Chapter 134

Bolts Strike in Twos

Sylas exhaled a rancid breath and shuddered for a moment as he opened his eyes. He sat topless by the lake, basking in the faintly lukewarm rays of the sun, sweat dripping down off of him. Scooping up a handful of water from the lake, he washed his face before drinking a few mouthfuls to wet his parched throat. He’d been hard at training for half a day now, but the progress was still frustratingly minimal.

Sighing, he glanced around and saw that Asha was gone. She did that a lot in the half a month that the two had been staying here. She liked to wander about, be that near or far. Last week, he got so worried he went out searching for her and found her napping beneath a tree some half a mile away from the lake.

Despite having spent half a month scouring both the settlement and its surroundings, neither of the two discovered much, if anything, worthwhile. There were no books, tomes, or even parchments anywhere, there were no engravings past the one at the entrance, there were no pictures, paintings, calligraphy, statues, or any manner of art, really.

It was a settlement seemingly void of cultural inheritance, something Sylas thought was virtually impossible. Even the shantytown that he grew up in had its own culture, however toxic and graphic it was, with its remnants visible everywhere--be that in the shape of graffiti adorning the decrepit walls of largely abandoned factories from the eighties and nineties, or many phallic-shaped objects directly pointing at the buildings of large corporations.

This was without mentioning clothing, unique utensils utilized as substitutes for everything that wasn’t affordable. To this day, he distinctly recalled how his mother used to shave off some lead and put it into his food as a ‘substitute’ for spices.

Every place had its own unique footprint, something that made it stand out in the vestiges of time. But this one... didn’t. In fact, it could be from any period, from any time, from any place. In fact, it could even be from a modern age since Sylas knew of places not unlike this one back on Earth.

Looking at it again, he couldn’t help but let the frustrations mount. He didn’t mind mysteries--not anymore, at least. His life was full of them--if anything, he lived one larger mystery. However, this place wasn’t a mystery or a puzzle. It almost looked like a ‘rest room’ before a boss in games. No, even that was giving it too much credit.

Returning back to the solitary clue he had, he crouched in front of the stone and read through the lines once again.

When Van'ashi sing, so do we-- ve'lmahal, ve'lmahal When Dead sing, we do not-- be’tanah, be’tanah In Maekel we trust, they do not-- ma’han, ma’han

The only unique thing about the place were the three lines--and though he could extrapolate a small million of things about them, it was pointless. His eyes remained glued to the first line the most--the word ‘Van’ashi’ seemed familiar, as though he read it somewhere. However, he couldn’t remember where. For all he knew, it could just as well be the feeling of deja vu--lord knows his mind would trigger a memory at the most random things.

The second line still struck the loudest cord--it was a direct reference to the Dead, even capitalized, as though speaking of a different kind of peoples or a Kingdom of them. What the line meant, however, he was none the wiser. It could mean anything. And it could mean nothing.

In fact, were he not directly told by the system that the rock was part of the settlement, he was half a mind away from suspecting someone plonked it here after the fact just to mess with whoever finds the place in the future.

“You’re staring at it again,” Asha spoke out, breaking him out his increasingly angrier thoughts. “You’ll bore a hole in the stone if you keep at it.”

“Not much else to stare at in this place,” he replied with a sigh, cracking a smile after. “Especially when you’re not around.”

"Ugh," she rolled her eyes and planted down a basket full of fruit. The basket was something she herself weaved, and something Sylas fixed after she fell asleep. "You're pointlessly torturing yourself. We already went over it--it's too little to learn anything of importance. I think you should come with me and explore around the settlement."

“How far did you go today?” he asked as he grabbed one of the fruits from the basket--though it looked like a blooming flower in shape, it had the taste and texture of a banana.

“The edge of the prairie,” she replied. “The woods beyond it seem too dark, even during the day.”

“A question: what would be scarier? If the woods were empty... or if they weren’t?”

“...”

“Just gave you a scare, didn’t I?” Sylas chuckled at her reaction.

