Volume 2 Chapter 1 New Adventures

Chapter 1 New Adventures

I

February 2nd, 3050.

Black clouds had covered the sky. It was a midday but it looked like a dark night since all the sunlight had been veiled by those dark clouds.

It was raining. Countless raindrops were pouring down from the sky. They fell to the ground, making ethereal sounds which were as beautiful as music. However, besides those raindrops, everything else in this world was drowned in extreme tranquillity, or even silence.

The air was brimming with grey mist, within which, the world was rendered creepily blurry.

Pure rainwaters were streaming on the walls of the tents of the barbarians. Gathering on the ground, the rainwaters were making the soil moisture and full of life once again. Drinking the rainwaters, newborn grasses and flowers were trying their best to make their ways through the surface of the soil.

Even in this murky dark day, everything was growing because of the rain. However, the rule of this world was built on the rule of the balance, thus when the power of growth and life was coming to this world, sadness was coming along with them quietly too.

Inside the rain stood a little girl with light violet hair. Standing beside her was her mother. They were holding hands, staring a tall bearded man.

“So you’re leaving …” muttered the mother.

“I cannot tell you why I am leaving. I’m sorry …” apologized that bearded man.

“I understand, Ramsesys,” sighed the mother.

“May the Light be with you two. I’m sorry that I have to go in such a hurry, but I have to do this, or bad things will happen. I’m just trying to keep you safe,” drawled Ramsesys, the bearded man.

“Bad things? What kind of bad things? You are my husband, and you are Starsha’s father! You cannot just leave like this …” blamed Starsha’s mother quietly.

“I’m sorry. I have no choice … I have I think you’d better not know those stuff at all. This world is dangerous and it is always changing … Anyway, take care of yourself. Farewell, you two,” blessed Ramsesys, the bearded man, bidding farewell to his wife and daughter.

Starsha walked up to Ramsesys, her leaving father, and hugged him tightly. In a hurry, he left the scene without trace as if they had never existed in this world at all.

“Sorry, Starsha. I cannot stop him from leaving here,” murmured Starsha’s mother.

“Why is he always full of secrets?” questioned Starsha, burying her head in her mother’s arm.

“There must be a reason. Maybe he knows some important secrets. Anyway, there have been something weird happening around our village recently,” Starsha’s mother pointed out.

“Something weird is happening? What are you talking about?” pursued Starsha.

“Well, I am the apprentice of the old Farseer and I can perceive the emotions of animals. They are becoming anxious these days. Obviously, some unholy things are approaching us and I am sure that they are coming for Ramsesys,” answered Starsha’s mother.

…

Ramsesys left the tribe.

He had known his wife for years, but he had never told her and Starsha that he was in fact the king of a destroyed kingdom in Desertia, and in that case, Starsha was a princess.

He wished that Starsha and her mother could live a peaceful normal life. Power struggle was always dangerous.

“Goodbye, Starsha,” he whispered.

…

II

This was a silent night and the world was drown in stuffiness.

Starsha, Floria and Yanni were together in the tent of Starsha’s mother, who would be the Farseer in the future …

Floria was hugging Starsha tenderly. Her father had left the camp for an unknown reason and she might never see him ever again. Yanni and Floria were unlucky kids too. They had lost their beloved mother and their father was not healthy enough to raise them.

After all, they were living in a barbarous tribe. They didn’t need to suffer from the demerits of civilization, so they didn’t need to live in stuffy city with zombie-like people around them.

However, they also had to live in awful hygiene and extreme poverty. They could run carefreely in the wilderness; they could drown themselves in the fragrance of flowers and grasses; however, it was easy for them to get sick and die … There were always someone leaving them in the tribe …

Starsha’s mother was looking sympathetically at the three. She was always wondering whether the decision of rejecting advanced civilization made by her master, the current Farseer, was right.

“Starsha … You will come out of this sorrowfulness one day, I promise,” said Starsha’s mother soothingly.

“I know, mom …” Starsha nodded quietly.

“I didn’t know what true love meant until I met Ramsesys. He was the most beautiful thing in my life … We fell in love with each other, though I knew that there were secrets of him, awful secrets … You come from our love, Starsha … There is hope that you will see him again in the future, no matter what his secret is …” guessed her mother.

“Really?” asked Starsha.

“Yes … The fate of you, me and him were bonded together. Maybe you will see him again in the future, or may me not … But what I know for sure is that time will forget everything. Time will help you forget your sadness,” drawled her mother.

Starsha said nothing, but leaned her head on Floria’s shoulder.

“Well, the old Farseer taught me a song, a legacy from our ancestors. Maybe this song will help you to lift yourself up,” proposed Starsha’s mother.

She took the harp off the wall and started to play it. Ethereal sounds were coming from the strings of the harp along with beautiful melody.

Starsha’s mother began to sing,

“The sea of the lights, the clouds of the night, the shining moon on the sky, when will you come home? May the Evenstar guide you, the way home to me …”

…

This was the first time for Starsha to know the power of music heartedly. She didn’t feel anything when listening to her mother sing. Her soul was connected to a more enormous spiritual world. In a short moment, all the things of the secularity meant nothing …

Her heart was shaken by the beauty of music and art, the beauty which could lighten people in the darkest time of their journey of life.

Inside the music, she could see the illusions, images of the cosmos far from earth, composed of colourful nebulae, countless stars and other planets。

…

III

June 2nd, 3058. (1 year after Aislina, Starsha, Floria and Yanni came back from Infernal Mountain)

It was night now. The moon was shining silver high on the sky, some of its lights blocked by the blurry sea of clouds. There were a few stars glowing in the sky, because the Grey Factory had fallen and there was not as much smoke lingering in the air now as it used to be.

