Scratch felt the need to wander and explore this beautiful abandoned structure; He began by walking up the mossy stairs.

His friends followed him, silently.

The trio had found a room that seemed to be locked, but next to them was a small crawl space where they can squeeze through.

Inside the empty room stood a chair and a workbench. On the table, there appeared to be two pieces of parchment. Mounted to the wall shown a huge parchment with squiggles and lines written all over it. The parchment shown what appears to be a village surrounded by forest, on the side of the parchment appeared to be where they had just crossed, a huge valley. Some ways away from the valley going north was the tower, some long distance, buried in the trees, shown a huge black castle.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

In all of his life, Scratch never knew there was a castle. He'd never been told how they work or what they were for.

Apparently, Shadow had an answer for him. "It used to belong to a king and queen......together, they ruled five kingdoms....each other them now lay buried among ruins. The Village was once ruled by them more than a hundred years back."

"What happened to them?" Thunderbolt turned his head.

"They were assassinated........even their child. They didn't have any family to rule next in line. The mother was an only child, her parents died of a strange illness that swept the lands, the father's parents died of old age, and he too was an only child. With no queen or king, the kingdoms fell and the villages among them became self governed."

"That's awful." Thunderbolt said.

Scratch felt pity for the once king and queen. They sounded like good people.

"They were loved by all; they were fair leaders." Shadow replied to Scratch's silent thoughts.

The boys looked up at the map in silence.

"Hey, " Thunderbolt wondered. "Where IS everybody?"