The Fourth Man

The Key

The Key

Thomas awoke on a bed of grass. His head was unbelievably sore from where the bulky sailor had struck him. The last thing he remembered was being hit on the deck of the ship then blackness.

He looked around now at his surroundings; he was lying in ankle-high grass which passed small sticky seeds onto Thomas's oversized sailor uniform. About half a mile away a line of pine trees began a thick, dense forest. Thomas brought himself to his feet, brushing the grass seeds from his now dirty uniform. Stumbling forwards he found himself inexplicably on the verge of a cliff. It overlooked almost fifty feet to a rock filled beach, stretching as far as the eye could see either left or right. The great vastness of the sea opened out before him, until a blanket of fog obscured it from view.

Deciding this way would mean certain death Thomas turned back on himself and proceeded back through the sticky-seeded grass. He wondered where he was. The ship had definitely docked in Fontaine Docks, and the Captain wouldn't have wanted to dump him somewhere far away, so he figured he must still be on the island somewhere. Thomas had never been educated, so he didn't know the geography of the island, but he figured civilisation shouldn't be too far away.

He set off at a steady walk, making the best progress he could as the grass got longer, up to Thomas's waist. The tree line of the pine forest seemed not to be getting any closer, and Thomas got frustrated and angry. Why should he have left the factory and impersonated a sailor anyway? What had he hoped to achieve? He'd just got himself lost, badly lost. Thomas sighed, and that was when the ground fell away beneath his feet.

The sensation of falling surrounded Thomas for several seconds. He anticipated a hard fall, but he landed quite softly in a pile of dry leaves. Pushing himself up he was in a dark small shaft, which looked up to the small beam of daylight streaming down. Thomas realised a small slide-like ramp led away from his current crouched position where the bed of dry leaves lay.

Thomas pushed himself gently, and before he knew it he had shot down a small chute and landed on a strange stone table, where five startled faces looked down on him.

"What the hell?" Muttered Siggy "Is anyone else going to drop in here?"

"And who are you?" the look of puzzlement on Quaker's face was replaced with a look of anger.

"I'm Thomas Frain," Thomas murmured "Who are you all?"

Briefly Thomas was introduced to Siggy, Exo, Quaker, Jonathan, and Nerpato. They explained that they had all happened upon the cave after getting lost on Fontaine Island looking for The Fourth Man. It seemed they all shared the same misfortune in their search for the mysterious legend.

"And another thing," said Jonathan, they were all seated on the rock floor of the dimly lit room "there were barefoot footprints leading into this cave which materialised from nowhere, making us suspect we aren't the only ones in here."

"Okay," Thomas nodded "Well this isn't a very big room, have you checked all the alcoves?" he pointed to the small indentations in the rock.

"Yeah," said Exo tiredly "And all the doors, all four are heavy steel, and locked from the other side with some sort of strong metal bar. No way through."

"Apart from a strange looking keyhole," Nerpato added, and pointed to an obscure star shaped hole in the deep set strong metal doors.

"And what's that?" asked Thomas, pointing to the stone table

"Well we aren't so sure ourselves," admitted Siggy

"Yep," Quaker agreed "It's just full of carvings; strange symbols and diagrams."

"None of them are repeated," Exo added "All the symbols and diagrams are different, but we don't have a clue what this means, where we are, or are any closer to finding this elusive Fourth Man."

"I see," Thomas sighed, leaning on the table for support. As he did so he knocked it slightly, and the table moved on a circular platform, moving inwards and showing another tier of different symbols.

"What did you just do?" Siggy asked, Thomas shrugged in response.

"That's clever," Exo studied the table "Quaker, push the table around again."

Quaker pushed the table around on the circular platform several times. Eventually five different circles appeared in the stone, showing five different sets of symbols and diagrams.

"I see," Exo noted "The five different circles all have the same symbols and diagrams, and they all move separately, which means they can match up."

Exo proceeded to align the similar symbols together by turning the stone circles. The others watched in anticipation and awe. When he had matched all the symbols together nothing seemed to happen, and Exo looked confused.

Then all of a sudden the sound of cogs turning and stone moving pushed up the central column of the stone table. A platform pushed itself up onto of the table.

"What is it?" Jonathan asked

"I don't know," Exo admitted, picking up the stone item presented to them on the platform. He placed it in his palm and brought it over to the others.

It was a strange shape, but it looked like it was built to purpose.

"Nerpato?" Thomas asked

"Yeah?"

"You said all the doors had keyholes?"

"They do."

"Well I think we've found the key."