Chapter 4

They continued walking through the splintered lands, carefully trying to not step on any part of the broken remnants of days past.

"We need a name for this place." Chrine broke the silence, it was what he was most skilled at.

"And the realm before." Bree added.

"Right, that last one's a little easier, how's 'The Great Desert.' I mean it's pretty accurate if you ask me."

"Honestly we should just ask the elder, they would probably know."

"That would make sense I guess, but what about this realm?"

"What about it?"

"We still haven't come up with a name for it."

"Are you really going to make me do this, listen the sooner we can get to Eden-'' Bree's grumbling was interrupted by Chrine.

"I get it, you want to get to Eden, that's our purpose. You can stop saying it every two seconds."

"Wow Chrine, that's the most aggressive thing you've ever done, I'm honestly impressed."

"I almost stabbed Ozfonzo through the throat?"

"Almost. But you didn't, or else we wouldn't have to still deal with him."

"Bree! We barely know this guy and you want to kill him!?"

"Eh, I just want him to leave us alone."

"Either way. We're still going to Eden, we aren't stopping anytime soon, but in the traveling time we can at least talk to each other, to make this a little more bearable. Traveling in silence is for when you are alone. Like it or not we're doing this together. So please, to make this just a bit more fun and less silent what do you think we should name this realm?" Chrine was a little frustrated for the first time.

Bree took a moment to mull it over.

"The Wooden Graveyard."
"That's… accurate." Chrine said looking back to Bree with a smile as he stepped over a broken chair. In the distance a pile of broken furniture started moving slightly, as if there was something under it. "Should we do something about that?"
"About what?"
"That moving pile of wood? Did you not see it ye-"
"Holy crap!"
"There we go, so should we do something about it? Or let it do its own thing?"
"I'ma kill it." Bree said, pulling her shield off her back and stretching her shoulder.

"I don't think that's necessary."

"Why not? There could easily be more crabs under there."

"It could just as easily be something else, for example another person."

"Fine." Bree pouted. "But if it's crabs I'm killing them."

"Sounds reasonable to me." Chrine said with a smile.

They began carefully treading to the pile, tiptoeing over every piece of wood, to step on one of these would just be disrespectful, to someone that they would most likely never meet but it still felt wrong to do. When they finally reached the pile it wasn't any clearer what was hiding under it, all that was clear was that who or whatever was under there wanted to get out of there. The two of them began lifting the wooden wreckage and setting it down gently on the grass nearby, from this alone it was made clear that Bree was much stronger than Chrine, she could lift up bigger chunks than Chrine could and on debris where they needed to work together Chrine was the limiting factor. As they removed more and more of the wood they saw more and more what was underneath.

"Well it's not crabs." Chrine said getting the first peek through the wood.

"What makes you say that? There could still be crabs." Bree insisted

"Well the crabs we saw were gray and black, these aren't those colors at all, and it's flatter."

"Oh yeah? What if it's a big, flat, golden, white crab? What then?"

"Wow you really want this to be a crab."

"I'm just really tired of walking over all this crap."

"Fair." Chrine concluded the conversation.

When they had finally cleared enough space off whatever was underneath it flew out from the heap it had found itself under and let out a long call that sounded close to a mix of a songbird and a whale. Chrine was in awe of the beast, so large, yet so gentle. Bree was disappointed, she really wanted to hit something and this thing was not only being non-hostile it was being downright appreciative to them.

As the beast flew to a large structure, most likely a temple, it stopped and circled three times over a small valley in between hills and let out another otherworldly call before flying to the temple, trying to show them something.

"What do you say? Should we check it out?" Chrine said turning to Bree who was not paying attention at all to the creature and was poking at the dirt.

"Huh? Check what out?"

"The- thing it- were you seriously not watching it?" Chrine was genuinely hurt.

"No, it's just some big bird thing."

"Where would you be without me?" Chrine sighed as he led the way to where the manta had stopped earlier. "C'mon, there's probably something to hit here." At the mention of hitting things Bree immediately shot up and began following along with Chrine, she was already tired of this place which was just too empty for her liking.

When they reached the spot the mant was trying to show them all that was there was a large stone. It had been carved into a specific shape and with wording on one side but it had been worn by the wind and time. Chrine's eyes lit up this was right up his alley, a forgotten monument with some ancient script was heavily in his interest. Bree on the other hand was even more upset, they had to take a detour to get here and now it's going to be even longer until they reach Eden. Her bloodlust had betrayed her for there were no things to hit here at all.

Chrine rushed down and immediately started reading it. Bree grumpily followed.

"What does it even say?" Bree asked.

"You can't read it?"

"Nope."

"Oh well some parts are broken off so I'll only read out what is here." Chrine took a deep breath in.

"'Look upon me and cower!-'" Chrine was immediately cut off by Bree shouting at the rock.

"I'm not scared of some dumb rock! You wanna go!? You'll be sand when I'm done with you!"

"Bree please, I'm just reading what it says, the rock can't hear you."

"Fine." Bree conceded

"Ahem. 'Look upon me and cower! For I hold the fate of your kind-'" Chrine was cut off again.

"I really don't like this rock. Can we beat it up?"

"Bree! I'm trying to read!"

"Sorry, sorry, I'll shut up now."

"Ahem! 'Look upon me and cower! For I hold the fate of your kind. Many years from now there will be 7 princes each with dominion over an element that binds our world. Water, Earth, Wind, Fire, Light, and Darkness. The 7th prince is the Prince of Silver, the pure metal. The prince of silver will be arriving first acting as an omen for the arrival of all the other prin- Th- aeve the ston-' uh… A large part of stone of is broken and destroyed in this section, there isn't any legible text it's clear that whoever read this part hated it to the point of destroying it."

"I hate it too, I can see why they would." Bree chimed in.

"Alright here's the last part '-nally the Prince of Darkness will be the most foul of them all. Betraying his own kind and ushering in a new age of darkness.'"

"Oh so this is what happened and why the engine needs fixing I get it."

"There's more: 'Your actions after reading this do not matter. This is your kind's fate.'"

"Alright can I make this boulder become like seventy different other rocks now?" Bree said, taking off her shield to hit it.

"Well, I think that it holds some historical value and we should leave it for future onlookers to learn from as well, furthermore-" Before Chrine could finish talking Bree rushed past and body slammed the rock with her shield on her shoulder, no damage to the rock was done. "Bree!"

"It didn't even break! This rock is dumb lets just go, we have an engine to fix." Bree said walking to the temple. Chrine sighed and followed, looking back over his shoulder at the stone lying so firmly in the ground. While he wouldn't miss this rock itself, he'd miss the experience of finding something like this.