They walked through the dark forest as carefully as they possibly could, with their weapons on their hands, in the case of danger. The forest was thicker than usual and the rays from the moon were not a very reliable source of light as a result. Due to this, Kassius was very glad that Gwin decided to tag along, as she was prepared enough to pack a light rune.
"Where do you get these things? I'd think you robbed an entire store somewhere on Eden." Fenris commented.
"You can never be too prepared." Gwin said.
"and I would expect you to have these essentials. Then again, you've been less than expected." Gwin said seemingly smirking.
"What's that supposed to mean? You trying to say something, four-eyes?" Fenris said slightly infuriated at Gwin's comment, however, she shrugged it off.
"Guys, some other time please." The two stopped their short quarrel and moved on.
“Does anyone even remember how to get to the altar?” Fenris asked. The group was silent for a moment.
“So our plan is to wander aimlessly until we find it? That makes me feel better.” Fenris said sarcastically. The group shot cold, yet flaring, glares at him and he quickly recoiled and kept quiet.
“If you have a better plan for us, Snowflake, we’re all ears.” Gwin said with a smirk. Kassius and Eva let out a chuckle and Fenris burned up.
“That doesn’t even make sense. How am I a snowflake?” Fenris responded, and Gwin turned toward Fenris and mischievously smiled.
“Other than the obvious..” She said pointing to his white hair.
“You act all tough and cold-hearted towards everyone..” she inched closer to him looking even more smug and proud, to the point that it was scary.
“But deep inside, you’re just a little softy, just melting in your feelings, like a little snowflake.” Fenris turned his head away from her, Kassius could’ve sworn he was crimson red, although he wasn’t sure due to the darkness of night.
“I like it better than Fenris.” Eva said, laughing a little more.
“Shut up..” Fenris said softly, unable to say anything sarcastic and witty.
Kassius laughed along with the girls, and put his hand on Fenris’ shoulder, hoping to console him at the very least. When he finally got the breath to speak again, he tried to return their focus to looking for the altar.
“Anyway, Snowflake, we’ll just keep searching, I’m sure we’ll find it eventually. If we start to see the morning then we–”
As Kassius stepped forward to be ahead of the group, his foot slipped and fell down a slope that was seemingly concealed.
“Kassius!” Eva yelled. Kassius slid down and hit rocks, branches, and trunks of trees on the way down until he hit a solid-rock pavement.
Feeling every one of his muscles ache, and maybe even some of his bones breaking, he did his best to stand up and recover from the fall.
“Kassius! Are you okay?” Gwin yelled.
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” Kassius responded as loudly as he could, putting his hand on his ribs.
He looked around and he could barely make out anything, other than the stone floor he was standing on. He heard a rustle behind him and turned to see Eva and the others appearing from within rising roots. Gwin shone her rune in his direction to see if it was really Kassius and ran towards him.
“You should’ve let me go first.” Gwin said in a nagging tone. Kassius only chuckled.
“Here. Let me help you with that.” Eva offered, she raised her hand and a bright green and blue light glittered around her hands.
As the light shined, Kassius felt the pain in his ribs slowly fading away until it completely disappeared. The lights disappeared, along with his pain.
“How did you–”
“Healing magic.” Eva said, cutting off Kassius. She said it as if it was normal, however, Kassius still looked astonished at the sight of it.
“Right, you haven’t seen a lot of magic haven’t you?” Fenris said. Kassius shook his head, while Eva and Gwin opened their mouths at the realization.
“The only ones I’ve ever seen were the ones I was being shot with.” Kassius said, chuckling.
“Well fairies are naturally adept at nature spells, that includes a lot of healing spells as well.” Eva explained, as efficiently as she usually does.
“Normal healing spells can only fix physical injuries, like a broken rib. The more powerful spells can heal diseases..” she paused for a moment.
“Well only some diseases, and even those spells are difficult to perform, due to the amount of energy and control you need for it.”
“Because of that, only the fairies of royal blood are able to perform, even among us only a few can successfully perform those.” She explained, slowly trailing off. She almost sounded sad as she explained it to Kassius.
He wondered whether it was just his imagination, before he could say anything, Fenris gave him a nudge and a look that said “Not the time.”.
