The dim light from the prism wand barely lit up the corridor but Morey was loathe to waste magic. Lighting up a room required little magic compared to flashy moves like a fireball or spellstorm, but a tiny drain over a long time could still suck one dry.

"Are you sure there's something down here?" He asked Etani behind him.

"Positive," she said, "the prospector said the architecture matches that of the First. "

"What could the First be wanting out here bad enough to build an entire underground base?" Morey muttered to himself. An ancient underground facility at the outskirts of Inath territory, built into the base of a mountain. Was that a mine here? But that prospector also said he didn't see any evidence of any resources.

And the walls of cut stone were nothing like a mine would be. It was proper architecture, people expected to stay in this place.

"And obviously wherever the important things are, they will be at the end of this corridor in the deepest part of the facility?" Morey asked again.

"Of course! The First would want to keep their treasures safe!" Etani said.

Morey sighed. Even normally level headed Etani could go off the hinge when encountering a legend. The old empires of First and Tsar must have had a large impact on these people. Not like Morey would know, not having grown up in Inath.

"Is there something out there?" Nal pointed under Morey's arm.

They stopped and Morey put a bit more magic into the prism containing the liquid Light. Yes, there was a door at the end there. It was dull but metallic and bore no sign of age unlike the walls around them.

He felt no magic from the door but that meant nothing in a First ruin. They supposedly could accomplish wonders with magic.

Etani sucked in a deep breath, "I'll go take a closer look. Stay here but be ready to help me. "

They nodded and Etani began to activate her armour.

Morey had never seen her use every little function she had on it before. The deflection fields, impact resistance, those he knew about. There were far far more than that, as he watched her activate and test each one in turn. He couldn't know what they did unless she told him, but it appeared she was now taking this very seriously.

Faintly glowing with magic, Etani stepped forward gingerly.

Nothing happened all the way until she reached the door itself. Then she gave a choked yelp.

"Wha- This door. It's Crysteel!" she said, touching it lightly with a mailed hand. The spell around her gauntlet vanished entirely. No, not quite, Morey had the distinct feeling it had been sucked into the door.

Nal was gaping next to him, "are you sure?! Who would make an entire freaking door out of that! "

Morey looked between them, "um, what's Crysteel?"

Etani waved them over, "come, it's probably safe. I still don't feel any magic around here and if there's a trap, it would have gone off by now. "

Nal explained as they walked over, "Crysteel is a fusion of Crystal and steel. I've told you about the magic absorbing properties of crystalline mana before but the problem of our shields made of crystal is that it can chip and shatter from powerful strikes. Of course, since it absorbs magic and is immune to physical force until you destroy it, Crystal is impossible to work into any shape except when you're making it. "

Etani gestured at the door and took out a fist sized hammer from her belt. She hefted it then, with only a flare of magic for warning, suddenly smashed it down in a magic empowered strike. With a clang, the metal hammer bounced off the surface hard enough for Morey to feel the shock below his feet. Etani silenced the ringing hammer with another burst of magic.

The door bore only a minute scratch for that effort. Morey peered closely. It barely scraped the surface.

"Crysteel, is probably a mix of crystal and steel, we don't really know," Etani continued the explanation, "somehow, the First have managed to fuse Crystal and steel together. Personally, I think it's a bit more complicated than that. Crysteel is harder than steel and doesn't evapourate when absorbing magic. It's the most wanted material from the era of First and Tsar. My strike just now would have shattered the best armour in the world without magical protection. But it looks like we won't be going through this door so easily. "

Both of them looked even more excited at Etani failing. Morey had no doubts they were imagining the riches hidden behind this door. He did not look forward the inevitable sulk when they found it was just a stupidly secure broom closet or a hidden diary of embarrassing secrets.

"Hey, what's this?" Morey pointed at a metal box set into the wall beside the door. Come to think of it, that box looked a little familiar somehow.

"Hm. I have no idea," Etani said, "but since it's here, I think it might have something to do with the door. "

Nal examined the steel box, set around head height for her. It looked like a rectangular box before, with a slanting section cut out of the front face leaving a strip of metal around the top and sides. In the inset, a series of little squares had been embossed on the surface, set in a six by six square missing the last two on the lower right. The whole box was coated in a thin layer of dust, but there was little rust despite the age. That was probably due to the dry stale air though.

