Published at 7th of February 2023 10:58 am

Chapter 131: A Door Without A Key

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"Ohoho, indeed." The old man laughed, as he walked over to the stone door frame and rested his hand on one of the bricks.

"May I ask what brought your attention to this ruin in particular?" The man asked, he turned around and Merlin could see that the old man's gaze was filled with anticipation.

'This is it.' He thought to himself, a smile subconsciously formed on his face, even though he was still trying to hide it.

"What I first found interesting was that out of all the ruins I've seen in this city, this door frame seems to be in the best condition. It hasn't suffered the wear and tear caused by the elements like many of the other ruins." Merlin said, before making his way over to one of the bricks besides the door frame. "And yet this overgrowth and wear on the decorations around the freestanding door frame suggests that it's one of the oldest structures in the city."

The old man's smile formed into a wide grin, and after seeing this, Merlin continued.

"Seeing as the door frame appears to be a permanent structure, purposefully made to perfectly fit its surroundings. It is unlikely that it was replaced hundreds of years after the surrounding structures were made, that wouldn't make sense." Merlin said as he traced his fingers along the supporting pillars on either side of the door frame, the bumpy corroded feeling was then replaced by smooth clean stone once they reached the door frame.

"My only assumption would be that the door frame is magically preserved, but for what reason." He said, "Perhaps it's for a religious reason, but I've never read about a faith that worshipped this sort of structure, nor do I see any trace of followers in this city."

"Which would lead me to my next assumption. Perhaps this faith was ancient, long forgotten and replaced by worship of the new gods. That would explain why there aren't any followers left, but why wouldn't there be any record of such a faith, especially ones capable of such long lasting preservation magic."

"But perhaps I'm going about this the wrong way, what if this isn't the work of humans? Or even elves. For this magic to still retain its strength for hundreds, if not thousands of years, it must have been the work of someone, or something truly adept in magic." Merlin rambled, "Maybe it's the work of a deity, of who the world's memory was lost, or perhaps not ever worshipped in the first place."

"And finally, what is this script above the door frame. What language is it, what is the history and culture behind the language, and what do these words mean?" Merlin concluded his ramblings.

The old man stood there in silence for a moment, just staring at Merlin.

"Wonderful." The old man said as he slowly clapped his hands. "You truly do understand the wonders of this structure."

"One thing however." The old man's grin widened as his eyes locked onto Merlin.

'What? Did I say something wrong?' Merlin wondered as the old man kept him in suspense.

"You keep referring to it as nothing more than a door frame." The old man spoke, "But might I suggest taking a look at it another way."

"What do you mean?" Merlin looked at him with a confused expression, he wasn't sure if the old man was requesting he take a look at from another angle.

The old man kept him in suspense, just long enough for Merlin to notice that the surroundings that were getting darker due to the sun setting, began brightening once more as a full moon peered over the horizon.

"I would suggest thinking of this, not as a door frame, but as a door without a key." The old man said, pointing back towards the structure.

"A door without a ke--" Merlin muttered as his eyes glanced over at the door frame, but his train of thought immediately stopped as he noticed that the text on the door frame was glowing a very faint blue.

Merlin turned back towards the old man to ask him more questions, but as he did, he noticed that the man was gone.

"Where? How did he just?" Merlin was slightly confused as to why he couldn't tell that the man left, and then he just realised that he didn't feel the man approach him either.

Merlin quickly glanced around his surroundings, but the old man was well and truly gone, as if he just vanished.

"A door without a key, huh?" Merlin muttered as he stared at the door frame, the text was slowly getting brighter as the full moon rose, but it was never bright enough to be that obvious.

Merlin could feel his heart beating faster, out of everything he had experienced in this timeline so far, this was the most exciting thing he had come across, a true mystery.

As he rest his hand on the door frame once more, a large quest notification appeared before him.

┌───────────────────

[Hidden Mythical Quest]

A door without a key.

