Into the Fortress

Now, this was just getting weird. Snake looked around the room he had just entered and couldn't figure it out for the life of him. They had traveled the floor, took out every soldier there, got the key card for the next level and had moved on to the floor above. And right now, Snake could swear he just entered another dimension. The building had gone from standard modern day, to gothic horror film.

That uneasy feeling Snake had been feeling earlier came back full force.

Maybe there really was more to Raziel's story than he'd thought.

"Why have you stopped, Snake?" Raziel asked from behind him. Snake turned and let Raziel walk passed him.

"Maybe this is a bit more familiar to you, Raziel, because right now I think we've left my area of expertise and entered yours."

Raziel stopped as he entered the new room. He shook his head. "It seems you are right, Snake. This is more familiar to me now. This is the kind of fortress I envisioned Moebius dwelling in, not the building we have been traveling through until this point."

"Yeah, well," Snake said as he walked passed Raziel and looked around the room. "I definitely don't think key cards are going to work anymore. I wonder if we're going to run into anymore guards or maybe some demons?"

Raziel shook his head. "Moebius would never debase himself by accepting the aid of demons. He would use them, but never collaborate in a direct means. It would ruin his image as 'kind sage' who is only trying to 'help the people of Nosgoth from the plague that infects it'."

Snake blinked at Raziel's sarcastic tone. A half smirk appeared on his lips. "You really don't like this Moebius guy at all, do you?"

Snake saw Raziel turn and met his glowing gaze. "I would assume that was obvious by now."

Snake shrugged. "It was." He looked around trying to grasp the entire room. How the hell was I going to do this, once I got up here? The ceiling was at lease two stories high, the walls had ceased being the plaster, concrete, alloy and plastic of a normal wall, and were now made of stone. Not even concrete. Stone. And instead of being just a normal room or at least a semi-normal hallway, it was a hallway lit by candelabras and the candles gave an unearthly blue flame.

"Shit." Snake muttered to himself. Things had gone from complicated to freaking convoluted. The Codec suddenly went off. Snake motioned to Raziel for a moment, indicating his Codec, and logged on.

"What is it, Otacon?"

"I want an update, Snake. I just lost you on the tracer."

"What?" Snake saw Raziel look at him quizzically.

"Yeah. You know the tracer you're equipped with so in case of dire emergency I could locate you? Yeah, that one. You're gone. You're not in the building as far as I can tell. In fact, you're nowhere."

"…"

"Snake?"

"Remember that comment about the horror film, Otacon?"

"…Yeah…"

"Well, I just entered the movie set. Wherever I am now… Well, let's just say I'm not in Kansas anymore. For all I know, I could be in the link up between the grand old U.S. of A. and Raziel's Nosgoth. Or Oz. Right now, your guess is as good as mine."

"Shit, Snake. What mess have we gotten ourselves into? If you need to get out fast, I've got no idea how! You were on the seventh floor before, right?"

"Yeah."

"All right, I'll keep a look out starting from there and see if I can hack into anything above it. But as far as the computer is concerned there's nothing above it."

"Well, there is, Otacon. I don't know if you can hack into it or not, but there's got to be some way to gain access to the upper level floors. If anyone can do it, you can."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Snake. But if you're in Oz, there probably isn't a chance in hell that there'll be any form of computers from here on in. But I'll try."

"Good."

"Oh, and Snake?"

"Yeah?"

"Don't forget about Olga's kid. She wasn't in the lower levels. That means she's got to be somewhere from there on up. I don't know how you're going to get her out, but… Well, just reminding you."

Snake smirked. "You didn't need to remind me, Otacon. I know."

"All right then… Uh, good luck, Snake."

"Thanks."

"You'll probably need it. Oh, and don't get killed!"

"I'm not planning to, Otacon."

"Good, 'cause Meryl would kill me if you died."

"Heh. All right, Otacon."

Snake logged off and turned to Raziel. The blue vampire zombie was marching right down the hall without even a bit of caution. This guy has definitely never heard of stealth. Snake quietly and quickly caught up to him.

"What the hell are you doing, Raziel?"

"Have you finished speaking with your assistant, Snake? We have no more time to waste. Within these walls we will not see your 'surveillance cameras', but Moebius has eyes everywhere. And now… We are in his fortress."

"Just perfect," Snake muttered to himself. He looked around, his eyes narrowed as watched the walls, he wasn't sure what he was expecting, but the concept of Moebius having 'eyes everywhere' was enough to disturb him. Pity he hadn't found a cardboard box in the lower floors. Right now the protective paper would have been welcome. But Snake doubted that even that would have stopped the chill from running up his spine.

