[Primary Skill: Alter-Ego | Type: System/Clone ]
Rarity: System
Desc: Created by the System for its most important subordinate, it was made to aid the subordinate in using two identities at once, with no possibility of connection. Note: As this is a System skill, no alteration may be made to the skill in any way, whether it be by merging classes, trying to tier up the skill, or adding skills to its sub-skill slots, of which it has none.
Subskills:
Unique Origin - Because all origin skills are unique to the individual, the Alter-Ego will have a unique skill too, selected from a combination of several traits of the User’s choice.
* Grants the Alter-Ego a fully functional independent Origin Skill. User can influence the outcome somewhat. Limitations may apply.
Isolated Will – The Alter-Ego is another body, which means it must be capable of functioning without directly being controlled, and when in isolated pocket realms and regions without access to its other counterpart.
* Grants the Alter-Ego a semi-independent consciousness. Spiritual energy signature will be slightly different. The Alter-Ego’s consciousness will act, for all intents and purposes, as a second soul, when disconnected from the User.
Controlled Form – The Alter-Ego is not used as a second copy of the User. It will have another identity separate from the User and therefore must have its own looks, classes, skills, and abilities.
* Grants the User customisation of the Alter-Ego before release, including selecting race, classes, bloodline, titles, aspects, skills, physical features, and affinities. Limitations may apply.
System-backing – Without verification, any Alter-Ego would fail to pass identity checks. The System will take care of this for you.
* Grants the Alter-Ego a ‘backstory’ customisable by the User. The System will support all details if there are no contradictions in the backstory.
[ ]
Scytale let out a low whistle, or the equivalent mental message of one.
‘So, if I’m seeing this right, you can make an exact copy of yourself from the past, and the System will back you by inputting your fake details as true in the records available to others? I can see why you wanted this. I still feel like its infiltration potential is wasted with your plan though.’
What do you mean wasted? I AM infiltrating with this. Besides, it’s not made for gaining extra strength. What good would it do for me to know some more ‘secrets’ of the other Factions anyway?
‘I suppose we already know enough to make it worth it for them to kill our future 50 generations of descendants. So, going to start it?’
Yep.
…
The next day, a girl with a mask and her unusually fluffy snake made their way through the city gates at 5 am. Normally that was a time without much traffic, but it was not that day, as they headed along with several hundred others to the forest outside the city. It seemed Scytale’s signal had worked. They followed the travellers through the forest to make it to the large open field within, which had expanded again to accommodate all those waiting. They sat down in the grass together, ready for it to begin, next to the other thousands of people.
At exactly 7:00, everyone felt the ground tremble and they looked towards the centre of the field. Quickly rising out of the ground was a white marble building with golden banners decorating it. On top was a giant bronze bowl filled with roaring fire, while above the hundred-metre-wide doors was a large clock. The building resembled a museum; however, it was much, much larger than any museum back on Earth. When the trembling stopped, the building could reach 50 stories in height. Everyone looked off into the air, gazing at the System message that had appeared in their field of view.
[System-wide Announcement: The Decennial Inheritance Trials Permanent Event has opened in the Beast Realm at Grove of Snarling Fangs City, the Wolvenheim Greenwood Region. It will last for a month before being reopened in ten years. Status and Status notifications are unavailable within the Event.]
‘Permanent Event’ didn’t mean it was permanently open. It meant that, unlike the Temporary Millennial Chapter Event, which changed each time, the System was usually not going to remove the feature in the near future. The situation Lucille experienced was incredibly rare.
But that gave the System some leeway to only make it accessible at certain times, and for that reason, everybody in the field dashed towards the entrance of the building so they could make it before the several million Users in the other realms teleported to the city. Even Lucille decided to speed up a bit. The total population of the Tower realms could reach several trillion in number, so even if most had already completed their Inheritance Trials, many were planning on turning up out of the percentage of those who hadn’t completed the event.
