After having an early lunch, they all walked over to the residential area. Because there was nothing interesting here, it was very empty – most people wandering around were watchful guards.
On the dot, Bloody knocked against the door of the address they were told to go to. Thankfully, dwarves didn’t build their houses smaller simply because of their size, otherwise he would have had to bend down to knock.
Seconds passed until it opened.
The dwarf that opened the door would be considered tall and slender for their race. The long hair was quite smooth, with a reddish-blonde tone; once again too light for a common dwarf.
The dwarven women looked at all of them with scrutinizing gazes. “You’re the Foreigners who came to ask about my ancestor?”
“Yes. Thank you for inviting us over.”
The dwarf sighed. She stepped aside, making a motion with her hand. “Come in.”
The house opened up into a larger livingroom. Another female dwarf, with darker hair and more common stature, was placing down beverages onto the table. She smiled at the visitors, appearing more friendly than her partner.
Once everyone was seated, the first dwarf spoke. “My name is Alexa Machinas, and this is my wife, Cassandra.”
“It’s nice to meet you. My name is Bloodless Sunset. These here are Dead Rabbit, Ice Emperor, Blackstone, Spiderlily and Little Droplet.”
Alexa didn’t appear too interested in their names, but gave a polite nod anyway. Compared to her wife, she looked colder – the way her face was formed held a hint of elven heritage. “The note said that you wish to know about my ancestor Thea… because you have met a dragon?”
Everyone glanced at Little Droplet, who shrugged. There was no better way to catch a dwarf’s interest.
This time, it was Ice who spoke. “Yes. We are on a mission for a dragon called Tiamat. Our journey has led us to believe that Thea might have done research into a matter that would help us complete it.”
Alexa stiffened. She lowered her head, looking down at her fingers. Next to her, Cassandra wrapped an arm around her shoulder in silent comfort.
“My family has always been one of researchers”, she said in a stiff voice. “Thea was the same. However, she alone kept her research strictly secret and… towards the end, she must have found something that drove her near mad.”
The party held their breaths.
“According to what my grandfather told me, she must have appeared like she was broken for a time. She caught herself again, but… She asked all of us to not touch her notes even after her death. They’re locked up to this day. And you want to take them?”
“We don’t want to take them. Just a look”, Bloody awkwardly corrected.
Alexa scoffed at the beastman. Seeing that, Blackstone jumped in. “Please. It’s important for us. We’re stuck – we have no idea how to complete the mission we were given. Her notes are the only clue we have right now.”
“It’s not like you can’t look. Thea asked us not to look for our own good – she never made it an order. Otherwise, we’d have burned her things long ago. All I ask is that you keep your mouth shut. I want to know nothing about, nothing at all! If I find out you’ve been spreading the information inside, I’ll make you pay!”
“All we ask for is silence”, Cassandra summed up.
At the same time, a note popped up for the whole party.
【Alexa Machinas is demanding an oath from you.
You may not spread the information found inside of Thea Machinas’ notes. Current party members are excluded from this oath.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Xlnlcu atf lcobgwjalbc ab jcs batfg qijsfg klii yf mbcrlvfgfv jr ygfjxlcu atf bjat. Po atf Zjmtlcjr ojwlis olcvr bea, atfs klii fcregf atja atf ktbif vkjgnfc gjmf klii cfnfg jujlc reqqbga jcs bo atf qijsfgr lcnbinfv!
Gb sbe jugff ab ulnf atf bjat?
Ktfgf lr cb cffv ab nfgyjiis jccbecmf atf vfajlir bo atf bjat. C nfgyji bg kglaafc jugffwfca klii yf jmmfqafv.】
“I agree”, Ice said, not even thinking twice.
“I agree.”
“I agree…”
【You have taken an oath not to share the information found in Thea Machinas’ notes. You can view the information of this oath in your personal notes at any time.】
Formally, they went through the motions one by one. Only then did Alexa relax a bit.
The dwarf stood up, taking a key out of her shirt that was hanging around her neck. “Very well then. Follow me.”
They walked to the hindmost corner of the house before descending into a basement. Cassandra lit lamps for them, enough that their dim shine lit up the whole basement. It was filled with orderly placed bookcases and chests, clearly a storage area.
