The two of us seemed to be in the central chamber of some kind of enormous, and ancient temple.

Across each of the walls of the chamber, there were several huge, perfectly preserved paintings.

There were paintings of farmers plucking the grains up out of the earth, and of fruit trees overflowing with riches and with treasures, and of worshipers kneeling down in prayer beneath enormous, silver-barked trees, and of huge, mythical beasts roaming contentedly through the plains.

Each of the different paintings conveyed a real sense of gratitude, and of joy… and I couldn’t help but feel somehow that they must have been the relics of a much older, and a much happier time. They reminded me of what Praxa had told me some time before – that, according to the myths and the religions of this world, there had once been a golden age a long, long time ago, that had been far better than any of the ages since.

Before, I had regarded that story as being just another sort of tale, or myth. But now, looking at the paintings that lined the walls of this ancient, and joyous place, I felt that those legends were true, somehow… and that something truly beautiful must have been lost from this world, for many, many years.

“Lost” really was the right word, I think. Because right then, there was a sense of tremendous loss in that ancient room, that was almost overwhelming in the scope of its tragedy, and its grandeur.

At the very center of the chamber, there was a huge, leafless tree, that must have lived many centuries ago, and that was now laying at an angle across the altar, having long since crashed to the ground, and come to a state of rest.

You could feel how alive this place must once have been, thousands upon thousands of years ago. But now, there was nothing here but rows of empty chairs, and the debris of ages past, as the slow march of times reduced this once vibrant and sacred chamber to little more than a distant memory of the things that had come before.

I didn’t know that much about the religions of this world. But Praxa did, and she was able to confirm what I had already suspected – that this must have been the temple of a God who had once been worshiped long ago, and who no longer had a single follower, or any record of their own existence.

I knew, in an instant, that that God must be Kalia... and I knew, too, that we Interlopers were the last of Her followers… and that these “vaults” that I had sought out for so long were nothing more than Her most ancient, and sacred temples.

It was a humbling sight, and it was hard to know how to really act in a place like that. But quietly, and in a reverent sort of way, Praxa and I made our way through the sacred chamber, examining each and every object that we could find, as we tried to discover some sort of clue to the long forgotten secrets of the past.

However, the room seemed to be quite empty… and apart from a few objects of purely religious significance, there was nothing here to be found, and nothing that provided any sort of clue to what had come before.

And so, after a bit more time, the two of us started to make our way a little further on ahead, deeper into the back rooms of the temple.

In the central chamber, there were two large doors leading further towards the back – one to the left-side of the room, and another to the right.

The one on the left was large, and completely unsealed, while the door on the right was smaller, and sealed just like the door at the front of the temple.

So, naturally, the two of us made our way in through the sealed door on the right.

Behind the door, there was a long, narrow hall, with a high, and beautifully painted ceiling.

On each side of the hall, there were several wooden doors, and there was a single larger, more decorated door at the opposite end.

The doors along the side just seemed to lead into small living quarters that were almost completely barren, apart from a few empty bookshelves and a couple of old beds. So, after checking out a few of those rooms for clues, the two of us at last made our way towards the end of the hall, as we opened up the larger door there, and looked through to the room beyond.

Then, in a state of some considerable shock at what we beheld, the two of us just stood there together in silence.

In front of us, there was an enormous, blue-furred creature, who was clutching a black orb in his right hand.

He was encased in an ice that was so thick that it was difficult to make out his condition… but I had the distinct impression that he was alive, and that he wanted us to free him from his tomb-like prison, if we were able.

At the same time, there were deep, bloody wounds along his right side, and I could tell that this creature would probably die if he were ever to be released.

I could tell too, somehow – though I couldn’t have told you how – that this creature was the very last of his kind… and I could feel a sense of profound tragedy, and of deep nobility about his person.