Finally pushing past the rush of people on the marble steps to enter through the massive doorway, everything went black for Lucy and Scytale, like the Obelisk. When they woke up, they found themselves standing in a dark hallway. The floor was made of dark-grey marble tiles, crisscrossed with gold filaments, and the walls a polished black brick. As they walked, it made a dim echo, and their only light was from the yellow glow of the bronze ceiling lamps, shaped like mini chandeliers, or leaking from under the ornate doors spaced every two metres from each other. The hallway was roughly seven-metres-wide, and neither Lucy nor Scytale could see an end behind them or in front. When she tried to expand her perception field, she found it wouldn’t, and she was restricted to her body’s senses.
She looked at the winged snake on her left. “Remember how it works?”
“Yep. If you’re looking for a specific trial with relation to you, a door with symbology related to that Faction will appear. You just need to pick the right one. But we have no relation to it though.”
“Then we need to take the lift.”
“There’s a lift?”
“Only if you look for it.”
They walked down the tiled hallway, her boots clicking against the hard surface of the ground, and Scytale’s scales sliding across them. Occasionally they both paused as they heard strange echoes coming from behind some of the ornate doors. One haphazardly bolted door even rattled as they heard snarls of creatures behind it. They both ignored it, carrying on. Eventually, Scytale noticed something.
“Is there something at the end of the corridor? I thought the corridors were endless?”
“The space within the Mansion functions based on the desires and expectations of its inhabitants. It is known to be one of the trickiest places to navigate without a comprehensive understanding of how the spiritual realm and magic interact.”
“You’re making it sound like this mansion is not just a feature of the Inheritance Event.”
Lucille just grinned at him and kept on walking towards the end. Scytale grumbled good-naturedly.
“Fine, keep your secrets.”
He could read her mind for the answer if he wanted, but that was too much effort, so he followed her from slightly behind. When they got to the end, they stopped before what looked like a bronze cage, but with black tinted glass between the spaces, set into the wall. They both looked up to see the level indicator for the lift. It almost looked like something that was created in the 19th century, with a brass semi-circle-shaped border and a little arrow in the centre pointing to the ‘level’ they were on. The engraved bronze nameplate above read ‘The Non-Euclidean Space Elevator’.
“This doesn’t look like any space elevator I know.”
“The emphasis is on non-Euclidean space, and not space elevator, so you could probably also call it the Elevator of Non-Euclidean Space. Although, if you believe it can take you into outer space, it just might do that.”
She pressed the bell-shaped button on the right, so a small metallic ding rang out, and the tinted glass of the cage brightened. With a rattling noise, the bronze door retracted like a sliding glass door into the wall, revealing a likewise bronze cage-like structure. Lucy stepped in and Scytale followed, who inspected the dome-like area with intrigue. Similar to a birdcage, there was a hard circular floor, before the straight metallic bars of the lift curved up to meet in the centre over their heads. On a brass metal plate attached to the side of the cage near Lucy’s waist height, there were eight buttons engraved with strange icons. Connected to a small tube coming down from the top of the cage was a black-painted metal trumpet-shaped speaker, like that of an old gramophone.
When Scytale tried to look up past the roof of the cage, all he could see was a thick rope holding them, ascending to who knows where. When he looked down, the stone tube-shaped elevator shaft they were in just showed dark curling mist past a certain point, the bottom invisible. The winged snake shivered.
“I’ve seen some stuff, but this has got to be among the top weirdest places I’ve been. I am under no delusions that this is just a normal System Event now.”
Lucille shrugged.
“Truth be told, the System never made this. This ‘mansion’ is the weakened materialisation of a construction built from concepts rather than anything from the physical realms. Most races are going to find it creepy to some extent, as it’s not truly ‘here’.”
The snake just gave her a sideways glance. “That ‘most’ not including you, because you don’t experience the mortal concept of ‘fear’.”
“I don’t want to die?”
“That’s not the same thing. Anyway, what do we do now?”
Lucy hummed and looked around. The buttons had strange symbols that she hadn’t seen before, so she had no clue what would happen if she pressed them. She tapped a finger against the metal plate of the buttons.
