The four of us eventually left the small warehouse and followed the tunnel down. I always kept one hand on my bag with the black notebook inside. The notes I've collected so far are all genuinely creepy, but they seemed like valuable clues.
"I wonder what the 'heaven's door' part is." Link thought aloud.
"Maybe it means… I'm the savior. That's what Roy's phantom kept on calling me."
"For a savior, you seem really down in this drawing." Ike shrugged.
The drawing of me holding a black feather also had a signature of the artist. Although we couldn't find any more of his works, we could use this as a guide to find more clues. The signature was illegible but elegant in a way the cursive was written.
There were a couple more warehouses that crossed our path but none of them had anything as interesting as the black notebook I had. Eventually, tracks and carts started to show our way down to the more developed mining areas. My footing was lighter now that the ground was flat and I recovered from my drowsiness.
Some wooden columns were hammered together provided a makeshift stand. I wasn't really sure how the wood prevented cave-ins but the structure was intriguing. Although I did miss seeing the blue when I looked up. I loved staring up at the sky and wondering if the goddess was watching me back. I wondered if I made her proud.
We reached two towering metal doors open like a gate to a palace. Many bolts were stapled into the wall to hold them up. But I didn't see the point to it when the gates seemed like were kept open all the time; the stoppers that held them open were starting to rust with the doors.
Through the doors was a rather large room lined up with tents. In the corner of the room, there was a tent that was bigger than the other ones. Many wooden columns supported the ceiling like spider webs. I wondered how in the world people got up there to construct that intricate maze of wood.
Link was touching the wall and compared it to the one outside the metal gates. "It's manmade. The walls in this room are rough and random."
I took a good look also. The walls outside the gates were rough also, but followed a vertical motion corresponding with the water that trickled along the rocks. The walls in the room were almost like mosaics with tiles of all shapes and sizes. Not color though, that was always dark brown and black.
"Maybe the miners needed more room to study their rocks." Ike was already going through the tents and looking for anything worth some importance to us.
"Were the warehouses not enough for the study groups? I can't wrap my mind to research rocks in tents like these." Roy chuckled but I saw his point. There were four warehouses we passed by before we came to this room. All of them were piled with research and recordings. I don't know how much or how long the people studied the minerals found here, but what was the rush in setting up tents to study? And was there a reason to blast open a part of the cave to set up a makeshift study area?
I stepped down the ledge and started with one tent. Link joined me.
A musty smell filed my nose. The tent consisted of books, a small table, a sleeping bag, an old lamp, and papers. Papers and more papers. But still, the papers all explained about the research. The only interesting thing I found was a photograph of a well-built man with a handsome, tall woman and in between the two was a shy looking boy smiling sheepishly at the camera.
"Look at the background." Link suggested. Behind the family was a small one-story house surrounded by a cream-white colored columns. It was a beautiful sight I've seen before in a tourist magazine. The rock icicles called stalactites looked fragile and dangerous but still beautiful. The columns that erected from the ground around them were like those white wedding cakes stacked high.
"This man... brought a picture of his wife and son to keep him company." I guessed.
"Research takes a while, huh? You can't even go home. I'd hate that."
"Yeah..."
I stared at the picture for a long time. I wondered how the man felt when he was looking at this.
Just then, Roy poked his head through the entrance. "Hey, come to the big tent. We found more of the sketches."
Link stepped out. I thought of bringing the photo with me but I decided to leave it behind. It was a bit creepy to keep a photo of people I don't know. I don't know if they're alive, even. But somehow, I couldn't keep my eyes off of it. When I exited the tent, I looked at the photo one last time. I had a feeling I'll never see it again.
The big tent was different than the other ones. Papers were piled high to the top of the tent. As we ventured through the white skyscrapers, there was the sleeping bag shoved in the corner as if sleep wasn't important. A large amber-colored desk was pushed against the wall. The trash can right next to it was full with crumpled papers. More paper balls were rolling around the desk. The sketches that were thrown away were unfinished pieces of crystals, blueprints of bridges and houses, and rough maps with legends that were difficult to decipher.
On top of the desk were sketches of us. There were drawings of Link drawing his sword, Ness concentrating as he used his psychic power, they were endless. I even found a sketch of Roy painted in ink when he was still a phantom. In another pile, there were drawings of monsters. I didn't know if these were imaginary monsters, but I found a very detailed piece of the reptilian hellhound. How in the world did this person illustrate so much detail of that creature? Surely he had to get close to it, but I doubted that creature would just sit there and model for a sketch.
"This person wasn't interested in mining." Roy broke the silence.
"Now we're getting somewhere." Link smirked and crossed his arms.
Ike was staring off in a different direction. He had a hard look on his face.
"What's wrong?" I asked. But he quickly put a hand up to gesture he needed quiet. Roy and I met eyes and we shrugged. We didn't hear anything. But Ike then slowly walked to the exit and crouched down. Without taking his eyes off of something outside, he waved at us to come and see it.
A dark, but a small figure was standing outside without moving a single muscle. He was a couple tents down just standing there. It made me wonder if that figure has been there in the first place and we didn't notice it. But then, only its head whirled around. The dark figure met eyes with me and smiled from ear to ear, drooling a bright orange liquid. The liquid dribbled off the chin in a thick matter and hissed as it hit the ground. It took me a second to realize what the liquid was.
Somebody grabbed my arm and yanked me to the side. A searing heat wave clouded us and the first paper ball caught on fire. A spinning, billowing surge of pure lava instantly evaporated the dry papers, sending everything up in flames.
One spot on my thigh ignited in boiling pain. I was about to scream but a hand covered my mouth. Roy was biting his lip so intensely, I was afraid he was going to chew it off. He shook his head frantically. I nodded once and promised him silently I wouldn't make a sound. I looked down and saw a perfect black circle surrounded by a raw red-pink burn. A drop of lava caught on me.
The four of us escaped through a temporary hole in the back. Link found a dark corner of the room were the rock folded back to resemble a small safe-house. Roy pulled me in first and Link and Ike stooped low to keep watch. The pain in my right thigh was unlike any burn I've ever experienced. I grabbed and clawed at it. It was almost alien to how a single spot could be so painful. I growled behind Roy's clenched hand. I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream.
I heard the phantom cackle. He twirled around with his arms stretched out, dancing in the flames and kicking at the lava like he was in a meadow in spring. I was relieved somehow that he wasn't interested in searching us, but the fact that the creature was skipping and giggling in fire made me shudder. It was a kid. How could a kid be so powerful compared to Roy's phantom?
The tents were gone. Burned down to ashes. As the fire died, the phantom suddenly disappeared also. Link and Ike checked again and again for the phantom's presence and finally stepped out.
"He's gone. Come on out." Ike sighed. Sweat dripped from his chin. Despite Ike and Link's approval, Roy dipped his head low and checked every corner of the room with his eyes. He let go of my mouth and I finally let out something between a wail, a sigh, and a grunt.
"Well, that thing left us some souvenirs." Link chuckled. He was looking down on statues standing on gold platforms.
Author's Note: A new phantom, but the new characters will have to wait until the next chapter.