Awakening (3)
From the sand, a black hand pierced through! It pulled itself upwards it was scraping at the top finding room so that it wouldn't slip.
It picked itself up and looked up at a gorgeous open, night sky. Stars as far as the eye could see. The shape of galaxies swirling millions of light-years away...
The skeleton as dark as night looked and felt completely mesmerized by the stars. It wanted to touch it... to feel it in its grasp.
It took a few minutes to snap out of its daze of longing. It pulled up its things. Loosely copied tying the sack on its rib cage and held onto the spear.
The skeleton looked at the desert. At night it was full of bright white sand. As if all the stars were placed on the ground, and conglomerated into hills...
It liked touching the sand... the way it felt through its hands and feet. This place is beautiful. It didn't know the word but it is what it felt.
The skeleton made its way across the dunes. There were no other creatures on the landscape. Besides the skeleton no longer held as deep a sense of wonder towards them as it once did.
It was still there, but it just could not stop looking at the sky...
So it walked... Wherever its sand-covered feet would take. The skeleton could feel the slight chill in the air but was unperturbed.
For hours the skeleton walked, completely directionless. There were a few interesting sights. Scorpions, snakes, and some sort of sand dolphin?
Mr. Skeletons' endless hours-long journey finally came to a stop when it came across the most curious thing.
A sandstone structure with amazing pillars and strange runic symbols. In a way, it resembled ancient Greek architecture.
The skeleton roamed around to find an entrance. And find one it did! A small gap underneath the sand. The skeleton made its way. At this point becoming a pretty proficient digger...
The inside was lit with torches the moment it entered.
-Fwoo~
-crackle
The wind blew and the fires crackled. The skeleton made its way through. When the first thing it sees is incomprehensible mumbo jumbo. It simply takes a right turn.
-Rattle
-Rattle
Its bones rattled as it walked, left, right then right and left and left, right...
Eventually, it somehow brought the skeleton brought back to the entrance. The skeleton was thrown off by this. How did it get back here?
This time the skeleton went in the opposite direction until... It reached a dead end. On the wall was an interesting symbol of a being with wings.
It was about to step forward but a sense of danger felt under its foot. It didn't know why but it knew, it should not step forward!
It carefully avoided stepping there. It turned around and went in another direction. It came to a few dead ends for a couple of hours. Even this dull skeleton was getting frustrated without knowing it!
Hours pass like clockwork and soon it found something new. Each dead-end had a different symbol on the wall. The new area it reached was no dead-end instead...
-Rattle
-Rattle
Mr. Skeleton had found its long-lost siblings?! At the end of this maze, part was a group of walking skeletons. With white bones and a familiar set of empty eyes...
The skeletons simply acknowledged the new black skeleton, goblin hybrid, and went on... Standing blankly.
The skeleton itself also avoided these creatures and went to view the end of the wall. A diamond-shaped door was at the end of it.
What frustrated Mr. Skeleton however was those same damn symbols! It could not understand those things.
After hours of endless moving around the maze and coming across countless dead ends, it finally reached somewhere new and now it has to deal with this.
The skeleton released a cold breath from its skull and turned back to look at its siblings. It was going to release some frustration with some completely normal sibling bullying...
-Slash!
-Crack!
-Rattle!
The skeleton had a hard time controlling the spear and ended up missing a few times. It got pissed and dropped it with a *clank* to the floor.
It took its goblin hands and went to the nearest skeleton. Surprisingly it didn't resist and soon Mr. Skeleton split open its cranium from its jaw and crushed it!
The skeleton faded into dust and there were no visible physical changes to the skeleton for the first time!
Instead of receiving a set of memories... The last memories of a group of human archaeologists from God knows where...
Their last memory was studying these hieroglyphics, the time it died by other skeletons, and its time studying...
The skeleton awakened from its stupor with a newfound pride, and language decoding capabilities.
It turned to look at the new text and what was written.
It's halo, the new sun
It's Wings, the river moss
It's Robe, the disappearing winter
A necklace, the springs delight
What am I, where am I, and why am I here?
A strange piece of text that Mr. Skeleton could not understand... So what was its solution?
More sibling murder of course!
Unknowingly its bone were getting denser and much stronger during the process it stole some useful memories of these skeletons.
Nothing about society sadly... these were all people who locked themselves away in libraries to study and adventure into something the skeleton heard as... "the tower"...
The skeleton with its newfound intelligence, and understanding of the puzzle was able to find a portion of the answers.
Who am I?
An angel, simple right?
Where am I?
A place where the seasons are transitioning. From winter to spring. A bit vague but according to the memories it should do...
Finally, why am I here?
Sadly Mr. Skeleton neither found the answer nor understood the question. It understood it had something to do with a necklace bit what was it?!
Sadly all its siblings were a bit... dead, to provide it with any clues. So what was the skeleton to do with these answers you may ask?
The skeleton spent another few hours finding the correct pressure plates in the maze... The angel, an image of the sun rising behind a dead tree, a few flowers blooming.
Finally... there were over 13 other dead ends in the area with different images and pressure plates. The skeleton didn't know the answer so it went back to give it a quick review.
It couldn't voice these thoughts without a voice box... or neck... Or mouth... Anyways it didn't desire to talk... Not yet at least.
However much to the skeleton's surprise, the diamond-shaped door had opened a little bit in the middle enough to peer through!
Mr. Skeleton thought about if there was anything to do. At this point its curiosity was peaking after so much effort it wanted results!
