Chapter 5

The castle certainly was a large one, with plenty of space to move and look around. Many rooms could be seen just by walking up the stairs, this place would definitely take some time to search, thankfully it seemed empty aside from the wind whistling through open windows.

Ryder stands at the top of the stairs, gazing at the hanging banner across the way.

Amidst the deep blue of the banner a single red flower decorated it, standing alone amongst the sea of fading color. It was odd, if the banner was anything like a coat of arms then why? Why a singular flower and nothing else

Ryder couldn’t understand an inkling of whatever story was happening here. He felt like a stranger lost in an even stranger world, forced to live his days out here because of one little mistake.

Yet for as confusing as it was, this world was beautiful in its own right. Hauntingly so in areas like this and the temple.

“To think this could only be the beginning…” Ryder mumbles to himself absentmindedly.

“I know right? We haven’t even really beat a story boss yet, or made it to the mainland!” Lily cheerily comments as she walks up to him, her usual kind smile plastered on her face. “Still looking at that banner? What’s got you so hooked on it?”

“Nothing too important, just find it odd that there’s only a flower on it.” Ryder crosses his arms. “Usually a coat of arms has more details… like some kind of animal, a shield, something like that y’know?”

“Oh! I know!” Lily exclaims. “Maybe the person who lived here really liked that flower so that’s why they used it! Like one big cloth painting!”

“I guess it could just be a giant tapestry or something like it… well do you know what that flower is?” Ryder asks, looking at her now.

“Nope, not a single clue! It is very pretty though.” Lily replies honestly before turning away. “Oh yeah, we mapped out most of the areas while you were standing here.” She reaches into her pocket and hands him a rather large piece of parchment.

As he looks over the map he’s rather surprised to see just how many rooms in this place are actually bedrooms. “Seriously? How many people were staying here before?”

She stops and thinks for a moment, trying to figure out the answer. “Well if we assign each person to one room? About twelve-ish, give or take… this entire second floor in the west wing is mainly just bedrooms save one room which seems to be a study.”

“Alright well what about the other areas then? I mean there has to be more to this place…” Ryder flips over the parchment to see it’s blank, all the rooms mapped out were on the front it seems.

“Well we know the first floor is a library, dining hall, kitchen, throne room and what looks to be a painting room.” Lily recalls the rooms before continuing. “The third floor appears to be mainly a gallery with old paintings and some strange journals, then there’s the floor below which we haven’t explored yet… and lastly the east wing and all higher floors seem locked right now.”

“I see, well what are Laurence and Eleanor doing at the moment?” Ryder looks down, eyeing the staircase leading below as he says this.

“Oh they’re reading through the journals and plan on looking through the library before heading to the bottom floor. Apparently this place used to belong to some veeeeeery important people.'' She makes sure to emphasize the importance of the history here, almost comically so.

Ryder turns and starts walking towards the stairs. “Well we can check out the bottom floor while they do that, speed things up a little.” he pauses and looks at Lily “That’s if you want to tag along.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I want to!” Lily casually hops over the railing and down to the first floor.

Shocked by this Ryder just blinks a few times, clearly very confused. “Seriously, how are you able to do stuff like that? I still don’t feel super comfortable sprinting full speed yet.”

“What? The jumping and stuff?” Lily asks, a little confused as she looks herself over. “I mean I've just gotten used to doing it. If you tell your body to do it then it will, plus the systems will help out as well.”

“Well it’s definitely impressive, like flipping and hanging off the wall during that fight with Tellius.” Ryder recalls the moment before looking at her again. “That’s not something I would've even thought of doing.”

“Of course not! You’re still treating this place like our world after all! You just gotta remember the same rules we’re used to don’t apply here.” Lily’s smile brightens. “Just think outside the box a little more and you’ll be doing amazing stuff in no time!”

“Think outside the box huh? I’ll be sure to give that a try more often.” he remarks before walking down towards a set of stairs leading to the bottom floor.

