Hundreds or perhaps thousands of years ago, I’m not sure which, stuff was going down in Egypt. In a dark room, two Lego Men and two Lego Women were meeting next to candles.

Did…did they have candles in ancient Lego Egypt?

Okay, they were meeting in a room lit by torches!

"Attention!,” shouted one of the women. “I call this first meeting of the Order of the Key…to order!”

One of the men almost immediately shot his hand into the air. The lady sighed. “Yes Dave? Do you have a question!”

“I do!” shouted Dave. He left his hand in the air.

Shirley sighed again. “Go ahead and ask it Dave!”

“Why are we called the Order of the Key?,” asked Dave. “Is there some kind of key that we have? Are we religious about the key? I don’t understand. Why is my name Dave? That seems too modern for me to be in Ancient Egypt. Oh no I’m having an existential meltdown!”

“And cut!,” yelled the director. He walked over to the set, and squatted down to talk to the Lego people. “Look Dave, it’s just a quick backstory scene that we decided to put in at the last minute. You guys all have your real names because you’re recognizable Lego Actors, and you’re clearly not actually ancient Egyptians…and that makes it funny, or something.”

“It seems a little insensitive to me,” said Laura.

The director rubbed his head. “Okay fine. You’re all mysterious nameless wanderers who came to meet at this ancient and sacred site. Because you don’t want to reveal your real names to each other, you’re each named after the cardinal directions. North, South, East, and West.”

“Ooooh that’s good!,” said Dave. “Do you think the studio will mind the change? Or the writer?”

“Too late for them to complain now,” said the director. “And if they do, I’ll tell them they tried to whitewash their Lego movie and they’ll back right down.”

“Okay!,” said Dave. “I like it! I am now ‘West,’ and I hail from a mysterious land to the west of here. And I am like wind!"

“That’s…that’s great Dave,” said the director. “Anyone else have any questions?” The other three shook their heads. “Okay good,” said the director. “Let’s get this scene done quickly so we can all have some lunch, okay?”

“Lego people don’t actually need to eat,” said Shirley. “We just do it because it makes you normal folks feel better.”

“Okay fine,” said the Director. “It’s only day 9 of this movie, we still have a few weeks of shooting left to go, so let’s stay positive and keep working together.”

The Director went back to his chair and slumped down into it. He turned to his assistant director, who was checking the camera angles on the video screens. “You know, I miss when we used to make these movies with computers.”

“Yeah me too,” said the assistant director. “It took longer, but it was much easier to have full control. I wish they’d never discovered sentient Lego figures.”

“Remind me to write a sarcastic letter to whoever it was that did that,” said the Director. He looked back towards the set.  “Okay people, let’s do this! Speed! Action!”

—

Hundreds or possibly even thousands of years ago, the desert sands of Egypt blew across the door of an old temple. Torchlight flickered out from the inside down a long hallway. Inside a mysterious chamber, four mysterious strangers, known only by the names of the four cardinal directions, gathered for a meeting.

North called the meeting to order. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first official meeting of The Order of the Key!”

The man known only as West raised his hand. North called upon him to speak. “Yes! Hello! My name is West!”

The other members of the group nodded. “Yes we know that,” said North. “Now, fellow members, the time has come for our sacred rite that—“

“Um, excuse me,” said West. “But why is it that we’re speaking English? Shouldn’t we be speaking an ancient language that’s then subtitled?”

“Cut!,” yelled the director. He heaved out a deep sigh and then looked to the assistant director. “You’d better go start shooting today’s action scene. Just use the stunt doubles if you have to. No way we’re getting this thing done without going over budget.” He sighed again and walked over to the set. “What’s the problem now, Dave?”

“I mean, I understand that we’re doing this movie for English-speaking markets, and that it’s just a fun movie, and that the script was written in English—“

“You’ve literally just answered your question for yourself, Dave,” said the Director. “I’m impressed.”

“Yes that’s all true,” said Dave, “but wouldn’t it be more authentic if we weren’t speaking English?”

“Yes it would, Dave. Everyone take five. Dave and I are going to have a little chat.”

—

Sauron’s efforts at sailing the ship, in spite of his excellent prowess at sailing pirate ships, didn’t get him very far. He managed to get the boat turned around, and then a few moments later he smacked directly into the side of the lucite box the ship resided in.

“Blast!,” shouted Sauron. “It’s supposed to be a magical sword that does me in, not some mysterious invisible wall. Okay Saurie, calm down, we can think through this!”

The Wizard was bored for the very first time in his incredibly short existence. He’d already explored every inch of the tiny plastic island, and he’d already blasted the lone palm tree to bits with his Space Laser Gun and reassembled it a couple of times. The treasure chest didn’t contain anything else either. “Attention!,” he shouted. “I’ve run out of things to do and I don’t like it so much!”

“You’re telling me!,” shouted Sauron over his shoulder. “I seem to have run into some kind of wall!”

“Oh yes, the wall,” said the Wizard. “I know it well. All of the realms in this place are surrounded by them. If you cast your gaze over yonder during the daylight, you’ll be able to see the other worlds.”

“I’m never going to conquer the universe if I’m stuck in a box,” said Sauron. “I went from a small box to a big box.”

Just then, the treasure chest began to hop and rumble.

—

Somewhere in Egypt, blah blah blah, ancient chamber, four people, torches.

“Welcome ladies and gentlemen, to the first meeting of the Order of the Key,” said North.

“Thank you,” said West.

“The South is glad to have chosen me their representative,” said South.

“The East wishes you pleasant weather, all,” said East.

North acknowledged their acknowledgements, and turned to a large box seated on the floor. She opened it, revealing a massive key. “With this key, handed down from the great lords of old, the four of us will have dominion over all the different realms. Our job is to protect and watch over them, and to never let anything pass from realm to realm. If that were to happen, great chaos would reign forever and could never again be fixed or repaired.”

She picked up the key out of the box, took it to a large statue of Anubis, and jammed the key into the brick at his feet. It passed right through as if the brick were made of air. She turned the key, and a low rumbling noise reverberated underneath the chamber. A magical portal appeared in the room.

“Um,” said West. “I’m not…I’m not actually seeing the portal? Isn’t this the part in the script where the portal appears?”

The Director stood up from his chair. “Cut!,” he yelled. “Dave, we went over this, you weren’t supposed to interrupt the shoot anymore. Everyone really wants to have lunch. You promised me on our little walk Dave, you *promised.*”

“I know, I know,” said Dave. “And I had every intention of not asking more questions, but I was really excited about seeing the portal, and I’m kind of bummed that nothing happened.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” said Shirley. She turned to the director. “Is he joking? Did someone on the crew put him up to this?” She turned back to Dave. “Haven’t you done a bunch of these movies before?”

Dave nodded. “Yes, but they were all direct-to-video or internet shorts. This is the first one I’ve been in that had such a big budget!”

“You’re giving Lego actors a bad name,” said Shirley. “Screw it, I’m going to lunch. I’ll be in my trailer.”

“Dave,” began the director. “You’ve been in movies before. This…it’s not real. It’s all imaginary. I mean, the set is real, and for whatever reason we live in a universe where there are real talking tiny lego people like you and Shirley…but the portal is not a real thing that happens here. It’s added later by underpaid people on computers, and—“

A portal opened up inside the Egyptian chamber set. The other end was connected to the treasure chest inside the Lego store next to the Wizard. The Wizard waddled over and looked down through the portal and waved. “Oh, hello!”

The director and Dave waved back up at him. “H…hello,” said the Director.