Chapter 16: A whole new problem

“ I wanted to wait till after you dealt with Onyx to tell you this because if you knew you 100% would’ve gone after it instead, “ Aurum says, leading us down a different hall. We weren’t headed to the meeting room to discuss whatever it was she had found, seemed to be important. “ I’ve known this for awhile, or I had a suspicion, which has just been confirmed not long ago, and its regarding the whereabouts of the Second queen,” Aurum finishes. Nobody knew where my grandmother had gone when she stepped down from leadership, we stop at a large window over looking the land from up high, the neighboring kingdom was somewhat visible, Aurum bringing me here only suggests one thing. " The Shadow Kingdom ruled by the Shadow queen, not much is known on her, only the fact that everything around her is a mystery, getting an audience with her is rare and incredibly difficult,” Aurum says leaning back on the window, “ if you had a problem you would speak to her directly, except instead of being able to see her, her entire self is engulfed in shadow making it impossible to figure out who she is. I decided to pay her a visit, it was only after I gave my evidence did she reveal herself. The second queen, Queen Jade of the Luminos, or now she goes by “Shadow Queen” I assume she reigned there since her exile,” Aurum states looking back at the Shadow kingdom. I was in disbelief, it makes sense why she kept this from me until now, “ What are you suggesting I do with this information, confront her? “ I ask. Aurum simply nods, “ yep, and get her to come back to this kingdom as ruler, “ Aurum says, “ and to remove the exiled state I spent quite a lot of time searching for a certain dungeon which I will go into further detail when Jade accepts,” Aurum concludes her plan, which made sense in a way aside from removing the first queens law, “ its worth a shot if it means this kingdom gets a ruler,” I accepted her plan, we had agreed to set out immediately after the minster spoke with me in private, wonder what he needed. Aurum headed off to wait by the northwest kingdom entrance while I spoke with the minister, “ I’ll be headed back to the kingdom to look over things while Aurum is away, she had only recently become queen of the kingdom and I am very well aware the extent of her power,” the minster spoke turning back to look at Aurum, “ her mother died when she was very young, forcing her grandmother to remain in power until she was ready which placed the task of her care to me, I’ve been there for her since she was very young, I understand her power but she can be very reckless at times, “ the Minister continues, I understood what he was trying to say, “ I understand, I’ll look out for Aurum,” I tell the Minister, shaking his hand as he gives me a reassuring smile, before making my way back. We set off for the Shadow Kingdom to confront the queen and figure out the truth, and possibly get the light kingdom a proper ruler. The sky around the Shadow kingdom was cloudy and gray, like a permanent storm cloud plagued the kingdom with the area around it being normal. This kingdom was similar to the light kingdom, aside from the large structure looming over the rest, everything was normal. The Shadow palace was somewhat ominous, the dark stoned castle sat at the back of the kingdom, not far from the other ominous building which nobody knows what its used for, storage? To add on to this, the doors to the castle opened on their own revealing the interior, the large room lead into four others, with a double staircase resting at the back, upstairs must’ve been where the throne room was but it was also where Aurum was headed. The throne room was illuminated by a cold light, a carpet lay flat leading up to the empty throne, behind it was a glass pained window with the image of a dragon around a spire painted into it. At the foot of the steps a pool of shadows begins to swirl together, a humanoid creature emerges from it, clad in dark armor wielding a shadowy broadsword the knight takes stance to fight. Normally I would’ve used my sword but this seemed like a good opportunity to try the spear out on an opponent, and as I thought I was struggling, zero experience using this type of weapon forced me to dodge or block the incoming attacks until I became somewhat more comfortable wielding it, is this what it was like for Agrai when he tried fighting me with the broadsword? A gold spike parries the knights swing causing it to stagger, “ We came here to meet with the Shadow Queen not polish your spearmanship,” Aurum calls out comfortably from the side, right I guess I should hurry. I channel as much energy into the spear as possible before thrusting it through the knights chest, the shadow staggers before evaporating back into a pool of nothing. The throne now remained occupied, with a person completely covered in shadow aside from their eyes sat, as Aurum had described. “ I apologize for the sudden…test, one can never be too careful,” spoke the Shadow Queen, her voice echoing from around the entire room, her voice sounded as if it too was engulfed in shadow. Aurum elbowed my arm, I was to follow what she did, which was kneel. Despite being a ruler herself she knelt before speaking, “ I have returned Queen Jade, I hope you have changed your mind on what I purposed earlier,” Aurum asks and from the looks of it she hasn’t, the Queen had her arm propped up on the throne, her head laid in her palm as she stare down at us. The queens blue eyes bore into Aurum, as if annoyed about the proposal she made and wished to be left alone regarding this matter. Despite being blanketed i you could still see what was what, “ I am Caelus, temporary King of Luminos, and your grandson. Aurum believes to have found a way to allow you to rule the kingdom again, as it needs a proper ruler so please, consider her proposal… or do you plan sitting back and watching as your home disappears as you had done with your daughter,” I fixed my gaze on the floor, but I could tell Aurum stare at me in disbelief, I slowly glance up, her gaze fixed on me. They were wide in anger, it felt as if her shadow had grown and engulfed the entire room, a tremendous amount of pressure forces itself down onto the room, keeping us knelt down. That last part was very uncalled for, Im not sure why I said it, I’ve never felt this way before, I know it wasn’t her fault and that she couldn’t have known that would happen but I guess a part of me held some anger, sure she was exiled from the kingdom but that shouldn’t have stopped her from helping. Both our gazes were fixed onto the floor, neither one of us dared to look up, the pressure let up, light returned to the room, despite having my head bowed down I can still feel her gaze, when I look up the shadow that encased her was no more, she sat leaning forward now smiling.