It also really looked familiar. "The First, does anyone know their language?" Morey asked.

"Our language is similar to the First, I hear. But no one speaks their language anymore. It's been three hundred years, you know?" Etani said.

"They read from the left?"

Etani nodded, "yes, that's the archaic way of writing. Some of the oldest surviving books are written in reverse order like the First did. "

"And there are thirty four symbols?"

"Mhm. "

Morey grinned, "right then. This is a password entry box. The people going through the door must have entered a password using these metal squares to open it. Each square would be one character. It's probably magic but I don't know how to activate it. "

The two of them looked at him blankly. Morey just grinned back, no point explaining how much like an ATM pin keypad this thing looked like. They didn't even have moveable type, much less the concept of typewriters and keys for characters.

"I'll work on the magic," Nal said to Etani, "you know more about the First than I do, so you examine the pad for any clues for what characters are for which square. "

"Anything?" Nal said as Etani came back.

Etani shook her head, "nothing in the other rooms. It's been so long, I don't think any records anyone made would have survived this long. "

"Nothing from here too," Nal sighed, "I gave up and tried to probe the box but my magic just went through. I think it's dead. No magic in it at all. "

They shared a mutual sigh of disappointment.

"I don't suppose we'd have any luck forcing the door?" Etani asked despairingly.

Nal sniffed, "you could bring an army in here and this door would outlast our lifetimes. "

"You exaggerate. "

"Not by much. "

They looked glumly at Morey standing in front of the door.

"Do we need to go through this door?" Morey asked.

"Of course we do!" Etani cried, "there could be important artifacts behind this door! Maybe even summoning stones!"

"Those are from Tsar," Nal corrected her, "but yes, who would build such an expensive door just to keep nothing inside?"

Morey shook his head, "no, you don't get what I mean. What we want to do is to get into the room. Not open the door. We don't have to go through the door to get into the room. "

He wasn't actually looking at the door. Only off to one side.

At the stone walls slowly crumbling with age.

"Paper, paper and more paper!" Etani flung her arms up in exasperation, "what's so important about bits of dead trees that the First thought that it should be kept in an underground vault with a crysteel door!"

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

Nal tutted as she carefully opened another box full of documents, "and if it contains information on the nature of the Enemy? What if it speaks of how to reach the Sword? Certainly, they thought this information was important enough to hire an army of scribes and then keep safe. I think we should read it all. "

Morey shook his head quietly. This looked like the file binders he had seen in his father's offices before, on Earth. They weren't ringed files, just boxes of paper held in place by springs that had long since solidified. He had had to pry open the lid by removing the hinges. He gently blew off the thin layer of dust and examined the letters.

The structure of the table was clear at first glance, even if he had no idea what the characters meant. The left side was the labels, the right column was an aligned column of a very limited set of symbols. In fact, there were only nine types on the right. If he had to guess, this was an accounting document. And the paper inside would be detailed records of each individual line.

They had stumbled upon the document repository of some organization. Probably a large and important one, judging from the shelves full of boxy files. It hadn't stopped the organization from fading into obscurity together with the civilization.

After all, only the stupidity of organization processes would be enough to justify such an expensive door without also reinforcing the walls. Or of course that crysteel wasn't a priceless artifact during their era.

"I don't think these are going to be useful to us," Morey said, "But the Academy historians will want to see this archive. "

They looked at him strangely. He pointed out his observations with the records, much to the disappointment of Nal.

"It's all right, Etani," he calmed the woman who looked like she was about to explode, "maybe they will find something useful after all. Somewhere in all this, they might touch on the location of other sites and ancient cities. Let the scholars examine this, carefully, and we'll follow up on any clues it gives us. "

"For what did we burn through the walls then?" she screeched, "how could the First do something this... this crazy!"

Nal tried to sooth the battlemage but Morey could only look at the carefully bored hole in the wall. He had no words to describe the vastness of the civilization of the First that this room implied. An organization that required this much paperwork meant a scale of operations, and the attendant governance that required them to keep these records, that was literally inconceivable to the current denizens of this world. Just the writing required for this was beyond the abilities of all of Inath to muster. Not even their own court records would be this complicated.

