"My next question is this— how do I get to the Capital of the Thorne Empire alive and in one piece?"
There was silence for a moment.
And then, Nero got to witness something rather incredible unfold right before his eyes.
However, the moment it happened, he completely forgot what it was.
Nero trembled and looked up, his eyes filled with inexplicable fear.
However, that fear was quickly doused out by curiosity.
Particularly, curiosity on the two items before his eyes.
He recognized the first item. It was the map he had purloined from the Priest’s room.
However, there was something different about the map.
There was a thick red line drawn across the map, from what seemed like his current location, to the Capital where he was headed.
{Rejoin, Heretic. You have been granted the Relic; The Wandering Spirit’s Journal by the Divine Will}.
The second item, intrigued him. It was a ragged, old journal that had stood the test of time, its pages seemingly hanging onto the bond of the book with just a prayer.
"The Wandering Spirit’s Journal..." He muttered and reached out his arm to grab them both.
The moment his fingertips touched them, they both disappeared.
"My final question is...
***
The void began to fade as Nero’s consciousness returned to his body.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the two of the three gifts granted to him by the Oracle.
His brows furrowed as he picked up the ’Divine Elixir’.
He examined the container carefully. The liquid within seemed to pulse with a radiant pulse that was barely detectable. It mostly appeared to be a vial filled with rather pristine water. The most pristine water he had ever seen for sure.
When he uncorked the vial, the scent that emerged was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
It smelled like morning rain. Like a loving mother’s garden. Like everything pure and clean that had been lost when the world fell into damnation.
Nero swallowed a mouthful of saliva and drank it without hesitation.
The vial fell from his hand and shattered on the hard ground
The effect was immediate and overwhelming. Fire raced through his veins, but it was not painful.
Instead, it was rather soothing. Like a warm cloth wiping away a bitter ache. It was a clean feeling that made him feel like he was being purified and ended from the inside out.
He could feel his severed shoulder beginning to itch, then burn, then explode with sensation as new flesh began to grow.
Bone sprouted from the stump. Muscle wrapped around it in layers. Skin stretched to cover the emerging limb. Within minutes, his left arm was whole again, perfect in every detail down to the calluses on his palm from years of sword practice.
The rest of his body began to stitch together as well. Almost all the wounds, including the poisonous sting from the fly earlier in the day was gone.
Nero flexed his new fingers, marveling at the sensation. The arm felt exactly as it had before. No, it felt a bit better even.
He picked up his weapon and tested his grip with both hands. The Silver Blade felt perfectly balanced again.
"It’s good."
He had endured the pains of almost dying. And he had not succumbed.
A new flame seemed to burn in his eyes.
However, he shook his head.
’No. I can’t get too relieved. I was just lucky this time.’
He still had a long ways to go, after all. Who knew of the horrors that waited for him.
’That is why...’
His last question has been rather specific.
He had asked for a prophesy.
In particular, he had asked for the Oracle to show him what the next life threatening danger would look like, and when it would come.
In other words, he had asked for a prophesy.
And as he has thought, it had come as vague as possible...
His brows creased together as he mentally tried to picture what the Oracle had shown him.
He sighed and shook his head.
Without hesitation, he rushed towards his belongings and pulled out a thick slab of dried, cured meats, as well as the dried bread rations.
Alongside a canteen filled with water, he began to eat voraciously.
After having just nearly died and with the poison pushed out of his body, his appetite had become much stronger.
In the end, he had ended up devouring more than a third of all his rations before he felt his hunger relieved.
He pursed his lips as he glanced down at his remaining rations.
’Perhaps I didn’t take enough.’
He sighed and wrapped them up.
From now on, he would have to look for other means to gather food and drinkable water.
With his immediate needs addressed, Nero began to explore the chamber more thoroughly. Now that the Soul Amalgam was gone, he could see several details that had been hidden before.
Most of the gouges in the walls were just random gibberish. However, some of them were rather sensible. A few were even similar to the common language, with some of them being text he could understand very well.
These were, without a doubt, the final remnants of the hundreds of beings that had this cave as their final resting place. Abomination or human, it didn’t really matter.
Nero ran his fingers over a few deep grooves.
In a way, he felt a peculiar sense of kinship.
Hesitating for a moment, he drew his dagger and plunged it into the wall as well, carving in the two characters that made up his name.
Maybe in the future, thousands of years from now,.some other poor, unfortunate soul would stumble across this cave to find refuge from the death and madness.
By that time, he too would be just another groove in the wall.
Plopping down to the ground, he picked up his second item.
It was the Relic he had been granted called The Wandering Spirit’s Journal.
Looking at it, it seemed rather plain at first glance. However, there was a seemingly mysterious air about the rotting leather cover he just couldn’t quite place his finger on.
Nero opened it carefully and began to read.
Its pages yellow with age were still readable. The writing was in the common tongue, though the hand was unfamiliar. Thankfully, he knew how to read...
"The day is tumultuous. The sky is bleak. At the brow of the dark river, to the smile of the stream. At the crown of the cave, the Beast of faces sleeps. It lured my soul into its mouth, and I was consumed by the teeth of my father..."
"The mountain weeps. Amidst the swirling grey fog. The four beasts. Beasts of Clay and tempest. Wild like flowing blood. A garden of roses. A garden of corpses. Follow the road down below."
Nero froze...
’The Beast of Faces... is the Soul Amalgam.’
Nero tried to read on, but he realized he couldn’t make out what the other words were.
He frowned.
"This is a book of prophesies."
The Oracle had given him a book that would help guide him to his destination without him dying on the way.
His frown turned into a grimace,
’Still, what is up with the riddles?’
He shook his head. As he had thought, things weren’t going to be easy forever.
He pulled out his map.
Sure enough, the red line that charted the safest route to the capital was still there.
As long as he could decode the journal and follow this path, he was sure to reach the capital alive.