What did the people say when they island kingdom of Eolasi sunk? The Ilivari emperor drowned one hundred doves to signify the knowledge lost. The merchant kings of Dawnry sunk three trade ships to help the lost souls below. The Bird pirests of Zet erected statues of carp in all its holy libraries as an honor to the lost kingdom.

Eolasi was an island just south of the Ilvari ilses. It had spires of sandstone at every corner and the entire island was just one large school. An artwork of sandstone, granite and magic. The world’s greatest and well renowned school. A school one could never graduate from.

From it the greatest libraries lurked, as well as inventions and magic alterations abound. Their ultimate creations were the stone guardians. Large sandstones constructs which protected the island for generations.

Not even the neighboring Ilvari, the strongest empire of the south could conquer the stout scholars. In the end, the Ilvari simply ended their feud, sending members of the royal court to study there instead.

This was the land of Eolasi. A land which sunk three hundred years ago.

Why? No-one knows. Just that when Eolasi fell, so did a fraction of the world’s knowledge and the guardians. Or so people thought.

Decades later the giants surfaced on multiple shores, there they stood. Silent. Imposing. Nothing but statues until they found new masters. If any dared approach them, the guardian would press a riddle upon any ears that listened. Legend had it, those who answered correctly would enthrall the giants, and those who did not were turned to sandstone. Enthralled by the giants instead.

Legend also had it that a few even strived to hunt these beasts. Not as a means of sport but rather as an act of respect for the fallen land.

They say only a certain steel could pierce the magical golems and only at a certain spot.

Ersel ran to the giant’s side. I glanced at her dagger. Could it be?

“Distract it!” She cried, running to the first giant.

I ogled at the thing. Any effort to distract the creatures was clearly not needed. I towered compared to Ersel. It was the difference of spotting a child from a rat. Both Giants swung at me, I leapt to the side and barely landed with my stance intact.

Their blades hit the floor like thunder and clods of earth rained down after. I eyed the ceiling. It would not hold long. Soon my eyes fell on Ersel. Slightly mad would not justify what she was up to, now climbing the back of the cavern.

I stared down the way we entered.

“Don’t go!” echoed Ersel, “I need them to stay close.”

Slightly mad indeed. I peeked at my surroundings. Everywhere the giants swung they destroyed. Since Ersel wanted me to stay close I had very few options.

Slowly the colossi unhinged their blades from the wall. It was only a matter of seconds before they would swing again.

Quickly my eyes shot from platform to platform. Where to go next? Where to go next? Ersel’s words echoed through my head. Find a way to get them low. But how?

I looked at the ceiling then the gate. I glanced at their legs, their moving feet. Their rising arms. Oh dear.

I ran as fast as I could towards the gates. Dodged one strike. I glanced back, nothing. I looked forwards. The other sword swung directly in front of me. I leapt in the only direction I could, eyes closed.

“A little more.” Shouted the familiar voice. I was afraid that was a little too much. I opened my eyes to dust and dirt. The sound of my heart beating loud, the ache of my body consuming my thoughts. I lay there, the dust clearing as I breathed. Was this pain? Humans often complained about it. Yet I had never known it. I clenched my teeth as more dust settled. Somehow that helped.

The lurch of stone broke my trance. I had to move and as I began to do so the dust cleared. A bright blue broke its shade. The water.

My pearl eyes expanded and for a moment I forgot my pain. The water. That was it!

I stood with my hands for support. My eyes a quick shot to the way we entered.

It was now or never. I waited for the giants to swing once more then darted away as they swung at me. It was also a gamble. For all I knew the giants may have very well turned on Ersel following my absence.

Yet they didn’t. After the expectedly heavy swing followed heavier footsteps. It was working.

Two steps echoed as one. Then two more. I held my breath as I ran.

Then a splash.

I stopped. Head twisting backwards.

One giant struggled in the water, while the other slid into the canal. I had a feeling the shallow waters were not as shallow as they appeared.

The fervent cries of giants confirmed my thoughts, both sinking slowly to whatever depths waited below.

In an act of desperation the first giant reached out and clutched the edge of the canal. By now half of its body had sunk into the water. The other giant awkwardly skewed over the first. Then I saw Ersel.

