The Doors, the Floor, and the Moon

Garrett walked back the way he came, now heading through the right path. There wasn't any reason to go back through the room that had the Top-Mouth. Besides, even if he did, he might run back into Lyman and Garrett wasn't prepared enough to face him yet. Plus, Lyman didn't need rescuing right now, the others might. He continued on down the darkened tunnel, illuminated barely by small crystals embedded in the walls.

"Okay, so, who is it going to be this time?" Garrett wondered to himself as he kept his hand on his sword, ready for whatever might come his way. This was now the sixth time that he went through this Darge, but there was still no telling what he could find. There could be traps around any corner. The hallway opened up into a new room, where a few goblins were sitting around and looked to be eating some rats.

"Look, I don't want any trouble," Garrett said, but it was too late. The goblins were already scrambling to attack Garrett. Quickly, he drew his sword and rushed at the goblins. "Fine. Have it your way!" Having gotten more experienced with this sword and the goblin's weak spots, he made quick work of them, slicing apart their bodies with ease. The goblins fell to the ground, lifeless, and dropping some Helioxene orbs.

"That was easy," Garrett said as he shook the blood off his sword. "Too easy." He looked around the room, ready for any traps or ambushes. "Come on out and face me," Garrett said, sword ready and shield up. After a few minutes, nothing happened and Garrett relaxed his stance.

"Maybe I'm just getting stronger?" Garrett said, flexing his muscles to himself. He picked up the Helioxene and grabbed a few of the goblin daggers. They reeked, but he stuck them in his bag anyway. He looked towards the exit and began to walk towards it when the glint of something small caught his eye.

One of the goblins had a key hung around its neck. There weren't any markings on it and it appeared to be made out of steel. Still, this likely went to something important, so Garrett took it off of the goblin's neck.

"Hmm, this looks bigger than a house key. I wonder what it's for?" Garrett wrapped the key around his wrist and looked over the other goblin corpses to see if there was anything else that might have been important. However, he didn't find anything else worth noting. With a sigh, he stood up and walked out of the room.

The next room that he came across had two doors, one on the left made of metal, and one on the right, made of stone. On the floor was a mosaic of a large sun, made of smooth tiles embedded into the ground. On the opposite side where he came in, the hallway continued down further. Garrett looked at the two doors, then pulled out a coin from his pouch. "Sun, metal first. Moon, stone first." As the coin landed in his hand, he saw the moon symbol facing him. "Stone it is."

He approached the stone door, avoiding touching the sun mosaic. He looked over the door carefully, taking in as much detail as he could. There were engravings it in, none of which he recognized. Cautiously, he ran his hand over the door. To his surprise, the door felt warm, like it was heated, but not enough to burn him. In fact, it was more like a heating pad.

"Strange." He pressed his hand against the surrounding rock, which was cold and wet. "So, it's only this door. He was about to reach for the handle when he managed to stop himself. "I should investigate this room more before I go any farther."

Avoiding the mosaic again, he walked over to the metal door. This time, he recognized the symbols on it as Faen, though he had no idea what it meant. As opposed to the heated rock, this door was cold, even colder than the rock around it. Even a few inches away from the door, he could feel the chill emanating from it. If he tried to open the handle, his hand would be frozen right then and there. Slowly, he backed away and turned to look more at the rest of the room.

Nothing seemed out of place of any of the tiles in the mosaic. They all looked like they belonged there and none of them had any symbols that Garrett could see. It also didn't appear like anything was missing. He had put his hand to his chin and began to think before a sudden thought came to him. Quickly, he raised his shield up and looked up at the ceiling, having started to learn his lesson from both Cerezie and the Top-Mouth.

Above him was a moon mosaic with stars. It looked like the ceiling had been unnaturally cleared of any stone growths. As far as Garrett could tell, there also wasn't anything out of place, like the sun mosaic.

"So, there's a warm stone door with an unknown language, a cold metal door with Faen, a sun mosaic on the ground, and a moon and stars mosaic on the ceiling," Garrett said, recounting the details to himself. "I wonder if I can ask Otris for a journal of sorts." For now, Garrett would have to be content with remembering this. He crossed his arms and kept talking to himself.

"I could open up the stone door and I have no idea what could be behind it. I can't open the metal door, and I don't want to touch the tiles here on the ground either until I get a better idea of what they might be for." He turned his head to the hallway. "And, I have no idea what might be down there." He closed his eyes and tried to listen for anything that could give him an indication of where to go or what to expect.

Silence.

There was only one way to settle this. "Sun, I go down the hallway. Moon, I open the stone door." He flicked the coin up into the air and caught it in his palm. He released his grasp to see the sun icon looking back at him.

With an affirmative grunt, Garrett put the coin back and drew his sword. "Alright, here I go." With that, he walked down hallway, leaving the doors and mosaics behind to come back to later.