of the design of the Elite Systemic Games, the System assumed that Knights were masters of such puzzles.”

  “Perchance they are. I do not know any Knights for the sake of comparison. But I believe that once again the System is being biased towards those who were born sapient. The more I hear about this ‘chivalry’, the more I am led to believe it was invented by humans at some point in their history.”

  “Well, at least the other Knights will be in the same boat as you. And most of them probably had the decency to read the code of Chivalry that was placed in their quarters.”

  Phatagin winced.

  “I confess I did not give it a second glance. I was otherwise preoccupied with affairs of my own.”

  “What?” Josephine cried. “Did you not listen to the Sun Queen?”

  “I am quite certain that neither Charlemagne nor myself understood much of what she said. There was something about ‘chivalry, ingenuity, and perseverance’ being needed if we lacked the strength to overcome the Delve.”

  “If you paid attention, then why didn’t you bother learning more about chivalry?”

  The pangolin shrugged.

  “Why would I need to? The Sun Queen said we could use those in place of combat prowess, not that they were necessary to win.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Because they can help you overcome challenges that you cannot defeat with brute force alone?” the Attendant suggested with more than a trace of condescension.

  Phatagin was unbothered by Josephine’s rancor.

  “I have seen enough of Charlemagne to trust that he does not need such crutches. If brute force alone is not sufficient to overcome a challenge, he will simply apply more until it is.”

  Charlemagne, not understanding the compliment that his Squire had just paid him, bawked at the pair in annoyance.

  Josephine and Phatagin immediately stopped arguing.

  “Hey, that’s the answer!” the Attendant cried a moment later. “It’s ‘silence’! I take it back, Ser Charlemagne, you are wiser than I assumed.”

  Charlemagne, no longer mad, puffed himself up at the praise. He had just finished sticking out his chest when the second lightning bolt struck.

  “BAWWWAK!” the rooster screamed as the current forced every muscle in his body to lock up at once. Despite the incredible benefits his Inferno’s Embrace provided, the incredible amount of energy exiting his frame into the ground scorched his footpads. It took every scrap of willpower not to launch himself straight at the smooth black column and attempt to destroy it with a mana-enhanced peck.

  “I was sure that Ser Charlemagne answered the question correctly. Why was he punished?” Josephine wondered.

  “Perhaps there is a special rule of which we are unaware. Maybe you were…not entirely wrong with regards to learning more about chivalry.”

  Charlemagne lifted one foot after the other, focusing his healing on the scorched footpads one at a time. In a few seconds, he was back to normal. While he was preoccupied with that, the obelisk spoke again.

  “I am always in front of you, but you can never reach me. What am I?”

  The rooster looked back expectantly at his Squire and Attendant.

  “Bawk!” he demanded through the Party Chat.

  “We are doing our best!” Phatagin asserted. “Perhaps this is the final question?”

  “Hmmm, another riddle,” Josephine mused. “That means we probably need to get three answers correct to pass.”

  “Why is that?”

  “The rule of three, of course. Everyone knows this. It’s like a multiversal constant. You know, like gravity, electromagnetism, or…shoot, I can’t think of another example. But just about every universe seems to have it.”

  “You may just have a point there. The lack of a third example seems to make an argument seem incomplete. I will remember this for future discourse,” Phatagin agreed.

  “Bawk!” Charlemagne yelled at the pangolin, causing Phatagin to flinch.

  “Ser Charlemagne would like us to stay on task,” he informed Josephine.

  “All right, all right. I guess it’s not us up there getting shocked. ‘I am always in front of you, but you can never reach me’. Hmm, that could be a black hole, because of the time dilation. You have those, right?”

  Phatagin looked embarrassed.

  “I must confess there is a large gap in my scientific knowledge. What is a ‘black hole’?”

  “Nevermind, let’s try something else,” the Attendant said, shaking her head. “Do you live on giant spheres in your universe?”

  The pangolin lowered his head in shame.

  “It never occurred to me to ask. Is there any way to easily tell?”

  The Attendant thought for a moment before snapping her fingers.

  “I got it! If y’all go up into the air a good bit, can you see further?”

