Aww. He was gonna say thanks.

He looks out onto the misty pathway, takes a deep breath, and starts walking.

As he walks, the candles behind him wink out, leaving only the ones ahead to light his way. It's atmospheric as heck.

Before he's gone much farther, the candles have spread out far enough that from each one he can only see the next, and maybe if he's lucky the one after it.

...okay. That's easy enough.

He follows the candles, trying to be aware of his surroundings, looking where he steps as best he can in the dim light through the mist.

About ten candles later, the path ends in a tall gate, lacy wrought iron set in a wall of heavy stone. There are torches burning in sconces to either side of the gate, and where the two iron doors meet, they come together to form a circular stylized labyrinth the size of a large pizza. The doors don't look possible to open, with that intricate arrangement where a latch should be—

—but then the labyrinth spins, clockwise-counterclockwise-clockwise again like a giant combination lock, and different pieces of it seem to be moving at different rates, and when it rattles to a stop the shape of the path spells out the phrase FIND THE CENTRE and the gate, now unlocked, swings slightly ajar.

Okay. Whatever weird shit's in here, he can deal with it.

He cracks his knuckles, pulls the gate open and steps inside.

There's a rumble from behind him, somewhat more emphatic than the grating-metal sound of the gate's elaborate lock, and then the mist ahead finally clears.

He's standing just inside the gate of a labyrinth, with the same twelve-foot walls of rough stone blocks that stood on either side of the gate. Ahead, a straight corridor continues for about twenty feet before splitting into a T-junction. So far, so straightforward—but beyond that, if he looks above the walls...

This labyrinth seems to be constructed on the inside of a sphere. It's a very big sphere, but definitely not planet-sized or anything. Maybe golf-course scale, approximately?

Hard to tell from here if gravity wraps with the floor. If it doesn't, exploring the maze is going to get interesting. And either way, he's going to have a hell of a time finding the centre of this place.

Also, the gate behind him has been replaced with a section of wall identical to the other surrounding walls.

...well, shit.

He hopes he's good at mazes. Or that there's food in here.

(What the fuck, physics. You stay the same for 24 years and then you just flake the fuck out on him? Rude.)

He walks forward to the junction and peers down both paths.

To the left: a shortish corridor and then a leftward turn.

To the right: a long corridor, long enough that he can see the floor curving upward.

Behind him from around that leftward corner: the sound of something big and complicated and metallic rattling along at speed, coming closer by the second.

That sounds like his cue to start booking it to the right.

Doesn't it just!

The noise pursues him. Up to him whether he wants to spare the time to look back.

He tries to glance back over his shoulder without slowing down.

It's got four legs and a lot of teeth and is almost five feet tall at the shoulder and made of wrought iron bars like the ones from the gate, bent and welded together into what would be an actually very pretty sculpture of a stylized wolf if he'd met it under other circumstances.

It's also gaining on him.

Shiiiiiiit.

He would think about how it would really suck to die before he even turns two corners in the bullshit magic maze, but he is doing less thinking and more running faster than he ever has in his life.

His current path splits in a Y-junction up ahead. Quick: right or left?

Might as well go left!

One of the large square paving-stones goes click underfoot, but he's bolting past so quickly that he manages to clear the edge of the spiked pit before it properly begins to open. The iron wolf is not so lucky.

Nothing is chasing him anymore, isn't that nice?

...yep. Not being chased is pretty good.

He did just almost get impaled on spikes, though.

He picks his way down the hall a little more cautiously, now.

Then he will safely avoid a couple more suspiciously raised paving stones, and probably also steer clear of the distant heavy clanking echoing down that cross corridor, and after a few more turns he will come to a T-junction where the left path leads to more stone walls and the right path leads into a wide open field of grass. Might offer him a good view of the rest of the sphere, if that's something he's interested in.

...yeah, he might as well take a look. And maybe take some pictures. It might help.

He walks out into the field.

It is lovely and peaceful. Although this grass has seen better days.

He can indeed get a much better view of the sphere from here. That there sure is a big round maze.

Was he looking for food earlier? There's a picnic blanket over there, and a plate of scones sitting in the middle, artistically arranged around a cute little jar of strawberry jam.

He snaps a few photos of the sphere, just in case it helps later.

Then he looks over to the blanket.

...are these scones traps?

They seem like they might be trap scones.

He approaches the blanket warily.

They look so innocent, sitting there on their plate with their jam jar. Nothing jumps out at him or makes menacing noises as he examines them.

He sits down on the blanket and takes an experimental nibble of a scone corner.

It's a reasonably tasty scone. Nothing to write home about.

He remains uninterrupted by hazards.