Snake returned his gaze to Raziel and saw the Reaver was quite a distance ahead. He muttered a curse beneath his breath. No wonder he always played into Moebius' hand. The guy probably knew Raziel was coming and adjusted plans accordingly. Snake could only pray that there really weren't eyes in the walls. He passed by another candelabra quickly and warily. The blue candlelight was already giving him enough of the creeps.

"Ah. And so it begins."

Snake looked away from his surroundings and to where Raziel was. Raziel was standing before a sealed portcullis. Snake saw that about fifty feet away from it was the device to lift it. This was such an archaic form of enclosure that he had no idea what to make of it. How the hell were they supposed to open this thing? No weapon he had on him would create enough force to push down the lever.

Maybe if he had a Nikita…

"Such a simple device. I would assume Moebius would protect himself better," Raziel said to himself.

Snake arched an eyebrow as he looked at the blue vampire. "Um… The lever for this thing is over there. Unless you can walk through walls there's pretty much no way we can get to it." Snake shook his head. "Dammit. If only I had a Nikita at least, but there were no weapons lying around."

"Of course not. Moebius does not want to make it easy for us. But as for 'walking through walls' as you so delicately stated…"

Snake turned to Raziel after that strange comment, but the Reaver was gone. Snake blinked and then heard a slight creaking. He turned and saw Raziel pulling down the lever. Damn. He didn't have to tear doors open, he could just disappear and pop up on the other side of them. Snake thought back to how Raziel had gotten so far up the building without key cards. He shook his head. That's probably how Raziel had done it. Snake wondered briefly as the gate began to open, what other tricks Raziel had up his sleeve. Snake suddenly took out his gun as he stepped through. His sharp hearing didn't miss the echo of rock grating over rock. By opening this, they probably sprung some kind of trap.

Snake went to Raziel's side and could see the expression on his face. He had heard it too and was now on alert.

They did not say a word to each other, just continued on their way. Hallways stretched on forever from what Snake could tell and the tension in his body refused to let up. Both him and Raziel were watching for whatever had come loose. Snake wondered briefly if all the castles in Raziel's Nosgoth were like this one. If so, Nosgoth would definitely be a great setting for the best horror flicks ever made. As well as prime real estate for ghouls and demons. Snake shook his head. Now he was resorting to lame humor in order to get rid of tension. What he wouldn't give for a cardboard box to hide him from the watchful walls.

Snake and Raziel continued down the halls for what seemed to Snake another good half hour. As they continued on their way, the ceiling seemed to dip lower. Before it had been eerily majestic in the height, but it had been steadily growing lower. From the initial fifty feet high, it had become about twenty feet. Snake's eyes narrowed as he realized it. Was there a reason? After a little more walking, Raziel came to a stop. Snake looked ahead, but only saw a wall. A wall? There had been no turns or anything of the kind down these hallways. How could they lead to a dead end? Was there something they missed along the way? Snake sincerely doubted it. He had been watching for anything that looked out of the ordinary… Well, beside gothic castle he was currently in.

"Hm. It seems this is what we triggered earlier. I am certain that there is supposed to be a doorway here, but now it has been sealed. Or removed."

Snake looked at Raziel like if he had grown two heads. "How, in hell, can you remove a door?"

"I have learned through my experiences not to question Moebius. He does as he desires and his power is practically limitless. After all, he controls time. Any trap he can create, no matter what it could be, I am sure it is possible, for him."

Snake cursed beneath his breath. "Great, the man we've been hunting down is an omnipotent being."

"No," Raziel said as he approached the wall. "Not omnipotent." He placed his clawed hand on the smooth surface. "Not yet."

Snake shook his head. This was not what he needed to hear. Olga's kid was some-where trapped in this creepy gothic castle, held by a guy that could probably go back in time and screw up everything they're doing if he knew about it and if he was so inclined. Things had been confusing before he found Raziel. Everything had been spiraling down from there. Snake went up to Raziel and began to observe the wall as well. There's got to be some hidden trigger or something that would show them where the damn door was. There had to be something.

Snake noted that the wall was made up of several large stone segments, unlike the solid slabs of wall that made up the halls so far. He ran his fingers over the stones, and paused at the crack between them. He remember the sound earlier of stone grating on stone. A slight bit of air whistled through the cracks. Realization hit him and Raziel voiced it.

"Hm. It seems these stones were not here originally. They probably are what moved the door out of our path. Perhaps…" Raziel moved back and looked up. Snake followed in suit and came to same conclusion.

"The door was moved up."