“ You look like her, blue eyes and all, you even act like her, you both talk before you think,” she says, “ I don’t blame you for bearing such thoughts, I regret not having offered my help when the world raid against the First King was issued, but I had faith my daughter would be more than enough to handle it,” she continues, she looks like mother, from what I can remember they look rather similar, only Jade looked older, strands of gray lined her black hair, her face was rather slender, and her eyes were heavy, as if she had gone days without sleeping. “ I have considered what you have offered, young queen. But are you prepared to retrieve this item?” Jade asks Aurum, shifting the focus to her, who had been smiling as well, to which she replies, “ I wouldn’t have suggested this if I wasn’t confident enough to get it, Im sure the both of us can handle it,” Aurum says confidently, patting my back when she referred to us both. I still had no idea what this thing was, I can infer that its an item based on what grandmother said, but this item is being guarded by something? Just then grandmother sighs and gets up, walking down the set of stairs leading to the throne,

“ Alright, you have my permission to raid the voidless lair, with supervision,” she says as someone places their arm over my shoulder, I had one good guess as to who it was,

“ Another dungeon delve huh,” I turn my head to see Cass grinning, we set off for the dungeon that was dubbed the “void lair”, ominous much? Aurum however, wasn’t very happy about Cass’ tag along, and about what I had said earlier, she punched my arm, it hurt alot. “ We could’ve died from what you said, your lucky shes your grandmother, and you, we don’t need “Supervision”, we can handle this without you Cassius Inanis, “ Aurum remarks, making it clear that she was mad by using his full name, how she knew his full name was strange, even Cass was surprised. But it must’ve felt like the queen was looking down on her when she assigned Cass to go along with us, “ Im sure she didn’t mean it like that, think of it more like an evaluation, to see how strong you two are, in which I won’t grade lightly,” Cass says jokingly trying to reassure Aurum, which it didn’t really work. I don’t blame granny, in the case that we can’t best whatever's in the dungeon would be bad for everyone, two kingdoms lose their rulers and granny is forced to remain here. After walking for what felt like forever we finally reach what appeared to be the dungeon, “So this is it? kinda sticks out, how has nobody stumbled into it or walked in out of curiosity?” Cass asks examining what looked to be the entrance of a mine set in a decently sized mountain not far from the Shadow kingdom, only the thing was ten times the size of a normal one, with an eerie atmosphere coming from deep within. “ The Shadow queen had prohibited any entry to this specific dungeon without permission and would normally have guards posted here, but since were here to clear it they’ve been sent home early,” Aurum explains stopping at the mouth of the entry, reaching her hand out to touch an invisible barrier. She was able to disable the spell keeping the barrier active by locating its source and destroying it, in this case it was a magic circle drawn on the inside of the caves wall which she was able to reach by commanding a gold spike to protrude from the ground and pierce it, channeling her own power through the spike and breaking it allowing us entry. The three of us went in, the tunnel was short, we had reached the end rather quickly and at the end sat a perfectly square hole, peeking down it seemed to drop pretty far down, “ Do we jump or is there something im missing here?” I ask squinting my eyes as I peer into the dark, “ In situations like these theres only one real solution my friend,” Cass explains calmly placing his hand on my back, I got one good look at his stupid face grinning before he applied force, sending me down the hole.