The RPG Archive: The Vault

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

Miles under London, in a deep underground lair of Gringotts, the RPG moderators knelt by the door of an ancient vault. Their hearts were beating furiously; they had already managed to navigate through the twisting curves, avoid all the clever security goblins, and sneak around a fiery Hungarian Horntail. Now, they had reached their final challenge.

Q.Araignee took a swig from her flask of Butterbeer, and then swore when she found that it was empty. Pulling out her wand, she muttered an incantation and the flask was filled to the brim. She had another drink.

Phoenix put his ear to the safe door, and then took a step back to examine what was before him. As well as the twisting curves of the mine and the clever security guards, (and credit to the dragon, too) Gringotts had a reputation for incredibly tricky vaults. Even for a seasoned witch or wizard, this one was no exception.

It was the sort of ancient vault that none would even attempt to open. It had been built at a time when Alohamora was nothing more than a dream, a distant hope for the future.

It has often been said that if you take two sorcerors at any time, they would not have one ounce of logic between them. It was on this basis that the safe door was designed. It was simple, to the point of absurdity.

It was a combination lock.

Any respectable muggle thief could have cracked the three digit code easily, but for a thousand years it had beaten countless magical ones.

Hopefully that would now change, as two brave adventurers from the Broomsticks and Owls Harry Potter Forum sought to crack the code.

For hours and hours they took turns at trying to discover the correct combination. They had eliminated 76% of all possibilities when Phoenix finally gave up, and thrust the lock back into Q.A's hands.

"I've had enough," he said.

Hour after hour, failure after failure, success became more and more unlikely. Finally, Q.A reached the final combination, which by process of elimination had to be the correct one. Phoenix rose in anticipation.

She turned the lock to read: 999, and then pulled. Nothing happened. She pulled again. Still nothing.

Phoenix groaned and slumped back down the wall. It was impossible, there was no proper combination. They had wasted all this time for nothing. Then he had a thought: this was an old safe, right? He glanced at Q.A's wand, which was lying on the stone floor next to the safe entrance. He looked up, and noticed that Q.A was also looking at the wand.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" he said.

"I think I'm thinking what you're thinking," she said. She took a swig of butterbeer, and picked up her wand. She pointed it at the lock.

"Alohamora!" she shouted. The lock fell apart onto the floor, and the door dissolved before their eyes.

"Interesting," Phoenix noted. "It must be older than we thought. Alohamora was invented before Hogwarts started."

Before Hogwarts? The two brave RPGers stepped into the vault, and the air around them was so stale that it was hard to breathe. In front of them was a desk. On that desk sat a book which was very old and tattered. It had a gold lining around the outside.

Q.A brushed the dust off. They had found what they were looking for. "The RPG Archive," she read the title, and their hearts skipped a beat. It was magnificent.

From front to back cover, they sat down on the floor and read the book, story after story. There was adventure, terror, humour and wit. When they were finished, they both knew what they had to do - they would spread the word to all Broomsticks and Owls members - they would tell them all what they had seen.

Although no member was allowed to ever rewrite or add to the stories, they could still be enjoyed for generations to come, as members new and old gathered at Broomsticks and Owls Harry Potter Forum to read and discover the many tales of the wizarding world, that their brave RPG moderators had brought them.