Gwin held her hand and smiled at her, which got her back to her normal self, a little brighter. “We should keep moving.” Gwin proposed. Kassius nodded.
Gwin shone her rune in front of them and showed stone pillars on both their sides. When Kassius stepped between the pillars, torches lit around them one after the other, in a full circle. The torches reveal the ruins that they found before, and in the middle, the ominous altar. Kassius carefully approached it and checked around, to confirm if it still had his name on it. To his shock, his name was not anywhere on it, it was completely plain, now markings of some kind. It seemed as if it was a regular stone altar.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Fenris asked.
Kassius looked at every side of the altar, twice, and thrice, not a single trace of any marking or writing was visible, it was as if it was never there.
“This doesn't make any sense.” Kassius groaned in frustration.
He slammed his hands on top of the altar, and out of nowhere, a sudden loud rumble began, staggering everyone out of the stone pavement. The altar had begun to sink down into the ground, and the entire ruins began to shift. As the pillars and ground shook, an entrance revealed itself opposite from Kassius and the others.
Just as sudden as its start, the shaking stopped and the entrance had fully opened. Kassius approached it slowly, taking care not to fall for any trap or danger that could possibly be lying in wait. As he reached the archway of the entrance, a blue light glowed from the ground he was standing on. The light showed from his feet and led on to outline the entire entrance, slowly forming symbols and some words. “The old age shall be, for the gray one will forever be.”
Kassius read the writing out loud, earning concerned looks from his friends.
“You could read that?” Gwin asked.
“Of course I can, it’s in english. Can’t you guys read it?” they all shook their heads, shocking Kassius.
“I just see random symbols and wavy marks.” Fenris said. Meanwhile, Eva mutters the phrase angina and again, contemplating it.
“But it’s English, I don’t know any other language. How could I…” Kassius fell into his thoughts, thinking how he could see it as English.
The more he thought, the more it scared him. Unaware, he was silent until Gwin shook his body, trying to get his attention.
“Kassius!” he snapped out of it and looked towards Gwin.
“We can worry about that later.” Gwin said. Kassius nodded and turned towards the entrance. The darkness within gave it an uneasy aura.
Kassius knew that it was definitely dangerous to step further in, however, he steeled himself and he was determined to stop the culprit and get to the bottom of this. With his friends behind him, he entered the ruin.
The light from Gwin’s rune shone bright but they’re surroundings remained dark, and not a single wall could be seen, nor was an end in sight. The group stuck close together in order to keep each other in sight.
“As if none of this was creepy enough, you can’t see a thing in here.” Fenris said in annoyance. Each step they took was careful, lest they end up stepping over a sudden edge again.
“Do we even know where we’re going?” Fenris asked.
The group stayed silent, as they all knew that they were just wandering aimlessly. Although Gwin was the one with the light rune, Kassius took the lead. He out of all of them wanted to get to the bottom of the identity of these people, the Forgotten. He is aware but unbothered by the lack of sight, focusing only on finding the slightest difference in order for them to find a way through.
After what seemed like an hour of walking, they heard the slam of a metal door behind them. They stopped in their tracks looking around, although it was still pitch black around. Torches lit up, and their surroundings were finally visible. They saw themselves in a rectangular room, lined with pillars on both sides, and four stone statues resembling weeping people, covering their faces and bending their heads downward. in between the pillars. Another metal door stood ahead of them, with two metal statues resembling knights. They approached the door, just as Kassius reached for the handle, the statues sprang to life and blocked the door with their swords, making Kassius recoil back. “Are you okay?” Eva asked. Kassius nodded, letting out a deep sigh of relief.
“Guys?....what’s happening?” Gwin said. The group turned their attention to the whole room as the stone statues began to move as well.
The stone statues slowly approached the group, their hands still covering their faces. They readied their weapons and brought their backs against one another.
“Does anyone have any ideas?” Kassius asked, his friends stayed silent, much to his disappointment.
The statues began to surround them and as they cornered them to the wall, they lowered their arms to show a faceless head, with white lights where the eyes are supposed to be. Eva immediately used her magic to teleport away to their backs. Noticing this, one of the statues broke away from the others, giving Kassius and the others a chance to slip away from the other statues.
