LITMIR.BIZ

      Chapter 3

      When secrets are needed

      “Should we really go further?” cautious Artem intoned.

      “Guys, let’s tune up for positive and victory as much as possible! Whatever happens next, we need to be at our best,” Alice said as she took everyone’s hands and quickly gathered them into a circle.

      Everyone closed their eyes unquestioningly – Alice felt danger or victory well in advance. Her intuition helped them out so many times that they learned to trust her pretty quickly. Sophie was trained in meditation by her coach at the age of seven, when her uncertainty did not allow her to win even win-win games. The mechanism was simple, but it worked: “Imagine yourself in the mountains (in the forest, by the sea, in a desert, put it another way, in a place where you can feel comfortable and free). You need to feel your entire body: each toe is immersed in the sand, each finger feels the movement of the sea breeze, only the sound of the sea surrounds you and you will stay there as long as your body needs to solve the problem that you have set for it.” Therefore, when Alice told the guys to close their eyes, thereby ordering the brain and body to tune up for concentration, victory and positive attitude, the team did it in a matter of seconds.

      When you do self-control exercises daily since the age of seven, this practice becomes almost automatic, even during the gameplay, and allows figuring out a cool move even in a strange and scary labyrinth. This time, Sophie imagined “mountains, height of freedom, clean air, a hovering eagle, freshness of the wind and the most beautiful views in the world.

      This was probably the only secret the guys didn’t share with each other – the place where they imagine themselves when meditating. They deliberately didn’t share it with each other, so that even by chance the information would not go beyond the team and no one might undermine their victory, but, most importantly, no one could break their spirit by destroying their make-believe world. For example, you know that a person images themselves in a desert. If every time you meet you tell news about the dangers of a desert, repeat someone’s words about the horrors of sand and in every possible way turn a person against a desert, then pretty soon their subconscious will instill anxiety and fear in that person instead of helping them find sanctuary and a way to self-confidence and victory. And the worst thing is that they won’t even guess the trick right away and are likely to believe that the theory of self-control is nonsense. It took the guys a couple of minutes to start smiling.

      “And why did we get scared? So far, the adventure is just the coolest one,” Keira said, laughing. “Everything we need is here: chess, a dark labyrinth, mysterious voices from another world and ‘another world and interworld’! This is an amazing quest, and so far, they haven’t charged us a penny.”

      “Uh, Keira, I think there are a couple more pros. It’s obviously free and maybe it’s really a different world,” Artem said.

      “Artem, we know your faith in magic, other worlds and all that kind of stuff but you understand that the time for fairy tales will be a little later, it’s only lunchtime, and you’re not your favorite Harry Potter at all!”

      “Well, Keira, guys, just think, chess pieces re-arranging themselves and materializing from mist, a voice that knows everything about us, a labyrinth full of prehistoric drawings, but at the same time, kind of from the future… We are like heroes of Marvel Comic books, superheroes! If all this is based on science, do you have any idea how much such a quest should cost?

      “Artem, we agree that there are moments that we do not understand or they seem fantastic. But I am sure that there is an explanation for everything, and earthlier than what brought us into the inter-world subspace. Because if this is the case, then guys, we have a little more problems than just going through the labyrinth. We should get out at about the same time that we entered it and not in a couple of hundred years, right?” Sophie joked, or not joked…

      “We will deal with problems as they arise. Now we have to go through the labyrinth and, as we can see, it gives the best fit for us since it consists of chess problems. All other issues will be dealt with as they come. But now, we better go through that door because, judging by the slowly fading light, our time here is running out,” Alice reprimanded the team.

      The guys looked around and saw that it had got much darker. The light seemed to kind of retreat from the walls towards the center of the room, concentrating there as a bright star with a beam of light emitted towards the open door in which the guys stood and leaving a literally black hole behind.

      Despite the desire to comprehend and capture the fantastic moments of what was happening in their memory, they rushed towards the other door that already started closing. Alice managed to escape at the last moment. The door slammed behind her and the nasty voice said: “Sophie, your team will lose if you doubt your every step.”

      Chapter 4

      Earth team’s first victories

      “My team consists of winners. Remember that for future reference, Voice, and do not impede us in winning!” the captain replied angrily.

      After a mental journey into their fantasy worlds, the strength and self-confidence of the team noticeably increased and anger at attempts to confuse the team gave the necessary strength to win. Alice, as usual, turned out to be right and urged everyone to concentrate at the right time since the figures wearing the cassocks of the monks of the Dark Ages, about three meters tall, were sitting hunched over their own chess boards obviously for a reason. Actually, everyone guessed what the next stage of the labyrinth was before the nasty voice began to broadcast:

      “Dear players of two different worlds, get ready to take your seats at the chess boards. Each of you will have to play with an opponent to be able to go further, the losers will be instantly teleported to their worlds. Since you are all fighting for the opportunity to perform at our galactic Arena, both win and lose of each participant are important. After all, if one of you loses, then the winner will take your place.”

      “Don’t be ridiculous! Are you saying that if I lose, then that lanky monk will automatically become a member of our team instead of me?” Keira exclaimed.

      Everyone echoed her showing indignation and unwilling to play by someone else’s rules. The voice, however didn’t care, as did the labyrinth the more so since rules are rules. For that reason, instead of answering questions, the voice simply activated a countdown timer until the start time of the game: everyone had 30 seconds to choose a seat and an opponent. The guys rushed to take a closer look at the monks to at least intuitively determine the playing style of each of them and choose a suitable opponent based on that. Of course, they were all “versatile players” and Keira could play tediously long by engaging in a positional battle while Sophie could opt for a wild attacking style, but why strain when you can take it easy?! A quick analysis did not help, especially since the guys could not see the faces of the monks: all of them wore long hoods and their faces were behind some kind of haze, either a strange holographic mask or they didn’t have faces at all… Only the chairs differed in color. So, they all shrugged the shoulders and took the chairs of their favorite colors, that’s, exactly where the labyrinth wanted them to be seated, thus, perhaps falling into a trap or perhaps simply where everyone should have ended up. When the countdown time hit zero, several new scoreboards lit up above each table and the countdown began.

      “1) e4 e6 2) ♘f3 ♝d6 3) ♗c4 ♞f6 4) ♘c3 ♞c6 5) d4 O-O 6) e5 ♝b4 7) exf6 ♛xf6 8) ♗e3 ♛g6 9) O-O ♛h5 10) ♖e1 d5 11) ♗b5 a5 12) ♗d2 b6 13) ♗xc6 ♝b7 14) ♗xb7 ♜ab8 15) ♗a6 ♜be86,”

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