Shane spent a few hours translating the writing in every mausoleum they found. This was all in hopes of finding something connected to the court. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Everything she managed to translate was either the names of the naga who were laid to rest there or small messages, presumably from their loved ones. The naga seemed to have an interesting custom. Most writings were almost like passages in a diary. Mostly small things like how life treated them or how a festival happened and people seemed happy. There was a message about love at times, how someone had found someone new and would ask the deceased for their blessing. Several passages were talking about how hard it was now and how much they missed them, of course, but these weren't the majority.
Hera noticed that despite the difference in each structure, they all seemed to be from the same type of people. The offerings were very similar, and so were the pyres. According to Shane, there was no distinction between class or anything like it, which wasn't the norm for the naga. Their society had a noble hierarchy, and they were ostentatious. This meant that this area where the only decorations were made out of stone and the crypts were not that large should belong to the working class.
Because of that, it was very unlikely that a hero would be around this area. If Shane's findings were correct, the holder of the court legacy would be among the nobles, if not beside the emperors and empresses of their society. Still, Shane was trying to be thorough, and only after checking a dozen crypts, she agree to look for the 'noble district' first and then move back if they didn't find anything. However, they were all tired and hungry after the entire day of travel, plus these few hours waiting around for Shane to translate a bunch of random text. Everyone agreed to take a break and get ready to sleep. The sun had already gone down, and even though there was no light in the area, seeing the night sky above made everyone uneasy.
"We are not sleeping in the middle of a graveyard, are we?" Blue asked.
"Why not? It's not like there are ghosts or something around here," Bonnie shrugged.
"But ghosts are a thing. We already fought a few," Blue remembered the ones they faced in the Arcanist Lookout.
"Ok, so what's your idea? Go back to the other corridor?" Alex asked.
"Isn't it better?"
"I agree. Let's sleep someplace else. Even if it's just out of respect," Shane nodded.
Bonnie and Alex sighed and agreed to move back with the group. It didn't take long for them to return to the area where they had found the spiders, in there. Hera and Silah prepared a large stone bunker, creating three layers of stone with some tiny holes just to allow the passage of air. If it wasn't for the [Shaper of Mana] skill, Hera would've used slabs of stone to create makeshift bars on the ceiling of the bunker to allow everyone to see what was going on outside. However, thanks to that skill, she could use her pulse to see if there was anything around them. Shane could also use her gauntlet and even share what she saw through the communicators.
Hera and Silah made a relatively large area for them to rest, and everyone settled in. They pulled out the rations, and they all had and refilled their water and got ready to sleep.
Mylo quickly got a spot on the edge of the bunker, where he could sleep sitting down, "Wake me up in six hours."
"We should take turns on watch, just to be safe," Shane suggested.
"With all of us, we can make what, 2-hour shifts?" Bonnie suggested.
"Well… that works. We can stay up 2 at a time," Helena counted the number of people in the group.
"Sure, I'm still hyped, so I'll stay up double-checking everything we found," Shane pulled up her tablet and started reading.
"I'll stay up too. You guys can rest," Bonnie moved closer to Shane to help her with the data.
Hera and the others all found a place to sleep, but unlike Mylo, they still wanted to eat before resting.
"Mind if I ask you a question?" Alex turned to Shane.
"Sure."
"Why are you so interested in this legacy. I mean, I get that a legacy is amazing and all, but is that all?"
"Wow, hitting the hard questions, aren't we?" Shane chuckled before taking a bite out of some jerky, "Well… it's not that fun of a story."
"Still, I'm curious. I get that you might want a legacy, but it seems like something more," Alex pressed.
Shane kept looking at her tablet, but even so, she started speaking, "When I started as an explorer, things were all fine and dandy, but after less than a year, I was feeling… Lost. Like, what's the point of going to deeper layers? Why should I risk myself? Money? I already made enough on the third layer to live a comfortable life. I could spend a month running around in dungeons and have a vacation for the rest of the year. Then I did just that. Instead of running deeper into the MAZE, I just found a place with easy enough dungeons where I could make a lot of money quickly and took my year-long vacation. The thing is. Doing nothing, even if I had a lot of money, made me go a bit crazy. I went around back on earth going from party to party, booze, drugs, and the whole spiel, but I was still depressed despite all that. It felt like I was just roaming around aimlessly, and that didn't work with me. I'm not preaching that everyone needs to have a goal in life to be happy. I mean, Mylo just goes with the flow, and it works great for him, but it really doesn't work for me. Anyway, I came back to the MAZE to have that rush of adrenaline we get when we fight, and man, that worked.
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Both Alex and Hera, who were just listening in to the conversation, nodded in response. The assassin, however, also spoke up, "I get that, but it still doesn't explain why are you so interested in the legacy."
