The dirty floor was covered in dust, which made the dark red blood trail very conspicuous.
Angele did not find any other strange things in the room.
He followed the trail of blood to the wall.
It seemed like the blood came from the other side.
The surface of the wall was gray with a silver glint to it. Angele raised his head and saw a head-sized glowing sapphire inserted into the surface of the wall.
The clean blue light cast a reflection on Angele’s robe, and on the sapphire, there was a hidden bloody handprint. It was quite difficult to see and Angele assumed that the handprint was left there by the injured person.
He raised his hand and pressed on the sapphire.
*Crack*
The sapphire was pressed into the wall and moved to the left, revealing a small hidden compartment.
A thin book with a yellow cover lay in there quietly. There was nothing written on it, and it looked old.
Angele grabbed the book and found a set of black metal keys under it.
There were about ten keys hanging on a silver key ring, the sizes, and shapes of the keys varied. It seemed like they were used for different locks.
Angele tied the keyring to his belt and opened the thin book.
‘April 12th. I arrived at this new ruin we found. Master Mahamt of the sect found this place and captured it. It’s a ruin of an ancient organization named Axis of Time. The place is nice and the weather is great, but for some reason, we can’t find any creatures on the island. It’s strange. As a member of the sect, I have to obey the orders… I really miss my wines…’
‘April 15th. Our supplies arrived and everything is proceeding well. There are not many of us here, but we're important to the mission. I want to write down more, but Haner asked me for help in the laboratory. I’ll leave it here’.
The next several pages were missing. It looked like they were torn off by someone, but Angele already knew that this was a diary of one of the Two Head Sect members.
He kept turning the pages, skipping the records about daily life.
Angele reached the end quickly.
‘It’s July already. Quella told me that his pocket watch stopped working and he wanted me to fix it. Seriously?! Those gear wheels inside had broken into pieces and there was nothing I could do. Too many explosions had happened in the laboratory… Quella complained that the items crafted by the mortals were too weak… and I have nothing against that opinion’.
‘Something isn’t right recently. The captains arrived at the facility and put restrictions on several areas. What are they planning to do? I haven’t seen them in years, and they want to take everything from us? We contributed the most to the project, and they’re not allowing us to enter the area with the rarest resources… I’m a wizard too, I need to find a way to enter those areas someday…’
‘October 11th. I finally acquired the keys to the restricted areas. God, it takes ten keys to open all the entrances. I’m preparing to enter the area today, wish me luck’.
That was the end of the diary. Angele turned the book around but did not find anything on the back.
He grabbed the keys and found that the word '4' was engraved on each of their handles in Anmag.
Angele knew something unfortunate had happened just by reading the diary. The man's mission had probably failed. He checked the diary again and found a well-drawn map of the ruin. Each of the areas was labeled with names, and five black circles were marked in the corners. Numbers from one to five were written inside each of the circles.
The number four circle was not far away from the laboratory.
Angele opened the diary and read the last several pages again.
‘And they’re not allowing us to enter the area with the rarest resources…’
The wizards sent to the ruin by the Two Head sect failed to completely explore the ruin and for some reason, they set up restricted areas to store the rare resources. Angele guessed that they might have found something else in those special areas and the secret was reported to the leaders at higher positions.
The wizard who wrote the diary had probably died when trying to break into the area four, but Angele did not understand why his diary and keys were still there.
He rubbed the map with his fingers slowly.
‘Should I go there?’
Angele hesitated. Based on the information he acquired from the diary, he was certain that something was wrong with this ruin. However, it seemed that if he wanted to maximize the number of resources he could get, he would have to enter the restricted areas.
‘I need to proceed with caution, those areas aren't restricted for no reason. Better rewards come with higher risk… Damn, I wish I could reach the next stage now so I could learn some better damage spells…’
Angele kept thinking and in the end decided to check the areas outside those circles. If things did not look too bad, he would use the keys and go inside for rare resources.
