Last Wish
"Faith must be truly novel, beautiful and timeless, so gives life to thee."
Act 0
Chapter 7 - What's hidden? Achoo
Xavier had sneaked into the church while Phanuhel went a bit afar to wash himself by using water well. He tried to queitly put up the wooden cellar door and immediately sneezed from the amount of dust. "Achoo!". He soon realised hownloud it was by hearing the sound of steps from far away. Xavier quickly got in the basement and locked it, just before he heard some footsteps. When the sound of footsteps calmed down, Xavier finally let out a huge exhalation of pent up breath.
"Phew!"
***
When Xavier softly went down the stairs, grinning, he opened the door to the basement.
The basement was dark, lit only by a dim lamp hanging from the ceiling. The walls were bare and rough-hewn, the floor littered with bits of dirt and debris. There was a musty smell in the air, mixed with the scent of decay.
Xavier quickly glanced around, making sure he was still the only one down there. He didn't even know what he was looking for, and the place seemed pretty run-down. There was no sign of anything that might be classified as treasure, or even something of significant value. He took a few steps further into the basement, but stopped when he heard his foot stomp on something that made a hollow sound.
Bending down, Xavier saw a small, rectangular shape beneath some loose dirt. Without hesitating, he began to dig with his hands, uncovering what appeared to be a small, wooden box. Inside of it he found an emerald neclace, that looked so glazing and rich to Xavier that he wondered why such a tresure was hidden in there. He put it in his pocket, carefree and moved on, looking all over the place.
***
As he continued his search, he had only seen books all over the place. Then he noticed something that made him pause. A large, stone slab in the wall of the basement looked slightly out of place, slightly shifted from the rest of the stones around it.
He stepped closer to the stone slab, his heart hammering in his chest. "I'll pay for not following Phanuhel's order, but..." he had difficulty swallowing, "my curiousity is too strong." He reached out and touched the stone, feeling the solid, cold surface beneath his fingertips. He tried to push it, but it didn't budge. Undeterred, he pulled on it, putting his full weight into it.
Finally, with a loud creak, the stone shifted, revealing a narrow passageway behind it. Without hesitating, he squeezed through the opening and found himself in a dark corridor, lit only by flickering torchlight from up above.
He continued forward, the air growing colder and the stone walls more damp. The corridor seemed to stretch on endlessly, winding its way deeper into the earth. Every few steps, he looked behind him nervously, half-expecting to see something pursuing him out of the darkness.
As he approached the corner, the torches gave way to a dull bluish light. Turning the corner, he saw a door with something bright behind it.
As soon as he opened it, he was struck by a bright light that seemed to come from the mirror, which was completely chained around. While covering his face from the mirror, Xavier noticed the Berserker's long sword in its sheath nearby. It was long, but not very wide.
Xavier is very strong physically, but even for him it was not easy to lift this sword without knowledge of the technique. Slowly, he removed the sheath of the sword, and saw, from below, near the hilt, the words written in bold letters: "ECLIPSE REAVER".
Unable to stop, Xavier, with difficulty raising this sword, severed the shackles of the mirror with one precise blow. The light began to flicker weaker after that, but Xavier did not lose any interest, matter fact, not at all.
He was amazed. At first he grimaced like a child, stroking his black hair and peering into his purple eyes, and then stroked his long-overgrown beard, "But I'm only twenty years old... Oh, I don't care."
He decided to touch the mirror, feeling with all his gut that something was wrong here. "Oh!" he cried. The mirror felt like a layer of water, not like glass at all. A little afraid, he stepped back.
After a couple of minutes, when Xavier had calmed down, he began to pace back and forth in this small room until he noticed a small inscription engraved on the wall, "Remember to wear an emerald necklace if you find yourself in trouble."
Xavier's heart skipped a beat when he read the inscription. He quickly reached into his pocket and pulled out the emerald necklace he had found earlier in the basement. With trembling hands, he put on the necklace and felt its weight on his neck. Below the line, in bold letters, was written: "THE MIRROR IS NOT SAFE FOR USE, ESPECIALLY WITHOUT AN EMERALD NECKLACE."
"Unsafe to use? How the hell can you even use a mirror?.. something like "My goodness, mirror! Tell me and report the whole truth: Am I the sweetest, the most ruddy and the whitest in the world?" exclaimed Xavier as he burst into laughing, not taking the caution seriously.
"Anyway... I should try again." He approached the mirror again, and his face slowly began to appear on its surface.
He touched it, again expecting to feel cold, smooth glass, but instead he felt like he was sticking his fingers into a pool of warm and viscous liquid. The sensation was both strange and uncomfortable. He began trying to move his body through the mirror, and it went through very smoothly.
He cautiously stepped forward, half-expecting to faceplant into the stone wall behind the mirror. However, instead of stone, he found himself stepping into a space of liquid that felt both solid yet elastic to the touch. It was as though he'd stepped into an unreal, transparent ocean.
Just the moment he realised it, he felt a drastic headache, hitting him like thunder, and passed out.
He opened his eyes and began to try to catch his breath, which was more difficult than usual. Having come to his senses, he realized that he did not know where to be. He was sitting in a dirty alley, opposite a garbage bin, and when he stood up, he saw something like a mountain from afar. "No... It's not a mountain... It's a castle." Xavier ended up, without realizing it, in the Slums of Cruzar, on the continent of Atall.