The mysteries of Ravaneo were not unknown to its men, they were bound in its folklores to the songs that buskers would sing on the streets. I was one of those men and I had seen how heinous these things could get. Not everyone could make sense of these things and oftentimes they were ignored for the sake of it.
But I couldn't ignore what happened today, the slithered bodies that lay around me, the blood and the temple that looked like it was broken in shambles and the bloodied book that lay beside me. I slowly got up, with my hands and knees on the floor, coughing blood from the previous meeting, drenched clothes and my mind racing towards only one thought, "Mira". He stole her from me, her writhing body was still flashing in front of my eyes as my heart ached to touch her again.
My eyes fell towards the old and dusty book in my hands, it was heavy and embroidered with gold and weird jewels on its cover, when I opened it, a whiff of dust hit my nose, making me cough in agony as my broken ribs got worked up. I clenched my chest as I looked at the strange map that was inside the book, it had weird symbols and it was something that I had never seen before. I know this was not the map of Raveneo, I had seen it before with uncle Jero and it looked none like it.
There were strange creatures drawn all over the map to various different continents to marked places on the map. I was looking intensely at the book as a gust of wind tore the map from the book and it landed on the wet stone with a soft slap. I snatched it up and shoved it into my jacket quickly, my fingers were numb but desperate.
The rest of the book... gods, it felt like a collection of instructions, it talked about keys to open the temples the entity spoke of.
But - why give it to me? Why take Mira? Why any of this?
My questions tangled into a knot that only tightened my heart more by thinking about Mira.
All these questions were running inside my head when I heard a familiar voice.
"What happened here?!"Henry looked at me wide eyed as he scrunched his nose from the disgust foaming on his mouth as he saw the dead bodies beside me.
"I don't know how to explain anything. There was an entity that came out of the priest and killed everyone and took Miro with hi-"
"What is that in your hand?", he asked as his eyes squinted towards the jeweled book in my hands.
I slowly pulled it up, "The entity gave this to me, it is like some kind of key to something."
He swallowed hard. "You need to rest and then you're going to tell me everything."
No, this was not the time to rest, not after he had taken her from me. I looked desperately at the first few pages of the book.
Water Element
Temples of Ostros: Water Lilies
Artifacts: Sword of Killian, Mangoes Arnabella, The Bow of Cosmos
Ingredients: 2 Cloves of Garmous Tress, Ring of Loth, Hair of a Haznoth Waterbear,
Claw of Gorlnes, Turmeric of Wild Ice and Saffron from Muddy Dessert.
Substitutions: No Substitute.
Ritual: Offer the Artifacts to Ostros and perform a Ritual of Water Lilies to open the temple.
What is this? How am I supposed to know where to find anything? Before I could make sense of anything, Henry grabbed the book out of my hands. "Enough, let's get you some rest. We will look into this after you have gotten some sleep."
"No! You don't understand. He took Mira right in front of my eyes! I cannot waste any second!"
"Then what? Are you going to go on this journey without any rest? Without any food or water? Well, go ahead and do that and I will see how many days you live. You are going to do that to Mira? Knowing that she is waiting for you on the other side?
I opened my mouth and closed it. He was right but it felt wrong, not knowing how she was doing on the other side but I rested my hands to the side and nodded at him.
He handed me the book back and we walked out of the temple and travelled to an inn nearby. The owner looked surprised at my appearance but shrugged when Henry handed him 2 Gold coins. Are inns really that expensive these days?
It was the best a second-class inn could offer - four walls, a roof, and a moment to collapse.
I sank onto the bed, the weight in my chest growing heavier with every breath.
Henry watched me, a long sigh cutting through the tension. "You're breaking," he said quietly. "Let yourself rest before you shatter."
Henry handed me a glass of Meder.
"Drink," he murmured. "Relax. Just a little."
I clutched the book against my chest with one hand and took the glass with the other. The first swallow hit my tongue with a sharp, herbal heat. It was bitter at first, then strangely sweet, like something trying to soothe me against my will.
I didn't sip. I devoured it.
Henry kept refilling the glass, pouring until the entire jar was empty, and the edges of the room began to blur into a soft, dark haze.
The last thing I remembered was my fingers tightening around the jeweled cover of the book… and then the world folded in on itself, dropping me into a heavy, dreamless black.
I woke when a blade of sunlight cut across my eyes, sharp enough to make the inside of my skull throb. My head felt swollen, as if someone had stuffed it with gravel and slammed the lid shut. I had never felt anything like it — a deep, nauseating ache running from behind my eyes down the length of my spine.
I pushed myself upright, every joint protesting.
"Henry…?" My voice scraped out of me, hoarse and unfamiliar but no one answered.
I blinked at the blur from my vision and scanned the room but Henry was nowhere to be found and so was the book that I had stuffed against my chest.