It was no surprise for Hao Ren to find Letta runes in the strangest places. The ancient and mysterious written language was bound to exist where otherworldlings had existed. If not for their rare appearance from years of supression by the demon hunters and the church, perhaps these magical runes would have become part of the human civilization, or even altered the course of human history. The runes had been buried in the sand dunes of history. Perhaps, this was a good thing for the human civilization.
After all, the runes were not particularly suitable for humans. Hao Ren got the hunch that anything to do with The Plane of Dreams was npt particularly safe.
Rows of Letta runes were discovered on the wall, just in the corner at the end of the gallery. The runes almost covered an entire three-by-two-metre slate. Vivian got closer and started deciphering. Meanwhile, Hao Ren let the MDT synced with his vision and had the runes on the wall recorded.
Letta runes were hieroglyphs of the last civilisation. It was widely used in area where The Kingdom of Holleta was situated today. But this wasn't the only language the ancient era of The Plane of Dreams using. According to investigations and recounts by Vivian, a few other languages had existed at the same time, which were spoken by a few major groups of unusual creatures. These users must have existed in some other kingdoms in The Plane of Dreams during the last civilisation. But Letta runes were the only written language possessing special power. So Hao Ren thought that this type of runes had a specific usage; mostly for prayers, magics and other rituals; whereas runes weren't found to exist in other places.
The runes on the wall had caught his interest.
"The grammar is weird. It doesn't look like it was a spell. Probably it's a record." Vivian slid her hand across the surface of the runes, mumbling to herself. Though there was weathering process in the other dimension, it was far slower than those in Surface World. Most things in the temple, including the runes, were perfectly intact. "The architectureal practice at that time liked to inscribe the deeds of the house owner and an introduction to the house in slate and then imbed it into the house. But this is the first Lettruned record of such kind I've ever seen. This must be an important place. Wait a second, I've found the beginning point and the phrase rhythm."
Letta runes were very different from normal languages in that its writing and reading method were very strange. The first sentence wasn't always the starting to read, it was somewhere else. Sentences were made up of many phrases by which readers used to determine the beginning point with their rhythms. This reading method was cumbersome. It was rarely used for other purpose than in various rituals. Vivian pointed to a paragraph, deciphering slowly. "...the ancient thing, the origin of thing, kept in the deepest place of the long gallery. Under the protection of the obsidian hunting dog, no outsiders shall trespass thereinto... the Scholars' Hall shall remain closed and always linked to the long gallery, dossiers.... ...the responsibility of deciphering this writing shall be on Athena in finding the origin, or restoring order, or suppressing every unclean..."
As Vivian read, she stumbled upon some nonsense-sounding phrases. She skipped the last part of the writing and found some descriptions about the functions of the temple. "Storage, research centre, dossier archives, and...errr, prison?"
"What the hell is this place?" Lily used her craws to scratch the wall. "Did those ancient people really know how to write and speak properly?"
"Probably it means something is being stored here." Hao Ren dragged Lily away by her ear to stop her vandalism. "And it seems that the Goddess of Wisdom, Athena, had been assigned to study that thing..."
"It also mentions 'origin' and 'ancient'." Vivian was rubbing her chin as she mumbled to herself. "Something that was considered the 'origin' and 'ancient' even by the old fellows must be very important. Landlord, what's your thought?"
Hao Ren twitched his mouth slightly and said, "I think we've come to the right place. It must have something to do with home of the otherworldlings. But one thing I don't understand; have otherworldlings no memory of the other side? How come Zeus and his family were trying to find their origin? They must have found out that they weren't originally from Earth before they could even thought of searching for their root."
"Not sure what exactly had happened back then. But towards the end of the mythological period right before Mount Olympus was plunged into choas, the behaviours of the 'gods' of the mountain were really strange." Vivian frowned as she tried to recall every memory of the past. "I remember Zeus had been very anxious, while Athena seldom showed her face. But one month before the non-believers under the leadership of demon hunters launched an attack on the power centre of Mount Olympus, in a baffling fashion, Zeus and his family held an overnight party. Their action had given the impression that they had all given up resistence. I also remember when I visited Hera she wasn't in her right state of mind; she even told me to go into hibernation because 'the world is going to be in choas and everything is destined."
"Then?" asked Hao Ren curiously.
"Then they were all murdered." Vivian spread out her hand. "The demon hunters were ruthless. Even the poor dog wasn't spared, it was like they would dig Cerberus out from its crypt and cooked it. When I arrived at the scene, all I saw were bones."
Lily was digging the gap on the wall, probably trying to figure out how the stones of the temple was being staggered up. When she heard what Vivian said, her tail puffed up as if she had just heard some horrible ghost stories.
Hao Ren: "..."
Hessiana heard them muttering to themselves about those strange things. "What the heck you guys are talking about? I understand not a thing."
Vivian waved her hand, then walked away. "None of your business. Just some old stories. Tell you next time."
Zeon didn't bother at all. He was a typical vampire, he only cared about the temple and its power. "How strong were these Olympus Gods? Was their power coming from the thing they were studying?"
"They were a branch of the Thunder Colossi, of medium-size Thunder Colossus, a small species the size of a human. They had strong magical power, and a natural affinity." said Vivian as she shot Zeon a glance. "Are you still interested with the power here? Like I said, it is probably not a good thing."
Zeon was straightfaced. "Thanks for the advice. But I know what I'm doing. You shouldn't have meddled in the business of other even though you're an elder. We will deal with whatever comes to us, by ourselves."
Vivian scoffed at him. "Heck. For power's sake? Haven't you learned, have you? It's none of my business anyway. I'm just giving reminding you."
"Lord Vivian, Lord Vivian!" Hessiana came up to her. "Can I also study it a little?"
"No!" Vivian gave her a stare. "I can't control him," pointing at Zeon. "but not you."
Hessiana then withdrew back to the rear of the team and sank into stupor.
"According to the runes, there is a storage chamber and a study chamber. These chambers are connected to the long gallery." Hao Ren had finished scanning the entire temple. He found that the temple had some sort of flowing energy, more than one energy hotspots scattering throughout the temple, and hidden inside the stagered stone walls. He needed to find an entrance. "Where is gallery?"
"Right ahead." Zeon pointed to a faint light at the end of the corridor.
They hustled through the deep and long corridor and came to the end of it, an entirely different world with bright light opened up in front of them.
It was a big gallery, rectangular, with row of white colums on each side. The wall between the colums had ancient reliefs depicting various battle scenes and parades. No columns were present in other places and the centre of the gallery was completely empty, making the place looked even bigger.
The space was filled with a soft tone of bright light which came from nowhere.
Hao Ren wasn't interested in the stone columns nor the reliefs on the wall, his eyes were affixed to a giant sculpture at the end of the gallery.
The sulpture was of white stone, exquisitely luxurious, and lifelike.
It was a sculpture of Vivian.