The Dead Kingdom

by Red and Black Alicorn OC

The Birth, the Mirth, the Delusion and the End

Kuati waved at Hua and Tulip as he and the rest of the group walked down the plank of wood. It creaked underneath his weight but it didn't break into two.

He stepped onto the hard rocky surface of the mountain. He'd never been in a place like here and he'd never felt so cold. The group started walking down the craggy path, if you could call it one.

The group was being lead by Mreco, and Kuati had to hand it to him, he was pretty good. He had sent a trio of scouts up ahead to see whether there were any dangerous pathways or predators.

It had been one hour since they had left the Yearchai and Kuati was starting to feel hungry. He opened up his satchel and took out a dandelion sandwich. When he finished it he still felt hungry. No, not hunger, but something else.

He didn't know what it was but it was biting at him for another half an hour. He thought that he was homesick.

He had been away from home for about a week now and he already missed it. But he wasn't sure what he missed about home. His closest friend, Lren, was back at home but he still had other friends like Hua and.... Tulip.

While Kuati was in a mysterious daydream he didn't notice that the trio of guards had returned with news.

"Mreco, my lord, we have news to inform you of."

Mreco asked politely.

"What sort of news? That of which brings a bane, burden or gratitude?"

The scout shook his head.

"Neutral my lord, but it could become a perk of gratitude."

Mreco gestured him to continue.

"A city, my lord."

"In the mountains?"

"No, it lies beyond a lake that is located at the base of the mountain."

"Okay, we'll head there then."

"Yes my lord, but I have something else to tell you."

Mreco paused for a few seconds.

"What do you mean?"

"Well sir, believe me or not, I'm either insane or the city is made from..."

He looked at his fellow colleagues with uncertainty.

"Crystals."

Everyone was silenced. Then Mreco spoke.

"Good chap, I do believe the first possibility is probably more likely to be the case."

--two hours later--

Kuati's hooves were starting to get sore. They had only taken one break in that one hour it took them to get to this point. At first he thought it was going to take about ten minutes to get there because the scouts had done so. But unfortunately he discovered that they went down a more dangerous, quicker rout which would be to deadly for the whole group to take.

He even heard that if it wasn't for all these low leveled clouds that were touching the ground then he would've been able to see the city. Nevertheless he was still going to continue and besides, the scouts said that they were nearly there.

He noticed that he was surprisingly first so a took his flask out of his satchel. After he satisfied himself with a few drops of refreshing water from the flask he put it back into his satchel and secured the straps.

He then went up to Mreco.

"Do you believe the scouts? Do you really think that there is a crystal city?

Mreco shook his head.

"I don't know, to be honest with you. It might be true, the reports, or it might be lies."

"And if they were lying?"

"I don't know, I'd probably report it to the high council and see what punishment will suit them best."

Kuati was about to ask another question but stopped when he noticed that if he took one more step he would be on the ground floor.

He took that step.

He continued to walk with the group, and he swear he could see something through the mist.

He took a longer look and saw something he only thought existed in fairy tales. A crytal city.

He stood still. He blinked. Then blinked again.

Mreco noticed.

"What are you staring at?"

Kuati was too dumbstruck to say anything. Instead he pointed.

At first Mreco didn't know what he meant but as soon as he saw the large crystal like tower, his jaw dropped down.

The group didn't know what was going on but one by one they noticed the large crystal structure.

Mreco was the first to recover from the shock.

"Okay people, lets get to our destination."

The group walked towards the tower, and as they walked pass the strip of land surrounded by lakes from left and right they noticed that there was houses too, also made out of crystals.

Mreco then stopped and turned around to the whole group.

"We will all form a group of at least two or three each. We will try to collect as much artifacts as we can but don't worry if we can't take everything, we will come back with the Yearchai."

Everyone nodded and Mreco was ordering people into groups of two or three.

"Kuati, go with Flore-"

"Mreco, can I go alone? I don't work well with others."

This wasn't true, infact he would've liked company but he wanted to explore the castle all by himself without someone saying "That's worthless" or "No, come over here", well okay, he didn't really work well with others.

Mreco gave a concern look, he was obviously suspicious of him being a traiter.

"Are you sure?"

Kuati nodded in reply. Mreco sighed and shook his head.

"Very well, but at least have a guard with you."

Kuati smiled and said thankyou.

Mreco looked back at everyone.

"Okay, we'll meet in about one hour, okay?"

The group dispersed in different directions, the vast majority heading towards the castle. The castle was easy to get to as there was a road leading to it. With closer inspection Kuati saw that the crystal walls had started to decay large shards of the rare material was missing. It looked like it had seen many battles.

Kuati and the guard saw a large set of crystal double doors, one of them half opened, the top half of it missing, and one of fully intact apart from a few large scratches here and there.

They both entered through the entrance and looked in awe as they looked the great giant room they were in. Kuati walked up the stairs leading to multiple choices of doors.

He went straight ahead, not caring wether the guard was following or not. He was walking down a large hallway and looked at the carpet. It was surprisingly not made out of crystals. It was made out of a cyan silk that Kuati absorbed the feeling and smiled.

