The statue was gone.
When they woke up, the statue was gone, with the stone podium that of which it stood on still remaining, while Cardin's own lantern was smashed to pieces, as a trail of a greenish, slime-like substance coated and trailed out of the room.
No one said a word about it, but Port, whom advised the brother to keep their weapons close, and Grun closer, stating that they may have to dispose of Slug-Man down the line. And it seemed to be the truth, for when they left the room with one lantern short- as if Cardin ever needed it to begin with- the trail of slime headed for the stair way that would take them to the next floor of room fifty-one to sixty.
And when they reached that very floor, hesitant, with Cardin leading the way, mace clutched with both of his hands, his golden eyes piercing through the darkness before him, they found the slime trail continued forward, deeper down. But Grun made it clear, "I know you all would love nothing more than to have closure on... the whereabouts of him, but we must take count first."
To their reluctance, CRDL and Port found themselves doing exactly so, though now this time, Cardin stood outside the doorway of each room now, his gaze surveying the hallways, staring forward to the next set of stairs for them to go down to, half-expecting to see Slug-Man himself climbing up them. But now, instead Cardin would catch sight of these orbs of light, about two or three of them, float from room to room, disappearing into the chambers. They beautiful in terms of the unknown, but Cardin, in his gut, was wary of them, keeping his distance from them as he and the men cleared each room.
It was at the last room- the sixtieth- that Cardin would witness a horror that made him run into the room. A man- mutated- crawling on the ceiling, coming from the stairway to the upper floor they slept on, skin black as night, his head twisted to stair at Cardin properly, of a sinewy build.
"What? Is everything okay, Young Winchester?" Port inquired of the student, worryingly so, as he stared at the tensed-back of Cardin, who just responded by telling them to hurry up already.
It was gone when they came out, either- as Cardin pondered- having gone into one of the other rooms, or just disappearing into thin air. Whatever the answer was, Cardin felt more comfortable with knowing that he got to lead the way down into the next floor. There, they found him, or the husk of him at least, curled up a few meters into the hallway
"Is that?..."
"Yes... it's Slug-Man."
"Oh noooo." The halberdier went, rushing over to the body. It was indeed Slug-Man, his skin, rough, grayish-brown, chipping away, his teeth rotten, and sockets empty. "Slug-Man... I hardly knew thee." Everyone gathered around the body, visibly more baffled by the sight than Sky was, staring down at what was once a statue, now a corpse, dried, as if Slug-Man had perished long ago.
"This is new. Never have we encountered anything like this before."
"Oh, really? You all never found a statue of some mutant, only to have come to life and wander off, finding its FUCKING LIFELESS BODY further down?"
"... No, not really." Russel's face went to that of raging disbelief at how peaceful Grun sounded, his eye narrowing, upper-lip raising, forehead wrinkling, just livid about how calm he can be.
"Well, not much we can do really. He's dead, so we don't gotta worry about him no more."
"Yes, Cardin, come, let us resume our task at hand."
"Rest in peace, Slug-Man." Sky commented, as everyone left Russel to follow them into the sixty-first room, filled with the typical relics: smashed vases, paintings of imagery, disturbing, and majestic sometimes. The skeletons were just as mutated as ever, now exhibiting more animalistic or alien features: some skull were elongated to a foot long, limbs now ended in hooves instead of palms with digits, some even had wings, either originating from the backs, or just being a combination of their arms.
Help me, please.
"Slug-Man?" Sky ran out of the room, finding his body to still be in the same position. "Oh." They swept through the rest of the floor, each room seemingly looking more and more as the aftermath of a battle. Swords and axes lying a few centimeters from the hand bones, with skeletons suffering from crushed rib-cages, snapped femurs, or caved-in skulls. Though no one said a word about it; just do you job as you were told, with the occasional touching of the skin or tugging of the clothing catching them off guard for a moment.
Sky would take one more glance at the remains of Slug-Man before they headed down the next staircase, entering into the next floor, notably quite messier than the last, with broken vases, smashed chairs, ripped apart paintings strewn about, weapons of ancient times side-by-side with, an of course, destroyed bones laying down from whatever it was that slain them. It all made it a rather difficult task to find something that would be worthwhile to take a count of. But they made due with what they were given in each room.