Raziel nodded. "So, it seems. Unfortunately…" He placed his claws on the stone again. "These stones are too smooth for me to make the climb. I am at a loss at how to get up there. I cannot make the jump and I do not know how distorted this area will be in the spectral realm."

Snake just looked blankly at Raziel. Half the things Raziel had just said Snake had no idea what to make of. It was mostly gibberish to him. But he did understand one thing. They needed to get up there and if the surface was rougher, Raziel could climb it.

"I can probably do something about this," Snake said. "Raziel, move." Raziel turned and moved aside. Snake moved back and pulled out the AK 47. It had already had the silencer screwed on from earlier when he took on Raziel. Snake smiled as he let loose on the wall before them, roughing it up for Raziel.

After emptying in the clip, Snake reloaded and then put the gun away. He watched Raziel approached the now scratched up wall and dig his claw into it. Snake's eyebrows lifted as Raziel deftly climbed the wall and reached the top, hurtling himself over the edge. He then said, "Yes, Snake. The door to the next room is up here."

"That's great, Raziel, but how am I supposed to get up there? I don't have claws."

Raziel leapt down from the ledge and stood before Snake for a moment before turning around. "Grab onto me, Snake. I will take you up. You made it able for me to climb, now I will do the same."

Snake shook his head, wondering if it was even remotely sane for him to grab onto the Reaver and let him piggyback Snake all the way to the ledge. But what other choice did he have? Snake approached Raziel from behind and got a good grip around Raziel's shoulder. This would be beyond weird. The vampire didn't even have a jaw.

Raziel however neither seemed to care nor to even think twice about it. Once Snake was secure he immediately began to climb the wall, catching Snake slightly off guard. Within moments they were on the ledge before the door. It was a brief trip, but one Snake definitely did not want to do again. Snake looked at Raziel, but he was already striding toward the door.

Snake let out a brief curse beneath his breath and got up. How was he going to convince Raziel to be more careful? This guy-or whatever-was seriously lacking in the stealth department. He didn't get there in time before Raziel pushed the door open. Snake let out another low curse and walked into the room behind Raziel, gun ready.

The room was huge and square. On the right and left side of the room, a short wall cut off at about six feet in height. There were strange runic designs that Snake could barely make out decorated and evenly spaced on either wall. The top of those walls extended further until it reached the farthest walls, which grew into the ceiling. The far walls were adorned with flickering torches and dark, gothic pillars stemmed from the top edges of the ridge to the arched ceiling. Directly across from the entrance of the room was a strange altar with an enormous pair of double doors. Snake eased beside Raziel, taking in the room. There seemed to be no danger. But that didn't ease Snake in the least. There will be.

Snake started when he heard a graphic expletive come from Raziel. He turned and looked at Raziel who was now striding down the center. Snake rushed to him and grabbed his arm.

"Raziel, what are you doing? If you keep this up you're going to give away the fact that we're here! Forget confrontation! In this kind of situation we have to be stealthy. If not we're going to get ourselves killed," Snake whispered.

"You do not comprehend, Snake." Raziel motioned around him. "We, or perhaps the more appropriate term would be I, will be making plenty of noise in this room. There is no way around it."

"What are you talking about?" Snake demanded.

Raziel continued moving down the large center of the room, Snake beside him wondering what the hell was going on. Snake noticed that the ground was tiled and the giant stones that made it up seemed almost moveable. When they reached the altar, Raziel, to Snake's surprised tried to push open the doors without a wind of caution. Snake was too late to stop him… But he hadn't needed to worry about it. The doors would not budge. Snake blinked and then looked at Raziel in exasperation.

"What the hell was that all about?"

Raziel cursed again and began to march toward the closest wall with the runes one of the runes on them. He dug his claws into the wall and pulled. Snake shook his head in disbelief as a giant block with the rune on all sides slide out from the wall.

"It is a block puzzle," Raziel growled.

Snake dropped his face into his hand.

* * *

An hour later…

Snake was sitting beside one of the pillars on a ledge, a cigarette on his lips, watching Raziel move around the twenty different blocks. He'd been watching him for the last hour. Yeesh… This Moebius guy knew how to drive a guy up the wall. The only thing Raziel would say were curses. Now he knew why Raziel had said that earlier when he saw the crates. To him blocks and boxes were the same thing and if he had to move them to keep going on his way, he became really irritated.

Hence, Raziel's current irate mood.

Snake took another drawl and looked at his AK 47. He had taken it apart and put it back together at least three times and cleaned it once. He had tried calling Otacon on the Codec, but all he got, to his total shock and amazement, was static. As far as Snake was concerned that just proved to him that he was in another dimension after all. Or maybe it was just this particular room…

"DAMNATION!"

