We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The cavern echoed with the drip-drip of stalactite moisture, punctuating the footsteps of three scouts advancing through the gloom. Two armored men led the way-the first bore a recurve bow and a weathered quiver, his companion hefting a bastard sword as long as a man's leg. A lantern dangling from the swordsman's neck cast ghostly blue light, revealing jagged walls that seemed to breathe in time with their progress. Behind them drifted a young woman swathed in obsidian robes, her witch's hat brushing the floor as she clutched a staff crowned by a crimson gemstone. Though her companions moved with veteran wariness, her knuckles whitened around the wood.
"Carther..."
The archer knight turned his head towards her direction.
The mage said in a nervous tone, sediment over the uncomfortable darkness around them.
"Are you sure this was a good idea?"
"I just wanna get out of here as soon as possible."
The knight slowed down he's footworking to walk and equal sight next to her as he put his hand on her shoulder to comfort her.
"It's all fine Helga, you've got an archer and a knight from the Solis kingdom with you."
The knight respond's with a bright smile that puts one at ease without a care in the world.
"Thanks to your Mathix, we've never been this close before."
"It won't be long now until the
"R-Right…"
As out of sudden the gem began to glow both saw by the knight and mage as they stopped. The mage let out a short gasp.
"Embrace yourself!"
"The imperial dungeon is going through its territorial conversion again!!!"
The mage said as out of admonition for her party mates. The dungeon rumbles as the walls of rock's around them shifting place's moving backwards into the pit of darkness that surrounding the party.
The tunnel walls groaned, grinding sideways like tectonic plates. Helga using her Mathix, slamming her palm against the rock-veins of light spiderwebbed from her fingers.
"Print"
She spoke out as a etching glowing map mid-air appears from numbers.
The archer and the knight took out both their weapary as the mage ready herself with her staff.
"Everybody on your guard for ambush!"
The knight said as his latern was the only shimmer of light visible in the darkness. The echo's that was he
"Where should we go, Helga?"
Helga responds with a nervous tone in her voice.
"I can't see anything anymore, all sense of horizontal directions is gone…"
"We've gone too deep…"
The glowing map fade's away as she put her hand up again from the ground.
"It seems that the horizontal axis around us and the ceiling positioned themselves from us as far the eye can see."
"The monster's in the dungeon's have clear visual eye sight in the darkness, anything could happen here putting us in a heavenly disadvantage now."
"The best we can do now is using Helga's coordinate Mathix to get us back to the surface-"
The archer accumulated the situation before the Knight responding
"No!"
"We're almost there, we can make it."
"If we fail now, we will be the laughing stock of the Solis kingdom!"
"I'd rather die until than!"
The archer expressed with anger facing towards the knight as he than grabbed his scarf and pulled him towards himself. Facing him eye to eye
"Fine than!"
"You can stay here and die for all I care while me and Helga are retreat this Dungeon mission."
The archer yelled out to the knight.
"Cabbel, Gine…"
"Please stop, this is not the time to fight-"
The mage tried to calm her teammates down until…
"Is that fresh meat I hear..?"
The room temperature turned ice cold with a tone coming from the darkness that froze their very souls. A demonic voice that shakes your entire essence. Their face expressed with fear and they slowly looked at the direction from the sound.
"Ah… it's been so long I've come to the living world…"
As of sudden two fireiry eyes appear in the shadows glowing.
"I gotta thank you, you poor souls that you have awoken me."
The figure slowly stepped out of the shadow.
It appeared with a monstrous deformity defined as a 8ft long human-like musculare shaped body with grey thorned skin and claws on its hands and feet. Teeth as sharp as that of a shark with long puffy white hair that covers his entire back. Eyes as red as that could burn your soul when stared too long. A grin as wide as it can open as far as a normal human's cheek bones.
All three of the adventures tear as their body compact together as they have never felt this much fear in their life. It was as if they were staring at something that was more than just monster or a demon.
"I am Afarit…"
"As you… have noticed…"
"I am not… like you…"
"This… form…draws too much attention…"
"I'll need one…of your…body's…as my vessel to roam in your world…"
He raised his head higher as his eyes glow bigger.
