As the strange noise of running steps and roaring rapidly approached them, everyone instinctively hid among the various pedestals, under the steps, and behind the beams. With a quick glance, they all saw a familiar figure of Christopher crazily sprinting towards them, as a large golden spectral bull-head appeared behind him amongst the shadows, chasing him. With another roar, as the walls and ground around shook, Christopher suddenly broke his speed and dove towards the closest wall.

Following a huge impact, the spectral bull-head hit the magical structure and the wall behind it, destroying everything in the process and causing bits of the wall to collapse.

As the dust settled, a low voice said: "Help me!" , following by sounds of shuffling and heavy coughing. With gashes and bruises all over the magic students, they eventually recovered each other.

"What the fuck was that?" - Liam seemed to be the most injured out of all of them, with blood streaking down his right arm.

"I mean, you know, if you didn't see the GIANT FUCKING BULLHEAD, then I don't know what happened."

"Christopher... Christopher!!!!!!" - Mons yelled out but heard no response.

"Well, how are we supposed to activate this pile of metal now?" - Ville couldn't help but point out the completely destroyed mechanism.

Meanwhile, a couple of hundred feet away, a completely intact figure was swiftly making his way out. Christopher didn't notice any people around the dead end he ran into, so after successfully dodging the bullhead, he ran back to safety, catching his breath around one of the closed doors.

"Fucking hell, that was scary. And I just touched it, why'd it go for me? The other two also split off with me... HOW AM I GOING TO FIND THAT 19TH FLOOR IN A DAY MATE?"

Christopher has been running across the endless weaving hallways of this castle with the other two of his compatriots for over an hour at this point, but he managed to notice and take a few things into account.

Firstly - there are hundreds of closed doors that he passed by just in this time, all with different designs and sizes. On the walls next to these doorways were also golden placks with some unknown to him symbols. He and his group did not know which 'floor' they might be currently on, so they had to find something or somebody indicating that, but they have failed to do so, so they ended up interacting with different objects. One of those objects - was a giant golden bull statue that sat in a crossway between the halls, which ultimately caused some sort of reaction from it, making a spectral transparent copy of itself come to life. In confusion and fear, they all started running in different directions, but the creature ultimately followed Christopher.

He was currently not even interested in finding his companions again, so, taking a more careful and calm approach, he made his way back to the crossway room. The bull statue was still present in there, so he did a wide swing around it and took one of the three unknown paths. Traveling down that way for just about a few dozen or so feet, he noticed that there was an enormous humanoid figure standing in the middle of the hall, blocking off his path.

This figure was tall, rising for just over 30 feet, equipped with heavy black-steel armor and a giant greatsword that he clutched in his hands, embedded into the wooden floor. The heavy breathing of the creature was clearly heard.

As he did not want to do anything with that, Christopher backed up and proceeded to the other path. Along in, he heard a set of steps approaching him, as a very young-looking human, clutching small crates and sacks in his hand, says:

"Hey there! Take this, help me carry it." - the man handed over one of the larger crates to Christopher, who awkwardly took it.

"Uhm...ok?" - Christopher nodded.

"Good, good, follow." - the man started quickly running towards the crossway.

"Hey, you don't happen to know how to get to the 19th floor, do you?"

"19th? Just use the elevator. You knew here or something?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm new. Where is this elevator by the way?"

"Where I came from, of course. Who are you again?"

"Christopher, uhm, how do I put it, a Soulguard?"

"Soulguard? Phah! Don't make me laugh. Just help me take all this stuff."

With that, the man leads him across a section of hallways, towards one of the closed doors with the placks. With a swift flick of his finger, the door opened up, revealing a large room with stacks of crates, sacks, chests, racks and all sorts of holding spaces. The man carefully looked around and put everything he and Christopher were carrying over to a specific spot and quickly left, closing the door behind him.

"Good job, you can have this, Mr. "Soulguard", hah!" - the man handed him over a small blank white card and quickly left.

"Wait! Uh, whatever. Thanks, I guess."

Meanwhile, in a different section of the palace, a group of four people was quietly sitting in a seemingly-outdoor place - a vast and peaceful ravine between a mountain range, with many streams of water flowing down, forming a unity of waterfalls. These people were all sitting in their most comfortable positions on the grass, slowly breathing in and out. Occasionally, with a *slap* to their backs, they force themselves to endure the pain and control their rage. Sitting across them and enjoying the show were three people - Shade, Alex and TJ, unoccupied with anything.