He then heard the guard speak.

"Should we take this my lord?"

Kuati turned around to find him looking at a decayed picture of a pony, he couldn't tell the features of the mare.

"What's the point? We'll be collecting it at some point afterwards when we come back with the Yearchai."

The guard replied.

"Well what will be the point in us searching it now then?"

Kuati laughed.

"Because when we do collect all this stuff the people doing it won't have a donkey's clue what to find."

The guard was confused.

"Sorry sir? I don't understand."

"I'm not looking for artifacts, I'm trying to find out why this civilisation dissapear? What was the cause of their deaths? Yes, objects they had did help, but I'm actually searching, everybody else is collecting."

Kuati continued forwards across the corridor and smiled when he saw the guard's confused face in the reflection of a window, probably made out of transparent crystal.

He turned a corner and saw a row of doors. As Kuati walked past the doors he individually opened each door and took a look inside.

They were all bedrooms, all exactly the same. Either they were for guests or for the servants. Kuati rounded another corner and discovered a lone door at the end of the hallway.

Kuati walked towards the door and opened it. From what he could outside of the room he saw nothing. This grabbed his attention.

He entered the room and looked around. In the corner of the room was a large mirror. Kuati walked up to it and immediately sensed a faint bit of magic. He knew something was up with this mirror. The guard must've sensed this too.

"I can feel something, something weak, but... But different. I've never sensed any magic like this before."

Kuati grinned.

"You see? If we'd been taking every single piece of item then we would probably never have found it."

The guard grinned sheepishly.

"Yes."

Kuati turned back to the mirror and walked towards it. He looked at the frame of the mirror.

There was pink gemstones on the frame and all of them, Kuati noticed, were the source of the magic.

A loud crashing noise came from across the hallway making the unicorn jump. They looked at eachover uncertainly but both of them walked out of the room and walked across the hallway. Kuati heard a few scraping noises. They turned the corner and stared in shock. There was a wolf, a wooden wolf, a wolf made out of sticks and twigs, looking at them.

It's green eyes pierced Kuati like a talon and the beast growled. Kuati did the only thing he thought was best. Run.

The two unicorns sprinted back into the room. They heard scraping noises getting frighteningly closer. The guard used his magical aura to enhance the doors strength. The guard looked back at Kuati to find him looking at mirror frame.

"What are you doing?!"

Kuati didn't answer his question but instead asked him a question.

"How long are you going to be able to hold that door?"

The loud crunching noise of the wood starting to split made the guard jump.

"A minute at the most!"

Kuati grinned.

"Long enough for me!"

The gems are in a pattern. One large gemstone at the top. Underneath that there are two on the left side of the frame and two others symmetrical to them but on the right hand side. There is a little hole, a hole which could fit another gemstone inside of it, someone removed them then, but two other gem stones are located below the gaps.

Another ear splitting crash hit the door again, the monster was obviously going down the corridor for the maximum effect on the door when it charged.

They all have a mark, a line, on one of their corners on each of them. In fact they all are facing a different angle. One of them is on their side and another is upside down, but if they were all in the same angle. If you compared them all together with the scratches then you couldn't notice the difference between them all, the markings are all in the same place.

The monster charged for the seventh and final time, and the door was now just a pile of splinters.

The one at the top, the biggest one, has not been rotated. The mark is located at the top. Actually, it also has other markings around the gem itself, rune markings.

Kuati used a spell to make the markings glow bright yellow.

There, that's better. The one above the gem says "The Birth"

The monster rushed in but the guard shot a spell at it, sending it flying out of the room and sliding across the floor of the hallway.

The bottom one says "The Mirth"

The monster stood back up and growled. The guard shouted.

"What are you doing?!"

On the left it says "The Delusion"

The monster ran and into the room towards the guard. The guard made a temporary wall in front of him and smashed it into it, making it stagger.

And the last one on the right says "The End"

The monster recovered quickly and pounced at the guard.

Pure instinct made Kuati turn around and make a shield to block the blow. The monster smashed through it but the loss of momentum made it's leap shorter and was only three feet away from the guard.

That gave the guard enough time to levitate his musket rifle and fire. It shot the side of the creatures face and a few sticks fell off his face. The force of the impact temporarily paused the wolf in it's place but other then that it wasn't damaged.

Both of the unicorns looked at each over and nodded. They both created a large thick magical aura wall and pushed it into the monster's side. The wolf yelped and was pushed to the right hand side of the room. The two unicorns ran out of the room and down the hallway.

They could here the monster's loud footsteps as they exited the corridor and saw the main entrance.

They saw Mreco looking at them.

"What's going-"

Kuati interrupted him.

"Run!"

Author's Note:

This is a solvable puzzle, you might misunderstand what I said but hopefully you did understand. This mystery is going to be revealed in a very long time. Click here to see the image of the mirror.

Comments

[Red and Black Alicorn OC]

Anything you don't understand about the puzzle then please ask me, I might not answer your question though if it means I have to give away some spoilers.