Gwin and Fenris were the first to slip away, causing one of the statues to follow them, leaving Kassius two statues with their full attention on him. Fenris began hurling his spells to the statue chasing him and Gwin, however, none of it affected the statue in any way. In the same way, Gwin’s magical traps were ineffective against the statues, only seeming to stagger it rather than damaging it. Eva shot her arrow at every possible spot of her statue, trying to find a weak point, to no avail.
“Nothing’s working guys.” Eva yelled.
“No shit!” Fenris yelled, slightly losing his breath from his running.
Kassius did his best to avoid the two statues after him, dodging all of their attempts to hit and grab him. He attempted to strike the statues’ arms, hoping to cut it off, but even that was ineffective.
“What the hell are we supposed to do?!” Fenris yelled. Kassius tried to think of something, while also fighting off two statues.
He looked at every corner of the room as much as he could while keeping his statues at bay. He searched, and searched, and searched, but there was nothing but an empty room. While he was distracted, the statue attempted to strike Kassius, successfully hitting and knocking him to the wall. Kassius tried his hardest to get back on his feet, but his body was aching everywhere, especially his back and chest. He had never been struck so hard in his life, not even by Auralius. When he got to his feet, he tried to hold up his blades in a defensive stance, with difficulty.
“Are you alright?” Gwin yelled.
“Just some aching.” Kassius responded.
The two statues began to charge at Kassius once again. Kassius wanted to move, but the pain from the last attack was still very present, preventing him from moving. He prepared for the worst as the statues grew closer and closer to him.
At the very last inch away from him, the statues were knocked away by a very powerful fireball. Kassius looked in the direction of the fireball and saw Fenris pointing his staff towards his direction.
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“Thanks.” he said.
Fenris nodded and brought his attention back to the statue that he and Gwin were fighting. Kassius looked towards the statues, and saw that they were immediately getting up from the ground. On impulse, Kassius grabbed one of the spears the knights were holding and readied himself. One of the statues got up, and began charging once again towards Kassius. He held his ground, feet planted, and the spear in his hands pointed directly at the statue.
“Kassius!” Eva screamed, as the statue reached mere inches away from Kassius, but Kassius didn’t move. Kassius closed his eyes, expecting the statue to flatten him. To his surprise, he felt fine and he didn’t feel as if anything hurt or hit him at all. When he opened his eyes, he saw that his body was still okay. The spear that he had gotten from the knight statue, was impaled through the statue's head, causing the white light to disappear.
He watched as the statue crumbled in front of him, amazed at what just happened. After so many attempts at powerful magic and conventional means of combat, the seemingly indestructible statue was brought down by a normal metal spear. Before he could comprehend what had just occurred, the second statue started charging at him. Kassius ducked out of the way as quickly as he could, only barely dodging the statue. As he watched his friends combat their statues, an idea popped up in his head.
“Guys!” Kassius called out. His friends turned to him.
“Bring them all to the door we came through. I have an idea.” They hesitated for a little while, unsure of Kassius’ “idea”.
They quickly agreed as none of them had a plan to protest his plan. Fenris hurled even more spells at the statue, trying to get its attention off of Gwin, and Eva did the same, shooting every arrow she could to her statue. Gwin quickly made her way towards the door guarded by the knights. Kassius did his best to get the attention of his statue while also carrying the spear. The three were able to lead their statue to the door after chasing all over the room.
“Teleport us to Gwin, Eva.” Kassius commanded, Eva nodded and put her hands on Fenris’ and Kassius’ shoulders, teleporting them with her.
The statues collided with the door causing them to topple to the ground, although still intact. “Grab the other spear and aim it towards them.” Kassius said.
“That’s your plan!?” Fenris yelled in protest. Before he could say anymore, two statues got up and charged straight at them.
“Just do it, Fenris!” Gwin yelled. They stood firm, Fenris behind Kassius holding one spear, and Gwin behind Eva holding another in the same manner.
They planted their feet and waited for the statues to reach their spears. Kassius kept his eyes on the statues, unfaltering, he was confident that his plan would work. As he expected, the statues charged at them full force and the spears impaled their heads, effectively halting their charge and destroying them. The spears broke as a result of the tremendous force applied by the statues.
