Roland pushed aside the shrubbery a bit revealing a cave entrance, the cave entrance wasn’t that wide but it was enough for two people to walk next to each other. Sara and Roland stared into the cave but couldn’t see anything as it was too dark.

“I’ll go get flashlights, wait for me.” Sara said as she hurriedly went back to their packs.

Roland nodded as he stood at the cave entrance, he could feel something within, he wasn’t sure what but something seemed to be calling for him. A few seconds later Sara got back with the flashlights, she gave him one and turned her own on before muttering something “Let’s hope there are no wild animals that took refuge here.”

She didn’t ask if they even should go in since she thought they were thinking the same thing. There could be something interesting inside.

The duo never shied away from things they classified as interesting and so soon they went in together. They seemed to be walking through some sort of natural hallway. Their flashlights lit the place up properly but even the tension was high. They kept walking for over a hundred meters before they finally got somewhere, they arrived at a very large cavern. The first thing they noticed was that the roof was filled with stalactites, some of them being over three meters high, reacher halfway to the ground. On the right side, they could see a stagnant lake but this didn’t grab any of their interest as they were both looking at the left side with wide eyes.

Roland headed that way closely followed by Sara, after walking for a dozen meters they arrived at a skeleton. They were both looking at it with wide eyes, and after a bit, Roland decided to properly inspect it.

The skeleton was sitting against a wall, there were still some black rags on its bones but most of the cloth was nowhere to be seen. The cause of death was rather obvious was the front of its skull was broken. It didn’t look like something a beast would be capable of doing but then again the skeleton seemed ancient, Roland figured it might have been calcified since the lake was so closeby. This meant this skeleton was probably hundreds of years old.

“This, it’s not a bad thing if we touch it right?” Sara asked she didn’t want to be impolite toward the dead but at the same time, she did kind of feel like touching a skeleton.

Roland shrugged as he looked at the skeleton in amazement. Even though it was technically just a bunch of bones, it felt pretty awesome standing in front of a skeleton. Most people would’ve probably felt afraid if they found a skeleton but Roland and Sara simply felt incredibly intrigued.

Sara was softly touching the jagged edges of the broken skull with a bit of a sheepish smile on her face. It was then that Roland felt some sort of pulse from behind him. He immediately turned around but didn’t see anything. He felt the pulse again, this time he could place it better, he walked up to the cavern wall he could feel the pulsing from and stared at it with an odd expression.

Sara saw him standing there looking at a wall and felt a bit worried, he was acting strange and she was afraid it might have to do with the potentially poisonous berries he had eaten the previous day.

She was just about to ask him what was wrong when she saw an incredible sight. Roland was still standing before the cavern wall but now he had extended his arm. The thing that was so incredible though was that the entirety of his hand was now inside of the wall. Roland himself was also looking at his arm with an astounded expression before he took a big step forward, going through the wall entirely.

He looked back as soon as he entered and saw a barely noticeable veil, he was now behind it and so Sara could no longer see him. She quickly ran over to see what was going on before also walking straight through the wall.

“Wha- how is this possible?” Sara questioned, but she never got a reply as both of them noticed where exactly they had arrived. There were about a dozen solid tabled made out of stone, all of them were extremely smooth and seemed to be fused with the stone floor. Said stone floor was also smoothened out making walking here a lot easier compared to in the rest of the cavern.

The problem laid with the skeletons. From where they stood they could see over a dozen skeletons spread across the area, even though they didn’t get scared when they saw a single skeleton, their mental state was a lot weaker now that they walked through a solid wall. And well, a dozen skeletons were a lot scarier compared to one.

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Roland walked forward with unsteady footsteps. The stone tables were smooth but there seemed to have been things engraved onto them. He saw a bunch of circles with lines connecting some of them. But nearly all of them had parts ruined. A few of the tabled had been cracked in half while most of them had what Roland assumed were sword marked all over the tables. Here and there a chunk of the table was smashed off as well.

