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being Malerous may be right. Even though they appeared over a year before we first found out about the Malerous, they normally have a war. Also they do give me a bit of the same vibe like Remthalas.

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On the topic of Lock & Key being Malerous, it just seems too... easy? Obvious? Something about their weird mechanical nature and the way the maze seems to act as like, asset storage for not just Dragonfable but all the AE games makes me think they have the potential to be something greater. But also there's no reason why the devs would introduce an entirely new faction/kind of entities at this point so Idk.

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A thought just occurred to me. Maybe the reason that they know what the Maleurious are isn't because they are Maleurious, but because they are from before they existed. Maybe they exist as a form of data archive for the AE universe, which could explain some of their powers, too. Maybe they have slight control of the data that makes up the AE univese.

But then, that might be an even more terrifying than them being Maleurious

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@LigerBeard I think you're on to something. Quoting from the complete puzzle from the Golden Egg quest where Lock and Key were definitely involved, "They fled, after the cataclysm. Broken and betrayed they started anew. Made different, better children. In their image. But only two this time. Then the Avatar were created to watch over these creations, while they went to a beatific slumber. And then the cycle began." If these are Lock and Key, it means that they would be even older than the Avatars.

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Maybe they're like... the moderators of the universe.

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I really like the idea that Lock and Key are involved by being OLDER than the Malerous, rather than them being part of the Malerous. They just feel very different from the others we've fought so far. Maybe they were poking around to figure out the situation and accidentally got to close and got involved with something? They might make better allies than enemies!

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@LigerBeard I think you're on to something. Quoting from the complete puzzle from the Golden Egg quest where Lock and Key were definitely involved, "They fled, after the cataclysm. Broken and betrayed they started anew. Made different, better children. In their image. But only two this time. Then the Avatar were created to watch over these creations, while they went to a beatific slumber. And then the cycle began." If these are Lock and Key, it means that they would be even older than the Avatars.

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That makes the question of how they ended up inside Valtrith's mask even more interesting (I'm still assuming they are in fact part of the Malerous). Even the Avatars mentioned that they did not know how any of them ended up in it. Would Valtrith really have been powerful enough to somehow capture all of these beings?

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@6ssd I believe the story that goes with that puzzle is referring to the Aequilibria. Not that we know much about them, nor if Lock and Key are related to them in any way though.

@GLaDOS I remember the Avatars saying that they sealed all of the Malerous within a vessel long ago, that Valtrith later found and absorbed. Then in the Calamity Saga, Caitiff sealed Valtrith within his mask, and then the Malerous were freed when the mask was broken.

Based on their collection of nick-nacks, they do seem to have knowledge of before the Reset and the existence of the other timelines. That would make them unique from the other Malerous we've encountered so far - but then again, haven't they all been unique from each other, having little more in common than appearing on Friday the 13th? With their capabilities it would make sense for the Avatars to fear them and seal them away long before the Hero's time.