Ackster went over to the torch's resting place of bands of metal forming a little cup with a hole at the bottom and put his hand on it.
'Wait a minute.'
But, the sudden flush of hope and relief gave Ackster's brain the release it needed to realize something, something potentially life-altering. He stuck his head out of the room and looked at the ant tunnel's ceiling.
Ackster's realization had been spurred into existence by touching the tomb ceiling in search of trapdoor triggers.
He hadn't thought of it before, mostly because he was narrow-minded. But what if the ants had hidden their tunnels?
Well, maybe not hidden them. But Ackster, who had been stuck in the ant nest with nothing to shed light on his surroundings, wouldn't have been able to detect them if they were in the ceiling. He had followed his feet and what he could sense by prodding his surroundings with his hand. He hadn't thought about taking a stick and poking the ceiling every few meters.
But now that he had a torch that could bestow upon him the miracle of seeing the walls around him, maybe he could see whether the tunnels had entrances upward.
Considering ants were ants and could climb on walls, and they were adept and efficient enough as builders to build ramps if necessary, it wasn't such a farfetched idea.
Ackster couldn't see anything immediately outside the tomb, which was understandable since it would be unnecessary to build something like that right outside an excavation point. At least, that's what he hoped as he walked further up through the tunnel.
Ackster's gaze was fixed on the uneven ceiling, and after walking like that for a while, his neck began cramping. But he ignored it and sharpened his already sharp eyesight even more in the hopes of identifying something that looked like a path upward.
He had no idea what he was looking for or if it would even exist. But he had finally found hope at escaping this damned ant nest. He wasn't going to give up that easily.
However, after a little while, Ackster noticed that the torch was losing its light. A couple of steps back and forth confirmed that it was because of range and not that it was running out of energy.
Ackster hesitated but continued up the tunnel until, almost as if ordained by fate, he found an opening right when the torch blacked out.
Ackster tilted his head curiously.
'Did the ant queen know about the torch's range?'
Since the ant queen controlled all the ants and decided what they did to a degree where they were incapable of doing anything after her passing, Ackster wouldn't be surprised if it was her decision to put the opening where it was. But he couldn't understand why.
Was the Alchemaze's magic interfering with the signals she used to control her colony or something? Maybe it was simply caution.
'I'm fucking stupid.'
Ackster facepalmed again.
Why was he thinking about such nonsensical things when he had found the way to the surface? He should be celebrating and cheering in joy.
Ackster used a nearby ant corpse to mark the spot. He was confident he would find his way back. But he had also been confident about challenging the ant queen and the general. That confidence lost him an arm.
He drew a line in the ground that he could follow with his bare feet using a nearby ant leg.
And when he was back at the tomb, he put the torch in its holder again. It was useless past a certain point, so he wouldn't gain anything by bringing it along. It was also part of the Alchemaze, so if he lugged it around and an expert noticed it, he would expose himself as someone who has been in the Alchemaze or just invite trouble to himself by carrying around something others would pay their fortunes to get.
Even if people didn't think he had discovered an entrance to the Alchemaze, they would still want the torch and any information they could get about the Alchemaze from Ackster. He didn't want that, so he had to leave it behind.
But that wasn't the only reason he returned. After all, there was no difference in leaving the torch below the tunnel or in the tomb.
He returned to the tomb because he was curious.
Although he knew it was objectively in his best interests and his best bet to leave the ant nest and head south as quickly as possible, Ackster was desperate to know whether the sconce really was the secret trigger to open the passage to the next room. The Alchemaze was too alluring.
Ackster tugged on the torch. Much to the satisfaction of his hopes, the sconce popped out of the wall like it was made to do so. It hadn't suffered from the same erosion as the door.
But even after several tense moments, nothing happened. No secret passage opened, and no trap door revealed itself. There weren't even any booby traps.
"So it was a dud in the end."
Ackster's burning hope lost strength until only embers remained. This room might have been a failure, but all signs pointed to there being more entrances to the Alchemaze in the other tunnels. So, Ackster wasn't completely out of hope just yet.
But it did help convince him that he should just leave. He had more important things to do instead of indulging in an almost childish wish to explore the ruined labyrinth of the greatest alchemist in history.
So, Ackster turned around and stopped looking around the room and walked up the tunnel, following the line he made until he reached the X. He was still disappointed nothing had happened. But he made sure to imprint on his mind that it was a good thing since he wasn't sure he would have been able to convince himself to leave the nest if a secret passage had opened up.
Ackster looked up at the ceiling and saw nothing since it was darker than night, and there wasn't a single source of light to help guide his eyes. But he had walked in the darkness for long enough to have become friends with it.
He jumped up and grabbed hold of the edge with his hand. Well, he tried to. It was a mostly flat, almost vertical wall.
'Don't tell me….'