Chapter 1: Echo's in a memory
A strange man is sitting at a wooden table in a bar. If anyone simply walked in and looked at him, they would find that he's not really memorable to look at or even remember. The only thing that he wore was a simple robe of what used to be a vibrant yellow color, but has faded out with time.
The robe looked well maintained, but very unclean as one could see dirt and dust all over it. One would wonder about who he is, but would soon forget themselves in the drink. However, if one would remain sober long enough to take a better look at him; they would be able to see that he looked like he was waiting for something. However, no one who entered the bar was a simply a normal person looking to drink their troubles away.
A large majority of the customers that frequent the bar that he was in were either a treasure hunter returning from a hunt for a rare artifact or coming back after being betrayed by an ally, or they were bounty hunters coming back from their jobs to celebrate their success or drown their failures. The man at the table however remained completely separate from the crowds, so he was able to remain unnoticed for the most part.
In reality however, he was just waiting for his client to come. The bar is not at all an odd place to meet a client for him, mostly due to the fact that no one really paid much attention to others conversations, but this bar wasn't always the best place to meet. Like usual bars it had its share of bar fights, but sometimes it turns into a full out brawl between the treasure hunters and bounty hunters.
Eventually, an odd looking woman walked into the bar, somehow not turning any heads despite her obvious beauty. The yellow robed man however noticed her, and kept an eye on her. The woman turned her eyes towards the man and they locked for a moment before the woman walked towards him and took a seat across from him.
"Are you John?" She asked the man.
"Depends on who's asking..." the man replied gruffly. The woman took a look over him as if to gauge him before saying anything else.
"I would rather not tell you my name as you do not need to know at the moment," She said with a smile on her face.
"I wasn't going to ask about that..." the man muttered audibly. He wore a serious look in his brown eyes as he looked over the woman. He noted that her eyes were of a mix between grey and magenta, which struck him as odd but he didn't say anything more.
"Straight to the point then?" She asked, sounding just a tiny bit sad about his response but hiding it well. The man nodded slowly and she sighed and put a paper down on the wooden table. The paper had two things: a picture of what looked to be an ancient Greek statue, and a map that showed where it was located. The man picked it up and looked it over as she explained his job.
"I have someone who would be very interested in seeing that statue recovered, and I heard from others that you were the best one to talk to for this," The man set it down and looked at her with a serious look in his eyes.
"So you want me to go and retrieve this statue for you then?" He asked with a seemingly bored tone. She nodded and John sighed and muttered something before turning his head back towards her. "I'm not going to take the job..." He said with a firm voice. The woman didn't even flinch away from it, instead she smiled.
"That's okay, I could always get another to do this job anyways," She answered in a very polite way. John did a reaction of his and pulled out a knife and stabbed it in the table causing heads to turn towards them out of curiosity. They turned back to their usual business however when the woman had no reaction towards the knife being stabbed into the table.
"I don't take kindly to veiled threats," John warned her, but what almost infuriated him was the fact that she smiled still. It was making him uneasy and he kept a hand near the knife.
"It wasn't a threat of any kind," she responded in an oddly calm way. John raised an eyebrow about how she can be so calm, and looked around. No one looked as if they were keeping an eye on them or even getting ready to make a move towards his action with the knife, so he turned back.
"So what makes you so sure that I'd even take this job?" He asked her, knowing full well that he will end up not taking the job anyways.
"I'm pretty sure this may change your mind?" She said, putting a small brown leather bag on the table in easy reach for him to pick it up. He kept his right hand near the knife and picked the bag up with his left and looked inside. His eyes widened at the sight of gold coins inside the bag.
"I'm listening now," he said, looking much more interested than he did before. The woman smiled and pointed at the map.
"That is the job, find the statue," She said to him with a hidden sense of glee. She was so sure that he would still refuse, but he looked like he needed money.
"Right, I find the statue and get it out of the place... where do I meet you when I get out?" He asked the woman.
"You'll figure it out..." She said in a cryptic way. John sighed, knowing that some people don't share their secrets.
