The mysterious gate before them seemed to loom like a great set of black, iron teeth over them. While Nyxia felt every fiber of her being screaming at her to turn around, her curiosity compelled her to move onward.

Maybe it was the giant building that resembled a large temple that egged her on.

There was a padlock holding the gate shut. Nyxia may not have been able to use her magic, but it was easy enough for Gladio to kick it beyond function.

"Very curious," Ignis murmured, the last to pass through the gates. His intrigued seemed to heighten as he spotted a letterbox on his right. As he pulled on a chain to open the jaws of the metal, dragon head, a deafening creeeeeak! grabbed everyone else's attention.

Prompto, in particular, was quite startled. "Iggy! Don't do that!"

"My apologies. This letterbox is quite old, it appears." He looked at the ground, having noticed an unopened envelope had fallen at his feet. As he picked it up, he read the front it silently to himself. The others merely waited, eyes wide as they tried to keep their patience.

"Well?" Gladio finally urged, breaking the silence.

"Nothing that seems exceptionally important." He noticed the tense stares on him, then sighed. "You do realize it's illegal to open someone else's mail."

"Yes, Iggy, we get it. You're a saint." Gladio scoffed, grabbing the letter from him. "Sir Hubert Windlenot, Museum of the Strange and Unusual." Then, he noticed the address of the sender. Where on earth was London, England?

"Sounds creepy to me. We should go back the way we came," Prompto insisted. He daringly brushed his fingers over the inside of the mailbox, picking up dust that would faintly reveal the number 29 as it was wiped away.

"And miss out on whatever strange and unusual stuff might be in there?" Nyxia said. "Where's your sense of adventure, Prompto?"

She led the way, and though Gladio and Ignis seemed confident as they followed in stride, the young man wielding the camera seemed less so. There was a sign at the entrance to the makeshift temple with name of the museum advertised, though it seemed someone had thrown up some graffiti to manipulate it to "Windlenut". The sign indicated that this entrance was also the way to get into the supposed museum.

Nyxia made her way in first, the set of stairs taking the foursome upward. Even the narrow, brick walls of terracotta color possessed the same, red paint that decorated the sign they had left behind. Then, as they ascended to a fork in the road, they were forced to make a decision.

"Eenie-meenie...?" Prompto said, looking from left to right.

"Should we split?" Gladio asked her, though Nyxia didn't exactly like that idea, especially in a place that was completely foreign to them. Had they been back in Eos, even in a world full of daemons, she might have been a little more accustomed to that suggestion.

"We would cover more ground that way," Ignis also approved.

"Okay, okay..." Nyxia surrendered. Gladiolus followed her through the left path as the other two would take the other route. Again, the stairs would lead them further up the structure, though as they made two rights, they found themselves shortly reuniting with the other pair. "Well, that was a lot less splitting up than I was expecting," she murmured.

"Man, is it good to see you guys," Prompto teased.

As they proceeded forward, they paid little attention to the painted markings on the walls, some of which now were blue, as if applied with spray paint. They didn't seem to make anything that was distinguishable. "The sign we passed suggested this museum was to open soon, but I'm beginning to suspect it may be long forgotten," Ignis said.

They came to a metal door, and as Nyxia jiggled at the handle, she came to the conclusion that it was locked. Before she had noticed there was a button on the right, Prompto was already pressing it. She had initially thought it may have been a doorbell, but then, a recorded voice of a man spoke.

"Welcome to Professor Windlenot's Museum of the Strange and Unusual. Unfortunately, the museum is still preparing exhibits and hopes you will visit when we open sometime in the near future."

"Woah, check it out, guys."

By now, with camera in hand, Prompto was already at the edge of the stairway. From the top, the gate was in clear view, and the forest beyond them seemed faint and dark, swallowed by the night. It made for an eerie, yet very good photo. Ignis was too occupied making a note of the curious symbols above the doors.

"What's that, Ignis?" Nyxia asked.

"Uncertain," he said, "but that is the second, curious symbol I've spotted. I am interested to learn what they mean." He had drawn them onto a small notepad, though Prompto took it upon himself to take pictures with his camera instead.

"Maybe if we find a way inside, we can figure it out," Gladio said. As they all headed back down the stairs, they would turn right, taking them further away from the gate. In the distance, the hooting of an owl could be heard from the trees. It was probably the most familiarity they had come across so far.

As they passed by a tall, stone monument, Prompto took a shot of it, as well as the green symbol on the ground behind it that resembled a wheel. They passed under a stone arch, the paved path taking them towards what appeared to be a gazebo. In the center of it was an old, metal box, on top of which seemed to be six circles painted onto it in a group. Beneath it were three, numerical switches and a red button.

"It's a three-digit code," Gladio said.

"Do you think maybe it might be the address, or whatever that number on the letterbox was?" Nyxia suggested. Ignis attempted it, keying in 029, and as he pressed the red button, the box seemed to respond, opening up to reveal six gears - three black, three white.

"Hey, nice work." Instead of replying to Gladio's praise, however, the redhead was now trying to determine how the insides were supposed to work. However, Ignis was already pulling the gears out to put them in a particular place. The white ones were placed on the top row, black gears directly beneath them.

Suddenly, a sound emerged from behind them that sounded like shifting stone. "W-what was that?" Prompto panicked, stepping backwards out of the structure. To the left of the gazebo, stone slabs had risen from the pond, serving as a pathway to take them further. Carefully, they would cross the stones to reach what would be a small island, curious structures of rock displayed in a circle unlike anything they had seen before. On the ground and in the center was what appeared to be another puzzle.

"Hey, we've seen some of these symbols," Prompto said, kneeling down to the painted triangles. However, as he touched one of them, it changed color, as if by magic. Instantly, he seemed to understand. "Oh, oh, wait! I get it." The other three would watch as he fiddled with the puzzle, almost in amazement. He always did have a keen eye to detail. However, it seemed he only knew three out of six of the symbols.

"There's a white one, this ugly color, and a wood-grain-looking one."

"Hey," Gladio said, pointing to the distance. "There's one." Prompto took this into account, left with two that he couldn't be sure of. He resorted to guesswork, and after a few more moments, there was a noise coming from beneath the ground - something that suggested he move away. Prompto backed up quickly, and the four of them watched as a pathway descended into darkness.

"Uh...that looks really sinister," Nyxia murmured, eyeing the spiraling stairs. "Do we have to go down this way?"

"If we don't, I would have done all of that for nothing, man!" Prompto complained.

"You got mad skills, I'll give you that," she appeased him. "Okay, let's...do this."