  “Indeed, we can!” the pangolin answered enthusiastically.

  “Well, that means that you can see further because you live on a spherical world. All right, that’s good to know, but…well, it might make things harder because I think there’s more than one right answer to this puzzle. We need to add ‘the horizon’ to our possible choices here.”

  “Bawk?” Charlemagne asked, forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to get involved until the end. Then, realizing what he had just done, the rooster created the densest mana shield that he could manage just above him.

  The lightning bolt that arrived shortly after broke clean through it, shocking the rooster yet again. The power behind the bolt had once again increased by an order of magnitude, but thankfully, the hastily erected mana shield had blocked the vast majority of the lightning before failing, leaving the rooster with nothing more than more burns on his feet. Incensed, Charlemagne let out an angry screech so powerful that Josephine and Phatagin were forced to cover their ears. Then he began to charge up one of his trademark mana ball attacks, the fiery mana appearing as a miniature sun that blazed just in front of the impassive stone slab. But before the rooster could launch his attack, the monolith spoke yet again.

  “Speak the word and complete the puzzle.”

  Charlemagne, feeling compelled to answer, powered down his attack. Most of the mana was reabsorbed back into his Ember Core, but was some lost into the atmosphere. It wasn’t much, however, and his natural regeneration would cover it within moments.

  “Say, ‘the word’!” Josephine told the rooster.

  It was then that Phatagin had a mental breakthrough.

  “Belay that, please!” he shouted. “You must instead say anything but ‘the word’! This whole riddle is predicated on NOT doing what we were told to do.”

  Charlemagne cocked his head in confusion at the pangolin’s words. Josephine was equally bewildered, but only for a moment. Then, she too had an epiphany.

  “Ser Charlemagne, you should not be the one answering at all! Remember the room clearing condition? It said that ‘strength would not open the way’? I think the weakest among us should answer the question, rather than the strongest.”

  “Hmm, that does make sense,” agreed Phatagin. “So then it would be you who should respond, rather than Charlemagne.”

  The Attendant barked out a laugh.

  “Ohhh, look at Ser Squire over here who thinks that he is stronger than I am. Do you know what level I am?”

  “I confess I do not. I merely assumed…”

  “You assumed incorrectly. I am level 100. You are level 49. There is no comparison here.”

  The pangolin almost asked ‘but what about Charlemagne’, before realizing that it was a stupid question. Of course the mana wielding battle junkie would be in a class of his own. He sighed.

  “I stand corrected. I will change places with Charlemagne.”

  Bawk, the rooster sent to him through the Party Chat.

  “I am not opposed to walking backwards, but why do you suggest that?” the pangolin responded out loud for Josephine’s sake.

  Bawk!

  “Ahhh, I think I see. If everything’s inverted, then it seems correct to walk there backwards…but wait! That means I should give the answer backwards as well! Now, how to accomplish this…”

  “Just give a wrong answer,” Josephine suggested. “Not everything can be backwards. It told the strongest to approach, right? But you and I stood back here and spoke out loud without any issues. It’s only the person next to the stone tower whose answer counts. So I think that you should stand over there and give a wrong answer to the question.”

  “No pressure, of course,” the pangolin grumbled. “I do not believe that I would survive one of the bolts that have struck Charlemagne.”

  Bawk, the rooster promised.

  I would greatly appreciate that, Phatagin sent back.

  The Knight and his Squire exchanged places. Phatagin gave the imposing black obelisk a nervous glance as he took over the spot that Charlemagne had just vacated. After taking a few long moments to gather his courage, he nodded at the rooster, who summoned a trio of mana shields stacked on top of each other.

  “Drow eht!” he shouted, closing his eyes and cringing in anticipation of a retaliatory lightning strike.

  Several long seconds passed, marked only by the pounding of the pangolin’s heart.

  “We did it!” Josephine cried with glee, her satisfaction in helping solve the puzzle outweighing, at least momentarily, her grumpiness at being dragged along.

  The pangolin opened his eyes just in time to catch the last motes of light fade away, plunging the group into darkness once again.

  “Bawk!” Charlemagne cried as the System displayed his grade.