Where Stories Die

Something we didn't understand as a group was the idea that Chai was sent without a clue as to who or what they were protecting. So for now we would just watch and wait for the sun to rise and apply our oil to the stones around the mouth of the cave. Maybe Hestia had a clue about why we had been sent the chest, or what was happening with this prison realm. For now there was little else to do but get some rest. "Chai, do you need something to sleep on?" Mathew asked our little guest. Seven A.M. was still six hours away. With Mastiff keeping watch we didn't need to worry about our new little friend. "Yes, please, that would be wonderful. I was sent on the spot and I had no time to gather anything." Chai shared more information about his, on the spot command. It seems like his mother sent him with no warning and his desire to leave his home, if for no other reason than to see something different. A mat and a pillow and blanket were magically arranged for him. Everyone looked at the clock, set essence to stand guard with the clock and each fell into an easy peaceful sleep. Karen's thoughts brushed against my mind, I heard her knocking lightly, asking to enter my mind. Jones; Brother! I opened my thoughts. "He doesn't seem harmful." She was right of course, I could feel the danger we faced. The dread surrounding myself and my family was palpable. CharChai was the least of our problems in this adventure. "Get some rest sister, this will prove to be testing and a challenge."

While our sister and other three brothers slept with us, the strangeness of our trip only went from strange to absurd. After the pearls brought us to the underworld we had no clue what was next. "Do you think Persifone is here?" Robbie said as he looked around "I'm not sure little brother, the underworld is vast and we are in an area I've never seen before." I wasn't joking around either, we were in an empty part of the underworld. There were no souls walking around, there were no beings fighting to be seen, to be heard, or to escape. It was just a giant open burnt void. "We need some light, everyone witch light." We all raised and outstretched palms and added a touch of essence to the empty space above our hands and balls of warm amber light came into being. As the orbs of light grew larger each one left our hands and floated into the air, three floating balls silently bobbing up and down, heatless flames licking the surface of each bubble. The area was flooded with light, it was filled with carvings, filled with burnt art and exploded pottery littered the walls ,here and there the burnt books gave off the smell of paper ash mixed with leather. The bindings around each book were burnt off entirely. In the few places the leather hadn't burnt away, the binding had warped, shriveled and was pinched into waves at odd angles. The Floor was a traditional stone slab. Each piece loosely fit to the next, if the floor had been covered by anything in the past it was bare now. Only clumps of ash gave away the rugs stolen by fire's hand. What the rugs had been made of or what design was on them was anyone's guess. With our sight enhanced by essence we could see hints, glimmers, shadows of the past. Large area rugs once covered the floor, great tables with large books had dotted the room, it looked like this had been a library at one time. "It looks like this was a library, or it's a dead library." Robbie said while he looked at the ruined shelves and the twisted covers of books, as he spoke a burst of flame ignited on one of the many shelves, when the flames dissipated another pile of ash and twisted leather took form. "It looks like this is where stories come when they die." I could feel the fleeting soul of a tale as the last of its life faded and the words, the adventure, the highs and lows would never be spoken again. It became apparent that this part of the underworld was reserved for all those books, scrolls,tablets. Stories that could have fed generations of ideas, dreams, philosophy, not to mention the minds of millions of beings needed for knowledge. What a loss. "How does a story die anyway brother?" Larry asked me. "Stories die in a couple different ways, some get used up for truly dark magic, others die when they aren't believed in anymore, still others die when the Gods or spirits related to them fade away. No one can know why any one story dies but this must be where they end up." I finished up telling them as I walked around the room. A faint locked power could be felt somewhere in the room but I couldn't identify it, I couldn't find where the feeling was coming from. When suddenly a woman now draped in everything that this place defied. She had rows of flowers, vines of leaves and grapes, and holding a single pomegranate in her hand, she slowly ate it one seed at a time, spitting out the core of each seed without a care for where it fell. As it landed a small branch would spout out and reach for the sky only to be swallowed up by the death around it and withered and died. "Persifone! It's nice to see you again. I'd say it's a surprise to find you but it really isn't. Why bring us here, to this room?" I addressed her and asked her. She walked around us and. "Why only the three of you, of course Robbie, I'm happy to see you again." She made no small bones about he desire to spend time with our brother than either of us as she nodded her head at him and smiled, while talking to him. "Why bring you to this room of the underworld? What a good question." She took another seed slowly, getting the pith from around the seed and spitting it out, for it met the same sprint to life and died like the other. She explained to us that this room was the most unwatched room in all of the underworld, which is why she came here often to be alone and try to grow some meaning of life. Hoping that one of the seeds would take hold of the nutrients in the ashes of the dead books or the leather leaving traces of life but day after day, year after year, and century after century nothing held. "At this point it's become a habit really." She said finally. "I also brought you here as a point to what I'm about to tell you." Presifone started telling us about what she knew about the plans laid out for us and why we were here. She didn't know who sent the chest to us nor did she know what all was in it, other than the mask of Janas and the seeds. She also didn't want to know, she made all the points of letting us know that she couldn't have anymore knowledge above what she already had. This room, this palace was meant to be an example to us that soon everything that fed every being would be gone. The stories that fed our lives, our essence was no different. If our food could be taken so easily and without any special weapon other than spells and exhaustion. What other beings' foods could be taken from them? It was a fair question but it didn't explain all of this, this journey we had been thrust into, the secrets and the intrusion into our simple lives and peaceful lives. The question started to become more existential, what if you could bring all these stories back? What if you could prevent other foods from dying, or if you could help families rejoin the tribes they were taken from, what if you could prevent others from being taken and what if you could make all these wrongs right again? Were the kinds of questions being tossed around as if we were all having tea and throwing around theories about life's big what if questions. I had turned inward so far that I hadn't noticed I was pushing essence out and my thoughts crept into the space to everyone. "Would you like some tea?" She asked us? She was now eyeing Robbie as if he were a meal she could consume with her eyes and save for later at the same time. "No, no thank you. It's just that these questions seem like a much larger implication is at hand. I might be missing something but for someone who doesn't know more about the chest you seem to have a lot of hope about what it contains?" I asked our hostess directly. "I was sold on hope, I didn't need anything more to join whatever cause this is other than hope. Look around you, I get to join the world above once a year, other than here and the mountain. What life do I have, hope was all I needed!" She all but screamed at us, her desperation was clear for just a second then her face faded again to one of passive apathy. She was right, in that of all the Gods she was among the few that were pitied. What hope could she have been sold that would have her abandon reason and jump blindly into a situation she wasn't entirely aware of or in control of?