The potion had already been glowing ominously when Dorian slammed the door open, Valerie had lurched, and the potion had spilled over her hand. There was only a moment of alarm before her vision went dark and now she was looking at rather menacing scene. This was... fine.... and then Dorian had appeared a moment later, crouched as if reaching for something, his fingertips glowing dark purple. 

Strange clothing, odd symbols, a language that was too understandable for how exotic it sounded. Valerie and her brother had been god-touched. 

One of the triangle guards spots Valerie and Dorian immediately. They stand out against the sea of dark green tracksuits. He stalks over.

"You two. Why aren't you in uniform? Why don't you... you should not have this clothing anymore. Put on your tracksuits immediately or risk elimination."

Valerie looks at the man, pulling Dorian behind her and standing straight to hold his attention.

"I don't know what you're talking about." 

The guard blinks behind his black mask. Valerie and Dorian can't see the blink, of course.

His training is very clear on anomalies of this sort. He should just eliminate them from the game. However, he doesn't even know what their ID numbers are, because they're not wearing their uniforms. This is a problem. How did they ever get into a state where two players are wearing...

What are they wearing? He's never seen anything quite like it. And... they're glowing? Dark purple?

The long line of tracksuit people is taking several minutes to drain, single file, through the door. There's still time.

The triangle guard pulls the two anomalous players through a heavy metal door off to the side. There is a console on a podium inside the small side room. He asks the console to scan their faces using the camera mounted in the corner of the chamber.

They pop up on his screen.

The woman is number 88. The man... boy...?  He looks very young to be here. The young man is number 89.

The guard taps a few keys on his console. Two minutes later, another triangle guard pops in with two new green tracksuits with the correct numbers.

Two minutes after that, Valerie and Dorian have joined the back of the line.

The guards? instructors? the faceless figures dress them in silky green clothing in a style that Valerie has never seen before, with an odd style of closure. She keeps a tight grasp on Dorian's wrist and she can feel him go nearly limp when he finally figures out that they are in a place very, very far from home.

Let the gods be entertained, she prays. The cloth itself must be very expensive, but the uniformity of their dress is not a good sign. Probably not sacrifices, that's too straight forward, too boring for the gods, but that leaves many options. She watches the line shuffle forward, following steadily. 

"What were you brewing?" Dorian whispers into her ear.

Valerie keeps her face forward, "a potion of foresight, supposedly."

"This is not a good omen."

"No, it's not."

The line of tracksuit people has been steadily draining through the main exit of the large room this whole time. As Valerie and Dorian step through the door, they find themselves in a bizarre, brightly-painted pastel room of staircases winding up and down and around corners. They can see the file of other tracksuit people ahead of them, wending their way up and down stairs and then finally out the opposite corner.

There is a cheerful instrumental melody playing as they wind up and down and around. It takes several minutes.

There's something ceremonial in nature about the procession, and within that, a tension building that has Valerie wishing she has some potion to view the glow of power through the room. Spiritual sight, perhaps. There are instruments playing that she doesn't recognize, and almost as many people in this one room as who live in their entire town.

"Well I can fight," Dorian says, as if the gods would send them to another place to watch a fist fight. As if hadn't arrived distinctly after Valerie. 

"You can take the lead on any fist fights," Valerie says, "I'll lead on magic." Without a method brewing, sacrifice magic would have to be the default. Unless she could find a bowl. If she can get a bowl she can figure something out... The tension is getting to her and Valerie falls silent, mulling over blood magic and soul sacrifices and other moves far too desperate for the situation as she knows it. 

Valerie steps through the exit, Dorian close behind. 

... And they emerge into another very large chamber, so large that the hundreds of green tracksuit people all fit into one end of it, behind a bright white line drawn across the floor.

There is a vast expanse of empty space in the middle of the room.

At the far end of the room is a giant figure of a girl with big eyes and an oversized head. She is about three times as tall as a normal person, with dark pigtails and a little red mouth.

Above her head is a large digital clock. It currently reads "05:00" and it is not changing.

