Once the resonance reached perfect alignment with the ancient frequencies used to write it, the faded inscriptions glowed faintly in his perception.
One by one, the missing words revealed themselves, flickering as though the mural itself remembered what had been lost.
Slowly but carefully, he let the harmonics adjust, shifting pitch by pitch until the faint frequencies overlapped perfectly with the hidden inscriptions.
Then, the staff’s full inscription aligned before his eyes, appearing brand new, like it had just been written.
His lips moved slowly as he spoke the incantation in IIthorien:
"Sha’reth Vahl... En’dru Solari... Ka’them Ashorii..." (By the Sacred Oath of Power... By the Bearer of the Eternal Flame... I unseal the Gate of the Ashori.)
The final syllable reverberated like a struck church bell... and then, the wall trembled, kicking up dust everywhere as cracks spread around the emperor’s painted staff.
Rrrrmmmmm...
Then, with a grinding groan, a seam split open at the base of the mural, widening into a door. It revealed a staircase leading to a dimly lit chamber.
Levi stood up and turned to face his friends with a serene smile, "Ladies first?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
Shia and the rest were left speechless as they gazed at the wide-open door... even their nightcrawlers were taken aback.
They knew Levi told them he could do it in a couple of minutes, but their nightcrawlers knew better... recovering a perfect inscription was extremely difficult even if a single word was missing.
To recover this one, when it had multiple broken phrases? It was nearly impossible in a few minutes unless one got lucky or used a secret method.
"Nah... how did you do it?! I have to know!" Nurah swiftly took hold of Levi’s shoulders, not wanting him to go anywhere until he quenched her curiosity.
"90% luck and 10% skill?" Levi chuckled while swiftly slipping away from her hands.
"Noooo... don’t hide it. I also want to do the same... It’s a must-have skill when dealing with locked doors, wallets, and totems." Nurah pouted with a saddened puppy look, "Pretty please?"
"As much as I would like to teach you, unfortunately, the skill is related to my spine’s mutation." Levi shook his head with a serene smile; her puppy look had no magic on him.
When Nurah and the rest heard this, they decided to drop the subject... they knew that asking one about his mutation’s inner workings was a breach of privacy.
Even if they were friends and from the same team, they shared only their mutations’ effects that they were most comfortable sharing... This was an unspoken rule in the Daywalkers’ world.
Never ask one about the details of their mutation, their nightcrawler, or powers unless they opened the door.
"Let’s go, it is getting wild upstairs, and I am starting to believe they might actually dig through the ceiling." Levi swiftly changed the subject by pointing upward.
Thud! Thud...
Arthur and the girls’ expressions turned slightly grim, noticing that the tremors were increasing in noise. They knew that the Corrupted would not stop until they ate them, even if it meant breaking their talons to dig through the hard, yellow stone.
Without hesitation, they chased after Levi, who was already descending inside the hidden chamber... The moment they joined him, their eyes thinned gloomily at the sight of skeletons spread everywhere... especially when they saw that the majority were of children.
"How cruel..." Jojo clasped her palms together and whispered a prayer for their souls.
"Cruel is an understatement." Shia frowned, "This must have been a safe bunker to hide the children, the elders, and other helpless citizens... they locked themselves inside until the chaos and the plague went away... but it looks like it never did, forcing them to die of starvation."
"Damn... some of them are still babies."
Arthur sighed sadly as he gazed at a mother who was hugging her baby until they drew their final breath... she held it tightly in her arms, dying together in one final warm embrance.
Meanwhile, Nurah’s eyes were drawn to a bunch of skeletons piled on each other... some of them had cracked bones or beak marks on them.
She knew that they had resorted to cannibalism when their situation had finally reached the despair stage... with hunger and the instinct of survival taking over their minds.
She sighed inwardly and walked forward with Levi, who went straight for the mud jar in the middle of the chamber.
Levi carefully unsealed the mud jar, knowing that it must be extremely fragile... after removing the sealed lid, Levi used his aetheric grasp to gently pick up the scroll, preferring to be as gentle as possible.
"A scroll? Did one of them write his final hours in it?" Arthur wondered.