The group simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief as they relaxed from a stressful battle. Before they were able to celebrate however, the sound of heavy rumblings started. They turned to see the last statue still intact and fully recovered. With the spears broken, they had no other options to fight this foe.
“Get out of the way!” Kassius yelled.
They all just barely ducked away as the statue charged at them and brought down the door to the other room.
The loud bang from the collision of the statue and the door caused Kassius’ ears to ring. With his ears ringing he had difficulty getting up to his feet, in addition to keeping his eyes opened. He felt himself being pulled up and saw Fenris putting his arm over his back, supporting him. He could hear Fenris but his voice was muffled from the ringing in his ears. Kassius was surprised at how calm he was, when there was a huge statue still running around, until he realized something. He couldn’t feel the ground trembling, not even the slightest rumble.
“Was the statue gone?” he thought to himself. When his hearing started to come back, he asked Fenris what had happened to the statue.
“The big guy fell.” he said, confusing Kassius even more.
Fenris walked Kassius over to the other side of the door, revealing a huge dark hole, and a bridge connecting their side to another platform with torches lit.
“Well that’s….something.” Kassius said, speechless but glad that it happened. They turned and saw Eva and Gwin, dirtied but alive.
“Are you guys alright?” Kassius asked.
“Just some dust and dirt, don’t worry, we should be asking you that.” Eva expressed her concern.
“Just had a slight ringing in my ear, that’s all.” Kassius feigned a smile through his pain.
“I’m fine by the way.” Fenris said, gaining laughter as everyone’s response.
When Kassius had regained some of his strength, he took his arm off of Fenris and turned to the bridge.
“There’s no turning back then, I guess.” Kassius said.
After what happened in the first room, Kassius became cold feet, unable to move from the uncertainty of what they could possibly face next. Then he felt a warm sensation on his shoulder and saw Fenris smiling behind him, and Eva and Gwin smiling along with him.
“We’re with you.” Fenris said. Those few words were all Kassius needed to push forward. He took one last deep breath and proceeded down the bridge.
They walked along the bridge carefully, to avoid falling to the dark depths. Kassius looked down more than a few times, and when he did, he found himself less scared of the height and more scared of the endless darkness.
“Do you think there’s an end to that?” Kassius asked casually.
“Thanks for giving me the idea that it doesn’t, Kas.” Fenris said.
Kassius chuckled. He turned to check if everyone was okay. As he expected, they were all understandably frightened by the height. To his surprise, however, Eva seemed more tense than the rest.
“Are you alright, Eva?” Kassius asked. Eva startled as if snapping from a trance.
“Yeah I’m okay….just being extra careful.” she said.
Kassius noticed a slight tremble in her voice, giving the impression of an intense fear. Although, whether it was the darkness or heights, he couldn’t tell. Rather than press her, he let it be, worrying about her the whole way. When they finally reached the platform, he saw Eva loosen up, smiling from relief.
“You seem to be a lot more tense than normal, Eva.” Fenris commented.
Eva blushed a light pink from his comment.
“Let’s keep our weapons out, just in case we do some more fighting inside.” Kassius said, stopping Fenris from prying any further into Eva’s business.
No matter his intentions, he did turn his attention towards the door. He wondered what was on the other side, whether it was worse than the statues, or the least likely possibility that it could just simply lead them to the end of these ruins.
“Are you guys ready?” Kassius looked to them and saw them ready their weapons, assuring him that they are.
He turned back to the door and opened the door slowly. As he opened the door all the way, he was greeted by nothing but an empty room, darkness in every corner but the center, which had four pedestals. Kassius scanned the room numerous times, and Gwin shone her light to the dark parts of the room, to their surprise, there was absolutely nothing. Besides the pedestals , there was absolutely nothing, giving Kassius an ominous feeling at the least, unnerving sense of dread at worst. He did not lower his guard in the slightest, as he entered the room.
He slowly approached the center of the room with his blades drawn, and saw something shining in one of the pedestals. As he grew closer, he saw a familiar golden necklace on the pedestal. It was the necklace that Miss Jean had given him. His heart sank, as all the memories of her flooded back in his mind, even the dream he had. He hadn’t worn the necklace ever since he started his year in Baelvaire.
