When morning dawned, Lod and his companions ventured into the temple. Lod was in front, his longsword, elegantly crafted by a talented blacksmith, stuck to his side, as he waved a torch in front of him. The air within the temple was different from outside, old and musty like a decomposing corpse, and the temperature had dropped so dramatically that a light shine of ice formed over the walls. Their shallow breaths fogged the air.
A massive stairway pointed to the heavens reared up, its steps so old that Lod considered looking for a different path. Tristine was just behind him, with steel and shield in hand she looked at the steps quizzically, before looking up toward Lod.
"Do you think we can pass?" Lod asked. His voice echoed in the temple, waking the insects that crawled its desolate hallways.
"Yeah, the stone's fine…actually." Tristine slammed her shield against the steps, and it made a huge metallic clang. "It's in perfect condition…We'll be able to fight on them fine enough, but I wouldn't trust a fight from this angle."
Loide looked at it. "As long as I got a perfect shot at them, we should be fine." Loide replaced his longbow for a hand held crossbow. "My aim's only getting better with age." He chuckled, "No, monster's gonna come down those steps."
Lod finally looked at Trel, who had stepped aside, placing his hand gently on the old steps and looking up at them with quizicall curiosity, the inside of the temple was golden in color as if the ancients molded it from a golden block. "What do you see?" Lod asked, making sure he knew of everyone's thoughts.
"It's amazing." Trel whispered, "There's mana in the stone."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lod furrowed his brows.
"These ancients… they're so amazing. They're able to infuse mana into objects! Only expert magicians can do that and they can only do the size of a sword!" Trel exclaimed.
"Don't get surprised by everything, kid." Lod and his companions made his way forward, Trel standing up hurriedly to follow. "Reading about this temple gave me some insight. The ancients were great people. But they were too peaceful."
The burning torch casted its light on the elegantly crafted carvings on the temple walls. The temple was crafted by the most excellent craftsman of its time, no doubt. The temple's walls were painted with the most luxurious colors, as if they had painted it with a single brush, taking care of each elegantly made detail, their worship so deep that spending an eternity on this temple would no doubt be their heaven.
"How many people do you think made this?" Trel asked.
"Enough." Tristine said.
Loide frowned and patted Trel on the back, "If I were to guess, one person."
Lod looked at the walls and agreed. "One person is all that's needed for this."
Tristine scoffed. "I can't see that happening."
Loide and Lod looked in awe and admiration at the temple wall. "You'll understand it when you live long enough." Loide said, "This right here is a dream."
As they reached the top of the steps. The colors of the temple swirled, into a beautiful wonderscape, old, and forgotten. It looked pitiful almost. The luxury of this civilization was destroyed by the decades of time, but their work still showed for it as the vibrant colors of the temple wall paintings were made up entirely of the blood, and love their creator had poured into it.
The ceiling top was jagged and tipped with antler like arms that came from the heavens above, as spider webs, and insects crawled between them, reaching one side to another like an upside down jungle. Lod looked to the side and found stories pouring out at him. There were so many that he couldn't understand the jumbled up words that were thrown at him.
The holes in the walls dotted their stops. The swipe of their brush made their words pour, and the temple was their paper. It was exquisite and the color did all the telling that words could not explain. While, their thoughts stumbled to explain everything.
Loide forced himself to breathe evenly, pausing in disbelief he looked at the temple transformed from a single staircase into the land of forgotten dreams.
Over the course of the last many decades he had gone from home, killing the nightmare creatures deep in the kingdom's domain. He had been hunted by the most dastardly regiments the kingdoms had thrown at him.
And having traveled all these miles away from home. He gazed upon the dirty work of infidels.
And his heart was left vulnerable once more, before he steeled it and shook his head.
He needed to get out of trouble, and stop doing this kind of dirty work, when he gets the artifact he'll make sure of that.
Lod saw the same as him, and his heart skipped a beat. This was the end goal of all things. If his childhood had brought him up better he would've seen it long ago.
Lod was the first to break free of its hold. "L-Let's continue…we don't have time to stare." He truly believed now that only a single person could've crafted this beautiful masterpiece, no one could've seen this. But he felt bitter at the same time, as if a sour taste had gotten into his mouth.
