A thick morning mist blanketed the Dremasean hills, shrouding the dried riverbed that wormed its way through the highlands. Sheah squinting through the windows of the bridge, anxiously eying the bow of her ship as it was narrowly navigated between befogged, craggy cliffs, its hull uncomfortably close to the rockface. Small, sinewy Unbound slithered through the haze around them, chittering hideously. They darted across the riverbed at the Redland Runner’s approach, scattering out of the way like roaches. The sounds of their nails scraping against the stone sent shivers up Sheah’s spine.

  Sitting in the driver’s seat was Jira, stoic as ever, her experienced eyes scanning the surroundings with the utmost vigilance. Dez and Kaelis mingled in the cabin behind her, watching what little scenery there was as it passed by the glass.

  Suddenly Kaelis gasped. “Look at that!” she exclaimed, pointing through the haze.

  For a moment, Sheah thought she was making an especially dry joke, until a row of towering forms emerged through the fringes of the fog. There were buildings—ruins of stacked stone, the erstwhile foundations of walls and pillars, all of it thickset and lacking the expressive ornamentation of the other wasteland structures she had seen before.

  “This is incredible!” said Kaelis, pressing her cheek against the glass, trying to absorb every last detail. “I’ve never seen any ruins like these in this region before. Or anywhere, really. Look at how… chunky everything is! We gotta be somewhere real ancient!”

  Sheah quietly nodded to herself, equal parts nerves and anticipation. Her Uncle Karsten was right—there was something old out here. And something old meant something valuable.

  “Not surprising nobody comes out this way,” said Dez, watching the rubble roll by with a raised brow. “Without that tip from the client I’m not sure anyone woulda found this place.” He glanced over at Sheah. “Hey, where’d they hear about it, anyway?”

  “Don’t know,” she dismissed. “Captain, how much further to the site, do you think?”

  “Not far, according to the charts. We should be near the head of the river.”

  The four adventures all turned their attention to the windscreen and waited for their destination to appear through the mist.

  “I’m not a fan of this fog,” said Dez as the haze grew even thicker.

  Kaelis cheerfully shrugged. “I think it’s got atmosphere.”

  “Hold on,” said Jira, easing her foot down on the brake. Slowly, the ship crawled to a stop.

  Blocking the path before them was a steep pile of heavy stone rubble—the remains of a nearby structure, the better part of its walls now splayed out across the riverbed.

  Jira threw the ship into park and folded her arms. “End of the line.”

  “What?” said Sheah, looking out nervously as dark shapes skittered across the misty hills, watching the ship from on high. “Can’t we get any closer?”

  “Afraid not.”

  Kaelis pushed herself from the window and marched towards her rifle, which sat leaned up against the wall. “C’mon Boss, we’ll just have to hike the rest of the way.” She loaded a round into the chamber and slung the gun over her shoulder. “How much further did you say it was, Captain?”

  “Half a mile, maybe.”

  “Easy peasy.” Kaelis plopped on her helmet and lowered the face guard, masking her grin with its steely visor. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Let’s go!” Kicking open the door, she leapt out of the bridge and down the stairs to the main deck. She swung herself out onto the ship’s side ladder and slid down into the mist.

  “…I suppose we are heading out,” said Sheah. Not wanting Kaelis to get too far ahead, she quickly grabbed a pair of bags and threw one over each shoulder—double prepared this time. She tightened their straps, securing them snugly at her hips. “Keep your radio on,” she said, moving to the door.

  Jira looked at her blankly. “Yeah.”

  Sheah walked up to the hatch and paused, taking in a deep breath. “This is going to be great. Okay…” Steadying her nerves, she stepped across the threshold, making her way off the ship and deeper into the mist.

  Sheah clambered down the mound of debris behind Kaelis, strategically placing her hands and feet on the least jagged shards of stone. At last, she touched her shoes onto a proper road. Gone were the rolling waves of river rock, replaced instead by a neatly arranged pattern of cobblestone, its bricks rendered smooth by the ages. Carefully, the pair made their way deeper into the ruined settlement.

  “Wow… This place is amazing…” said Kaelis, breathing in the sights around them, or what they could make out through the fog, at least. “Look at the simple style of the buildings, and the way they’ve decayed naturally. This village wasn’t overrun by the Unbound during their invasion. It looks like it’s been abandoned a lot longer than that…”

  Sheah studied the structures, trying to see as Kaelis did. She observed a certain sadness to the buildings—as if they were used up and left here to rot, worn down by the winds and rains of untold years. However, that is all she had time to notice, as her attention was quickly captured by flashes of small creatures fading in and out of sight at the edges of the mist. Sheah clutched her bags tighter.

