Two weeks passed since Faraam started living in the Bright Castle.
Gunlung had given him two weeks to live there for free in exchange for the little play he did.
That was enough time for him to kill some nightmare creatures and get their soul shards, and since he didn't need soul shards for fragments, he had quite the amount of soul shards with him.
His daily routine was simple. At sunrise he would go to Marcus and learn from him until dawn. After finishing learning from Marcus, he would go to slay nightmare creatures until late at night, when he would go to the village and give them the dead bodies of the nightmare creatures.
Right now he was on his way to the village. Honestly, calling it a village is an exaggeration. It is more of a shelter for those who couldn't pay the tribute.
Reaching the shelter, carrying with him bags full of nightmare creatures' meat.
The sounds of his footsteps echoed in the shelter, and as soon as they heard it, the sleepers inside their tents got out, welcoming him.
Their eyes, of course, are all on the bags like a pack of ants finding food.
But Faraam didn't care about it.
"Please everyone, stand in line. Everyone will get their share."
Most of those who live in the shelter are useless sleepers that don't offer anything to the Bright Castle.
They can't fight. Their aspects are so completely useless that even the Artisans and Handmaidens refuse them.
They are worthless, but that's what made them so valuable for Faraam.
They are by far the best way to gain the reputation he wanted.
He who helps the weak. The merciful in hell.
That is the image Faraam wanted to create, but of course that isn't the only reason.
The second one is talents. Those who have the potential to be one of the strongest in the dark city. A rough diamond still unpolished, and he already found that diamond.
Standing in front of him is a young woman with pale skin; she was quite thin that at some places her bones are a little visible. Her hazel eyes complemented her brown hair.
"Ah, Ms. Athena, it's good to see you again."
The woman, Athena, nodded her head in response.
Faraam, who at this point was used to her silence, smiled.
"Have you thought about the offer I gave you?"
Looking at her, Faraam noticed that she was trying to speak, obviously failing in the end.
"It's alright; you don't have to answer me now. You have great potential. Ms. Athena, I would be really sad if someone like you died without realizing her potential."
She, again, didn't respond.
Giving her double the share of food, she took it quickly and went back to her tent.
Looking back at the line, Faraam ordered for the one behind her in the line to come.
***
Standing in front of the ruined cathedral, Faraam sighed.
"What's with me, with castles and cathedrals?" he muttered
First it was his first nightmare, in Brimholt, where he killed the lord...
'Thinking about it, wasn't the lord's assistant also named Marcus? Huh, what a coincidence.'
He also was in both a castle and a cathedral in the dead land.
And now here he was. In the dark city, where the Bright Castle and the cathedral in front of him were standing.
Shaking his head, Faraam started studying the building condition.
'Weird... it should've been destroyed by now. Hmm, maybe the fallen knight is somehow holding it up?'
Faraam continued studying it from outside, never trying to enter.
Seeing nothing more, Faraam walked away, heading toward the grand library.
***
The grand library, unlike the cathedral, was mostly destroyed. It was basically just ruins.
Faraam found this place while following Marcus one day.
Entering the library, or at least its ruins, Faraam looked around.
Normally, none of the books and scrolls would have survived the thousands of years in the cursed darkness. Luckily, the people who used to live in the city before its fall were very fond of stone engravings.
Faraam studied the intact wall carvings and fragments of surviving frescoes.
Unfortunately there was nothing to learn from them, but Faraam didn't feel disappointed. As his main reason for coming was beneath his feet.
It was a fresco; unlike the others, this one, in particular, was especially grandiose and tantalizing, covering the entire floor of the library's main hall. Sadly, it was almost completely buried under rubble.
But it didn't matter. No matter how much time it took, he would clean the rubble.
And so he began to work. A day, then a week, then a month; finally, after three months, all the rubble was gone.
In the past three months he worked hard. Learning from Marcus, caring for the shelter, trying to convince Athena and other sleepers, and making connections in the Bright Castle.
He started working as a pathfinder, guiding hunters without a single death.
His name skyrocketed, and more hunters asked for his service.
Simply put. Everything was going as planned.
Looking down at the fresco, Faraam smiled.
Everything he did was worth it.
Faraam walked to the first image and started interpreting the images.
Reaching the final image, Faraam stopped for a while and started laughing.
"How crazy were they? To sacrifice their lives and those who followed them in an attempt to create what only a god could?"
But no matter how much he laughed, he must admit. That those madmen succeeded. The artificial sun was a success.
Faraam sighed and looked at the last image.
In the center of the Spire, a lone human figure was drawn, convulsing in harrowing agony as the raging storm of soul energy entered her body. The conflux of all that power, the sacrificial vessel meant to be its conduit. The anchor of the sun.
The crimson light entered her body and shot from her screaming mouth and eyes upward, pure and white. It rose to the height of the Spire, where a new sun was being born.
Frightened by its light, the darkness retreated underground, where it was locked behind seven seals that were left behind by the heroes as their last deed.
The rest was easy to deduce.
After the heroes perished to create the artificial sun, everything was fine for a while. But then, maybe after a few decades, or even hundreds of years, the light of the sun began to dim.
So the people of the Dark City had to make a new sacrifice. Perhaps, the second time, only seven people had been killed to renew the power of the Spire.
But then it happened again, and that time, seven was not enough. So they sacrificed fourteen. And when it happened again, they sacrificed a few dozen.
And eventually, hundreds of people were being slaughtered every year to keep the sun burning. Because of the simple fact that the seven heroes and their people… all of them had terribly mighty souls. But their descendants, who didn't have to grow up in utter darkness and fight terrible monsters to live through the day, did not.
And at some point in this vicious cycle, the Vessel that had been imprisoned in the Spire and served as the anchor for the bloodthirsty sun was corrupted. Whatever kind of conscience it had left had been completely shattered.
All that pain, all that rage, and all that blood exploded from the Spire and infected the very land itself, growing into an endless labyrinth of the strange crimson coral. The seven seals came undone, releasing that darkness that had been imprisoned underground for hundreds of years.
The darkness and the fury of the newborn Terror fell on the humans of the Dark City like a tide and wiped them all out, erasing even the memory of them from the face of the world.
…This was how the Forgotten Shore was born.
"Truly mad... These heroes and their descendants."
Looking at the woman who became the vessel, he spoke, "I pity you. To live eternally in agony is something no one deserves to suffer through."
Leaving the grand library, he looked at the sky...
"Ah... how much I hate humans."
***