An artifact which has the power of calling the dead back into the overworld, like a necromancer summoning an undead, Syla never heard of such artifact before, despite indulging in many books and learning many things, Syla was still, at the larger scale, oblivious about many of the things in the world, she wasn't born rich, she wasn't born as a human, as someone that lived in seclusion for most of her life, unable to access any public knowledge like a normal human, Syla was lacking in knowledge about mysticism, magic and artifacts, those are the things she previously never knew and barely learnt.
"..Do you know where to find it?" Syla asked Fedhr once more.
While Fedhr was initially emotional when asked about his goal earlier, he quickly threw his emotion again out the window, his mouth closed and his eyes gradually lowered as his blank face returned right infront of Syla.
"I don't know.." He said rapidly, Syla almost couldn't grasp his word. "That's why i've been visiting towns and looked for strange places such as dungeons or ancient ruins."
"Dungeons? Does magical artifacts usually comes from a dungeon?!" Syla was curious after hearing that Fedhr also searched at dungeons for the artifact.
"Not really.." He replied calmly.
"So you're just travelling until you find some sort of clue huh..." Syla sighed at Fedhr's apathetic nature and shrugged her other questions off from her mind.
Just when Syla was about to continue her walk and let Fedhr follow her to the Boonsap village, his voice called for her out of nowhere.
"What about you?" He asked quietly.
"—Me?" Syla pointed her finger to herself before thinking about it.
'My goal?..' She thought, at first Syla assumed it'd be easy to answer the question since she already told her goal to her parents before she left the village, but when she was asked the same question again by someone else, Syla finds it quite challenging.
"...My goal huh– If im being honest, exploring this world and uncovering all of its secret sounds good, but then.. What am i gonna do after that?.. I've decided, that my goal in this life is to live as much as i can! To see everything, and go back to my hometown once i've had enough.. Alone or with someone close." Syla responded with a big smile, both of her hands was placed behind her as her head slowly tilted to the side.
"—Heh." Fedhr chuckled at Syla's answer, he almost laughed as his lips grew wider. "I see, that's a good dream to have."
And thus, Fedhr began to take a step forward, closing his distance with Syla before the two of them walked together amidst the grassy plains, they soon found the dirt road that leads towards Boonsap, and after asking for direction at a carriage that happened to be passing by, they followed the road as the morning sun shone its warmth company towards the earth.
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2 Days later, inside of the forest, at the cliffs where the orc dungeon previously reside, 1:00PM—
Rustle!
Rustle!
The sound of a footstep traversing through the dry bushes and crunchy leaves were heard loudly, its noise echoed as its soundwave bounced from the cliff. While the animals and small insects were silencing themselves to hide their presence from a potential predator, what awaits them beneath the cliff was the appearance of 5 humans that looked tattered and grumpy.
"Gah! What the hell are those leaves, their branches have spikes on it.." One of the man scoffed while looking at his torn tunic under his leather armor.
As it turns out, the 5 humans that just arrived at the Orc dungeon spot was none other than the Beakwood's Guildmaster party, Varnir.
Varnir, Jose the C-Rank Swordsman, Zahir the B-Rank Swordsman, Bragghen the C-Rank Archer, and Cailou the B-Rank Mage. All 5 of them went on to approach the cave entrance that previously belong to the orc dungeon, they all saw the rotting corpses of multiple animals and even humans while they walked and immediately gagged at the smell of it.
"Ugh! I think we've found it.." Jose said as he covered his nose, followed by the others around him.
"Blegh! Eugh! What is this.. How long have they been dead?!" Bragghen added, his voice sounded rough from the nauseating scent of rotten corpses.
"Based on how they're already covered with maggots and insects- I'd assume around a week or more.." Zahir said, his eyebrows furrowed as he also couldn't stand the smell that was undoubtely making the air around them thicker and harder to breathe.
"You're saying these are all caused by the orcs!?.." Cailou said with a disgusted look.
"...What an unfortunate soul, their death cannot be any more pitiful." Varnir mourned, unlike the others around him who was trying their hardest not to puke, Varnir instead felt bad for the humans that were laying infront of him. "Let's check the cave.. From the looks of it, that must be where he dungeon is located."
"A- alright— Ugh, We've been exploring and sleeping in the forest for two days now.. I've gotten tired of bugs crawling to my face at night– Let's hope there won't be any pile of rotting corpses inside.." Jose replied as he forced himself to follow Varnir, he carefully watched his foot so that it won't accidentally step on the rotting corpse.
.
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A few minutes later, inside the cave—
Varnir and his party entered the cave and was met with the untouched darkness, thankfully there was Cailou that saved them as he summoned a fireball from his hand, the same technique used by Syla when she explored the cave 2 days ago.
Step!
Step!
Varnir placed his hand to the cave wall, analyzing its texture and also its humidity, he noticed that the cave were made out of soil instead of rocks, he thought it looked strange, but remembered that he had seen a few cave in the past with most of its walls being soil instead of rocks, so Varnir proceeded deeper without thinking much. The cave's humidty also doesn't seem to that high, some area was definitely more humid than others, but it wasn't as abnormal as they thought.
"We've been walking for a while now.. But there's no orcs or monsters.." Bragghen said, he was cautiously glancing at every corner of the cave.
The lack of monsters within the cave was the only thing that's strange about the supposed dungeon, but when Varnir was asked about it, he insisted that they continue deeper until they reached the end.
"Unless we explored all of the cave, we won't know if there's a monster or not, they could be grouping at the boss room, there's also a possibility that this dungeon isn't even an orc dungeon..." Varnir said.
Soon after saying that, Varnir and his party came across the first crossroads that split into two paths. They stopped their feets infront of the splitting paths and had to think about which direction they should take.
"Oh great.. A crossroads, surely none of them isn't a trap.." Zahir said, he sighed in frustration.
"Cailou, do you know any spells that can guide us towards the correct path?" Varnir asked.
"Huh? Uhh, no.. Im a fire mage, and that kind of spells usually came from light or holy magic." Cailou answered, he still had the fireball on his palm.
"Alright, then we'll just take a random one.." Varnir said before he pointed his index finger towards both of the path continuously, starting from the left. "One two three to where i plea, guide my path to where i need."
After Varnir sung his short melody and moving his finger with each words, he ended up pointing at the right path.
"To the right." He said.
"That easy!?" Jose was startled at Varnir's quick decision making just from singing a short poem.
Since he and the others in the party was chosen by Varnir and the fact that he was the leader of this quest, they had no way of refusing, after all even if something goes wrong, it would most likely be solved by Varnir, and all they had to do is just help in the background while also trying to defend their lives aswell.
The 4 adventurers quickly followed Varnir as they go deeper within the cave, unbeknownst to them, they would be inside the cave for more than an hour, and that they would also be lost from walking towards the wrong path at the multiple crossroads that they met along their way.