VII
The Sephia was almost exactly what Aroha expected it to be. Every single story she had ever heard of it had been accurate, but even these felt almost like an underestimation of the sheer scope and grandeur of the Wood. Trees of all varieties grew sky-high, intertwined like lovers. She recognized mahogany and iron-wood and terecora, and maple and cedar and besial, but there were so many others besides that she couldn’t even identify. Evergreens and hardwoods grew together in such a wide variety of colours and shapes that it almost seemed alien to her to see them all together like this. The dark greens were offset by bright oranges and reds and blues of all shades, giving the entire place a magical atmosphere, as if the adventuring party had stepped into another world altogether. To call the place a sea of trees would be an understatement. Aroha thought it must be more akin to wading through the ocean floor.
Due to the fact that all of the different kinds of trees grew at differing heights, several canopies and layers of tree cover had developed in the forest, making it incredibly hard for light to penetrate into the undergrowth. It was nowhere near dark enough to warrant the usage of the lanterns Rylan had brought with, but it was certainly disconcerting to have no view of the sky for many hours at a time. Even when they did catch a glimpse of the sky, it was often so small and fleeting that they did not even see the suns, and so Aroha had to periodically check the compass to keep them moving in the right direction.
The undergrowth of the forest itself presented an entirely new challenge as well. The trees grew incredibly closely-spaced together and matured to absolutely impossible sizes the further into the Wood the band travelled (often being bigger than any building they had ever seen), and other plant life grew abundant and rampant under their sheltering boughs. Creeping moss and lichen grew over the trees, threatening to devour them whole, and the ground itself was covered with all manner of mosses, mushrooms, brush, flowers, herbs and other flora. These had been undisturbed by humanity for so long that there were no clear pathways to traverse it. Aroha lost count to how many times one of the group had tripped and fallen over an outgrown root or scratched their leg on some spiky fern. Additional challenges presented themselves in the shape of impossibly big fallen trees from centuries past, in the process of being overtaken by colonies of mushrooms, which had to be climbed over or detoured around.
There was also the occasional encounter with a wild animal. Most of these encounters were brief and uneventful. Buck and smaller creatures like squirrels, foxes and yethes would scatter at the mere sight of humans and while the group did encounter the odd fowl or owl, these creatures would just go about their business. The constantly rustling underbrush and quiet chittering and chirping of the Woods was actually a welcoming sound most of the time. Aroha would have felt much more uneasy if it had been silent and dead. They did encounter one bear, but the beast had been quite a distance off and had just regarded the adventurers with a silent stare before wandering off to continue whatever it was doing.
The group had no idea of the time of day at any given time and so they rested when one of them was feeling too tired to continue on. The fact that not a lot of wind could penetrate the forest floor actually made the place quite humid and warm and so keeping stamina up was an issue. It was especially slow going for Damien, whose injury still plagued him. He had also taken a particularly bad fall over a massive, unseen root and had landed on his bad shoulder. He had experienced a new wave of pain and discomfort and the group had been forced to set up camp by the base of the tree to give him time to recover. After that, Rylan had insisted on carrying Damien’s backpack for a few miles until he felt better, his protests falling on deaf ears.
The group would camp whenever there was a prominent dimming of the sunslight. They figured this must mean that it was a twilight period and so decided they would take their full rests and sleep at the same time. Aroha and Damien had been caught munching on some cured meat sticks while hiking on the first day and Penelope had chastised them for wasting the group’s food supplies. Because of this offence, she insisted that the group would only be allowed to eat a snack during the short rests and one meal while camping. All other snacking was strictly prohibited. She also made a habit of foraging edible mushrooms, wild vegetables and herbs while hiking, often lagging behind the main group in order to gather them.
They had stuck close to the river for as long as they could, but when it had started leading them westward they had been forced to abandon it. Now they were thankful for any stream or pond they came across so that they could refill their canteens and waterskins, as well as get a chance to bathe. Aroha noted that while she and Penelope would often take these chances to bathe together, Damien would not go at the same time as Rylan, often coming up with excuses so he could take a private bath later. She wasn’t quite sure why – perhaps it was just a male thing or he was shy and still felt uncomfortable with the group – but she found it a little odd.