“Oh yeah, trust me it works wonders once you start doing that! It’s how I can do all sorts of cool stuff now.” Lily replies as she catches up and easily passes Ryder’s pace.

The two walk down the stairs and into a rather wide hallway with three doors.

A metal door to the right.

A sturdy but very very old wooden door to the left.

Lastly, oak double doors at the far end of the hall, the red flower emblazoned upon them.

“Well, I was expecting a little more down here.” Ryder says before walking over to the metal door and pushing it open.

The metal groans and scratches across the floor, though upon opening fully they can see that the inside of the room is what remains of an old armory.

Unrecognizable armors covered in dust, old blades that clearly haven’t been maintained, broken bows… just how long has this place been abandoned?

“Woah… think any of this is usable?” Lily asks as she strolls in and picks up an old dagger that proceeds to fall apart in her hands. She quickly sets it back down, acting as if she hadn’t touched it.

“Without someone like Radogan to tell us? Hard to say… I doubt even Eleanor would recognize half of these pieces.” Ryder slowly walks over to a sword on the far side of the room and stares down at it. “Heck I'm pretty sure most of them would just break if we picked them up wrong.”

“Yeah, that’s true… man and they looked so cool too-” Lily pauses as she turns around and looks at a weapon to Ryder’s left. “What is that?!”

Ryder looks to his left and spots a weapon that looks to be a greatsword mixed with a spear, it’s the only thing that doesn’t look ready to collapse. “Well just going off looks alone? I'm going to call it a sword-spear.”

“Very funny, but seriously what is it? And why is it so different from everything else?” Lily walks over and tries to pick it up, but can’t even move it an inch. “Why is it so heavy?!”

With a sigh Ryder walks over and places his hand on it, letting the requirements pop up. “That’d be why, it says it needs 35 strength and 40 dexterity.” he replies before letting go of it. “Something that none of us would have yet unless someone has managed to farm THAT much.”

Lily’s eyes go wide at the numbers, a look of pure shock and disbelief runs across her face. “The stats needed are that high?! What’s it doing here in the beginning area then?!”

“Who knows? Probably something to do with the area itself.” Ryder shrugs a little, getting ready to walk off before he notices Lily grab it again. “What are you-”

“Adding it to my inventory! I may not have the stats to use it but I can still carry it at least.” she looks at him slightly amused. “Did you forget about the inventory system?

“Hey in my defense i’m still a relatively new player, i’m still getting used to everything.” he reaches over as the spear was still there for him, as his hand hovers over it the weapon vanishes and a notification pops up confirming it being added to his inventory. “Is loot a player by player thing in this game?” Ryder asks, a bit surprised that he was still able to grab the spear.

“Well yeah, that way everyone can pick stuff up and use it, there’s no item that’s one of a kind… well the tome is, but that’s because the priest hasn’t respawned oddly enough.”

“Wait, he hasn’t? What boss is down there then?” a little bit of concern lingers on his voice as his thoughts trail off a bit.

Lily shrugs. “None, as far as we know bosses might be a single time thing… that or have a REALLY long respawn timer.” she crosses her arms now. “The priest hasn’t respawned yet and no one has found another boss down there yet, or a way past the locked door…”

Ryder thinks for a moment, a bit perplexed by the boss not respawning when regular enemies have. “Maybe he’s like an npc then? After all, npcs don’t normally respawn if you kill them.”

Another shrug before she just strolls towards the door. “Maybe, we’ll have to experiment with stuff and find out later.”

With that the two head back out into the hall and head over to the sturdy wooden door.

It creaks a bit but opens way easier than the metal door, swinging open with little problem.

Inside are two desks, a couple of chairs and what appears to be two to three jail cells.

“A prison?” he questioned as he walked in to examine closer, noticing the lack of any signs of life still.

“Well if this person was a king or noble they probably did hold some prisoners for a while, but it doesn’t seem like many.” Lily looks at the cells. “And they seemed to be decent to the prisoners at least.”

