The castle itself is absolutely huge. And I know that's the easiest word I could use to describe it, but seriously, this place is bigger than any other building I've ever seen.

The castle is surrounded by a moat and there's a huge staircase leading up to it. Seriously there's a lot of them. The castle itself is a dark grey colour and seems to be pretty old.

A man appears and explains that he's taking our bags. We don't complain, but that soon changes when we reach the bottom of the steps and we see no end to them.

"Why does one place need so many stairs?" I ask.

Zack laughs. "I can carry you if you want?"

I'm honestly not sure if he's being serious, but when I say, "nah, I'm good for now," he seems a little disappointed.

–

About ten minutes later, I quickly regret not taking Zack up on his offer. And half an hour later, we're still climbing endless stairs. It's also starting to get cold. Since we've been travelling for well over 10 hours, it's late evening and the night has begun to fall. Therefore, the temperature has also dropped.

Why did I think wearing a t- shirt was a good idea?

I start shivering a little and Zack notices pretty quickly. He pulls off his jacket and wraps it around me.

I turn to look at him. "I don't want you to get cold," I say.

"I'm good. Besides, you keep shivering. You look like you're about to fall down these steps. You sure you're ok?"

"I'm fine. I just didn't get much sleep last night so I'm tired."

He doesn't say anything but a second later I find myself being held bridal style in his arms. "Woah, Zack! What the hell!"

"Hey, I'm not gonna drop you. Just want to get you inside before you get hurt or freeze to death out here."

He starts running up the stairs, which can't be easy while he's carrying me. I mean, he's holding onto me pretty tight, but I'm still annoyed that he didn't ask before he just started carrying me. Not that I would've ever said yes, but I guess it'll be nice to get there faster.

When we do finally get to the top, he gently puts me down. I move to take his jacket off but he stops me. "Keep it, it looks cute."

He pushes open the door and we step inside a dark room. Seriously, it's pitch black in here. From what I can see, the floor is tiled in a checkerboard pattern, and there's two torches above the door. Apart from that, there's nothing.

Then, a voice echoes through the room. Probably from a speaker somewhere. "Sho Kuronaga and Zack Richmond, you are the last contestants to arrive, therefore, you will be completing the first challenge."

"Challenges?" Zack questions, "that wasn't in the contract."

He signed a contract to be here? Was I supposed to have done that?

The voice continues, "the challenge is this, one of you must stand in the centre of the room. The other will sit behind the desk and answer general knowledge questions on the computer. If the person answering the questions gets one wrong, a bucket of ice cold water will drop on the other contestant. The challenge will end when you have answered 100 questions correctly. If you fail to do this in under an hour, you will fail the challenge."

"What happens then?" Zack asks. Apparently he's a lot braver than I feel right now.

The voice must be able to hear us, since it replies, "then the group will not receive any food for the next 24 hours."

Zack looks at me in horror, "they're seriously going to starve us if we fail?"

"I guess so."

The voice speaks one final time. "The challenge will begin in five minutes. Please decide now who will answer the questions. Whoever is answering, please sit behind the desk. For the other person, please stand in the centre of the room, marked with a red circle."

Zack turns back to me again. "Should probably confess, I'm not that smart."

"You literally created one of the most popular video games of the last decade."

"Yeah but gaming stuff makes sense to me. General knowledge, stuff that people expect me to know? Yeah...no."

"Ok. I'll do the questions then. But here, take your jacket, it'll help you stay at least a little dryer."

He shakes his head again. "Nah, you keep it. It's still pretty cold in here."

I'm not sure how he's planning to do this, since I'm definitely going to get most of these wrong.

It's only when I sit behind the desk, that I remember, the voice didn't say anything about not conferring. So I can always ask Zack for help. Two heads are better than one as they say.

Exactly five minutes after the last announcement, the voice says, "your time starts now."