She had also taken time to fiddle with her and Penelope’s leather breastplates, to no real avail. She had made them easier to wear and less constricting, but Damien had pointed out to her that the flat shape of the armour was not exactly suited for the female body shape. There were noticeable gaps in the protection it provided, particularly in the underarm region – which was already a well-loved target for swordsmen. This reduced the effectiveness of the armour overall. He suggested that while it would be fine to wear for now if it no longer caused them discomfort, they would have to find new armour once they reached civilization again. Aroha had tried to alleviate the issue by binding her breasts with cloth, cut from her irreparably blood-stained old shirt, but she found that this just caused her more pain and discomfort in the long run. It gave her pains in her chest and back, as well as shortness of breath. She had even found bruises on her ribs and so quickly abandoned this idea after that.
Damien had also taken to teaching the group some sword fighting techniques while they camped. He taught Aroha and Penelope some simple fencing and had them join him and Rylan in small sparring lessons on occasion. He was a good teacher and he was patient with them. He would point out flaws in their technique and give them advice on how to handle an opponent making particular movements or executing certain attack patterns. Despite his injury, he was still incredibly fleet-footed with his longsword and Aroha found it frustratingly difficult to gain any sort of advantage against him in a sparring match. She often found herself sprawled out in the dirt after trying to get in on him, but he was never unkind about any of these mishaps.
‘Keep movin’ an’ keep ‘im away with the point. Jab when ye see an openin’ but never drop that point – it’s ye best defence. As long as ‘e’s on the other side of the point, ye’ll win.’
With Rylan he was less kind, but still patient. He had Rylan constantly sweating, trying to keep up with his inhuman footwork and never giving any quarter in a test of strength. He always swung with full force, but he took care to never actually cut Rylan or hurt him seriously. He would trip and punch and tackle him, sure, but he would never allow the blade to do any harm. Rylan would be forced to run drills during camp to increase his speed, stamina and strength with his sword and would often spar with Aroha to get practice for his matches with Damien. He took to the training like a babe to milk. Aroha could see the grit and determination in his face, but he never once complained or tried to back out of it, so she figured he must be enjoying it.
*
They travelled like this for several days, settling into a sort of routine, doing what they could to while the time away and make the journey less monotonous. It was uneventful, but it was also arduous. Aroha was never sure if they were making good progress or if they were crawling along at a snail’s pace. They found no sign of the supernatural creatures or peoples that were so popular in the fairy-tales about the Wood and, worse still, none of the fabulous treasures Damien had thought might be hidden deep within.
That was until they came upon the fort.
Aroha had been the de facto leader of the group since they had stopped following the river. She would scout a little ways ahead of the main party, checking the compass and trying to find a path for them in the right direction. Late into their eighth or ninth day, the going had been particularly rough. The group were bearing uphill and it was tiring them out immensely. The thickets and brambles were cutting through clothes and the trees were blocking them off at every turn. She had wandered off a short distance to try and find a suitable path up the hill while the rest of the group took a short rest at the base of a massive tree to recuperate.
Just as she had crested the hill they were traversing, she had spied it immediately. Nestled in a clearing below, the fort was a massive, circular stone structure, consisting mainly of a walled-in, three-towered fortress. It now lay in ruin, however, with moss and vegetation covering all of the exterior walls that still stood upright. The outermost walls were mostly crumbled stone, leading into a small courtyard. The main structure still stood mostly intact, but there was a massive hole in the roof above one of the outer-lying buildings and one of the towers along the edge had fallen in.
Aroha dropped to the ground immediately upon seeing it. She lay on her belly on the edge of the valley, trying to see if she could spot any movement at all from within or around the structure, scarcely daring to breathe for fear someone down there would hear her. Save for some birds and a squirrel or two, she saw no signs of it being occupied. She hurried back down the hill in a huff, arriving back with the group panting and heaving for breath.
‘Aroha? What is it?’ Rylan asked, his hand immediately jumping to his sword.
‘Over the hill—’ she answered, labouring between each breath, ‘Massive— fort!’
‘What?’ Damien asked, his interest suddenly piqued. He climbed back up to his feet and grabbed Aroha by the shoulders. ‘Did ye say a fort?’
Aroha nodded, unable to form words right at that point.
