The Awaited Awakening

Azyna stands there crying, tears dripping from her cheeks. Her pupils had dilated as she felt an extreme sadness, she got goosebumps when shivers attacked her whole body. Jenny and the others, even Diana that was cowering behind Azyna when they were fighting the Elven statues, came and stood beside her.

Azyna held her body as if she’s freezing.

Jenny asked with an alarming voice: “Azyna what’s wrong?!”

“I, I don’t know, the tears just came out... Out of nowhere…and this cold, sad feeling,” Azyna said with her teary eyes as she looks at Jenny.

Azyna wiped off her tears and then looked back at the sarcophagus. The feeling let go as her head became clear. Jenny gave a questioning look at her, then she too noticed the sarcophagus.

“So this is the treasure huh?” Thren asked as he looked around the chamber, the sarcophagus being the only notable thing, but no one replied.

Everyone just stands there around it, wondering what's inside. Thren tried to open it with brute force, Jack helped when he noticed Thren was having trouble, but it didn’t even move one bit.

“Damn... It... Doesn't, mov—, ah forget it!” Jack yelled as he stopped wasting his strength.

Jenny then asked Azyna curiously: “Do you know what this is?”

“No I have never seen anything like it, but it’s some kind of coffin,” Azyna responded with a somewhat understanding voice.

Azyna thought while looking around the room, this must be some kind of burial site for someone important, and not some vault of treasure.

“Hey, you should do that magic trick. Like what you did to that door, which was glowing with those uhm...weird things?” Thren asked as he recommended a way to open the coffin, while giving off a self-pleasing grin as he had come up with yet another solution.

Rulma just smiled at Thren with a proud look, then her gaze trailed towards Azyna.

Azyna just looked at him with a worried look and then back to the coffin.

“Okay I'll try, but move away a little bit, we don’t know what'll happen if I open it,” Azyna said as she gave off a gulping sound.

Everyone except Azyna went down the stairs and stood seven meters away. Azyna put her hands on the coffin and starts to channel her magical pool into it, but strangely nothing happened.

Azyna didn't want to give up, she continued to channel her magical powers, and as she continued a sudden pain began to stir inside her. Azyna's face started to give off a strained face yet again, she tried to hold on desperately, but the channeling stopped when the pain started to get to unbearable to control.

She quickly took away her hands from the coffin as if it’s searing hot. She staggered back a bit, she felt that insufferable pain, and then her legs gave out. She fell to her knees.

When she's there beside the coffin she could almost not breathe, she gasped and gasped for air, but as the pain slowly went away, she could then breathe normally again.

The group saw Azyna stagger and then fall to her knees, Jenny and Jack ran up the stairs, and asked how she's doing, but she just waved her hand and said with a forced smile:

“Don’t worry, I just channeled to much magic, I warned myself before, but I thought... Never mind, I’ll be okay in a couple of minutes.”

As the others saw Jenny and Jack run up the stairs to Azyna, Rulma looked at Diana who stands there frightened beside her. She asked with a worried voice:

“What’s the matter Diana, you’ve been like this for a while now, even before we encountered the statues.”

“I don’t know, I just feel really uneasy down here, even taking a step forward is hard for me,” Diana answered with a weak voice.

“Indeed… It must be this place, first we encountered that door, then those statues and now this strange looking coffin that gives off that dim light,” Thren said as he looked towards the coffin with a frown on his face.

“Or it could be that you're just a scaredy-cat, huhu,” Thren said as he made fun of her frightness.

“Thren!” Rulma shouted as she frowned at him angrily.

He then looked at Diana, who's having a sad expression.

“Oh... I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it. Y-you know, i-it just came out... Haha, hah, hu,” Thren said as he looked at the looming Rulma that's ready to start a Dwarvish beating, with its head coarse—à la—Thren.

But before she could start smashing Thren's skull in, Diana said:

“It's okay... I know I'm easily scared, but I can't help it, it just...comes.”

Diana has never done anything out of the ordinary, and now she's here in this chamber so far away from home.

She's only a handmaid to Jenny, but she had never been treated like a lesser person, she's treated more like a friend. Because she got the job from her father when she was very little, she got trained by Jenny’s mother’s handmaidens. As Jenny's family is a very rich, and powerful, she got taught a lot.

Diana got into serving her when Jenny was seven years of age, and Diana was fourteen, even though there's a seven year gap between them, they are the best of friends. Because she was the same height when she first began to serve her.

Then Jenny grew like any other human, but their friendship lasted, not as a master-servant relationship, but as normal friends.

As a Halfling, you can't really get that high up in the world. You have to be from a long line of wealthy ancestors...or you'll just be a regular hard working Halfling, but of course there are many that get their due from hard work.

