The two of them traipsed back to the inn and met up with their friends. The other three were amazed to see Cleo so full of life and determination, it was a stark contrast to how she had been over the previous months and they all could not help but feel that it was a good thing, no matter what caused it.
As the two girls explained what happened, however, the group as a whole became sombre. This was far beyond what any of them predicted and they all began to wonder what was so important that the group they were facing would spend so much time trying collect golden children. There was nothing explicitly making golden children different from anyone else, other than their connection to the books.
“Look,” Yun began. “I may have some idea what is going on, but I have no idea what the end goal could be”.
“Oh?” Winoa said. “Please enlighten us, it would be much appreciated”.
“I think... and this is pure conjecture mind you, I think that what we are dealing with is a grand seal. They are number seventeen on the Myriad Manifestations, and the idea of finding one terrifies me. These seals were used to confine some truly horrible things, and of the stuff that the Book even lists... all of it is terrifying stuff that could warp the minds and souls of even Ascendant Immortals”.
“Are you kidding?” Jim spat. “We should be going nowhere near that place if the stakes are so high. There's no point in getting revenge for Law if we just get ourselves killed in the process. The idea of going anywhere near that is insane”.
“I would normally agree with you,” Yun replied as he frowned and paced up and down the main hall of the inn.
“I sense a but here,” Jim said.
“Indeed. There's something you should know. There's a chance that Law might actually still be alive”.
The group stopped and looked at Yun. “Are you kidding me?” Jim exclaimed. Everyone was feeling the same way, but no-one else could really get the words out. “We've spent the last four months travelling and watching Cleo destroy herself over his death and now you're telling me that he might actually be alive? Could you not have told us sooner?”
“I only just came to the conclusion. I never saw a body, just his arm, and if what we are dealing with is actually an Archaic Seal, then they would not have wanted him killed. The seal... It’s a life seal”.
“A what seal?” Louisa asked. “You’ve never spoken to me about it”.
“That’s because,” Yun’s voice cracked and he coughed, before standing up and walking over to the bar. After grabbing a drink from the slightly terrified barmaid, he paid and sat back down with his friends. “Sorry, I’m not used to talking this much. I don’t talk about a lot of the manifestations. Of the ninety-nine, there are a lot of ones that are horrifying in context. The Archaic Seal is one of them. The Seal... It requires some ridiculous materials to create, I’m talking naturally formed Stellar Diamonds, the blood of an Ascendant Immortal, even Visvitae. It’s expensive and makes for a powerful seal”.
“Yeah, so what makes you think that Law is still alive?” Cleo asked, clutching at the table, her fingers turning white as they dug into the tabletop.
“The way you break the Ancestral Seal. You need the life, and the blood of six Saints. One for each Book. With each life taken the seal will weaken, until finally it will be able to be opened without worry of harming the objects inside. I’m kinda terrified about what they might do with whatever is kept inside, but that's not what I am getting at. Law is a Saint level cultivator of the rarest Book of them all, there is no way they would kill him”.
In a soft voice, Cleo let out an “Oh...” Her eyes began to water, and soon enough the floodgates broke with tears trickling down her face unreservedly. She was still angry, impossibly so, but the relief at finding out that Law could still be alive had washed her heart clean of defeat. As long as he was alive there was a chance for her to find him and save him from the terror that would be inflicted upon him. Through her tears she bit her lip until she drew blood, forcing herself to focus.
“So now all we have to do is go to this ‘Valley of Kings’ on the fifteenth floor,” said Winoa.
“Wait, wait wait...” Jim said, pulling out his purple Book and flipping through the pages quickly. “The Valley of Kings on the fifteenth floor? I swear I’ve read about that... I know I’ve seen it in here somewhere. Yeah, here it is”. He stopped, tracing his finger over the lines of text before coming to rest on a single line near the bottom of the page. Looking up, he swallowed before continuing to speak. “There’s a series of journals from some of the most famous practitioners of Order inside the Book, and I remembered that one of them mentioned the Valley of Kings. Listen to this.
“We ran for months, searching for a place we could just rest, but still the damage and destruction has followed us from the top of the tower. No one can understand why the lady on high would send such a trial, and we are starting to lose faith. There are even some of us who are turning to the ways of the aboriginals in order to survive.
“Markas Hephaistia has a plan. In normal times I would have called it drastic, but now I cannot be so sure. I simply know that if it solves our problem then I will do whatever it takes to stop the terror, even if it means my death. It is the only thing an Ascendant Immortal should do. I intend to merge this journal with my Book so that there is a record of our journey, and to remind people to not go near the Valley of Kings. The fifteenth floor is dangerous enough, but what Markas is suggesting will change the nature of the region entirely. It should send anyone working on breaking upon his seal completely insane, and hopefully they will lose their mind enough to stop working on the seal”.
“Wow,” Winoa said, looking at Jim with wide eyes. “That still does not tell us what is actually sealed within the damned seal. What could drive someone to go through angering the clans?”
“All we really know is that weird call and respond that the group seems to have,” said Cleo as she mopped up her tears. “The wolf fell to the morning, and the tower will soon follow. The hell does it mean?”
“Honestly, I don’t think there’s much of a discussion about who the wolf is,” said Yun. “There was a reason why Laurence found me outside of the Lupe realm when he first began climbing the tower, and it’s not because my sires wanted to go exploring. I think there is something thoroughly wrong within the lupe and this might be a reason why. The more I think about it, the less I think that the group chasing us and taking my brother was serendipitously made up of Lupe clan members”.
“Do you think my family is involved?” Louisa asked, sidling up to Yun with a worried look on her face. “I doubt they would, but there are some people within my family who would do almost anything to become at least equal to one of the Book clans”.
“There’s no way to tell,” said Jim “All we can really do is move on and hope for the best. Seeing as this involves you the most, Cleo, what’s your view on it?”
“I... I think that we...” she took a deep breath before looking at all her friends that surrounded her and she could not help but smile slightly. “We need to hunt for anything about Law. If we can save him then we have to at least try. I don’t think I could live with myself if I let him be sacrificed while knowing I could have tried to save him. Don’t you think?”
“Indeed,” Yun said. “Let’s start moving towards floor fourteen then. There aren’t exactly many Lupes in public here, but we should find some of them on the way to the stele. If any of them can enlighten us then we can move forwards from there, but before that there is no real way for us to plan anything other than heading towards the Valley of Kings. Agreed?”
The group nodded in unison and then began getting into gear. Within the hour they were ready to go, but before they left Cleo walked over to the innkeeper and his wife, and handed them a small pouch with ten gold shards inside. She smiled and whispered “Sorry” before quickly turning around and leaving to follow her friends into the night. There would be little time to rest in future, but she did not want the people in the inn to think of her as ungrateful or anything similar for the help that they gave her and what they had to put up with during the time she was grieving. That was on hold now. Now she could feel a fire in her belly that was waiting to burst out and consume all those who had harmed the man she loved. She would make the people who hurt him pay, and if that meant the Lupe, or the Vermillion clans, then she would make them pay a thousand fold what she had to.
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