One room- the sixty-seventh, or eighth, everyone has lost count at that point and forgot about it- in particular was just stuffed to the brim with the skeletal remains of toddlers, headless though, somewhat of a callback to the room they found earlier, filled with all the crushed baby-skulls. Grun did not even bother looking at it, as he instead entered the other room across from it, to be followed by students and professor, who on the other-hand could not help themselves from gazing upon such a ghastly sights.
They could swear they heard babies crying when they started to head down the next set of stairs. It only encouraged everyone to take the pace up a notch, to only rushed into a completely fucked floor. Walls were smashed into, everything was was either singed or ripped apart, there just nothing at all in these chambers that was in good enough condition to be worth taking count of. Just a bloody mess that the ghosts played in, moving and dragging in the obliterated remains of their home, as Grun mumbled to himself of how worthless this floor was to him.
They probably only spent five minutes or so on this floor before heading down into the next. And what do you know, but for it is completely spotless, void of the smallest dusts, the faintest scratch, why it was just perfectly spotless, not even similar to the very first floor though, for unlike that, this one was utterly removed of any physical object, be it vase, chair, bed, cloth, bone, painting, weapon, gem, just another room that Grun would have expected it to be worthless.
But except for one, the last room, where on a stone pedestal, stood a jar, of golden glass, filled with a dark green liquid, and in it was preserved.
"... Is that a brain?" Cardin questioned, as he and Dove went up to examine it, indeed confirming that it was what the Winchester asked. "It is!"
"Is it now?" Grun followed, stepping in front of Dove to further examine it. "Amazing, a preserved brain! We've never found anything like this." He was quick to write down: one pedestal, one brain, down onto the paper, while everyone else joined in to gaze upon what was mostly a boring sight really. A mere brain in a jar to the brothers, while Port, whom was slightly more fascinated by it than the boys, was still not as amazed as he had been by the remains of skeletons.
That was until Sky decided to touch it for but a moment, at first an absolute horrid mistake.
"OHHH- FUCK!" Everyone around had blasted way, overwhelmed, feeling their chests tighten as their backs slammed the walls of the room, forced down for an instant by an unseen force, not having been given the chance to even activate their auras; Grun was lucky that he had been thrown into Dove, or else he was sure his old, decrepit body would be absolutely broken in half.
Russel, in a coughing fit, would be immediate in berating his leader. "CAAGH!- CARDIN, YOU FUCKER! What the hell did you do?!"
"SOD OFF, CUNT! I didn't do nuffin!" Sky shot back, struggling to get up, pretty sure of himself that his left arm was broken, maybe.
"Like hell you didn't! You fucking touched it and we're sent off like fucking ragdolls! Why can't you fucking keep your goddamn pervy hands all to yourself, freak?!"
"Please, please, stop! It is not his fault! I didn't mean to hurt any of you!" Spoke a womanly voice, youthful, sweet, soothing to the ears of the men.
"... Did... did that brain just talk?" Port, sitting himself against the wall, inquired. "Or am I just disoriented?"
"No, you are right. I am the one who spoke, and I am the one responsible for what happened-"
"-Holy shit!" Sky, not learning a damn thing, hastily came and plucked the jar up from the pedestal. "You can talk?!"
"Y-Yes, but please be careful. If this jar is destroyed, then I will perish out in the open. So please be careful."
No one cared about her warning though- save for Sky- for as one would expect, they were taken extremely aback from the fact that a brain was talking to them.
"H-How?!" Dove would question, "This isn't happening- how the hell are you talking?! B-brains can't talk! And how can you even speak our language?!"
"I've come to learn every single word of your language when Sky touched my container."
"... HOW?!"
"Yeah, how?" Sky asked, sounding more calm than Dove. "Also, how do you know my name?"
"I know you name because when you touched my glass, I absorbed all of your memories, your knowledge on everything there is to know about the world today. As such, I've come to understanding your language just as much as you do, along with knowing the names of everyone here: Peter Port, Cardin Winchester, Dove Bronzewing, Russel Thrush, Doctor Grun, and you, Sky Lark."
"... Okay, cool," Sky nodded, his lips pouting, brushing off the ramifications of what this means, "then who are you? What's your name?"