He scanned the diary and stored the information into the database, the whole process taking about a minute. Angele then threw the diary back into the hidden compartment. With a flick of his finger, Fire energy particles ignited the book. In the bright orange flame, the diary turned yellow, twisted, and became a pile of ash.
Angele turned around, left the laboratory, and returned to the tunnel. The place was extremely silent, he could not hear anything, and he doubted if the air was circulating.
The floating fireball on the left side of his face only brought him minimum visibility.
He recalled the map he just read and located his current location. Slowly moving forward under the dim light, he reached another crossroad.
The footprints on the ground indicated that Melissa and her group had gone straight ahead.
Angele decided to go check the No.4 restricted area first.
He double-checked the map he had stored in the chip and turned left.
There was some soothing wind coming from the left to the right side. Angele kept moving forward for about twenty minutes.
He reached an entrance of a cloister and saw a large ‘4’ painted on the way in an ancient language.
The dust in the air made Angele’s nose itch. He stood by the entrance and peeked inside.
The hallway was about ten meters long and there was a black wooden door by the end of it. The door was tall and wide, with holes on its surface. The blue light coming out of the holes caught Angele’s eyes.
It seemed like someone was having a conversation inside.
Angele extinguished the fireball and quietened his footsteps.
He stood in front of the wooden door and peeked through one of the larger holes.
Angele could hear the people talking inside clearly.
"… No! Impossible! Tell me! That’s not your intention, right? Tell me!" a man was shouting, his voice sounding nervous.
Angele leaned forward and saw a large meeting hall, its wall decorated with the same glowing sapphires he had seen in the laboratory. Those sapphires were the only source of light here.
The hall was filled with people wearing long blue robes. Their ages and genders varied, but they were all releasing strong mentality waves, and it seemed like Angele’s compressed mentality helped him to stay undetected.
Angele was quite surprised after checking their mentality waves because all of them were wizards.
Also, those wizards’ bodies were translucent. They almost looked like ghosts.
All the wizards were quietly staring at several people that were wearing dark blue robes. The voice Angele had heard earlier belonged to a young man, and he was staring at another man in front of him with anger in his eyes.
"Naora! You destroyed us! You destroyed the whole Axis of Time! I need to stop you now!"
A female wizard stepped forward.
"We’re already the strongest organization on the west coast and we don’t have to risk it!" someone yelled out.
"I’m doing this for the organization," the male wizard named Naora responded in a light tone. The man had a peaceful smile on his face. It seemed like the others were trying to stop him from making a certain decision.
"Axis of Time…?"
"So, this is a memory of the ruin...?"
Angele had read about it in one of the books from Ramsoda’s library once. Some of the ancient architectures were built with a special material that could record events that happened inside them. The materials were not enhanced by spells, and they were relatively easy to find back then. Many wandering wizards had encountered the material while traveling. The legend said that the Ghost Voice was developed by the ancient potion masters using a similar material.
The wizards Angele saw were illusions, and their argument was recorded a long time ago. It was probably an important historical event for the organization.
‘This was probably one of the reasons why the Axis of Time disappeared from this world,’ Angele guessed while watching the wizards talking inside the hall.
The wizards’ argument got intense, and they were pointing at Naora. No one trusted the man’s explanation, but he was still trying to convince the others, addressing how important his plan was.
However, no one was listening to him.
"Do you know what’s my intention? Do you remember the day we founded the organization? What’s our true purpose?!" Naora shouted.
"Tell us what you’re doing!" one of the wizards yelled.
"Yeah! Show us the document! We don’t want to be lied to!"
The hall got even noisier.
*Crack*
Angele stepped on something while trying to find a better viewing angle.
Suddenly, people inside the hall stopped yelling and moving. It almost looked like a video was paused.
They turned to the door and stared at Angele through the holes.
More than thirty pairs of eyes looked at Angele at the same time, and those wizards’ expressions were replaced by horrifying smiles.
Angele was scared, and his skull numbed. He took several steps back and stared at the black wooden door.
The hall remained silent, but he could still feel the gazes going straight through the door and falling upon him.