Aislina, Starsha, Floria and Yanni were resting at the foot of a small hill, their faces illuminated by the light of the campfire they had just built. Cool wind breezed by, and the long hair of the girls were dancing slightly, alone with the rustling trees. Bathed in the pure moonlight, everything in this world was shining silver.

It was summer and some cicadas were humming, singing in strange tunes. The lives of those insects were extremely short, but they were still singing with their lives, and Starsha was singing the melody that her mother taught her alone with the insects too.

“Your voice is really beautiful, Starsha,” commented Floria.

“Oh, thank you, Floria” Starsha smiled.

“Alas, I am just too tired, Starsha. I like to spend time with you three, but those adventures are just too dangerous and exhausting. What’s worse, we have explored nearly all the elder vaults, including those built by gnolls, kobolds, goblins, ogres, trolls, et cetera, but we’ve found nothing about the Sanctum of Life yet,” complaint Floria.

Besides humans, elves and dwarves, there were many other humanoid races. They were barbarous races conquered by the civilization of humans. They didn’t like the sunlight so they built vaults to hide themselves. There might be some information about the Sanctum of Life hidden by them in their vaults.

“We have explored all the elder vaults except the Bastion of Orcs where we’re going to today, Floria. I believe that the library of orcs must contain some valid information about the Sanctum of Life,” Starsha reassured her.

“Anyhow, this is the last vault. If we fail to find any information today, we may never know where the Sanctum of Life is in the future,” whispered Floria.

“Thank you, friends. Anyhow, you do all those things for me,” expressed Aislina.

“That’s what friends shall do, Aislina. If Starsha’s mother is right, there will be other elves living in the Sanctum of Life. You’re not the last one of your race. We’ll help you find other elves. We’ll help you find a home,” Yanni patted on Aislina’s shoulder.

“You’re so nice, Yanni,” Aislina smiled.

“Anyhow, at the rate we’re going, we can arrive at the Bastion of Orcs tomorrow afternoon. No matter whether we succeed or not, I need to go back home to take a great rest. Adventuring is hellishly tiring,” announced Floria.

After her voice broke off, the four became silent. Though for the most time of the last year, they lived in the Camp of Wildshadow Clan. However, they adventured nearly monthly in order to find clues about the Sanctum of Life and every adventure lasted for nearly a week.

Such high frequency of adventures were exhausting them, but they wouldn’t give up until they found the Sanctum of Life, which would be the final abode of Aislina.

Cleary, they were Aislina’s best friends and she cared a lot about them, but no matter how, she was an elf, and the world of humans was not her real home.

They used to think that Aislina was the last elf alive in this world, but the Farseer found out in an ancient book called Saga of Cuore Celeste that there might be other elves living in a mysterious place called the Sanctum of Life.

The Sanctum of Life was a name that always showed up in fairy tales, but no one they knew had really seen it, let alone explored it. It was a place brimming with mysteries and the unknown.

IV

The next day.

Floria woke up first and began to prepare the breakfast for the rest of the team. Babysitting was always her job, since both Yanni and Aislina were far younger than her, and though Starsha was of her age, she was pretty immature.

Anyway, after finishing the breakfast, Floria woke up the rest of the team. After enjoying the breakfast which was rough but delicious, they set out towards the Bastion of Orcs.

They ate the lunch on the road, the food of which, as usual, was provided by Aislina who always stored sufficient food in her Pocket Dimension.

In the afternoon, they saw the gate to the Bastion of Orcs. Starsha took out her tuning fork and created a silence barrier, within which, all the noises made by the four would be inaudible.

It was always dark inside the vault, so the orcs mainly judged where the four were acoustically instead of visually.

After an exploration of half an hour inside the vault, the four arrived at a small archive room and Aislina summoned a ball of light composed of botanic fluorescence to light up the room.

Nearly every vault contained an archive room, where nearly all the knowledge of the race was saved.

There were several books inside the archive room. The four began to read the books and check whether there was information about the Sanctum of Life or not. Only one of the books mentioned it. Luckily, the orcs wrote in Normanish instead of other languages.

Humans, horrible humans. No one knows where do those humans come from.

Not only orcs, but also other races are suffering from the humans. The humans are consuming, the humans are destroying and the humans are rising.

Humans are a knowledgeable. Though they are a newborn race, they will dominate this world soon.

Everything is being shaped by them. The world will be theirs. The world will worship the civilization of humans. No one can stop them. They live in the ulcer of the physical world, and the spiritual world.

They will rule everything and they will control everything.

We need to hide inside the vault to protect our race from the humans. They are eating our minds because they’ve planted nightmares inside our brains. …We shall stay inside the vault until there are no humans outside anymore. The vaults are our shelter.

The elves said that humans were dangerous. They had come up with a way to stop humans from rising and threatening the world. They’ve built a Sanctum and they call it the Sanctum of Life.

Inside the Sanctum of Life is the Rain of Regrowth. Only the sanctum can stop the humans. The elves are moving to the Sanctum of Life.

No one knows where the sanctum is.

We need to stop the humans. They are smart but they need to be stopped or the balance of the world will be broken.

Obviously, they had found nothing about the location Sanctum of Life in the Bastion of Orcs.

The most ancient knowledge in this world was hidden in those elder vaults. Therefore, the four had learnt plenty occulted knowledge that no one else knew, but still they hadn’t found anything about the location of the Sanctum of Life yet.

When they were about to complain of their meaningless failure, they heard some sort of roar. It was the orcs.

They were discovered by the orcs. In panic, they rushed out of the archive room but found themselves surrounded by the orcs. There were lots orcs and all of them were as fierce as ferocious beasts.

Those ugly orcs had grey skins and pig-like faces. All of those orcs had strong muscles and there were stinky smell emanated by them.