“?!!” Urn fell roughly on the cold stone floor, tumbling down the room with Ralph following quickly behind him. The two statues that had stood outside the door had entered the room, each holding a giant stone ax. Speeding towards Urn, the two statues lifted their axes and heaved them downwards with all their might, leaving Urn scrambling to the left to narrowly avoid the attack.
Panting, Urn quickly got to his feet, backing up. Ralph hovered in front of Urn, holding his fins out. “Urn, find the door!”
The two statues broke into a sprint, dragging their stone axes across the floor as they did so, and Urn tensed up. There were two doors this time: one to his left, and one to his right. But which one led to the Orian Locket? Fuck it! Urn thought as he sped towards the left door; but he was too slow.
One of the statues slid into his path, tensing its grip on the ax it held; yet it hesitated, just for a split second, and Urn could see what appeared to be remorse in the statue’s eyes. Urn took this opportunity, and dashed right past the stone statue, swinging the wooden door open…and finding a floating stone sword pointed at his neck.
Turning his body to the side as quick as he could, the sword flew right past him, embedding itself into the wall. Pulling itself out of the wall, it flipped around and then shot towards Urn again, who ducked underneath the legs of the first statue, the sword embedding itself into the statue’s chest.
Phew. Urn watched the statue fall to the ground, and the sword struggle to rip itself out of its chest. Backing away, he bumped right into the second statue, which towered over him menacingly; but before it could attack, a fist burst through the statue’s chest.
“Phew! I thought that wasn’t going to work for a second!” A man with flowing golden hair had punched right through the statue’s chest, before raising a leg and kicking the statue to the side. It slumped against the wall, down for good.
“Who-wait…” Urn’s eyes widened as he realized the voice of the man standing before him sounded exactly like Ralph’s. “RALPH?”
“That’s me!” Ralph grinned cheekily. “I did say I was your guardian. Granted, I am a little rusty, and not at all used to moved in a human body, I must say.”
“...How creepy.” Urn muttered. “To think my pet fish could turn into a grown man…” Urn shook the thought off and then looked around, before turning to the door to the right. So that’s the correct door.
Walking towards the door, he gripped the knob, and readied himself to open it…but did not.
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“Hey, what are you doing? Hurry up and open it!” Ralph said.
“Nah.” Urn backed away from the door…he could feel in his bones that it was the wrong one. Unlike the doors before it, it didn’t radiate the same kind of mysterious aura; rather, it held an aura of barely contained bloodlust and remorse.
Urn lifted his head and stared at the ceiling; there laid a wooden door with the same eye symbol engraved in it as the correct doors. “That’s the correct one. Ralph, stand right there.” He pointed directly below the door.
“Uh, okay, wh-” Ralph was rudely interrupted as Urn leapt into the air, landing on his head roughly, and then kicking off it and grabbing onto the knob of the ceiling door. Swinging it open, he outstretched a hand to Ralph. Ralph quickly shrank in size, skin smoothening into scales as he reverted to his original form, and flew into Urn’s hands. And then, tendrils of red energy extended from the darkness behind the door, wrapping around the two and pulling them in. ~~~~
The room they found themselves in was much more enormous then the room prior to it. It was filled to the brim with bricks of gold, precious jewels and antique weapons; yet the most noticeable feature of the room were the statues at the very back of the room. Sitting on piles of gold, three statues kneeled down, lined up in a row. The statue at the start of the line wore a locket; the Orian Locket.
“...There it is.” Urn’s eyes lit up as he made his way towards the statue, ignoring Ralph who was diving through the piles of gold and laughing hysterically. Urn reached out, grabbing the sides of the locket, and pulled the locket off the statue.
He could feel his fingers buzz with energy as he made contact with the locket, and at once, he understood the power it carried. It was just a locket; yet it felt like he held the weight of the entire world in his hands.
My sister is so wary of the power it holds she’d rather kill me then let me have it. He lifted the locket and stared up at it. Is wearing this the right thing to do? He turned to Ralph. “Hey, so if my sister didn’t want me to get this, how come she didn’t destroy the door?”
“Oh, right.” Ralph stuck his head out of a pile of gold coins and spat out a diamond ring. “The room you see here was forged from your grandfather’s magic energy; your sister doesn’t have the power to destroy it. But she can alter it slightly with her own magic; and that’s why there were so many traps.”
“I see…” Urn returned his gaze to the locket. Wait, but I’ve never once worried about what the right thing to do was. The entire reason I set out on this path was for myself. Urn grinned, realizing he’d never had so much fun; something about staring Death in the eyes was exhilarating, and nothing like he’d ever experienced before.
And he wanted more of it.
Carefully lifting the locket, he shivered as he pulled it down over his head, and as the cool gold chains brushed against his neck. He felt his heart skip a beat as the locket dangled from his neck; it was on.
Hm? Is that i- Urn’s thoughts came to a grinding halt as the locket flew open, revealing an eye within the locket. Its pupil dilating, the space around Urn began to shift and wobble, before tearing like fabric. His surroundings vanished; no, it was more like they melted away, leaving Urn and Ralph in a vast darkness…and soon, the darkness melted away too.