Mikleo and Sorey are on one of their ruins races, in Mabinogio. It's been going on for awhile. A few hours, to be more exact. Two hours, forty five minutes to be completely exact. If Mikleo had a watch, he'd know it down to the minute because he's been stuck on on a puzzle for an hour. They're not always his forte. Especially not when they involve memorizing patterns, which is his Achilles heel.

Sorey's probably been here already and Sorey's probably passed this already. Will Mikleo ever do it? Or will he die in this very spot, horrified to death by the fact he can't press ancient buttons in the right order? Okay, so maybe that's dramatic, but he's afforded a little drama at this point. He's losing part of the race and he's stuck and if he doesn't figure out this puzzle he's down and out. He lost yesterday too and he's not sure his ego can take another blow.

It's a large puzzle that covers the entirety of a wall. It requires remembering colours as well as numbers to press buttons in the right order to open a door to the side. If Mikleo didn't respect ruins so much, he would have taken his staff to it long ago. Instead, he's far too tempted to walk away. But he's too stubborn to give up, so he's stuck huffing and puffing with no way through.

Maybe Sorey will come this way and they can call a temporary truce. But probably not. Especially probably not on the latter part. Instead Sorey would probably be smug in his own way and meander on through and Mikleo would spend the rest of his life knowing that the one that solved the puzzle wasn't him. He knows because this has happened before, and it'll happen again. But not today, dammit!

He's just not going to let it happen. So he examines the puzzle again. A loud, exasperated sigh escapes him as he tries to figure out what to do, but in the end he can't quite wrap his brain around it. What a way to feel stupid. At this point, it's clear Sorey has to be ahead of him - Mikleo's been taking so long with this that he would have seen him already if the other was behind him.

He paces around the room, keeping his eyes on the puzzle the whole time, and after a long while he thinks maybe he has it. He's wary when he approaches again, though, and Mikleo is gentle when he hits the buttons. But the puzzle isn't gentle with him. It's obvious he's gotten it wrong when he hears a strange grinding noise above him, and his heart lurches. He jumps out of the spot he was in, just in time for a large stone to drop right where he was at. CRASH goes the sound and "Holy crap!" goes the Mikleo, really rather loudly. He then covers his mouth because oh no, he swore, and crassly at that!

The stone now blocks the puzzle but not the door but how is he going to get the door open without being able to get to the puzzle? Now he really has to hope that Sorey is ahead of him because then Sorey can let him through. The stone falling should have been enough to alert anyone nearby to his presence, but just in case, he approaches the door and starts feeling around the seams to see if there's an area where he can pry it open or break a lock. When that doesn't work, he starts knocking on it with his staff to see if there's any weak points. There's got to be another way through.

All the while he keeps half his attention above him - if another rock is going to fall, he doesn't want to go from almost smushed to completely smushed. So far, nothing. But his luck is running low right now and he doesn't trust it to not run even lower.