CHAPTER SIXTY SIX

Something glowing in your heart that you don’t recognize

~

Automated System Message

Mana from an unauthorized source is detected

Call on the Admin to tend to all those affected

System now unable to integrate entity

Such errors will be deleted intermittently

The air was damp and cold, sending a shiver down his spine

The eerie sounds and smells wrapping around him like a vine

Some how he’d awoken but his body felt empty

But for a lingering sense of strange uncertainty

The Automated System Message screen was coloured red

And he could barely comprehend a thing the message said

One thing he did understand was his mana’s issue

The mana in him felt nothing like his mana used to

Though there wasn’t much, it made him feel a great unease

Scratching at his weary soul and weakening his knees

But now that energy compelled him down this dark path way

Despite what any coloured System Message had to say

Achievement: What’s The Red Glow

Are you trying to distance yourself from Leaf and Sky?

If so, that’s a good idea, and I won’t ask why

One thing that’s been bothering me for a while now though

How come recently your eye gives off a strange red glow?

“Red status windows…” Twig mumbled while still in a haze

Unaffected by his god’s almost sarcastic praise

“I don’t know what it is either, but it’s calling me

It’s a different mana, some outdated energy…”

Twig repeated several words he’d read on the red screens

“But I have no clue what any of that nonsense means…”

Still, he felt assured that he was walking the right way

Even if the reason was impossible to say

Achievement: What a Mess

How did you make such a giant mess of everything

Those screens aren’t for stupid kids to find without trying

Hopefully the next System Update can deal with you

If things somehow got any worse I don’t know what I’d do

Again, Twig’s god spoke words he couldn’t hope to understand

Though it was clear things had gone differently than he’d planned

His feet splashed as he walked through a cool puddle on the floor

Starting to feel like he’d been there once or twice before

In his mind, he tried to understand why that could be

He knew he’d never been there, and it was too dark to see

But something felt familiar, the more he walked along

At first it was a hunch, but now the feeling was too strong

With confidence he walked and turned whenever it felt right

Never feeling lost despite the utter lack of light

The caves led downward, far beneath the surface of the ground

Where now a constant whistling wind became the only sound

After several hours of walking deep into the dark

A flash of light caught his attention, like a little spark

He wasn’t sure if it was just a trick played by his eye

Or maybe just the flicker of an everyday firefly

He tried to cast a light spell like he’d seen Sky do before

Think it might be easy, since he was cursed no more

But when he tried to move his mana into the spell’s shape

From his hand, no single drop of mana could escape

He was like an empty vessel, weaker than ever

Weaker than at any point that he could remember

“All my mana’s gone, is it because it’s now in Sky?

Wouldn’t I be dead by now if that’s the reason why?”

Achievement: Beyond Me

Don’t ask me, it makes no sense then you are still alive

Is there no premature death that you can not survive?

I have no idea what’s keeping you from dying

I haven’t killed you yet, but not for lack of trying

Twig kept walking anyway, confused but now content

Unbothered by not knowing what all these strange things meant

He just followed his most basic instinct down the cave

Carried by the comfort that the caverns somehow gave

~