In the morning, everyone packed up their tents and walked on. Everyone had a backpack on their backs, some larger than others. Their backpacks looked fairly similar though, being light brown in color. They all pushed on through the woods, only to come across an old disused path. The gallade was the first to step on it, and examine what looked like the tracks of wagons. This path must have been used fairly frequently because no grass grew on this path at all. "This should lead us straight up to the fort." Robin told the others.
Janus yawned a little as he looked up at the path, and to the fort in the distance. "My legs ache just imagining what the walk will be like." He sighed.
"Stop thinking about it and get moving, bird brains!" Hilda angrily replied as she walked on in front of the others.
The alakazam shook her head, disapproving of how Hilda was now the one hurling bad names at the Blaziken. "There is no need for name calling from any of you." Thea told them all as they followed Hilda.
Janus smirked, seeing another chance to annoy the women. "That's right! Take the old hag's advice!" He yelled to the annoyed dwarf.
Thea's expression quickly changed to one of shock at his words, before then changing to one of anger. She held her tongue this time, but she was desperately wanting to just yell what a vile annoying creature he was. She had never had the displeasure to meet someone quite like Janus before. "You should think before you speak, your words often come across as hurtful." She politely told him.
"That's kind of the point." Janus replied as he walked along. It didn't take long for a question to pop into his head. "So, what does a monk lady like you want with gold? Can't be drink or sex, you're not allowed to do that fun stuff are you? Bet your gash has crusted over from lack of use!"
"You keep your corrupt mind off my privates! If you must know, my share of gold is going towards the temple. It is in dire need of repairs. It is one of many temples from long ago, I wish to see it preserved for many more like me to bask in the light." Thea told him.
"You're going to risk your life for gold just to save some old building? That's stupid." Janus simply responded.
Thea didn't look happy at all, but she knew something like that would be his reply. "And what things do you intend to buy with your share?" She questioned the blaziken.
"A nice big house! And lots and lots of food and whores! Maybe even eat food off whores if we get enough gold." Janus replied to the monk.
"Be careful, temptation will lead you down some dark paths..." Thea's tone of voice turned very serious.
"You sound as if you speak from experience. What dark paths have you been led down Thea?" Janus asked curiously.
"My past has nothing to do with you. I am simply giving you some advice." Thea restrained herself from coming out with harsher words. She knew Janus was the type of person that got off on annoying others, she tried not to give him the satisfaction.
Hilda's voice soon ended the conversation as she yelled on over. She was a good thirty feet in front of the others when she stopped, seeing something that caught her eye. "You all need to see this!"
Robin was the first one to walk over to Hilda's side to see what she had spotted. It was a wooden sign, the post was embedded into the grassy earth. As soon as everyone saw the sign, Robin began reading it out. "Two-hundred men descend, ready to defend. One hundred decay, twenty go insane the next day. Seventy stand and fight, they should have taken flight. Fifty survived, but all wish they had died." Robin then noticed something etched into the sign post. "It says turn back..."
Thea looked a little worried as she saw swords buried half way in the ground. They looked rusted up, some even looked slightly warped. "Poor souls. Do you think those graves belong to the same people in the story?"
Hilda could see the worry in Thea's eyes. "They aren't the same people anymore, they're just corpses. We should move on."
Janus chuckled, seeing how much the story had gotten to Thea. "The story is probably just that! A story made up by someone who found a few rusty old swords. I find it hard to believe that how many died in the story? Over a hundred? I doubt that whatever is in there is that powerful." The blaziken told them all.
Robin knew for a fact that it wasn't just a story, but he didn't want to cause a panic. Thea was already looking a little shaky, she didn't need to be told that there maybe a good chance they will die on this expedition. "As long as we stay close to each other and do our jobs, nothing is going to harm us." Robin said. The gallade then began following the sword and shield baring dwarf up the slightly upwards sloping dirt path.
