The Talking Game

Chapter 1 and and Explanation

The door of the castle is the creepiest thing there, though. Staying out of too much gory detail, it's made of white marble, and on the doors there are carvings of... monstrous beasts that you decide are hugging each other, and definitely not strangling the life out of each other.

I creep to the door, keeping to the shadows and looking around to make sure nothing is in the courtyard with me, and approach the door pressing my ear to it to see if I can hear anything behind it.

It's completely silent. Although, it is a slab of solid marble. It's not like you'd be able to hear through that.

I check to see if the door will open, carefully pushing on it, or pulling.

It slides outward. From what you can see, the door opens into a dark corridor. The floor is dark wood panels, the walls covered in a maroon wallpaper with golden designs. There's a red carpet, stretching into the darkness, it's edges tattered and torn. If you peer closely at the walls, you can see door frames.

I creep forward and peer down the hallway, straining my eyes in the dark.

After you've moved in maybe four steps, you hear a loud bang, and everything goes dark. With a horrible pang of fear, you realize the marble door has closed behind you.

Involuntarily, you let out a whimper of fear. Spreading out your arms, you find the wall. The second your fingertips brush the wallpaper, you are instantly blinded. As your eyes adjust to the light, you see the corridor expands far into the distance, and the door frames are filled with dark wooden doors with golden knobs. You can't tell where the light is coming from.

I throw caution to the wind and push open the first door.

Peering inside, you see you're in a cylindrical room made out of black bricks. There's an open window on the far side. Walking over and peering out, all you can see is clouds, maybe twenty feet below you.

"Whaaa...?" I turn around back to the door.

You hear a rough laugh behind you.

I quickly spin back around.

Sitting on the window is a crow - or raven, you're not enti-

"Waitaminute." You say, "You're a phoenix."

It snorts. "Well, I suppose you are capable of learning after all."

You scowl, resenting the joke at your expense. "Thanks." You say sarcastically. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"I'm here to tell you what you're doing."

After waiting a moment for a response, and getting none, you say, "Well, then, what am I doing?"

"You're completing Challenges. Through each door in that hallway is another room, with some Challenge to be achieved. If you can complete all of them, then the impending doom looming over all those people will be... removed."

"Yippee." I say un-enthusiastically, "So whats the challenge for this room?" I ask the phoenix looking around for some terror to jump out at me.

It shrugs slightly. "Checking to see if you're able to understand what you're supposed to be doing."

"So... nothing life threatening then?" I ask hopefully.

"Not here no. But the rooms get more challenging as you go. Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you failed in the next room, considering your intelligence level."

"Gee, thanks." I snarl, glaring daggers at it. "I'll just be on my way then, I have a busy schedule you know, saving masses of people. So, if you could just leave, you ridiculously unhelpful bird."

It blinks one eye, and stares at you. "... I suppose if that's the way you feel about me, I'll just go. And NOT tell you the incredibly important helpful tip I was going to tell you." And then, before you can tell it to wait, it flies out the window, disappearing into the clouds.

I growl, then open the door, walk out, and walk into the one across from it.

The door creaks loudly as you open it, and you flinch, hoping there's not some monster waiting on the other side that was just woken up by the door. Fortunately, there isn't.

It's a concrete room, with a deep, black, endless-looking hole right in the middle.

You walk over to it, and peer in... To hear the door slam shut behind you. When you turn around, it's not there at all, there's only just the solid concrete wall.

"Great." I lower myself into the hole...

{To be continued...}