“I... I really don’t know,” she replied honestly. “I... how can you come up with things like that?”

“I’ll come with you tomorrow,” rather than admitting to the thievery, he let her believe he was the clever source of it. “And we can go in together.”

“No, tomorrow’s no good,” she said suddenly.

“Huh? Why?” Sylas quizzed.

“Tonight’s a full moon,” she replied. “You are never supposed to walk into woods of any kind a day after the full moon.”

“...”

“...”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes.”

“That’s... what...?” Sylas mumbled, squinting and trying to remember really hard whether there was that kind of a ‘rule’. “Are you messing with me?”

“No, I’m serious,” she said. “Wait, don’t tell me you don’t know about the Legend of Freya? Even I know about that story!”

“... it... it escapes me,” he said. “What’s it about?”

“A girl named Freya.”

“You don’t say.”

“Hush,” the two went to the lakeside and sat down. “The story goes that a young girl Freya often went into the woods to pluck herbs, mushrooms, and berries and sell them on market. However, two days of the month, she stayed back to work in a local inn--these days coincided to be when the full moon was.”

“How serendipitous.”

“Do you want to hear the story or not?!”

“Sorry. Please, go on.”

"So, it was all well and good until the inn closed one month because the owner died. As such, Freya ventured out a day after the full moon and never returned. Villagers found her body almost two weeks later, deep in the forest, naked and skinned alive.”

“Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

“Huh?”

“Would whoever skinned her have been able to do so while she was still dressed?”

“What... what are you talking about? That’s not even the point of the story!”

“No, the point is that Freya girl likely came across an animal that savagely killed her,” Sylas said. “And whoever retold the story embellished the living shit out of it.”

“You don’t know that!” she exclaimed, appearing genuinely hurt that he didn’t believe.

“No, not that specifically. But know plenty of stories like it,” Sylas chuckled. “For a change, how about I tell you a truthful story about a full moon, huh?”

“... fine. What is it?”

“How many full moons are there in a year?” Sylas asked.

“Twelve,” she replied swiftly. “One each month.”

“Right,” Sylas nodded. “However, now and then, there’s an extra one.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, instead of twelve full moons, there are thirteen,” he said. “And it’s called Blue Moon. That’s where the expression stems from--once in a blue moon.”

“That’s... that’s actually really interesting,” she said, her expression widening into one of wonder. “Tell me another.”

“Huh?”

“Where do some other expressions come from? Are there stories behind them?”

“Uh... alright,” Sylas thought hard on any expression that he could sell. “You know the ‘costs an arm and a leg’?”

“Yes!”

“Uh, alright--so, you know how rich people like having portraits of themselves taken?”

“Aha.”

“Apparently, I’ve heard, the expression stems from the fact that the portraits were the cheapest without limbs. So, most would just do their heads and shoulders. But, if you started adding arms and legs, the price grew. Hence, costs an arm and a leg.”

“Wow! I never knew that! What else, what else?”

“Uh, alright. What about break the ice?”

“Yeah, I--”

Both suddenly paused as they realized something odd was happening--the lake was... glowing. It wasn’t glistening as it sometimes did, especially while the moonlight hit its surface, it was actually glowing. It did so in spectacular azure, leaving both of them with their lips agape.

Still and silent, both watched as the water suddenly... parted. It split into two, as though a knife cut through it. From the void below, a pair of stairs suddenly appeared, carved from marble, angled slightly upward, though only slightly. At the end of the stairs--the other end of the lake, really--a hole appeared. It was a vortex of sorts, its edges spinning as it distorted the world around it.

“I hear them!!” while Sylas tried to process what the hell was happening, another news hit him hard. “I can hear the Gods, Sylas! I hear them again!” Asha exclaimed at the top of her voice.

“Right,” Sylas mumbled, wiping his lips. “Right.” he paused for a moment, glancing between her and the impossible-to-believe sight he was witnessing above the lake. “What the genuine rat’s ass of fucks is actually happening now?”