Trial 7: A Puzzling Development

The temple ahead of them towered with an imposing air, even in its state of disrepair. The tower nearest them felt like it was always watching them, as if some hidden observer was waiting for them to make a misstep and rain attacks down on them.

“Tok,” Rowan spoke up. “Do you have an idea where the return archway could be?”

“Um, well,” the dwarf hemmed. “If this was something in a real temple, it would probably be in the center. These temples always had an open interior, especially ones to Gep’kes Ani. You know, plants and growing and all. But it’s not like they just had open doors.”

“So our first hurdle will be getting in,” Senka spoke up. “I suppose it may be a bit much to expect the doors to be unlocked.”

“Probably,” Tok muttered, his face twisting as he slipped into deep thought. “Gef had to declare himself and his party at the main gate, then stand to be inspected by one of the monks. Don’t think that’s going to happen here.”

“So our first test will be to get in,” John said. “Your dad didn’t say making the exit would be the only puzzle we had to get through.”

“He never said there would be a puzzle,” Tok pointed out. “Just that we needed to get the return gateway running.”

“Sounds like a puzzle to me,” John said. “A lot of games have segments like this. Put some missing gear in the right place, hit some buttons and pull some levers in the right order and bam, working mechanism.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Tok admitted hesitantly.

“Let’s not get too wrapped up in gamifying this,” Senka cautioned. “For all we know, there’s an instruction manual sitting out for us to read and everything sitting out in the open for us to use.”

“That hardly sounds like the sort of challenge we’re supposed to conquer,” Rowan said.

“We’ll only know what we’re supposed to do once we get in there,” John added. “Which, it looks like, it’s time to see how we’re going to do that.”

John was referring to the large metal door they had come to. Their trek around the outside of the fort had taken them to what had to be the main entrance. It stood facing the far bridge they had debated over seeking out to avoid the guardian. It had long succumbed to the ravages of time, the half nearest the island now only a few stone pillars jutting out of the lake.

“Well, glad we took the guaranteed path over the first bridge,” Senka remarked.

“Yeah,” Tok muttered, his attention on the door.

“Should we knock?” Rowan asked, though she held her sword at the ready.

“Hang on a second, I’m reading,” Tok quieted them and John took a moment to study the door himself. It stood four meters tall at least, made of a dark metal. Inscribed on it in some silvery metal were a number of dwarven words, their shape reminiscent of the ones John felt earlier in the jungle.

Temple Doors
The black iron doors of the Karsahcan temple of Gep’kes Ani, decorated with carvings of vines and flowering plants. Sealed to prevent the unworthy from entering by an inscription of warding symbols.

‘Helpful,’ John sarcastically thought as Tok kept up his reading.

“‘O distant travelers,’” Tok began to translate, “‘know that the bounty of Gep’kes Ani will only be for those that can provide an offering to Her grace.’”

“And that would be?” Senka asked once it was clear Tok was done reading.

“Not a clue,” Tok muttered, placing his hand upon the door. “The story didn’t say anything about Gef making an offering, just him and his men reaching the temple and getting seen by the monks.”

“Well, no monks means we’ll need to think outside the box to get in,” John remarked, looking up. “Wish we had some way to get a bird’s eye view. Maybe there’s a way in through the roof.”

“Hold on a minute,” Tok said as he traced the carvings on the door. “‘Offering to Her grace’, hmm? Okay, so Gep’kes Ani was our goddess of plants, mostly focused on things like crops, fruits and vegetables. So maybe if we find something like that and present it, it’ll trigger the door to open.”

“Unless these guys grew their food outside the temple, we’d have to go back into the jungle and hope to find something with fruit,” Rowan pointed out.

“And them having something right outside for tribute seems too easy,” Senka added.

“So what do you propose we do then?” Tok asked, a bit of frustration in his tone. “Why have this clue if it wasn’t going to be something we could get without it taking too much time?”

“Tok’s got a point,” John said. “I know gamifying things that aren’t set up by my powers isn’t a good mindset to get into, but this whole event is basically a game. Something crafted to provide specific challenges. What does making us doubleback to look for fruit accomplish?”

“That the people watching us would need to eat more of the food the clan is providing,” Senka sarcastically remarked. When everyone looked at her incredulously, she shrugged. “It’s the only thing I can think of that would push us to dither about.”

“Okay, let’s assume that this is all designed that way,” Rowan said, “and I am giving it a fair chance of it being the case. Where should we look?”

Tok looked around. “We should keep going around the outside. If there was going to be some wild fruit growing, I think the best bet would be to hope something from the inside of the temple had seeds end up outside.”

“If the temple is unattended, an animal could have gotten the seeds outside,” John mused. “You know, the natural way evolution came up with.”

“That could be how it happened,” Rowan admitted thoughtfully before she looked to the sky. “The best place for something to take root would be in an area with the most consistent sunlight, so the south side of the island should be where we look.”

“And I’m guessing we haven’t been to that part of the island," Tok said with a grin.

“No,” Rowan shook her head. “We approached on the west side and the door’s on the north side, so we’ll need to make a full circle to check.”

