[centre][h2][color=00aeef]Artorigios[/color][/h2]
[i]Virtual Reality World: Homeworld[/i][/centre]

Independence Hall towered before him, in all its mildly decayed glory.  As with most buildings on Homeworld, it was based upon the state it had been in the early 21st Century where frequent renovations had taken their toll.  Curiously, whoever had designed the building for VR had chosen to construct it when it had been some time between repainting and looked slightly dilapidated, although there was a small section of scaffolding up against one side of the building with a NPC who arrived every morning to start repainting it.  At midnight his progress was reset, the AI forever trapped into repeating the same task forever.

That, in itself, was curious to Artorigios.  There were very few NPCs on Homeworld, since it was more of a nexus for players to visit other worlds.  Those few which were present often served a very particular purpose, such as tour guides around cities or as user information.  Most were found in instanced environments, such as in replica museums where different protocols were in place to control player activity.  The fact that this man seemed to be doing a completely inane task, day in an day out, had been a mystery for Questers for some time.  If someone tried to interact with the man he apologised and tried to go back to work.  Even when players had grouped together to obstruct him, to see what would happen, he merely clocked off work and went on a prolonged lunch break, yielding no appreciable results.

Artorigios crossed the road, a few players roaming about but none appearing to be in much of a hurry.  Questers had suspected for a long time that this was where the first clue led but after two years no one felt the need to rush about looking; it would only attract unwanted attention after all.  Independence Hall itself wasn't an instanced environment although there was a NPC tour group that started on the hour, every hour, and multiple players were roaming around inside, trying to discretely search the place for the thousandth time.

As he entered he could hear the female tour guide, leading a gaggle of NPC children along, give the same information she did every time.

"It gained a place in history on July when the Liberty Bell tolled for the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence."

The purpose of the tour guide had been discussed to death on Quester message boards, of course. Nowhere else on Homeworld was there such a regular and persistent group of NPCs but there was nothing linking the tour guides' words and the clue beside the mention of the Liberty Bell.  Both the Liberty Bell and the Centennial Bell, the one housed in the tower above the Hall, had been searched with no great revelations regarding the Quest.  Artorigios, however, felt like there was something he was close to remembering as he listened to the guide.

He followed them from room to room but nothing else jumped out at him.  Some of the scripted speech was familiar to him but it wasn't until he returned to the main room and saw a set of stairs with a rope barrier in the corner of the room that things began to click into place for him.

[color=00aeef]"Cage... With a capital 'C'."[/color]  He mused, wandering over to the barrier and hopping over it.  The staircase led up to the Centennial Bell, although that was nothing new and plenty of others had visited the site previously with nothing to show for it.  But it wasn't the bell that he was interested in, looking to a series of brick arches, across the roof.  When he tried to climb from the bell tower he was stopped with a system warning, telling him that there was an invisible wall due to the fall.  Thinking for a moment, he descended one floor and then entered an old storage room.  At the far end was a window that was open, with a walkway extending to the flat rooftop.  This time he was allowed to climb out through the window and onto the roof where he crossed to the centre brick arch.

After a bit of searching he found what he was looking for, a brick with a small symbol on it which all the others lacked.  After tapping it, he found that he was able to move it out of the way and loot the small 'chest' inside.  He didn't wait to look at his inventory, keen to get away from the roof before anyone spotted him; as far as he knew no other players had made it onto the roof or made the connection between 'Cage' and the Hall.  A connection he was disappointed in, although now the part about 'Hell' made sense as well.

After all, Helen Grey had hated [i]National Treasure[/i].  'Cage' was apparently a reference to Nicolas Cage and 'Hell' seemed to just signal her distaste for the film.  This was where things differed, though.  Returning through to the main part of the Hall, he descended the stairs and climbed over the barrier while trying to look perturbed.  A few other Questers threw sideways glances at him but, seeing his fake dejected expression, took no more notice and continued their furtive searching.

Once again across the road from the Hall, Atorigios was now looking at the Liberty Bell.  A couple of other Questers were doing all but climbing over the artefact in an attempt to find some reference to the clue.  He himself had done something similar, a year ago, but to no avail.  This time, though, he thought he had an answer.  Drawing up his inventory he picked out the new item he had discovered, a simple pair of glasses with no description, and put them on.

The result was underwhelming, but also immensely satisfying.  He had thought that, upon solving the first clue, he might receive a Key or some other item, as Gunters from [i]Ready Player One[/i] did when they passed the first test.  It seemed that, here at least, Grey was deviating from her inspiration.

On the Bell, now glowing for only his eyes to see, was a [url=https://tgc-cache.s3.amazonaws.com/images/uploads/articles/Trinity_knot.jpg]symbol[/url].  He took several screenshots, trying not to rush in his excitement, and sent several images to the printer in his father's old study, ready for analysis.  Turning away, he removed the glasses and headed for a transporter.  Idly, he opened the leaderboard website and saw that nothing had changed.  The top scorers were still all listed as 'HEG'.

Which meant that he still hadn't fully solved the first clue.