Within Megalopolis stands several ruins from an ancient civilisation scattered around the ever-expanding city.

One of these ruins is a strange stone door frame, seemingly untouched by the ravages of time and the elements. Its surroundings have been ravaged and overtaken by nature, but the frame itself is immaculate, as if it were just made.

But for what reason would a door frame, with seemingly no purpose, have such powerful preservation magic cast upon it, and what being was powerful enough to preserve this structure for such a long time.

An old man had suggested to you that perhaps it's not just a mere door frame, but actually a door, albeit without a key.

But before you could ask him for clarification, he suddenly vanished as quickly as he appeared. Just what meaning do his words hold, and where would you possibly find a key to such an ancient structure, if there even is one?

The door frame seems to react to moonlight, perhaps the key has something to do with the moon?

What about the script above the door frame, perhaps it holds a clue to opening the door, or maybe the words are the key itself?

Figure out a way of opening the mysterious door frame.

• Reward: ???

└───────────────────

"What story are you a part of, I wonder." He mumbled to himself as he accepted the quest.

Merlin stood by the doorway for a few moments more, until a red alert box ruined his view.

┌───────────────────

[Message from the devs!]

Group one, your session will end in five minutes, please find a safe place and log out.

The server will forcibly disconnect those who do not log out in time. Thank you.

└───────────────────

"I wouldn't be able to solve it right away anyway, but it's still disappointing being torn away from it against my will." Merlin muttered to himself before uttering the command, "System logout."

He received the prompt asking him to confirm the logout, he said yes and suddenly the world around him darkened, until his vision was black and he could feel his body suddenly thrust into an endless void, the stability of the floor below leaving him.

Arthur went through the usual steps of being dropped into the white room and slapping the logout button. His body was shocked back awake shortly after, and he waited in the capsule, allowing his body to regain its balance and control over its senses as the machine went through the process of standing upright and opening.

It seemed as though Arthur was the first one to exit, although as he left his capsule, he saw a few other capsules begin the wake up process.

Arthur made his way towards the briefing room, he saw a few of the developers sitting around discussing something so he approached them.

"Oh, hello Arthur." One of the developers spoke up, greeting Arthur as he approached.

"Good evening." Arthur greeted back.

"We were just going over the data for the previous session, what little we could recover, and we noticed that Gaia seems to still love you." One of the developers said, he seemed rather excited. "She made a new protocol and your ID was the only thing within it."

"Oh... Cool. What does that mean exactly?" Arthur asked, playing dumb.

"Ah, ha. Well, the thing is, we don't know." The developer sheepishly scratched the back of his head. "Gaia didn't give any extra information about this protocol, and it's just called 'exceptions'. But she keeps refusing any queries or requests for further explanation."

"Has anything weird happened in-game?" The other developer asked.

"What do you mean by weird?" Arthur asked with a confused expression, it was forced but he tried making it look subtle enough to be considered genuine.

The developer didn't seem to have an answer for that question, so he eventually dropped the topic.

"I got attacked by the rose wight a while back, and then there was the thing with the vampires." Arthur started recounting a few events, "Oh, and I got attacked by statues in an abandoned temple, and there was the cult of Despoina, but that was attached to a different quest I got a couple sessions ago."

"You've encountered so many powerful monsters in only seven days... And the Despoina cult?" One of the developers thought back to all the briefings they had prior and now that he thought about it, Arthur had been attacked by some of the biggest things hidden in the areas he went to, and then something else came to mind. "Wait, have you died yet?"

"No, I've come close a couple times, but I still haven't died." Merlin pretended to think about it for a second before answering.

"Oh... That makes sense." Both developers checked over their notes before coming to a conclusion. "You keep getting challenged by monsters well above the expected skill level and come out alive and victorious, so Gaia considers you an exception."

The developers seem to have come to their own conclusion, but it sort of felt like Gaia was protecting him a little. Or perhaps she just didn't want the developers to get in the way of her curiosity.

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