"On the other hand, we do have something immediately useful," Morey smiled. He wondered why he hadn't seen that before.

They looked at him strangely, yet again. He grinned and pointed at the door.

"That is made of a precious material. An entire door's worth, in fact. "

Morey fanned the flames a little higher and was rewarded by a welcome sizzle on the cooking pan.

To be honest, he was probably not cut out for being a knight like the Inaths thought he should be. A knight really shouldn't be more happy about getting a new frying pan, even if it was just a thin flat square of armour-grade steel with a handle, than he did getting a new piece of armour.

But neither Nal nor Etani knew how to cook anything other than roast meat. And he was missing the food of Earth already.

"That smells really good," Nal said as she walked up behind him.

"Thanks," Morey said, "it's a recipe from my world. Although it won't taste the same with your ingredients. "

He took the slices of bread from the board and put them down onto the pan. Mmm, bread fried in the fat from Reki meat. A quick flip from the metal scraper turned them over to fry the other side as well.

The smell of the frying seeds stuck in the bread added to the flavours hanging in the air. Too bad the only eggs were from birds that were far too expensive for them to bring on their little quest and Paka milk didn't have the requisite creamy texture of cow milk. He would have liked to do better than imitation french toast.

"How come you know how to cook too?" Nal asked as she examined the stone firepit with cut bricks holding up the pan, "and build something like this. I've only ever eaten at campfires or portable kitchens. "

Morey shrugged, "I was a Scout. For a few months. "

"You joined the army? What do the Scouts do in your world?" Nal asked.

Morey smiled sadly, "the Scouts is an organization in my world. They teach outdoor activities, how to camp, how to prepare food and how to navigate. They started from a military origin but they're not military. I joined because my father pushed me to. "

"Scouts are not soldiers?" Nal raised an eyebrow, "your army must have been very strange. "

Morey laughed. The misconception was far too vast for him to bridge. "My world has not fought a large war in some time," he explained as he replaced the finished pieces of bread with slices of meat, "very few people are in the army. "

"Then you had no war? That's nice," Nal sighed wistfully.

"No war? Of course not. We don't have monsters sure, but we fight each other," he looked at the shocked look on her face, "it wasn't that long ago before the countries making up the Inath federation were fighting each other. "

He sighed at her shock dissolving into disbelief, "it's worse to be fighting humans than monsters. When my father first let me read about the two world wars and the Battle of Verdun, I would not be ashamed to admit I cried from the horror of it. The number dead from each of those wars were... well, put it this way, if you took the bodies of the dead and packed them like sardines... sorry, that's a phrase from my world... the field of the dead would stretch further than the eye can see. Far be it for me to say this, but those armies would laugh at this Enemy of yours and crush it within a month, magic or no. "

Perhaps it was his face but Nal looked uncomfortable and changed the topic quickly. "How do you know all this?" she whispered, "I mean, you can fight, you can cook, you even know enough history of your world to be worthy of a scholar. Even Etani looked to you when we were exploring these ruins. You are a Hero so I suppose it's not strange that you know everything but you said that you aren't special in your world. "

"You can blame my father," Morey spoke as he continued to cook dinner, "he was an important businessman, director of an international company. I followed him around the world as he traveled through many countries and got to try many things. I dipped my toes in many fields, but I could never dedicate myself seriously. "

He slid the last of the bread off the pan and scraped the meat onto the single bowl they had. "Well, you could say that I'm a jack of all trades," Morey smiled ruefully as she just looked confused, "it means that I learnt a bit of everything but I'm not good at any of it. "

"Is magic just another thing you're learning?" Nal muttered to herself. She gulped when she realized Morey had heard it and apologized, "I'm sorry. I meant-"

Morey shook his head, "it's all right. I don't know the answer myself anyway. "

They stood around feeling awkward for a moment. Then the tension was lost when Etani came out of the tent.

"That smells nice!" Etani said, "maintaining armour really gets me hungry. You should do your share too you know, Morey. "

He snorted as she swiped a piece of fried bread, "I'd have less time to cook. You sure about that?"

She bit into the fried bread and looked at it in surprised pleasure. "Your threats are surprisingly effective," Etani admitted.

They shared a round of laughter as they sat around the cooking fire to eat.