Fantasia
Arc3: The Heir of Ardneria
Chapter4: The mysterious shrine
After the short trip that Juan took along with Tsuki and Zolu in the mysterious underwater cavern, he grew some curiosity that pushed him to discover the secret behind the temple under his village, so he started gathering linguistic books from the library in order to decipher the ancient runes that marked the entrance of that shrine:
"My oh my! Someone is on his toes today…" the old librarian woman noted complimenting the young man's rush.
"Heh, what can one do Miss Clara? I'm just fond of these books!" Juan answered her with a smile while piling books on the table.
"You know kid, I've been here for like forty years yet I don't remember any beastman this eager to read books."
"Yeah I know it's something rare" the shepherd responded while giving her the pile of books he'll take to be registered.
The moment the librarian finished her marking, Juan shoved all those books into his leather bag and rushed to the door, but for being unaware he collided with Yera who was about to enter:
"I'm really sorry Yera! I didn't mean that!" Juan apologized while giving his hand to aid her stand.
"Um…It's ok…" the shy girl answered him ignoring his hand offering.
Juan understood that she doesn't want to talk to him because of her father so he just passed by her but she called for him so he turned back:
"Um…I wanted you to…give this to your brother…" she said while picking a letter from her purse.
Juan took it without a word, it was obviously a love letter for Roné, but this didn't concern him too much, because he was so excited to discover the underground temple.
Juan returned home where he mounted the stairs to the upper floor where he and his brother sleep, he put the letter on the drawer with a small note to Roné, took some pens and his ragged notebook, put most of the books he borrowed down, and then he headed down to his mother:
"Hi mom" He said politely giving his mother a kiss on the cheek.
"Oh how sweet to see you like this! I hope my kid be always this happy" the mother commented on her son's happiness.
"Um yeah mom, I want to ask you for something, can I take last dinner's leftover out today? I mean it's just garbage right?" the son asked.
"What…? Why that'd be the sweetest thing, since yer brother is nothin' but a clumsy slacker, I need some help." The mother replied while pinching Juan's cheeks until he dropped a tear.
And after a quick snack, Juan headed directly to the rocky shore where he met with Tsuki and Zolu who got there before him:
"Are we ready guys?" he asked.
"Sure let's go, but first what's with the bag of garbage?" the ragon asked.
"Well, since Linda is incubating I thought some seafood leftover would be nice for her nutrition." Juan explained.
"Linda?" the imp wondered.
"Yeah, the siren toad that we've met yesterday, I named her Linda, she needs food and her movement is getting slower, so I thought this might help" the shepherd answered.
Both of the imp and the ragon exchanged stares of exclamation about their friend's weird habits but they didn't bother going into a discussion, so Zolu created a water bubble and the three of them mounted to enter the secret cavern.
After feeding "Linda" some crabs and fish heads, Juan rushed to the temple door and opened his notebook in a side and a book in the other side and started copying the writings above the entrance of the temple:
"Um Dude so I'll be sitting here if anything approached I'll call for you, imp you coming?" Zolu suggested.
"I'll stick to Juan this time" the imp answered
"No problem, yeah, yeah, do whatever you want" Juan answered obliviously while flipping the pages quickly.
"Aha! This is it!" Juan boasted after finding the right translation.
"So what does it say?" Tsuki asked.
"It an ancient Ardnerian text that says: From the descendant of Yusseir to the descendants of Torano, this shrine is a trust, to keep history and land away from being torn"
"Hmm…this is weird, I am sure I've read something like it before, but who are Yusseir and Torano?" Tsuki asked, but at this moment Zolu remembered the day Luffine wanted to cast Yusseir's judgment on Ramusus (the ragons' leader) so he approached them interested.
"I don't know who Yusseir is but Torano is the name of the beastwoman who found Ardneria and gathered the tribe after decades of dispersion, so Tsuki any clues?" Juan asked.
"Not sure, I've read the name Yusseir's before but where…my memory fails me, I think we should go inside…"the imp suggested.
And so they've entered the dark temple, luckily Tsukiname had a fire spell set to light torches for their path, walking slowly out of keeping caution, they were walking in some sort of halls with two thick pillars on each side, until they reached a dead end:
"So…that's it? Nothing is here but pillars" Zolu commented.
"No there's something…up there" Tsuki said pointing her torch to the ceiling.
There was something like she said; the ceiling was in reality a map, a map of the main continent, with six locations being circled; on the far southern sea, on the southwestern sea, on southeast, on the east, on the west, and finally north of the previous locations and south of the Hatenaian capital, the first five mentioned location were linked by thick lines drawing a pentagonal diamond-like shape, while the last location was linked with each other place separately.