Inside the cells were small beds actually decorated with blankets and pillows, each cell had a small desk with an oil lamp on it as well.

All things considered they were definitely a bit nicer than the average fantasy prison either of them had seen.

“I doubt these even saw frequent use, especially considering they’d only be able to hold two people in each cell.” Lily replied as she looked at it.

“Not only that but it’s right next to the armory and something else.” Ryder looked back out into the hall. “If there was a really dangerous prisoner then they’d be at a big risk keeping them here.”

“Exactly.” Lily nods before walking to the desk and rummaging around. “I found some papers, they look to be sheets used for prisoners way back when… but they’re mostly just blank forms.”

As he searches the cells he casually calls out. “You see any that are filled out?”

“Yeah, but I can’t read them at all. It must be some really old version of the language as the system isn’t even attempting to translate it.” she grumbles as she shuffles around a few of the pages. There weren’t very many in her hands at all, it seems like if there were any prisoners it would only be these five that were recorded.

“Guess we’ll have to ask Laurence then, he might know.” Ryder calmly replied before turning his attention back to the hallway. “Come on, let’s check out the last room before heading back upstairs.”

The duo walk up to the odd double doors and try to push them open, surprisingly they are heavier than the metal ones, it takes both of them to get the doors to even budge.

Slowly but surely they begin to push them open, a mysterious blue light pouring out of the gap.

Soon the doors are opened and they’re greeted with a surprising sight.

The room is a dome, a false sky hanging overhead and darkening the walls around them.

In the center of the room is a circular wooden table with a blue glowing orb in the center, twelve chairs all seated around the table.

Notably each chair has their own different symbol, most making some sense.

A Sword.

A Shield.

A flintlock pistol.

But once again, in the center towards the opposite side of the door is the red flower emblazoned upon a larger chair.

“Oh I get it, it’s a round table! Just like all those old knight stories!” Lily says as she walks around examining the table. “I wonder what they were doing here then? This place doesn’t seem super important after all.”

“It may not seem super important now but it could’ve been important once upon a time.” Ryder says as he looks up at the illusory night sky, it’s vastly different from the temple’s. Both in color and star placement.

“It really is some kind of coded archive…” Ryder mutters, attracting Lily’s attention over to him.

She looks up at the illusory sky, confused she asks “How can you tell? All I see is just an ordinary night sky.”

“It’s different, none of the stars are in the same position at all, some are bigger and smaller as well. Not to mention all the colors are different, primarily leaning into blues instead of purples.” Ryder casually says as he looks closer.

“Seriously? I can’t tell at all.” Lily replies while trying to see what he sees. “How are you so certain?”

“I’ve got a pretty sharp memory.” Ryder says nonchalantly. “It’s not always useful but in cases like this it really helps.”

“That’s cool! Wait, so this is another archive?! We really need to find a way to translate them then! It could have some sort of amazing spell or hidden treasure!” Lily starts getting herself excited by the possibilities of what the archives could hold.

“Calm down, I get the idea of it is exciting but it’s probably nothing spectacular.” Ryder replies, examining the sky closer. “Archives in these games tend to only be cryptic information about the past after all.”

“Yeah that’s fair i guess.” Lily’s excitement drops noticeably at the reality check. She strolls over to the red flower chair and leans on it. “I doubt the temple or tome had anything that interesting in it either.”

As Lily leans on the chair a loud clicking noise is heard, a switch built into the chair had been accidentally activated.

The table begins to shift and part down the middle, revealing a hidden passage below as the glowing orb and night sky fade away. Stairs can be seen leading deeper down below.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Well, good job Lily.” Ryder smiles a little before heading down into the dark depths.

“Yeah, good job me!” she happily smiles before heading down the stairs behind him.

Whatever this place led to must’ve been the powersource of the magic in the castle, as the deeper they went the heavier the feeling of magic in the air got.