He had almost forgotten it, and he was scared that we would. “How….Why..?” Kassius tried to get words out but was overwhelmed with many emotions all at once. He picked up the necklace and turned to his friends. He looked up to see all three of them standing by the remaining three pedestals.
“Guys?” Kassius said, trying to get their attention, but they are glued to the pedestals, seemingly in a trance.
Kassius walked around and saw that they, just like him, had objects on the pedestals. Gwin was clutching a small doll, not as ragged as any of the dolls that Kassius had seen, in fact, it was very clean and intact, as if someone had fixed it and more. Gwin clutched with tears flowing down her face, quietly crying. It seemed she was trying to hide it but she failed. Opposite her, Eva stood looking down at her object. While she wasn’t in tears, her face was hardened, as if she were holding the tears back, at least holding some emotion. Never had he seen Eva, a very calm and collected person, and most times graceful without trying, so tense and distressed. One wrong word out of him, she might’ve broken. The two girls were a sorry sight to see, so much so that Kassius could barely see his friends in such a state, but he could not have prepared himself for what he saw in Fenris’ face.
He checked to see the degree of sadness on his friends’ face, what he ended up seeing, however, scared him. He saw Fenris' eyes nearly completely wide open, sweat dripping down the temples of his head. His neck was drenched as well, so much so that the shirt he was wearing became darkened and damp. Kassius moved a little more to see what he had seen. A torn up piece of paper, with . While Kassius could not see anything, Fenris seemed like there was definitely something there, something he didn’t want to see. He began to see Fenris shaking as he picked up the piece of paper. Kassius clutched his necklace in his hands and tried to make sense of what was happening to everyone, and why was everyone seeing these things.
“Never……” a voice whispered. Kassius looked around frantically, startled from the voice. As he searched, he saw his friends doing the same, everyone except Fenris who was still frozen.
“Never should have existed……” the voice whispered again, becoming more and more familiar to Kassius.
“Never should have met the boy….” the same voice whispered.
The familiar, warm and kind voice, similar to Miss Jeans’. Kassius’ heart became tight at the sound of her voice, somehow staying warm, kind and generous while saying words of regret and sadness.
“My life would’ve been normal if it weren’t for that boy.” The voice is getting louder, and more aggressive.
“You honestly think I loved you?!”
“Did you really think I’d ever see you as a son?!” the voice repeated numerous times.
Kassius felt a sharp pain in his chest, he couldn’t believe what he was hearing and who he was hearing it from. He wanted to beg, plead, yell for Miss Jean.
“No, please don't think that.” Kassius said, his voice growing louder. “Mom….” his voice began to tremble as well.
“Mom……” “Mom!!!” Kassius yelled, over and over but Miss Jean’s voice just kept repeating the same disappointed and disgusted statements.
As he turned to try and see Miss Jean wherever she was, he noticed his friends in the same frantic state. Gwin clutched the doll in her chest, tears pouring down her face uncontrollably, as she yelled,
“Mama!…..Papa!.....”
“Don’t be angry!”. She fell to her knees and curled crying even more.
He turned to Eva, and saw that she wasn’t in any better shape, as she covered her face with her hands screaming almost as loudly as Gwin.
“You’re wrong!”
“I’m not……I’m only….” she repeated over and over.
What gave Kassius pause and overwhelming worry, however, was Fenris. Whereas Gwin and Eva showed sadness and tears, Fenris showed fear and intense anger. His eyes seemed to glow red, a very psychotic red.
“LET ME GO!”
“AAAARGHHH”
“IT HURTS!!” he screamed frantically as if he was actually in intense pain. He flailed his arms around, like he was tied down, even though he clearly wasn’t.
The sight of his friends in agony seemed to drown out Ms. Jean’s voice, to the point that Kassius had almost forgotten all about it. He leapt towards Fenris trying to calm him down, with great difficulty.
“Fenris! Fenris!” Kassius yelled, trying to get his attention.
Kassius put his arms under Fenris’, restricting his movement, his arms at least. This only seemed to aggravate him more as he grew more frantic, more than Kassius could handle. He did his absolute best to keep Fenris still, but nothing was working. Whether it was grappling his leg, trying to knock him down, or restricting his upper body in more ways than one, Fenris was determined to break free. Kassius watched Fenris rapidly go insane from the voices that he was hearing. With the girls in their own hallucinations, it seemed like Kassius would have no choice but to leave them. That would never be an option to Kassius, but right now he wasn’t so sure.