"Wow! This is amazing! Despite I don't understand what those locations are?" Juan said.
"Wait a minute look closely" Tsuki said lighting the torch stronger pointing to the southeast location.
Juan focused a little, then it was all obvious, that spot carried Ardneria's symbol, that circle simply meant Ardneria! Then the other spots are…
"Look on the southwest! That's where Rameyan islands are located!" Zolu noted.
"Rameyan?" Juan asked.
"Yeah, it's the name of the islands where we ragons originated from" Zolu answered.
"This is my turn to note that the western spot is where my village used to be" Tsuki said with sad voice pointing to the eastern circle marked with a twisted four pointed star symbol.
"You mean there's Eikoku, Ardneria, Sumeria, and if I am not wrong the western circle (which carried a sword as a symbol) is Espadia, then the northern circle is…"
"Arcadia!" Tsuki said.
"So the southern spot is…" Zolu asked but no one seemed to have the answer because a large crack was blotting that spot.
Juan sat down and started sketching the place and the map, then he asked Tsuki to check around for any writings on the wall, and so she did but the only thing she found was a large drawing of "hand" on the left wall with a large rune on it.
"Juan you might as well as check this" she called for her friend who approached the drawing while searching in the book for the meaning of that symbol, but it was useless so he sat down on the floor and started scratching his head.
"Calm down dude! Chill! Your head is steaming! You don't need to force yourself, at least you got the map" the ragon told his friend.
"The map! That's it! This room is a map room and the rune on the wall can also be a map, and the hand is a compass!" This is what Juan thought, he stood lifting his left palm pointing it to the wall and signed for Tsuki to approach with the torch:
"That's it! This no rune, it's a map! Look the middle finger indicates the road of the map room! This hall! While the other lines are walls that limit roads inside this temple!" the shepherd explained.
"So the other fingers are sub entrances, but how do we get there?" the imp asked.
"They must be hidden somewhere, let's see, we have five fingers, and the middle one is the hall, the middle finger centers the other four fingers, and the hall centers…" Juan answered pointing to a nearby pillar.
Zolu checked it, noticing smaller symbols carved on a tablet stuck to it, so he asked Juan to read them, after copying the map he used his dictionary to understand that each pillar of the four is represented with a finger, thus every pillar opens a different path, with a little effort Juan managed to turn the slab on the pillar as indicated by the glyphs, and with it the ground started to shake:
"What's going on?!" Zolu asked.
"We engaged a mechanism; a door should be opened now!" Juan answered when a large tile from the floor got pulled to the wall revealing stairs that ascent upward leading to a higher floor.
"That'd be our ticket." Zolu said rushing up.
"Hey wait up!" Juan yelled.
Tsuki wanted to follow them but her kimono got stuck in some crack which halted her down, on the other hand the shepherd went upstairs in a rush to find himself in a vast round room, but his attention was drawn by the strange pole in the center of the room that linked the floor with the ceiling.
It was a simple tall pillar of stone, with two diamond shaped gaps arrayed horizontally in the middle, they were big enough to contain a medium sized fist, and with more light it was revealed that the holes had the Ardnerian symbol on top and some carved text beneath.
"Hmm more weird stuff…what does it say dude?" Zolu asked.
"Hmm let's see, this text isn't like the others, it's a mixture of native Ardnerian and some other language, however the text can be translated as: By the authority of the great Zheinian brothers we descendants of Torano are entrusted with the fearsome tyrant flame…then the text started to get unreadable, then again there's this small line that says: And those who dare to ravage this sealed treasure shall be punished…"
"And their gluttonous hands shall suffer for the rest of time!" Tsuki completed the text involuntarily with a weird stare in her eye.
"You could read this?" Juan asked her.
"No, we had this…no actually this is the only thing that stayed after the destruction of Eikoku!" the imp answered breaking a tear.
"What's this supposed to be?" Zolu asked as well.
"Maybe the six regions marked in the world map are connected somehow, Tsuki and Zolu did anyone of you have a temple like this in your home village?" Juan told his friends.
"I dunno dude, I was never interested in such things, what about you imp?"
But Tsuki wasn't responding to them because her eyes were pinned on the blue jewel in Juan's staff, making horrible memories flooded her head at that moment shortening her breaths, blurring her sight, soaking her feeble body with sweat, seeing this Juan dropped his book and headed to catch her because she passed out…
To be continued