In a corner, one chest stood out. It was covered in thick dust unlike everything else, with a thick and complicated lock in front.
Alexa merely unlocked the chest before stepping back. “Come back up when you’re done. I’m warning you, be careful with everything here! Don’t let anything be damaged.”
“We will be careful.”
Once the two dwarves had left – wanting nothing to do with the notes at all – Blackstone opened the chest. It creaked, having not moved for a long time, and dust whirled up everywhere. Little Droplet sneezed.
“Oh”, Blackstone murmured. “Well, that’s convenient. I admit I was a bit worried.”
The chest was filled with notebooks to the top. It must have been hundreds of pages that Thea wrote, which would take forever to check… If not for the fact that upon rows and rows of notebooks, one in particular was lying on top, askew.
Little Droplet took it out and gazed at the cover. “It’s a diary.”
Silence fell over them. In truth, no one quite wanted to know what had driven the NPC mad, but this was something they had to do.
“Here, you read it out for us.” Little Droplet handed the diary to Ice. Startled, the mage took it, looking down at the simple leather cover. He glanced at everyone else, who was waiting for him to read. Looked like he didn’t have a choice.
“I’ll… skip the dates and all”, he began, then cleared his throat. He scanned each short passage for interesting information before reading it out loud.
“Over the years, I have tried to find ways to cure us everywhere. I have consulted every source of information I could find. What have we done wrong?”
“Why were we abandoned and cursed?”
“I don’t know where this wish stems from. It feels like something is lacking, in all of us. We all wish for our God to forgive us. Rather than say I wish to rid myself of the curse, would it be more accurate to say I wish for my creator’s forgiveness?”
“I decided to have a look around. So much time has passed already, but I have found the same information everywhere, that we angered our creator and were punished for it. The same information. Always, everywhere. …Until yesterday, that is. Maybe I should have written this entry yesterday already, but I needed some time after reading the script I have found.”
“It was in one of the ancient ruins. A temple, I believe. Buried deep under rubble. I might have missed it if not for a coincidence. I don’t know who penned the words, but it must be older than any other source I have worked with. At the same time, I wish I didn’t find it. I wish I didn’t read what was written inside. It was never that we were cursed by our creator.”
Ice stumbled over the end of the sentence, his eyes already on the next. The unsteady writing and the words that were written inexplicably gave him the chills.
“It was that we were abandoned because we are faulty.”
“We are defects.”
“We are not worthy of our creator’s love, and so we were rightfully left behind.”
“In the first place, we have never been cursed. We have always been, from the start, useless and worthless creatures.”
Ice fell silent. Everyone in the room looked shocked, with Blackstone even covering her mouth. “This… This is horrible…”
The desperation on the paper was real.
The shock and despair of someone who had come to assume that not only she, but her entire race, was a mistake. That all of them were a shameful creation of the one they adored. An existence better forgotten and erased.
“Did… Did they have to give Haven such a dark backstory?” Dead Rabbit pulled his head between his shoulders, unsettled. He wrapped his arms around himself, looking away from the diary. The basement was cold and gloomy, pressing down on them all with unexpected heaviness. It was like the whole room shared Thea’s pain. “I mean, is this necessary? Even us humans aren’t perfect. This… This is like saying that we, too, should feel like that. Isn’t this too heavy for a game?”
“Ice? Are you okay?”
In between the mutters, Bloody focused on Ice, whose fingers were trembling as turned the page. Once again, his voice rose inside the room, prompting everyone to listen.
“A half destroyed paper I’ve found tells of a prophecy. I have heard that the prophecies made by the priests back then were accurate, so I’ve done my best to reconstruct it. It wasn’t easy, since some parts are missing and they’re using words we don’t use anymore.”
“The procephy says that we will be graced by foreigners visiting our lands. They won’t be like us. It will be easy to tell them apart from us it seems, as the prophecy states that they are immortal and have numerous strange powers.”
“They must be loved by their creator.”
“I have found mentions of these Outsiders coming in other places as well. Back then, I had been wondering if maybe they’d have the cure for our curse. Now my thoughts might not be wrong.”
“If we use them as mirrors, maybe we can find what we are lacking? Maybe we can learn? Maybe we can change?”
