As Dien looked at the screen, his face slowly turned toward what one may only describe with one word.
Despair.
With every moment that Kirisho's figure became more humanoid, the Elf remembered that fight back then more vividly. "B-But… We killed her, and we destroyed the amulet she possessed! Why is she still there?!" He yelled out, trying to figure out what was going on until he looked up at Eisen.
"I… I see, so we did something wr-wrong? You want the shards of the amu…amulet to banish he-her properly?" Dien asked as his nervousness grew stronger and stronger, before he met Eisen's deep, light grey eyes with his icy blue ones, lightly jumping when he saw the old man's nearly viscous glare.
"No. Rather the opposite. First, let me show you." Eisen said without further ado, looking back over at CF-1 with a smile. "Hey there, Kirisho."
Confused, Dien kept his mouth shut, hoping that the thing that was obviously about to happen would not. However, it seemed like the world had another idea.
"Oh, ~! How curios..! Is that you, Eisen?" Kirisho asked, in an utterly lovely voice, which was enough to make Dien's heart cramp up.
"And who are those children..? Ah, that cap! Is that little Caria I see there? How big you've grown~!" The Mist Spirit told the Myconid calmly as she tilted her head to the side ever so slightly in pure glee, which was enough to make Dien's heart stop beating.
Slowly, Eisen's expression turned bitter as he mentally commanded CF-1 to step in front of Dien, with the eye turned away from the Elf further at the old man. "Kirisho, I hope you can hold out a bit longer… I need to show you, someone. CF-1, turn around." He commanded, and immediately, the small bot did as told, but was stopped by Dien who had finally dropped to his knees, trying to keep CF-1 from showing him after noticing that it was the way this ghost was able to see him.
"Please… Don't… Don't show me to her… I don't know what I would do if… if…" Dien practically begged, while Eisen slowly kneeled in front of him and grabbed his hand so that CF-1 could properly move, while Dien continued squealing in despair.
The moment that Kirisho could see Dien's face after Eisen pulled on his hair so that he would look straight into CF-1's eye, she slightly whimpered in surprise, but quickly caught herself again. "That young man… I remember his face… But the last time I saw it, it did not look so painful… It's alright, young man. I sure hope I am not the reason for your despair. You do not need to worry about me, as you can see, I'm fine. I'm sure you came to raid this cave because you needed the coin, and I know how such things feel. To you, I was a scary monster, was I not? So I understand because I have feared those that are like I am now for my whole life as well."
"Please… please don't… I'm sorry, I'm sorry for what I did, just don't-"
"I forgive you, so do not despair over me," Kirisho told Dien with an expression that screamed genuineness and love, merely hoping that this young Elf would stop worrying about someone that was already long dead, many years before they even encountered each other. This forgiveness was an expression which was enough to make Dien's heart shatter.
After this, there was a while of silence, before Eisen looked Dien straight in the eyes. "You understand, don't you? From what you were saying, it's obvious that you knew. Kirisho is no simple monster, and she did not possess that amulet. She's a kind person that was trapped inside. And because of you and your old companions, she lost her life again. Even though she may be able to speak like this right now, she can't do so that often. At all other times, it's as if she was nonexistent, with only a hint of her self remaining. That's what you did to her. In order to help her, I found two of the three shards of her amulet, and now I only need the one that you have." Eisen told Dien, loud enough so that both Ailren and Kirisho could hear him, instantly causing them incredible joy.
"Eisen, is this true? Did you find all my shards?" Kirisho asked as she held her hands in front of her mouth, and even Ailren could barely hold back how happy he was. "What great news those are, Eisen!"
"Yes, I know. And I'll try to fix the amulet as soon as I can, which is why I want to ask you to come to where I am, the coastal magic city Handor that you told me about, Ailren, where Bolremgar stays. It would be far quicker for you to come here than it would be for me to come to where you are, after all," Eisen slowly explained before Ailren seemed to think about it for a moment.
"Going all the way there, huh? Well, it probably would not be an issue. And being able to see Bolremgar again may be nice as well. Tell me, have you taken his Trial yet?"
"I only arrived here today, so not yet, no."
"I see… Then I wonder if that old fella will allow me to observe. I shall bring Kirisho's Gem to Handor. I will be there in a day." Ailren told the old man, who quickly nodded, happy that he agreed to do so.
"But I need to tell you that my sleep has been irregular lately. I sleep for three days and am then awake for one, so I will not be awake once you arrive, so please take the small Golem-Bat with you so that we can talk. Oh, and could you do me another favor?"
"A Favor? What is it that you want? I'm not giving you any of my gold." The Dragon said suspiciously, but Eisen quickly shook his head. "That's not it. I would like you to pick up a friend of mine. The town where she is currently staying is on the way, so it shouldn't take too long."