‘Did ye see anyone else there?’
She shook her head.
‘Ye’re sayin’ it’s unoccupied?’
A nod.
Damien released her shoulders and turned to the group. ‘An unoccupied fort?! Do ye know what this means?’
‘Don’t get too excited,’ Rylan said, trying to calm the man down. ‘We don’t know what this is yet. Let Aroha catch her breath and tell us everything she saw before we rush in there.’
Aroha gulped greedily at the air, trying to ignore the stitch in her side as she did so. She managed to gasp out, ‘It’s in ruins. Looks ancient. Nobody there. I waited and checked before I ran back here.’
Damien clapped and laughed, ‘Aye! This is exactly what we were lookin’ for! Aroha, ye have to show us the way!’
After catching her breath, Aroha led the group back up the hill along the path she had taken. When they reached the top, Aroha bid them to all crouch down once again.
‘Let’s just take one last look before we head down. We don’t want to be surprised,’ she whispered to them.
‘Right. Look out for anything suspicious,’ Rylan added.
They surveyed the area for a good few minutes and, still seeing no signs of any other people, carefully started descending the hill into the valley. They crept up on the ruins, still proceeding cautiously, until they came to a particularly badly crumbled portion of the exterior wall.
Damien ran his hands over the coarse stone that had been used in its construction and mused, ‘This is old. Like proper old. I dare say this is either pre-Kingdom construction or very early-Kingdom period.’
‘I thought Sevetians were as scared of this place as the Zeshani are?’ Aroha asked. ‘How did they manage to build an entire fortress in here?’
‘I have no idea, but I recognize this work a little. Might not even be Sevetian. Me old band found similar ruins up north in Camar. One o’ our biggest finds, that was.’ He turned around to address the group. ‘Sometimes these places have nasty surprises, so just watch where ye’re goin’. There might still be ancient traps an’ the like.’
‘What are we looking for exactly?’ Rylan asked.
‘Anythin’! Whatever ye can pick up an’ take with ye. Old weapons, coins, whatever.’
The group climbed over the rubble and entered the main courtyard of the fort. It was decidedly barren and overgrown, with nothing of any real interest for the treasure seekers. There was a well off to the side, but the pulley mechanism had been broken and the rope had long since rotted away. Aroha noted the strange markings along the rim, but they were heavily weathered and faded and not in a language she even understood. Rylan dropped a loose piece of rubble down it and they heard a very faint splash as it hit the water.
‘It’s not worth it to try an’ get at the water,’ Damien mused. ‘Gods knows how long this fort has been here an’ what’s fallen into the well over time.’
‘Sure. We still have enough water for now anyway,’ Rylan replied.
The group made their way to the entrance of the fort proper. It was a large, stone double door, weathered but still standing sturdy. Similar markings to the ones around the well ran along the edges, but these were also too faded to read. They tried to push it open, but it seemed to be barred from the inside.
‘That’s not a good sign is it?’ Penelope said shakily. ‘Why would it be closed from within?’
They looked around the courtyard for another possible entry point. There were a few windows, but these were shuttered closed quite tightly. Even though the shutters were rotted, they were still too sturdy to push open from the outside. They tried three more doors on some of the outlying buildings, all rotten wood as well – two of them collapsed completely – but all blocked by rubble from the inside. Aroha got the impression that whoever had been inside the fort last had been trying incredibly hard to keep something out. The group congregated back in front of the main entrance.
‘Well,’ Rylan said. ‘They clearly didn’t want anyone getting in here.’
‘An’ nobody seems to have gotten in,’ Damien said with a sly smirk. ‘Which means this is easy pickin’s for us. I say we just hack one o' these window shutters out an’ slip in through that.’
‘I don’t think you or I would fit,’ Rylan said evenly. ‘It would be a tight squeeze for anyone.’
Damien looked at the nearest window, then turned to Aroha with the smirk still on his face. ‘Aroha, you could slip in an’ open the door for the rest o’ us, couldn’t ye?’
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Aroha was slightly taken aback, but she nodded hesitantly.
‘Wait, wait, wait,’ Rylan said hurriedly, puffing up slightly. ‘We don’t know what’s inside there! You said there could be traps! I would rather try and fit in myself than send someone in there blind.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ Aroha replied slowly. She thought about what she was saying for a few seconds, then conceded. ‘I’ll go in. I’m the lightest and smallest. It’ll be easier if I just do it.’