“It can’t be that you don’t know how to activate this thing, right?”
“Patience. It’s likely to be a puzzle. Several features of the Mansion never change, and the Non-Euclidean Space Elevator is one of them. The requirements to activate it may change, however.”
“’ Likely’? Someone just decided when building this that they’re going to make it full of fun puzzles? For what, a reality tv show? It’s more likely to be a death trap with that way of thinking.”
She raised an eyebrow even as she was leaning over, inspecting the mist below them while holding on to the cage door.
“The Mansion was built using the concepts of Mystery, the Mind, Tests, Imagination and Steampunk, to name a few. Be glad the System put limiters on this place because otherwise, it would’ve created a death trap just because you said that.”
“Created… Wait, ‘Steampunk’? really?”
She looked back at the snake. “I’d assume it’s for the aesthetics,” she responded. Then she looked at the door and hit her forehead with her hand while the snake gazed at the cage in bemusement, pondering over the mentality of the Mansion’s creator.
“I’m an idiot,” she grumbled, pulling the door of the elevator cage closed. The instant she did so, the lift started rumbling and yellow light flooded the cage, the symbols on the buttons glowed with blue light, and a short tune came out of the speaker above their heads before they heard someone coughing softly, a male voice sounding from it.
“You are currently using the Non-Euclidean Space Elevator, so I have to inform you of some information," he said.
"These are the current rules for the levels: 1st button on the top left is for the blackout space. It will send you back outside to wherever you entered from."
"The 2nd button below that is for the duplication field, just in case you need to get an extra one of your artifacts,” he explained.
“The 3rd is for the anomaly research laboratories. If you’re heading there, please do not enter the wrong lab without following the required procedures."
"The 4th below is for the museum. Don’t touch anything sealed behind the perma-glass."
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"Now, on the top right, the 5th button. That’s for the current Event, so don’t enter unless you are part of it."
"The 6th below that is a null zone. Unless you wish to have a really bad day, don’t enter that level.”
Both Lucy and Scytale traded sour looks at that statement.
“The 7th is the sealed zone. Don’t enter this one either unless you want to distort it into something that’s not you. If you still don’t know where to go, press the 8th button on the bottom right. That will call me again to help. Have a good day.”
And with the little tune playing one last time, the speaker fell silent, leaving Lucy and Scytale to ponder on the implications of what happened.
Lucy recovered quicker, shaking her head, and pushed the 8th button. The speaker sounded again, this time without any tune.
“….you’re still here,” returned the voice, sounding slightly irritated. Lucy just smiled.
“Unfortunately. We do have a real issue though,” she added.
The voice sighed. “Well then, let’s hear it.”
“But first, could I know your name? You didn’t introduce yourself,” she asked lightly.
“…..Marcus,” he said with a flat voice that suggested he didn’t understand why she wanted such information.
“What’s your job? I’ve never heard of there being someone responsible for this mansion.”
“I’m the head researcher of the Department of Dimensional Anomalies.”
“Oh? How large is this department?”
“We have about two hundred people here. Was there anything else?” he said, sounding increasingly exasperated.
She smirked. “I do have a question. I entered the elevator to find a specific trial from the Inheritance Trials event, but it seems more complex than I anticipated to locate it. How would I do so?”
She heard a low mutter of ‘Why is a User here’ before he coughed loudly and spoke up.
“Which trial? Just send out your spiritual energy, we can detect it from over here.”
She did so, and she heard him humming through the speaker as he worked in the background.
“I see. Okay, press button 5 and six doors down on your right will be the trial. Do you need anything else?”
She was about to shake her head while half-stepping out of the now-open elevator, before stopping and looking back up at the speaker.
“Marcus, there is one more thing….”
His sigh rattled the speaker. “I figured. What is it?”
Lucy’s eyes narrowed as she smiled.
“Will you and the department continue to exist after talking to me?”