“And the jungle was thick enough to keep us from getting a good view of that side as we headed down into the valley,” John added. “Fits the crafted puzzle narrative.”

“If we’re all in on this, we should get to searching,” Tok impatiently remarked, foot tapping the ground.

John, Rowan and Senka nodded and they set off around the far side of the temple. John kept his eyes moving across the grounds. He trusted that Rowan’s idea of the southside was the best possible place to find wild growing fruit, but he wasn’t going to just hope their destination had what they were looking for. He was going to be as proactive as possible, which is why Candle took the vanguard, the fox sniffing around several yards ahead of them.

His eyes also found themselves studying the edifice of the temple. He wondered how it came to be in the state it was. Was the temple like this before the clan came to Earth, or was this a wholly imagined thing? Given the way Tok recounted the tale, he assumed it was the second: a location with millennia of disrepair and the elements taking their toll.

Ahead of him, Tok walked with careful steps, one hand pressed against the wall, his fingers tracing where the bricks were fitted together and the cracks that time had brought upon it.

“It’s kind of sad to think that this is probably a more intact version of the temple then what’s back in the old Kingdom,” the dwarf said in a sad voice, breaking the silence that had surrounded them. “I can’t imagine that the real one’s been kept well for all these years. Not with the state of things.”

“If it’s not too bold to ask?” Rowan began but Tok quieted her with a wave of his hand.

“I was more interested in the older stories. You know, legends of heroes and monsters, that sort of stuff,” Tok recounted. “And Dad didn’t exactly like to talk about the shit our ancestors went through all that much. At least, not to us kids as we grew up. The Blistered Days, that's what we call them, was a massive war between the two most powerful clans in our old home. Clans basically were like whole nations, so we’re talking a lot of people they could field. And the fighting just never stopped.”

He stopped for a moment to collect his thoughts. “And when they would run low on manpower, they would convince smaller clans to join them. By the time our ancestors fled to the wild lands, most everyone had either been taken in by the two or were just dead. Can’t imagine there would have been a lot of untouched ground. Getting the favor of one of the gods by holding their temple sounds like a good strategy to me.”

“If nothing else, if they’re all like this one, they would make good fortifications,” Rowan murmured.

“Aye, they would be,” Tok sighed. “Anyway, I suppose getting to see this as close to its full glory as possible is a good enough consolation prize. Dad didn’t have to make the trial like this.”

“Means he knows what you like and how to incorporate it into things,” John said, the old pain of losing his father flaring up a bit.

“Yeah,” Tok replied.

Candle’s yips tore through the melancholic air. Their search had brought them near the southern end of the island, and the ground was clearly fertile. While the grounds as a whole were overgrown with grass and other low lying plants, the south was a veritable garden. Bushes and trees grew freely and in jumbled messes, leaving little room they could travel without risk of getting snagged by branches and thorns.

But growing on those trees and bushes were a number of fruits. Specimens that looked like strawberries, blackberries, apples and raspberries grew in abundance.

“Think there’s any preference, or should we just try and grab a little bit of everything?” John asked.

“The stories didn’t really go into what they grew, besides the herbs that were grown for medicine,” Tok answered. “But I don’t think that stiffing Gep’kes Ani, even in simulated form, is a good idea.”

“A wise idea,” Senka remarked. “I think Candle’s up to the task. Aren’t you, girl?”

The fox spirit let out a single yip, her tail wagging.

“I suppose she’s more equipped to get through that bramble,” Rowan mused. “And isn’t **** to any toxins those fruits might have.”

“I wasn’t planning on eating any of them, but good idea,” Tok said.

“Okay, Candle, you heard him. Let’s get harvesting,” John ordered.

Bounty in hand, they returned to the temple’s iron entrance.

“Alright, how do we make this offering?” John asked.

“Normally, I think there’d be a chest or something like that, but I think we can just leave them at the base,” Tok said.

“That hardly seems like a fitting way to make an offering,” Rowan remarked.

“I don’t see another way to do it,” John remarked. “If it doesn’t work, we can bang our heads together to come up with another idea. Let’s make this offering and see.”

John knelt down and removed their assembled offering from his inventory. He arranged them in front of the door in a nice line, the largest, the apple, in the center and the berries flanking it in descending size order to its left and right.

When John had placed the last berry, the ground under him vibrated slightly, just enough for him to tell something was happening. He quickly rose up and backed away from the door, ready for anything to happen. The offered fruit vanished and the door swung open, letting out a loud creak, the heavy doors grinding on aged hinges.

“Guess there wasn’t any pomp needed,” Tok remarked as they peered into the formerly sealed temple. Dappled sunlight streamed in through the windows, catching on somehow still polished crystals that enhanced the light as it bounced off them, pushing back the darkness within the stone building.

“Nice to see something like the mirror trick,” John commented, recalling a fun scene from a movie.

“Tok, you know where we’re supposed to go?” Rowan asked as she eased her way towards the open door, cautiously peering into the temple.

“Well, our exit portal’s likely in either the main religious hall or the center, which is where they grew their food,” Tok responded. “And something tells me Dad would use the outside bit. Feels more on theme.”

“Lead on then,” John said. “Let’s see what our final challenge is.”