Chapter 7 – The Wandering Fortress
The mist of Niflheim hung low that night, curling around jagged rocks like living breath. Every step we took left a trail of frost, each crunch of snow echoing into the abyss.
This was our first official operation as Three Burning Eye.
A scavenger hunt for something that might not even exist — a hidden file dungeon.
Not a normal dungeon. Not something the map showed.
This was developer-level content, the kind of place you only find by accident or by obsession.
And we were definitely the latter.
"Alright," I said, crouching behind a frozen ridge. "EchoLynx, confirm pathing?"
His beastman ears flicked. "Scanners reading nothing. No mobs, no event triggers, no coordinates. Just static."
Kurohane adjusted her monocle — an enchanted item she coded herself. "Which means we're close. The devs love burying event data under null zones."
Mourne's skeletal jaw clacked. "Or it means we're about to fall into a void."
Pix sighed, hopping off a chunk of ice. "Can we not jinx it before the loot even spawns?"
I chuckled under my hood. "Relax. If this dungeon exists, it won't reveal itself to brute force. Remember: the devs designed Yggdrasil's hidden content for players who think, not just grind."
The others nodded, trust slowly becoming habit after weeks of practice.
They still knew me only as Traveler_R — a rogue-class human who specialized in stealth and recon.
To them, I was a quiet strategist with absurd luck in finding secrets.
And I was fine with that.
Our first clue came from an old forum thread — half-deleted, archived in a forgotten beta dev post.
A single sentence:
"When the three lights freeze as one, the hidden file will open its gate."
We spent two hours theorizing what it meant. Then, finally, Dyna found something.
"Guys! Look!" she shouted, pointing to three massive crystals half-buried in ice. They pulsed faintly with blue light — asynchronous, like glitching code.
"Three lights," murmured Kurohane. "If they sync, it might open something."
"Question is," EchoLynx said, scratching his chin, "how do you sync light made of ice?"
"Magic," I said. "Everything here runs on logic and magic. Let's try a resonance spell."
We spent hours experimenting — light spells, sound vibrations, even environmental shifts.
Nothing worked.
The crystals flickered mockingly, sometimes dimming when we got close, sometimes freezing over like they were laughing at us.
The air grew colder. The silence thicker.
One by one, the others started to lose focus.
But I just stared at the crystals, replaying the dev's words in my head.
Three lights. Freeze as one.
Freeze.
Not shine.
That was the key.
"Everyone, back off," I said, gripping my dagger. "EchoLynx, use that Frost Bind skill on me. Full force."
He blinked. "You serious?"
"Trust me."
He shrugged, then muttered the incantation. Frost energy surged, locking my arms and legs. My HP dropped slightly.
I fell backward, hitting the snow. The three crystals mirrored the motion — their glow flickered, dimmed… and then, suddenly, aligned.
For one second, all three lights froze.
And then the ground cracked open beneath us.
The fall was silent — no loading screen, no transition, just pure vertigo.
We landed in a cathedral of ice and light.
Massive pillars reached up into infinity, their surfaces engraved with binary runes that pulsed faintly like veins.
"This… isn't in the map files," whispered Kurohane.
"Hidden file confirmed," I said quietly. "Welcome to dev heaven."
At the far end of the chamber, a staircase spiraled upward toward a floating sphere of glass. Inside it, a small object spun slowly — a staff, shaped like a crystalline scepter.
"Treasure sighted," said Pix, already running forward.
"Wait," I said sharply. "Traps first."
Seconds later, three ice golems materialized, each holding a mirror-like shield that refracted our attacks.
We scattered, spells and arrows ricocheting off shimmering surfaces.
"Reflective defenses!" shouted Mourne. "Don't hit directly!"
"Then we hit indirectly," I replied.
I summoned a volley of illusion decoys — dozens of fake warriors charging forward, blades blazing with fake heat.
The golems reacted, shattering the illusions and leaving themselves open.
EchoLynx pounced from the side, claws slicing into their cores.
Rin_0 cast a light burst from behind, refracting through the ice — perfect angle, perfect timing.
The chamber exploded in frost.
When the fog cleared, the golems were gone.
And the sphere cracked open.
Inside floated the staff — simple, elegant, humming with quiet power.
[World Item Acquired: The Ark of Aeternum]
Everyone froze.
Even I had to blink twice.
A World Item.
One of the rarest creations in Yggdrasil — artifacts rumored to bend the game's very laws.
We had no idea what we'd just stumbled into.
Kurohane whispered, "Holy hell… are we the first ones?"
"Must be," said EchoLynx, tail twitching. "No one's posted any World Item logs yet."
Pix's voice trembled. "We… we can sell this for real money."
"Or," I said slowly, "we could find out what it does."
The moment I touched the staff, a wave of data surged through me — coordinates, subroutines, space compression codes.
And then:
[World Item Effect Identified: Portable Guild Base – "Aeternum Sanctum"]
Description: A self-contained base sealed within this staff. Can be summoned or stored at will. Only registered members of its guild may enter.
Caution: Should an intruder reach the Inner Core and remove the Blade of Claim, ownership of the Sanctum will transfer to them.
I stared at the text, barely breathing.
A mobile guild base.
A fortress that could move.
The others erupted in excitement.
Rin_0 jumped up and down. "We can carry our HQ?"
Dyna shouted, "We're unstoppable!"
Pix was already calculating market value.
But I silenced them with a raised hand.
"No one talks about this outside," I said. "Not a word. Not even a hint."
Kurohane frowned. "Why?"
"Because World Items aren't just valuable. They're dangerous. If anyone knows we have one, we'll be hunted — by players, dev testers, maybe even the system itself."
They exchanged glances, then nodded slowly.
When we logged out that night, I half expected a message from the dev team telling us we'd triggered a bug.
Instead, I got something stranger.
A direct system mail, marked [Official Developer Communication].
Congratulations, Players of the Three Burning Eye.
You have uncovered one of the hidden objectives of Yggdrasil Beta: to discover the depth of creation beyond player comprehension.
Your ingenuity has proven that curiosity remains humanity's most dangerous skill.
Consider this an acknowledgment — and a challenge.
You are the first to touch a World Item.
The first to hold creation in your hands.
Use it well.
I didn't tell the others about that message.
Some things were better left unsaid.
In the next session, we activated The Ark of Aeternum.
The air rippled — the world folded in on itself — and suddenly we stood inside a vast floating hall of glass and gold, suspended in endless twilight.
Our guild base.
There were rooms for crafting, data archives, summoning chambers, even a crystalline throne room that looked more like a cathedral.
At its center stood the Blade of Claim, embedded in a pedestal — the heart of the Sanctum.
"Looks like Excalibur," said Dyna. "Bet it glows when someone touches it."
"It glows when someone tries to steal it," I corrected. "If that blade's pulled out by anyone who isn't registered, the whole base changes ownership."
"Harsh mechanic," murmured Mourne.
"Fair mechanic," I replied. "Even gods need vulnerability."
We spent hours exploring, configuring permissions, registering members.
When we were done, I placed the staff in my inventory, feeling its weight even through the data.
A guild that could move anywhere.
A home that could disappear into light.
We had just rewritten the rules of the game.
To the rest of Yggdrasil, we were just another minor guild.
A bunch of analysts and explorers chasing secrets for profit.
But inside that staff, hidden between layers of code and frost, was a power no one else even knew existed.
And the rogue in the hood — the one they called Traveler_R —
was quietly smiling behind his mask.
Because a Doppelgänger who lives in illusions now owned a fortress that could vanish.
End of Chapter 7 – The Wandering Fortress