Obstacle: Door

Nivin couldn't recall how long she spent in front of that carved wall, lost in her own head and fragmented memories clawing at her mind, trying to fit together and failing.

It had hurt, it had hurt so much. Even now, hours after she'd gotten up, stumbling over unfamiliar limbs, she could feel the pain, albeit muted and distant.

Now, her body felt a bit more like her own, and her mind had cleared up, casting off the last remnants of fog. She wandered the place, her own tomb, exploring its rooms and corridors, chasing her own past with lacklustre success.

This place'd lost most of its history to time, paintings, if they had been paintings, had faded. Many of the offerings that had been left behind had crumbled from her touch, and only a few things survived.

Nivin was unsure of what to do, if she was honest with herself. On one hand, anything in here could be useful in some way or another. There were bits and pieces of jewellery, some books were faded, but not yet illegible, and there was a piece of strange fabric that looked dusty, but still somewhat intact.

Should she try and take them with her? Nivin could put the things on the cloth and try to tie it up, carrying it with her somehow, as she made her way towards her friends.

For now, she shoved her ponderings to the side, and approached the arch that marked the exit of the structure for the fourth time. And just like the other three times, she was met with an invisible wall.

The land she saw outside was stunning, downright magical. Sprawled out before Nivin, laid a thick forest full of intertwined trees. The ground was overgrown with a soft looking moss that covered the land like snow, even hiding the stone stairs leading up to the structure.

The gryphon wanted to touch that moss. She really wanted to. And that stupid barrier wasn't going to stop her. She just had to find a way through it and she would be golden. The place was ancient, surely the magic holding it together must have weakened too?

So, she plopped her behind down on the ground and tried to look at the barrier.

Which, Nivin had to admit, was not an easy task, considering the damn thing was invisible.

But there had to be something, and Deiwo did mention something called mage-sight. Yeah, she just had to figure that out and she would be able to walk out of this place.

She lifted her left claws and tapped a talon against the barrier, drawing it down in an attempt to scratch the non-existent but somehow existing wall.

Yeah, no. If there was a scratch, it was as invisible as the damn thing.

Frustrated, the gryphon shook her head, growling. She turned, but as she was moving, something caught her attention from the corner of her eye. Ha! There!

Her head snapped back towards the barrier, looking intently.

Absolutely nothing.

Fucking magic.

But she knew she saw something. Symbols, flimmering in the air just out of sight. Nivin took a deep breath, getting frustrated wasn't helping her much here, she had to focus.

She closed her eyes for a second, before opening them again and looking out towards the forest, letting her vision drift.

Nivin was trying to catch just the faintest glimmer of these symbols as she cocked her head to the side slightly, attempting to look at it from a different perspective.

Suddenly, her view shifted just a tiny bit to the side, the world she saw before blurred out of focus and something else emerged with stunning clarity.

It wasn't just singular symbols like she first thought, but it was entire symbol-chains woven together in complex patterns, moving and shifting in their own rhythm, emitting a slight bluish glow. She reached out to touch them, and even before her claws made contact, the chains exploded into movement, shifting towards where her talon rested to grow denser, not letting her through.

It was a strange language, it looked similar to the writings on the walls, but at the same time they were so fundamentally different. She could read the wall carvings with some time and effort. This? She couldn't translate them the same way. Nivin understood their meaning, like one understood the tone of a voice, or somebody's body language, but she couldn't directly translate them.

-lock-

Rows upon rows of runic symbols, woven in chains to create a complex matrix to… keep things out? She removed her talons and the runes calmed down, dispersing into a more evenly spaced out pattern, calmer.

Huh, that might be a problem.

Nivin turned around, her vision still oddly blurry as she caught sight of something she most certainly hadn't noticed before.

While she was exploring, she gathered quite a few items, offerings to her that were left behind by those that seemed to worship her. Nivin carried most of them here, bundled up awkwardly in that black cloth. She didn't have the dexterity to tie the ends together yet, so as soon as she set down the bundle everything spilled out.

Now, something in there seemed to be glowing with the same strange magic.

"...to reveal to you what was hidden from others…" she murmured to herself as she stepped closer. So that was Deiwos' gift to her. What did They call it again? Mage-sight?

Due to her blurred sight, it was hard to tell what the object was as she approached and crouched down in front of it, her beak shoving an old book out of the way. It was a cuff, the metal shiny and unblemished by time, which was one of the reasons why she decided to take it with her.

Well, that, and the carvings. Symbols, similar to those of the entrance, came alive before her very eyes and danced across the surface of the cuff, forming fractal patterns of rings, triangles and squares, ever shifting and changing.

She couldn't understand them. Not in the same way that she understood the entrance. Part of the symbols were distorted and hidden underneath a layer of white noise, like ink stains on a letter. Her head began to hurt the longer she looked at it, and so she closed her eyes and turned her head.

Nivin cursed. She didn't have time for this, she would deal with it later, once the world around her decided to make more sense and she had help. That stupid thing wasn't going to be of any help in getting out, and she knew she'd starve if she stayed much longer. No, the cuff was something for later.

When she opened her eyes, the world was clear. The slight tugging sensation behind her eyes that she hadn't even noticed before, vanished. As Nivin looked back towards the entrance, it was devoid of any runes.

"Great, now what?"

Nivin got up and walked towards it again. There had to be a way. This barrier was a lock, so, at least according to her own logic, that would mean there had to be a key. Or that it could be picked. Although, with the way she still somewhat struggled to coordinate her movement, she figured it wouldn't work out the way she'd hope. Key it was.

There were runes on the side of the archway. Tiny and intricate, they were carved deep into the ancient stone. Without her newfound powers, they looked dull, almost like a strange set of decor.

What before only read as -lock- was much more specified in these carvings. Lock out anything with a soul. Let through the world. Tie the energy to the heart. Open only to the three.

Nivin wasn't sure she understood everything. She could wager a guess that the runes needed energy which they pulled from something called the heart. Maybe it fed off the energy of living things near this place? Anything with a soul was unable to pass, the rest, as in 'the world', was let through. As for 'the three', she thought it might refer to Nimue and the other two Children.

"I swear, if the only thing I had to do was ask the thing politely to let me through, I'll throw myself out of the next available window!", she huffed, annoyed.

"Uhm, let me pass?"

Nothing happened. Of course, nothing happened. What was she expecting, talking to an invisible door? Nivin lifted her claws and slashed across the barrier in annoyance, only to lose her balance as her talons met no resistance and she fell flat, her wings flapping pointlessly through the air.

For a moment, Nivin laid there stunned, the light of the sun blinding her, before she shot up like an arrow, grabbing the bundle of stuff hastily with her beak and dashing out into the forest with a muffled yell of celebration.

And so, the first left her forgotten tomb and all three revenants walked Axis earth once more.