"I am Rosemary, of the Soloman Empire."
"Soloman Empire? Are they the ones who built this temple?"
Rosemary answered Grun, "Temple? This place was no temple. To all of you, this would be more of what you all call... asylums, or a laboratory. But it would be turned into a fort by the end of our rule."
"Amazing. Y-you... you are the key that we've been looking for. Oh, how much you can tell us about what we've found down here! About our past!" His grin was as large as his old face could manage to deliver, with his few teeth shining in the lantern's light, and eyes, widen, reflecting the light with pure joy.
"So does this mean we can finish up early?"
"... No. We should at least see what else is left, then we can leave." Sky sighed, his bright blue eyes rolling, setting themselves down upon the brain in a jar.
"So... do we take Rosemary with us, or leave her hear."
"No, we'll take her with us Sky. You hold onto her, Cardin, take his lantern."
"... Okay. Yeah, let Sky carry probably the most valuable thing we found in here, who can't even see in the fucking dark."
"If you're gonna be like that, tubby, then fine, you carry Rosemary." He held her out, facing the brute, his golden eyes staring at the golden glass for a second before taking her.
"Ugh- you're such a vile beast. I'd much rather be held by Sky."
"Excuse me?"
"I'm just... why? Why? Why would you do all of this?"
"All of what, fucking tell me, bitch."
"C'mon, c'mon, let's go you two." Grun called for them, forcing Cardin to catch up to the men who just felt it was right to leave him and the most precious being anyone had ever found in this dank place.
"H-Hey! Be careful now! Remember that I will die if I am taken out of this substance."
"Fuck off." They reached the next floor, ninety-one to a hundred, the final frontier of their journey. It is this floor, that they found to be nearly identical to the first floor: filled with nothing more but vases, paintings, and furniture, quite the out of sea feeling, after having discovered the remains of a cyclops, humanoid skeletons, tools of killing that seemed to be ageless, apparitions, hearing voices, feeling an unseeing force touch them, and glowing orbs.
"What are you all doing?"
"We're taking count of what we find in each room."
"Why?" Rosemary, sounding baffled, asked Port. "What purpose does this serve?"
"It serves little purpose, other than letting the soldiers know how much they're going to have to bring out of here."
"Oh, that's nice," Dove went, "what we're doing serves little purpose. Then may I ask: why are we even doing this then?"
"Because albeit being little, it still. Serves. A purpose." Dove could feel his arms tense, his muscles flexing beneath his black sleeves for a second, just wanting to throttle that wrinkly neck of Grun's and watch the life fade from his foul face.
But nah, just keep on counting Dove, you are almost done for the day, as they move from room to room, Rosemary being quiet for the rest, staying in the corners where Cardin clutched her to his chest. He would start tapping on the glass at one point though, prompting her to request him to, "Stop it, you mongrel," which he complied, frowning as he did so.
With the last room having been accounted for, the explorers would wind up not into front of another staircase, but a set of stone doors, carved the reliefs of two figures, a man, and a woman, both human, wearing nothing but robes and sandals, facing in front of them, their stone eyes gazing down at them, judging them like they were nothing more but rats.
"Ah, and here we are. In here, we will take our rest, and return to the surface soon after."
"W-Wait. You dare to enter in there?"
"Yes, Rosemary." Grun started to push the doors open immediately, or at least he tried. It would only be when Port and Russel helped that the doors would actually move.
"W-Wait! Don't-" Rosemary was ignored as the stone dragged against stone, dust falling off in large quantities from the behemoth slabs, to reveal a chamber, built for a giant: about sixty-five feet in diameter, with the ceiling being too high for a standing sarcophagus to reach, which itself stood at a good ninety feet or so, meant to house a man larger than the cyclops. Near it was a lever, which when pulled, would- to the assumption of them- force the two chains attached to the top of the stone lid to pull it up.
It was without mentioning, but they stood before the giant's sarcophagus, admiring its gargantuan size alone, since it was the only thing to appreciate about it really.
"That's his resting place: the last emperor of the Solomons." Rosemary stated, her disembodied voice in the tone of disappointment, almost irritated even, at how they ignored her.
"The last emperor? Who was he?"