"Right... how do I get there?" He asked her. The woman smiled brightly as she was glad that she was able to be him to do it.
As John sat outside, watching the sun go down in the town. He looked around the town and smiled to himself as he noted the golden buildings that were on the left side of the town. Those buildings were owned by experienced treasure hunters that have earned them through many treasure hunts. His dream was to have his very own house to have as his home and to be able to be remembered for it as well.
He never personally went in any of those houses out of respect, but he did hear rumors about how the insides of it were made of gold. He knew that those rumors were not true because one cannot sleep on a gold bed. Even then it would be to fancy for the treasure hunter's tastes. He smiled at the memory of an old treasure hunter telling him how he would rather sleep on stone instead of gold.
The first person to tell me to sleep on a bed of gold will be the first person to be punched. It's harder to sleep on gold because it's so shiny you know...
John chuckled to himself at the memory but he slowly frowned as he remembered what happened to him. He sighed and looked at the old sign near what many would call the "Entrance" to The Hallow. The reason why they called it the "Entrance" was because most of the time no one actually walked through it unless they were new to the town. Most of the residents of the town usually came into town from any direction except the usual entrance.
"Sir?" A voice asks from behind John, startling him and making him reach for his knife before he saw who it was. He calmed down when he saw that it was the bartender.
"Don't sneak up on me like that..." John said as he moved his hand off his knife.
"Sorry, but I should really ask you to not put knives in the tables..." The bartender said with a serious look on his face.
"People do that often to you?" He asked, making a bit of small talk to give him enough time to calm down.
"More often than you think... at least you did it at the wooden table," The bartender said with a sigh.
"Right, it was not anything major anyways," John said while turning back towards the town.
"Thought I'd let you know..." The bartender replied as he walked back inside. John sighed to himself as soon as the bartender closed the door. He gave himself enough of a time to relax before the job, but he felt like he should still look at his town. He shook his head clear of that idea quickly however; the only other thing to look at was the White wood buildings. John knew that those buildings belonged to the bounty hunters, but they were seen as cruel and ruthless.
It was a major reason why he was a treasure hunter, because he would never bring himself to be like them. As the sun finally set over the hill, he made his way to the docks. The town was mostly encircled by mountains, but the land that it was on was an island that no one really bothered to add to the map.
No one was sure that if it was laziness, or the fact that no one really knew what to call the island. He was pretty sure that it was the first one mainly because of the fact that only certain people knew where it was. He shook his head to focus on the task at hand again, knowing that he was still aged quite a bit. Being 19 years old and nearing 20 wasn't really old, but it still felt to him like as if he was around 30 from previous events.
"Oi, you heading out?" A burly man asks him as he neared a wooden row boat.
"Yep, doing another job," John responded back as he stepped into the boat.
"Alright," The man replied and turned back towards his previous task which was carving a plank of wood that he held in his hands.
Neither of them said anything more as John untied the boat and pushed off from the dock and started to row. He knew which direction that he was going to go, but he made a glance at the map again to make sure that he was going the right way. Without the sun’s light, he had to squint his eyes a bit in order to see it clearly. As soon as he confirmed his direction, he rowed onwards towards his destination.
When the sun was rising again John saw the island in sight. It took him a few days of rowing to reach it, but he got there all the same. Before he beach on the island though, he made sure to clean the boat of all crumbs from his previous meals so that the birds wouldn't become attracted to it.
The only birds he needed to worry about were the seagulls, and they were only mildly annoying. However he didn't want the birds to draw the attention of anything towards his boat and end up stealing it or breaking it, leaving him trapped with no way to leave the island. After checking the boat for anything else, he rowed towards the island and got out when the water was shallow enough for him to get out and pull the boat towards the shore.
As soon as he pulled the boat onto the beach he looked around at his surroundings and saw no signs of any recent life in the immediate area. He nodded to himself as he pulled his backpack and belt of knives out of the boat and put them on, making sure to check each knife to make sure that it's still sharp before going into the forest.