I stared at the exact moment she jumped. More precisely lunged, holding her dagger with both hands well above her head. Falling faster and faster until she landed and her dagger met the back of the first giants head.

It screamed. The death howl of a creature perhaps more ancient than I. The other giant sunk almost to level with the first. For a moment there was silence. Nothing but the tapping of earth. Ersel got up, dagger in hand and the first giant came apart. In a second bursting into nothing but sand. Desperately, the second giant swung one arm at Ersel. She was quicker. More agile. A rat with sharpened teeth.

She ducked the swing then leapt from one what was left of one giant head to the next. I saw the gleam of her dagger as she readied it again, her feet a quick step, stretch and a jump, around the giant’s ear to its neck. Sand brushed over my eyes, though I could tell what happened. The screams of a giant told a story of its own.

More sand flew over me and I was sure.

I walked towards the giants with an arm up against my head. It was unreal. I had been traveling with a giant slayer! A very small, very annoying giant slayer. How much did I know about her? The sand started to settle, the pathway, or what remained of it, a shambling pile of sand and rock.

At its end stood Ersel. Right atop the pile of sand.

I approached her and she made for the gate.

I called after her, “What are you?”

“Why, I am a mere human just as much as you are a god.” Rude, but expected from the likes of her.

I navigated my way around the sand pile, “Do all humans slay giants? I must have missed that in my centuries of existence.”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have time.”

“Maybe.” She said as she pressed the gate, “But I’ll save that story until you share yours.”

My brows fell, exasperated, and the tall gates creaked open. I shielded my eyes. Rays of gold spat out in every direction.

It was yellow, really really yellow. Stacks of yellow treasures rising almost as high as the ceiling. Small water falls scattered around the golden corners, trickling past the coins. A long pathway stretched in front of us, atleast the length of a street. At the end sat a very large clock, every so often ticking and tocking.

I walked to where Ersel stood. It bothered me how yellow this room was. No taste in it. With a glance at Ersel it was apparent she shared a different view.

From the way she mindlessly gazed into it, she was either mesmerized or utterly disgusted. Reading faces was really not my strong suit. I stepped in front of her and bent down to wave my hand in front of her. No response. Had she turned into stone? A sort of flesh like stone. Perhaps.

I walked ahead, already the observant god I noted “There might be an exit here.”

“We need bags.” Responded the statue.

“What?”

“Bags!” she proclaimed rushing towards the piles.

Honestly, I did not follow. How did bags help us escape? “What are your priorities here?”

“Look around you.” She said twirling once with arms stretched, “This is it! This is his treasure! Stars! We found it! We made it!” She ran to the pile, almost diving into it.

“Right and how do we leave then?”

Coins and plates and crowns rattled from where she stood, “Future problems.”

We were doomed. I took a few more steps and stopped to stare at the clock. It was large. It was out of place.

Unlike its golden companions, its skin was bronze. “Interesting.” I said aloud, “Why is that there?”

No answer. I spun to catch perhaps a more disappointing sight. Ersel lumbering towards me with gold bulging from her pockets. Some of the coins even falling out.

“Is gold all you care for?”

She halted and caught some her falling treasures, “Hey when I stole you, I stole not a single piece of gold.”

“But I am a god, I carry for more value than mere yellow rocks. Stealing me was perhaps the wisest choice you have ever made.”

“Aye.” She conceded, holding her gold in place, “Until you started talking.”

I was lost for words. To think one could be so arrogant in accepting the grace of my voice. I rose my rebuttal finger, only to have the perpetrator brush past me towards the clock.

“I’d wager the clock has a part to play in how we leave.” She started.

I nodded “Exactly what I was thinking. Otherwise we could go back. Though I doubt we could climb that fa-”

Ersel rose her hand, “Shhh. Do you hear that?”

I listened. Aside from the trickling and ticking there was silence. I imagined silence. No that was not silence. Rushing, there was a very faint rush of water behind the clock. The clock ticked, the rushing stopped.

I looked at Ersel and she looked at me. There was more to that clock.

We approached it quietly, or as quietly as possible among the clanking of stolen gold.

The clock though monumental, was not very far. In fact the room was only a fraction of what the cavern behind us was. We arrived at its foot in minutes.