There wasn’t anything special about this room, apart from the creature that resided within, and there didn’t seem to be any device here that could have frozen him. So I imagined that he must have cast a spell to freeze himself, and that he had willingly entombed himself here in the hopes that a follower of Kalia would someday come and find him.

Of course, I didn’t have anything on me that I could use to help to remove him from his encasement. But fortunately, the creature seemed to have anticipated that possibility… because in front of him, there was a small, glowing poker, with a magically burning tip on one side, and a steel handle on the other, that was placed just far enough away from his body not to be able to melt the ice.

For a moment, Praxa and I deliberated about what to do. But then, slowly, and quite carefully, we lifted up the poker, and held it towards the ice that surrounded the blue-furred creature.

Gradually, we saw the magical ice melt away beneath the strength of the fire… and after a few moments, the creature stood in front of us, its eyes just barely blinking back to life.

At first, it seemed disoriented, as the memories of its past came trickling one by one into the present flow of its consciousness.

But then, all at once, its body stiffened, and the creature became alert, as he at last remembered who he was, and what he had been doing.

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

In an instant, I felt his proud, warrior eyes bearing down on me, as he examined the two of us quite intensely, and tried to determine whether we were friend or foe.

But then, the creature saw the mark on the palm of my right hand. Afterwards, he began to relax, and to soften, as he slowly stepped towards me, and drew close.

Then, quietly, but in a deep, and resonant voice, the creature spoke a few words to me in a language that must have long since been forgotten. At any rate, the words meant nothing to me, and they meant nothing to Praxa either… and so the two of us shook our heads, and said that we didn’t understand what he was saying, hoping that he would grasp something of the meaning of our words.

The creature seemed to have understood. Because a few moments later, he silently knelt down onto the ground, and bowed his head towards me, as he held out the black orb directly in front of my hand.

Then, he looked up at me with an earnest, and pleading look, as he spoke to me once again, in a mournful, yet hopeful tone.

I could tell that he wanted me to take the orb, and to protect it with my life.

I didn’t know who this creature was, or how he had come to be here. But I could feel his profound nobility, and his grace, and I could tell that he had given up his life to protect this artifact, and that nothing in this world was more important to him, or more precious.

I knew, too, that even though I didn’t understand what this orb was, that if I didn’t take this object from him, then it might be thousands upon thousands years before anyone else discovered this place again – and that it was quite possible that nobody else would ever come down here, and that both he, and this precious thing that he had died to protect, would be forgotten.

And so instinctively, I reached out my hand, and accepted the gift that he was offering, and all of the burdens that it carried with it.

As I took the orb, a small, but radiant smile played across the creature’s lips… and then, he embraced my hand in his, and gently bowed his head towards me, as he gave me a look of tremendous gratitude, and of respect.

At the same time, there was a glint of deep seriousness, and of determination in his eyes… and I could tell that he was afraid of what would happen next, and that he was thinking about whether or not the orb would at last be able to fulfill its purpose.

Still… he knew that his own part in this story had now come to an end. And so, a few moments later, the creature knelt down against the floor, and rested his enormous back against the wall, as he softly lowered his head down towards the ground.

Then, he slumped all the way back up against the wall, as his life at last came to its conclusion.

In silence, Praxa stepped forward, and softly closed the creature’s eyes. And then, the two of us took a long while to pay our respects to the fallen creature, and to talk about what we had just seen… before the two of us at last exited the room, and left the creature to his peace.

As we departed, I took a moment to glance down at the black orb that was now gripped tightly in the palm of my hand. So far as I could tell, it was just a perfectly smooth, black orb, about the size and the shape of a baseball, without any real distinguishing features to it at all. For now, I didn’t really see anything more that I could do with it. And so, I simply placed the orb very carefully into my pocket, and decided to investigate it a little more thoroughly once we had finished going through the different rooms of the vault.

Afterwards, Praxa and I made our way back through the larger door on the left of the central chamber (the one that we had passed over before, in favor of the smaller door on the right). But that larger door only led out to a kind of public auditorium, that must once have been a place for the community to gather, but that now had little to nothing that was of any real use or value.

