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Chapter 571 Finding The Portal

It took the six pairs a little over two hours to search the entire city, and they still all came back empty-handed.

Making their way back to the arena to see if they had missed anything, Phoenix looked pensive. Her partner, whom she had explicitly taken with her to keep her eyes on, much to the man\'s regret, Jaxx, kept looking around, in case he would see something they had missed on their first pass.

Phoenix was thinking about how to reach the underground area, and her mind was imagining hundreds of possibilities. Most of which she scratched away herself, for lack of pertinence or feasibility.

As they inched toward the arena, something caught Jaxx\'s eye, and he squinted, approaching it.

Phoenix saw him swerve to the left, and she interrupted her thinking.

"Did you find something?" she asked, hopeful.

"It might be nothing, Ma\'am. But this torch\'s placement is strange…" Jaxx replied.

As he said this, he reached the side of a building a few blocks away from the arena. The building had seemed pretty innocuous, on their first pass, with sconces and torches around it, to light the streets at night.

It looked like a shop, of sorts, the ruined interior not indicative of its purpose. But something caught Jaxx\'s curious gaze as they passed near it again.

One torch was positioned strangely. Jaxx looked at the surrounding area, and it was just an empty courtyard.

The torch wouldn\'t light anything in it if lit, as it was in the wrong corner of the building. And the street it was pointed to, led directly to the arena, and was more than well lit, with all the sconces in places on the other buildings.

This torch wouldn\'t add anything to the pre-existing lighting.

Leaning closer to the torch, Jaxx scrutinized it.

"It\'s just a torch, Jaxx. We don\'t have time to waste. Come."

But Jaxx ignored her command, still inspecting the sconce and torch, his gut telling him there was more to it than met the eye. And he found what pretty easily once he was an inch away from the darn thing.

The sconce, which was screwed into the building\'s stone, had an extra piece to it, which stuck out like a sore thumb when looking this closely. A hinge.

Grinning like an idiot, Jaxx set his hands on the torch before pulling it downward. It refused to move on his first try, rust jamming the hinge, but after a bit more pulling and wiggling, and acting on it with more strength, the torch whined and pivoted downward.

Jaxx heard a subtle *click* behind the wall and smiled.

"Ma\'am! This sconce activated something. I heard it click."

Phoenix frowned at him, getting closer and observing the sconce. She saw the hinge, and even activated the makeshift lever a few times, hearing the distinctive click for herself every time she did.

But nothing happened aside from this.

As she was about to abandon this useless endeavour, Violette reached out through the party chat.

\'Who is doing something repeatedly?! There is a torch in the arena that keeps lighting up and extinguishing itself, out of nowhere!\'

Phoenix\'s eyes widened.

She shifted the sconce up, putting it in its normal position.

\'Is it extinguished now?\' she asked.

\'Yes!\' Violette replied.

Phoenix tilted down the sconce, before typing in chat again.

\'Open now?\'

\'Yes!\' Violette answered.

\'What are you doing?\' she also asked.

\'I think Jaxx just found us our answer! Split back out into the city. Find roads that point directly toward the Coliseum, with things that seem out of place. There is a hidden mechanism in place. How many torches are in the arena, Violette?\'

Violette did a quick count before answering with, \'Eight.\'

Phoenix smiled.

\'Then there should be eight levers or activators in place as well. Find them, activate them, and we get to our next stage!\'

She turned around to face Jaxx, who was still grinning widely, proud of himself.

"Good job, Jaxx. You may prove yourself useful after all," she said, smiling at him.

Jaxx was unsure whether this was a compliment or an insult, but he elected to take it as the former. He raised a thumb before darting off to find another hidden mechanism.

As a kid who had been a victim of bullying a lot, in school, he had developed a sixth sense for spotting things that were out of place. This had saved him many times, from being victim to bad pranks in his locker or class desk.

He was glad this could serve them, on other things than saving him from embarrassment.

After another hour of searching, the pairs finally found the other seven hidden mechanisms. Some were torches, like the first one Jaxx had found.

But others were chariot wheels, leaned against buildings in a much too upright position to be normal. Or even wall stones that seemed to stick out too much from their buildings, making them suspicious.

When the last one was activated, a low rumble echoed through the city, with the ground shaking ever so slightly in the streets. But for Violette, who was still in the arena serving as confirmation, it was much more violent.

The ground shook wildly, tearing apart into eight equal pieces in the center of the arena grounds, revealing a large spiralling staircase going down.

She yelped excitedly, looking down into the dark descending hole.

Astaroth was the first one to come back, using Genie as a mount to make haste. Chronos followed closely behind him, walking, or so it looked, but his strides were unnaturally long.

As everyone swiftly made their way back to the coliseum, they all surrounded the newly revealed staircase, anticipation already building. This was it.

This was the next stage.

Phoenix grinned at the significance of this situation.

Having to puzzle their way forward through the second stage meant that this dungeon now had a brain element to it. Those dungeons were few but always had better rewards.

This also meant this dungeon was a onetime opportunity. Puzzle dungeons always closed up after they were completed, at least up to now.

That was one of their silent questions answered. Many more sprung up to replace it.

How long would this dungeon be? Would it get harder as they went?

Would it turn into a multi-day exploration? Would they all pull through at the end?

So many questions, with no answers in sight.

Their only way of finding out was to proceed forward.

And so they did.