With a frown, Ailren looked at Eisen in confusion, before the old man began to grin lightly, looking at Dien who was slowly getting himself back up from the shock from before. "There's a special occasion, you see? The five that peaked are meeting up here."
---
After finishing the 'call' with Ailren after telling him all he needed to know about Evalia's location and Kirisho went back to sleep on the Dragon's side. Eisen now stood in front of Dien, who was sitting down on the bench, while Xenia was looking at him in confusion, trying to figure out what he was talking about before, only choosing to ask. "Erm, Eisen… who are the five that peaked? You mentioned Jyuuk before as well, right?" She asked, and Eisen sighed out loud since he wanted to deal with something else right now.
"First, Xenia, do you really trust Dien? Enough to tell him your secrets?" Eisen asked her, before Xenia thought for a little while, slowly nodding with a light shrug. "I guess so, yeah. He's been helping me with basically everything after I got here, so we've been around each other a lot."
"Alright, that should be enough. Although I'm surprised, you didn't figure that out yet. Basically, the five that peaked are the only five people in history that reached the maximum level possible, achieving immortality and a mock-deity status. Jyuuk, Evalia, Brody, You and I are those five. Our experience was stolen and used to create the 'Omegas.'" He explained, letting Xenia let out a long 'Oooh' sound as if something just clicked in her head.
"I guess that makes sense. I didn't really care about finding out more about the past, and I was playing around with magic all the time." The High-Elf responded, crossing her arms after moving a strain of her pitch-black hair behind her long, pointy ears, while Dien was trying to figure out what Eisen just said.
"W-Wait, what do mean? You two are some of those that peaked?"
"Mhm, we are. You can believe it, or not, and I don't really care right now. I just want you to hand me over that shard. I know that you can't leave it lying around somewhere." Eisen said quite bluntly as he extended his hand forward with his palm upward before Dien and Xenia looked at each other with frowns.
"I'm waiting. Just give it to me." Growling slightly impatient, and feeling like something was somehow wrong, Eisen looked over at Xenia, who quickly sighed and shook her head.
"He doesn't have it anymore, sorry. And before you freak out, we know who has it, he's just kind of out of our range right now. As in, he's too dangerous to attack, or even to talk to." She explained before Eisen formed a fist and let his arm drop.
"What do you mean? Someone stole the shard? There's a curse on it, and no matter where the shard is, it will always return to one person as long as they are alive. Or rather, because of the quest I have, I can also take them away."
"It's exactly the reason because it's cursed. We'll explain it to you, as long as you stop scaring Dien. He's kind of timid." Xenia chuckled, before Dien wanted to protest, but stopped after seeing Eisen's face as the old man was sitting down with a loud sigh.
"Fine. I can tell Dien is not a bad kid, and it's just going to take me a while to get used to him." Eisen said, before Dien slowly raised his hand, trying to say something.
"E-Erm… could you not treat me as a kid? I'm 60 years old…" With a wry smile, Dien explained, before Eisen only gave him a single glance. "Fine, you're not a kid. That doesn't matter now, though, so please, explain to me what's going on."
After Eisen asked this, Xenia did just that and began to explain the rough situation that was going on in Handor, and who seemed to have the amulet's shard. Apparently, there were some underground organizations in this town, as one may expect considering the sheer size of Handor.
One of the largest and probably most dangerous one was simply something like an 'outpost,' as Xenia described it, being placed there to keep track of such a famous city. Not even minding the implications that the main organization was something far more dangerous, the High-Elf continued to explain the situation with the Leader of that outpost.
There was not much known about him in regards to his age and race, but a few things were certain. He was a specialized shaman that dealt in using cursed items to fight. Or rather, he used cursed items to wreak havoc.
Not only did he create cursed items and distributed them amongst low-level criminals, but was also able to manipulate the effect of already existing cursed items. For example, if he acquired a cursed item that would suddenly grow spikes on your skin, he would be able to manipulate this to let spikes grow out of every surface in his immediate vicinity. And as such, now that he had an item with such potent and unique curses such as the shard, there were a few specific problems.
"First, the 'return' curse you talked about, using that, he has been able to ensure that nobody could flee from him as he was hunting down those he wanted to bestow the 'fear' curse onto them. He was even able to make it so that those mindless, fear-ridden people that started attacking everyone and everything around them were able to use a minor version of that 'return' as well, only making it so that people had a harder time running from them. And not only that, but he's been placing that 'fear' curse into regular items, creating immensely horrible variants that can birth horrible creatures that will instill pure fear on those around them." Xenia explained slowly, immediately leaving Eisen to think of a single item, that he had just picked up a little while ago.
After burrowing through his pockets for a while, he then found the black seed that he found at the bottom of the flowers before, slowly holding it forward toward Xenia. "Something like this?"