"You finally up phsyco?" Kala said looking down at her.
"I'm not a psychopath! I was just a little desperate in the moment..." She exclaimed as she slowly got up.
When she got up, she saw a raggedy old looking worn down dock that had multiple flights of stairs going up the middle mountain. She looked back down at the others, "So how tall do you guys think this peak is?"
"I don't know. Probably at least 50," Tundra said in a monotone voice, catching Hirune a little off guard as by now she was used to hearing emotion in his voice.
"50 what?" She responded looking up.
"50 anything."
"It's actually roughly 150 feet/45.72 meters," Ellen said matter-of-factly, tilting her head slightly while shrugging.
"That's too large to walk up all of those stairs, is there another way?" Hirune and Tundra asked, the pain from having to walk up all of those stairs preemptively filling their voices.
"Yeah, that's pretty average," Kala said. They both turned their heads towards her, "Excuse us?"
***
After quite a bit of arguing about how large the peaks are, they took 8 hours to get up the stairs. Hirune literally dying on the floor when she finally reached the top, Tundra trying to act as if he's fine yet he's very obviously panting. Ellen is mostly fine, just mildly deep breaths while she tried to keep her hair out of her face from all of the wind.
As for Kala, she's just frolicking around as if it was a light walk.
Hirune chuckled then coughed, "Dang sharky, what are you made out of?"
"Wouldn't you like to know you phsyco?" She answered with a cheeky smirk.
Then there was a loud shriek that sounded like a combination of a cockatoo and a jaguar, the sound being distorted with the hard wind blowing past their ears.
"Why can we never catch a break?" Hirune asked as she stood up and dusted off her dress.
The grass around the area was almost as orange and red as the sea way far down below them, there was also a small shack around the middle of the middle mountain, 2 bridges connecting to the other two peaks. A lot of stones and pillars with scriptures neatly decorating them.
Then there was another screech, and another. There were at least 2 of those things around them, maybe three.
Ellen walked over to the shack and peeked inside, then signaled for the others to follow her in after clearing the area. After they went in, the shack was actually pretty cozy, a fireplace in the middle, some firewood, a couple of couches and blankets. Yet most of all, bookshelves filled to the brink with books.
A name flashed across Hirune's mind that she unconsciously said it out loud, "The Library of Alexandria." They all looked at her, confused, yet they all nodded as if agreeing on the name.
Ellen then felt a sudden sharp pain in her head, as if she'd just badly cut her hands with a knife, but in her head. She dropped to the ground while groaning, "Good name, but please never say it again! I beg of you."
They all stared at her, concerned, yet any time someone said anything that sounded remotely familiar to another name of a historical place she freaked out. The Library of Alexandria sounding similar to a library that used to belong to Namulenza called The Sanctum of Airdnaxela.
Hirune slowly approached her, reaching towards her to ask if she was alright. Then as she was about tap her on the shoulder, Ellen waved her hand at her, throwing Hirune into one of the sofas. Ellen quickly turned her head to Hirune as she was now on the sofa to the left and stared at her like a frightened puppy, her hands cupped near her face.
She didn't mean to do that, she doesn't even know why she's freaking out so much. "Hirune are you-"
"I'm fine. Sea water on my hand is much, much worse." She responded before Ellen could finish as she slowly stood up to avoid the blood rushing to her head.
She was trying to sound and look as if it didn't bother her, but there was an obvious scowl on her face. What could've caused such a large reaction? It was just a name, not just that but she only wanted to make sure Ellen was fine. "A better question is if you're okay. Seriously, I said that name and you started freaking out. That's not normal."
Ellen stared at her, she was right. "You're right, I'm sorry. I don't know why I freaked out."
They all started to walk around the shack, making sure that nothing could get in, but that they could still get out; but Hirune was doing her own thing, she was walking around aimlessly reading the spine of the books all over the shack. Trying to find something, anything that might be important to what she currently wants to learn about.
She didn't find anything about Namulenza or Demonia, but she still found something useful. A small little pamphlet that had info on the 8 routes that Namulenza told her about. She quickly put it in her hoodie pocket and kept on looking around, doing a double take on all of the books. She'd never really enjoyed reading that much, but trying to learn about Namulenza and her alleged sister changed that. Yet again, she didn't find anything that could withhold something that had to do with her current interest, just a bunch of random historical texts that didn't matter to her.
