Keepers are non-player characters that are placed in charge of a floor of the Tower of Babel to rule over it.
Each floor ideally has its keeper/keepers.
Formidable characters that supposedly stand as the strongest on their floor.
Now, Sethryn was faced with one of them and has accepted her challenge.
Nara stared down at the player without saying anything.
He had accepted the challenge of her floor and as the keeper of the floor, she was bound to assess the player.
Nara stretched a hand out to the side, revealing even more of her breasts that were hidden. The pair of ample breasts bounced in front of Sethryn with each movement.
He could not help but steal glances at them as they were just right before him.
Tiny and shining crystals gathered in her palm and stretched upwards and downwards, forming a long iron rod.
Sethryn pushed a step back from the keeper, extending the distance between the two of them a little further.
Nara clutched the rod and stamped it on the floor of the room, creating a sudden onset quake that shook the room and made Sethryn lose his balance and stagger.
The room was slowly being dominated by its dark part. The darkness interwoven with the bright sides of the room, crept up slowly until the room was dimly lit.
But that was not the strangest thing yet that Sethryn was forced to see.
He rose to his feet immediately as he watched what was happening.
"What's going on?" he wondered.
Nara's body started to split as if giving way to something else within her. Her face crumbled and her eyes turned from golden yellow to carmine.
Her long blonde hair shortened to the level of the ears and gradually turned dark and curly.
The bosomy chest that had taken Sethryn's attention from time to time shrunk and vanished into a flatter chest with more prominent ribs.
Nara morphed.
By the time this process was over, the voluptuous female that Sethryn had seen was no more.
Standing now before him was another individual. He was slender and frail with a bent posture like an old man with waist problems.
He bore an iron staff in his hands and his eyes were narrowed with blackened eyelids and his skin was pale — as white as paper — but youthful.
His movements were sluggish but his voice...
His voice was deep, reaching the very depths of the room and piercing into the soul of Sethryn who heard him.
"What's going on?"
He was still baffled by the sudden appearance of the male individual when the blue notification box flashed in his mind with a notif.
<< Player Is Participating In The Challenge Of The 1st Floor >>
"Welcome to the Floor of Riddles," the pale-skinned man said to Sethryn.
"I am Simha, the 1st Keeper."
Sethryn raised a brow in confusion.
"Two 1st Keepers?"
That was the thought that crossed his mind. He knew then that it was not an impossibility for a floor to have two keepers, however, it was surprising that such a thing could be seen as earlier as the 1st Floor.
"Floor of Riddles?"
Sethryn assumed many things about the name that Simha had just mentioned, possibly a moniker for the floor.
Sethryn tried to maintain a calm mind and compose himself. If it was anything like the usual games he played in the real world then the 1st Floor would not be that hard since there were still many floors for him to climb.
The 1st Floor was the entry point to the Tower of Babel and as such he was not expecting any herculean tasks at that level.
Sethryn was already thinking of the possible things that could happen and how he would go about finding solutions to them.
He started to recall the riddles he knew from the real world as well as their answers. It was all in preparation for whatever Simha had in store for him.
Simha impressed the bottom of his staff hard on the ground and a long crack stretched out from it and started to branch out in many different directions.
The cracks grew bigger forming crevices that caved into a massive black hole.
Sethryn watched as the floor of the room imploded and fell into a deep pit of pitch darkness.
His eyes gaped and his heart pounded very fast. He kept turning around, trying to see if there was a way to escape.
There was none.
Simha, however, stood in front of him, calm and quiet since he knew the outcome of whatever it was that he had just done.
Sethryn was careful to not take any careless steps that may end up costing him his life. He watched as the floor of the room collapsed into itself leaving only the sections where he and Simha stood.
Where the two of them stood was like small platforms that stretch down and deep into the pitch black pit that was below them.
It was an abyss.
Every other thing that surrounded Sethryn was shrouded in the thick darkness.
He took deep breaths to calm himself down.
"This is not real."
"This is not real."
"This... is not real," he said to himself repeatedly only to open his eyes and see that it was as real as a touch to his skin.
<< The Challenge Of The 1st Floor Has Begun >>
<< Host: Simha [ 1st Keeper ] >>
<< Title: The Riddle Game >>
<< Location: Tower Of Babel [ 1st Floor ] >>
<< Participant(s): >>
[ Sethryn ]
[ RedQueen63 ]
Sethryn glanced over the notification, noticing one peculiar thing.
"Looks like I'm not the only one taking the test at the moment," he thought to himself after seeing another player's username, RedQueen63, pop up below his name in the participants' list.
Sethryn jammed his hands and cracked his knuckles. He was fired up and very enthusiastic to start the game now more than ever.
"Let's play."
...
...
...
Simha began to speak and his voice thundered all over but Sethryn did not flinch. He had bigger goals to achieve for the events of the 1st Floor to make him fret.
He stood, unfazed by the theatrics unveiled by the 1st Keeper before him.
"His strength wouldn't be more than the level of his floor," Sethryn thought.
"If I'm right then, he won't be stronger than a level two or three player."
Sethryn paused his thinking to listen to the rules being dished out by Simha.
As Simha spoke, two replicas of himself detached from his body and stood on their respective pillars.
"What's going on?" Sethryn wondered.
"The rules of the Riddle Game are simple."
The voices of the Simhas echoed and sounded even more powerful as the three of them spoke at the same time and with the same tone.
"One of us will always say the truth. One of us will always lie. One of us will always be on the fence, deciding to say the truth or lie however he deems fit.
"To pass the Riddle Game, you must identify which of us is which — the Simha of Truth, the Simha of Lies and the Simha of Both."
"Huh?" Sethryn blurted out.
"The Riddle Game begins now."
A notification dropped into Sethryn's Synapse and he opened it to view.
[ Riddle Game ]
[ Time Remaining: 00h : 09m : 48s ]