‘Why don’t I go in?’ Penelope asked, her face somewhat cold. She fixed her glare on the group and they all averted their eyes awkwardly.
‘I mean, ye could,’ Damien said, chuckling weakly. ‘But ye know, Aroha is smaller so we can hoist her easier. An’ she’s feisty, right? She can—’ he paused mid-sentence to try and think about what he was trying to say, but seemed to come to the conclusion that he didn’t want to finish his thought and just fell silent. He hefted his pack off his shoulders and rummaged in it for the axe so he didn’t have to meet Penelope’s cold gaze. She seemed to let the affront slide.
Damien hacked the rotten wood from the window, letting it all clatter inside. There was a dull echo as it hit the ground inside the building. He tried to peek in the window, but it was too dark inside to see anything.
He turned to Aroha, ‘Ready?’
She nodded her consent, placing her pack and sword on the ground and walking up to the window. She got a grip on the window frame and then Damien and Rylan took a leg each and lifted her as she slid into it. It was a tight fit to be sure, but she sucked in her stomach and wriggled her hips until she had slithered through, falling out on the other side. She hit her forearm pretty badly as she fell, however, and she let out a little hiss of pain.
‘Aroha?’ Rylan called out to her from outside. ‘What happened? Are you okay?!’
‘I’m okay,’ she called back. Her eyes hadn’t yet adjusted to the darkness and she felt momentarily blind as she got back to her feet. She turned back to the light of the window and called out, ‘Pass me a lantern!’
‘Lantern,’ she heard Rylan repeat. There was a shuffle outside and, a minute or two later, a hand reached inside the window carrying a lit lantern.
‘Careful now,’ Damien warned as he handed it to her.
She took it gingerly and surveyed the area around her. She was in some kind of entrance hall. Even inside here, the plant life had already taken over and started to consume the stone structure, with vines and moss creeping along every wall and the stones on the ground broken apart by roots and weeds. All decoration that might have previously existed in the hall had long since rotted away or become mould and dust. The bare remnants of what must have been draperies and tables and bookcases were all that remained. There were four doorways on the sides of the hall leading off to the rest of the fort and ahead of her, directly in front of the entrance, was a small foyer with a staircase leading upwards that had long since crumbled into ruin. The stonework of the building itself was rough and uneven and the entire place held a musty, mouldy scent that was unpleasant, but not assailing.
Aroha made her way over to the entrance, stepping carefully around fallen rubble and trying to figure out what a trap might look like.
‘Aroha?’ she heard a voice call from the doors, muffled by the stone. ‘Are you still okay in there?’
‘I’m coming!’ she screamed back. She reached the doors but found that there was nothing barring them at all. The same blank stone stared back at her as it had from the outside. She pushed up against them, but they still would not budge.
‘There’s a problem!’ she cried out.
‘What is it?’ a voice responded.
‘Nothing is barring the doors! It just won’t move!’
There was a silence, then she heard Damien call out, ‘Look around for a mechanism or somethin’! They must open somehow!’
Aroha hefted the lantern and inspected the door frame closely. Besides the markings she couldn’t read, there was nothing that looked like a “mechanism”. She expanded her search to the nearby walls, scouring every inch of it until, eventually, she found something that looked promising. It was a narrow indentation in the wall, one that might have contained a lever of some kind at some point, except the lever was long since gone. She tried to reach inside, but it was too thin for her fingers to fit.
She returned to the entrance, ‘I think I found something! I need you to pass my rapier through the window!’
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘No! I just need something to use as a lever!’
‘Alright, come to the window.’
She returned to the window and a hand carefully lowered her sword in for her. She took it back to the indentation in the wall and inserted it into the opening at an upright angle, like how a lever might have been positioned. She moved it around inside slowly until she thought she felt something catch the blade. She tried to move it downward, to no avail. She continued struggling with the lever mechanism until, finally, on her fifth attempt she managed to catch the actual locking mechanism and move it down successfully with the sword.
