{-Llewel-}

They’d stopped at Kyirius City first, since Zetai, Reynneak, and Tinath all needed to leave. Llewel and Myr spent the night at the inn and they all came back together to continue following David.

“It’s something we’ve been working on for quite a while,” he explained as they walked. “But we reached a standstill when we realized we couldn’t go any further with our research. We’re certain that what we need—a collection of powerful artifacts and knowledgeable scrolls—is in there, we simply can’t access it without proper help.”

“How can you be certain that what you need is in there if you’ve never been in there before?” Reynneak asked.

David shrugged. “There’s only so many places those kinds of things can be. We’ve searched nearly every other ruin there is here.” It seemed, though, like he was trying to cover up something else.

Tinath caught on to Reynneak’s hesitancy and tried to assure him, “This is just a normal quest like all the others. It’ll be fine if you quit overthinking it.”

Llewel thought back to his feelings of her; the idea that he’d seen these kinds of mannerisms before in someone. He glanced at Myr—who didn’t seem to be as doubtful—and simply resolved that he’d be careful. Perhaps, if he could find the time to talk without Tinath there, he’d tell Reynneak and Zetai about these feelings. Maybe together they could determine if all of this was truly something to be worried about.

“I’m going to be coming in there with you,” David said after a pause. “Someone’s going to need to record all the other things we come across, since we can’t bring them all back with us. I have to warn you, though, I can’t be of much help with whatever you face in there. I’m a scholar, not an adventurer.”

“I’m fine as long as we don’t have to protect you,” Zetai remarked. “Even when you guys are aware we’re supposed to be protecting you, you still try to get yourselves killed…”

“We may never know why they coded us to be stupid. Still, you’re in luck. You do have to escort another scholar friend of mine. Just not me. I’m of the worthless bystander variety, in which I do absolutely nothing to help you aside from tell you things you already know.” He thought about it for a moment. “So consider that a warning as well.”

She didn’t look any less annoyed at the thought of having to deal with it. “So, what exactly do you need these for, anyway? You keep talking about how you needed these for something but you’ve never mentioned what it was.”

He smiled. “For decades, we’ve been working here in Kyirius. Our end goal is to have a clear understanding of the ruins here. We believe they’ll significantly improve our knowledge about a lot of things currently disputed; namely, what Emmyth’s time was like. The only thing we know for certain is what he did and that what are now the united regions of Masylm were their own separate nations. We’ve uncovered a lot about them through looking at the other ruins, but there’s still a fair bit that we don’t understand. This is our last stop, so if our questions aren’t answered here, well, there’s a chance they’re never going to be.”

“What about the powerful artifacts, then?” Llewel questioned. “Just to see what they were capable of doing?”

David nodded. “We have plenty of amazing things ourselves—we’ve had them for long enough now that there are some people who don’t remember anything else. But with that advancement comes the fact that we throw aside the things that are no longer seen as practical. They were our ancestors’ ways of handling the problems of their time. In truth, I hardly know what they’ll be like or what they would do. They could be as simple as something meant to assist in cooking or dangerous things used to fight monsters. There’s one that I’m sure is there and that will greatly help us: something crafted from the runes themselves.”

“That sounds… dangerous,” Myr mumbled.

“It’s nothing truly deadly, as long as—or perhaps until—the right person knows how to use it,” David assured them all. “It’s not like the things they’re all fighting over now; what Emmyth tried his best to get rid of. They may come from the same bases, but a common misunderstanding is that all runes come from the same thing. Well, they do, though there couldn’t have been clearer of a difference between them. The runes used by mages and whisperers are a tamer variety—those ‘grown’ by humans. Runestones, as they appear in the wild, are unstable and untrustworthy. When this artifact was crafted, those unpredictable aspects of the rune were changed to something more reliable instead. So it should be completely safe.”

Tinath asked a surprising question of her own. “Are there going to be more runestones there than just the artifact?”

David considered it for a moment and then nodded. “Yes, I believe there would be. We determined that many of the ruins we’d encountered earlier had been natural growth places of runestones. I don’t see a reason why this one would be any different than that.” He looked back at all of them. “You’re certainly asking a lot of questions. All of you are players, right? Really the difference between runes doesn’t matter—they don’t affect you. Quite frankly they’re literally either items or part of the environment.”

“I’m not a player,” Llewel said instinctively. Old habits die hard, even if he’d gotten familiar with two players.

“What’s someone like you doing with them, then?” David stopped walking to look at him. Unfortunately for the scholar and possibly luckily for Llewel, though, the coat hid all distinguishing features. “Are you planning on robbing the players? Isn’t that the only thing that cloaked NPCs do..?”

“Let’s make it clear that we never robbed anybody,” Llewel stated as his first thought of defense. “Stolen from, sure, but not robbed.”

“I don’t think there’s as much of a difference between those as you think there is,” Zetai pointed out. “You’d probably say Ruzlue was stealing but Fininri ruined him.”

Myr shook her head. “It’s kind of like a set of unspoken rules? Robbing is taking something away from someone. Stealing is taking something unattended. Ruzlue took a lot of stuff, not just from Fininri and not just because he was supposed to for the quest. Fininri actually kept the stuff he knew we’d need out in the open for us…”

David gave a skeptical look but continued to lead them. “That doesn’t really tell me anything about who you are. You’re thieves. Or at least you were. I’d like to know that I’m not letting suspicious individuals into a ruin that is hopefully filled with valuable knowledge.”

“You can trust them,” Reynneak said. “We’ve been with them a while. Ignore whatever the coats might suggest, they’re good kids.”

David maintained a casual conversation for the rest of the walk; more information about what his research group was doing. In truth, after the first couple of minutes, it was hard to understand what he was talking about.

Eventually, though, they reached a clearing. Besides the four ancient pillars, there didn’t seem to be anything special about the place. Still, David announced, “This is where we need to be. I gave you back the [Phoenix Feather] you had. If you could place it in the center there, then we’ll be able to access the ruins.”

Zetai pulled the item out, sat it on the ground, and stepped back before a temple of sorts emerged from the ground. Runes appeared along the pillars and the temple, causing David to let out an excited squeal.

He caught himself at the last moment and coughed. “My apologies. It turns out this is exactly what we were looking for and also so much more. As you can imagine, that’s quite the discovery to be made…” He gestured for them to get closer. “It doesn’t look like a lot, but you should know how these things work. Just step inside and we’ll enter the ruin.”

“Is there anything else we should be aware of first?” Reynneak questioned. “I feel like I have to ask. You should be able to tell us that, right?”

“There’s three trials,” David said. “They shouldn’t be too difficult for a group like you. Only one of them involves fighting someone, and it seems we’re going to get to that part rather quickly.”

Before anyone had time to question it, it seemed that whatever might have been guarding the ruin appeared. The fight was done in a moment without hardly feeling like a trial; Llewel had almost been expecting to be told that it wasn’t.

David actually said the exact opposite. “See, wasn’t that easy? You did it before I could even tell you how to fight! Yes, we’ll have no problems getting to the center of it and retrieving that artifact…”