Following Miri’s memory of the map they saw from earlier, they continued traversing through the keep to reach the main ritual room, the palace where the valuable runes were supposedly kept. Alternatively, they could have returned to the office where the book of records containing the map was last found, but Miri reassured Anne that it wasn’t necessary.
“Miri, are you sure you know where you’re going,” Anne asked as they walked.
“Yeah, I’m sure. I’ve got a pretty good memory when it comes to maps,” Miri replied. To be more accurate, she had a pretty good memory with all things video-game related—with maps being only one of them—but it’d be difficult to explain to Anne. “Oh look, I think we’re finally here.”
After walking down a wide hallway, the two women arrived at a large double door made of gray stone, engraved with a set of intricately carved symbols and markings.
“Yep, if my memory is correct, the main ritual room should be right behind this door,” Miri said, tapping her hand on the door’s cold, hard surface. “Judging from the looks of it, this definitely seemed like a door that screams ‘important treasure inside’. The only problem now is opening it.” From the looks of it, the door didn’t seem to have any handles or other obvious opening mechanisms. She tried digging her fingers into the crevice of the door to try to yank it open, but the doors were so incredibly heavy that she wasn’t even able to make them budge. “Hrgh!...yeah, no way we’re simply pulling it open.”
“I’ve seen these kinds of doors before,” Anne said, placing her fingers on the door to gently feel the engraved markings. “These are runic doors, meaning they are protected and powered using magic. It’ll be incredibly difficult to use conventional methods to break these kinds of doors down. Even common offensive spells might not be enough. The only way for them to open on their own is through the use of a special type of key rune, one that is specifically designed to open this exact door.”
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“And I’m guessing the head honcho of this ritual, Archmage Victorstein himself, must be the one possessing this key rune,” Miri speculated.
“Either him or any one of the other royal mages with a high enough authority to enter this room, most likely,” Anne answered with a nod.
“Oh great! So now, we have to find the dead body of one of these royal mages in the hopes that they might carry a key rune that we can use to open the damn door. Given how big this place is, that’ll probably take forever. Not to mention that, with the chimeragon probably still lurking around, it’ll also be extremely dangerous to do. You sure we can’t just, I don’t know, bust through this door with my magic? It’s been a hundred years; the magical protection on this door has probably weakened by quite a lot by now. I’m sure that if I throw everything at it, I might just be able to chip away at the door just enough to make a hole through it or something.”
“I’m not enough of an expert on runic doors to know whether that holds true or not. In any case, you are certainly welcome to try, though I doubt you’re going to get very far. Not to mention that the longer we stay here, the more likely the chimeragon is going to wander into this place and find us. The threat of the chimeragon is still present either way.”
Miri let out a sigh and scratched her head as she thoroughly considered both options.
“You know what? On second thought, I think your option is the better choice,” Miri said. “If we’re gonna expose ourselves to the threat of the chimeragon, I’d prefer that we are constantly on the move rather than staying in one place. Plus, I don’t exactly like the idea of tiring myself out by chipping away at a wall of rock. Sounds boring as hell.”
“That settles it then,” Anne said with a gentle smile.
