Friendship is Recovering

Freindship is Recovering

In an unknown part of the world near an ocean, there is a village. The village is a relatively small village, but its houses were large enough to hold a crowd of people within them. The wooden sign at the front gates read, "Welcome to The Hollow". Anyone who has heard of the town was either treasure hunters or bounty hunters, so it was understandable of why it was full both of those kinds of people. The whole village has its buildings arranged in a circle to allow easy navigation to all parts of the town. The bounty house was on the left side of the village, it was made from wood from the strongest tree that grew up high in the mountains, and most of the other houses nearby the bounty house were made from the exact same wood. The buildings across from it however, were not the same. On the right side of town was the building known as the Treasure Hunters Guild, where most treasure hunters, famous or not, always flock when they are in town and looking for a job. The building itself is made from solid gold that was obtained from years of treasure hunters paying for the building to be constructed from. They only wanted the guild to look different from the other buildings, so the houses nearest to the building are made from different materials instead of solid gold. Those buildings are made from a very sturdy wood that is white as the snow upon the ground. It was unknown of where the wood came from, but no one really cared about it because they were very beautiful to look at.

Between the two houses and across from the entrance gates, was a building that stood proudly and looked very different from all of its neighboring buildings. Instead of the special wood that is used in the buildings surrounding town, it was made out of simple wood that one could get from any of the trees in the world. That building is known to be the bar, where both Treasure hunters and Bounty hunters flock to either celebrate, or get a drink after a successful job.

Inside the bar were crowds of people gathered around tables. Some of them are talking with their friends and singing songs with them, the rest were either arm wrestling, or crowding around a table that had a drinking contest going on and chanting. But out of all of the activity in the bar, there was only one man who sat directly at the bar itself. He was separate from the entire merry goings happening around him. The bartender knew he was a regular, he knows all regulars by heart. The strange man would sit on the stool with as straight of a posture as he could manage, but he did not even show the sign of being drunk like the rest of the bar was.

The bartender knew the man and how well he could hold his drinks, when the man first walked into the door; he was a height of 6 foot 4 inches. He was taller than an average man would be, but only by a few inches. He wore a robe that was the color of a darkened yellow. Despite being indoors, he would never take off his robe. Many of the men asked him to take off his robe, but he refused every single one of the requests. When they got mad and tried to force it off, he knocked them to the ground with a single well placed punch to the face. The men around would surround him, in response, he took a fighting stance of an experienced brawler. He would expertly avoid the bounty hunters punches and duck below the treasure hunter's swings. He danced as smoothly as if he is a swallow flying through the air. During the fight however, his hood slid off his head to reveal: ragged brown hair, his eyes are as brown as his hair was. When the bartender looked into those eyes, he could see that they had a story. His glare however, is ice cold, and the people who challenged him immediately started to back off. The man would then pull his hood back over his head once more, before walking to the bar stool and ordering a drink.

Back in the present, the bartender got his attention.

"Excuse me sir but could I have a moment of your time?" The bartender asks the man, after handing him his drink. His favorite drink so far was his famous scotch that the bartender created himself. He took a large swig out of the bottle, before responding.

"Make it quick," He said with a hard voice. At the time, he had his hood down so his face and eyes are clearly visible.

"Very well, a certain person walked into this bar and gave me a note, she specifically told me who to give it to." The bartender would say.

"And who would that be?" The robed man growled in annoyance.

"I think by the description she gave me, it would be you. She did say to give it to a yellow robed man actually." He responded with a shrug.

The robed man put his fingers to his chin and thought for a moment, before he looked at the bartender with those hard brown eyes.

"Fine, give me the note." He would say in a mix between a growl, and a huff.

The bartender nodded once, and put the small piece of paper down on the bar. In the background, a table would be smashed to pieces by an arm wrestling match, causing the bartender to sigh. The robed man picked up the note abd skim over its contents. He then puts the note in one of his robe pockets, His other hand reached into the other robe pocket and pulled out a sum of money for the drinks, he left it on the table before getting up and walking out of the bar, pulling his hood over his head. Based on where the note said for him to go, he would make his way towards one of the wooden houses that was close to the bounty house.