  “I do not like this,” she murmured. “There appears to be a lot of Unbound around this area.”

  “This is the north. There are lots of Unbound around everywhere.”

  “Yes, yes…” Sheah grouched. “What I mean is—I do hope they will not ruin this job as they did the last.”

  Sheah kept a watchful eye on her surroundings. Gradually, the roadway widened. The buildings and hills spread out with it, fading beyond the curtain of fog. In time, all that lay before them was a thick shroud of white nothingness spilling out in all directions.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Trill cries rang out in the distance. The soft sounds of scampering footsteps scratched at the ground, echoing around them on all sides. Kaelis held her rifle tighter, her finger sliding onto the trigger.

  Just then, a shadow pierced through the mist. Sheah and Kaelis immediately halted, bracing themselves, preparing to fight or flee. They carefully studied the shape for a tense breath, waiting for it to make the first move. It remained as still as stone. Relaxing, the pair inched their way closer.

  It was only a statue—a human figure posed larger than life on a lofty base, heroically pointing off towards the horizon. Their features, and most of their digits, appeared long pulverized by time. Kaelis began to circle the statue, studying it reverently.

  “Who do you think this was?” asked Kaelis excitedly after her third go-around.

  Sheah shook her head. “There is no time to find out. Please, let us keep… moving…” Peering down the road ahead, she suddenly saw that there was something there, through the fog. A solid wall.

  “Is that…?” whispered Kaelis, sidling beside her companion, noticing it as well. Together the two women moved closer toward the terminus of the road.

  Standing before them, bolstered against the steep rock wall of the valley itself, was a temple—a massive sheet of stone, with accents of gray marble flowing up towards the heavens. The pair craned their necks in unison to find the towers of the temple disappearing high into the bright fog. It was unlike any structure Sheah had seen before—commanding in stature, and yet at the same time understated, with only a few inlaid pillars breaking up its sharp geometric form. The longer she gazed upon it, the more amazed she was that ancient hands were able to build such an imposing construct. And most impressively of all, it was, compared to the rest of the village, relatively unravaged by time and the elements.

  “Goodness gracious…” Sheah whispered.

  “Look at that!” gasped Kaelis, brimming with excitement. “What a place like this is doing this far south is… well, it’s amazing is what it is! Just look at the architecture—the rounded arches, and how there’s no buttressing or tracery. This is old. Pre-Egaellean old. Around the Sundering old!”

  Sheah didn’t quite understand what her comrade was saying, but she picked up on her enthusiasm, and that was enough for her. “So this is a good find?” she asked.

  “Pssh, uh—” said Kaelis, so flabbergasted she could barely respond. She sprang forward, power-walking headlong into the maw of the sanctuary.

  “Kaelis! Wait! Could you please wait?! Kaelis!!” Sheah jogged to catch up, entering the temple as well.

  The interior of the sanctuary was a cavernous space, its grand, vaulted ceiling held aloft by a row of massive square columns thicker than a man’s arm span. Great windows lined the upper reaches, bouncing soft rays of white light down into the corners of the room—illumination which Sheah was quite thankful for. Visible on the far wall of the temple sat an intricately carved relief of ribboning shapes and swirls, flowing through and around a highly stylized tree-like sigil.

  Kaelis forged ahead. She steered straight for the relief, all the while basking in the space around her. Sheah followed, peering around the pillars, eagerly scanning the walls for loot. The entranceway looked to be barren, save for some scattered bits of debris, but she was positive that she would hit upon treasure shortly. After all, her Uncle Karsten had been so confident—there were sure to be riches around here someplace.

  And yet, as she neared the temple’s back wall, Sheah began to grow concerned. Her optimism slowly faded, replaced by worry, and then panic. Breaking into a jog, she thoroughly searched around the pillars, looking for anything of any value—simple jewelry, art, rusty weapons, part of a candlestick—anything. She grew more frantic, her pace quickening, her desperation inflating with every empty-handed second. Running past Kaelis, she rushed around the temple, peering behind every fold in the stonework and into every corner. Her breathing grew heavy as she began to realize the shrine was, in fact, hopelessly empty.