She heard a click from inside the wall and a low rumbling sound. The doors started grating, stone trying to move against stone, and she ran over to them. Pushing with all her might, she managed to pry the centuries-old, stiff door-locking mechanism open. Hands from the outside grabbed the edge of one door when she had exposed it enough and, with the combined help of Damien and Rylan, they were able to pull it open. It would not swing open completely, but it opened just enough for the rest of the group to squeeze in.
‘Well done, Aroha!’ Damien said, clasping her shoulder. ‘I knew ye could do it.’
‘Are you okay?’ Rylan asked, for the umpteenth time. She nodded and shot him a smile to ease his concerns.
‘Let’s gather our things then,’ he continued. ‘We can make our camp inside here so we have a base as we explore.’
The group gathered their packs from outside, squeezing them through the opened doorway. The rapier in the lever slot was completely stuck in its place and would not come loose without once again closing the doors, so Aroha was forced to leave it in there for the time being. Penelope wanted to set up the camp before they did any exploring at all, so they were set to work doing that before anything else. They brought out the lanterns for the first time since the start of their journey, making a ring of light in the centre of the foyer. Rylan and Damien gathered some loose wood from outside for a fire. The airflow from the now-open doorway helped alleviate some of the stench of the old ruin, but Penelope still insisted on burning some herbs because she couldn’t stand the musty, earthy scent of it all. While waiting for Rylan and Penelope to make the campfire, Damien approached Aroha with his map to get her help figuring out exactly where they were in the forest so he could mark it down for future reference. She did her best to remember every direction they had moved in, but the most they were able to get was a rough estimate, which Damien circled on the map and marked with the words “Ruin’d fort”.
Once the base camp had been established, the group gathered to discuss how they were going to approach searching the ruin.
‘So, we have four doorways here on the ground floor for starters,’ Penelope said. ‘Should we all split up and search them separately?’
‘No, no, I don’t like that idea,’ Rylan said with his brow furrowed. ‘If we run into trouble, we’ll be alone. I think we should stick together.’
‘That would take forever an’ we’d just get in each other’s way,’ Damien chimed in. Aroha could tell he was becoming increasingly impatient with the slow progress the group was making. His foot had been tapping incessantly the entire time he had been waiting around for things to get done.
‘How about this then? Let’s go in pairs.’ Aroha suggested. ‘Rylan and Penelope can take the left side, Damien and I will search the right.’
‘You sure you want to do that?’ Rylan asked her. He didn’t voice his true concerns out loud, but Aroha could read on his face that he was starting to grow weary of Damien’s brashness.
‘Aye, it’ll be fine,’ Damien piped in.
‘Aroha?’ Rylan asked pointedly, emphasizing her name.
‘Yes, it’ll be fine,’ she mimicked.
Rylan sighed. ‘Alright then.’
‘Let’s stick to the ground floor for now,’ Penelope advised. ‘I don’t think the upper floors are very stable judging by all these holes in the ceiling and rubble everywhere. If you find a staircase leading up, ignore it for now. We can tackle that later. We’ll meet up back here when we’re done for a nice bit of dinner.’
‘Be careful,’ Rylan said, looking straight at Aroha. ‘Don’t do anything crazy.’
She nodded, but it did not seem to ease his concern very much.
Each member took up a lantern and set out with their partner. Rylan and Penelope took the bottommost doorway on the left side of the hall and Aroha and Damien took the opposite one on the right. Aroha looked back to her friends as they disappeared into the darkness, the only signs of them being the two little floating balls of light. She turned back to see Damien was already investigating the room they had decided to enter, so she hurriedly joined him inside.
It seemed like it could have been some kind of meeting room or library. It was expansive, but it contained not much else but some crumbled refectory tables – four in total – and moulded, broken bookshelves, lining every wall and stacked at regular intervals back to back. The darkness was so oppressive in the library that Aroha could barely see a few feet in front of her at a time. Without the lantern, she would have been crushed by the gloom and stillness of the place. Dust and cobwebs clung to the skeletons of long-dead books, their papers crumbling to dust as Aroha tried to lift them from the shelves and their covers illegible and damaged beyond repair. She bumped into Damien inspecting some small objects on the dirt-covered tables and the ground around them, but they didn’t seem to satisfy him as he just tossed them back down.