“Dammit, I’m not leaving any of you!” Kassius yelled in frustration.
“Shut up!” he yelled, directing it all over the room.
“You better shut up and leave them alone!” Kassius screamed and screamed but he didn’t really know who he’s directing his screams to, all he knew was that there had to be someone or something that was causing this and he thought that whatever was doing this wanted us to go insane.
Kassius poured all his strength into keeping Fenris still, closing his eyes trying to squeeze every drop of strength he had. He suddenly felt less resistance, and Fenris became more and more flexible. He opened his eyes and saw Eva, her calm and cool self, and Fenris slouching and slowly sinking down until he was resting in between Kassius’ arms. As he slowly put Fenris down lying on the ground, he noticed that there was no more noise, no voices and no screaming. He looked around and saw Gwin panting as if she had run a few miles and Eva, while not as out of breath as Gwin, got to her knees and her head hung low. Kassius breathed a sigh of relief and joined his friends on the ground. As the whole ordeal concluded, torches lit the room, now not a single corner was dark, a far cry from the room they entered.
“Thanks.” Kassius said, looking towards Eva.
“I should be thanking you, Kassius.” Eva said. Kassius looked at her confused.
“Me? Why?” he asked.
“I heard you.” she said with a cool and serene tone. Kassius curled his brow, wondering what she meant, immediately answering his own question.
He then blushed and looked away, Eva giggling at his embarrassment. He had never really thought about what he was doing at the time, all he wanted was to get through this with his friends.
“It’s alright, Kassius.” Eva said, giving a slightly mischievous but kind smile. He didn’t know how to feel about that, all he knew was that she would never let him forget it.
After they had taken a moment to rest, they helped Gwin up to her feet and balanced her.
“Thanks guys.” she said gloomily, hanging her head.
“Are you okay?” Kassius asked. She softly nodded her head, failing to reassure Kassius and Eva that she was fine.
“How about Fenris?” Gwin said, full of worry.
They turned to look at Fenris slouched by the wall, unconscious. They all stood silent as they thought about what to do, seeing as they are not at the end of the ruins yet and they couldn’t leave Fenris here.
“We should bring him back.” Eva suggested.
Kassius couldn’t argue, he knew that he needed help and even if it was immediate, he couldn’t ask his friends to continue on for his selfish desire. His hands balled into a fist in anger, both at the idea of leaving, and at himself for not liking the idea.
“You should bring Fenris back, Eva.” Gwin suggested, to the surprise of both her friends.
“What?” Kassius said, hoping he didn’t sound as surprised as he actually was.
“Gwin you–” Eva started to protest but Gwin stopped her and argued first.
“You used more of your strength than I did trying to calm us down, don’t lie.” She gave Eva that piercing look she usually gave Kassius and Fenris, and Eva avoided her face.
“I’ll be fine, and he needs someone to watch over him.” Gwin said, putting her arm around Kassius.
“Hey!” Kassius said, slightly annoyed, although he couldn’t help but agree in his mind.
Eva still remained unsure, and worried about the idea. Gwin looked at her, this time, instead of a piercing look, she gave a look that gave a feeling of genuine reassurance, like the very definition of comfort. Kassius watched in awe at his friends.
Eva nodded reluctantly and looked at both her friends.
“Don’t do anything stupid.” she said, eyeing both Gwin and Kassius, keeping her eyes mostly on Kassius.
She grabbed Fenris and put him over her shoulder and proceeded back through the door. He watched Fenris, unconscious on Eva’s back, hoping he would be alright, and he watched Eva go back through the bridge worried that she was in her worst place imaginable.
“You should really learn how to hide your emotions, Kassius.” Gwin said, turning toward the deeper part of the ruins.
“What do you mean?” Kassius said, confused at her comment.
“You would’ve been mad if we all had to go back right?” Kassius hung his head low, accepting her intuition as fact.
He blushed slightly at how predictable he was, all three of his friends were able to read him like a book, and it had only been a few months.
“Well? Are we going or what?” Gwin said. Kassius snapped out of his thoughts and followed Gwin towards the next door and onto the next room.