She then rested her left hand on a random book; she took a look at it and saw that it was wildly differently colored from the books around it. Not just that but it wasn't even about the same topic as the other ones. She looked around and saw another book just like that, so she swapped them out for each other. Suddenly, one of the bookshelves started to slide open backwards. She took a quick glance to the left and right; how did she keep on finding these secret doors when she was all alone?
She looked into the corridor and grimaced, a shiver running down her spine; it was all gloomy, and damp with a red mist in it that matched some of the red stains on the walls. She closed the book shelve up again. A shiver crawling through her entire body, as she took a couple deep breaths and opened the bookshelf back up. Closing it behind her as she walked in.
As she walked down the corridor, she kept on having to take spider-webs off of her face, as it was too dark to see them, even in this red light. Eventually she reached a large room with a fountain that seemed to have blood infinitely flowing out of it. The scenery around the fountain being a bunch of statues bowing down to the statue behind the fountain. Each statue that was bowing having a soft seemingly gentle hand coming out of the ground ripping through their chest and holding their heart up.
The large statue behind the statue being of a stunning woman wearing a Greek-looking tunic with long messy hair that flowed down and into the fountain being made out of a material that absorbed that blood, making the statues hair blood red. The blood that went into the statue flowing out of the bottom of its stoic yet gentle eyes, dripping down from its face onto its tunic, dampening where the woman's heart would be. The statues left arm across her itself resting on its hip, the right hand stretched towards the roof, the palm facing down above the fountain.
Hirune stared at the statue in awe, admiring the craftsmanship of it. Taking in how detailed it was admiring even the last hair strand sculptured onto it. When she was done admiring the beauty of the art in front of her, she started to look around the room. A large floor tile in front of the fountain said something in ancient Verachian, coincidently for her, the walls had a translation into each language she could think of.
She quickly looked for whatever wall was in Spanish and started reading it. According to the translation the floor tile said, "If yee wishes for liberation, bow upon thine Empress of Crimson Ichor, and yee shall be liberated by thine lady. If yee wishes to gain strength, pray to thine Empress of Crimson Ichor, and yee shall be blessed by thine lady. Thine lady only relinquishes a blood omen if thou shall pray."
Hirune bit her lip with an eyebrow raised, the translation was a little weird, but it seemed like it was close enough to the original. She looked at the statue of the lady, realizing that the "Empress of Crimson Ichor" must be the ancient name for the modern day "Aka, the Goddess of Blood and Medicine." She walked over to a nearby pedestal holding multiple knifes, somehow none of them had rusted yet. She picked up one of the knifes and held it in her left hand for a second, then out of respect for the goddess took it in her right then cut her left hands palm. She hissed in pain, then she got on her knees in front of the statue and pondered about what she should pray for.
She eventually concluded to take an example that her school back in Triste had drilled into the head of all of the students, it was a prayer that was meant to show respect for the gods, there being a different one for each god. Supposedly the more you respected them the more they favored you, which Hirune couldn't be any less experienced in. Since she'd never had a family or friends before now, she didn't know what to pray for, she also thought that the prayer to show respect would be taking precious time out of the gods day and didn't want to be a bother. Now though, she was more mature and understood that sometimes you don't need a reason, and sometimes you shouldn't overthink about certain aspects of life.
She closed her eyes, feeling her blood dripping down her arm. Then she muttered the prayer.
She was there for roughly 30 minutes, that's how long the prayer was. After she was done, she stood up and looked back at the corridor she came from. She took a single step towards the corridor, then she turned around and walked towards the fountain. She then squeezed her palm, forcing some of her blood to drip into the fountain, then left the hidden room. As she walked down the corridor she couldn't help but find it peculiar how there was a place to pray for the blood goddess in a place that seemed more fitting of the sun god Sol.
Right before she opened the bookshelves, she looked at her left hand, it was still bleeding, and her forearm was covered in her blood. She shook her head with a sigh, how was she going to explain this one? Then the blood on her forearm started to retreat back into her hand before the cut on her palm closed up like it was never there.
Her eyes widened in surprise as the same voice from earlier spoke in her head again sounding amused, "You've obtained the Crimson Treatment huh? That's one of the best Blessings you can get from Aka, lucky."
Hirune then looked back at the direction she came from and said, "Thank you." Opening the bookshelves again. She took a quick glance at all of the books again. She then heard a different wispy chuckle in her head, "It's alright, you can take one of the books." She looked at the books, then took one of the books about Aka and said thank you again.
