"Sure, adventurer. One hardly ever finds someone recognized by the lords. Moreover, the prophecy that indicates dark times to start again. It would my honor to help you. Please, follow me," said Luciophel.
He quickly led Shadow past the altar through a door. There were stairs which led downward beyond the door and these were guarded by a bunch of paladins. The guards bowed to Luciophel as they opened the door at the bottom of the stairs and let them in.
In this room, there was another altar similar to the one above it. It was also larger than the one on the floor above. "This is the true altar of the temple. The one above channels a small amount of the power from this one," said Luciophel. "The true altar is extremely powerful, and we can't let every person have access to it. So, we put it in the hall to placate the followers."
"Oh!" said Balthazar confused. He had no idea why he was brought to this area. "What are we doing here?" he asked.
"There has been a prophecy that the dark forces which the twelve lords defeated would rise again and the land would enter a state of unrest. I only know that your mask has some relation to the lord of shadows, but what it requires you to do is something only you can figure out," said Luciophel pointing to the altar.
"Please, touch the altar with your hands, while I activate it. Its advice is only for you to know," said Luciophel as he began to channel mana into his hands. He soon weaved a spell as a ball of light was formed in his hand which threw at the altar.
As soon as the spell ball came into contact with the altar, the power from the ball dissipated into the altar. It began to shine as a lot of runic patterns appeared on it. They began to crawl all over the altar as a small halo began to form over it. This continued for nearly a minute till the halo expanded to a diameter of three feet. It was covered in a bright glow and looked like a spiked wheel. This slowly moved towards Balthazar till it was directly on top of him.
A circular screen of light came down from the halo forming a cylinder which covered him. By the time, Balthazar reacted he was teleported somewhere else. It was similar to the teleportation that happened during his quest underwater, except that he was transparent and like a ghost hovering in the air.
His first impression of his surroundings was that he was in vast ground filled with dead bodies and smell of blood and decay permeated the air. Though he was like a ghost, he could smell, see and feel even the movements of the air around him, but he couldn't physically or magically interact with anything.
He immediately realized that he wasn't transported to any place but that it was a memory fragment. Memory fragments were quite common in vita-nova. In later stages of the game apart from the usual video recording devices, memory recording devices were also available. It provided an experience which would make a person as he himself lived it. Moreover, he could view the memory from different positions and even float and move around in the air like a ghost.
But memory recording devices unlike normal video were extremely pricey and not easy to procure. He never expected that memory fragments like these were there from the starting day of vita-nova. He always thought that the memory recorders began after upgrades. He realized that idea was probably from the start, but players probably only came to know about them later and also recording devices were found later. Every hour, he seemed to realize that some of the things he thought were common knowledge and obvious stuff, might not be true.
"I am clearly in a memory at the site of some war," he thought as he floated up in the air. Even at a height of some hundred feet from the ground, all he could see was fights and killing between various factions. Even the air space was filled with many entities fighting each other. As he was observing the fights, a sudden shockwave emanated from a distance which he couldn't even see.
He had no idea of the source of the shockwave, but he could clearly feel it. He floated back in its direction due to the wave for a few meters before he could stabilize himself. He could see a few bodies on the ground burst into mist and many other both on the ground and air were struck away from the source by the force of the shockwave.
He soon saw a large black mass flying towards him from what seemed to be the source of the shockwave. As it neared him, a dark mist covered it which slowed down its flight and put it on the ground. A 6-foot tall man in red armor suddenly appeared beside it and the mist disappeared into him, revealing a large black dragon. The man was also bleeding from his head.
It was bleeding from a large number of cuts and holes on its body and its wings were torn off the body. It was a gruesome sight to watch even on a large fearsome black dragon. Though he watched many death scenes and escaped the explosion in the citadel, he still found it to be very morbid.
The man caressed the dragon and started tending to its wounds. "You were reckless. If we fought with the others, we could have avoided a lot of damage," said the man as tried to stop the bleeding. Tears were rolling down the eye sockets of his headgear and mixed with all the blood on his gear.
"That would have caused a lot of damage to the land. Despite being outcasts, all of us were never on the same page. They would have never come here in time," came a deep voice from the dragon.
"We were always destined to be alone, my friend. I just hoped that I would accompany you all our lives, but it looks like it might no longer be possible," the dragon continued.
"Don't be stupid. I will save you. The others have noticed the attack and have come here and that's why I managed to come to you. We can heal you," said the man.
"You never tell the truth. Do you? I know my condition better than anyone else. That attack even hurt my soul. I can't even be resurrected," said the dragon as the man began openly crying and sobbing as he lay his hands against the snout caressing the dragon.
"I got a last wish. Make sure all those 13 monsters are dead. Don't let them return back and attack later. Promise me that you will never let them rest in peace," said the dragon.
"I promise you that they shall never escape this land. Even if they do, I will follow them to the edges of the rudrum orbis to assassinate their entire lineage," said the man as waves of mana escaped out of him as he promised in anger.
