Chapter 10
After a very long and mentally agonizing hike the group finally made it to a small opening on the side of the mountain. The crack was only big enough to allow one person at a time and the entrance to the cave had an uneven footing so Ace took out a flashlight and carefully entered the cave leading the way to an even platform beginning at one of the carvings. The wall statues on the wall were huge. They stood a staggering of 20ft up to the ceiling and each statue held a different weapon that represented one of the many weapons the Rose family possess.
"Wow this place is impressive" Amy was at awe that such huge sculpts could be made and even more impressed that they were dedicated to her family.
"hmmm" Tails booted up his tablet and set it to scan the cave, he wanted to check is there was any gaps that could be investigated. He already studied all the other surveys and investigations of the cave all stating there wasn't much to be found except for the impressive sculptures, but since it took looking through Amy's family history to find it's true origins his theory was there just might be more to explore than first thought.
While everyone was admiring the sculptures Amy was particularly fascinated with the sculpture with the giant mallet. She was surprised but it looked very similar to hers, next to the mallet sculpture was a Golf club and after that was spear. It was strange but a lot of the weapon sculptures were all different and many of them seem like unconventional choices for weapons but they were all melee weapons. Amy could remember the day she was able to summon her weapon from the depths of her heart and how disappointed she felt that she summoned a toy hammer, she didn't think she could do any damage with it but once she used it to hit a rock she was surprised to find it actually did damage. As she grew more experienced she realized that she could summon different sizes and types of her hammer depending on how she felt was needed. She quickly mastered all the different hammers she was able to summon and now she feels a sense of pride with her weapon, her hammer was a representation of her and her alone but… giving away her Hammer to someone else felt almost degrading and personal.
"AHA!" Tails got excited. "My scanners picked up small holes underneath each statue's weapon! Knuckles see if you can lift it."
"Alright stand back!" Knuckles went to lift the golf club statue. He crouched down and firmly grasped the bottom of the club, he lifted himself up but was surprised he didn't lift the statue with him, he tried one more time but this time using all of his strength. He was expecting to suddenly lose his footing upon freeing the club but instead he was struggling to even try to lift. To him it felt like he was trying to pick up something cemented to the floor, it was too difficult so he declared defeat. "I think just asking me to lift is isn't going to do much Tails."
Ace was watching Knuckles attempt to lift the statue the entire time. "If I remember correctly, the Knights specifically designed these statues for the Rose family, so maybe it can only opened if triggered somehow." Ace looked to Amy. "Do you think maybe you can move it somehow."
Amy wasn't quite sure if she could, she was strong but no where as strong as Knuckles so seeing him struggle that much discouraged her. She was honestly more afraid of breaking such intricate piece of sculpted art. She studied the Golf club statue that Knuckles was trying to lift to see if there was anything she could try. Her eyes searched around as much as she could, she lowered her gaze to the most bottom part of the statue she noticed small damage imprints on it, almost as if something was swung into the statue… like... a golf club! Amy then looked back to the Hammer statue to see if it also had some sort of imprint and none the less, on the hammer statue, there was hammer marks all over each side of the hammer, everything began to click into her mind. "Alright now everyone stand back!" Amy summoned her well known Piko Piko hammer and was in a determined stance, almost as if she wanted to break it.
"Wait! What are you-" Tails couldn't finish his sentence because Amy hit the statue at that moment, but instead of breaking it as he thought might happen it instead slid off to the side revealing a small gap on the floor and 4 self binded books.
"AHA!" Amy was so proud of herself "I knew I could recognize hammer hits when I see them!"
"I'm surprised that worked." Knuckles was honestly impressed "See if you can get this one" he was pointing at the statue he was trying to lift earlier.
Amy looked back the the Golf statue closely."I don't think I should try that one. I think that only specific weapons can move specific statutes, also I'm honestly scared of breaking anything in here. Besides we got some reading to do!" Amy picked up the first book closest to her, it was binded in pure leather and twine, it looked so old she was afraid it could puff up into dust! When she opened the book she was surprised to find the writing was illegible…. Actually was it even writing? Was it in another language?! "Hmm Tails does your translator still work?"