Tristine was the only one uninterested in all the art. "Yeah." she agreed, "It's a couple of stories…"
Trel however ran forward and placed his hand upon the gold walls of the temple reading each story the temple had to offer. "Can I… Can I have a moment?" Trel asked.
"No…" Loide was first to say, pulling the young man to his feet with a heft of his hand. "Keep on going, lad, i'll be right behind ya to make sure you stay put. I know it's interesting to people like you."
"Ah…" Trel let out a displeased sigh, but Loide smiled, and kept pushing him along.
The room narrowed from this landscape into a tall and wide corridor.
There was not a hint of movement coming from the corridor ahead, creating a slight bit of uneasiness inside of Tristine as they moved ahead. The men of the party didn't seem to notice it at all, and she looked at Loide to confirm her suspicions, and he only gave her a smile, before giving her a strict warning to only look ahead of herself.
"This place is way too quiet…" Tristine finally voiced her opinion.
Lod agreed. "And we haven't seen a monster in quite some time."
"We haven't seen anything other than bugs!" Tristine said, "Where's the fight in this? Do you think someone cleared it out already?"
"Maybe." Lod said.
"Impossible." Loide said, "If someone cleared it out we'd see remnants of battle, and from what I can see nothing has entered this place for a very long time."
Lod nodded once more. "True… Let's continue we're sure to find a–"
Lod suddenly went stiff, and took a sudden step back. Everyone turned alert, readying their weapons at a moment's notice but they didn't see anything from how dark it was and Lod was not moving.
Lod was one of the best fighters that they had ever seen in battle before, it would take a lot to shake him, and even more to freeze him into place. Whatever could freeze Lod into place had to have been the most menacing being that he had ever laid eyes upon, and little had that power, especially in this dungeon.
In a moment's notice, Lod recognized what he had bumped into.
His torch only cast a feint light on their body. It was vaguely human-shaped but it was more beastly. It stood 3 meters tall, the yellow glow of the torch illuminated its matted muddy brown fur that covered its face where two cow eyes gazed down at him. Its nostrils puffed out a circle of smoke, and the surface of his eyes glinted a pair of two curved long horns, longer than a normal man's arm.
Lod only had a second to think clearly 'Minotaur', before the beast with its strongly muscled arm blurring from the amount of speed it mustered, swung its arm like a hammer, eyes filled with fury and hatred locked onto his own.
Lod paralyzed with fear, barely recognized that he had been attacked, unable to retaliate. Its arm slammed heavily with an open palm onto his side, destroying his brigandine armor and ripping it open, the plates falling like spittle, and he was hurtled from his feet into the wall where his blood splashed.
The Minotaur bolted forward, and its arm reeled behind its head, came downward, with a primal grunt.
Tristine tried to recoil from the beast, only able to half raise her shield before him, and its arm destroyed her shield, destroying her arm, and slamming her face into the ground in a bloody mesh. Trel was the same his eyes only able to only open in wide eyed terror as The Minotaur slammed him into the wall.
Loide was the only one left, and he collapsed onto the ground, when he saw its muscular black figure stretch to its full height illuminated by the fallen torch. It was a hulking monstrosity of muscle and beast; the only semblance of humanity it had was its bloodied chest basking in blood. He heard its hooves cluck against the stone, each of them filled with impossible weight.
Loide recognized it as a minotaur but he couldn't. Minotaur's weren't this aggressive, Minotaur's weren't like this, they were easy monsters for him…But this was no minotaur, whatever the hell it was, it wasn't a minotaur.
Loide saw its teeth, instead of seeing flat cow like teeth, he saw razor sharp wolf teeth line their mouth, and a jagged tongue slither from its mouth to lick its gum.
In front of the minotaur though was a different story.
[ Mission: 'Kill Intruders' ]
Kill the 3 intruders!
[ Mission: 'Gift Artifact!' ]
Gift the Humans your Artifact!
[ Important! ]
[ Choose One Mission ]
"Screw off!" Yarost roared. The Minatour reared its head and exclaimed in anger with primal words that echoed from the temple.