It probably does not say good things about Valerie that her first thought is to start killing people, but then again, her mindset has been slowly warped by the civil war at home and the notoriously bloody nature of the gods. She'll come back to the idea of slaughter, after she's tried several other options. Perhaps something to do with the white line on the ground, or the eerie doll with the symbol above its face. There are five symbols total, and three distinct ones. The first two symbols are also visible on several of the uniforms. 

Valerie shuffles through the crowd until she's near the front, then she finds someone smaller than herself with one of the symbols that match the dolls-- 56 --and shoves them, hard across the line. 

Contestant 56 lurches across the line, taking a big step forward to catch herself. A fraction of a second after crossing the line, there is a sharp cracking sound. Valerie can't quite localize where the noise comes from, other than from the doll end of the room. A bright red burst of blood blossoms on 56's chest, on the triangle of white undershirt showing above the zipper of her jacket. 56 collapses in a heap on the ground and is silent.

A woman's disembodied voice cheerfully announces, "Player Fifty-Six has been eliminated."

The other tracksuit people around Valerie all shrink back from the line, eyes wide. Some of them cling to each other. There's a very quiet murmur of fear.

Most of them did not see what Valerie did, but a few people nearby saw, and suddenly no one but Dorian is standing very close to Valerie. There's a small empty circle around them, wary faces not quite meeting Valerie's eyes.

Hm. That didn't work as she had hoped. Valerie narrows her eyes and looks around to see if anyone else has any clues. Maybe the symbol combination wasn't correct? And yet no one else is looking for the combination of "05" or "00" or "0500". She hasn't seen anyone with a ":" symbol, maybe that's what's missing? If only she could reach the dead person, then she could use the blood to make a ritual. Not her strongest area, but one can hardly become a master alchemist without knowing some runes. 

A red-clad guard with a square symbol steps out in front of the crowd. Everyone falls silent and looks at him, though they still give space to Valerie. No one wants to stand close to the line where Valerie could reach.

"Today's game is Red Light, Green Light," the guard announces. "When the doll looks away, you may move forward. When she is watching, you must be completely still. If you move when she is watching, you will be eliminated from the game. You have five minutes to reach safety at the other end of the room. We will begin shortly."

He turns and walks back to the doll's end of the room.

Valerie notices for the first time that there is another white line at the far end of the room, just in front of the doll.

Whoops. Okay, well at least she knows that elimination for herself or Dorian is something to avoid at all cost. How hard will this be? A game of speed and reaction time will play to Dorian's strengths. She cannot tell through the soft clothing how trained her follow contestants are. She braces herself to run, glancing to Dorian to confirm that he is doing the same. 

And the game begins!

It turns out that the doll is some kind of mechanical contraption and her head can rotate quickly and smoothly, a full 180 degrees, until only the back of the doll's head is showing.

Most of the green tracksuit people are now running toward the doll. Some people in back are being more wary, moving more steadily or not at all. Everyone, running or not, is staring at the doll's head, looking for the first sign that she'll turn to watch them again.

The doll's head spins and Valerie suppresses an instinctive shudder at threatening motion in favor of falling into an all-out sprint. It's been, oh probably years since she last found herself running full speed. Dorian passes her but not without effort. She has spent more time hiking than running, but she's not entirely useless. She leaves the body behind, though the blood could be useful, she suspects there will be more blood available in the future. 

"More blood" is a safe bet, yes!

The clock above the doll's head is changing now. If Valerie glances up, she will see different symbols, such as "04:46" and then "04:45".

Will Valerie and Dorian keep running fast until they see the doll's head start to spin back, or will they stop sooner than that? The people around them are adopting lots of different strategies.

There was a lot of jostling for position in the crowd at first, so they have covered maybe 15% of the distance to the doll so far.

Valerie keeps her eyes mostly on the doll's head, with quick glances at Dorian to make sure he's not falling behind or distracted by the other... players? That was what the voice said. So this is a game of some sort. Perhaps like those she's heard of in the larger cities with game halls or, given the violence, perhaps some kind of dispute resolution. Anyone who wins receives favor? She cuts off the thought as speculating ahead of the evidence, tucking the ideas away until she has more information. 

