Kahli dissolved her big rock and prepared to trek through the dredges of destruction left in the wake of G'athoong's battle with the mega bird. However, she had something to do first. She beheld the [enchanted] necklace from the water dragon and analyzed it with her system.

[Necklace of Wokefulness (enchanted)]

[Goodbye, deep sleep! As long as you're wearing this neat trinket, you're going to find your mind is absolutely buzzing when it's time to go to sleep. Benefits of this include increassed wakefulness to the point that you'll always feel like you had a cup of coffee about half an hour or so ago - not enough to make you feel jittery, but plenty enough to keep you feeling nice and alert. You'll wake up if anybody messes with you while you sleep, or if anything similar happens - like, for example, you slide off the side of a dragon's back while it's being captured, much like water off a duck's. And, you'll notice that you'll get warnings if you're going to pass out - in the event that you don't sleep for an extended period of time, or possibly if you're just super exhausted from go, go, going as fast as you can. Also, you'll be able to stay up for up to three days time before you start feeling the need to automatically pass out. Also, you'll notice that you'll feel incredibly wokeful at all times.]

Kahli did a bit of a double take at her system. Wokeful? I thought it was supposed to be wakeful.

[Clarification: No, it is the Necklace of Wokefulness. G'athoong just misspoke. She was, of course, on the verge of disintegrating into billions of water droplets, so try to give her the benefit of the doubt here.]

Kahli figured that was fair enough, but she still felt that it was a little silly. Still, she equipped the necklace.

[Necklace of Wokefulness equipped]

Kahli noticed immediately that she felt more awake than she had - not super more awake, just slightly more awake. It was just as her system had described - it was like she'd just had a cup of coffee about an hour or so ago and was feeling a decent amount of wakeful - or wokeful? - ness.

"Whatever. Alright, Froufrou, are you ready to go into these ruins?"

Froufrou squelched with anticipation, and Kahli could see why. As they walked down that wooded pathway, flanked by hedges and thorny vines and strange, forested noises, an aura of deep mystique echoed within her mind. It was tall, tall as a skyscraper. How old was this ruin, exactly? It almost looked like an enormous knee jutting out and up into the sky. A couple of small, winged creatures swooped around and caw-cawed a strange little noise that was characteristic of a sneeze echoing in a cup. It was haunting. What's more, the thronging height of the entrance of the ruin was foreboding, and angular, and as Kahli stepped slowly under its umbra it revealed to her its own eerie echoes. What was Kahli to find in here?

She quickly approached a tall, oval shaped doorway with runic lettering all over it. Unfortunately, this script was not in eldenscript, as Kahli had immediately hoped... Or, if it was in eldenscript, it was in some older disambiguation of eldenscript that Kahli could not yet grasp, which was disappointing. However, as she looked to the insides of the entryway, the entryway's walls as it were, she was happy to notice copious amounts of eldenscript carved crudely into its sides.

Kahli walked up to these side walls and squinted. What would she find?

WARNING! Those with rigid expectations should journey no further.

Kahli knew not what that meant, but she found it a little silly.

Do not read this.

Kahli just started to feel like this was incredibly silly. Who just wrote something, left it out there, and then told you not to read it? Well, one thing was for certain - Kahli was absolutely going to read it.

What you will find within here is not clear cut or familiar.

Kahli sighed. Was this going to just keep going on and on?

Do not be fooled. Appearances are not what they seem. These are not just simple ruins.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Kahli stopped reading. That was so obnoxious. Who would keep reading something so aggrandizing? She sighed. Somebody was having too much fun with eldenscript on the side of the entryway to these ruins, that much was for certain. She looked around further, to see even more writings - although these seemed to be in different handwritings. So, different taumans had left their mark here in eldenscript. Interesting...

Cahrl was here!

Shamahntha stole my hair dryhing enchantment, and she is incredibly petty.

Fuck you!

Theseosus? More like, Theseo-sucks, am I right?

Kahli scowled. Clearly, much of this was just your run of the mill graffiti. For some reason, she'd thought that the fact that it was in eldenscript would mean that it was significant. Apparently, even people centuries ago - five or otherwise - were just as obnoxious and crude as present day. It was disappointing, but Kahli figured that she could chalk this up as a learning experience. No matter the time, she figured, people would be people, and that made enough sense to her.