There was silence as Scytale looked at her in dawning realisation, and Marcus seemed to have frozen, completely quiet. And then, an uproar of noise erupted from the speaker as multiple people seemed to be talking over each other before Marcus’s voice could be heard yelling over the top of them.
“Enough! We’ll speak on this later.”
Sounding dreadfully weary, he spoke to Lucille. “Due to your input, we have just been informed by our... facilities, that the Department of Dimensional Anomalies has become a permanent addition to this place, and about the fact that we are now existing, but hadn’t been before we spoke to you.”
Lucy nodded with a bright smile on her face.
“Well, thank you for answering my question, Marcus. I hope to see you again next time.”
And with that, she stepped back out into the dark hallway, Scytale right behind her. Behind, Marcus let out a final sigh through the speaker.
“The feeling is not mutual.”
…
“Is this it?”
“What do you think of when you think of money?”
“Gold?”
“And what metal is this?”
“…..gold.”
“Then the likelihood of this being the trial we want is high. Especially considering it is exactly 6 doors away from where the Elevator was behind us.”
Scytale went to turn, but Lucy stopped him.
“Don’t look back. The Elevator might move, and then we won’t be 6 doors away anymore, and then this trial might not be correct, which leads to a whole host of more complications. If you’re still suspicious, look more closely at the door.”
They were currently inspecting what looked like a solid gold door, but encrusted with all kinds of gemstones, forming patterns. The door was about a head taller than her, and everything from its door handle to its hinges was completely gold. She traced the outlines of the gemstone mosaic, but rather than uniform square pieces creating the design, the pieces were cut to fit into the carved gorges and deepened lines of the burnished gold, creating a minor 3D effect when viewing.
She squatted to point at the picture on the bottom. “This one,” she began, “Shows all the members of this noble family having red hair, indicated by the ruby used on their heads. I can tell they are nobles because the silver circlet they all have around their foreheads,” she said, indicating the position of it on her head, “Is a ceremonial item traditionally worn by the Eternal Empire’s nobles today when the noble clan they are subservient to has a successor take up their inherited position. These nobles are shown crafting weapons and offering them to their master, which is a feature of the weapon clan I’m thinking of.”
She pointed to the one beside it. “These blue guys, like all the members of the four noble clans shown here, also wear circlets, and are not depicted as a warring clan but owners of these massive white villas and diamond cities in the background, showing they own estate and large pieces of land.” She straightened up to gesture to the third one. “These guys are depicted wearing onyx robes and are shown as controlling the other nobles without circlets with long pieces of string, and also killing some of the nobles who disagreed with their master.”
She pointed to the last noble family. “These guys are dressed in silver. Rather than have any similar job, they are shown gathering money and sealing it in vaults. But at the end of it all at the very top,” she said, reaching up to tap on the spot above her, “All four noble clans can be seen offering their weapons, buildings, the enemy heads and their money to the guy in the centre, who has gold hair and sits on a throne, and a chalice overflowing with jewels on his lap.”
She leaned back to take the whole thing in, before turning to the snake. “The System designs all these doors itself, so there can be no misunderstanding the message of the image on this one.”
“Yeah, okay, I’m convinced. Ready to begin?”
She nodded, and with a relaxed smile, pushed on the golden door handle. Shading her eyes to get used to the light emitting from the room behind the door, she shut it and took in the sight before her with Scytale.
The hall in front of her appeared like a throne room. There was a grey, stone seat at the back of the room, three steps leading up to it, but what had caused the light wasn’t that. Rather, it was the mounds of gold coins and piles of treasure, such as gemstones, weapons, and magic items, that were on either side of them. The throne in the centre of the massive hall was a bit underwhelming in comparison.
“How much do you want to bet that the throne has the puzzle mechanism?”
“I’m not taking a losing bet.”