"I'm getting there. Hold on. Let me ramble a bit," Shane pulled a chocolate bar from her bag and passed it around, "So, after coming back, I started looking into organizations to have at least a short-term goal. Something to make me forget that feeling of being lost. That's when I found the Order of the Lost Court. I started to like you two did. Just running errands for people until Ninleyn showed up and told me about the courts. I fell in love with that story. Imagine a whole secret society of heroes! I want to find out why they grouped up. Were they against something? Protecting something? Were they afraid? Or was it just a plan to control the MAZE. Also, how come a group like that just vanished without a trace. Was it intentional? Were people hiding them for some reason? Did they do something so terrible, so unspeakable that they deserved to be wiped from history? Don't get me wrong, I still want to get the legacy. After all, from everything that I found out, this would go great with me. Apparently, this one is all about enchanting items. Making spells and attacks more powerful. But what I really want to do is find more about the court. It's something that I feel like I can do."
"It's not a bad story," Alex replied.
"It's not a good one either," Shane shrugged.
"I disagree. You found something that you are passionate about. Those stories are always good," Bonnie said.
"I guess. Anyway, that's the story. So far, I didn't find any reason for the Court of Heroes to become a thing or for it to be dismantled, then again. This is the first thread that I'm following."
"Thread? You mean clue?" Alex asked.
"Yeah. Ninleyn has a thing that he calls these clues threads. It's because it's not a single thing but a string of various discoveries connected. I think I spent too much time talking with him about this," Shane chuckled.
"Oh, tell me about it. I had a tutor who kept saying, 'things must be proper.' I spent years repeating that phrase," Bonnie sighed.
The group continued talking about life and their past until they fell asleep. Hera and Silah took the third watch. They would stay awake for two hours and then call Mylo and Helena. During their watch, the blacksmith shared a few ideas she had about the graveyard. Even if she didn't have much experience dealing with other cultures, she understood construction. This was part of the education that every dwarf received in Boothudurn.
To Silah, the structures they had seen all looked like they should have more than one floor. The é traces were too big, and the pillars were set up in a way to support whatever was above them, which didn't make a lot of sense since the crypts were essentially caves. The way they had to support the weight was very different from what they were actually doing. All this made her think that the naga wasn't well-versed in the construction of mines and other things like that, which would explain why the crypts felt so out of place.
During the rest of their turn, nothing major happened. Early morning a few monsters seemed to walk over the bunker, but none of them seemed to mind or try to mess with the structure. When everyone got up, Hera and Shane double-checked to ensure that there was nothing around them before dismantling the bunker. One way or another, they would have to go back today. It was that or hunting spiders for food, which wasn't high on the list of a few of the group members. Still, they had enough time to spend a good part of the day here before having to worry about that.
"Hera, quick question. Did you find anything about a lower floor with ruins?" Shane asked her in a whisper.
"There is something under us. Like in a lower floor, but I can't tell if that's where we have to go or not," Hera nodded.
"Did you find any place that would let us go down? Or do we need to make that stairwell in the chasm again?"
"I'm assuming they have a way to go to both floors. Even if they are segregating the people, they wouldn't like to bar off the 'peasants,' would they?" Hera asked.
"No, they were more the type to show their riches but say 'don't touch,'" Shane explained.
With that, the group finished their preparations and headed back to the crypts. They had already found the first part, and the goal was now to find the noble district or something that could be worth it of a hero. It wasn't easy for Shane to fight the urge of going inside each crypt to search for the legacy. Bonnie and Silah were also a bit of a problem. They kept finding things to distract them, making the travel considerably longer than it should have. A few hours after they left the bunker, the group passed by hundreds of crypts. All had their unique carvings that tried to be opulent and flashy, but there wasn't a single decoration, be it made of gold or other precious gems.
Finally arriving at something different, there was a large stone passage that headed to the lower floor. This passage had some places for torches, a long slope with no stairs, which made sense since the naga didn't actually have legs. There were also a few structures that once upon a time could've been used to hold banners, but all signs of cloth or any type of linen were long gone. It was hard to tell if that was only due time or some creature that decided to use it for their nests.
The passage was long, going in a downward spiral until reaching the bottom floor. Here, the crypts were significantly different. Each sculpture had some decorations made of various materials, and the structure itself had more color and wasn't simply carved out of the stone. In fact, some of the mausoleums were built in the middle of the valley and not inside the area's walls.
"Guys, I think we are getting close," Shane said with a big smile.
"Yeah, we are still some ways off the edge, but we are near," Hera pulled up her map to confirm their location.
"We have bigger problems. Everyone get ready," Mylo called as the noise of hundreds of legs echoed through the valley.