Outside Karin walked stealthily across the scrub maze. She could see her destination so navigation was easy. The cold night carried many surprises and in a world like this no where is safe. Every tread warned of danger something Karin was well versed in. Ever since she was little, all the training, the talks with the elder back at mount QilFol and everything she had done in her past might as well have been solely for this moment. Her first mission was about to come into play… was she ready?
That has been a question she had always being worried about. It was the same reason she even decided to take the old mansion test with little care for what Kento and Cilia thought of it.
Her eyes hastily moved through the dry branches of the overgrown shrubs trying to find anything strange and avoid a surprise attack at all cost. Earlier she had been startled by an ear jerking scream from the mansion. It was so sudden that she jumped back and into one of the scrub bushes, hence the tear and scars on her clothes. The one affected the most was her black head band which she had always strapped around her forehead. It had come loose and taken major cuts making it seem more of a rag.
As for the screams, she easily realized that it was just Cilia and to no surprise was first to get scarred and make a big deal out of it. She just attributed it to her self-centeredness and went back on her way to the well.
The third and final piece was at the old well outside of the mansion and Karin was supposed to get it. She had shot for this piece for a reason; the others would have seen it as her being a show off but she had a reason. The reason itself wasn't concrete because she didn't trust it herself and was rather just instinct. But instinct in the Mihane family meant more than just a whim. She trusted it, blindly, and ventured through the scrub maze.
"Aah! Finaly." She said heaving for relief. She'd finally made it through the maze and the well was just a few steps away.
The old well was the center of the tiresome maze. It was surrounded by long edged bushed forming a giant square wall of thorns. There was a rusted broken gate right at the entrance to the well. Its door had been broken off and was nowhere to be seen.
Karin moved forward. As she drew closer, she could see a paper dangling over the mouth of the well. The well was structured like any well except the rope and bucket had been removed and replaced by a single piece of paper. Burn marks had eaten the corners of the paper nearing where it was hooked. Any moment now it would fall into the bottomless well. Karin accelerated her pace dropping the worry she was in as she transversed the maze.
Her feet crossed the rusty gate and landed into the grassy area that surrounded well. As her body fully transition into the well's compound she felt a hum, a jingle, a song, a hymn. She couldn't tell which it was, she didn't have time. She had fallen into the domain of another.
"Tazu…" she murmured but was stopped.
Her eyes started to fade and all she could see was white. The shrubs and the thorn walls all shifted back to their former selves, green and lush as they circled the well. The well itself was no longer a shattered old thing. Like shifting the hands of time back its former white plaster reverted with intricate patterns forming along its surface. It glowed just like her surrounding in a great brilliance. Before she had even realized it, Karin was standing in the midst of an entirely different place.
Her instinct drove one question in mind, friend or foe.
A few seconds later the brilliance settled and the well and the scenery were in full display. The render showed the mansion… the maze back when it was an actual challenge. Back then when you couldn't just simply peer through the shrubs and find yourself there. The well was a magnificent creation standing in the middle of the maze. Some distance from where she stood, she could hear something like a gentle stream flowing.
Karin was in awe. Even though she couldn't see the old mansion she could easily deduce that these was a noble's house.
'So, then what happened? 'She wondered.
As though an answer to her query the gate opened, now it's rusted hinges in tip-top condition. Through it came an old man. He walked like a zombie dragging something on the ground. Judging by his pace it was heavy. Karin shifted her head slightly but still couldn't see it.
In her moment of struggle to see what it was the old man was already at the well and a giant splash followed. Then he walked back to gate and in seconds came back still pulling something heavy. Then a splash. Then he went back came pulling a heavy object then splash. This continued like a tired replay of the same thing over and over again.
Her mind was so preoccupied with the sequence that she didn't notice the scene slowly fade as more and more heavy objects landed into the waters of the well. Contrast to its former white and greenly state, the scene became dark with the green grass dying, and the edges erupting into thorn walls. The well reverted to its former shattered image.
Then it finally clicked.
"Is this… my story piece?" Karin wondered the thought growing more plausible by the second.
She looked at the well but couldn't see the paper. The story wasn't over.
Behind her she heard a screech. Like two rusted plates were grinding on each other to see who was loudest. Each had won, if the contest was for being the most irritating. Behind her the old man walked right through her like some ghost and walked forward to the well. He untied the rope and bucket and threw both into the well. He gave a final look at the mansion before alighting the walls of the well and jumping. The final splash came with a brilliance. Karin tried to reach out with her right hand while covering her eyes with the other only to catch nothing but air.
As sudden as it had begun the illusion was gone. Karin looked into her hands and all that remained were dark charred remains of what used to be the paper.
"He killed himself." She realized. From here on the realizations kept on coming.
"So, that means those heavy loads were… bodies!" she covered her mouth in shock.
"Human bodies."
A thought arose at the back of her mind. It was gruesome. She didn't want to think about it but the more she denied it the more it came to be.
She had just witnessed the deaths of thousands. Or even more. And why did the old man jump too. And most importantly…
'How does any of this do with the lesson.' Confusion reigned supreme.
"What's wrong with you, Mr Kisharu?"
A sudden breeze ran past her and through the bushes. It was cold and carried a smell of old wood dampened by something moist. Karin stood in front of the well still trying to analyze what the point of the test was. With the wind came something else. It smelt of books, old books. She looked at the direction the wind was blowing from.
A series of papers fluttered in the air. They were many and all seemed to come from the mansion. As though of its own choosing, one of the papers in the stream slowly dropped to her. She could see writing on the paper under the moonlight. She reached for it grabbing it midair.
The paper was brown and inked with writing. At the top of it, in bold and italics it read…
"RiverStone Divination."
As her eyes dropped to read the next line she felt a searing burn on her fingertips. She let go the paper that flared up and…
The rest of the papers in the series did the same as they floated in the breeze turning to black ash.
"RiverStone Divination" the name rolled in her tongue.
"And an old man that killed and jumped into a well in mansion called RiverStone."
"The others better have their pieces ready." She said as she turned away from the well and to the gate.
As she walked, she heard something familiar. she felt a hum, a jingle, a song, a hymn. Only this time she could make it out.
It was a hymn. Low toned and gentle. She listened. The hymn was coming from the mansion. Her eyes raised to the mansion and something odd stung them back.
The dark windows of the mansions were glowing, even brighter than the moon itself. From a far she could hear a scream it was muffled with the hymn but she could hear it and recognize it.
It was Cilia's scream.