"We are about to find out," Levi replied as he unrolled the scroll as slowly as possible, noticing that its texture was brittle, like it would shatter into dust with the slightest amount of force.
Once it was fully opened, everyone peeked over Levi’s shoulder at its content, seeing that it was written in ancient IIthorien.
"Why IIthorien and not their native language? Were they trying to be as inclusive as possible, considering other races getting here?" Shia questioned.
"Maybe."
Levi wasn’t certain, and he had no time to waste on speculations. He coughed to clear his throat and read the scroll with a solemn tone.
"I write this not knowing if anyone shall ever read it..."
As Levi’s Harmonic Spine traced the letters, an image manifested into being, showing the world as it had once been inside the chamber.
A humanoid phoenix, wearing tattered white robes, was seen huddled in the corner against the stone walls of the hidden chamber.
His eyes affixed on the surrounding refugees... their faces unkempt, bodies shivering, and all of them seemed malnourished, like they hadn’t eaten in days.
This was one of the high priests of the Ashora Empire... he had survived the initial waves of the plague with his people simply because they weren’t close to the plague breakout point... the heart of the Ashora capital.
Looking at everyone’s hollow eyes, the priest let out a long exhale and started writing on the scroll.
"The Ashora Empire... it is no more. The Dawn Phoenix, our guardian, has betrayed us for the sake of ascendance and fulfilling the fable Glorious Evolution... she got her hands on the Sun Amulet and desired to use it as the main ingredient for its final evolution... however, the evolution failed, and the Dawn Phoenix went into an uncontrollable rampage, channeling its immense powers through the Sun Amulet to unleash the worst plague our nation has ever known... Ashfall."
"Our beloved Pharaoh Azhukar has stood against it with the rest of our brave warriors... but alas, all they could do was buy the citizens some time to flee the Ashenra capital."
"We fled here, thinking safety could be found in the temple’s underground sanctuary, thinking we could hide from its wrath... but the plague does not sleep."
"We kept receiving updates that the world had become ash and fire... entire cities had crumbled; the ground was littered with the skeletal remains of men, women, and children. Forests smoldered; oceans churned with dying creatures. Ashfall’s plague had spread across the planet, leaving nothing untouched..."
The priest paused, his shriveled hands trembling like they were too weak to hold the feathered pen properly.
"Just when we thought that the plague had died off, our hopes of leaving the sanctuary were dashed after we heard news from the last survivors that the plague had contaminated the deserts, the buildings, the walls, and the very air we breathe... after every dawn, it returns, rising like fireflies at dusk, amber sparks riding the wind. Anyone touched by it is burned alive... there is no mercy, no sanctuary... no hope, at least for us..."
The priest’s face twisted in anguish as he traced the last words with his fingers:
"The Sun Amulet rests in the throne chamber of the Great Pyramid of Dawn... Our traitorous guardian has been weakened immensely by the plague, and yet she still refuses to let go of the Sun Amulet, her heart and mind struggling to accept the failure of her ascendance."
"She is slumbering deeply with the Sun Amulet around her neck... if it is not destroyed... if someone does not act... our empire will be erased from history by the plague and the Shadow Dimension’s corrupting atmosphere."
"To whomever is reading this... I am not begging to be saved or my people... I know we are doomed. But please, please save the nation and whatever remaining bloodline we have. The Great Ashora Empire cannot fall like this... its legacy shall forever be tainted."
"I am not making this request for free... the empire’s largest treasury is in a secret location within the Great Pyramid of Dawn. Only the Emperor and the High Priests are trusted with its location and the key."
"If you’re seeking the empire’s riches, you will find everything that you need on the backside of the scroll."
"Yours sincerely, High Priest Velkhar."
Levi lowered the scroll slightly, letting the memory wash over him... he could see the fear, the despair, and the hopeless determination of the priest... the last witness to the empire’s fall.
He turned the scroll around and noticed that it indeed had the drawing of a map inside the pyramid with the treasury being the ’X’ mark... Also, even the IIthorien password was written underneath it.
At the bottom of the scroll, the High Priest’s final cry for help was written:
"I beseech you to save our Ashori Bloodline."