The stone also seemed old, far more weathered than anything up stairs, as if it was built long before the castle up top.

An indescribable feeling was welling up inside of them as they approached an old broken bronze door. It barely hung onto the hinges and looked like someone or something broke into the room.

Though whoever did must’ve been long gone, as no bodies were on the ground… only marks of a fight. Broken shields, scratches across the ground and walls, arrows littering the ground, even a few split helmets here and there.

“Just what happened here?” Ryder pulls out his longsword and carefully begins to scan the room, looking for any signs of life.

“Well clearly a fight of some kind, probably over that.” Lily says pointing at the end of the long room.

At the opposite end were two things, an odd pitch black anvil with glowing blue cracks on it, and a stone gateway that seemed to lead nowhere.

“Looks like it could’ve been a ritual room of some sort.” Lily says as she casually begins walking closer.

“Wait! Don’t you think this is weird? It’s a wide open space, clear signs of a battle, two very weird objects at the end… this is clearly a boss room.” Ryder says, hoping to get her to stop walking.

“Well if it is, it is! The only way to find out is by activating the boss and fighting whatever shows up!” Lily says without the slightest concern for her own safety.

“Are you kidding me?! We could DIE here!” Ryder replies both in anger and confusion as he walks up to her. “We need to prepare first-”

“Naaah, we’ll be fine… after all we beat that scary priest on our first try! So what’s the worst that could happen, especially in a room like this?” She motions all around them. “This room is only 10 feet tall at most, meaning our enemy can’t be gigantic again.”

Lily was right, the room couldn’t be taller than 10 feet tall and wide if anything it was probably closer to 12 or 14. The big trick was the length, easily 35 feet or longer.

An arena like this, the enemy was more likely to be a humanoid, probably 7 feet tall at most. Probably using something like a spear and magic to push all the enemies back.

If that was the case then a 2 v 1 wouldn’t be a terrible choice, if they were the right level that is.

“What if we’re not at the right level?” Ryder asks, still clearly weighing their options here. “After all, it doesn’t matter how skilled we are if this thing is that much higher level. We’d be one shot by every attack.”

“Easy answer to that then! Just don’t get hit and we’ll be just fine.” she happily smiles before strolling forward. “Besides, this is still the beginning of the game, we’ll be fine unless we somehow skipped most of the game.”

This was it, Ryder could feel it, this was where he was going to die. Underprepared and fighting a boss he had no clue even existed until a few moments ago, all because he decided to explore the mountain.

As they step forward the anvil seems to glow brighter before a ghostly figure appears before them.

A knight with dense looking armor that covered them from head to toe, clearly high quality work as well as there didn’t seem to be a noticeable weak point anywhere.

Their helmet was also seemingly well made but flashy, as it was modeled to look like some kind of bird’s skull, possibly that of a ravens.

A magnificent flowing cape made of feathers flowed behind them, almost appearing to be wings.

In their hand was the spear the two had found in the armory.

Amidst the tension a voice rang out in their heads, no it was more like words being beamed directly into their mind rather than a voice talking.

[Outlanders, in search of the end of all, leave this place now.]

[My Lord’s secrets are not for the likes of you.]

The knight raises their spear and points it at the two, making it clear that they’re not welcome here.

Lily quickly readies her own weapon and takes up a fighting stance, preparing for the oncoming battle.

“Sorry pal, but it looks like we’re not leaving yet, not until we can see what you’re guarding.” Ryder says, taking up his own fighting stance.

[Then your souls shall be devoured by the slumbering one.]

A burst of energy exits the knight, pushing Ryder and Lily back as the Knight readies themselves.

The boss fight begins as their title appears at the bottom of the hud.

[Echo of the Forgotten; Burial Knight]

In a surprising burst of speed the knight lunges forward, aiming to instantly skewer Lily as they thrust the spear towards her.