At that point, each of us were beginning to feel that we might have discovered as much as we were going to find down here. But at the same time, we certainly didn’t feel quite ready to give up just yet. And so, the two of us looped back once again to the hall with all of the doors along the side, as we now began to explore each of those rooms one by one, in order to see if there was anything more that we could discover.

For about ten or fifteen minutes, we searched those rooms in silence, not finding much of anything at all.

Then, I heard Praxa let out a shout from one of the nearby rooms… and as I ran over to join her, I saw that one of the bookshelves in that room had a secret panel along its side, and that inside of that secret panel, there was an old book, that had been stored away there for quite some time.

I could tell that her body was trembling with excitement, and that she could hardly wait to open up the ancient book, and to see what was inside.

I could feel my own body trembling too… and so, I hurried over to join her, as we flipped open the cover, and turned to the very first page of the book.

At first, we just kind of stood there in a dumb, and confused silence.

Then, we turned to the next page… and then the next page… and then the next…

… and then, the two of us broke out into laughter, as we realized what it was that we were actually reading.

What we had been hoping for, of course, was some sort of long account of the past, and of all of the different mysteries of this world.

What we had found instead, however, was a kind of illustrated dictionary, that seemed to be intended for the use of very small children.

The book was divided up like this.

First, there would be two pages – one on the left, and one on the right – that would contain a single enormous picture of a common object, like a tree, or a rock, or a dog.

Then, afterwards, there would be two more pages – one on the left, and one on the right – that would contain a single word, in an ancient, and long-since forgotten tongue, that seemed to be the name for the object that had come before.

Beneath that word, there were then a lot of spaces for children to write, and it seemed that a shaky, untrained, and very young hand had tried to write out most of the words that we encountered, in each of the different spaces.

I imagined that, in the distant past, very young children must have used this book to learn how to read, and how to write.

From a purely academic standpoint, this book might have been rather interesting, as a kind of “key” to an ancient language. But for us, it was more than a little disappointing to realize just what sort of a book we had found, and how unlikely it was to provide us with any sort of answers to the questions that we had.

Still… the two of us weren’t willing to give up on the book quite yet. So, each of us spent a while flipping through the pages, and turning them over, as we made our way deeper through the ancient text.

For a while, we flipped the pages in a rote sort of way.

Then, at about the half-way point through the book, the two of us stopped, as our hearts each began to beat faster and faster.

On the two pages in front of us, there was a large, beautifully illustrated picture of the surface of the world.

Except, the picture of the world that we saw here was unlike any depiction of this world that Praxa or I had ever seen… and the whole landscape of the planet seemed to be staggeringly different from the way that things were here today.

Where we had expected to find the Great Lake that we had just been sailing across, we instead found only a huge, vacant canyon, like the one that I had seen before in my dreams.

And where we had expected to find the Great Forest – that huge, ancient forest that I had first arrived at, so long ago – we found only an empty, and distant plain.

And finally… where we had expected to find four towers scattered along the surface of the world, we instead found only three – one that was Green, one was that Red, and one that was Yellow.

In other words…

The blue tower was nowhere to be found.

There were other differences too, of course... and in many ways, the world that we saw here was almost unrecognizable.

As I tried to take in the image in front of me, I felt my head beginning to race, as I tried to make sense of what all of it could mean.

Then, instinctively, and without thinking about what I was doing, I flipped towards the next two pages of the book.

There in front of us was a single word, stretched across those pages, that must have been the name for this world in an ancient, and long since forgotten tongue.

Apparently, in that ancient language, the name for this world was: “Kalia.”

And then, I felt my mind beginning to freeze in wonder – as I tried to make any sort of sense, at all, of what that actually could mean.

At the same time, a single message appeared in front of me.

It read:

“Congratulations! Your Insight has increased by seven!”