As John walked through the forest he kept an ear out for any sound that would alert him to anything that he should be wary of. When he heard nothing but the soft sound of his own footsteps he became worried, the reason being that he heard nothing at all when this is a forest that should have animal life. He reasoned that the possibility was that something chased out the animals, or that there were no animals here in the first place.
The second possibility did not seem as likely as the first one, so he discounted it as a silly theory, but he always kept a hand on his knife for a quick response time if he should ever be attacked by anything. As the forest went by with no attacks, he started to be increasingly more worried as he made sure to look everywhere he could. He saw nothing else but the trees, a few plants on the ground, and the grass that grew.
The lack of dangers did nothing to soothe his growing paranoia and he continued walking with his hand upon the knife in it’s sheathe.
John emerged from the forest, ready to strike at anything to try to calm down when he saw the stone temple he was seeking. He looked almost dumbfound at the fact that he found the temple and encountered nothing on the way there, but shook it off.
"Maybe this might not be such a great idea..." He muttered to himself, but he did have a near perfect streak of obtaining the treasures he was sent after. The only times where he didn't take the treasures were the times where it would possibly bring ruin to either the world, the one who took the treasure, or it may be used for less than great deeds. He didn't know if the treasure had any of the first two issues, and he could tell by the looks of that woman's eyes, as strangely colored as they were that she wasn't planning on using the treasure for anything evil.
He sighed to himself, knowing that he is going to need to enter the temple anyways took out his knife and examined the stone door. The door had symbols carved upon it but it confused John about what they meant.
The symbols were arrayed in a circle with one bigger symbol in the center. He examined the symbols more closely and saw the top symbol looked like a cloud with a lightning bolt coming out of it. He went clockwise from the top symbol and saw that the next one looked like three apples. "Apples?" he said to himself with confusion, not understanding the meaning of it.
He shook his head and looked to the next symbol, which were three butterflies in flight. He smiled at a memory of the past that involved butterflies but shook his head clear of it. He needed to remain focused on the task at hand and moved to the next symbol. It was this symbol that confused him more than the others because it was three balloons.
He raised an eyebrow in confusion at the balloons, thinking that this temple must have really been crazy. His eyes then moved to the final symbol in the circle, which is a set of three kites. He figured that the symbol probably means gemstones and turned his head to look at the symbol in the middle of the circle: a few small stars surrounding an even bigger star.
It was that last symbol that almost drove him to wanting to leave the island altogether out of fear for his sanity, but he knew he had to get the treasure from inside first. Clenching his teeth together, he turned to the area surrounding the stone door in an attempt to find an entrance into the temple with very little success. He muttered a few curse words softly to himself as he looked at the door again.
He looked closer at the door and saw that something looked missing from the bottom of each of the symbols. He grimaced, knowing full well that it meant that he would have to locate whatever it was missing from museums, collectors, or even other treasure hunters.
Or he could simply look to the right of the door to find a few stone blocks that looked loose. He examined the stone blocks before pushing them back in, revealing on the wall next to the door more five stone blocks that had words written upon them. John clenched his fists tightly in order to try to prevent himself from screaming in anger and counted calmly from ten before examining the blocks.
He was annoyed at the fact that everything was so simple, but that annoyance faded when he saw that the words had nothing to help him put them in the right places in the door. He smiled softly, glad that it at least was a bit of a puzzle and read over the words. He blinked and read them again, out loud to himself to make sure that he wasn't having problems with himself. "Loyalty, Honesty, Kindness, Generosity, Laughter?"
None of the words help with solving the puzzle at all, so he decided to try to figure out the obvious things. The only obvious thing that stood out was generosity, which he picked up and put under the gemstones. The block clicked into place easily and the symbol lit up to be a light blue color, along with lighting up one of the stars at the center of the door.
He realized that maybe the door wasn't as crazy as he thought it might be and was impressed at how well the creators made the door and looked back at the words. He then picked up the word that said 'kindness' and put it under the butterflies, figuring that they symbolized that.