In the end, it came up with something ingenious something only it could do.
-Pluck!
It pulled off its head to throw it in! Placing itself against its chest it aimed at one of two coffins inside...
-Phewwwwww!
The skull whistled through the air till its now super dense skull managed to nudge the lid of the coffin!
-Clack, clack!
-Clack, clack
The skeleton's skull rattled in excitement, not worried about the fact that if it wasn't greatly strengthened it would have passed then and there...
Inside the coffin was a figure wrapped in bandages. It had an ankh symbol with two eyes drawn on its chest. The skeleton recognized the symbol from its memories but willfully ignored it.
"Grrrr..."
The mummy's voice growled in a heinous evil voice.
"What~ dares~ to invade the tomb of-!!!"
It didn't notice the strange black skull on its chest that shut it up by biting into its neck.
-Boom!
-Rumble!
The tomb school greatly and the mummy yelled in agony... the skeleton kept biting until it shut up! It was making its ears bleed non-existent blood!
Finally, when its cries stopped, the skeleton's whole body shook!
-kekekekeke
It shivered intensely and the skeleton's body morphed around its skull bandages began to wrap around to grow a new head... under the bandages, a single white eye glowed brightly.
***
Serus took a cold breath, there was a long line in a forest path, of women and children, bruised and battered... chained to each other.
"Haap~ hooo~"
Serus took a deep breath, that wasn't loud enough to catch the attention of the monsters.
A few minutes passed and the heavy thumping steps eventually faded into the distance.
"What was that!"
The goddess was silent for a few seconds before responding,
["That was a variant of orcs, likely a tribe of them..."]
"Orcs? There are orcs in this world?!"
["Why wouldn't there be? There are all sorts of monsters here... What did you think a hero's guide would face?"]
"You! ..."
Serus sighed deeply and thought about his next course of action.
"I'm going to save them!"
["I would not recommend you do that, this is a common occurrence are you going to save people every time you see people in danger?"]
"Pfft no... Besides don't I have your blessing? Do I have superpowers or something?"
["Yes you have certain abilities but you are not powerful enough at the moment to face those creatures it is only the beginning of your journey."]
Serus clenched his hand in the dirt under him.
"Tch, fine! If you won't help me I'll figure it out myself then!"
Serus moved silently in the direction of the orcs. He found himself at the top of a hill looking down at a settlement of the boar-faced creatures.
Aequitas had remained silent until this moment but finally commented on his decision.
["Sigh I see as expected of a hero's future guide. I will... provide some assistance."]
Serus' eyes sparkled,
"Really?! You'll help me?"
["Yes, but I can only help you in dire situations. Go down and face one of the weaker creatures. In your case I'd recommend going against a mage."]
"Alright... I'll trust you. How will I know who's a mage though?"
["... Sigh it's the teenage orc near the shed. Head there and fight it off."]
Serus nodded after he managed to spot the shed she was talking about. Near the door was a smaller orc with a pointy wizard hat and me rags...
"Alright, what do I do now... ?"
["Run in and attack!"]
"What!? But I've never fought anyone before, how am I supposed to do that."
["I'll tell you once you're in danger... now run!"]
"Damnit..."
Serus followed her instructions and silently went in for an attack, the orc spotted him easily and something akin to a smirk appeared on its face.
"Skree!"
The orc squealed and raised a hand with a staff forward. In front of it, a ball of water appeared and rotated at high speeds.
-Blast!
The water ball came flying at high speeds in his direction, just as he was about to move out of the way he heard a voice.
["Let yourself get hit!"]
"Wha-!"
-Bam!
Serus fell in his ass and was converted into water. It felt like he did a belly flop in water that was 2 to 3 times harder than usual...
"Shit, why'd you tell me to get hit!"
["No time to answer look out!"]
Coming in his direction another water ball came even faster than the previous one. Serus rolled to the side and scarcely avoided it.
["I'll let you use it this once... you need to say (in your head) activate ira sin disaster!"]
Serus followed her instructions and his head repeated the phrase in his mind... suddenly a surge of energy flowed through his body and mind.
[Removing restrictions on Serus Lumens sin... Error! Partial blessing clashing with sin! Reducing friction now... Successful!]
[New title earned!]
Serus's blue eyes glowed brightly, and a menacing aura surrounded him. He raised an arm and suddenly a water ball 10 times larger than the orcs appeared out of thin air.
The orc in question fell on its rump in horror at the massive ball of water. In the direction of the forest, the enormous water ball whistled through the air!
-Boom!
The orc got blasted away and the force of the spell even took down two trees. Forces were alerted by the loud sound...
[Goddess of balance interfering with a duration of sin... Error! Unauthorized intruder!]
["Oh shut up!"]
[Ira sin activation shutting down...]
Serus fell to his knees and looked around tiredly. He rubbed the back of his head in confusion...
"Ughh... What happened?"
["No time get in the shed now!"]
Serus immediately snapped out of his daze and followed the instruction. He opened the door and slammed it behind him...
-Slam!
-Thump
-Thump
-Thump
Heavy footsteps and grunts could be heard outside. One, in particular, was nearing the door.
'Shit!'
Without acknowledging the several eyes on him he hid behind a wall. The door creaked and loud grunts were sniffing.
The silence persisted for a few seconds until the orc left.
"Sigh."
Serus sighed in exhaustion. Till he finally noticed the gazes of the women and children on him. He waved awkwardly to their observant glares.
"Umm... Hi?"