"Incredible, this must be the entire civilization of the Seasoul Haven. With this discovery, our team will receive a huge bonus," Lorey says as she begins to make her way down to the city illuminated by lamps that run up and down the streets.
"Wait, we should check it out before entering. After all, we don't know why the crab people are frozen, or if we will become like that if we get too close," Sydra says as he pulls Lorey back to the tunnel and summons his spyglass from his Arbor Sanctum. Holding it up to his eye, Sydra begins to sweep his gaze back and forth over the city, looking for anything out of place.
"Did you see anything?" Lorey asks as Sydra lowers the spyglass from his eye and turns to her.
"Yeah, it seems that the people in the city have been frozen for a long time, as there is a layer of dust on their bodies. I didn't see what caused it, but I think we should be safe to venture in," Sydra says as he sits down at the edge of the tunnel.
"What are you doing?" Lorey asks as she looks at Sydra in confusion. "You just said it should be safe for us to venture in, so why are you sitting down,"
"I'm hungry," Sydra says as he pulls out a pouch of dried meat from his backpack and opens it. 'Would you like some?" he asks as he pulls out the two slabs of Toarle Jerky and holds one out to her.
Sighing, Lorey sits down next to Sydra and takes the jerky. Biting into it, Lorey's eyes widen as the delicious taste of perfectly spiced meat enters her mouth. "Woah, this is pretty good,"
"Right?" Sydra asks as he bites into his meat before looking over at Lorey with a serious gaze, "By the way, I was wondering if you knew why Sam and Gram betrayed us,"
"I'm not sure, really. They had joined me and Haley a while ago, and they never seemed to harbor any ill intentions for us. I also don't think it was greed that caused them to betray us either," Lorey says as she finishes off her meat and holds out her hand for more.
"What makes you say that?" Sydra asks as he pulls out two more pieces of jerky.
"You saw the scepter, right? Did it look like it was more valuable than the items we have collected along the way?" Lorey asks, causing Sydra to think back to the scepter. At the time, the scepter just looked a little bit fancier than the other items they had found, but if the group was to add up all the items and distribute them equally, then the items would be worth more.
"I see what you are saying, but maybe the scepter can unlock some secret area that holds more wealth?" Sydra says, pointing down at the city below them. "What if the scepter can unfreeze the crab people, or even control them? Then the value of the scepter would raise by a lot,"
"That's true, maybe we should check out the city then?" Lorey says as she stands back up and begins walking towards the city with determination. Shaking his head, Sydra stands up and puts the bag of jerky away.
The way down to the city was through a rocky outcropping, and glancing back, Sydra notices that the tunnel they came out from has disappeared from view behind a large boulder. The entire city seemed to have been built inside the sandstone valley, and several buildings were hundreds of meters tall and disappeared into the ceiling.
"I'm assuming that the building your group explored before didn't lead here," Sydra says as he looks up the tall buildings in front of them. Each building had multiple lights inserted on the sides, and at each corner of the city was a large tower with a light on top of it.
"You're right, in the building we explored the stairs down came to a stop far above this, and the outside of the building was blocked off by more sandstone," Lorey explains as the two of them reach the outskirts of the city. Looking around, Sydra sees multiple crab people that seem to have been frozen in time.
"So these are the Sea's Chosen?" Sydra says as he walks up to one of them. Looking closely at what appeared to be the male version of the crabs, Sydra is amazed by the complexity of their bodies. Everything below the head of the crab was humanoid in shape and covered in a tough shell, but the head was a different story.
"It looks just like a crab, except the legs are traded out for a neck," Lorey says as she glances at the crab people. "What did you say they were called again? The Sea's Chosen?"
"Yeah, but that name is too difficult to write out, and doesn't roll off the tongue smoothly. I'm going to change their species name to Kantoko, which means man crab," Sydra says as he mixes several words from another language together.
"Sounds good. Should we go farther in?" Lorey asks as she points down the street where more Kantoko is.
"Yeah, let's head to the middle of the city and see what we can find," Sydra says as the two of them head off again.
As they are walking down the street, Sydra notices that there are other footprints in the dust of the city. Bending down, Sydra looks closely at the footprint and sees a smaller layer of dust covering it.
"It seems that someone else was here, but it's been a while since they have been back," Sydra says as he stands back up.
"If that is the case then we should be on guard of an ambush in case someone is inside the city," Lorey says as she pulls her armor's straps tighter. Nodding his head, Sydra activates his bone armor and pulls out two daggers for easy access.
Continuing to travel down the street, Sydra looks around at the buildings on either side. Each building has a large doorway, but none of them have doors. There are also no windows, and the only thing not made from sandstone is the light emitted from the lamps.
"We should see what is inside the buildings as there might be some type of treasure," Sydra says as he walks through the open doorway and looks around. The building he entered seemed to have been used as a bakery, but the sandstone ovens had been broken down with time. Walking through the building, Sydra sees several of the Kantoko frozen over the stove and next to large bowls of dust.
"It interesting that they were able to cook with these pinchers like fingers," Lorey says as she points to one of the crabs that were frozen tossing something in the air. Instead of human fingers that had shells on them, the Kantoko had grown four pinchers on each hand.
"Well the pinchers on the bottom of their hands probably acted as thumbs, and the three on top were the fingers. With the jagged edges added in, the Kantoko could probably get a really good hold on things," Sydra says as he and Lorey leave the building.
"Where should we go now?" Lorey asks as Sydra scouts the buildings around them until his eyes catch on an interesting one.
"What if we see what their religion was like," Sydra says as he points to a building that has two claws holding a blue pearl high up. "One of the books I read earlier said that their worship of the sea was incredibly important to them, so there might be some interesting things there,"
Nodding her head, Lorey looks at the building with a fierce light burning in her eyes. "So you're saying there might be treasure in there?" She asks as Sydra starter walking towards the building.
"Maybe, but if there isn't there shot!d still be something else inside for us," Sydra says as he walks through the doorway of the Kantoko's worship area and looks around. Unlike the rest of the buildings that only have sandstone inside them, the worship area has multiple decorative statues and other items.
"I think these pillars are made from Ocean Marble, and that alter is made from some rare material that even I don't know what it is," Lorey says as she points at the blue pillars and the shining alter. Stepping up to the alter, Sydra runs his hands across its smooth surface.
"I think this is an undiscovered type of silver," Sydra says as he sends it into his Arbor Sanctum, "I'll find out later,"
As the alter disappears into his Arbor Sanctum, a hole that was hidden beneath it appears. The whole has steps that lead downwards, and the faint smell of metal is coming from below.
"Hmm, secret trap door? That's kind of suspicious," Sydra says as he and Lorey look down the stairs and into the darkness.