Even though there were only about a dozen skeletons here and there Roland managed to find a stray bone, this indicated that there were probably more skeletons at some point but some of them had turned to dust. Sara was also walking around between the tables. Neither of them rushed toward the skeletons like before, they were just trying to figure out what was going on here.

“This should’ve happened over five-hundred years ago since I see no indication of guns being used, at the very east three-hundred years ago.”

Sara nodded at his comment and continued “The odd thing is there is no dust anywhere, it’s as if someone has been keeping this place clean.”

This time Roland was the one that nodded before he finished up “Another weird thing is that there isn’t the tiniest bit of wind here unlike outside of the… illusion. If this has always been like this I wonder why some of the skeletons seem to have disintegrated.”

Both of them thought for a while but couldn’t think of a feasible reason. After this period of time, Roland was the one that spoke: “I’m going to do something stupid and potentially dangerous, please keep some distance.”

He said this as he headed toward one of the stone tables. Sara hurriedly went over to the side of the room. They both knew each other well enough, if she would go stand next to him he wouldn’t want to risk hurting her, if the roles were reversed she would ask him the same thing.

Roland took a few deep breaths before putting his hands on the grounds, searching for something. After a few seconds of looking around the smooth floor, he found what he was looking for. He felt a small metal ring on the floor, even though it couldn’t be seen, he could feel it.

Using one hand to keep his nose closed in case toxic gasses came out, Roland opened the secret compartment before quickly taking a few steps back.

The hatch was about thirty centimeters by thirty centimeters and as soon as it was opened the illusion disappeared making it so that he could see what was really going on. The hatch was made entirely out of the same stone as the rest of the floor save for the handle which seemed to be made out of bronze. Despite this, it was surprisingly easy to open.

After waiting for about a dozen seconds Roland walked forward, the compartment wasn’t that big so any toxic gasses should’ve dispersed by now. After waving at Sara she also came forward and they both looked at the objects inside of the little storage area.

Most of whatever was in the compartment had turned to dust but there were still a few things that held together. First Roland retrieved a tablet that seemed to be made out of some sort of stone. He noticed the text was written in Latin and started reading it aloud.

“The dark age comes to an end on this day. We fought hard and valiantly but in the end, the forces of man have driven us to extinction. On this day, the Immortal Realm falls. Once we numbered in the thousands many of us distinguished mages. But we always knew it was only a matter of time before the mortal men came for our lives.

I am sorry future Magus but we have failed you all, we tried resisting the forces of the mortals, showing them our strength but also our weaknesses. I can only hope the Mortal Pietas have died out by now, giving you a chance at survival.

We have managed to find a second ‘Crystal of Awakening’ and now we leave it to you. Please, future magus, take the crystal and survive, help those like yourself.

Other than the crystal we left a number of spell blueprints, the enchantments are set to last for a thousand years so if this expiry date is near, please copy them as soon as possible.

Don’t make out mistakes, hide as soon as you can, and keep hiding until you believe you have the strength to take on the world, and then hide some more.

As a last note please always follow the three rules of the immortal.

1. Survive, no matter the cost.

2. Do not ever mess with time.

3. Attempt to record all of your findings for future generations of magus.

Good luck.”

As Roland finished reading the tablet both of them stayed silent for a bit, thinking about everything that was said. Neither of them felt like they could really comprehend what was going on.

Feeling somewhat dazed, Roland decided to grab the other object that laid within the secret compartment. A bright red crystal was soon taken out. It was about as big as a knife, both sides were sharp with the middle part being a bit wider. Moreover, all of its sides were very smooth.

Roland was about to inspect it some more when he felt something come from it and head right through his arm, into his head.

“ARGH”

He fell to the ground in pain as the crystal dropped down beside him. Clutching his head he felt something attempting to penetrate his mind. After a few minutes of intense pain, he fainted, feeling something had penetrated his thoughts getting into the deepest part of his mind.