Next, Kahli walked up to the big, oval shaped door. It was sealed shut, and she didn't immediately see a way to open it, but of coruse what she did see was the runic markings the were decidedly not eldenscript - or at least, not a version of eldenscript that she could decipher.

Kahli looked around the door. Was there... a doorknob? No, of course not. It seemed flush with the wall save for the small crack that separated it from the wall and defined its oval shape. What a shame. How was she supposed to, after all this time, go... into the ruins?

Kahli was feeling mighty frustrated. She wondered if she'd need to go into combat mode to make this work. She was feeling pretty irritated, so she decided to go ahead and use her [Barrage of Blows] [skill] to punch and kick the door a bunch of times. Unfortunately, that didn't really succeed in doing anything other than making her hands and feet quite sore.

"Ugh! Are you seriously telling me that Taubitha just does this willingly, all the time in order to level up?" Kahli looked into her purse at Froufrou, who squelched dubiously. "Yea, you're right, Froufrou - Taubitha is a crazy lady, she's, she's some sort of a maniac. I can't imagine wanting to punch a wall like that. I mean, wow, Theseosus' pincers, that was a horrible experience. Really, I feel silly for even doing it in the first place."

Next, Kahli did what she figured she should've done in the first place. She summoned up her big rock, and used her energy to make it even bigger. Once her rock had grown as large as possible, Kahli kicked it as far away from the door as she could, watching it zoom away. Soon enough, as usual, it turned back around in an arc and quickly, very quickly, caught flame - this one was blue - and shot right back over to that door and slammed right into it in a blast of dust and smoke!

When everything settled, Kahli focused her vision and gasped. Her rock was gone, and the door seemed... completely unscathed. It looked as if nothing had even happened to it! There wasn't even a scratch! No scorch marks, nothing at all!

"You've got to be kidding me," said Kahli with a sigh. "I just... wowie. Just... wow. This is absurd, honestly. If only I had timelines down here by my big left foot to look at, maybe I could-"

And then, Kahli gasped, and she jumped, and actually stumbled and tumbled backwards, landing on her backside in a brisk pain.

What she saw was difficult to believe, that much was for certain. See, Kahli saw three carvings in the ground - three circular shapes, and in each of those shapes she saw carvings that looked like timelines? Timelines? Carvings of timelines?

Did that mean that whoever carved this had a [skill] like hers? That had to be the only explanation, right? Kahli wasn't certain. Still, carved into the ground looked to be three cartoon effigies of timelines. One showed the door shooting out a bunch of spikes and killing the observer.

"Classic first scenario right there, huh, Froufrou?" Kahli said with a smirk.

The next circle included a carving of the door slightly cracking open, but then a trapdoor opening as well, and then everything in either doorway being dark and imperceptible. A textbook scenario two experience - interesting, and made her want to know more, but no conclusive end or answer.

The last one, just showed a carving of the door sliding open to reveal an old, torchlit hallway.

"Well, Froufrou, I think whoever carved this had [Seismic Sense], or something akin to it. This is the clearest representation of what we see with that [skill] that someone could recreate, there's really no question. The only question is, I guess, who carved it? And what does it do?"

Froufrou squelched.

Then, Kahli had an idea. If these ground carvings were anything like her [skill], then she had to select one, didn't she? So, with that, she took her big left foot - not out of necessity, but out of habit and tradition - and she placed it right on that third carving. With that, she noticed a faint but obviously present blue light circle around her selection.

Then, with a loud creaking and the movement of gravel and dust, the door began to revolve in a clockwise motion. Slowly, but surely, it rolled aside, opening up into - as Kahli had rightly expected - a thronging hallway lit by torchlight. Only, the torchlight had been blue. She certainly hadn't been expecting that, but overall, she wasn't all that surprised. This made perfect sense, except the part where some ancient tauman had had her [skill]. Kahli had never heard of time-based [skills] before. She wondered why, if apparently they'd existed for so long?

Either way, the open doorway beckoned to her. Finally, it was time for Kahli and Froufrou to go... into the ruins!