When the man arrives at the area where the note said to meet, he looked around the house for an ambush. He was in too many ambushes to not be too careful about it. One of the ambushes was from other completive treasure hunters that wanted him dead, so that they would get more people to hire them. He hated those who profited from stealing treasures for money alone. When he found that no one was going to ambush him, he walked into the house. In one of the rooms lay a note and a leather bag on a wooden table. The man walked up to the table read the note,

I apologize, but I cannot meet you because I was busy. To make up for being unable to come, I will pay you half of the price now to make up for it. What I need you to do is find an artifact of great importance to me and bring it to me. I will give you the rest of the payment when you give me the artifact intact.

~C

The man frowned and opened the brown leather pouch. His scowl however melted away very quickly when he looked inside the small leather bag. There were golden coins with the symbol of the sun on them. The man changed his mind about the job, and looked over the map that was drawn on the underside of the table. He located the area with relative ease. After he found where the area was, he took the payment and put it in his upper robe pocket. When he turned and walked out of the building he smirked to himself. He knew would have enough to retire after all, when he was done with this job.

The man traveled for a day by boat, before he arrived at the area where the treasure was said to be located on the note. He got off of the wooden boat and secured it to the dock with rope. After he got off the docks, he looked around the relatively small island. He would see an old stone temple in the distance, and assumed it was almost a thousand years old, maybe even more based on how crumbled it looked outside. He figured if the treasure would be anywhere; it would always be in the most abandoned places. He sighed, knowing it was too easy to find the temple. He didn't like it when things were too easy. The man took a walk to the temple through the dense forest, and prepared to defend himself from anything that would attack him.

A minute passed, and the man arrived at the temple entrance looking very paranoid. He worried about if he was going to be attacked by anything at all. He knew for a fact that if there wasn't something attacking him that means that whatever it is that is guarding the treasure must be extremely dangerous. However his paranoia vanished when he saw there was a lack of any bones of any kind at the entrance. Instead it exploded into a full blown panic, He almost wanted to leave this island, but he had to get this job over with first. So he entered into the grey crumbling temple, feeling very uneasy as he entered.

The man was right to be watchful for any dangers, because the first encounter he had with a trap was a simple pressure trap. As he walked down a hallway one of the tiles in the floor depressed downwards, the circles in the right wall then became visible to him. The man had very quick reactions, and he was able to avoid being speared to death by the darts that shot out of the wall. He weaved through all of the darts with skill, but was unable to avoid a few darts from grazing his arm or leg. He then quickly made his way towards the exit of the hallway, and he managed to avoid becoming skewered to the wall in that room. He would sign in relief, and tended his wounds. After he rested for a moment, he looked over the room he entered.

The floor had certain colors: red, yellow, green, and blue. When the man took a step onto one of the green tiles a green gas rose up from the floor. The man quickly covered his mouth in response and stepped backwards. Just as quickly as it came, the gas vanished. The man made a note in his head to never stop on any of the green tiles. He then stepped upon a blue tile. The blue tile had a chilling air come up from below, and the man quickly stepped back once more. Similar to the green tile, the chilling air vanished as quickly as it arrived. The man frowned and decided to try his favorite color this time and stepped upon a red tile. He was lucky enough to step on the edge of it, as a fire rose up from the tile making the man jump back very quickly. He put out the small fire that started on his robe after he returned to where he started. He figured the yellow tiles were safe enough and stepped upon one. When nothing happened he made his way across the room quickly by carefully choosing his jumps. He would make it to the door it after jumping on the yellow tiles, the door would swiftly open for him when he reached it. The man sighs and mutters to himself, "That was kind of stupid; I mean who would make a room where you step on yellow tiles?" He did not complain any further, and he swiftly enters the next room.