"But…"
"I won't be able to do that when your soul is within your body's…"
"So…"
Afarit looks at the knight with the sword. His eyes crossed with his as then the knight's worries fade as if falling into a trance that turned his eye pupil's red. He let his guard down as he walked towards Afarit.
"I'll have one of you…"
"NO! CABBEL!! STAY AWAY FROM HIM!!!"
The archer grabbed the mage stopping her from going after him.
"No! Dont!"
"We have to get out of here immediately!"
The archer reached into the mage's pocket and pulled out a blue gemstone
"Cabbel is a lost cause now!"
"We have no choice!"
The archer yelled out reasoning with the mage as she still struggled against the archer trying to save her friend.
"I'm sorry Cabbel, but you brought this on yourself."
The archer crushed the gem, as a blue cloud escaped the gem and covered both as the last thing with the last sound coming from the mage before disappearing.
"CAAAABBELLLL-"
Both Gine and Helga were able to escape leaving the possessed Cabbel alone with the mythological jinn. Afarit stares at the empty space where the archer and mage were. They espaced his grasp and leaving the hypnotised knight behind.
"No matter…"
He's head turned to the direction back to the knight as he rose his arms, placing his left hand and grabbed a hold of his jaw and the other hand on the top of his head. The knight followed his direction as a mindless zombie. The fire within the lantern on the knight's necklace was slowly dying out
—then silence.
The swordsman stood alone, lantern guttering, as crimson eyes kindled in the void.
"Gratitude, little mortals,"
Purred the thing that was not a thing, its voice flaying sanity.
"This shell... will suffice."
A loud crack echoed across the entire dungeon.
Darkness swallowed all—
…
"We arrived here!!!!"
Zane grinned, his voice brimming with theatrical flair. Tekka blinked as the kingdom unfolded before her-cobbled streets lined with brick-and-iron townhouses, their facades studded with glowing runes. The people moved in a swirl of anachronisms merchants in doublets haggling over wrist-bound holograms, a knight adjusting his gauntlet to check a pocket watch. It was as if centuries had collided and decided to share a drink.
"Welcome to Solis kingdom!"
"Ruled by king Raumus and home to many adventures and guilt's around here."
"I'm confused."
Tekka said observing the town with an questionable look.
"Why do different place's look like they're from different period's of historical time and other places look more modern."
"Like those two guys you beat look had gadgets with them that would look black magic to people from the mediaeval times."
Zane laughs at Tekka's remark about the systematics on this world.
Zane's grin widened.
"Keen eye, Tekka. Time here doesn't play by your world's rules."
"You see this world we live in is called ROX."
"ROX is so big, too big dare I say with its many countless kingdom's, empire's, civiliansation's and even world's themselves."
"Rox isn't just a planet. It's a... collision Kingdoms from every when and where get pulled in. Sometimes whole worlds."
A samurai bargained with a steam-punk merchant while a child in neon robes skipped past.
"See that?"
"History's not a line here. It's a soup."
Tekka blinked.
Zane's smile turned wry.
"Here, you might meet Julius Caesar buying coffee from a cyborg. Or your own great-great-grandkid."
"That's..."
She stared at her hands, as if checking for wrinkles.
"Terrifying and insanely cool."
"Oh, it gets better."
He leaned in.
"Ever heard of Barzakh?"
"Barza-what?"
"It means separation. Where things—or people-get snatched from their own flow of time and non-interacting worlds and stuck here. Heroes, villains, lost cities.."
He shrugged.
"Why do you think nothing here makes sense?"
Tekka's eyes lit up.
"So you're saying...you're from one of those places too?"
Zane flicked her nose.
"Guess you'll find out."
Tekka said clearly interested in the systematics on this world and learn new things about it.
"So if people come from different time periods, does that mean you too?"
Tekka asking Zane about it
"Wait"
Tekka blinked.
"You're... how old?"
Zane plucked a coin from her ear—an ancient drachma with Alexander's face.
