The wind howled loudly in Damien's ears as he fell, air rushing upwards as he and his brother fell downwards. It took several minutes until they reached the end of the hole, their feet touching down gently onto soft sand.

  Obviously, it was completely dark this far in, but at their level of progressions, the darkness was basically nonexistent.

  In front of them stood a fairly large chamber, more cave than a cavern, as Damien had initially assumed.

  For an opening with the mysterious origin the Chosen had all but slammed into his face, Damien had expected a huge hall, with giant pillars and statues that were inscribed with scripts older than the world itself. Instead, what he found was emptiness, bare save for the two objects which hovered off the ground, rotating around each other's orbits.

  There were layers of runes—five layers to be exact, drawn on the ground beneath the objects. He deciphered runes of concealment and containment, as well as enchantments that linked some other runes to somewhere else. That was probably the one Ymal said had powered the city.

  Obviously, the city was destroyed, which meant there was nowhere else for all that power to go to, which—frighteningly— explained the energy buildup, evidenced by the runes that were eroding slowly in real time. Damien reckoned it would take a few months to a year for the runes to completely erode. The side effects? Probably another decimation of the continent.

  Tentatively, he moved closer, senses prickling as it caught what had only faint energy at the cavern's entrance.

  "An energy buildup at this stage could completely level this region. Give it a few months and this whole continent could go through another calamity, probably sinking the entire thing at the worst, " Keilan said. "I would assume the World Spirit isn't thrilled about this."

  "No, it is not," a voice intoned from behind them.

  Damien froze for a moment, ice locking his veins as a chill settled over him. It was just for a brief instant, and then he whipped around, fear and adrenaline surging through his veins as his spear appeared back in his hands. He was prepared for a fight, even though he knew it was unlikely he'd come out on top as he was now.

  Fortunately for him, however, it seemed his brother had taken to action far quicker than he.

  When Damien turned around, Keilan—who'd been standing just next to him a second before—now stood at the entrance, his speartip almost at the throat of the new arrival who now occupied the same space.

  "Careful there, friend," his brother said slowly, "we don't want anybody losing their head this beautiful evening, do we?"

  The new arrival showed empty hands. "I come in peace."

  "That's left to us to determine," Keilan said, and the temperature in the room sank until even Damien felt the chill. "I'd start with your name, in the mean time."

  "Is that relevant? I know who you are, both of you, and I have no wish to get involved with you. I am simply here in the capacity of a messenger."

  "Even messengers have names, no?"

  The man who stood before him was middle-aged by appearance. Though Damien wasn't sure of his real age given how tricky the physical appearances of Monarchs and Spirit lords tended to be in comparison to their actual ages.

  The man was naked, save for the brown toga that wrapped tightly around his body. Gold metal cuffs covered both his lower arms, and he wore brown sandals that rose to his knees.

  Of course, his appearance paled when brought against one fact that had been glaring hard at Damien ever since he'd first appeared.

  Spirit lord.

  "You're one of the Spirit lords of the Desolate continent," Damien said, more a statement than a question.

  "The only one."

  "How's that possible?" Keilan said, his weapon still trained on the man, who surprisingly remained calm. "A single Spirit lord in this whole continent. You basically rule this whole place."

  He glanced at Keilan. "I do not believe this is a place one would be proud to rule, Mr. Elason."

  Keilan raised an eyebrow. "He knows our last name, Dame. How come you know our last name and we don't know yours? That's not exactly fair, Mr?..."

  The man sighed in obvious resignation, his chest deflating as he answered. "I am called Hulter, the Desert Storm."

  "Oooh, scary. I've got a storm in my title, also. Now tell me, Hulter, you said you were a messenger. What message have you for us, and from whom?"

  Hulter nodded, squaring up his shoulders as he no doubt prepared to speak. "I come at the behest of the World Spirit."

  Damien and his brother shared a look, and then Keilan drew back his spear, twirling it to lock behind his back. "You should have just led with that from the beginning."

  Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  "Would you have believed?" Hulter raised an eyebrow.

  "No. I still don't, but I've chosen to err on the side of less violence. A single suspicious move from you, though, and we'll see which of us deserves the title 'storm.'"

  Hulter nodded.

  "What message does the World Spirit have for us?" Damien asked apprehensively. No matter if it was peaceful or not, it never paid to have the supreme entity of the World turn its attention one way. Disaster was always the end result.

  "It has to do with what used to be this... City," the Spirit lord waved upwards, and then gestured towards the twin objects floating in the room. "As well as those things."

  "Let me guess," Keilan folded his arms. "The people of this continent annoyed the World Spirit and it blew up the continent in annoyance?"

  Hulter paused. "No."

  "Huh... I tried."

  Shaking his head, the other Spirit lord continued. "As you very well know, Mr. Damien, these objects do not belong to this continent. They do not belong to this world, to be more precise."

  "Oh," he blinked. "Where do they come from then?"

  "I do not know."

  "Who sent them?"

  "I do not know."

  "Damien, shut the hell up and let the man explain," Keilan said. Damien glared, but kept quiet.

