"For my scouts, it's different. I trained someone to train the others, but I didn't accept a new pupil until Jackson. For the other jobs, I believe Reya takes care of that matter. As head of the overseers, she's often busy with training the newbies. Anyhow, got any more questions, or can I explain what the 2nd trial is?"
Austin, noticing a sudden shift in the room's temperature, nodded nervously. "Good," Aaron said, his smirk returning to his face once more. He walked to a crate, and openned it enough not to where Austin could tell what was inside, but enough to allow Austin's hand to go inside. "You know, normally when we test newbs on the 2nd trial, we try to do a selectively stressful one to see how'd you'd do in situations that would require you to use quick thinking skills, reflexes and instincts, but you—."
It came faster than Austin's mind could process. Swiftly taking it out the crate, Aaron chucked something at Austin, but, as it was flying towards his head, it was as if his instincts took over as the razor sharp blade of the dagger was caught by his own fingers, centimeters from his eyeball.
There was a moment of silence as his breathing hitched slightly in shock of what had just happened. Then he felt the shock turn into disbelief and the disbelief into anger. "What. The. Hell. You could have killed me!"
"I knew it!" Aaron responded, as if discovering something interesting. Then, he registered Austin's words, and started shaking his head. "Oh, no, yeah, not my intention. Your crest right, you are an owl, meaning your intuition and instincts are your greatest asset — they're your Trait."
"You could have killed me, Aaron!" Austin argued, frustrated. "What would you have done if that dagger killed me?"
"My god, bro, stop bitchin' an' relax," Aaron said, before regaining his composure. "Look, your not dead, right? What matters is that you saved yourself — a quality that'll come in handy in Trial Three. Consider Trial Two passed. Now, let's go over the layout of the Labyrinth; you'll need it for the final trial."
Six hours later, Austin was still going over the layouts of the Labyrinth; Aaron was having him study the whole thing through hand drawn layouts of routes explored by both himself and his scouts inside the Labyrinth.
Apparently, there only 6 sections of the Labyrinthe, each miles long, covering miles of distance, and each section had 3 sub section. For example, Section 1 had 1A, 1B and 1C; Section 2 had 2A, 2B and 2C; Section 3 had 3A, 3B and 3C, and so on. This was the same for Section 4, 5 and 6, making a total of 18 sections of the Labyrinths.
By the 7th hour, Austin had mostly memorized the layouts — they were done by different scouts at different points in time, but Austin's problem hadn't been with identifying/reading the various different handwriting and notes of various scouts on these papers. He could pretty much read it without much of a problem. His issues and frustrations stemmed from not being able to know why he would need to memorize them at all.
If he wasn't a scout, he wasn't allowed in the Labyrinth, anyways, right? So then a mission in the maze was not likely. And even when – if — he became a scout, would they really have him get first hand experience or would they have him undergo some sort of training in the Meadows before letting him out there?
Austin released an involuntary shiver at the last thought. From what he's learned about the Labyrinth outside the Meadows, he was hesitant to go out there. Sure, he wanted to help the scouts find a way out of this place. Sure he knew he needed to be a scout for that. But this place was a hell on earth… If Earth is where he was, that is.
There was, after all, mad-turning, man-eating beasts and crazy, barbaric savages dwelling inside the Labyrinth after all. He didn't know what the final trial would be, but Austin did know that if — no, 'when' he became scout, he'd prefer some sense of directional security to head in.
Suddenly, something caught his attention on the layout he was studying by one of the computer screens, where he had his back to the concrete wall, sitting down. The spec on the layout said the spot was called "The Stringer" but that was all — And it wasn't what had caught Austin's attention for seventeenth time that evening while studying the various hand drawn layouts. What had was the lack of graphic description of it compared to the other parts of the Labyrinth, as if it hadn't been explored all that much — or, rather, no one dared to explore it. When Aaron told Austin what it was after he asked about it when he first saw it after studying the first layout earlier, Austin's opinion shifted towards the latter. The Stinger was home to the Savagers — It was their home village.
"Some people say that the Savagers use the Annihilators as pets, they're so wild," Aaron continued. "Some say that the only Savager with enough brain cells are their leaders, the Bane Brothers – and that everyone else are so savage and fight-hungry zombies that they cannibalize their prey. Honestly, Austin, if you ever see a Bane Brother or Savager in the Labyrinth, run in the other direction. They're almost always as bad as the Annihilators."
After saying that, Aaron left, leaving to head to Reya, who had sent Zether to get him. Apparently, there was a squad of savages nearing the Eastern Gate and Reya wanted Aaron to lead a squad of scouts to driving them away, so Stryker, who was still in the Labyrinth, could have a clear and safe path back later that evening.
Austin didn't know how much time had passed in the Flat Shack — he'd left the watch in his tent, but he reached a roadblock in his studying about 30 minutes after Aaron left. He couldn't tell what was going on with the layouts he'd been studying; the way way they were drawn, the angles from which the box, squares and lines that represented the Labyrinth walls and secret passageways — It all seemed out of sync.
In frustration, Austin threw the paper down and stood up, hands to his scalp as if to rip his head open. "What am I missing? Why can't it make sense?"
Then he heard it. It was faint and far off, but he heard it. He stilled to be able to get a better pickup of the sound, but it didn't happen again.
Dismissing it to be his nerves, Austin picked up the layout he'd been studying, and then went to the drawer to place it back inside. He then went towards another one, pulled out a different hand drawn layout for a different section of the Labyrinth.
He got another layout again, before finding an open space and placed them both on the ground, right by one another. Austin stood back up to try a different angle to study it. Maybe by doing it this way, he thought he could find the answer to what was missing. When he couldn't his mind wandered off.
The first night he was here, he had a serious case of deja vu — Almost as if he'd been here before. But that's impossible. He just arrived here 2 nights ago. Then again, his memory access of the prior 3 months after waking up in that cell was inaccessible.
Suddenly, Austin heard the sound again, like a crunching stomp of the boot, definitely closer now. It was followed by a thunderclap heard by everyone in the Labyrinth. Though Austin blamed it on the thunder of some coming storm, he wasn't stupid; he felt as if something was off. He just couldn't decide what.
Still, dismissing it to be his nerves, and to take a break, Austin began heading towards to exit, and, right as he began walking words the stairway, leading up, he heard to door open, and in came… someone who was definitely not Aaron.