The archer, the polearm baring gallade, the mace wielding monk and the dwarf warrior all pushed on up the paths for a good half an hour. The noises they heard the night before could no longer be heard. Perhaps whatever made those noises was nocturnal. Eventually, they found their location, a huge fort with equally huge walls. The walls were at least fifty foot high. There was a big metal portcullis gate, but it was currently raised. It gave the four gold hunting adventurers easy access to the fortress through the twenty foot high archway. All four of them walked through, walking into the fortress courtyard. The courtyard was absolutely massive, but the ground was made up of nothing more than mud. Not a single blade of grass was to be seen anywhere. It was as if the ground itself was dead, no signs of life left in it. Around the thick fortress walls, there appeared to be wooden stalls set up. Some of the stalls appeared to have doors leading into the walls of the fortress behind them. In the middle of this menacing courtyard was a broken fountain. It looked as if water was supposed to spurt forth from a wolf's mouth and flow into the circular pool beneath it, but the wolf's head appeared to be broken off.
"It takes some force to break a structure like that." Robin said to them all. Deciding to take a closer look, he walked towards the broken fountain. Something with great force behind it must have smashed into it.
Janus looked beyond the water fountain, seeing the door to the fortress was open. The heavy wooden doors looked to be intact. "That is strange. If everyone here died, why did no one think to lock themselves away into the most heavily fortified building in sight? There is no damage on those doors..."
Hilda hated to admit it but he was right, it was strange. Usually during an attack, those who couldn't fight took refuge in the most heavily fortified building they could find. "They could have been killed before they even knew they were under attack."
Robin found that hard to believe. "That would require a lot of planning, and more than one psychopath to pull it off. But, I suppose if there was a huge amount of gold to be gained..." The gallade wasn't sure what to think of this.
Thea wasn't liking all this talk of death and killing. It was nothing more than speculation anyway. "Let us move on." She simply said as she walked on over towards one of the broken down shop stalls. The female monk wished to find something of use, perhaps even something that told them of what happened.
Hilda decided to join Thea, which quickly got the Janus' attention. The large male archer smirked before opening his beak. "Going to get some alone time with your girlfriend are you? Let me guess, you're the man in the relationship." Janus reviled the dwarf.
"Go bugger your own arse with a rusty bread knife!" Hilda angrily spat back to Janus before storming away, walking through a small archway with Thea. "That bastard bird! I want to smash his beak right into the other side of his face!" The dwarf ranted.
Thea looked back to her, sighing. "Ignore him, his mind has been soured by this world." The monk replied as she returned to looking around the room she was now in. She spotted some crates and tables. There was nothing of use, as if this place had been raided.
"That bastard was sour to begin with." Hilda simply replied as she now climbed on top of the crate, sitting down on it. As she sat their, she noticed a familiar smell lingering in the air, the foul smell of death which led her to believe someone died in this room.
Thea was about to give up on searching for stuff, but then she noticed something under another nearby crate. It looked to be a piece of parchment. The alakazam used her telekinesis to lift the heavy wooden crate couple of inches above the ground, gently putting it down next to the archway they came through. "There is something heavy in that create, you may want to open it." Thea told the dwarf as she bent over to pick up the parchment.
Hilda got off her crate, and walked over to the one next to the door. "What's on that piece of parchment you have?" She asked whilst drawing her short sword. She started to kick the crate repeatedly, loosening it up enough to slip her blade through the cracks of the wood, using her short sword as a sort of crowbar. However, when she slipped her sword through the cracks of the crate, her sword slipped into something. Hilda knew she hit something, she just didn't know what.
Thea looked to the piece of parchment, but the writing on it was totally illegible. It looked as if it had water or some other kind of fluid spilled all over it. "I cannot read it." She told the dwarf before she heard the sound of wood breaking, and the dwarf yelling. Quickly, the monk turned to look towards Hilda, only to see a monstrous creature on top of her.
Author's note: Now it really begins. Thank you all for the views and reviews, I like making people's days a little more interesting with these little stories! :3