As the smell of burning bodies fill the air. I sat by a branch of a tall tree, hugging my leg as I look into the distance. Rhythian was finishing off the last of the executed bodies as he cast one last spell to finish the job. As the last pile of bodies slowly burned to ash, he knelt down to pay respects to the lost souls. He did this to the other piles as well...
After paying tribute, Rhythian soon stood up and climbled on the tree I was on. He leaned on the main trunk of the tree as he looked at me. He stayed silent for a while until I looked at him with a saddened look.
"How are you doing draconian?" Rhythian spoke out in a worried tone as faint signs of mana were fading from his hands. He crossed his arms as he looked at me, waiting for a response.
I looked back into the distance and let out a deep sigh. I shrugged in response to his question. He took a deep breath and decided to sit right next to me. He stared out into the same direction I was looking at. We stayed silent for a few minutes before Rhythian broke the silence.
"A man once told me. 'We can never forget a loss, but can only move forward and evolve from it'. Do you know what that means?" Rhythian spoke out quite poetically.
I shook my head in disagreement as I kept looking out into the distance. I fixed my sitting posture as I heard him out.
"It means that even if we lose someone, we never truly forget them. The only thing we can do is move on in their name. It's a way where we can never truly forget a comrade or a friend..." Rhythian explained well. Once he was finished explaining, I looked at him. What he said somehow made me grow a smile. It made some of my sadness go away.
Rhythian stood up and stretched his arms. He then placed one of his hands on my head and gave it a good rub. It messed up my hair, but I didn't mind. It annoyed me and made me blush at the same time.
"Well, if you're done mourning, you can meet me by our house. Take your time, okay?" Rhythian spoke out before dropping down to the ground.
Once he had already left, I took a few minutes refocusing myself into reality before I jumped down after Rhythian. I pat off the dirt on me before walking towards the burnt house. As I walked closer towards the ruin, I saw Rhythian throwing off some rubble. This made me wonder why he is rummaging around our stuff.
"Where is it...Where is it..." Rhythian muttered to himself as I stopped on a pile of rubble near him.
"Hey Rhythian, what exactly are you looking for?" I asked, but he seemed to busy to answer.
After a few minutes of good rummaging, he seemed to have found what he was looking for. As he threw out the last piece of rubble, he stood still to get a good look at what he found. I jumped over the piles to see what he saw and as I landed on the last pile, I saw that it was a trapdoor. How did I not see this in the years I was living with him?
He crouched down to grab the metal handle of the door and gave it a good tug. I decided to jump down to help him. It took us a few tries, but after that, we finally got it open. As the door flew open, a cloud of dust flew up and into our faces. This caused me to cough out for a while whilst Rhythian seemed unfazed and continued down the trapdoor.
I followed closely afterwards. I walked down the rickety steps and was soon in a tunnel system. I was left in a surprised look as I looked around. I soon remembered that I was following Rhythian and looked down into one of the tunnels to see a glowing orange light. It was from a fire wisp Rhythian was floating around to light up his surroundings. I quickly caught up as I observed the complex tunnel system slowly turning into an old ruin.
Rhythian soon stopped in front of a pair of old doors. He then reached out and pushed. The doors slowly opened and as the cracks of the door were showing, I soon realized why Rhythian struggled to open such door. The doors had iron platings with a weird clear crystal supporting it on the inside. As Rhythian was pushing against the doors, the crystal soon resonated a bright purple and expelled Rhythian, knocking him back a few feet. The doors soon closed itself, making us start from the beginning.
Rhythian sat up from his position and grasped the back of his head. He looked like he forgot that the trap or defence was there. I let out a sigh, just realizing that this mentor and father-figure of mine... is sometimes a careless klutz...
I turned to the doors and decided to give it a try. I rested my hands on the base of the iron structure and gave it a push. As I did, my arm soon resonated the same purple the crystal in the doors emitted when it expelled Rhythian, but instead of pushing me, the doors became lighter. Allowing me to open them freely without any struggle.
As the doors flew open, a gust of wind flew by and as I opened my eyes to see a huge circular room filled with piles of rubble, overgrown grass, broken pieces of wood and much more. I walked inside as Rhythian and his wisp followed after. I looked around the room and saw that in the center of it all was an empty pedestal. From there, channels lead to seven different parts of the room. Five of them were under some type of rubble, another was broken while the last one was the only one that looked like a wall with some etchings on it.
I stood in front of the etchings and observed them a little bit. They looked like the markings on the outside of this room, but only...Shinier...
A loud thud soon emitted from behind me. I turned to look at it and saw Rhythian turning the pedestal. He seemed to be turning it towards the etchings on the wall. He then stood behind the pedestal, facing the wall.
"You might want to step back from this, young draconian..." Rhythian spoke out as he raised his hands to his chest, his palms facing each other. I understood what he meant and walked behind him. He began to concentrate and blue particles soon went out from his palms and focused on the center. It seemed mesmerizing as I looked at the magic he did. Some blue particles flew out and floated around the room, enveloping it in a soft blue light.
The scene was now beautiful as the blue particles slowly floated down like snowflakes. It made me forget the incident that happened a couple of hours ago. After a few seconds later, a blue aura emitted from Rhythian's hands and the blue orb that he forms soon turned into a clear blue crystal that slowly grew the more Rhythian fed blue particles into it.
As the crystal grew to a sustainable size, Rhythian guided it to the pedestal, making it float on it. As soon as it stayed on the pedestal, a blue aura soon fed into the channels near it. The blue aura soon went into the etchings. As the etchings had the same glow the aura had, it soon crumbled the wall that circled it and had a portal grow into it.
"Rhythian, where are we going?"
"To a new haven, young draconian..."