"Let's just say I miss decent olive oil."
Zane started to run up ahead of Tekka and turning his head towards her from behind
"Come on, it's up ahead follow me."
Tekka flinched as she noticed the hasty behaviour of Zane all of a sudden.
"Hold wait-"
She tried to catch up with him until she bumped into an old man. Dropping his walking stick on the ground letting.
"Oh sorry, here let me pick this up for you."
Tekka picked up the walking stick and gave it to the man. At first glance she didn't notice his appeared until she got a clearer look. The old man was wearing a white coat, had a chevron moustache and grey hair pointing to all directions. He had a bent back with one arm behind it as he got his walking stick and was standing right again.
"Thank you, young lady..."
The old man said in a Germanic accent
Tekka's eyes wide at the shock of coming face to face to a man famously known by her world and is in utter speechless. The old man laughs at Tekka's expression.
"Ohoho"
"What's wrong?"
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
"You seem, like a young adoring lady full with admiration for adventure right?"
"Let me give you some advice."
The old man than started to walk right passed as Tekka's eyes still following him.
"Don't ever forget that the universe does not entail the questions it poses. Solely curiosity grants us the possibility of attaining understanding, and imagination allows us to contemplate the infinite. With humility one learns that the universe is not here to be tamed, it is here to be wondered at."
She watches the old man's back as he walked away step by step as his words echoed with her mind until-
"Hey Tekka!"
She woke up with a slight shock as she looked at the direction Zane went to as he was calling for her.
"You still coming or what?"
"Yeah!"
"Hold on!"
She looked back again at the direction where the old men went but then disappeared between that slight moment.
"Was that the real-?"
Zane took her arm and was pulling on to her
"You're way too slow, we gotta work on that later."
Tekka was being dragged along by Zane.
"OW! OW! OW! OW!"
"Don't pull so hard!!!"
After a long drag across the rich kingdom, they've arrived a gate way tunnel with stairs directing beneath under ground. The gate way was surrounded by bricks as their was a guard sitting on a chair sleeping with his arm's crossed. The guard had armour with with a sun mark on it, his spiky hair waving in the air and was snoring at his work.
Zane walked over towards the guard, putting his feet on the side of the chair and kick him with the chair on the ground.
"WOWOWO—"
The guard fell from his chair and landed with his back on the ground, immediately awaken from Zane's kick.
"Ugh?! Hey asshole did that you can't do that to an elite guar!-"
The guard was yelling angry until his green emerald eyes landed on Zane, and stopped him from finishing his sentence.
"O-Oh!!"
"M-My apologies Zane-dono!"
He immediately got up and did several respectful bows as apology.
Zane waved his with a nonchalant expression.
"Its fine Taurus, I liked kicking you off the chair in your sleep at your duty."
The guard let a "ehhh" sound of awkward of embarrassment.
The guard then landed his eyes on Tekka and was taken a back from her vast beauty.
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa-
He let out as he turned completely red as a swoop went to her holding her hands with heart shaped eyes as he spoke out of nervousness
"H-HI!!!!!"
"I AM TAURUS!"
"ONE OF THE ELITE GUARDS OF THE SOLIS KINGDOM!!"
"ARE YOU AN ANGEL SENT FROM HEAVEN???"
Tekka was complete flabbergasted as Taurus was shaking her hands up and down not knowing what he was doing as he was blinded by the looks of Tekka as if he never seen a woman in his life
"H-Hi?"
She said with an raised eye brow not knowing what to say with Taurus's hyperactivity as Zane gave him a karate chop on the head to bringing him back to his sense's.
"Ouch!"
"Taurus, stop drooling over my companion here and do your work already."
Taurus covered his had from the pain of Zane's chop with slight tears in his eye.
"Alright alright fine"
Taurus cleared he's throat as he stood by his posistion at the gate.
"My sincere apologies for my behaviour"
He gave another bow as he stood right back up, seemingly to be in a more professional behaviour again.
"Like I said before, I am Taurus."
"I'm a one of the elite guards of the Solis Kingdom."
