Odd Mountain

It is respectively the next morning already. After Ashenn and company arrived at the old and weathered two story house, all they did yesterday was to check it's perimeter as far as possible while gathering sticks and wild fruits and berries at the same time.

"Wake up grandmaster! We're gonna go exploring!" Gram shouted as he pulled the quilt covering Ashenn's body. But Ashenn retaliated and is able to retrieve his quilt back. He covered it to his body again before saying:

"Uggh, I still haven't bathed yet." Ashenn reasoned in a still drowsy tone while gesturing his hands to Gram to go away.

"Irrelevant, come on, get up. We will pause on securing this mountain and instead check the weird mountain for now." Gram explained while pulling Ashenn's arm. Upon hearing this, Ashenn shot up and sat as he asked:

"Huh? Why?" Ashenn asked as he finally looked at Gram.

"Just trust me on this one." Gram said, forming his hands into a 'one' while winking at Ashenn.

"Ugghh... fine." Ashenn said in defeat.

"Get prepared, we'll wait for you downstairs. We're gonna have a long walking and trekking to do, so hurry up." Gram informed as he walked away, his voice fading and fading, until none can be heard.

After a few minutes, Ashenn came out of his room and went downstairs. After meeting with Gram and Thorvaldsen, the three of them left for the odd mountain.

*****

At The Foot Of The Mountain

Only when the sun had graced Ashenn and company of it's presence did the party itself finally reached the foot of the mountain. Once there, Ashenn and company stopped for a bit to make a raft, it is to be used to cross the river that is separating them from the odd mountain.

Once they're done making it, the trio continued on their journey, with the raft inside Ashenn's storage ring.

'Why do we have to do this anyway? I wanna sleep so bad.' Ashenn thought to himself as he tried his best to keep his self awake while walking.

'Can't we just fly on swo-' Just as Ashenn was midway on climbing past a fallen tree trunk, his thoughts made his movements stop as he contemplated more.

'What? Sword flight doesn't exist in this world? How come?' He pondered more before finally completely climbing and going down the tree trunk. But his thoughts still fully occupied him as he walked.

'I can't believe such things didn't exist in this world.' He disappointingly thought.

'Wait... or maybe... it doesn't exist YET.' Ashenn thought to himself, his lips curling into a grin.

But Ashenn's thoughts were interrupted by the appearing view of the river. So he just set aside the thought for now and concentrated on the journey at hand.

After getting near the river, Gram and Thorvaldsen looked at Ashenn, wherein Ashenn nodded at them and waved his hands, making the crudely made raft drop on the river.

After boarding the raft and crossing the river, the trio walked for an hour or more before finally arriving at the foot of the weird mountain.

Upon arrival, the trio stopped and rested for a little while. After a few minutes of resting, the trio readied and started inspecting the weird mountain. Just a few steps though, the trees started to change, from the lively and luscious green trees, into wet, soggy and big looking trees, they were inside it's weird forest now.

Seeing this, the trio nodded at each other before taking more steps, this time more cautious.

But after quite some time of walking and looking around, the trio found nothing but spanning wet rainforest.

"Why are we here anyway?" Ashenn finally decided to break the long dominating silence.

"All you just see here is weird stuff." He added as he cringed in disgust at the sight of a yellow goo stuck on the trunk of one of the rainforest tree.

"Indeed grandmaster... But you see, in my cultivation days, the weirder a place is, the greater the treasure will come out of it." Gram lessoned to Ashenn, passing his shrewd and unspoken wisdom to his grandson.

"Yeah right." Ashenn said, agreeing sarcastically as he rolled his eyes.

But because he was looking at Gram and not on his path instead, he tripped on a hard object hidden under the thick vegetation.

"Owww!" Ashenn reacted as he sat up.

Seeing this, Gram and Thorvaldsen rushed to help Ashenn stand up. But Ashenn only signaled his hands to them to stop, saying that he can stand on his own, in which the two people did.

