Chapter 12: A Land Trapped in Pre-Dawn's Light
Kyle's mouth dropped in horror when he saw the dark, barren, and cold land that they had just teleported to. As far as the eye could see there was no vegetation in sight of any kind. There was no grass on the ground, no weeds or bushes and all the trees nearby had no leaves or were even broken in half. There were no birds or squirrels or even any monsters in sight.
'Monster' was a general term for any creature known to attack humans indiscriminately that were said to have spawned from the Darkness. If there weren't any monsters in a bleak place like this then that meant this place must truly be dead...or that something worse was around...
Kyle looked around the valley and couldn't help but wonder why it was so dark here despite the fact that the watery sky was still bright with the tower's light. Kyle soon figured out that the area they were in was surrounded by mountains to both the east and the west. The mountains on the western side must have been blocking the light from the Tower of Owen from reaching the area that they were in, because only the tip of the western mountains and the top half of the Eastern mountains were bathed in light.
That must have been what killed all of the plants here. Without any light from the Tower of Owen to reach this place directly, this area had become a deserted wasteland trapped in a pre-dawn. The light filled the sky and seemed as if it was about to come down upon them, but it would never touch them.
"It's cold," Nick complained as he shivered and started to rub his hands and arms. Without the light from Owen's Tower there was nothing to supply heat to this area. Kyle began to shiver a little and he began to also rub his arms.
"We gotta get out of here," Jeff said as he rubbed where the guardian of the crystal had hit him. "Find some place warm, fix ourselves up."
Kyle scanned the horizon, but in the darkness he couldn't see anything. Turning around, he found a cave mouth that seemed well carved out and welcoming. Symbols of a crystal and the sun, which Kyle had only heard about from elders and stories, and wind were displayed along the edges. This cave obviously led to the Crystals chamber.
Kyle didn't want to go inside, but it was the only visible sign of shelter at the moment, and Nick and Jeff had already started to go inside.
"There's no point to going in there," Jaeger said as she shook her head. "That'll just take us back to the crystal, won't it?"
Jeff stopped and turned around and looked resigned as he walked out of the cave. It probably hadn't occurred to Jeff that the cave would take them right back to where they had just left.
A part of Kyle wanted to go into the cave and get the Crystal to teleport them all to wherever it had sent Ashley, but at this point he knew that was useless. The Crystal hadn't helped them at all in the end and had gone out of its way to make matters worse as far as Kyle could tell. It hadn't helped Jaeger, it had made Nick a Dark Warrior, and now it had stuck them here to freeze to death. Kyle sniffed and rubbed his arms and hands again.
"We have to move on," Jaeger said to Jeff, her skin becoming more pale than it had been inside the cave after her transformation.
"I know." Jeff turned to Nick and grabbed him by the shoulder and led him outside. "C'mon."
"Can't we just wait here till we make a fire or something?" Nick asked as he pulled away and took a step deeper into the cave.
"We don't have anything to make a fire with, Nick." Jeff grabbed Nick's shoulder more firmly as he led him out gently. "We have to make it to that town, Your. Or Yur. Ur?" Jeff shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Ashley'll fix it."
"I hate being cold," Nick said as he shivered, but he followed Jeff outside into the darkness.
"Don't you find the Darkness cold?" Jaeger said suddenly to Nick, the emphasis on the word Darkness was stressed even more than usual.
Nick didn't answer right away, but he finally shook his head.
"No, Darkness is...cool. I can live with that. It's...comfortable." Nick explained. "This darkness isn't alive or comfortable, it's cold. I hate it."
Kyle shook his head as he sniffled. He didn't know what to make of that, and he followed Jeff who led the way into the wasteland.