Snake blinked and looked toward Raziel. When he saw the Reaver heading for the door they had entered, Snake signed and got up, going after him. This was the fourth time they had to restart the stupid puzzle. Raziel had told him in order to restart it, they both had to leave the room and reenter it. Snake had no idea how that work, but he really didn't want to find out.

They left the room, Raziel muttering to himself in his archaic curses, closed the door and then entered again. It still freaked Snake out to see the room exactly the way it was when they had first come in every time they did this. He really did not want to know how the room did that.

Another hour later…

"At last!"

Snake shot up as the large double doors made a definite echoing unlocking sound. He leapt off the ledge and headed toward the doors with Raziel. He didn't know what to expect on the other side, but… He readied his AK 47. He was not going to take any chances. Snake shook his head. Two hours in one room with one puzzle. He hoped to whatever gods were out there that they didn't have to do that again.

Right about now he hated block puzzles as much as Raziel.

They went through the doors without any hesitancy. Snake was through waiting and playing around. Stealth didn't seem to matter in this part of the building anyway so there did not seem to be a point in it.

The moment they crossed the threshold however, both doors suddenly slammed shut, startling Snake. He turned around and knew without of doubt that they wouldn't be able to go that way. He heard Raziel mutter something and turned to him.

Raziel was standing by a stone railing in front of them. To either side of them there was a flight of stairs that went down. Clearly, they were on a balcony of some kind. Snake went up to Raziel and looked out over the balcony.

Snake let out a crude expletive.

A labyrinth, about as far as the eye could see, stretched out before them. Snake shook his head as he took it in. "We'll be stuck in here the rest of our natural lives," he muttered mostly to himself.

But Raziel responded. "For you perhaps. I, unfortunately, cannot die. Therefore, I shall 'be stuck here' for eternity."

Snake cracked his neck and stretched his arms. "Well, let's put it this way. I don't want to die here, I promised Meryl I would come home safe. And I know you don't want to stay here forever, so I have a proposition."

Snake didn't even blink when Raziel turned his glowing gaze to him. "Oh? And what may that proposition be, Snake?"

"How about we tackle this sucker with a positive attitude, and when we find Moebius and the Patriots within the next couple of hours, we beat them to a pulp."

"Sounds tempting, but how do you propose we do that?"

Snake shrugged. "Lots of luck." He suddenly got a call on the Codec. Snake's stifled his relief. He motioned to Raziel to wait a moment and the gave his attention to the Codec and Otacon.

"Yeah, Otacon?"

"SNAKE! Thank God!"

Snake blinked at Otacon's relieved heaves. He shook his head. "Otacon? What's up? What is it?"

"You don't know?!" Otacon hollered. "Oh, nothing much! Not only have you been completely missing from my radar since you entered the horror set, but for the last two hours I couldn't even contact you on the Codec! All I got was static! Do you have any freaking concept at how absolutely freaked out I was?! Where the hell were you?! What happened in there?!"

"It was nothing too severe, Otacon. I wasted two hours of my already short life cleaning and fiddling with my AK 47 while I waited for Raziel to finish with this huge block puzzle that has officially annoyed the hell out of us. The only progress I can state for the two hours I was missing from the realm of reality was that I now know why Raziel hates block puzzles."

"… Well, that's a plus, I guess."

"…"

"So, where are you now?"

"Facing an endless labyrinth that I'll probably never get out of."

"What?!"

"Don't worry about it, Otacon. I figure you still can't find me on the tracer, huh?"

"Nope."

"Then it's no good."

"What's no good?"

"I was hoping you could guide us through the labyrinth by seeing if there were any people in this area, but since you can't even find me, there isn't anyway you'd be able to find anyone else. Any luck in decoding anything in the top floors?"

"Practically zilch."

"Practically?"

"Yeah, there was one thing I managed to decode, but I'm not sure if it'll be of any help to you. And it didn't necessarily come from the upper floors. It just sort of floated into my systems."

"That's not a good sign, Otacon."

"You're telling me. Especially with all the other weird shit that's been going on."

"So, what's that little bit you managed to decode?"

"It seemed like a riddle or phrase or something. Really doesn't make a lick of sense, but here it is: 'Beyond knowledge, beyond life, beyond sleep, beyond death. A fall of eternity into the abyss. Within my hands, everything shall pass.' …Nope. Haven't got a clue. How 'bout you, Snake?"

"It's a riddle…and I think I know the answer."

"…You do?" There was a slight pause. "Well, out with it."

"Time."

"Aw, shit."