‘Just inkwells an’ dust,’ he mumbled to her. ‘I don’t think we’ll find anythin’ of worth in here. See if ye can spot another room linked to this one or else we’ll just have to move on.’
He moved back to the beginning of the library, trying to find another doorway opposite the one they had entered. Aroha decided to search the back of the library. She followed the bookcases around the edge of the room. The strange shadows they cast made her nervous. She realized that she should still be wary of hidden traps and so held the lantern lower where she could see the moss-covered ground.
She nearly had a heart attack when she stumbled across an actual skeleton laying on the ground. She froze in place, unable to move but unable to avert her gaze either. She had never seen anything like this before. Had never even imagined she would. She was afraid it would start moving, but the only thing that disturbed the oppressive silence of the library was the faint tapping of Damien’s boots somewhere far behind her.
The skeleton was clothed in a tattered, moth-eaten brown robe. It was picked clean to the pristine bone and covered in a thick blanket of cobwebs. Mould had even started to grow on some of the exposed bones. It lay on its stomach and appeared to be reaching into the bookcase in front of it. What struck her the most was that the skeleton did not even appear human at all. The skull shape was too weird to be a person. Animalistic. It was too elongated and flattened. The teeth were too sharp.
‘Da—’ she started but found herself unable to finish the word. She tried her hardest to quiet her pounding heart. She took another breath. ‘Damien!’
‘Did ye find somethin’?’ came his voice from somewhere else in the room, muffled and weak to her ears. She couldn’t even find the breath to answer him.
She heard movement behind her and felt a hand on the small of her back, but her body would not allow her to react. The skeleton was bathed in the additional light of Damien’s lantern and she heard him gasp out, ‘Gods above!’ under his breath.
‘What— what—?’ she tried to ask, but the words would not cooperate.
She felt Damien’s hand reach up and grasp her shoulder. ‘Relax, Aroha,’ he said softly. ‘Ye’re fine. It’s just a skeleton. Long-dead. It can’t hurt ye.’
‘What is it?’ she managed to say. Her heart was starting to slow down to a normal pace at the presence of someone else there to assuage her fears.
‘I have no idea…’ Damien admitted. ‘I’ve never seen a person what looked like that.’
He inched forward cautiously, moving past Aroha. He got on one knee beside the skeleton and examined it carefully with his lantern. He prodded it and the thing rattled slightly. He ran a finger over one of the creature’s fangs, then looked over the robes, searching for something. He inspected the bookcase it was reaching into and Aroha heard him mutter to himself, ‘What were ye trying to get?’
He started to shift the skeleton. As he lifted it off the ground and turned it the right way round, the skull came loose from the body and Aroha instinctively flinched.
‘Damien, don’t!’ she hissed softly. ‘Let’s get the others.’
‘Wait a mo’,’ he replied. ‘He— or whatever it was— was tryin’ to get somethin’ here. While dyin’. It must have been important.’
Aroha couldn’t stop herself from lifting her lantern to the bookcase as well. It looked like all of the others at first but the longer she stared at it, the more she noted something was definitely off about it. It took her a moment to fully realize what it was but, from her vantage point, she could see that the shelf was ever-so-slightly out of place. It was placed just a touch more forward than the others along the wall were so that it stuck out a few centimetres, throwing what must have once been the original symmetry of the ruined library off by just the tiniest amount.
‘Damien…’ she said slowly. ‘I think there’s something behind the bookcase.’
Damien looked up at it in confusion for a moment, then immediately jumped to his feet. He inspected the side of the case and chuckled. ‘Well done spottin’ that!’
He tried to heave the case but even though the thing was a crumbling, rotting ruin, it was still made from incredibly heavy, solid oak.
‘Give us a hand,’ he said to Aroha as he strained against the shelf.
She reluctantly stepped forward. She tried not to look at the skeleton as Damien heaved it out of their way. He grabbed the side closest to Aroha and she did the same.
‘Just slide it out,’ he instructed. ‘On three.’
The pair heaved the heavy bookcase aside, sliding it across the floor to reveal the wall behind it. Except it wasn’t just a wall, it was another stone door, similar to the ones at the entrance. Damien pushed against it and it, surprisingly, slid open effortlessly and noiselessly.