He smiled to himself as the stone clicked into place and lit the butterflies in a pink light, along with another one of the stars. He went back to the stone words and picked up the next stone that read, 'laughter' and put it into place underneath the balloons.
When it clicked into place, the balloons lit up in a stranger way with the lower two being blue, and the higher one being yellow. He almost missed seeing the third star light up because of the strange color scheme of the balloons but shook his head. Now he had only two of the words remaining, 'Honesty' and 'Loyalty'.
Those two words had nothing to do with either apples or Lightning bolts, but he thought about trial and error. He didn't want to risk it however in case the door had a trap upon it, so he took a look over what he had left. He didn't have much of a clue about how the last words should go until he had a strange feeling about the word 'honesty'. He picked up the word and looked it over before looking at the wall again.
Something was telling him that it would go under the apples, but he couldn't understand how they relate, so he decided to go with that feeling and hope that it didn't get himself hurt. When he pushed the stone into place he braced himself for whatever trap that might happen. But when the apples then started to glow a color red including the fourth star with a white color he became more confused than before.
He didn't understand how they related at all, but shrugged it off and pushed the last stone into place under the cloud and lightning. The cloud lit up to be the white color, but the lightning became a rainbow color, adding to his confusion even further. It couldn't last long when the biggest star lit up to be purple instead of the white color of the other stars and the area started to rumble. He backed away from the door as the lights faded away and it rose up to reveal the path behind it.
John was a bit amazed at how he managed to get through that door, but he figured that there was no sense in waiting any longer to enter and walked carefully into the temple. When he took a step inside, the unlit torches on the side suddenly lit up with a warm yellow glow. It made him panic a bit until he didn't hear anything else other than the sudden burst of fire to light the torches.
He slowly relaxed himself, but he didn't relax entirely because he knows that every temple has its usual death traps that would trigger from certain pieces of the floor that were pressure plates. As soon as he examined the floor, he heard an audible click and a single arrow shot out of the wall and hit him in the leg.
He cursed to very loudly as he stepped back and looked at the arrow. He pulled it out quickly but slowly enough to make sure that none of the arrow gets left in his leg. When he pulled it out he examined the arrow head for anything out of the ordinary. He sighed in relief when he noticed that it was just metal upon the arrow instead of a poisonous substance.
He tossed the arrow away and walked down the hall slowly, making sure to keep the weight off his left leg as it wasn't able to bear his weight normally.
When he reached the end of the hallway it opened up into a larger room with pictures upon the walls. He didn't really pay much attention to those as he was more focused upon the pedestal in the center of the room. The only thing it had upon it was a medium sized statue of a horse with wings. For some strange reason, he felt like as if he should know what it was.
He shook his head clear of the feeling and slowly limped his way towards it. It took him a while to reach it but he did it after stumbling once. He put his hand on the pedestal to steady himself and get a clear look of the clear glass statue sitting on the rock. It did look like something familiar, but he couldn't figure out why until he remembered a story about a winged horse in Greek mythology, the Pegasus.
He smiled at how the statue was almost a complete replica of the legendary horse, but it faded when he heard footsteps in the hall behind him. He turned around to see a woman come from the hallway that he came from.
"What are you doing here?" John asked the woman uncertainly while putting his right hand on the knife's sheathe, the other hand stayed upon the alter to keep himself steady.
"I came here to offer you another chance at life," She said, looking around the room with a bit of sadness in her eyes.
"Why the hell would you say that?" John said in confusion, his mind was unsure of if he should pull out the knife or just wait.
"Because you don't deserve to remain like you are..." the woman responded, and suddenly disappeared. John looked around in confusion until he saw a flash of light appear from behind him. He turned as quickly as his wounded leg would allow him to, and saw the woman on the altar.
"What do you-" he started to ask in confusion but the woman put her hand upon him. His eyes slowly started going black as the woman left her hand there.
"I leave the rest to you Celestia..." She said and waited for him to pass out before covering him in a bright light. When the bright light faded away, John had vanished along with the statue that was upon the alter.
