Ember kicks up a storm with fiery Emotio arts blasting from all her strikes. The spikewolves are swift, but her punches are swifter. One of the monsters gets behind her and jumps in for the kill, but she turns quickly to punch it straight in the snout, sending it flying into the cavern wall. Anonther spikewolf tries to shoot the spikes on its back, but Ember is too deft and doesn’t get hit. She jumps forth and lands a fiery kick that causes it too reel back from getting singed from magical flames. The last spikewolf flees the scene quickly, being outnumbered and at risk for a serious pummeling or being barbequed. The other two, heavily injured but not down for the count, follow suit shortly.

“That was quite risky, Ember.” Lunde tells her with such concern.

“I told you, you can trust me. I won’t overheat or suddenly burst into flames…like last time.” she replies, trying to draw humor out of his concern. Sounding a little worried, she also gives him a friendly tap on the shoulder. For reassurance it seems. “You’re too soft you know, too worried about things that are already long gone. Like those monsters. Not people anymore.”

“I…know. Sometimes, I wish I could do something, you know? Emotio corruption is permanent. There’s not a soul in the world who can cure someone.” He somberly replies. Although deep in his heart, he revisits the thought that it is one of his weaknesses to consider approaching impossibility with some possibility. “Anyway, I trusted you and you’re alright. So, let’s look at what’s real. I think we should move on to finding that stone slab.”

“Well, I wasn’t talking about Emotio corruption alone, but…” Ember replies, with a little hesitation to move unto the next topic. Mid-thought, she appears to have changed her approach with conversation. “But don’t worry too much alright? I got your back.”

A relieved look dawns on Lunde’s face as he takes her word and continues to trust her for it. He leads the way to the supposed chamber where they would find this certain stone slab. Ember follows behind him, but suddenly notices a small gash on her leg that seemed to have bled a little.

A dreadful feeling suddenly flows into her mind. Where could the gash be from? She thinks to herself that it is impossible that she got wounded in the fight earlier as she is certain that nothing touched her. Then again, she remembers that Iras Arts have the side-effect of delaying pain until after a battle. Ember reasons to herself that it’s probably from the rocky cave corridors and continues to walk it off. “I’ll just get it checked later at the camp, it’s probably nothing serious” she thinks and places a little healing ointment on it.

Minutes pass and Lunde finally enters a special chamber in the cave full of glowing minerals that light up the room a little. The chamber seems safe enough after an initial inspection with Curio Arts, unless anyone was deathly allergic to a lot of dust, dampness, bat dung, and cobwebs. He didn’t notice Ember lagging behind him, as he was too busy inspecting the area around him. His curiosity gets the best of him as he sees a giant rectangular chunk of stone in the middle of the room. Like a blackboard in a classroom, there seems to be writing on it as well.

“It’s…bigger than I thought” Ember says, finally catching up to Lunde. “How are we going to bring it back?” she continues, as puzzled as ever. Strong as she is, she doubts she can lift something like that with ease.

“So this is what they asked us to find? The slab where an obscure prophecy lies? Let me…study it for a little while.” Lunde says, totally mesmerized.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The chamber looks like it was built around the slab of stone. There are pillars all around the earthen room, some broken and some intact. Ember lights a few more torches and puts it on the ground. Upon closer inspection, etchings on the stone look similar to the etchings they saw outside. The reflecting light in the crystals that formed around the room further add to the mysterious and strange atmosphere the monolith brings.

“This prophecy…I’m so curious as to what it’s about…I can’t read the script, but…” Lunde, slowly putting his hand on the stone board, mutters.

“Wait, Lunde. Did you even check it with—” Ember expresses with concern, as the roles are switched now with Lunde recklessly doing things.

A burst of white light emerges from all the letters carved into the stone slab and the markings slowly turn into the face of a dragon looking straight at the two. Lunde is fazed and, as if thrust straight into a lucid dream, he hears a booming voice call out to him.

“BEHOLD, THIS IS ONE OF MY LAST WISDOMS SOLIDIFIED INTO THE WORLD. THE KINGS OF THE VOID THOUGHT THEY GOT RID OF ME COMPLETELY, BUT MY REBELLIOUS WILL SHALL TRIUMPH IN THE END.”

Lunde’s surroundings turn into a pearl-white mist. In that world that seems like a dream, he feels compelled to reach out to the voice and ask a question.

“Who…are you?” Lunde asks, groggily and on the verge of slumber and wakefulness.

“I AM NACREST, DRAGON PRINCE, THE WIELDER OF THE PURIFYING FLAME, ONE OF THE LAST SCIONS OF EMOTIO. SLAYER OF VOID BEASTS AND APATHIA’S BANE.” the voice proudly explains.

“The Scions of Emotio…legendary guardians…”

“EONS AGO, WE FOUGHT TO KEEP A REALM KNOWN AS THE VOID AWAY FROM THE REALM OF EXISTENCE. THE VOID CHEWS AWAY AT EMOTIO AND THUS LEADS THE WORLD TO ITS DESTRUCTION. MY CORPOREAL FORM MAY BE LONG GONE ALONGSIDE MY BRETHREN, BUT I WAS TOLD LONG AGO THAT A TRAVELER WOULD FIND MY WISDOMS OUT OF RECKLESS CURIOSITY.”

“That’s…kind of specific…” he laughs to himself. Lunde is more convinced that this is just a fleeting dream.

“WE CANNOT DENY HOW DETAILED THIS PROPHECY IS. UNFORTUNATELY, THIS ONLY PRECEEDS DESTRUCTION. THE VOID STILL YEARNS TO SINK ITS TEETH INTO THIS WORLD.”

Lunde starts slowly slipping back to reality.

“BEFORE YOU LEAVE THIS DAZE, A TOKEN FOR THE WEARY TRAVELER, A GIFT FROM OUR CHANCE MEETING. TAKE THIS: MY SILVER FLAME OF PURIFICATION. MAY THIS DIVINE BLAZE GUIDE THEE FORTH TO THE NEXT OF MY WISDOMS TO HEAR THE NEXT PART OF THIS PROPHECY.”

Lunde is suddenly covered in a brilliant flash of grey flames, followed by hearing laughter from a great god-like source.

“Woah!” Lunde yells as he jumps awake, not immolated at all but drenched in sweat.

“Nothing broken?! No bleeding anywhere?!” Ember hurriedly exclaims as she checks Lunde for any injuries. “You were thrown back a few feet and went unconscious after you touched the stone!”

Lunde tries to build back his composure and stabilize his spinning head. “My…my head…did you see the lights? The letters on the board lit up…”

“Lights? What do you mean? Oh no, this might be worse than I thought! We need to get out of here quickly!” a worried Ember says. “Do you need help? I’ll pick you up.”

A flash of pain suddenly hits her leg as she attempts to pick up Lunde. Her face displays a dread unusual to see due to her joyful nature, but she tries her best to suppress it. Although she probably has an idea what it is, she worries more for Lunde at this time.

“A-are you alright as well? I hope nothing happened to you as well…it was too quick…” Lunde asks, seeing her pain but in pain as well to fully check and recall what happened.

“I-I’m alright. Should we use the escape…thingy or…art? Can you walk it off?” she asks, masking her own pain and anxiety.

“Yeah, I can. It’s starting to clear up. Nacrest…what was that all about…”

Lunde looks back at the stone and sees that everything is as it was when they first saw it. He also realizes that Ember didn’t see anything other than himself being flung backwards after touching the slab. He keeps that in mind but decides to discuss it later at the camp with his superior. He jots some pieces of information on his journal and the two make their way out of the mysterious darkness of the cave and back into the light of the outside world.