"He was Volemont Soloman, the fifty-first," Cardin's eyes bulged, Dove and Russel both shot their gaze down at her little form, while Sky, Grun, and Port still stared up at his tomb, but were indeed taken by shock to hear of a lineage that lasted for fifty-one sons, "it was with his defeat that our empire... our own journey into disarray began. His son refused to take the throne, and left the empire to its own destiny, against a war we could not win without a leader..."
"I see..." Grun walked up to the tomb, his old, creased, trembling hand, brushed the cold stone, dirtying his fingers with the dust that rested upon it.
"Yes, Andreas had no desire to be met with the fate of all our kings. He'd much rather run... run to wherever he hid, to watch our world fall..."
"... Well, I believe our work is done here now."
"So we can go back up now?"
"No," Plainly, the doctor answered, or moreso yawned, "I've grown weary for today. We'll rest for but a few hours or so, then we will return to the surface." So they rolled out the sleeping bags once more, took out the remain foodstuff and drinks, and left one lantern lit between all of them, just as yet another precaution against any wandering spirits, as Cardin laid Rosemary down gently, before pulling his own bag out.
"Are all of you actually willing to sleep in here?"
"Yeh," Sky went, "we already slept in here once, why not do it again?"
"Let's just hope not statue comes to life and smashes our lantern though."
"... What? What do you mean?" Rosemary, puzzled, asked Russel what he meant.
"Oh, when we rested for the first time, we slept near some weird statue of a slug-like humanoid, with one of our lanterns lit next to it. When we woke up, we founf the statue to be gone, and our lantern smashed. We'd end up finding Slug-Man dead, all shriveled up, lifeless."
"... You f-fools. That was one of our patients!"
"What?" Cardin let out, emphasizing the 'h' in it.
"Our patients. When we come across a citizen who was plagued by an unknown disease, we take a piece of their flesh before turning to stone, so that we may try and find a cure for the disease. When we're successful, we expose the patient to light, turning them back to normal and cure them!"
Grun, sounding remorseless- though not intending to sound as such, said, "Oh dear, I am sorry, Rosemary. But we did not know of such a process, so understand that we had no intention of killing Slug-Man-"
"-His name was Pennycoat! One of the most precious jesters we have ever had in the kingdom! Not this bastardization you call Slug-Man."
"... Then why was he a slug?" Insensitive, Sky asked, sounding incredulous when he went on, "was he just born like that? Was every skeleton we found natural to your empire?! Or were they all turned into abominations?"
"They are not abominations. They were the right path for us to go down! We were all blessed, to be given the knowledge of ritual from the Kasts-"
"Kast— what?"
"Kasts, you idiot-boy! They were to us what you all call gods. They came to us in our most desperate of age, and gave us the sacred rite to transcend the human body, and shape ourselves into their own image!"
"The image of shit?"
"The image of perfection, you vile, cannibalistic brute."
"Wooo," Cardin raised his hands in self-defense, "hey now, human flesh tastes better than you think." Port blanched, his lips stretching beneath his mustache in disgust; it took a lot to unnerve the portly man, but hearing Cardin admit to having consumed human flesh. Grun however, was not, for he had to resort to vile means of survival during the war with Vale, that and also because he was just too focused on listening, or now asking Rosemary.
"Digress was Cardin says, you mentioned earlier of a war, but with who?"
"... A ravenous monster, a child of the stars, left here on our little world, that rose from the sea with an army from the clouds above, and the grime below. We were forced into an alliance that prove to be fruitless now, with the rest of the kingdoms."
"And who was this... child of the stars?"
"The Kast called him Xixgy, a son of the Neelanths, whom to us are what you would call... demons, the devils, evil. They waged war with the Kasts long before they came to the Solomans, all across the cosmos and beyond."
"That... that sounds a lot like war between aliens." Sky stated, looking around for the face of the team whom agreed. "Right? Like... it literally sounds like a frickin' galactic war between aliens. Doesn't it."
"It does, and it sounded awesome."
"Of course a monstrous man like you would think of millions of men, women, and children dying at the hands of evil would be awesome, Winchester. You and your mother would be executed in our time for being such horrific human beings."
