With the additional light, the details that had been painted on the walls became clear, as well as the fact that the city had most likely not met with a peaceful end.
There were scorched spots on the walls, and some cuts in the stone that Karl had originally mistaken for tooling marks were actually weapon strikes.
That gave the area a very different feeling than simply being abandoned for many years, and the two intruders began to move with a bit more caution as they followed the soul energy towards its source.
The tunnel ended in what looked like a forge district, the furnaces long dormant. However, the buildings were intact, and Karl took the opportunity to look inside a few to see what he could find.
The first was completely bare, nothing but a stone shell, but the second had a forge left in it, covered in magical writing.
“I will need a moment before we move on. I have never seen anything like that before.” Karl whispered to Nacht.
[Good call. Brother Hawk will love me for writing these runes down for him. I don’t know what they do, but if they’re in a forge, they should all be fire related, right?] Remi agreed.
The dragon waited patiently, well aware of the curiosity of humans. Karl was also very young, and he wouldn’t be familiar with Dwarven Forge Runes. It wasn’t something that they taught in school, and Nacht didn’t know if there were any Dwarves left in his nation. Before the thought crossed his mind, he hadn’t cared. Who lived in the Golden Dragon Nation was of no concern to him.
The signs of battle had been everywhere in the city as they travelled, but the houses had been carefully vacated, and there were no signs of the destruction that usually came with looting. There were no broken housewares or low-value items, and even the paintings on the walls had been removed and not left damaged or discarded.
Perhaps whatever battle had caused the Dark Iron Dwarves to leave the city was not a losing battle, after all. It might have simply been infeasible for them to continue living here.
Nacht gestured left. “It’s that way, through the opening in the stone and further up toward the peak.”
Karl followed Nacht through the city once Remi had finished copying all the runes she could see. The ramp spiralled up to another layer of the city, laid out much like the one they had just departed, only this level appeared to be more residential and less industrial. There were also fewer signs of battle here, and more signs of belongings left behind, both in the houses and in carts by the doors.
The soul energy was on this level, and Karl could see it glowing from its source. It wasn’t moving, and it wasn’t pulsating at all, just a steady glow of immense internal power.
As they approached, Karl saw that the power was coming from a stone sarcophagus, but not one for the Titan Demigod that Prince Corbin had expected to be here. The entire stone box was less than two metres long, though it was on a much larger pedestal, surrounded by stone pillars that were covered in runes and beautiful carvings.
That was when progress became difficult.
Every step forward that Karl tried to take seemed to put an increasing strain on him. Not a physical pressure, but a mental one, crushing his soul and attempting to break his will.
He knew that if he slipped up just a little, he would instinctively take a step back, and that would probably be the end of his progress.
“Well, this is an unexpected challenge.” Nacht noted as he strode towards the grave with his hands behind his back.
“Oh? It doesn’t look all that difficult to me? You’ve certainly got an easy time of it.” Karl replied.
“While that is true, I can’t touch it. I have the protection of the Black Dragon, God of Death. My soul is immune to attack. However, that means I cannot subject it to the attack of this trial to find out what it is supposed to do.
I will have to watch your struggle and see if you can make it close enough to touch the stone that is set on the lid.
If you can manage that much, you should receive a significant reward. There are immense amounts of divine energy in this place, waiting for someone to pass the trial and activate it.”
Karl continued to walk forward, completely focused on not letting the pressure drive him to the ground, as he moved past the point that it was simply trying to force him away.
“Fascinating. Your soul is compressing under the pressure.” Karl didn’t even hear Nacht’s words. He was completely focused on the task at hand. From the outside, it would look ridiculous, a grown man staggering down the street like he was drunk. But the normally invisible force was far stronger than anything Karl had ever felt. Even the aura that the Emperor of Newbon emitted when he was enraged wasn’t close to this powerful.
Karl wished that he had Thor here with him. His stalwart friend would know the best way to get across the road to his destination.
Karl nearly stumbled as he moved from the cobblestone street to the soft gemstone gravel surrounding the tomb. Resting with his hands on his knees as he leaned forward, Karl saw the target, a large white opal stone. It was the source of the energy, and if he could just put a hand on it, he should have completed the trial. ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com
“Just a little further. Today will be a good day, I can sense it.” Nacht chuckled, excited to find out what sort of trial they had been sent to that could accept a dragon of his power.
It was absurd to think that someone had set a trial capable of accommodating Totems, unless this place was truly a Legendary Relic. But here he was, and although he couldn’t fully partake because of his affiliation with the God of Death, he was still part of the trial.
Karl could feel his mind beginning to shatter as he took another step forward, but Remi, who was unaffected by the trial in her space, was singing as she worked on potions, and that was just enough to ground him and keep Karl moving.
A final step, and millimetre by painstaking millimetre, he extended his hand to the Opal.
[Trial Successfully Completed]
[Calculating Rewards]