  "Thank you," Hulter said. "Now, to begin. Norelane wasn't always like this. Aside from Aesland, it was considered the most beautiful continent—the most beautiful, until all that was ended by the appearance of something that entered this planet's atmosphere—those things," he pointed at the objects.

  "Okay," Damien said when he was done. "What does all this have to do with us?"

  "It is to my belief—the World Spirit's—that these objects belong to you," he pointed to Damien.

  Damien blinked and glanced behind him to see if there was anyone behind him. But even as doubt warred within him, he still couldn't deny the truth. He had crossed an ocean, thousands of miles of distance, because something in his head kept urging him to come here.

  He had arrived, and the thread that had been pulling him told him that this was the end goal, those objects over there.

  He studied the objects. One was a tiny male figurine, inches tall, and completely grey. Odd, however, was how detailed it was. It was like the creator had gone through painstaking lengths, crafting such an exquisite male physique covered in something that looked like a suit. The other, blandly enough, was an orb-like construct of purplish color.

  And of the two, only one was emitting energy: the figurine.

  "What do you want me to do?" Obviously, he couldn't just go in and grab them. The energy he could feel brewing within those protective runes was great enough to turn him to ash ten thousand times over.

  "Claim them."

  "Thank you for stating that, Mr obvious," he rolled his eyes. "How?"

  "Why of course, by going in and taking them," the Spirit lord said, as if it were so very simple.

  "You must be fried in the head," Keilan said, speaking out Damien's mind. "In case your senses are dead, the energy building up in there is the equivalent of a thousand Astral Images all crammed and rolled into one tiny gray bomb. In short; No."

  "Why does the World Spirit think they belong to me?" He asked before Hulter could respond to Keilan.

  The older man breathed in and gestured. "Rather than an answer, why don't you try?"

  "And if it doesn't work?"

  "Then you would be dead and the World Spirit would blast this continent and every creature on it into orbit to protect itself."

  The decision had already been made the moment Damien laid eyes on those things, and he suspected the Desert Spirit lord was aware. What had simply just been left to do was to persuade his conscious mind to align with the subconscious.

  It was obvious that those floating objects would help him understand where he came from.

  "Wait!" Keilan called out as Damien took a step. "What of the massive energy building inside there?" He pointed at the runes which were eroding even as they spoke. "That level of energy will be fatal."

  "I won't know until I try."

  He moved forward, almost changing his mind as Keilan pleaded with him. "Dame please, don't do this."

  Damien turned towards his brother. "I have to, Kei. This could be the answer I've been searching for."

  His brother's voice cracked. "Not at the cost of your life. If the price of discovering your ancestry is marching into that fog of death over there, I'd rather have you not knowing at all."

  Damien smiled. "I'll be back, I promise."

  He turned before he could change his mind, walking closer. He could feel the incomprehensible mass of energy building up inside the rune ward. Keilan was wrong; that amount of energy would not target only him if let loose. It would obliterate everything if his gamble played out wrong.

  Fear and anticipation warred within him and he summoned energy from deep within himself, channeling it in strands that he sent towards the runes. The moment his energy touched the first layer, a suction force appeared. Before Damien could pull back, something locked hold of him. His horror mounted when the strand he'd connected was hijacked and the last essence in his soul well was emptied into a reservoir he couldn't see. Every drop.

  The rune lit up.

  The entire cavern ignited in a blinding bright glow, light bathing every corner of the room in a silver radiance. It took a few seconds before the light finally died down into a dull pulsing throb, like a beating heart.

  He glanced at the floor, and to his shock, it was unmarred. All the runes were gone, wiped clean.

  All was tense for a moment, like the calm before a storm. Damien was already breathing in a sign of relief when grey energy blasted out in a wave, turning everything in its path to dust.

  He turned to run but to his mounted horror, his body locked up as a surge of sudden weight pressed down upon him. Anger burned within him as he desperately tried to teleport, but space was locked down as another will cancelled his working. With his senses, he could see Keilan, also frozen with his face in a mask of terror and fury and his hands outstretched towards the apparition that had suddenly appeared.

  The energy wave kept approaching, a wall of instant death and desolation that promised instant erasure to all it touched.

  Damien closed his eyes as the wall got close. He blamed himself for his foolishness. His brother would die because of his stupidity.

  The energy struck him then and it froze, stilling in its path just as a chilling cold settled into his body.

  Something touched him then, a wall of perception that dug into his body and into his other layers of self, bypassing whatever innate resistance he had. It took a few seconds before the thing pulled back, having found whatever it seemed to have been searching for.

  In the next moment, the cold retreated and the energy wave began condensing, converging on the figurine in a whirlpool-like manner.

  The figurine, which hovered a few feet away, suddenly vanished, only to appear a moment later an inch away from Damien's chest. It floated in front of him for half a second before it slowly sank into his body, melting into him like water into mud. And for the first time in his life, Damien felt a sudden fullness, like something he wasn't aware was missing had been returned to him, bringing with it a feeling of completeness.

  [Oh, hello Damien. Nice to finally meet you.]

  Damien couldn't reply as his vision faded, and he crashed into unconsciousness.