"Good question. They lead to the 2nd Floor quite alright but each door comes with its own challenge and time period for you to reach the 2nd Floor.
"One of the doors takes you there the fastest and another takes you there slower than the rest but in the end, you will reach your destination if you scale through its challenge. It comes down to how lucky you are...
"I suppose you have great luck when it comes to this sort of thing. Don't you?"
Damon sneered at the guardian for his mocking remark. He could feel the cockiness in his voice.
The player sighed.
"Seems nothing is as plain as it appears on this floor. The Floor of Riddles... it's truly a floor worthy of its name."
He deactivated his shield function, straightened his posture and started walking towards a door.
Symhar looked down, trying to get a peek at Damon's legs.
"I see you have made your choice already..." the Floor Guardian uttered.
Damon did not answer him and just continued to walk.
He was not thinking.
There was nothing there to think about.
There were simply doors that led to his next location and all he had to do was choose one.
Without any thought to it, Damon was moving to the door in the middle.
As he grabbed the knob, something reflected in his mind.
A question he almost forgot to ask.
.
.
.
Damon stopped while still holding the door knob.
"Did you by any chance meet a player called Beth?"
"Beth?" Symhar repeated after him and shook his head in disapproval.
Damon sighed again, about to walk through the door when he stopped a second time.
"What about Nyx?" he said, remembering the usual name his elder sister used in games.
"Hmm," Symhar breathed, "Oh yes. The elf."
"She was one of a kind."
Damon's eyes fluttered in disbelief. "Elf?"
"Hahaha!" He laughed very loudly at the thought about it. The mental image of his sister with long pointed ears cracked him up.
He laughed so much that his eyes started to tear up.
"Can't wait to see what she looks like as an elf. Hahaha!"
After some minutes, he was able to stop himself. He sniffled and rubbed his mildly aching belly.
"Do you have any idea where she is?"
The Floor Guardian shook his head. "That I do not know but what I can tell you is that she made it through this floor and ascended a long time ago."
"A long time ago!" Damon blurted out with a confused look on his face.
Beth dived into the world of Nexus Online about three months ago in the real world and that should not be a long time but from the way Symhar described it, the time inside Nexus moved differently
Symhar bobbed his head. "Yes. About three years ago."
Damon's pupils dilated and his jaws went ajar.
"What! Three years?"
He blinked repeatedly and shook his head.
He was in disbelief of what he just heard.
"Three years! That's not possible!" he exclaimed.
Symhar laughed.
"Time flows differently here and even in some floors also. That—"
Damon cut him short. "How long have I been here?"
"Roughly two days," Symhar answered.
"I see. That's kind of messed up though."
Damon sighed, ended their discussion and proceeded to open the door he had chosen out of the three that appeared.
He was engulfed in a blinding light that emanated from the other side of the door.
The player covered his face with an arm over his head but that did not do much against the glow.
He continued to walk forward into the gleaming path as the door shut behind him.
All three doors dispersed in the form of black clouds and vanished.
Symhar chuckled as he watched the player enter the middle door. "Guess you're not as lucky as you thought yourself to be."
"Tch, such an unlucky lad," Naaray interrupted after Damon had left.
"You know what, Naaray. Limiting myself makes this quite stressful," Symhar whined.
Naaray giggled, flaunting her endowment before Symhar, who didn't bat an eyelid.
"You seem to forget that you're a Floor Guardian. If you use even half your power to make those doors just because you want it to be faster, you will end up killing every player that comes in here."
Symhar scoffed. "Tch! He almost died, didn't he?"
"At least he had a chance to fight back," Naaray retorted. "What are you going to tell 'them' after killing all the players, huh?"
Symhar walked a few steps forward as he considered Naaray's point.
"Let's take the next set," he suggested as they started to merge into one being.
.
.
.
Damon arrived at the other end of the door.
Ding!
[You have arrived the First Stairway]
Ding!
[Welcome to the First Stairway]
[You can now proceed to ascend to the next floor]
"Huh?"
Damon blinked. He remained on the very same spot, dumbfounded by the view before him.
Turning back, he saw the door had vanished and turned toward the First Stairway.
"What the hell? This keeps getting worse, doesn't it?"
That was the honest expression to what was in front of him.