It was finally the first day of the month of harvest! I stretched and hopped out of bed, got ready and headed down to the fields. On my through the town I could see the preparations for his majesty coming along nicely. There were stalls and decorations all throughout. I waved at the townsfolk as we kept walking, eventually making it to the fields.

The fields lush with wheat, sun reflecting off of it so intensely that it seemed like it was shinning a golden colour. "Sir Kurgif, its an honour to see you here on the very first day" a man kneeling said. "I'm happy to see that we are going to get a plentiful harvest this year, you've done well Kael". We chatted for a bit but ultimately I had to return to the castle to also prepare for his majesty's arrival later today.

Several hours have passed.

His majesty and his escorts came through the town, waving down to his subjects, reaching the castle after a while. "Your majesty!" I said kneeling down "Kurgif, we've been friends for how many years now? No need for the formalities". I chuckled a little bit. After that we walked to the dinning room. Walking in I was greeted with the various smells of different wheats and other things that were harvested as well as some beef and pork to compliment it. Everyone sat around the table. His majesty lifted his glass saying "For another year of wonderful harvest!" and the feast began!

Nothing of interest had happened during the feast. So we went back into town to explore the stalls the townsfolk set up. His majesty on his horse Infront of me looked different. Where was his head? Before I could say anything out loud. Everything went black and cold.

As Thrain and Thorin were reading the journal they started to notice that this journal belonging to Kurgif was probably the owner of this castle. But he had just died right? And how is the castle underground? however they continued reading.

I woke up panicked, heavily panting. Was it a dream, I moved my arms and feet around, well I'm not dead, I guess? I got out of bed and put on some new clothes those ones had a really bad smell. Besides that I noticed that my room was slightly more damaged than normal, that was quite strange. I went out to the corridor and imminently noticed the other rooms were even more damaged and upon opening them found them destroyed with bones of presumably once was people. I frantically searched around the rest of the castle, every room seemed just a aged with many skeletons in every room.

I made it to the final room, My heart started to beat faster. I entered his majesty's room without triggering the traps placed around the door. The throne in the middle of the room had a fully in tact skeleton with a crown on his head. My heart sank. I let out a cry of anguish seeing his majesty but also my friend. After this, days started to blur together. I figured that somehow after I died in that dream if it was a dream, I got transported here. But there was still so many questions. Why me? Will anyone find us? How did the castle age and everyone died? The only thing I knew for certain was I cant leave the, entrance has been blocked off by stone and dirt. Is the whole castle underground?

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Reading the rest, Thrain could tell that Kurgif was going slowly insane as his journal started to not make any sense the further they read.

Thorin didn't care much about what had happened except for the fact there were traps. But Thrain thought about it a lot more. Thrain thought back to his theory of the castle encountering some kind of natural disaster. But what if the dungeon itself was the disaster and somehow absorbed the castle into its own structure and In the process, killing off the residents but missing Kurgif? There were still so many question like how did a whole castle get underground? How would the dungeon even kill people? Although the questions would have to be answered another time.

After taking in all the new information. They knew where to head next "His Majesty's" room! They walked down the corridor and got to the first waiting room. There was only the middle corridor now. Walking down it, they took there time since there were meant to be traps around here. The rest the door to the room but Thrain didn't trust it, if the journal was correct there should be a trap near by. So Thrain picked up a near by stone and threw it in front of the door.

The stone landed. Whoosh, two huge axes swung down and sliced the stone in half. "Well, luckily you did that." Thorin said. They then pushed open the door. Seeing the throne that was mentioned in the journal. However instead of a skeleton sitting on it, it was now just a couple of bones with the crown on top. Thorin walked up and bowed in respect to the once king. Grabbing his crown and placing it in the sack. While Thorin did that Thrain looked around and saw a desk. He walked over to a desk it had some documents on it that proved that this kingdom was once extremely wealthy. Thrain a bit surprised that he had never heard of it before. There were also some books on the desk that he went to grab to check their contents.

He heard a subtle clicking sound, then the sound of stone moving while he grabbed the book, not able to fully pull it out. There was a door that had appeared to his right. "A secret room!" Thorin exclaimed. The boys excitedly walked over to the door and peeked inside, it was pitch black and the smell of dust was overpowering. Seeing this Thrain pulled out some of the equipment they bought yesterday out of his bag. "What are you making?" Thorin asked seeing Thrain walking around grabbing some additional items "Just you wait". In front of him he had a wooden pole, a rag, a bottle of oil and the flint and steel. He wrapped the rag around the wooden pole, pouring a little bit of oil on it and striking the flint and steel next to it.

The rag ignited with flames, he had made a torch. Now they had light and walked down the staircase. Upon reaching the bottom. Thorin ran over seeing the chest of gems, completely ignoring if there were any traps or not. Thrain seeing that Thorin didn't trigger any traps walked in as well. Besides the gems there was a dagger that had a strange design with four cylindrical containers next to it in the room. The blade seemed normal but the handle had some clear tubes that were designed to go around the hand. Thrain walked up and grabbed the dagger. Weird the tubes were flexible and they seemed to be connected to a lid that opened up on the bottom of the dagger that revealed a hole. .

Thrain noticed that he could probably pour something in it. Looking towards the containers he he opened them up and saw a alchemic solution in it. He decided to pour a little bit of the liquid in it to see what would happen. Once the liquid touched the tubes they reacted by glowing almost as bright as a torch. Thrain touched it and it wasn't hot at all so it must not be heat based "This kingdom was more than just wealthy this is extremely advanced technology" Thrain stated out loud. This dagger should come in handy later. So he grabbed the rest of the containers, and put them in his bag and putting the dagger in his belt. Then walked over to Thorin and put all the gems in the 'wealth' sack. Thorin started calling it that.

They went back up seeing that there was nothing left and headed back to the second waiting room. There was only one more way to go.