"I guard the gate of the imperial dungeon, for those who are brave enough to enter it."
"Are you here to enter the gate?"
Zane responds
"My companion here Tekka is, she's here to get her Mathix awaken."
"Wait…"
Tekka said in her mind
"I'll get my Mathix awakened? Can I actually do it? I guess if it made me more stronger then I'll just have to go for it…But…"
Tekka looked at Zane with a worried expression.
"You're not coming with me are you?"
Zane looked back at Tekka
"Huh?"
"Of course not, what's the point of getting stronger if I'm always here to hold your hand?"
Tekka couldn't fight with that logic but still
"But I'm still a regular person, what am I supposed to do if I get caught up in danger there?"
Zane gave an immediate answer.
"That's why I got you this."
He tossed her a bag as she catches it. It was a small white bag with rope gaping the hole of the bag.
"What's this?"
She wanted to take a peak in it until Zane stopped her by covering his hand on the hole.
"Don't look in it just yet, wait until you need it in the dungeon alright?"
Tekka looked up to Zane as she nodded, surprised by his mysterious behaviour on what's inside the bag.
"Alright then, I trust your word for it, I guess I'll see you at the flip side then…"
She tied the bag to her belt facing Taurus as she walked up to him and looking straight at him.
"I'm Tekka Ishuwa, and I'm here to enter the Imperial Dungeon."
Taurus had a slight blush on his face as she came close to him.
"A-Alright!!"
He said closing his eyes and grunting his teeth trying to hide his embressed blushing as he stepped aside the straircase.
"Goodluck warrior, may the all seeing one guide you through the darkness in the dungeon."
He said as he welcomed her to the dungeon.
Tekka nodded as she walked forwards into the dungeon. Zane watches her going until he calls her one last time before enter. But in her heart, she still worry's. Worrying about the future that holds to her. Can she really do it? Does she really have what it take's? Even though she can't currently make magic fire fists or make objects appear with numbers she thought to herself. Is she really strong enough to go through this?
"Tekka!"
She stopped for a moment as she turned her head towards Zane.
Zane had a slight expression moment as he was thinking to say before smiling gracefully.
"Just believe in your self okay?"
"You'll face a few challenges, but trust that you can do it."
Zane spoke as he gave her a thumbs up with a wink and said
"That's a Zane-tificet for you!"
Tekka snickered at the last sentence and corny words.
"I got you."
She said as she looked forwards again and disappeared into the darkness. With determined eyes, Zane's word was just the thing she needed to take those confident steps into the dungeon. It's her start to her long journey that awaits her. To where it all will begin.
Taurus look towards from behind her back as she left as he says.
"Oh man, what a babe."
Zane grumps as he gave Taurus another karate chop on the head.
"Keep your eyes to yourself will ya Taurus, and don't sleep on the job too."
Zane said, Taurus covers his head again.
"Come on Zane-dono!"
"You can't treat a Elite guard like that."
Taurus spoke until his watch started beeping, Zane noticing it too as Taurus checked his watch and pressed it. A hologram came out visualising another person who wears the same armour but large and more assast to it as Taurus. A man with a forked beared and a angry expression.
"C-Captain Lumberjack?!"
Taurus saluted with a scared expression not expected to get a call from his captain at this time.
"GUARD TAURUS!!!"
The captain yelled at the guard as he pitched his eyes from the loud sounds coming from his watch.
"YOU WERE SLEEPING AT POSISITION AGAIN WERENT YOU?!"
"N-N-N-NO SIR!"
The guard responds back. The captain was clearly not happy about his subordinate's sloppy behaviour at work, leaving a groan out as he said.
"We'll talk about it later, the king requests you to bring Zane to him. At this moment right now!"
"Zane-dono?"
Zane eyes flinch slightly open but not really surpised expression.
"Raumus-san needs me?"
"I guess it can't be helped."
Zane starts pushing Taurus at haste.
"Come on, can't let the king waiting, I swear you people are so slow."
"Hey!"
"Come on, you can't treat a elite guard of Solis kingdom like that!"