The last embers of life extinguished from the eyes of the dragon, the second the man promised to avenge her. The man closed the dragon's eyes and held the claws of the dragon in his hands and further promised, "I will make sure their lives are taken by your own hands. This is the best I can do for you."
At this time eleven other humanoids came to the site. They all held their heads down as if they wre ashamed. Together all twelve of them lifted the dragon as they left flying through the air.
The surroundings immediately became blurry like a large amount of liquid suddenly flooded the entire space and after that, he was in a dark cave. It was still a memory fragment, but it changed locations. The man who promised the dragon seemed to be magically crafting armor from what looked like the dragon's skin and bones. This scene continued till a set of armor of 10 pieces and pair of long knives were formed. He could clearly see his mask of shadows among them.
As the man doned the armor and weapons, the surroundings changed again. He was in the sky as the man along with the other eleven were fighting with someone else. He suddenly appeared behind an opponent and stabbed through the opponent's neck and beheaded him. Then, the surroundings again changed.
This continued till scenes depicting the twelve lords killing eleven other leaving only one. The last memory had them all in a cave with the knives stabbed through the lungs of a huge man with patch black scaly skin having a flaming skull made of lava in place of a head. Its arms and torso were tied down.
"Let me live, I will do anything you ask," spoke the skull in a frightened voice. Its legs were cut down and its hands and fingers broken. Beside the lord of shadows were 4 others who seemed to be torturing the scaly being.
They were the War god (martial artist), the Dread Hawk (ranger), the Angel of Death (warlock) and the Divine Doctor (cleric). These four along with the lord of shadows were clearly interrogating their captive.
"You know nothing that we want to know. Nor can we trust anything that you say right now," said Dread Hawk as he nocked an arrow with the intent to kill.
"No! No! I can tell you a lot more. I am the only one left of the thirteen. If you kill me, you can't get information from anyone else. Don't kill me," it began to shout.
"Maybe, he can be useful. Why don't we keep him alive? If we are to go to their realm, he might still be of use," suggested War god.
"I don't trust him. I hardly believe what he told till now. I can definitely withstand the amount of force we dealt and lie," said Angel of Death. "Why don't we just kill him, and I can try and capture his soul and read his memories. We could be sure that way."
"Fine," said lord of shadows as he threw his knives into the captive's heart tearing it open. "Even if he is right. I don't believe he will be of use as they would immediately suspect that he was compromised once, they notice his presence."
Angel of Death immediately waved his wand as a white light came out of the captive's body into his hands. It looked like his plan to capture the captive's soul was successful. "He didn't lie," said Angel of Death in a few seconds.
"Let us meet at the decided place in a month. Inform the others. Prepare yourselves. Fix your affairs. We might not be able to return once we go there," said the lord of shadows as he turned around to get out of the cave.
"You forgot your weapons," muttered War god as the lord of shadows was about to leave.
"I didn't. I am leaving these weapons and armor in this plane. She wouldn't want to leave this plane. Let it belong to whosoever finds it," replied lord of shadows as he disappeared. "I suggest that we improve our equipment further before we go to the new plane, he told us about. These probably wouldn't be sufficient", sounded his voice from the void.
"I agree with his assessment," said Angel of Death as he also disappeared. The surroundings changed again to another place in a volcanic mountain range where he left his gloves. Then, the surroundings changed again.
This continued as all the 9 pieces of his armor were left at various places. Balthazar got a brief glimpse of the places. He managed to identify only three of the nine. He already knew the location of the knives, which were unique weapons. He had come to the city in such a hurry to check for these very weapons. He somehow stumbled onto them and realized that he already had a part of the set.
After that the surrounding changed again and he was back in front of the altar in the basement of the temple of the twelve. The shining runes that had previously formed all over the altar had disappeared. The halo above him also vanished.
At that time, in the monitoring room in Metis Technologies headquarters, there was another commotion. This time even Victor Constantine was observing Balthazar's data. He was informed that Balthazar had a very high adaptation rate to the somnium technology and since, he requested to be informed of any special things that Balthazar triggered.
Since, Shadow had received the letter of introduction from the deacon at the Blackrock Town, the monitoring team had been observing him as he would be triggering a memory fragment due to the letter. They wanted to observe his adaptation to the experience of a memory.
"He already has finished the memory. His adaptation factor seems to be quite satisfactory for someone experiencing this for the first time," reported one of the personnel to Victor Constantine.
"What is the horror level of the memory?" asked Victor constantine. "We had the horror level to be high. There are two more levels above it, but we decided to try this for his first time. The realism level of the memory was completely realistic. He still adapted to it easily and had no adverse mental reactions. Such behavior might be considered borderline sociopathic," reported the personnel.
"He recently commandeered an attack on the apes and almost got killed in an explosion. He must have seen lot of his comrades burnt to death during that time. It is a good thing that he can overcome this. A soldier needs to have a strong mind," replied Victor. "Don't worry. I understand your concerns. Keep monitoring him and be on check for sociopathic behavior. It is best to be safe than sorry. We can't take any unnecessary risks for this."