1. New Student Orientation

Dorian cracks his fingers and bumps Kiraen in the elbow. "What do you think? It's either a door to make us look stupid, or it's magic. My money is on magic. What's your opinion?"

I agree. Nothing is as it seems. That could just as easily be an illusion of a door, but I doubt it.
It is properly a test of some sort. Its has magical locks. She gives a short bark of a laugh.

There is a saying about a key without a lock. This could be something similar, a door without a room and key.

Kiraen looks expectantly at Professor Mirthwhistle

Kiraen shrugs and approach the door. She circles it to see it from all angels.
Then in an effort to be polite and appreciate the doors secondary function, she knocks on the door and waits a moment to be invited in

"You seem very self- . . . critical, and sadly not that uncommon a sentiment reminiscent of the, uh, self-criticism of. . ." it trailed off just as the professor took over everyone's attention once more, and kept silent until the group was presented with the door.

When given an opportunity to react to said door, Zix spoke up.

"This reminds me of another door. When I was a kid, there was a ruin of house - nothing was left standing, but unlike many other ruins, it had a single doorframe and door entirely untouched by the destruction. It was locked. From talking to street kids I found that it was an urban legend of sorts. Locksmiths and thieves would sometimes try to unlock it - there was a claim that if someone were to force the lock, it would bring a terrible curse, but if one to successfully pick it, there would be a great blessing.

The door kept standing. A friend of mine - well, I suppose I saw her more as an aloof big sis, distant but caring - used to obsess over it, over unlocking it. Some days when we passing by, she insisted on approaching it and trying to fiddle with the lock. It was annoying, sad, clingy. She has chosen to became an apprentice of the local lockmaker when she got older. I knew it was because of this door.

Years later, to everyone's shock, she did manage to solve that lock, opened the door, and walked away. I asked how she feels about the achievement, why she doesn't want to symbolically walk through the door. She shook her head, and said that now there's nothing left to do in this wreck of a town, and that she finally feels the freedom she has, and wants to see the wonders of world. A few days later she left, and I've never seen her again.

If any blessing was meant to happen after unlocking the door, it never came. But over the next years few, many, many of the young adults and a noticeable number of kids decided to leave the city behind too - more than in the decade before. Incidentally, I was one of them.

I think that experience makes me view the standalone door as a lesson. But it also makes me wary of making too big a deal of yet another door standing alone."

Marlena listens to Zix and takes his tale into consideration. "Hm... Maybe the point is to resist the temptation of the door?" She wonders aloud. Still, she draws closer to the door, inspecting it in order to at least ascertain whether it's real or fake. If real, she tries to make sense of the rune patterns.

Dorian looks at Kieran and in a soft voice from behind says, "Come in, dearie. I've some nice sweeties for you!"

He winks at Zix.

He steps around the door and gets down, checking the grass on the other side for footprints or signs of wear.

Kiraen circles the door carefully, examining it from all angles. From the back, the door looks identical to the front—no hinges, no supports, just an isolated slab of wood. With the poise of someone accustomed to courtly manners, she finally reaches out and knocks twice, waiting politely for an answer.

For a long moment, nothing happens. Then, a faint, whimsical creak sounds, as though the door itself were considering whether or not to respond. But it does not open.

Behind it, Dorian’s voice lilts softly, his tone playfully unsettling.
Greta, standing a step behind and just watching, stifles a chuckle. Dorian gives Zix a quick wink before stepping around the door. He crouches low, inspecting the grass on the opposite side for any disturbed earth, trampled blades, or signs that anyone has walked through recently.

There are none.

It’s as if the door has always been here—or perhaps, as if it has never been touched.

Meanwhile, Marlena listens to Zix’s earlier musings and considers the door’s true purpose...

Even so, curiosity gets the better of her. Stepping forward, she examines the runes carefully, tracing them with her gloved fingers without touching. The symbols are elegant, looping—not a standard arcane inscription, but something more poetic.

The runes react.

As she studies them, their glow intensifies, shifting from soft violet to a cool blue. A sudden pulse of energy ripples outward like an unseen gust of wind, making the grass around them sway in an unnatural breeze. The symbols rearrange themselves before her very eyes, shifting, altering...

Kiraen steps off the grass and stands next to the professor. I don't have the skillset to understand this thing. Yet.
But some day i will.
With those words, she is done with the door

"A puzzle, well done Marlena!" Dorian didn't do so well with the last puzzle, but he gets closer, examining the runes. He has no skill in such things, but perhaps Zix does. If so, then he positions himself to possibly aid the strange being.

"I haven't solved anything yet, but thank you." Marlena smiles, soaking up the praise despite her words. "I can make out a few sentences from the runes, but I hesitate to simply tell you, as it may be enchanted to show something different to each of us. I wouldn't want to influence you unduly. Can you read it and tell me what you see? If we are in fact seeing the same thing, then we can start working from there. Even if our perceptions don't match, what you see may be crucial to figuring this out."

"If that is true, then reading it to you would be counterproductive." Dorian describes the rune shapes he sees to Marlena, indifferent to rune lore as he has been in the past, as it seemed a path that lead only to dusty encounters, not experiential or sensual ones.

"How about we all draw the runes we see on a piece of paper, write down a short summary of what we think of them, and then the fourth participant would compare the papers of the other three?" asked Zix, and extracted a stack of paper and a traveller's quill from its satchel, then became the first one to enact the steps of the plan.

Interesting idea. I'm game.
Kiraen returns to the door with a small notebook and begins to copy the runes at the agreed time

Marlena sketches with precise strokes, her handwriting neat and deliberate. Dorian’s page, though elegant in script, holds a certain careless charm, as if he expects the puzzle to unravel itself at his leisure. Zix, ever methodical, finishes first and waits with the quiet patience of someone testing an experiment.

When they finally compare, their papers reveal an intriguing truth—every set of runes is identical.

Yet, as each of them watches, the runes begin to shift and reform before their eyes in the same mesmerizing sequence.

Marlena, having already puzzled out parts of the meaning, repeats the words aloud as they appear once more:

"The way forward is behind you."

"What is locked was never closed."

"You seek the unseen, but do you see what you seek?"

Kiraen repeats the riddle and thinks about it.
Then she suddenly has an idea. Franticly she looks around for something reflective until she draws her fighting wand. It's made of a silvery material in the form of a stiletto. Turning her back to the door, she raises the blade edge to her eyes and examines the reflection of the door.
The way forward is now behind me, as my back is to the door.
What was locked, could have been our perception of this thing.
We came here to see knowledge, that in itself is unseen. Let me see what I can see like this...

Kiraen turns her back to the door, lifting her fighting wand—a slender stiletto of silvery material—to her eyes. Its polished surface should have shown the door behind her. But instead, the door is gone.

Her breath catches. The door isn’t there.

In the mirror-like surface of her fighting wand, the grass sways gently in the breeze, uninterrupted by the dark wooden frame and its ever-shifting runes. The reflection reveals nothing where the door should be—only open space.