Walking forward, they found in several places they had to wade through knee-deep trinkets and coinage just to get past it all to reach the throne. Lucy had thought that maybe the reason it was raised above the ground was not to look down on people, but rather to make sure the seated person did not drown under the immense weight of the gold. They made it to the seat of dark-grey polished stone and inspected it curiously. Embedded in the highest point of the throne back was a dull, round yellow stone of some kind, and 5 empty sockets underneath. When Lucy went behind the throne, she found a strange glass screen set in a silver frame and a note stained with age within a dark wooden box, hidden in the stone drawer beneath the seat. She and Scytale read the note curiously, sitting on the ground.
“The King of Gold left 5 gems of wonder within his treasure room, once part of his throne of power, but they have gone unfound for centuries. Use the seeing glass to identify the items within this hall and recover the treasures of old.”
“Cool! There are soooo going to be cursed objects within this hall! But is this task that dangerous?”
She scoffed, jabbing a finger at the note. “If the task was easy, it wouldn’t have taken centuries to complete it. Although, that’s probably a lie because plenty of people have passed the first trial room for this place.”
She picked up the glass frame and tilted it with intrigue. Deciding it needed more inspection, she removed her mask, peering at the seeing glass with her right eye’s shimmering golden iris.
“I haven’t seen you use that yet. What does it do?”
“Well,” she said, placing back down the magnifying glass lookalike. “I can use it on items to see their descriptions, just like any normal inspection skill. However, I can also stop it from showing me their item sheets so they appear… different than what a normal inspection skill can show. I tend to see small strands of different kinds of mana forming shapes and structures around and within it, and there’s this multi-coloured gaseous haze that appears to surround them. I need to use my spiritual energy to detect it better, but it seems to show me the ‘concepts’ imbued in the items when they were crafted.”
Scytale tilted his head. “How does that work on a User?”
Lucille looked at the roof for a second in thought before looking back down at the seeing glass and replacing her mask, the hard black material fixing itself to her face.
“The same gaseous haze appears, but it generally has more structure to it, occasionally forming into weapons or other vague objects, like shields, spell tomes, and staves. But I can also see this hazy semi-translucent crystalline barrier that appears whenever they manipulate their mana, moulding the mana into more defined shapes,” she told him. “I’m not entirely certain, but I’m seeing some patterns, and I think it could be them activating their skills. I can also see matching spherical forms of multi-coloured energy below their hearts within them resonating with their mana usage, so I’m likely to be on the right track.”
Scytale nodded, and she lifted the glass for him to see.
“It appears to be purely white in my vision, meaning it’s probably a System-made object, but it’s an analysis object. However, it’s made to describe the least rare items as the best, and the higher rarity items as the worst. I think it might also describe cursed weapons in a good light too.”
“It’s times like these that I wish I had my human form back. Wings and a tail are not very good at picking up items.”
Lucy nodded and stood up from where she had been sitting, stretching, and then looked around.
“I guess we start searching. Most people would just pick the items with the fanciest descriptions and try to find a way to fit them into the throne’s sockets. At least we know the ones with the worst descriptions are likely to be the ones we need.”
“Then why is there so much other stuff? There are better ways to create a trial room.”
She inspected the nearest item, a silver dagger, that was next to her foot.
“Perhaps it’s a lesson in not acting on greed?”
“Like that scene in that movie with the lamp and the cave?”
“Possibly. Please don’t go setting off any lava.”
The two of them collected a bunch of items, deciding it was the quickest way to go about it, and sat down next to each other, sorting the items into groups of ‘definitely cursed, maybe cursed and suspiciously vague’. The first pile held all the items that were too good to be true and the second had items that were somewhere in the middle between possible and unlikely. That last pile was an assortment of broken shards, strange ornaments, and anything with a very weird description. Scytale nudged a golden chalice with a green emerald embedded into its side towards her.
“What’s the description for this? The emerald is about the same size as the stone throne’s sockets.”
“This solid gold chalice was used by the King of Gold to drink his favourite wine. The emerald within was a local specialty of one of his subordinates’ domains and given to him when he first rose to power.”
“That fits the suspiciously vague category. Think it might be one of them?”
