The wall split open and parted.
"…"
Wow. I'd never seen anything like this.
Behind it a space opened into what looked like… it was difficult to explain. The cave went on and on. On the other side, way too distant from us to discern properly, some kind of magical high-tech environment seemed to be set deep into the cave. It had high platforms and what looked like elaborate mechanisms, though it was difficult to see them clearly from here or figure out what they were for. It made me think of a puzzle quest or domain in a video game.
My Intuitive Drift flared madly for a second then quieted down.
Huh?
"This is… not what I expected," Gilded said, frowning.
"What do you mean?"
He extended his hand, to scan the Magic, presumably.
"It's definitely Caerwyn's signature," he said, "but Caerwyn is not associated with technology at all."
"He could have taken some courses?" I asked. "Lifelong training and whatnot. Maybe a new University degree?"
Gilded gave me a look.
"Never mind," he said, lowering his hand. "What's your relationship with flying?"
"Flying?"
"I can fly!" Gléonwon said immediately. He'd grown big again and was peering into the opening curiously. "Are we flying somewhere?"
Penguin chirped, as if to say he could fly too now that he had his feather artifact. He fluttered up to my arms, flapping his little flippers madly, and I picked him up, snorting, and rubbed his little head. He chirped again, delighted.
"Caerwyn is the God of Flying," Gilded said. "So, whatever this is, it'd be wise to expect it has something to do with it."
Okay, he had a point.
"We're not going in," Llewellyn said. "We were on a date, which was rudely interrupted by someone trapped mid-air two meters above the ocean."
"Well," Gilded said, ignoring most of that, which made Llewellyn glower. "I'm certainly not going in there by myself."
The best course of action here was close this up again, turn around and leave. Llewellyn and I could go back home, or even back to his Core Partition, if he wasn't tired, and we could resume what we'd been—
But the itch in my chest kept flaring up and my Intuitive Drift was going insane.
I was going to regret this, but—
"I think we should go in," I said.
Llewellyn turned to look at me, surprised, then narrowed his eyes.
"Is it Intuitive Drift again?" he said through the bond. "Are you sure it's fine to follow? It keeps putting you in dangerous situations."
He was not wrong, but it'd also saved Llewellyn's life twice at least too, once with the Destabilized Keyring, which otherwise he'd have fought alone, and last time with Éisne's domain, which was able to restabilize him.
"Yeah," I nodded.
Besides, there was something else that was gnawing at me, but… I couldn't quite put my finger on it yet.
"Well, I'm not going," Gilded said. "If you think we should go in, I'm definitely not going to. I've changed my mind. It's been nice seeing you, I hope we won't meet for at least—"
Before he could finish his sentence, a gust of wind so strong it might have unroofed houses sprang up out of nowhere inside the temple and pushed us inside.
It was too fast and strong to react even for Llewellyn. A second later, we were past the threshold and the opening behind us had sealed shut.
━━━✦❘༻༺❘✦━━━
"Fucking fuck," Gilded said, about half an hour later.
He'd tried to teleport out but couldn't, tried to reopen the wall but it wouldn't budge, tried to blast it open but no success. He cursed a few more times.
I couldn't teleport either. Llewellyn tried too but had no more luck.
We stared at the massive cave in front of us, lit up by the lights of the mechanisms waiting for us on the other side of the cave, most on high platforms or high up in the walls. Something about the layout of this place made me think it would be easier to tackle with a portal gun.
"Seems one of those, 'the only way out is through' situations," I said.
"There's five of us here," Llewellyn said. "How difficult could this be?"
"Do not say those words," Gilded said. "Ever."
I agreed with him for once.
"Let's just check whatever these are," Gilded said, frowning, walking toward the mechanisms. "And try and figure out what they do."
Penguin chirped from my arms, then suddenly took off, flapping his little flippers. He soared up to the nearest platform and landed with a triumphant trill.
I looked up. The ceiling disappeared into darkness. More platforms extended up there.
…This didn't look good.
Gléonwon was flying around peering down at the platforms.
"The System says these are pressure plates!" he called. "But they can't be activated."
"Why not?" I called back.
"The System says they don't work."
What.
Maybe that lifelong training program had been a fail after all.
Gilded was frowning down at something.
He reached out his hand. At his touch, more mechanisms lit up throughout the cave.
We looked around, startled, but… nothing else happened.
Did we have to step on the platforms and figure out some puzzle?
"They're just lights," Gilded said, sounding surprised.
"What?"
"As far as I can tell, they just light up. They don't seem to do anything else."
I blinked.
"What's even the point of that?"
Gilded was thinking again, hand to his chin.
"There are two possibilities, I think," he said. "One, this is Caerwyn's workshop, or some sort of workroom, and he did start getting into more advanced methods than stone and chisel. If that's the case, these might just be here to be tested, not deployed yet. Two, this is still Caerwyn's doing, but it's an actual mechanism, and... someone else who's been here before us deactivated everything."
…That was more worrying.
Why would someone be here? Did that mean that Gléonwon was not safe in this temple anymore then?
"System?" I asked. "What can you tell us?"
The System pinged.
[System Notification: The System is not authorized to disclose that information.]
"Why would anyone sign with something this useless," Gilded said, frowning.
There was a long pause.
[System Notification: The System is trying to be helpful. The System cannot outthink its own algorithms.]
…Uh.
"I think you hurt its feelings," I told Gilded.
Gilded scoffed. "As if."
I had déjà vu of the first time Llewellyn had met Penguin and thought he had no feelings.
Not that I thought the System had feelings, but… I supposed it probably was trying to be helpful.
"Did you get us here hoping we'd stumble onto something you cannot say directly?" I asked it.
The System window flared a few times. Then—
[System Notification: The System is not authorized to disclose that information.]
I sighed.
"It's alright," I said, "Just try not to get us killed."
[System Notification: The System is working hard to keep User Ryo, User Llewellyn, User Gilded, User Gléonwon, and Elemental Entity Penguin alive and well.]
"Ha!" Gilded said, disgruntled.
I don't know why the System thought that was reassuring. It was the opposite.
I looked at the cave again. While we were interrogating the System, Llewellyn had wandered off after Penguin, who'd set off on a run toward the other side of the cave, as if he'd sensed something. They'd reached the other end of the cave, where Llewellyn was now examining a wall.
"Ryo!" he called suddenly.
Huh?
"What is it?" I asked, reaching him. "And did you catch all that with the System?"
"Yeah," Llewellyn said. "Look."
He pointed to a section of the wall.
I followed his gaze and—
Wait a moment.
"Is that Yoon Juhyung's dojang?!" I said, startled.
This again?!