The Treasure

It was a cold day, with the wind blowing through the abandoned stone temple. Nature had long since reclaimed the land. Vines were deadly obstacles for any would be trespassers, slithering on the ground like snakes. Inbetween the maze of vines stood a man, wrapped in a flowing brown cloak.

He walked down the broken stone steps, each footstep echoing in the empty courtyard as he entered the temple’s large stone doors. Firelight greeted the man as he entered, loud voices cheering on an unknown battle ahead.

He entered a large coliseum, surrounded by cheering fans. Ninety Nine other men, both in similar cloak’s stood still as statues, facing the audience. At the forefront of the crowd was a woman, as regal as she was beautiful. When she spoke, her voice was like a melody of sounds, flowing through the wind.

“I welcome you, One hundred men, to the choosing of the next king. You three have gone above and beyond anything, the kingdom could have asked for. We know that your feats of strengths have put you towards the top, but strengths are not all that matters. As the saying goes, Knowledge is power. Because of that, we have one final test for you.”

One hundred chests suddenly rose from the ground, in rows of twenty five. “If you one hundred men solve the riddle together, then you will all rule the kingdom together as a council. However if one of you is to solve the puzzle without doing the legwork to figure it out, then the whole kingdom will be yours.”

“Now then, for the riddle itself. Inside each chest is a single word. Imagine that all one hundred of you had a number. The person with 1 would open every chest. The person with two will then close every 2nd locker. Next, the person with number 3 would change the status of every third locker. This pattern would continue until all one hundred people would have gone. The words in the chests that remain open in the end reveal the secret to becoming king.”

“Before we start, however, there is one more way to become king. If you are the last one standing in the arena, then the crown is yours. Good luck.”

No one moved an inch, every person eyeing one another. Then through the roaring of the crowd, a scream echoed as the first man was slashed down.

It turned into a massacre, a battle royale if you will. Blood turned the earthen floor red and the chests were completely ignored by everyone, everyone except for one man that is.

The man in the brown cloak, the one that was last to enter, rushed off away from the chaos. He passed chest after chest, stopping at certain ones seemingly at random. The first chest was the first one opened, followed by the fourth, the ninth, and the sixteenth. Inside every chest was a single slip of paper, containing a single word to read, to absorb.

He then shot to the next row, barely dodging an arrow from one of the other candidates. “Great.” He said as the man made a beeline towards him.

The brown cloaked man dove right for the twenty fifth chest, taking the note out right before punching the archer square in the jaw. Furious, the arches pulled out an arrow from his quiver, using it like a sword in retaliation.

The man jumped back over and over again, staying just out of reach of the arrow’s range, leading the archer down the aisle of chests. When he reached the thirty sixth chest, he ducked under another vicious swing, and kicked the man in the stomach, making him fly back and slam into the sixty ninth chest.

He took the note from the thirty sixth chest and then leaped over to the next row of chests, where a battleax greeted him with certain death.

Or it would have if the mad hadn’t dodged out of the way at the nick of time. The brown cloaked man jumped onto the axeman’s head, leading him on like a puppet. No matter how much the axeman struggled, it was all in vain as the cloaked man toyed with him.

In his adrenaline field rage, the axeman rased his battleax, ready to strike a blow at anyone, anything. With a little help from the cloaked man, that turned out to be the forty ninth chest, which broke into a million pieces.

Luckily, however, the note was perfectly fine, as the cloaked man found out after jumping off his shoulders.

One stop at the sixty fourth chest later, and only the last row of chests remained. A skirmish had broken out at the end of the row between two swordsmen, going at each other’s necks without holding back. He quietly reached into the eighty first chest, then charged at the two swordsmen. A dagger appeared from under his cloak, long and sharpened. He slashed at the first swordsmen’s face, making a bloody cut that ran from the forehead to the mouth. He collapsed in a fit of blood, curling up into a ball.

The second swordsman didn’t do so hot either. It was whole two seconds before he was disarmed and kicked back towards the skirmish, completely defenseless.

The cloaked man smiled, reaching into the 100’th chest and revealing the slip inside. He ran away from the fighters, not that there were many left in the flames of blood that roared throughout the arena, deaths hand moving events to his will.

He read every note in the order, from the first chest’s note to the lasts, and smiled. “So that’s how it is, ei? Figures that’s how the new king would be chosen.

The cloaked man turned his attention to the woman who had announced the contest, her voice as sweet as honey, and she had looks able to match. A flip of his dagger later, and he charged towards her, knife in hand. He jumped up, higher than any human should have had the ability to, and brought the knife down at her slim figure. Just as the dagger touched her skin, however, she disappeared, leaving an empty space where she once stood.