He flashed Aroha a smile. ‘After ye?’ he asked cordially, holding out his hand in a fake bow.
But Aroha did not accept the invitation. She shook her head, ‘We really should get the others. This is weird, Damien. What was that creature? What were they trying to hide here?’
‘Treasure, Aroha!’ Damien exclaimed. She could hear the exasperation in his voice. ‘People hide treasure! This is exactly what we were lookin’ for, ain’t it?’
‘Why would that creature be trying to get at treasure with its dying breath? Think about it, Damien! It spent its last moments on this planet trying to reach here. We don’t even know how it died!’
Damien sighed and placed a hand on Aroha’s shoulder once again. ‘These are thin’s we just can’t know, Aroha. This place has been dead for millennia. Whoever built it an’ why has been lost to time. Our job is to simply collect the relics. That’s it. The scholars an’ the academics will pour over the whys an’ the hows when we report it but, for now, all we can do is take what we can. We’ll collect some o’ the poor bugger’s bones an’ maybe someone can tell us who or what he was later, but there’s nothing else we can do for him. Now, are ye comin’ or not? I promise ye, the worst we have to look out for are old traps an’ spiders.’
Aroha looked into Damien’s eyes and knew the man believed what he was telling her. She nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay.’
Damien stepped through the doorway, leading Aroha in a tight passage that forced them to walk in a single file. There was barely enough room to breathe and it went on for far too long, but eventually, the passage opened up into another room. This one was much smaller than the library had been and much richer. It was a perfectly square room and as soon as Aroha entered it, she knew immediately it was a treasury of some kind. Their lights glittered off piles of coins, jewellery and gems stacked haphazardly at the back of the room. Small mountains of riches the likes of which Aroha had never even imagined. There was also a rack of jewel-handled swords on one side and a handful of shields and spears on the coin piles.
The centrepiece of the room, however, was a small pedestal atop which stood a large gem, but Aroha could not identify what it was. It was a deep vermillion hue, like a chunk of diamond blood, but it sometimes flashed in the light of the lantern and seemed to swim with a multitude of other, different colours. Purples and blues and oranges and other, stranger shades she wasn’t even sure she could properly describe. She couldn’t be sure if her eyes were playing tricks on her or not, but the gem made her greatly uneasy. It felt like it was calling to her, trying to get her to reach out and touch it. She felt a shiver crawl down the back of her neck and along her spine; a thin, dreadful, cold thing, like the blade of a knife. She wanted nothing more than to look away from the gem, but she could not avert her gaze.
Damien turned to Aroha and clasped her cheeks in his hands, breaking her out of her stupor. He gave her a big, sopping kiss on the forehead and beamed broadly, ‘We hit the jackpot!’
He leapt at the coin piles ravenously, stuffing his pockets with fistfuls of coins and gems. He turned to Aroha and said, ‘Gather what ye can! We’ll get the others in here an’ they can get the rest! A find this big, we’ll be in coin for the rest o’ our lives!’
Aroha examined the room wearily. She went over the swords and inspected them. Their blades were thoroughly rusted-eaten and useless, with only the minerals in their hilts being of any real value anymore. They were of a strange design, being broad and curved instead of the straight swords she was familiar with. She moved over to the nearest coin pile. She lifted off a shield that was equally as rusted through as the blades were, so she tossed it aside. She picked up a handful of the coins and gems from the pile, inspecting them closely. The coins were tarnished slightly but were still unmistakably gold. She rubbed a coin clean, inspecting the strange inscription it held. She did not know the language, but there was an image of what looked like a fox or wolf minted upon each coin. She turned to Damien to ask him if he had ever seen coins like this, but she stopped dead when she saw him inspecting the gem on the pedestal.
She didn’t even have time to react before he had reached out and lifted it from its podium. He turned to her to say something, but before he had even opened his mouth, it seemed as if time froze. There was an absence of air and noise, and Aroha was cognizant of it for far too long for it to be natural. It felt as if the entire room had taken a deep breath inwards and was holding it there. Then there was a very light, very faint pop, as if a bubble had just burst in the stillness.
‘Damien!’ was all Aroha managed to cry before the room was engulfed in a brilliant vermillion light that turned her vision completely red for just a split second.
And then there was nothing but an infinite, crushing blackness.