Diana's father has gotten to that point in the world, because he's friends—business partner—with Jenny's father, and that's why she got such a good job, as a personal handmaiden.

But things have escalated too fast, just four and a half weeks ago, she was happily doing her duties for Jenny, but suddenly everything had changed overnight.

As everyone else in the group is talking between themselves, Aynthia is wondering around the chamber just minding her own business.

She looked at the different carvings that's carved into the white marbled walls and floor, but as it's ancient, she couldn’t understand anything, even if she knew Elven carvings these were just too damaged to look upon.

Because time had set its claws upon them.

It must’ve been beautiful before, Aynthia thought.

When Azyna stood up after taking a break on the stairs, she also began to look through the different carvings on the walls and floor, but she found nothing. After a while she asked Jack with a kind, but tired voice:

“Jack could you go and get my backpack that's by the doors?”

“Sure thing, I’ll be back in a bit,” Jack responded as he started to jog towards the door that's no longer glowing with its emerald magical runes.

You could hear his stomping plate boots as he jogged.

When Jack came back he gives her the backpack, and as she takes a hold of it she starts to roam through it. Azyna found what she's looking for. A thick book that's named:

(Elvish Translations — by Xidrinia).

She opened the book, and went to a certain page. She started to mumble as she read through it, and then looked at the carvings, then back at the book.

As the time went on she kept on doing that, until you could hear a loud *Smack* as the book closed shut.

Azyna looked troubled, she then said in a tired, yet disappointed voice:

“It’s no use... I can’t find anything remotely close that says how to open this coffin.”

She got a troubled face: “But it does show some interesting carvings, it depicts an Elven man’s life. This carving here, it got some Elven text next to it that’s still readable. But it’s very troubling... It says:

He That Controls the Shadows of the Abyss.”

She lets out a sigh of relief and smiled while she said: “Wow, I surprisingly translated that with ease.”

She has never been that good at Elvish, she had only memorized different chants that her father taught her, and that’s what she only needed. But now that she stands here in this chamber, she regrets that she didn’t try harder.

Almost everyone looks at Azyna with troubling expressions, just when Azyna is going to say something else, Aynthia’s voice resounded in the chamber:

“How about these carvings that's carved into the sides of the coffin?”

As Aynthia said those words right out of nowhere, everyone got surprised faces, because she isn't someone that even likes to talk, but then everyone's expressions lighted up and ran over towards her.

What they saw are carvings that didn’t even have any damage to them. As they look at the carvings, they see a display of five different carvings that are carved next to each other. Each separating one another by a vertical lined carve.

They're different takes:

The First take shows two Elven men holding down another Elven man, which is laid on top of the sarcophagus.

The Second take shows that another Elven man has come forth, and is standing at the head of the sarcophagus, holding a dagger on the throat of the held down Elven man.

The Third take shows that a throat has been cut open; blood spilling onto to the sarcophagus.

The Fourth take shows a hole, just a hole, but with blood pouring down into it.

The Fifth and last take shows that the Elven people that's standing beside the sarcophagus are cowering themselves from an intense brightness of light.

“Hmm, so it opens by blood then?” Jenny asked with a somewhat understanding voice.

“Yes look, here is the hole that's shown on the carving, where the blood should go,” Jack answered as he pointed at the hole.

The group just stands there looking at the coffin wondering what to do about this unexpected situation.

“So blood to open the coffin... I wonder what's inside,” Azyna said in an excited tone.

“I don't like this at all, ma-maybe we should just leave it alone?” Diana said while being uneasy.

When everyone heard ”leave” they all looked at her, and she flinched back a little bit, but then most of them just gives a sigh, because they know how frightened she can be.

“I guess...I could use my blood to open it, but would it be enough,” Azyna said with an uneasy voice.

“What do you mean, enough?” Jack asked curiously.

“What I mean is I’m just a Half-Elf, my mother is a normal Human and my father is Elvish of the pure bloodline dating back… I don't even know how long it dates back. But I wonder if my blood will be strong enough,” Azyna answered as she has a worried look.

“Well, we'll never know if you don’t try,” Thren said as he looked at Azyna.

The group is standing there wondering if Azyna should do it or not. Azyna then made up her own decision that she will give her blood, because she wants to know what's inside the coffin.

“I'll give my blood,” Azyna said with a determined, but excited voice. The excitement is clouding her judgement of things.

Jenny and the others just looked at her.

Jenny said with a worried voice, “We... We don't have to do this, what if something happens?”

“If something happens, we'll deal with it together, like we always do,” Azyna said while giving a bright smile towards her.

Jenny just looked at her with a saddened face, but she gave a forced smile and said: “Alright let's do it...together.”

