metal. small. hidden from sight. she keeps this like a silent mantra as they approach the abandoned stretch, roughly southeast of where they’d all begun. it feels as though, with every step, they’re isolating themselves further and further, and not just because of the dissemination of the group. the thickening density of the vegetation... she doesn’t know if the other areas of these ruins are like this too, but this segment seems to have been overtaken, almost belonging more to the nearby woodland than the rocky plains on which they’d been traveling.
steps slow as they draw up to the foundations of the roofless structure they’d seen looming in the distance, skeletal and lonesome. surprisingly intact walls that must have once been as pristine as those of garreg mach stand furred over with moss and greyed with time, in some places known only by the blanket of ivy and vines that denote their height and shape.
within, as she carefully tests one foot across the threshold and then steps across, the floor is nearly indistinguishable from that of a forest undergrowth, with only peeking patches of stone to indicate otherwise, but on these, a concentrated examination can make out a faint series of rectangular outlines right up against the walls before they’re obscured by the creeping flora. and, she squats down, these long chunks of wood... too polished to be natural. more like — pieces of bed frames? amidst the taller ferns, colored cloth — a robe? a belt. still bundled together, disturbed only by natural elements. there, an overturned pot of brushes, now worn and dusty.
❝ people lived and slept in this room, ❞ she says, half to herself, ❝ it must have been the clergy. wasn’t this place attacked? ❞ it looks like it hadn’t been expected. she straightens up again. ❝ if there is an entrance to an underground city nearby, then we should be careful, “ she says to the others. ❝ there’s no telling if there might be defenses to keep intruders out. ❞
it’s hard to imagine, even as the words come out of her mouth. this place looks so... serene feels like the wrong word, but certainly not the entry to another civilization. and had the clergy known about it too, or was it just coincidence that their priory happened to safeguard something more? were these locks the whole purpose of this place? had the central church known that when they came here? ugh, if only that aeschylus would tell us anything! and if the knights knew, they were just as tight-lipped as he was. well, first thing’s first. a mechanism concealed where people spent their every day wouldn’t just be in some hole in the wall.
❝ julia, sara, ❞ she ventures, ❝ can you feel any kind of magic here? maybe the locks aren’t just hidden by normal means. ❞
♡ // ↪ @lafilledenaga, @prayerwitch, @raikuroji, or @theindigoflirt