  “There’s nothing here!” she shouted. “This place was supposed to be full of artifacts! It—it was supposed to be a trove!”

  She flashed a harried look at Kaelis. However, her comrade appeared to be largely ignoring her, and was instead silently studying the tree-like symbol carved into the back wall.

  Sheah gripped her head, her voice echoing down the nave. “This cannot be happening! Not again!” she cried. “Lords above, my life has been cursed! It's cursed!” Consumed by frustration, she homed in on the closest thing to her—a fist-sized chunk of rock—and hocked it across the floor. Her lips quivering, her eyes welling with dismay, she threw her back against a pillar and crumpled to the ground. She sank her face into her palms and let out a plaintive whimper, the vast emptiness of the hall bearing down upon her. Her thoughts flashed to her uncle, and all he had risked… only for her to fail, one final time.

  “Hey, Sheah,” said Kaelis casually.

  Sheah’s head remained firmly buried in her hands. “Hm…?” she miserably grunted.

  Kaelis gestured to the wall. “Check this out.”

  Sighing loudly, Sheah stood and dragged her feet over to Kaelis, preparing herself for yet another useless historical lecture. She flatly looked over at the relief, unimpressed. “Another wall, is it? How very riveting…”

  “Do you know what that is?” asked Kaelis, pointing specifically to the symbol.

  “I assume you do.”

  “That’s the sigil of Ama-Lasria.”

  The name rang out in Sheah’s head, as if echoing across the temple walls. Ama-Lasria. Her eyes widened, her frown leveled. She stood just a bit taller.

  “The Dead City?” she said, the faintest glimmer of excitement flowing back into her. “But… why would that be here?”

  “That’s the big question, isn’t it?” Kaelis approached the wall and examined it carefully, angling her head around the raised carvings of the relief. “After the Angels sundered the Archmother, those who made it out of the city and through the newly-formed Forever Storm spread south, yeah?” Kaelis glanced back at Sheah, checking to see if she was on the same page. Sheah, knowing the gist of the events, shrugged back lightly. Kaelis just shook her head and continued. “Well, anyway, temples like this one were built in the places they settled, marked by the Ama-Lasrian seal. They’re mostly up in the Tundra, I hear, but maybe a group somehow made it this far down?”

  “I suppose that could be,” Sheah speculated, watching Kaelis as she began to wipe away the dust collected on the sigil. “But how does that help us now?”

  “Well, based on what I’ve read, these temples were all built above the tombs of the village founders. That was the tradition back then, you see. Which… would… mean…” Kaelis cleared away a swathe of caked-on grime, revealing a subtle seam running down the middle of the symbol. “Aha! Thought so.”

  Sheah’s eyes grew large. “Is that…?”

  Kaelis braced her shoulder against the slab of rock. “Gimme a hand,” she requested.

  Her sullen feelings fading away, Sheah sprang up and joined her companion. She threw her shoulder against the stone as well.

  “Ready?” said Kaelis. “Okay. Push!”

  The two women shoved against the stone with all of their strength, their feet sliding against the dust-covered floor. After a few seconds the slab shifted a few inches, dislodged from its resting position. With one more mighty heave the false wall swung loose, attached to a hidden hinge and helped along by a track inlaid in the floor.

  The pair peered through the newly opened doorway. Behind it was a set of stairs, leading down deep into the mountain and into an inky blackness. Sheah pulled out her electric torch and flipped the toggle. Even the bright light of its bulb was unable to cut through the gloom.

  “Wow, it’s real dark down there, isn’t it?” said Kaelis, peering into the void. She turned towards Sheah. “Whaddya think? We could head back to the ship, grab some more lights—”

  “No. There is no time,” blurted Sheah, her mind fixated on the Unbound lurking through the fog, and more pressingly, the second expeditionary team that threatened to show up at any moment. She knew with the utmost certainty that should either interfere, at any stage of the operation, it would derail both the job and her very future well beyond recovery. She took a step onto the stairs, fighting through her fear. “We must press onward.”

  “Okay. Just a sec,” said Kaelis. Eyes locked on the unseen bottom of the stairwell, she moved ahead of Sheah and took up a ready position, shouldering her rifle. “Alright, now let’s go,” she said with a nod.

  Kaelis crept slowly down the stairs, aiming into the dark, taking each step with the utmost care. Sheah raised her torch and followed. Together, the two women descended deeper and deeper into the heart of the hills.