"You know, it looks less and less like a town as we get closer," Ceae pointed out.
"I know! You keep saying that," I said. We were quickly approaching the "town" we saw earlier. I noticed that as we got closer, what I thought I had seen was fading and the town was looking more and more abandoned. I was starting to see that Keia's dream might have been more of a vision. I turned around to make sure Keia was still there.
"Keia, I'm starting to believe your dream."
Keia sighed. "We're so close… We might as well just see."
It was not a town after all. When we were only a few feet from the structure, it was now the ruins of an ancient city. "Well, this sucks!" Ceae shouted. "All that walk for nothing!"
Keia walked closer and put one hand on the side of a stone tower. She turned around to face Ceae and I. "Guys? This is exactly what I saw in my dream… The ruins of an ancient city. What do you think this means?"
I saw a lone flag hanging from one of the taller towers. I climbed up onto a pile of rubble to get a closer look. Even then I could not distinguish the flag. "Keia, your Zoom Lens?"
"My Zoom Lens?" I pointed to the flag. "Oh." She zoomed in on the flag. "By Rysta…"
"What? What does the flag portray?" I asked.
"It's the symbol of the Draconian royal family… The Draconian crest… I think these are the ruins of the old Draconian capitol!"
Upon closer inspection of the tower that the flag was hanging from, I would say that it definitely looked like a castle. "No way… Destroyed by Rona?"
"Actually, destroyed long before Rona even came along… It was destroyed in the war against darkness many hundreds of years ago. I just don't understand what could cause these ruins to look like a town from a distance," Keia said.
"Maybe an illusion…"
"I've heard more than once that this place was used as a trap by the Darklings… Thinking it was a town, DPF soldiers would come expecting a place to rest… When they were in range, the Darklings would attack them. They 'disappeared mysteriously.'"
"Uh, guys? What's this?" Ceae asked from inside one of the buildings. Keia and I entered the building to see what appeared to be a miniature antenna sticking out of the ground. Keia was silent.
"No clue, but it looks different than the rest of the ruins," I said.
"I'll dig it up." Ceae dug through the dirt and debris until the antenna and what it was attached to were revealed. Ceae held up a metal mask with two antennae coming off of the top of it. The mask actually appeared to be more of a part of a helmet, but it was too elongated to have been worn by a human.
"Oh my… It's just like in my dream," Keia mumbled.
"Any idea of what it is?" I asked.
"Well, according to the story my mother told me of Rona's attack, Rona wore a specialized cyber armor to enhance his already-powerful abilities even further… His armor was developed to strike fear into those who saw him while adding impenetrable defenses. It was said that when he turned on his army, he shed his armor, unlocking his true potential… This may just be his helmet."
"Maybe we should hold on to it? Perhaps someone around knows where Rona went?" I suggested and snatched the faceplate from Ceae.
"Cryos, do you know the likelihood of meeting anyone who survived Rona's attack and knows where he went? You're asking the impossible."
"Anything is possible if you put your mind to it. If those are the ruins of the old capitol, there should be another town nearby. We could ask around there."
"Using the twenty-year old faceplate of a disappeared fox spirit? You're wasting your time," Keia said.
"Well I'm keeping the faceplate. Someone is sure to recognize it." I stuffed the faceplate into my bag and stepped outside of the building. "If you're coming, let's go." Keia sighed and came out of the building too. Ceae followed. We put the ruins behind us and headed in the direction of where I thought the other town was.