Damien stood staring at the Kingdom Key in his hand when the beginnings of an idea passed across his features. With a grin full of laughter and mischief he looked up and caught Dante's eye. "Oh no, what foolish ideas are you working over now?"

"Do you remember that kid a few days ago that was playing with a new toy he had created?" Widening his eyes in surprise and disbelief Dante hoped that Damien was not about to do what he just thought. "You mean that crooked stick he had carved from the wood of the wild Sunburst Rose?"

"That's it exactly, remember what he said?" Pointing an accusing finger at Damien and preparing to tackle him if he tried anything at all Dante spoke. "You mean the part about having to be careful about how he handled it so it wouldn't explode in his face?"

"Well there is that. But I meant the other part. Remember he said that the shape doesn't truly matter, only that what you are throwing is sufficiently flat and aerodynamic enough that when you throw it with the proper angle and spin it comes right back to your hand. Besides, its a Keyblade. No matter how they are designed part of the magic of a Keyblade makes it perfectly balanced and aerodynamic. And if I do it wrong I can always call it back to my hand."

To prove his words, in an over eager display he tossed the Keyblade over the edge and with a too dramatic wave of his hand brought it over his head and swing downward as if chopping wood. The Keyblade appeared in his grip at shoulder level.

He was so enthusiastic with his actions that the blade came within millimeters of cutting off the tip of Kira's nose. With practiced ease in a wavering motion that could have been confused with drunkenness she dodged back to avoid injury when a piece of the edge crumbled away under her foot causing her to fall.

About twenty feet down she somehow managed to finally grab onto something, a strangely placed pipe looping out of and back into the rock wall. She braced herself for the incoming impact with the stone as her weight and momentum continued to carry her downward as she got a firm hold of the pipe.

To her complete surprise and the utter astonishment of those above she went through the wall, her toes coming within a hair's breadth of hitting the lava. Her bathrobe, however, did not escape an encounter with the liquid stone.

The pipe broke free from the wall outside the secret room she found herself in and she landed after an acrobatic flip upon her feet on a solid, cold stone floor just within the room and had to tear off the remains of the now burning robe.

She dropped the pipe with a hollow clank and took stock of her surroundings. The room was shaped like a cross, the branches left and right decorated by stained glass windows depicting heroes recounted in tales kept within the palace library hiding treasured items of great value and function in similar rooms throughout the palace.

Strait ahead was an altar laid out with honors directed toward the Gods and a cast iron chest as big as her head placed in the center upon a royal blue felt cloth fraying from heat and age upon the grayish white almost marble looking stone. Upon the ground in the center of the room haphazardly placed as though accidentally dropped by someone in a great hurry was a very old cast iron key.

Thinking it entirely too easy and convenient she picked up the key and approached the chest. Just on a whimsical moment she tried the chest to be sure and the chest was locked. She tried the key and it fit, opening the lock easily.

Inside the chest were a curiously designed pair of gauntlets, a gold key, and an old yellowing parchment. She first picked up the parchment and opened the short letter penned in a script and dialect barely used even in their prime.