The man stopped at the entrance and looked over the room like he did before. He knew it looked too simple to be an easy walk to the exit with no traps activating room, and looked over the floor and walls. He noticed that the walls were very smooth at the top and bottom, so he would assume it was a wall trap. He knew from experience that if he stepped into the room, the walls would start to close in on him unless he found a way to stop them. Also from experience, he found that sometimes the odd thing off from the whole entire room may help him with stopping the walls from crushing him. If he could not find one, then he would stand as close to the exit as one can, and wait for it to open. His eyes gazed over the floor and walls, while he was mumbling to himself. His eyes slowly stopped on a certain crack in the wall, he focused his eyes and then took out his mini binoculars to see the crack better. He saw that it contained a lever inside of it, so he knew exactly what he was going to go towards immediately. He would lower into a runner's stance, before immediately running towards the crack in the wall. He heard a soft click in the floor as he ran; the walls then start to move closer to him. What he did not count on happening, was the walls having spikes adorning the once flat surface. He worried for a moment that he may actually be killed by a wall trap if he did not disable it quickly. When the man got to the crack, he quickly reached inside the crack and grasped the lever. The lever stubbornly remained upright and the man reached into the crack with his other hand and pulled at the lever with all of his might. When the walls were halfway to their destination of crushing him in the middle of the room, the man successfully pulled the lever down. The walls would slowly groan to a halt. By the time the exit door opened, the man sighed in relief. He was glad to not become a bloody pancake in the room and made his way through the exit door and to the next room.

He could see a room with an altar inside of the room, but he could not tell for sure what was upon the alter. He knew he had to get through the room he was in to reach it. When he took a step however, the middle of the large room opened up into a very deep pit. The man did not move from his spot as the pit expanded to the point of where a normal man could not jump over the blackened pit normally. The pit would then stop expanding, and the man looked at how wide the pit was. He would throw a rock down into the pit and listen for the rock landing. After what would feel like a minute later to him, he heard the soft tink of the rock hitting the floor. The man knew he could not fall down the pit because the fall will kill him if he did. He did what he did best in this situation and looked around the room for anything he could use to cross the pit. After some looking around, he saw one thing he could use. It was a piece of old wood lying against the wall nearest to him, but he noticed there was mold over the wood. He would decide against trying to use it as a bridge, mold on wood means that either the wood is weakened, or that the wood was very slippery with water. He continued his search as calmly as he could when he saw some vines. There was problem with the vines, they were too high up for him to jump and grab one of them to swing across. He grumbled to himself as he continued his search for a way across the pit. Finally he noticed that there was a small ledge that was along the left side of the room. He knew that it could be very dangerous, but if he was careful enough in his steps, he would be able to shimmy his way across the ledge. He decided the ledge may be the best way to cross over the large gap, and walked towards the ledge. Before he would take a step on the ledge, he tied the bottom part of his robe around his waist. He did that to allow his legs freedom of movement as he crossed. He took a deep breath and slowly edged his way across the ledge on the wall.

When he crossed the entire pit and put both of his feet on the floor, he would sign in relief. He untied his robe from around his waist, and it fell back over his legs once again. He moved his way towards the door to the room that contained the altar. Upon the alter, he would notice a little glass horse with wings. It looked very similar to a Pegasus in Greek mythology, only smaller. He smiled because he knew for a fact that it was the treasure that his client wanted him to find. He looked around the room like he did with the previous rooms for any form of trap. When he could not see anything that looked remotely close to a trap he took a cautious step. When nothing happened he took another careful step, and then another step. When nothing dangerous happened, he carefully made his way towards the altar. He knew from his experiences in temples that if he picked up the artifact, it would almost always activate a trap that would possibly kill him there. So the man did what he knew from experience, and that was to check the altar itself for any form of trap that would activate when he removes the artifact from its resting spot.

After finding that there was not anything visible to stop him from picking up the artifact, he became annoyed, "Really? That's all I need to do? No more traps that I have to avoid? Well that blows..." He said with disappointment in his voice. He walks up to the alter and checks it closely for any pressure traps that could activate after he picked up the artifact. A lack of finding any of pressure traps really did not help the man with his disbelief; he could not believe his last job would be as simple as picking up the artifact. As he reached for the artifact he heard a small ringing noise. He would stop and look around for the source of the ringing, but it would stop when he stopped reaching towards the artifact. He would shrug and reach again for the artifact. Once the man touched the glass artifact, he heard a soothing voice, "John, it is time for you to find a new life away from your own." He would vanish, along with the artifact in a bright flash of light. The man known as John vanished from his world and unknowingly entered another world.

It is a world full of Color, peace, harmony, and quite possibly contained his own salvation from his troubled past