"The Key of Oblivion"

V

Somewhere in the heart of the hotel complex, behind a secret door concealed behind a false wall in a utility room, lay a room that resembled a hybrid of an operating room and a command center. The air was sterile and cool, scented with the ozone of the electronics. In the center, under the soft glow of ceiling-mounted lamps, stood a complex chair, entwined with a multitude of tubes and wires leading to silent machines.

An old man lay almost motionless in a chair. His body, withered and helpless, was covered with a light blanket. His face, covered with wrinkles, seemed like a wax mask. Only his eyes, sharp and alert, betrayed a remarkable intellect. He couldn't speak, but a synthesized voice, flat and emotionless, issued from a small device attached to his larynx. No one knew his real name. To everyone, he was simply the Puppeteer.

In front of him, taking up the entire wall, was a huge curved screen, broken into dozens of frames. In one, Alan, Olga, and Jake were already boarding their nondescript car. In another, Lothrip Longreath was giving orders to his gang, his face contorted with anger. In the corner, a square with a suite flickered, revealing the "Key of Oblivion" - a cloudy green crystal encircled by a silver band with an intricate design - on a velvet cushion in an open safe.

"Everything is going according to plan," a mechanical voice rang out. The puppeteer mentally flipped through the pages of a long-prepared plan. He knew that the artifact he had found so many years ago was the key. The key to what lay hidden in the castle's most ancient, prehistoric depths, beneath layers of knights' halls and monastic cells. But the key was useless without those who could "turn" it. Without the right hands, without the right set of circumstances, without... a sacrificial pawn.

It was he who anonymously tipped Longreath off to the artifact. It was he who set the perfect trap for his henchman, forcing him to communicate over an open channel, knowing Jake would surely intercept the signal. He calculatedly launched three hungry swarms at a single bait, confident that the battle would yield what he needed - the activation of an ancient mechanism whose purpose he only vaguely understood.

His gaze, sharp and all-seeing, slid over the city's security footage. Everything was under control. Almost everything. Only the deep dungeons beneath the castle, the very ones of which legends circulated, remained a blind spot. The creatures that inhabited them were the only ones beyond his control.

And then, looking at the artifact on the screen, his mind, sharp as a razor despite his frail body, was transported into the past.

May 27, 1954. A damp crypt, reeking of earth and time, deep in the forest. Its walls were constructed of rough, massive blocks, unlike the masonry of known eras. They resembled those he later saw in the castle's lowest tiers - the legacy of a nameless people. A young man in a wheelchair, his body already paralyzed, watched as his assistant, with difficulty, pushed aside a stone slab and extracted an object from a niche. It was covered in the dust of centuries and cobwebs, but when they wiped it with a rough cloth, a dull green crystal of strange shape, polished to a mirror shine, was revealed, bound by a silver band. The assistant silently carried the find to the chair. And the young Puppeteer, unable to move a single limb, felt an almost physical wave of... attraction emanate from the artifact. He knew. It was the key. And he, confined to the chair, would find a way to use it. At any cost.

Returning to the present, the Puppeteer stared at the screen again. The toys were set. The curtain was rising. All that remained was to watch as they, driven by their passions, fears, and ambitions, performed their assigned roles in his play. And opened the way to what had been hidden long before the first stone of the castle was laid.