She walked back to the sofas, seeing Kala and Tundra there when she got there. Tundra reading a book and Kala was... She stared at Kala for a moment; she was tied to a sofa while a bunny that somehow got in was hoping around the room. Kala was staring at the bunny, her pupils slit and shark tail slamming into the sofa as she tried to get out of her restraints. Tundra looked at the book Hirune held, then went back to his.
"Sooo, what did I just walk in on?" Hirune asked, a slight frown on her face, eyes furrowed, squinting a little trying to figure out what the context of Kala being tied up could possibly be. She then picked up the bunny.
"Hiru! Quick, unt-" Kala was quickly cut off by Tundra freezing her mouth shut. "Don't listen to her. She wants to eat the bunny, and before you ask how the bunny got in, I peeked outside the door to see if I could get a glimpse of whatever we heard. Then the bunny got in, and Kala nearly ate it before I closed the door and pulled her away from it."
She stared at them for a moment, mouth now agape, but the rest of her expression being pretty much the same, "And why did she try to eat this cute, little, adorable thing?" Her face softened as she held the bunny in front of her face, a mild smile lingering on her face.
"Well, she's a shark girl, and she was raised in the ocean by sharks. Sure, she seems calm, cool, collected and concise but somewhere in there she has an animalistic nature from how she grew up." Tundra said shutting his book and sighing. Kala was pretty calm now, her tail hunched over the sofa softly, a mild pink blush on her face.
Hirune laughed, but not a bad laugh, a soft laugh. "You know, I thought you were weird because of the whole trying to eat a bunny thing. But now that I know why it actually seems pretty normal." She paused for a second, "But seriously we still have to work on that we can't be having you trying to eat random animals."
"Since when are you so responsible?" Tundra asked, an eyebrow raised.
"I don't know. Just slight worry that someone else might think she's weird. I mean, not everyone is going to be as open to her reasoning as us." She responded, a solemn expression on her face, feeling as if she can relate to her in some sort of way. She sat down next to him, letting go of the bunny on the floor. It was quiet with the exception of the shrieking outside, and a little of Ellen singing as she kept on looking around, but it was nice.
Hirune then looked at Tundra and opened her mouth, "Ah." Tundra looked at her with an eyebrow raised, then he nodded after understanding and shot a piece of ice into her mouth. Hirune closed her mouth while chewing down the ice and went, "Hmm, hm."
Then suddenly the bunny stopped moving in front of Kala. Kala stared at it intently, the ice on her mouth slowly breaking. "Hm hm hm hmmmm-" Hirune got cut off by the bunny suddenly blowing up from the inside out. All of them froze, even Kala who was close to eating it froze.
Hirune was the quickest to recover, she wasn't sure if it was because she'd done something similar back in Medio or something else, but she quickly put her book down and looked around to make sure it wasn't something that was outside or something that somehow blew up the bunny. After confirming there wasn't anything around, she filled up a bucket with water and grabbed a mop as she started cleaning up quickly. She honestly didn't care about the mess, but she didn't want Ellen to freak out about it and ask, or for Kala to stare at it any longer.
Tundra stood up and started helping, recovering almost as fast as Hirune, but he kept an eye on Kala to make sure she wasn't freaking up.
As soon as they finished cleaning up the mess, they both collapsed on the same couch.
"Would you mind moving a bit?" Tundra asked Hirune as she was panting with her head on his chest, kind of slouching on him and the couch.
"No, let me catch my breath. Also, this is comfy." She responded while heaving.
Ellen then walked into the living room to see a tied-up Kala, and an exhausted Hirune and Tundra on the same couch, "What did I miss?"
All three of them responded, "Nothing important." Then the door got knocked down; A figure that had a discombobulated skull and lanky arms with froglike legs bursting in. It's body wriggling as if it had thousands of worms inside of it, lacking eyes, yet making up for it by having a tongue that was clearly meant for echolocation.
"Can we ever catch a break?" Hirune asked, annoyance on her face as both she and Tundra got up.
"Get used to it," Kala said as Hirune used a claw to cut the ropes off of her, allowing her to get up and stretch.
"Either way, this place would crumble on us if I did anything. So, it's up to you three." Ellen said as she turned one of the sofas around to face the creature and then sat down comfortably on it.
Another one walked in behind the original one. "Lovely, there's two." Hirune said as they all got ready to fight whatever these things were.