I scanned it, as did Ersel. The clock, perhaps as large as the colossi sat on a golden base. I squinted at what appeared to be an intricate design of an apple tree splayed over the gold. At is edges lay a thin almost invisible cut. A cut which extended around the base.

“There is a door here.” I said

Ersel glared at the door, then knocked once on it. Nothing and a second later it snapped backwards the length of finger and sank to the floor.

The ground stated shaking. Halfway across the chamber a small pedestal rose. It rose slowly until it reached Ersel’s height and as it stopped so did the shaking.

The clock ticked and two events happened synonymously. Water rushed a head of me, this time audibly loud. A small goblet rose out of the pedestal.

I stared at the water then at Ersel. She dropped her gold and as the metal hit the floor the clock ticked once more. The water stopped, but the goblet remained. I turned to the tunnel.

“Ersel, I do not like this.”

Indeed something about this moment sent chills down my bark. As if nothing in the catacombs thus far prepared us for whatever lurked ahead. For whatever Icarus had planned for us. I looked at where the waters once rushed just three feet ahead of us. It was dark, but clearly it was a tunnel. Maybe a drain which led to the sea? Either way, an escape.

It occurred to me Ersel had not answered in a while. I looked back. “Ersel?”

She stood by the goblet, as still as a statue. Again I had a bad feeling. “Ersel.” I started walking towards her, “Don’t touch that. You do not know what it could do.”

“It will return my family fortune.” She said quietly.

“But treasures do not just appear. Think about what you are about to do.” I got closer.

“About what? We did it. We beat the colossi, we solved the puzzles. This treasure is mine.” She reached for it before I could reach her. I cursed in my thoughts. As expected the ground began to rumble. Slowly at first and then to a sudden quake. I stumbled, but Ersel had already passed me.

“Come on tree!” she cried dashing to the tunnel. I regained my footing, yet as I did the golden flooring began to collapse. Tile by tile, I struggled to the tunnel. I looked up, my heart beating hard, all around me the towers of gold fell into the void below. Black all around save narrowing path ahead.

Just a little further. I caught a glimpse of Ersel on the other side, then the ledge where she stood. I realized my path had already shattered.

I swallowed hard, took two more steps, and jumped. Time seemed to slow in that moment. In that pace in time where I flew over the void. What was there? Ground? Water? Nothingness.

It was odd how one wondered in the most inopportune times. As if fantasies stole away from the suddenness of reality. Well. I saw the ledge pass my head. I suppose it did.

My body jerked and I gawked at my extended arm. Something small had clasped it. It was Ersel, desperately clinging on to me.

“Hold on, tree.” She squirmed.

She caught me. To say I was taken aback would have been an understatement. I swung my other arm and managed to catch some loose stone. I hoisted, Ersel pulled.

Impossible seconds passed and I was on the ledge. I fell on my back beside Ersel who had also collapsed.

“Stars you are heavy. Heavy as a tree.” She puffed.

I glanced at her with my head turned aside. “Thank you.”

A chuckle then a laugh. She sat up. “A compliment! From you? Of all the giants, witches and magic walls, that’s the strangest of them all!”

I store at the rocky ceiling, “Do not let it go to your head.” I turned to her. The goblet was gone, In fact almost all of the treasure she took was gone. “What happened to your goblet?”

Ersel’s smile was quick to disappear, “It fell when I leapt to catch you. This is all I have left.” She reached into knapsack and pulled out a key. A single golden key, with a diamond shaped frame for a head. Curious item. Though without knowledge of the door, it had little value.

My thoughts snapped away from the key.

She had given up what she sought to save me. Granted, she did get me into this in the first place. I felt the edges of my mouth begin to twitch. Had I know at the time I would have astounded myself, though it was not I who noticed first.

She smiled at me “Why are you smiling?”

I pressed my hands across my face, touching it all over to see if it were true. Smiling, my first time smiling! I leapt to my feet and tried replicate that expression. “Am I doing it now?” I asked her.

“No. Now you are- I do not know what you’re doing now...”

I frowned, an expression, at least with Ersel, I was all too familiar with.

Yet she kept glaring at me. Seconds passed and she nodded as if she had come to a decision. Her hand flung out towards me. “I have not properly introduced myself. My name is Ersel Rurikov. Second born heir to the Rurikov family.”

