The Puzzle Box
Part One: The Discovery"You know not what you are doing," said a young but strong voice.
"I know more than you do," said another voice, equally strong but sounding a tad older.
Within the beautiful wilderness of Northrend, there laid a particular area known by the name of Dragonblight. This region was a snow-covered endless steppe; a few ravines there, some bare trees here. However, on the eastern segment of this zone, there was a large sinkhole in the shadow of a town of the Taunka, natives to the north. The town had long-since been burned, pillaged and plundered by the Nerubians, a race of spider-like beasts.
"You cannot go there, Alexander," said the younger voice. "It is far too dangerous!" A young man dressed in icy blue robes lined with fur stepped in front of the man in question. His hair was gold and tied back in a pony-tail, his skin pale as a ghost because of the cold and lack of sunlight.
"I'm going to go, and you will not stop me." Another man stepped forward, clad in the heavy armor of the Scourgeborne. Shoulderpads curled out from the lower and upper segments, connected by an azure glass-like material. The rest draped his form, the design making it seem as if the armor was made from bone and some other sort of metal. Skull designs were on the palms and bulkier part of his gauntlets with eyes of an azure gemstone. His hips held the same designs under his two axes, which were curved and an icy-blue color. Where the blades met the hilts, there was a crescent moon on both sides of the axes. His face carried signs of either middle-age of great amounts of pressure and stress, but they still showed some liveliness despite the small wrinkles. He had a moustache which reached from his sideburns to his upper lip. His hair was slicked back and covered over his ears, two bundles falling over his chest and tied with black ribbons to match his jet-black hair. Over his eyes and under bushy eyebrows was a pair of goggles of the same azure-glass that held the shoulderpad layers together and gears around each of the lenses which seemed to adjust to their wearer. Over his back and chest was a tabard of a black sword pointing down on a navy blue background. His final piece of this set was a heavy gun draped over his back – the weapon was truly menacing as it was so bulky and quite powerful.
"Alexander, please!" The younger man was pleading and obviously saddened. "At least wait for some of the elves to be ready to accompany you!"
"No," was all the armored man, Alexander, would give. He began walking again, sidestepping the other and walking his way down the path. "Don't worry; I'll be back before nightfall." At that, Alexander offered a small wave behind his back as he continued on.
It took him an hour alone to get to where he wanted to be: the giant sinkholes. The very ones which lead into the subterranean kingdoms of Ahn'Kahet and Azjol'Nerub. Both were key places in the Nerubian world, the former being their capital (at least as deduced by outsiders). But Alexander's goal was not to charge in and start killing like any other foolhardy person would do. No, his mission was a personal one: to find fragments to be used in archaeological discoveries. He had a personal discovery to finish – a puzzle box of such amazing and curious nature. Right off the bat, he found two fragments he would require and was in the process of finding the third.
This puzzle box was an ancient thing, buried away, recovered, and then shattered across the northern continent so that nobody would attempt to find it again. Unfortunately, the tale that was told about it was written and told in Nerubian, so nobody knew its true power.
"Finally!" Alexander laughed in triumph, reaching onto his belt and to one of the many pouches along it. He slowly pulled out an incomplete box with three pieces missing. On the upper, lower, left and right faces of the puzzle box were pyramidal spikes. The entire box was purple when held to light, and gray when held in darkness. On the front face, a small upside-down T showed where the pieces were missing. He slid the three pieces into the box and it began to glow.
Where he slid in the two boxes on the lower end of the "T", an eye slowly started to open and stopped about half way before shooting open, realizing it was completed. The iris of the eye was purple while the pupil was swirling blackness. Designs slowly began to etch themselves into the box's surface – mazes on the right side, flatness on the top, swirls in the back, overlapping circles on the bottom, sinister lines on the left and many different on the face with the eye. The spikes also began to design themselves, two on the sides pointing inwards, the two others outward. The eye darted around frantically before looking up at Alexander, the lids narrowing.
Open me! Open me! Open me! Then only will you know peace! A voice inside of Alexander's head began to shout at him to open the box. His own eyes under the goggles stared at the box suspiciously. There is no sharp distinction between the real and the unreal. You resist. You cling to your life as if it actually matters. You will learn. Open me, find the truth inside. Open me!
The voice continued to yell out, mercilessly assaulting Alexander's mind with words and commands.
Do you dream while you sleep or is it an escape from the horrors of reality? All places, all things have souls. All souls can be devoured. The box was not content to stop with the commands unless it was opened. Alexander, though not usually a man to give into fear, was a man to give into curiosity. He began to play with the box, shifting pieces where and there, splitting the eye in half only to have it reform on two new squares to continue looking at him.
Alexander's hands, as if he had done this a thousand times, began to move along the box quickly, expertly. He flipped some latches, moved what pieces he could around those which had been locked into place, twisted the spikes a couple of times and pulled on them, only revealing more of their shape, only to twist them and lock them back into place.
Suddenly, the eye shot back open and laughter erupted in Alexander's head. You've done it! You've done it! Now, open me! OPEN ME! He quickly jammed his thumb into the eye and tossed the box on the ground, stepping backwards. The face had the eye slowly began to open in four manners, folding back and revealing a deep blackness within the empty box.
"Time to play!" Said a twisted, almost childish voice within the box. A black mass suddenly shot out of the darkness of the box, flying into the sky and cackling all the way up into the heavens. It disappeared in the clouds that hung low over the terrain, leaving the stricken man to stare up in surprise.
"Oh shit," was all that he could manage to say. Not about to let his hard work go to waste, he quickly grabbed the puzzle box, shut it again and broke into a full run back towards the camp.