Reacting quickly Lily dodges out of the way, the spear just missing her by mere inches. Not wanting to waste a moment she throws a quick slash at the knight, only to be caught off guard as her blade passes through with ease.

The feeling was like a knife moving through water, there was little resistance but it still felt rather odd. It did still take a small portion off the health bar but if that’s how it is then there’d be trouble.

Without anything stopping their swings they’d be leaving themselves wide open with each attack, meanwhile the knight didn’t even flinch.

Quickly hopping back Lily begins to examine their options and piece together what to do.

“So, we’re really fighting a ghost then?” Ryder asks, not taking his eyes off the specter for a single second.

“Yeah, it’d seem that way.” She quickly pulls out a throwing knife, tossing it at the specter only for it to phase right through while taking a tiny sliver off the health bar.

“Attacks still count…” Ryder pauses for a moment before changing up his stance from his standard two handed to a more relaxed, one handed position. His free hand facing towards the knight.

Casually he raises his free hand as if sizing something up. “Let’s see if this works…”

Without warning the knight charges in once again, aiming for Ryder this time with a similarly quick attack.

However instead of dodging Ryder waits, letting the knight get closer and closer until the spear is close enough to see clearly. Then, at the last second he steps to the side, raises his right foot and stomps on the spear, his foot making contact and forcing the spear into the ground.

The knight may not have an incredibly solid body but the weapon is solid enough to make contact with.

Not wanting to waste this chance Ryder stabs the knight through the chest and rips the blade up through the helmet before jumping back up to safety. Dealing a good chunk of damage in that moment.

“You can do that?!” Lily practically yells in awe, having fully expected Ryder to take the full force of the attack.

“I guess so, figured now was as good a time to test as any.” Ryder replies, readying himself once again though clearly surprised it worked.

“So we just need to worry about the spear then! That makes things so much easier” she smiles before taking up a more relaxed fighting stance.

The Burial Knight recovers with no problem, spinning their spear a bit before getting ready to charge in again. They spin the spear and swing wide, aiming to hit both Lily and Ryder at the same time.

Ryder jumps back to avoid it, only getting grazed by the attack. Lily however flips over it, landing behind the knight. She swings with no remorse, going for a critical attack but only getting a strong attack off though still doing considerable damage.

Suddenly the Burial Knight vanishes, seemingly teleporting far away from them back to the anvil.

A pulse of energy erupts from the anvil, causing the knight to become covered in what looked to be a blue flame. The air got heavier as the mana seemed even denser now.

Quickly the knight coated their spear in the flames as well before sending a wave of fire at them.

Lily dodges through it, gracefully sliding through the flames using the invulnerability of the dodge to her advantage. Ryder meanwhile takes the attack head on, getting blasted by the blue flames.

Surprisingly though it didn’t burn, not in the traditional sense. It felt as though the fire bypassed his armor and latched onto his heart, searing it in a matter of seconds.

No, searing wasn’t the right word… but it was the closest he could describe it as.

The pain was excruciating but his health only dropped by a quarter.

Just what the hell was that attack?

Not wanting to be hit again he quickly stands up and begins rushing forward, hoping to get in before another wave.

As he runs in he notices Lily closing the distance without a problem as she begins to launch a flurry of fast knife swings at the Burial Knight. Though she does whittle their health down a bit she also takes a fair amount of damage, likely from the flames enveloping the specter.

Without warning the specter grabs Lily by the neck, lifting her high into the air before stabbing her through the stomach with their spear. A sickening tearing and burning noise being heard as they lift her higher before tossing her aside. Lily collides with the wall as a loud and meaty thud echoes throughout the room.

Ryder freezes up, completely mortified by what he just witnessed, his vision seems to get a bit shaky as his breathing picks up. His hands shake uncontrollably as he tries to prepare for the fight. Yet he couldn’t stop replaying what’d just happened in his head.

Though he wasn’t spared a moment as the specter quickly moved for him, rearing its hand back and chucking the spear at him full force like a javelin.