“Unlikely. If it was a silver chalice, then I would potentially agree.”
“Why?”
She picked it up to look at it closer, twirling its handle between her fingers.
“Silver turns black when it comes in contact with several poisons, so is most often used in making noble cutlery and dishes. Considering it’s not made of silver, and there’s no hint of a poison-detecting enchantment on the item, it could be a symbolic item that poisoned the Founder in this setting, meaning it’s more likely to be cursed. Also, the green colour of an emerald is normally associated with poison.”
“Sounds sketchy enough. Into the ‘too good to be true’ pile you go.”
After Lucy placed it back down, they continued to inspect all the items, occasionally getting up to collect more. When they were nearing the end of their item collecting, they had to start digging deep into the larger piles of coins. Eventually, they managed to find what seemed to be all of them. Magic items were much rarer than the coins within the room. Scytale tilted his head, curious about something.
“Why collect them all? Shouldn’t we only look for items of a certain size or ones with jewels?”
She answered him without looking up. “You know the System doesn’t necessarily limit the solutions to its Events like a game on Earth. If you can create a shortcut straight to the end, you could do so. In the same vein, multiple scenarios could occur in the trial rooms of the inheritance event. There may be a secret passageway in here that could give us hidden rewards.”
“WHAT?! Then why are we still doing this if we could do that?!”
She looked up at him with a strange expression.
“Why would I need to get them when completing the trial lets me own everything within anyway?”
“…oh yeah.”
She shook her head wryly and continued, “These multiple scenarios are also the reason why we are trying to avoid placing any potentially cursed gems inside those sockets. It’s quite likely that if we got even one wrong, we would have to fight a monster matching the theme of the cursed gem, or even have another stage added to the trial. If we got them all wrong, we might actually drown ourselves in lava,” she added. “Also, the System is quite clever with how it hides its solutions, like this,” she said, pulling a bulky box from the ‘definitely cursed’ pile closer to them.
“Yeah, what is this?”
“I think…” she answered, flipping the metal latch of the box open and folding it out.
“Yep. This seems to be some sort of variant of senet, the Egyptian board game. It has two sections when you flip the top of the box open, so there seem to be two boards. The description says, ‘This item can manipulate the forces of war from behind the scenes using its pawns, driving your opponent to take wrong actions without them knowing and offering you victory.’”
“The wood of the box is pitch black. And I’m pretty sure those white pawns are made of carved bone.”
“Well, I’m obviously not going to use it. However, if I press this,” she said, pushing her finger against one side of the box’s half, “There’s a secret compartment.” The side made a clicking noise and when she let go with her finger, it sprung back to reveal a sliding draw. Pulling it out, they saw a milky-coloured semi-translucent stone rolling within. She picked it up and read out the description, holding the seeing glass above it.
“A mana-less stone used by the king to play marbles with his friends.”
“Okay. Now we know how vague the System is going for. But I have another question.”
She looked at him, slightly exasperated. “You’re unusually curious about the System and its ways of doing things since we’ve come back.”
“I didn’t exactly have the time to ask you about your research when we were battling planetary-sized behemoths in the past, and my sealed memories aren’t doing me any favours. Anyway, is there actually a ‘King of Gold’? I mean, the whole story of this trial is kinda cliche, but all the item descriptions are far too put together and it’s making me suspicious.”
“The System always makes its Events have a story or flow of some kind. It has something to do with ‘Influence’, but on a much wider scale. I suppose letting its Users take part in grand epics solidifies their Identities better. This ‘King of Gold’ is more a metaphor for the Faction’s Founder than anything.”
“Influence. That’s the thing that allows some min-maxing to work, right? Oh, and functions as identity verification for the System to see if we’re legit.”
She shook her head, feeling vexed. “You have missed sooo many details in your description, but whatever. Let’s get back to work.”
Around half an hour later, they put down the items and looked at their three piles. ‘definitely cursed’ was actually in the middle, with ‘maybe cursed’ having the largest height, and ‘suspiciously vague’ being the shortest.
