Chapter 40: Entering the mysterious chamber
"Not the alphabet. Not the ward style. Not the arrangement. There are marks here that I’ve never seen in any book. I’ve read many books on ancient script that the academy library has. Every single one. And the symbols here that aren’t in any of them."
I lifted the torch higher.
The light climbed the door another two metres. The pattern went all the way up until the top edge disappeared into the darkness above.
I crossed left along the base of the door and ran my free hand along the stone. It was cold under my palm.
I worked my way to the outer edge of the frame, then along the frame itself, feeling for anything that might tell me how the thing was meant to open.
Nothing.
I crossed back and worked the right side the same way. Same result. The frame was stone without any mechanism or lever to pull.
Kira had been checking the panels themselves. Her fingers hovered over some of the deeper cuts, tracing shapes that meant nothing to either of us.
"There’s no keyhole."
"No."
"No handle?"
"No."
"Ash. This wasn’t meant to be opened from the outside. Whatever this door is, whoever built it, they built it to be opened from in there." She pointed at the seam down the middle. "Or not opened at all."
I stepped back.
The two of us stood in front of the door in silence for a long moment. The torch flame flickered in a draft I couldn’t feel. The symbols on the stone stared back at us in their rows.
Kira turned her head to look at me.
Her dark eyes had the same weight in them that they’d had at the ward mark. Except more of it. Whatever was on the other side of this door, she’d already decided it wasn’t good news.
I nodded.
Whatever was on the other side, I was going to see it. This place was worth the effort. The whole reason we’d walked past the ward was the pull of an answer that made the picture make sense.
"Let’s push."
Kira set her shoulder against the left panel. I set mine against the right. We pushed together on a count of three, the two of us throwing what we had into the stone at the same instant. My boots ground against the floor for grip. The muscle across my back lit up with the strain of a C-Rank body driving forward at full commit.
The door didn’t move.
Not a fraction. The panels stayed flush in the frame like we hadn’t been pushing at all.
I stepped back and shook my arm out.
"Move."
Kira slid to the side. I lifted my right hand and let the heat come down my arm. Gold light gathered in front of my palm in the shape of a splayed hand, larger than the version I’d used on the bear, larger than the one I’d used on the frostpanther.
[Buddha’s Palm]
The gold slab shot forward across the two-metre gap and struck the centre of the door.
I waited for the crack. For the dust to come loose from the frame. For anything.
Nothing.
The gold light dispersed against the surface of the stone the way water dispersed against glass, spreading out along the panels in a thin bright film, then fading to nothing without leaving a mark. No dent. No chip. No sound.
My mouth opened, then closed.
A pebble against a mountain. That was the phrase that came to me. I’d hit the door with a skill that had put a boss beast through a cavern wall, and the door had answered by absorbing the strike like it had been a knock from a knuckle.
Kira had gone still beside me.
"That skill puts holes in solid rock, doesn’t it?"
"Yes."
"So what is this door made of."
"I don’t know."
The System chimed.
A blue panel unfolded in the corner of my vision, the small clean box that meant a reward was landing.
[Rewards delivered: +10 Stamina. Guiding Manual.]
I read it twice.
The reward had come now. Which meant this gate was what the choice had wanted me to find in the first place.
My eyes flashed.
The Guiding Manual. The item name I hadn’t been able to work out at the ward. The reward for coming here alone. Delivered the moment we’d got close enough to the door for the System to know we were where we were meant to be.
Could the Manual be what opened this door.
I pulled it out of the storage ring.
Kira looked at me curiously, wondering what the manual in my hand was meant to do.
The Manual was small.
A book the size of my palm, bound in a soft dark leather. There was no title on the front or markings along the spine. Just the plain cover and a thin gold thread along the edge of the binding.
I opened it to find the pages inside blank.
I flipped through the first ten. It was still blank. Every page the same soft cream colour, every page empty.
Kira leaned in over my shoulder, curious.
"Why are you staring at an empty book?" She tilted her head.
I returned back to the first page, and a line of text suddenly appeared on it.
The letters wrote themselves out in a slow steady script, one word at a time, the ink coming up out of the paper in a dark clean line that hadn’t been there a second ago.
Place the Manual against the seam of the door. Do not remove your hand until the Manual is warm.
I read it twice.
Kira’s eyes widened in shock, she had seen the words type out at the same time as me. "Is this some kind of magical artifact? I’ve never heard of something like this before..."
"It is."
I walked towards the door, deciding to follow the orders of the guiding manual.