Only barely reacting in time allowed Ryder to roll out of the way of the attack, the blazing spear embedding in the ground next to him.

Just as he recovers he sees the spear vanish before appearing in the specter’s hands once more. It strikes quickly and without mercy as it thrusts the spear forward, aiming right for Ryder’s heart.

Only working on pure instinct he doesn’t dodge or move, instead opting to deflect the attack by lifting the spear with his own blade and launching it up. The specter is stunned as the spear flies out of their hands.

Following up the deflection he quickly lunges forward, tightly gripping his longsword with both hands and charging up the heavy attack. The winds howl wildly as he charges in, landing one successful heavy slash through the chest before quickly following it up with a second slash across the legs.

The specter falls to its hands and knees, surprised by the vicious combo, it looks up to Ryder who shows no mercy to them.

Instantly stabbing them through the helmet, and what would’ve been their head.

Ryder quickly removes his blade as the specter falls to the ground, finally defeated.

He lets out a sigh of relief as he tries to calm down only to be caught off guard as the sound of fire crackling doesn’t fade.

Upon looking over he notices the specter begin to stand back up and rear their arm back for another javelin toss. However they suddenly freeze as an arrow flies through their neck.

“You should’ve just stayed down.” Lily says from her position by the wall, a bow in her hands now.

The damage seems to have been enough to best the phantom though as it collapses to the ground, unable to move. Slowly they gaze up at Ryder, hatred clear in their barely visible eyes.

[You will never prevail, usurper… not so long as I persist.]

With those final words the knight vanishes in a burst of blue particles and lights, leaving nothing behind.

As the two notice their exp fill up they both collapse to the ground, breathing heavily and clearly exhausted.

“You survived?” Ryder asks as he looks at Lily, confusion painted on his face.

“Well yeah, attacks like that won’t be an instant kill here, not like the real world… Wait, you thought I was dead?!” she looks over to him, slightly upset. “Did you not see that my health bar was still in the red?!”

“No, I got a little focused on the fight…” he sheepishly admits, now noticing said health bar. “I suppose I tunnel visioned a bit.”

Lily sighs and lies down on her back. “Well, whatever I guess. At least we both survived that fight right?” she looks over to him with a smile. “Wasn’t that fun?”

Ryder rolls his eyes a little. “My definition of fun usually doesn’t involve getting killed, but I guess it was pretty exciting… yeah.”

She lets out a tired laugh at this but abruptly stops “nope, can’t laugh. It hurts to laugh right now.”

Now it was Ryder’s turn to laugh as he leaned back against the wall nearest to them. “Next time let’s get the others first, okay?”

Instead of responding Lily just lets out a tired groan and gives a thumbs up before letting her arm flop back to the ground.

“Here, use this.” Ryder says before tossing her a potion which she happily drinks down, quickly restoring her health.

However before she can thank him the sound of footsteps catches her attention as someone else walks towards the room.

“Are you guys in here-” Laurence’s voice echoes from the hall as he peaks in, stopping as he notices them and their health bars. “Well I'm going to assume you two got into a boss fight considering how you look.”

“Yeah, and it wasn’t fun.” Ryder lazily said, not bothering to look at Laurence.

“Well that explains why your health bars were lowered by chunks. Next time tell us where you went first.” Laurence says before tossing Ryder a health potion. “When you’re rested and done exploring, come upstairs, Demea’s here.”

“Wait what? I thought she was helping the beginners back in town.” Ryder replies before chugging his potion.

“Supposedly she found something important enough that she risked running through the forest on her own to get here.” Laurence shrugs. “She won’t tell us what it is until we’re all grouped up though.”

“Guess it really must be important then…” with a sigh Ryder forces himself to stand up. “Come on Lily, better not to keep them waiting.”

Lily groans as she stands up. “Can’t even rest for five minutes…”

Laurence rolls his eyes at this behavior before guiding them up out of the basement and towards the entrance.

