With the long-suspended Sun's Fire Tournament officially beginning in Neverwinter and the spectators' thunderous cheers and celebrations ringing out, all six competing teams—including the four members of the "Rogues" team, who had been forced to participate—immediately sprinted toward the center of the maze from different directions as fast as they could.
This was only the first round of the competition. According to the rules, they had to reach the center of the maze as quickly as possible, find the cage, and get inside. Otherwise, with every round that passed, the maze's towering walls would retract layer by layer, like peeling an egg. If they failed to reach their destination in time, the monsters prowling around the maze's perimeter or already inside it would have nothing to stop them from tearing apart any prey in sight!
There was no doubt that the six teams of competitors were the prey in this first round, especially since they had all been subjected to various restrictions and had no weapons at all to begin with.
"Quick!"
"This way!"
"Run!"
Now, thanks to magic, the maze looked like a bewildering tangle of twisting paths in which it was impossible to tell which way was which. Just like the other teams, the four members of the Rogues—Edgin, Simon, Holga, and Doric—had no choice but to race through it.
Unlike the other five teams, whose members had clear goals and searched for things as they ran, the four of them had been forced to participate and knew nothing about the precise rules. All they knew was that they had to find the cage in the center of the maze and hide inside as quickly as possible. Otherwise, forget winning—they might not even make it out alive!
The spectators soon noticed that, unlike the other five teams, who