"..." Cardin's smile was in effort of holding by his humor, just as his eyes squinted in amusement, feeling his cheeks start to hurt from being pushed to their limits. "You know, I should be angry at you. I shouldn't be tolerating your shit. But I am, because one: you're going to be valuable to us. And two: I'm tired, too tired to smash you to pieces. I'm going to sleep now."
Port resoundingly concurred with Cardin, "Yes, we should really get some rest for the journey back to the surface. We'll have plenty of time to talk with Rosemary more about the past." The students and doctor accepted it as fact, retreating within their own sleeping bags, leaving Rosemary to be, as she requested of them, "If you're all actually willing to sleep in here, then I ask of you to not open the tomb of Volemont, out of respect for his liege."
They agreed, at least seven did at least, as the others just threw themselves into the comfort of the sleeping bag's own depths, snoozing off beneath the behemoth of a sarcophagus watching over them, with the light soothing their skin. Soothing their skin.
But not for Cardin, his mind forced himself to remain awake in the chamber of the king, staring the floating brain in a jar of the vile liquid that kept her alive somehow, waiting for his brothers, his professor, the old doctor, for them to lose themselves in sleep.
He shuffled within his bag, dreary eyes studying the faces of anyone who's face he could see in the first place. Eyes shut, mouths open, snoring all around. How Dove and Grun could sleep when Sky, Port, and Russel were snoring, he didn't know. Hell, he did not even know if they were asleep, but that did not stop him from taking the chance, crawling out of his own bag towards Rosemary, and softly whispered for her, "Rosemary, hey. Are you awake?"
"I am incapable of sleeping in this form, Cardin," she would reply, plainly as so, also whispering as well, knowing there was purpose for Cardin doing so, "also, what do you want?"
"Can we talk about something?"
"About what?"
"Just... hold on," Cardin, gently, plucked up Rosemary, "we need to be farther away far them." Also picking up his backpack, Cardin, being as deftly as he could be, sneaked away from the sleeping men, until he was across from them in the chamber, sitting down Rosemary and his pack, and started to rummage through out its interior.
"What are you looking for?"
"Rosemary, you know everything there is to know about... the Soooo-Solomon Empire, right?"
"... Well, I do most certainly know more about it than you, or anyone else in this ro-"
"-Yeahyeahyeah, look," having found it, the painting of that monster in the forest, Cardin pulled and presented it before Rosemary, "what is this?"
"A painting done by a child."
Do you see it?
"... Oh- well, who is it of?"
"Of? Cardin, why do you-"
It is I, like I have said.
"-Don't play dumb with me, you know who it is. You can absorb memories, and you most fucking certainly absorbed mine. You know everything that has happened to me up until the first time I held you. You know I saw this FREAK in the forest. It tried to kill me! And I want to know what it is."
The earth, the sea, the sky, the cosmos, it is time to unleash it.
"... Cardin, whom you saw that night... that freak, was a Neelanth."
"What? Really?"
"Yes... the one you saw... it was of those among the Neelanth who disguised themselves as loved ones, family, friends, who would attempt to lure Solomans to their deaths in forests, caves, anywhere far from civilization, to the slaughter, where they will be used to fuel the demonic machine."
Do it. Release it, and I will grant you your true destiny.
"The wha... fuck- okay, how the hell is one of them alive? How long was that war between you guys an-"
"-Millennia upon millennia ago, far before even the appearance of these creatures you call Grimm; the Neelanths predate even the rise of the Solomans. But there's no need to talk about them. Listen to me, Cardin, if one of them is still alive, on our planet, at that... academy, Beacon, then you kill it. Hunt it down, and dispose of it, before it can take more innocents for its own enjoyment."
"Whoa whoa whoa, fucking c'mon now. You want me to hunt it down? I just asked for you to tell me what it was, yet now I'm being told to track some magical beastie from space? Helll no."
"Cardin, it will try to kill you again as well."
"Well shit, there we go. The next time I see it, I'll make sure to rip its fucking head off."
"You fool. It can't be kill with the steel of your mace, or any weapon of your. But... that dagger you took-"
Pull it, Dove. Pull it.
"-Wait... Dove? Dove- HEY!"
The lantern exploded, and darkness finally laid claim to the humans.