What was this hand expression? Was I supposed to mimic her? I noticed she did so with her left hand, so I followed suit.

She seemed as lost as I, “You do not know how to shake hands?”

I cocked my head, “Why would you shake your hands?”

She preceded to press that flung out hand to her forehead. Another hand shake I assumed.

“Never mind. Now you introduce yourself.”

That seemed odd. I had already done so. Well she never listened to me anyways, “Atechrities, god of war, fire, and conquest.”

She did not seem pleased with that, instead she held her chin, “If I called you that it would raise suspicion.”

I glanced at my wet cloak.

“I’ll call you Brambleburn instead.”

“Brambleburn?” I questioned.

“Aye, it’s a tall thorny tree as bare as a dead one. Its bark is so dry it can set its surroundings ablaze with too much contact.”

Somehow this name did not appeal to me.

“But there’s more.” She continued, “They say once it lives a thousand years it grows a fiery seed. One that births into a firebird.”

“And how exactly do I remind you of that?”

“The tree is cursed to stand in one location for almost a millennia. Then one day it sets itself free. And do so in the most spectacular way, underneath its great fiery wings.”

So I was the firebird? Huh, it fit me I suppose. This twisted last minute stranger, my name? Brambleburn. Brambleburn.

“Brambleburn.” I said aloud. I wanted to taste the word. Hear how it sounded. It sounded new but familiar.

“Menska and I planted one in the castle courtyard. We had to once Jester told us the story. Menska said that the tree would remember us even when we were gone. It was a hopeful thought at most. I mean could trees even remember? Think?”

She looked at me, the questioned answered, “Perhaps they do. I was afraid once my family lost its name the higher classes would forget us. That Menska would forget me. But as long as the tree stood I knew he wouldn’t.”

I head the rush of water as the clock ticked once more. “We have to go” I urged.

“Do you mean the tunnel?”

I nodded. Ersel looked at the tunnel hard, then proceeded a head of me. Crawling as the tunnel got narrow. I imagined it would be harder for me. I sighed and made for the tunnel. Though before I got there, something made me turn the other way.

I looked over the void and spotted the blood scarves on the other side. Three of them, one soaked. Glaring back. They knew what I was. More so, they had some grudge with Ersel.

They did stay long. Probably aware that they could not cross, within seconds of staring they left through the far gate. I store a little longer. The danger was not imminent but it was still there. One day I would see those scarves once again. Whether reddened by dyes or other means.

I spun towards the tunnel. Yet felt a pinch as I did so. I glanced over my shoulder. It was as if a part of me flew off. No it was probably nothing. I shook it off and entered the tunnel.

It was a simple entry at first, but as I suspected the tunnel got narrower and narrower until I just barely squeezed through. Fortunately there was a second tunnel at the first ones end. I leapt from the firs tunnel to the second. Ersel was there waiting for me. She was leaned against the tunnel wall glaring at the end of the tunnel.

“There’s a fall down there. Do you see?” she pointed down the tunnel. There was indeed a fall. Though how far? Into what?

Tick. My heart jumped and my head twisted backwards. It was empty at first but I could hear the rushing. Ersel stood up.

“No time to think.” I shouted. Ersel looked at me, I looked at her. We ran.

Our footsteps hollow thumps against the rapid rush of water. We reached the end in seconds, but so did the water.

It pushed and flowed past us and we fell down the tunnel in suite.

Seconds passed and we were pushed into a large body of water. I glanced at Ersel who instinctively swam to the top. I on the other hand, simply floated there.

We reached the top a few seconds after that, small waves crashing over us.

“There!” shouted Ersel. “Follow me!”

I did know how to swim. Though she seemed to be headed towards around the Cliffside. By the push of the waves, I would ultimately get there to.

I had some time to consider the situation as I floated. For one, I needed to learn how to swim. There was also the problem of getting to shore, though we had been through enough to rest for now. We passed the edge of the Cliffside and I made out the full extent of the docks. They were much larger than I anticipated. Regardless, I had survived, so had Ersel.

I breathed deeply. The bright lines of dawn stretching across the horizon. The screech of gulls and the crash of waves, its steady beat. Our first dungeon. Perhaps first of many.