Dawn- An age of Darkness

I didn\'t really care much about all this. 

But- now that this was done, I had to again think about what to do afterward. 

I knew I was just distracting myself. I knew I was just killing time. 

And yet, there was little I could do. 

There was….

"Umm…" The girl fidgeted. "Do you have any extra clothes?"

Wait, what?

I looked over her and well, the shirt was melting, and some parts of her pant were also melting. She wasn\'t dying from the burns she had all over thanks to the potion, but she wasn\'t in the best of shape either. And her clothes were going to melt sooner or later. 

I guess that plant spray was much more of a drag than I thought. 

Meanwhile, my clothes and armor had mostly survived thanks to the robe. 

This robe was beyond just durable. 

"Let\'s go see what he had stacked." It was possible the guy had some clothes stacked and if he came from the era as the Grandmage of six clouds-Borisa, then those clothes might have been worth this whole thing. 

\'Though if he died in the throne, how did he end up stashing?\' Or was that guy just lying for the sake of being free?

It was possible. 

With the vines withering and all, the structural rigidity of this place was kind of worrying. 

The fourth room was actually just past the throne room. 

But anyway, we entered and it had plenty of nothing. 

NOTHING!

\'An offset brick, right?\'

I looked around but, nothing seemed out of place.

I guess he was lying. 

And this place kind of shook slightly with every single of our steps. The clock was ticking and every step mattered. 

Even now, even though there was light coming in, the rooms weren\'t that bright. They probably used lamps or pyres back then. 

"Is this supposed to be here?" The girl pointed at a brick. It wasn\'t offset but, but as I recalled, almost all the rooms in this place had one brick hole for air circulation. This room did not. 

In place of the hole, it had a brick- a brick that was slightly different in color, upon further inspection. 

Oh!

I touched the brick and it didn\'t budge. I tried pulling it and then shoving it. 

Neither worked. 

"Screw it!" I was about to slice the whole wall. 

This place was about to come down anyway. 

"Stop, STOP!" But the girl stopped me. "Geez!"

She tried opening it. Instead of shoving it, pulling, or anything else, she just gently traced her fingers over the brick. An intricate pattern of blue and orange flashed and the wall turned to dust. 

COUGH! COUGH!

The whole place shook and for a second, I thought it\'d all come falling down. The ceiling was rather thick.

But nothing of sort happened. 

I almost had a heart attack. 

Wait, my heart was beating?

I checked but- no pulse. 

Well, that was a disappointment. 

The dust cleared. And we stopped coughing. 

But we\'d found a new room. And in that room was a treasure chest. \'This feels too much like a trap.\'

I had this feeling that the chest would come to life or something and attack us like a monster. 

Yeah, I played way too many games to not know that. 

"I\'ll open it."

I took the makeshift spear of the girl and poked at the chest. 

No traps activated.

I tried opening the chest and- still no traps.

\'Then what?\'

I carefully opened the chest. 

There were three things here. One, a sword with its scabbard attached. Two, a compass. And three a letter. There were some scribbles inside the chest. I could read it. And it was a chant. A chant to keep anything inside this chest as brand new no matter how much time passed- or so my best guess went. It seemed like a precious chant, so I wrote it down as fast as I could. 

I picked up the note and tried reading it. 

Yeah, we didn\'t have much time, but the place was still holding its shape. 

So, it was probably fine. 

\'To whoever finds this,

We were here. 

We, the Vinins. 

But this place was not the treasure paradise, rather a world of death. Whoever set that monster lose, deemed it so that the monster would never leave the throne and keep on spreading till it consumes everything. 

The captain fell but ensured we left to tell the tale. He was a real selfish elf and wanted us to keep his things here: so, people would come for that treasure, and someday someone would finish that monster. But we couldn\'t- I couldn\'t. But we didn\'t want to disrespect his last wish, and hence we\'ll leave behind his last two treasures, the sword, and the compass. To whoever finds this, Goodluck and don\'t go in the throne room searching for treasure, you\'ll find death.

May Zeal bless you.\'

Well, it was too late. We\'d already been to the throne room. 

Anyway. 

I gave the spear back to the girl, took the sword and the compass. The sword was still good to go, but it needed some maintenance. The compass however was broken.

I also gave the girl my robe, again. 

But as fate would have it- shit!

Whether it be coincidence or just preplanned, something cliched happened. That being- the whole thing started crumbling. And we were still on the frigging third floor for crying out loud!

\'I set that flag myself, didn\'t I?\'

"Get close to me!" I dragged the girl near and tried to make a barrier of sorts with the holy magic, but I knew for a fact we\'d be crushed under all this rubble.

The ceiling started falling and though, I tried my best, bits of rocks passed through it and blood started spilling.

The last time in Saram, I had Dick\'s shield and Ve\'s wings. Now, I had nothing. 

However, I didn\'t just sit down and give up, instead, I focused on the holy light. 

And through that desperation, a streak of black spread over our heads. It was coming from me, but I didn\'t know what it was.

The darkness consumed everything that was falling on us and disappeared, just leaving the light. \'So that\'s shadow magic?\'

But more importantly, the bottom floors were also crumbling. 

"Grab on to me!" Meanwhile, the girl grabbed me tight and started chanting. "MOTHER OF EARTH- HAVEN, STILL LIGHT-" She went on but my mind was elsewhere. 

We were falling!

And so were rocks!

I kind of wanted to scream. \'Oh wait, I\'m already dead.\'

For someone who was dead, my heart sure was beating fast. \'The, hell, it\'s beating now?\'

A giant ball of earth covered us, encasing us in an earthly shield.

My holy light illuminated everything and the girl had her eyes closed, focusing on the shield. 

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two…

One….

Bang!

It was almost like an explosion.

We\'d landed. 

Correction, we\'d crash-landed. 

My legs hurt. 

But that was it. 

Nothing serious. 

No broken bones, probably. 

The earthen wall cracked and there was dust everywhere. 

But we came out unscathed. 

"Let-s, let\'s-" She panted. "Let\'s get some rest, over there."

Even I was slightly out of breath. I realized I didn\'t usually breathe, but every now and then, I took in breaths. 

\'Make up your damn mind, body!\'

We proceeded to the nearest safe place and rested.

***

I ate the remnants of the raccoon to recover while using a bit of magic to heal the girl. 

"You can use barrier and healing magic?" The girl asked.

Healing magic was common, barrier magic was not. 

"Holy." Meanwhile, holy was literally the second rarest type. While darkness took the first place and shadow, the third. How they were different, I didn\'t know. 

She stared at me, utterly dumbfounded. "I see," She managed. "And that sword you showed off back there?" 

"Something I can\'t use. It was just a bluff."

I didn\'t check about the rest of my weapons. If everything was still here, I should have had the mystic spear and maybe even those guns. 

Then again, I\'d lost my best weapon- the mystic blade. But even now, I felt like it was still here, the sword might have been broken but- but I felt a connection with Trerortra. 

"Well, that\'s great and all but you will help me secure mother, right?" She stared.

I had one use of her- from her perspective. And that use that just fulfilled. So it wouldn\'t have been odd if I were just to leave her now. 

But she had her uses for the time being. 

"I will. But don\'t get me wrong."  I stared at her. "You will have to aid me with information. I\'m not helping you just for the sake of help-"

She closed her eyes, glared straight at me, one knee on the ground, almost like a bow. "I\'ll even lay down my life for you if need be. But only after you rescue my mother."

She was serious. 

"Then you have nothing to worry about."

And so, with everything sorted we got out of the ruins and headed for the place the girl\'s mother was held captive. 

Aka, the city of Starsh.