The Maze

As the timer reached the single digits The ceiling and floor began to move, the roof unfolding to reveal a starry night sky framed by tall wall stone walls. Slowly as the floor rose to match the maze floor Mora's situation finally dawned on him. He was about to compete in a life or death game, but for some reason all felt was excitement.

'5…

4…

3…

2…

1

Challengers, begin phase one.'

The clearing Mora had started in was a square had three exits one on each wall barring the wall directly behind him. He should probably get moving, but first there was something he wanted to check. Moving to the back corner of the clearing two things became clear, firstly the room wasn't square, instead the wall with no door was noticeably curved while the wall it met with was not.

"That's good to know" Mora said to himself as he began running for the middle door.

Using this knowledge Mora could with a decent amount of certainty discern that the maze was circular, with each challenger starting along the edge of the maze with the exit at the center. While not exactly perfect as long as he kept in mind which direction the center was he would have a much easier time finding the exit.

Now all he had to figure out was how to deal with other challengers. He knew as long as he kept in mind what direction the center was he'd have a good chance of reaching the exit but that obviously wasn't the main issue, the main problem would come when he met his first opponent.

"Oh, what the shit?"

As if he had summoned it with his thoughts a projectile narrowly flew past him. However it wasn't a knife or sword like he would have expected instead…

"You've gotta be kidding me."

Directly to his right, just far back enough you wouldn't see it until you reached this intersection was a massive spider maybe the size of a car, and it was charging directly at Mora.

Scrambling to avoid the web that had been shot in front of him from who knows where on that disgusting creature. All Mora could think to do was run,

"Sprint Burst", "Sprint Burst", "Sprint Burst", "Sprint Burst", "Sprint Burst", "Sprint Burst"

While he was pretty sure it had activated on the first try since he was now running so fast the maze walls were almost a blur as he past taking nearly random exits all the while the noise of the spider slamming into walls unable to stop in time to turn following ever closer behind. If he couldn't lose it somehow it would catch up soon.

Then, like a divine gift up ahead was a doorway that was noticeably smaller than the rest, probably small enough that the spider wouldn't be able to fit.

10 meters, 9 meters, I can do this just a bit more 7 meters, 6 meters, The noise of the spider scuttling behind him was still growing closer, 4 meters… then they stopped and he heard a different noise from behind him. Mora dove to the side almost instinctively, narrowly avoiding the web the spider had shot at him, he didn't get hit, but looking up the doorway he thought would let him escape the creature was not covered in spider silk, with no foreseeable way for him to get through the sticky mass of webbing.

Turning to face the spider, Mora's heart sank, "Well, this is a bit of a pinch I've found myself in."

The spider moved slowly now, as if it knew it had him cornered. As it moved closer it actual scale of the beast became even more alarming, it towered over Mora, it's fangs the size of his arm.

Stop, Mora thought, shaking himself to his senses. This was no time to psych himself out, it was do or die. Drawing his knife he raised it in front of himself, even if he went down here he sure as hell wasn't going down easy.

The spider struck in an instant it's leg sending pieces of ground flying from where Mora had been standing the moment before. But now he was running in, aiming for the spot directly below the spider, behind it's head. But before he could get there the spider jumped backwards. Damn, this wouldn't be easy, it actually knew it's weaknesses and was covering for them.

Since he wanted to get in close so it couldn't hit him with it's legs or web, it was keeping it's distance using it's explosive speed.

Mora continued running watching the spider's movements for an opening, then it lifted it's leg to strike, perfect, now. Mora quickly changed direction running towards the opposite side of the attacking leg, it was a gamble but if he was right, the spider should only be able to hit directly in front of the lifted up leg, and slightly in front of it's head.

Just as Mora thought this however, the ground in front of him erupted from the spider's strike knocking him backwards. Shit, it's a spider, what am I an idiot, of course it could just strike with the other leg, it's not going to lose it's balance from having two legs raised at once, it has six more.

Mora stood there his dagger raised, ready for the spider's next move. But even if he dodged the next attack it didn't matter, he had no plan.