“If it won’t be me, maybe my descendants will be able to regain our creator’s love.”
“And yet, I will not tell this story. I will ask my family to keep it a secret. I will ask them to not even read my notes, but to only treat the Outsiders well when they one day visit, and to learn from them.”
“I’d hope that my words stay unread forever, for I don’t want anyone else to feel the same misery as I did. And yet, I am writing these words.”
“To whoever reads this, please don’t despair. I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“But I believe we can change. Let us not give up hope yet.”
Ice shut the diary. One of his hands was tightened around the hem of his shirt. He felt nauseous somehow as he was beginning to deliberate a possibility, one he wasn’t sure what to think of.
“You don’t look so good”, Bloody muttered, coming close and taking the diary from Ice. Worried, he met with Ice’s eyes, seeing the confusion and uncertainty inside them. Where he nearly touched the mage, the warmth of his body was thawing Ice’s painfully cold skin a bit.
“Ice, do you need a break?” Blackstone could understand the feeling of nausea. Her own parents had been very religious to the point of fanaticism, which was one reason why she had gone on a distance with them.
They believed in the catholic church, also believing that humans held the original sin of disobeying God. Contrary to what the Bible told – about Jesus taking on humanity’s sins – they were of the opinion that humans were forever doomed to carry the knowledge that they had failed their creator.
Due to this, her childhood had been focused on begging for forgiveness for absolutely everything. She had always been the one in the wrong, never able to do anything right because her very existence was a mistake.
The plot she was encountering right now was hitting uncomfortably close to home.
The ice mage shook his head. “…Anyway, we are at a stalemate again. This simply tells us that Thea believed the cure was to watch us. This isn’t an effective, immediate cure, considering that their god has yet to return. How are we supposed to continue?”
“Where else are you supposed to find scripts from the time that Thea had, though? Sure, they seem closest to what you guys need, but… They’re pretty damn old, right? But right now, it looks like it’s hinting at the direction of you being supposed to find something like that, with it mentioning prophecy and all.”
Little Droplet hummed thoughtfully. “What about the mountain castle? If it has a dragon under it, it should have some relation to the old times. Maybe there are books around there?”
“I did see a library”, Bloody suddenly said. “When I was sneaking around. There was a huge library. Like, really huge. With scrolls and stuff too. I could imagine that having older texts.”
Ice absentmindedly flipped the next empty pages. There was nothing special, but as someone who had been playing Haven for a while, he was used to searching until the last corner.
As he had almost expected, there were a couple of loose pages placed at the end of the book. They had been ripped out of some other notebook, and the writing was messy and disorderly. Thea must have been jotting down notes as she was reading something else.
Because they were placed into this particular diary, Ice guessed it would have to be linked with her previous words.
Indeed. He fought rough sketches that reminded him vaguely of the form of the structure beneath the mountain castle. To someone who didn’t know it, the snowflake-like structure with black hatched background would make no sense.
Ancient ruin???
The little words scribbled next to the drawing were barely readable.
More drawings showed the crystal guards, as well as a hazy figure in front of the castle. Another was even rougher, but Ice could roughly make out a horned person – a demon, possibly.
Origin time?
Around since the start?
Possibly books from that time
Ice dimly remembered the guards being called Origin Guards. In this context, it was a clear sign that the castle was supposed to be something that had been built when Haven’s god had still been around.
Little Droplet read the pages over Ice’s shoulder. “Looks like Bloody might be right. This does mention books, after all.”
Author’s Note
If you’re a fan of dark stories, check out my new story Gamblers’ Game! (Yes, another game, tho Gamblers Game came earlier as a title. Technically, it has dips. xD)
AI learning from humans to become more sentient….sounds legit XD
mmmm eats them
I love it when the games (in general) have this realllyyy dark story hehe it just makes things more interesting :3
thank you for the chapter~
».. taking a key out of her shirt that way hanging around her neck« that was hanging
Interesting again. Using the players as mirrors to learn emotions? But would they show grief over the death of a companion since they can just resurrect? :’D
Thx for the ch ٩( >ヮ<)۶
hmmmm
thanks for the chapter <3
Thank you for the chapter 💜