As the crowd spreads a little, Valerie runs as hard as she can while being prepared to stop as soon as she sees the massive doll's head move even the slightest bit. She certainly won't stop before then. She's not familiar with the game red light, green light, but she has played various high stakes games before, and all too often they draw players in by starting easily before getting far more difficult. She suspects each time the doll looks away, it will do so for a shorter period of time. Perhaps the doll's head will turn to watch them faster and faster as well. Anything to make things more intense. 

Some contestants fall behind, stopping for some reason, and Valerie vaguely senses it in her peripheral vision, but until the doll's head starts to move, she keeps running.

Dorian, no doubt, will run until the last possible second. She trusts in his reaction time, but does not trust in his judgement nearly so much. "When the doll is is watching" is the sort of slightly ambiguous language that Valerie fears. Does the corner of the doll's eye seeing you count as being watched? If so, she fears for his safety, but she can't spare the breath to explain, nor is he even close enough to speak with unless she can gain another five or so paces. She'll have to hope, and wreck bloody havoc if she's disappointed. 

Dorian cannot get hurt. 

The doll's head whips around!

As fast as the players started running, they all attempt to stop, but it's a lot of mass and a lot of momentum. They crash into one another, some intentionally but mostly by accident.

Some are caught in awkward positions, in a deep lunge or a dodge to the side, and they struggle to hold still. Almost all of them are breathing hard, their chests and shoulders rising and falling. Some can't resist the temptation to look around, and of those, only some remember to look with their eyes without turning their heads.

The doll implacably sees it all. A series of loud cracks ring out. Players are struck down and fall, blood spots spreading on their chests. A few players instinctively move to cover their ears or their heads when they hear the cracks. They, too, fall.

After ten seconds or so of cracks and falling players, the woman's cheerful voice begins to announce the deaths.

"Player Two has been eliminated. Player Six has been eliminated. Players Fifteen through Eighteen have been eliminated," and so on. It takes her a long time to read all of the numbers.

Meanwhile, the clock above the doll's head continues to change.

There had been a bubble of space around Valerie (and by association) Dorian, after she had pushed the other player to their death. This may well be the space that saves both of their lives, when the doll's head snaps around. 

Valerie jerks to a stop, as does Dorian just ahead, and through the hubbub they both remain still. Valerie is used to using waxed cloth in the alchemy lab when she's expecting loud noises, but things do go wrong unexpectedly sometimes, and a shaky hand or jerky reaction would have her long dead. She sees a figure jerk their head at the mysterious cracking noise, and a moment later death comes for them as well. 

Ahead of her, with vision sharp from fear, she can see the nearly imperceptible movement of Dorian's slow, controlled breaths. Her chest is burning with the want for more air, for her to heave for breath and sate the hunger, but she will not be controlled by her impulses. Mother taught her better than that. 

While the voice reads out the names, Valerie remains as still as she is capable of. Even her eyes stay fixed on Dorian, where they landed instinctively when the doll's head turned. She can tell that the symbols above the doll's head are changing through, and she thinks she understands what is happening. 

The symbols are numbers-- that connection was built when the first death was announced and the word 'fifty-six' was spoken, becoming an idea she knew. Then the guard had said they had five minutes and the symbols on the wall started changing, so they represented the time. Even knowing this, the numbers have not been translated into ones she knows, so she's forced to learn the associations between each symbol and the word a guard or announcer uses. How frustrating. 

If the five minutes given to cross the room includes the time the doll is turned, as the continually changing number suggests, then her and Dorian's chance of success is nearly arbitrary and entirely dependent on whoever controls the doll. 

Does the doll not turn until all the deaths have been read out? If so, then she was more dependent on her fellow players than was at all comfortable. Perhaps she could tell the other players to spread out more to avoid collisions, or maybe the deaths only delayed the turning of the doll's head if they happened during a frozen period. Ideas, both collaborative and combative, churn in her head as she keeps her gaze on Dorian and her focus on the doll's head on the edge of her sight.