Oracion's POV
Continuing our exploration along the Veil, I walk with an arm dangled outside of it, trying to become familiar with the crystalized sensation it courses through my skin.
"That satisfying you?" Requis asks.
"Kind of" I quickly answer.
"Worrying you?" She asks again.
"Still? Yeah." I confirm. Unable to properly think for myself for why I in particular would be forgotten by Letha...would anyone else forget me. 'Would Freya forget me? Aeron?' The thoughts painfully run through my head like an infection as I tense my grasp from the Veil becoming denser.
Requis places a hand on my shoulder as if knowing my mind was phasing out, "If we keep going any further, we're going to run into an off-limits area, are you sure you want to keep going?" She looks ahead to the small cave entrance that I'm well aware goes deep into the ground. A place we refer to as the ruins, something that the people before us used to worship their beliefs within and what not.
"At this point, I need something to distract myself, and I'm pretty sure being told off by Xandier would do exactly that." I smile a little before moving forward without her.
Despite my forward pacing in walking first towards the cave, a 6th sense of sorts kind of overwhelms me as we both stare into the eerie dark. Each glisten of sunlight seemingly snatched and swallowed by the shadows inside. "Ladies first?" I gesture to her with a bright smile.
She slaps my shoulder aggressively with an even bigger smile, "Go on then" pushing me slightly in despite our lack of torches. "I won't tell Freya if you won't" She echoes through despite being just behind me, crumbling pieces of the rocky wall from her voice alone.
"Maybe we shouldn't be talking?" She once again, says in the same exact pitch and resulting in the same reaction from the cave.
Prompting me to cover her lips with my hand in order to silence her, at least I'm praying those were her lips. "K" She murmurs once I release her, catching the memo as we venture a tiny bit more forward.
A glimpse of some sort of light traces the walls, a vine that illuminates itself and runs across the wall as a sort of guidance. I take this opportunity to hold Requis' hand in case we get lost. Gripping it tightly as we follow it along, my body feeling a turn within the cave but my body unable to tell the truth.
"I think I see something..." She whispers
I don't answer, instead speeding up from my need to get out of the dark as soon as possible. Forward, we face a wooden door with a light shining from under it. Immediately opening it up and revealing a room without an obvious shadow. Covered in vines that almost point to the large wall sized tablet.
As quickly as my breath of relief came, it left me. A deep but familiar voice calls from Requis' place as I let go of her hand and jump to the middle of the room. "Oracion." Xandier comments, walking in front of me casually.
"Requis?" I announce.
"There." He points behind him, showing that while I held his hand, he held her hand...questionable.
"Hi" She waves with a little jump, pretending she's in the distance.
"These caves were made to confuse those who may intrude. A material of rock that's seemingly meant to crumble to those uninvited." He folds his arms, looking directly at the large tablet.
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"So you're not mad?" I sneak just beside him, gazing up at his determined stare.
"Exponentially" He calmly states. "But if you made it here, you were meant to be here." He says with a little bit of confusion.
"What do you mean?" I look around the room for some kind of hint to his cryptic message, spotting nothing but a bird bath like structure.
He sighs before unfolding his arms and points at that exact structure, "The roof leaks a liquid into it, something that these walls describe as tears..." He frowns a bit.
"Cool" Requis announces, already placing her hand inside it.
"Or was it saliva..." He continues, losing his focus at the splash from Requis pulling her hand out of it with haste.
"Could of translated that earlier." She says with a cold expression of disgust.
"Could of waited a little longer." He quickly corrects. "But nonetheless, when I was a child, I think my parents brought me down here, giving me a chance to drink out of it. And ever since then, I walk through those tunnels with nothing more than brainless intent, ending up here every time." He finishes.
"So...all we do is drink this? Then we get access to this ooga booga cave? For free?" She questions, ready to plummet her face into it.
"No...yes? I don't remember." He struggles, attempting to reread the text that's deeply carved into the wall with some images.
"So what does any of these have to do with the cave?" I begin asking questions.
"I'd be lying if I said I knew. The ones before us worshiped something, or at least that's what I could pick up from this" He points at a stone table along the wall, small figures prostrating towards a larger one...something inhumane. He crouches down, putting his head under the table and reading from something slowly, "They had...their happiness...answers? They grew beside it...giving up nothing they couldn't recall in exchange for everything they could have?"
I look towards him, noticing his visible strain. "What's wrong?"
"I can't read this, it's not even english. Apologies." He gets up from his crouch, instead focusing on the wall's carved image. "I believe this to be the Veil." He comments, lining a near perfect circle with his finger.
"Then what's this?" Requis points to the outside of it. The carved serpentine lines seemingly filling out what would normally be considered a hollow blank slate to draw on.
Xandier holds his chin, trying to find an answer to satisfy her. "Either they did that because they didn't know what was there?"
"or..." She encourages.
"Or...they knew what was out there." He completes unwillingly. "This brings me onto why I was here however." He turns to me. "There's something more here that I desire for you and anyone of your choosing to come explore, will you be happy to do so?" He requests.
"Sure...but what exactly do you want me to find?" I try to fill some blanks to the sudden mission.
"There's 4 squads that I can count on within our home, however, I some members within them have began to...deviate? Nonetheless, they've been found to wander around here for some reason. I'm sure some of them have just gotten lost within the caves and need help, but do you think you could find them?" He informs.
"How come you can't?" I answer.
"The world's harsh, if even you can't find them, then I have no hope of doing so. I can already presume who you're going to be taking along, good luck." His large hand encases my shoulder as he smiles at forcing it on me.
An action that's reinforced by Requis' glee, "Yes." I answer to her as she smiles even harder.
"Ira and Freya too!?" She shouts, oddly not causing the cave to respond this time.
"Yes" I repeat.
"Fuck yeah, time to find those idiots!" She laughs, walking to the door we entered through but immediately stopping once she stares into the infinite darkness. "So...someone guide me."
"We're leaving already?" I comment as Xandier takes her hand, waiting for my own.
"It may not seem like it, but we've been here a lot longer than you think. This place causes the outside light to be consumed." He explains, causing me to turn my head, not sure if he's serious or not.
"No Oracion, not in the literal sense" He confirms, "I just mean it's distracting being in here, it's probably already dark outside." He moves his hand to bring my attention back to it, holding my own again as we shut the door behind us to head back to the surface.
Was it one...two...maybe what felt like 20 steps? "Well he wasn't joking, that's for sure." Requis takes note of the day indeed passing, the outside already dark compared to our previous entry to the cave. An entry that was a lot longer than our apparent immediate exit.
I look over at her, stretching as her body probably begins to fill with fatigue from the day. Moving my eyes around the environment before landing on Xandier, staring back at me with an emotion held within his eyes. One that I can't pinpoint myself, possibly because I haven't experienced it yet.
"You good?" I snap him back to reality as his facial features resume with an hint of regret like he didn't want to zone back in.
"Of course, be safe for tomorrow and be sure to tell your squad that. We're counting on you, Oracion." He wishes the best before leading the way back home with a beckoning gesture of his hand.