As Ashenn stood up, Gram was about to ask him if he's okay when he suddenly caught sight of a shining object on the ground where Ashenn tripped.

Curious and excited, Gram proceeded and picked up the shiny object. It was a... trowel! And a rusty and wetheared one at that.

"A trowel?" Ashenn asked as he looked at the object that tripped him.

"Obviously." Gram said as he attentively inspected the trowel. Ashenn can only roll his eyes again.

"Go check the surroundings, we may find something else." Gram said, throwing the trowel in an open ground not blocked by vegetation before carefully inspecting the bushes around him, the two can only follow suit.

After quite a bit some time, a shout can be heard inside the thick rainforest.

"There's a bucket here!" Shouted Thorvaldsen as he raised the copper bucket that is just in the same condition as the previous trowel.

"Put it next to the trowel and continue checking for more!" Gram responded, still checking on the surrounding. Thorvaldsen then proceeded and put the bucket near the trowel and continued looking.

Ashenn who is the farthest from them however, was standing still, petrified in contemplation as he examined a 'too smooth to be part of the mountain' stone wall that is covered in vines and overgrowth.

"You might want to see this!" Ashenn finally shouted after coming to a decision that this is definitely not normal so the wise 'treasure master' should appraise it.

After about almost a minute, Gram and Thorvaldsen finally found Ashenn, so they approached him, with the bucket and trowel in hand.

Gram was about to ask Ashenn about what he saw but when he promptly looked at where Ashenn was looking, he was shocked.

"Is that... a door? We actually found somethi- uhhh, I mean ofcourse we found something. I definitely know we would find something." He said, making Ashenn look at him with a cringed look.

Cough... Cough... "Uhhh, Thor remove the vines on that smooth wall." Gram said after making a few 'let's change the topic' coughs.

"Yes advisor." Thorvaldsen responded and immediately got to work.

After quite a few minutes, Thorvaldsen finally managed to clear most of the vines and overgrowth. Making the once hidden stone wall finally reveal it's majestic and big stone door self.

Even though it looked as if it has seen many wonders in this place, the stone door still has this sturdy and strong aura with it. The only thing that is eye catching on the stone door, well it was actually pretty much the only thing on the stone door, was the big engraving of a what seems to be a crest. The crest was only composed of a what seems to be a crown made up of leaves. It actually looks like something that came out of ancient greece or rome.

"That's..." Gram muttered to himself.

"You something about this grandfather?" Ashenn asked after he heard Gram.

Hearing Ashenn's question, Gram can only smile helplessly while looking on the ground before saying:

"My past has come to haunt me..." Gram almost inaudibly said, but as almost immediately he said so, he looked at Ashenn and said:

"I need to go somewhere... We will rest here for a bit and head back already." He said with a stern expression before walking near a big rock, but just as he was about to sit, he stopped and turned around to Ashenn before saying:

"And call me advisor!" He shouted as he tossed the copper bucket to Ashenn for him to hold, and finally proceeding to sit.

At that, Ashenn and his company rested for a while right at the front of the stone door. In their rest, Ashenn was explained to by Gram that Gram needs to go to a far place to meet a friend and bring him to the stone door. It is because it has a high probability that he is connected to the crest engraved on the stone wall. And even though Ashenn tried and tried to ask how he will even travel when he doesn't even know where he is, he will only always get the same answer, which is:

"Give me 200 gold coins and you can leave everything to me." So Ashenn can only helplessly agree and promised to give the 200 gold coins once he departs.

What they also did in their rest was they tried to bust the stone door open every now and then. But after several failed attempts, they can only leave, with the rusty and unusable trowel and bucket in hand.

The trio managed to retrace their way back without any danger and mishaps. By the time they got to their house, the sun has already dipped into the horizon.

Upon entering the house, the company is welcomed by the two other slaves who had also just finished doing their job, which is to collect sticks and wild fruits and berries while the three are gone.

After eating their dinner, everyone proceeded to their respective rooms and slept the night. But for Gram, it was a busy night, as he was packing for his journey long tomorrow.