"It should, I'll just have to figure out what language it is"
"Perfect you can read this one then! Hmmm and these…" Amy quickly looked through the other 2 books to check how the words were written to see if they needed to be translated.
Knuckles took a peek at one of them, it wasn't as fully written in another language like the one tails had but it had a lot of historical slang, and since Knuckles understood history very well he took it upon himself to read it.
"Is there maybe one I can read" asked Ace.
Amy looked at both books that she had left, they were both equal in terms of how much she could read from them so it came down to which book probably had the most sensitive information, a girl's diary has her most kept secrets after all. One of the books was thicker than the other so she assumed that her ancestor must have had many thoughts roaming through her head so she felt that one should be read by her. "Sure, just be careful, these books were carefully binded" she scolded.
Ace nodded and took the book and carefully started reading.
Sonic yawned and looked to the group, he decided to re-observe the cave once more since he didn't have a book to read and this cave was pretty cool.
Amy pulled out a small towel from her backpack and placed it on the ground for her to sit so she could more comfortably read the diary. From it's first contents she found out it belonged to a very young Olive Rose, she was often insecure about herself and each passage read of her worries and anxieties, but what really struck a nerve was how heavily Olive mentioned the Knights the strict rules they placed on her. What was most odd was that this is the first time Amy really read about the so-called rules of the Rose Bride, Olive was constantly rewriting rules she was told by other knights as not to forget them. Don't leave the building after sundown, physical contact with any other males not of the knight family is strictly prohibited, and the most odd rule: not allowed to wield the Rose weapon. Amy didn't grow up with any of these rules and none of her ancestors seemed to have gone through with them either, so why the sudden heavy mentions of rules? Reading through the book more and more her eyes were growing weary but she did her best to keep herself awake, for a while Olive didn't talk about the knights or being a rose bride until her age was slowly creeping up to her, it was also around this time her writing began to grow heavy, there was a war and it was at it's climax. Many of the eligible knights lost their lives defending their country, she was left with 4 options, all of them scared her to the point she locked herself away in her room for days. The knights were at least compliant in waiting for her answer but on one terrible day the war around them was growing more intense and more deadly, it was at that point her parents and the knights decided she had to marry someone asap for the safety of this country, the whole country needed their knight and their knight needed their weapon. A duel between the remaining knights was created where the strongest would be the one to wield the Rose weapon but there was one problem, Olive had no idea how to summon her weapon and her knight had no idea either, the fact angered the Knight and she ran away crying, she kept running and running until she eventually found the cave of roses, she weeped inside the cave, crying to her ancestors to lend her knowledge but at the same time she resented asking because she wasn't allowed to wield her own weapon and she was deathly afraid of the consequences that would arise from breaking the rules. After hours and hours of crying she found herself surrounded by hammers, apparently while she was crying and gasping for comfort she had accidentally summoned them, for a moment she feared for her life, what consequences would arise from her summoning them without a knight? She held a hammer and almost by instinct something told her to use it, no matter how afraid she was about summoning it, holding her hammer felt so right. She carefully swung it around, each swing swinging harder than the last, she was having so much fun, for some reason holding this weapon released all of her insecurities. But just as she was having too much fun her hand accidentally slipped causing her hammer to fly out mid swing hitting the statue with the mallet. She horribly gasped afraid, afraid she destroyed such an artifact but upon closer inspection that's when she looked in and saw 2 journals, she read the journals front and back and finally found clarity.
"I don't get it, I haven't found anything new here." Knuckles said with frustration.
"These are just diaries, it really is weird that not even this book doesn't mention much of it at all." Tails rubbed his eyes to relax them after looking at the screen for so long.
Amy closed the book and took a deep breath. "Ace, did you find anything?"
Ace paused a bit and finally closed the book. "To be entirely honest, I was hoping to read more about knights but everything written in this book was nothing new."
"I figured as much" Amy took everyone's books and placed them back into their tiny little compartment before sealing it back up.
The rumble from Amy hitting the statue back in place brought Sonic's attention back. "So did you find your answers?"
Amy took a deep breath and pivoted her heels facing her friends. "Sure do!" Knuckles, Tails, and Ace looked at her confused but All Amy could do was giggle as she collected her stuff and then headed to the exit of the cave. "What are you guys waiting for? We gotta head back, we're burning daylight!"