Jenny pulls out her side dagger, and gives it to Azyna. She took a hold of the dagger with her left hand, she just looks at it, then looks to her right hand, and then back to the dagger. She stuck out her right hand, and the dagger closely follows.

“Hopefully this will works without sacrificing one's life,” Azyna said sarcastically as she remembered the display of carvings, “Here goes nothing.”

She slices her right hand, which makes her give out a small girl-like wail. The blood began to flow down her hand, drips of blood fell onto the coffin. She aimed her hand towards the hole, then...the blood went inside.

They waited and waited.

Azyna stands there while the blood dripped into the coffin hole, the others just waited eagerly to see what'll happen. A couple of minutes has passed, and she just kept on holding her hand over the coffin, giving her blood into the hole.

...Azyna's eyes became blank as if there's no life in them at all, but her eyes returned to normal just after two seconds...no one noticed.

The ring on her middle finger started to give a slight shake, as if it’s warning of something dangerous. But she just stands there unmoving with her hand over the hole. The ring continued to slightly shake, that blue shine started to shine brighter and brighter.

The sarcophagus that's shining in that dim illumination, which has been there when they entered the chamber, began to glow brighter and brighter, exactly like the ring on Azyna's middle right finger, until it's such an intense brightness that they had to cover their eyes.

As everyone's blinded by that bright light that comes from the sarcophagus, all they could do is just wait. The light is so dazzling that they didn’t dare to open their eyes, as it could probably blind them for good.

The ring on Azyna’s middle finger continued to shake, then it vibrated violently, so much that it started to....

*Crack*

With the sudden crack it stopped shaking and that blue shine vanished for good.

In a faraway place...someone’s ring crystal cracked too... “...”

After a couple of minutes the light from the sarcophagus started to fade, until no speck of light is left.

The group retained their vision when the light vanished, they look down at the coffin, and they just stares at it for a minute or so, until Thren said with a curious voice:

“Uhm...did it work?”

As Thren said it, he shows off a half worried smile. The group just looks at him, and then back to the coffin. Everyone's now staring at it yet again, then Jack asked with a somewhat excited voice:

“Maybe we should try to open it?”

When he said it everyone started to get lively, they looked at each other and then back at the coffin.

Azyna touched her head as if she has just had some huge headache. She then noticed her bloody hand.

How did I get this wound? Azyna thought as if she didn't remember slicing it.

Then she notices the bloodied dagger in her hand, and just looks at it with a surprised face. She put down the dagger on the floor, then used magic to heal herself, but as she has never really been good at healing with magic, she wasn't expecting much.

She healed herself, and her wound closed immediately. Her eyes widened as she now looks at the perfectly healed hand.

Must be the magic inside this chamber, Azyna thought as her eyes inspected the wide chamber.

She didn’t notice that all of her fatigue from using so much magic these past few hours...is gone.

Before the blood went into the sarcophagus she looked tired and exhausted, but now she felt such an immense flow of energy inside her. Something...something that she felt, but yet still not felt; oblivious to the unknown feeling that's eating at her emotions...slowly.

“Let's try to open it,” Jenny said with an eager voice.

Everyone helped to move the lid, the females pushed to one side, the two males pulled. The lid got handles on both sides of the sarcophagus, which made it easier to move. The lid began to move slowly as they pushed and pulled.

“Argh, this lid is heavier than a Dwarven baby!” Thren grunted with a harsh voice.

“You're talking about my sister’s child aren't you?!” Rulma yelled.

“What... It was heavy…” Thren said as he looked troubled.

“Tch, pull harder Thren!” Jack yelled as he put all of his strength in pulling the lid open.

The lid started to open more and more.

Those that're pushing got a look at what's inside the coffin, but the two males that's pulling, they didn’t get to see what's inside the coffin, until the lid gave a big *Crash* as it hit the floor.

The females just stands there looking at what's inside the coffin; Diana has to heave herself up to look, but quickly heaved herself down in surprise, and the males just stands there looking too.

What they see is an Elven man, with his emerald colored hair, and longer eyebrows than Humans, they’re shooting out in two different directions, one to the right and one to the left, as normal eyebrows do. But the left eyebrow is slightly shorter than the other, but only slightly shorter.

He also has that pale-gray skin.

The Elven man himself is very handsome, perfect skin complexion, perfect bone structure. He looked young, around thirty years of age...but thirty years of age he is not.

He just lies there, but suddenly his body began to twitch as he woke up. He sat himself up, holding his head with one hand, while he supporting himself with the other, it looks as if a huge headache is tormenting him. He then opened his eyes that showed his emerald colored pupils and irises, which could stare into one's soul.

When he moves his head around, he looks with a dazed expression at the men and women that are standing beside him on both sides, he spoke in Elvish tongue, but you could hear the irritation behind it:

“Why...did it take so long?”

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