The wind had died, causing silence to crawl out from between rocks.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The causeway wasn't immediate. Before Bast found it, he found everything else--the same mountains in his distant view, protruding like broken teeth, dead grass bowling under the cold, and a horizon too wide for someone raised behind walls.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Every now and then he'd see something that looked like the start of a road -- flat patches of dirt, lines carved by wind, shapes in the dust. Each time he squinted, hoping.
"Where is it....?" he questioned, legs churning in pain.
It wasn't getting any easier. His hunger hadn't either.
Grrr!
Still he kept going, driven by that stubborn, stupid hope lodged behind his ribs. The hope that he could get somewhere safe... and eventually learn more about this relic.
His hand rummaged into his pocket, clutching the Coin with a shaky hand.
---------------------------
[Relic Classification]
Item: The Beggar's Coin
Type: Memory/Echo Relic
Tier: I I (Woken)
Bonding Stage: F - Awakening (Ember)
Status: Active (Unstable)
Flips Remaining: 1
----------------------------
'Tier I I....?'
He stared at the words, unsure what any of it meant. Woken? Awakening? Ember? None of it explained by his chest felt tight... or why the Coin felt heavier every time he touched it.
'Flips Remaining: 1.'
"One..." he muttered.
He'd been given a piece, not all of the information regarding the Relic. Whatever the relic wanted, it wasn't telling him everything... apart from the stress and threshold limit, the relic's principle and its chance vs choice element -- there wasn't a lot to go off.
Maybe once he reached a new city he could find someone. Maybe once he'd found food, his mind could think of a solution. Maybe....
'No...'
He shook his head, closing the panel in front of him -- it was too much for now.
His eyes were thick with thought, but his feet kept moving.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The path narrowed -- shadows stitching together in the darkness, as the stars above powered his path with light -- with his steps moving down a slope of dirt.
Grrr! Grrr!
"How much longer...?" he asked, lips pressed in frustration.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
His steps marched as his stomach seemed to march at the same time.
"Fuck... I gotta find something to eat."
It was clearly an issue, but whilst his eyes strained forward under the pain of emptiness... the air felt different.
It was still cold like before, but something still felt different.
Thicker?
Older?
His next step hovered mid-air, instinct telling him to stop.
That's when he saw it...
Thump!
His heart drummed as he stared forward.
He had only heard stories before...
Maybe that's why when he looked forward and saw the view, it hit harder...
A cold breath was all he could draw.
A mess of broken signposts leaned in the dirt like slanted poles; rotted cloth flags clung to them by threads. Piles of debris sank into the ground.
Metals. Cloth.
No.
Weapons. Swords...
Outlines filled the scene, plentiful and wicked in design.
Were they?
Remains.
Marks.
Bones...
'What....'
Where did they come from? God-knows-were. The whole ground was shredded and stained as dark as the sky.
Grr!
It wasn't the sound of hunger anymore. The pain and rumbling of his stomach was replaced with something else...
Crunch!
He took a short step -- the ground quality changing. The soft grass of before with rocks scattered had changed dramatically, turning into a view of sand and dark. His steps fumbled before he stabilised; his brown hair swaying in alarm.
All he could do was stare...
It was dark, but the details was clear as day.
No other word than barren could describe the lands decay.
"...the hell happened," he voiced, staring at it all.
It was the remains of a battlefield.
A story he had only seen the ending of.
But it didn't...
His breath hitched. It wasn't just the ground that had darkened.
The sky had too.
Not like night -- it already was that cover of time. Not like clouds -- the stars were in full view.
It was darker.
Thicker.
Wrong.
A shadow had stretched over him--silent and unmoving.
Bast's eyes lifted. Slowly. "You gotta be kidding me..."
Above him... hanging over the dark horizon like some ancient nightmare.
A spine.
Colossal. Curved. Each vertebra the size of Greyfair's very walls; they jutted out like broken crevices.
Ribs--massive, arched--loomed overhead, stained in a darker shade of yellow. Chips of bone dressed in the sand he stopped over.
Something huge had died here. Something older than any tale he'd heard whispered.
"It was real..."
All he could do was stare, as the full shape above revealed itself. A corpse big enough to cage the land he stood under. A corpse that had been rooted for decades. A corpse that had made him... feel insignificant -- even as he clutched the Coin in his hand.
It was a monument he'd heard of before.
A monument... that marked he was going the right way.
A monument... that meant he'd arrived.
"The Ashen Causeway..."