It was a surprisingly quiet walk back up, neither Lily nor Laurence uttered a single peep as they walked through the halls.

The only noise being made was the echoing of their footsteps in this abandoned place.

Yet it had to hold something of great importance, if only for what that knight said.

This castle used to belong to a lord, that much is evident… but why were they important enough that, even after death, someone would still choose to guard this place.

Especially after it’d been left for who knows how long.

Then there was also that flower symbol everywhere, surely that had some deeper meaning as well right? Or who knows? Maybe Ryder was overthinking things, maybe the symbol was just there because the owner really liked flowers.

“There you two are! I’ve been waiting here for hours-” Demea yells as she sees the trio emerge from the bottom floor.

“It’s only been minutes…” Eleanor meekly responds as she stands behind Demea.

“Well whatever, time isn’t important right now! What is important is the information I managed to decipher here.” Demea responds before pulling out the tome and a notebook. “It took me a lot of time with no sleep to decipher it but I managed to get part of it done.”

“Only part?” Ryder asks as he crosses his arms. “Is that one part really all that important?”

“From the message you sent I figured you got it completely done.” Laurence chimes in, looking a bit disappointed as he looks at her.

“Wait… we can send messages?!” Ryder asks, genuinely caught off guard by this.

“I’ll explain later, for now just tell us what you found please.” Lily cuts in, clearly wanting to get the show on the road.

Demea takes a rather deep breath to calm herself, clears her throat and begins. “Well I knew I recognized some of the writing, and that’s because the author wrote many other scriptures as well.” Demea produces another book now, one that’s clearly some kind of holy book. “Tellius, the last priest from the Forgotten Era. He was initially using his Lord’s knowledge to expand his life, so he could watch over the new generation.”

“Tellius was a good man, I was hoping that it really wasn’t him down below… but I suppose there’s no denying it any longer then.” Eleanor solemnly says. “What drove him to that point though? He was always a kind man, he even suggested we call the outlanders here!”

“That’s what I was getting to, on a private excursion to this mountain he found… something… his writing was too hastily written and he gives contradicting descriptions.” Demea shakes her head a bit, trying to clear her thoughts. “But what he describes is something luring him out to a balcony and drawing him off the edge.”

“Some kind of siren-like creature perhaps? Or maybe a ghost.” Laurence calmly states. “This place is haunted after all.”

“It could be but he doesn’t describe it as a creature like those things, no it’s something else. Something deeper, more primal… like it’s no longer you controlling your body.” Demea shakily describes as she looks over the tome, her mind racing a bit.

Everyone feels a tiny chill run down their spine at that, but most shrug it off as just crazy talk. After all, there’s no way such a phenomenon could happen, right?

“Well, what happens next?” Lily asks, her face showing a mixture of fear and excitement, like a kid hearing a ghost story for the first time.

“Well for a little context he’d apparently come here to study more of the texts, this castle once belonged to his Great Lord, or so he claims. After passing out mid study session he was awoken and ushered to the balcony where he was pulled over.” Demea pauses and sighs a bit. “And now here’s where things get complicated, he then describes falling into a tear and wandering around unfamiliar architecture for a long time until finding the exit with the help of his lord, or at least someone who felt like them.”

“Wait, so like he glitched out of bounds?” Lily asks, earning a slightly confused look from Eleanor.

“I have no idea, that’s all I have to go off of. However I do think this information is important enough that we should look into this place more.” Demea responds before placing all three books back in her bag. “As this is either a massive bug or a unique storyline.”

“How are you so sure? Could just be some simple backstory.” Ryder replies, not really believing this would go anywhere.

Looking at him a bit coldly, Demea quickly responds to his question. “Because Tellius was never supposed to be here, I know that for a fact.”

“Sorry, not trying to be rude but how exactly would you know that?” Lily asks, focusing heavily on Demea.

“Because.” Demea starts before sighing once more. “I was a developer for this game.”