Scytale spoke up,“So do we keep looking for secret compartments?”
“We can check, but it’s probably not going to be used by the System more than once more. The whole ‘lesson’ of this room seems to be avoiding fakes and scam items, so I think we need to check the ‘suspiciously vague’ pile with different characteristics in mind.”
She picked up the seal stamp next to her. It had a green jewel as its handle, rather than normal wood. “If it’s a gem of ‘wonder’, it’s likely to be unique or odd in some way. This white marble we have here has silvery flecks that move inside of it like a snow globe when we shake it. We also need to consider the mana characteristic of the gems. This stamp has an emerald on its handle. It also has several other colours within its centre, meaning it may be a valuable commodity for jewellery due to how pretty it looks. However, the colours represent traces of other minerals within the emerald, meaning it has low purity, and may not function well as a catalyst for magic, which requires accurate equipment.”
She placed the stamp down and looked at Scytale. “This means it isn’t a ‘wonder’ when it comes to magic. High-grade gemstones are more likely to be in the ‘definitely cursed’ pile as they are used for stronger items, so if we find one in this pile, it could be one of the stones we need.”
Scytale nodded in understanding and they both began to search through the ‘suspiciously vague’ pile, which had about 50 items. They eventually narrowed it down to around 10 that could have the gemstones they needed. Scytale abruptly looked up to ask Lucy a question.
“You said the story created by the System always flows, right? So would this trial follow an overall theme?”
She nodded with a smile. “That’s correct.”
“So, we need specific colours in our gemstones. If I say the yellow stone on the throne matches the ‘gold’ hair of the Founder, the rest should follow that theme as well. This white stone doesn’t exactly match the silver of the clan on the door, but it does bear a resemblance due to the silver flecks within it. If that’s the case, we need a red, blue, and black stone, or something similar. I don’t know about the 5th stone.”
She nodded in agreement, and they separated the 10 items. There were 2 red items, 1 blue, 3 black, 2 green and 1 violet.
“What now?”
She smiled. “Now we just check which gemstones can pop out of their item. It wouldn’t do for the System to give us an impossible job.”
Doing that gave them 2 red, 1 blue, 2 black, 1 green and 1 violet gemstone. Scytale cocked his head at them.
“Now how do we narrow them down?”
She held up the white stone. “Remember what it said? The ‘King of Gold’ used this stone to play marbles with his friends. If his friends are represented by the stones, then we need spherical smooth stones that can also function as marbles.”
Scytale flicked his tongue. “That makes sense. But then we need to choose between the green and violet gemstones for the fifth gem. Do we just guess?”
She looked down, thinking for a bit, before reaching out to grab the violet one. “We’ll go with this.”
“Huh? Why?”
She got up, the other four stones in hand, and smirked at the winged snake. “Come on, you know just as well as me what violet means when it comes to magic.”
Scytale looked at it closely for a second before shaking his head. “Of course. If there’s going to be a ‘gem of wonder’ it will be that one, won’t it.”
They made their way over to the throne. Lucy read the note one last time to check they hadn’t missed anything. They had checked the descriptions on the marbles earlier, and they all were the same as the description for the white stone, even the green marble. Nothing came to mind, so they started socketing the gems in the back of the throne, above where a person would sit. As they placed the stones in, they lit up with a glow and the buzzing sound of magic. They looked down at the last violet gemstone in her hand.
“Here goes nothing,” Scytale said.
She placed the violet stone in and there was a tense moment where nothing happened, before it too lit up, and the yellow stone above them let out a glow. They heard the grating sound of hidden mechanisms, and they looked around the back of the throne to see that the blank wall had changed to reveal a red-carpeted staircase ascending into the darkness on the other side of a stone archway. It was dimly light by yellow candlelight from the candle holders fixed to the stone walls on either side of it. They looked at each other and walked towards the staircase. Seeing nothing interesting from where they were at the bottom, they started climbing it.