Majimonsters: Rosewood Journey - Chapter 146

Monster’s Night tends to be a rather chaotic affair that leaves a lot of destruction in its wake. It’s no different at the Imperial Capital. This year,however, was especially destructive. Many binders lost their lives that night, a few unlucky civilians too.

You wouldn’t notice it now, but there was actually a massive hole in the wall a few weeks back. Because of that hole, the overall coverage of Imperial Guards lessen quite greatly. This lack of coverage gave Alyra and her brother the opportunity they needed to sneak out of the walls during the night.

“Why do we have to sneak out at night, Bol? Couldn’t we have just waited for the morning”?

“Edgar said that the place only shows under the light of the moon and stars. If we came in the morning, we wouldn’t be able to find it. Now we make a left here…ah-ha!”, the boy said as the duo exited a brush and saw…a rather empty clearing with only a few wild flowers growing.

“This is it? There’s nothing”.

“Wait”, the boy said as he pointed upwards.

The sky above was dark and hazy, clouds covering the heavens. A few seconds later, the clouds began to part and revealing the hidden moon and stars. As the clouds cleared and the light intensified, the clearing underwent a slow yet substantial change.

Ruined pillars made of shadow began to form first, followed by statues of various warriors, maji and monsters and finally, a strange yet regal building.

It was squat looking building, no bigger than a shack, but it gave off a rather unsettling feeling. Made with marble, obsidian and snowflake agates, the building looked as if the very night sky was ripped just to make this one building. The only thing that might have hinted at it’s purpose was a name written over a door of black gold, “LUPINE”. Of course, our sibling duo couldn’t read the name.

“What is this thing?”, Alyra asked her brother.

“I’m not sure…but it looks like one of those noble graves. A… mausoleum? There must be something really valuable inside it!”, the boy said excitedly.

“Isn’t it wrong to steal from a grave”?

“Binders do it all the time in the Wildlands. This is just… reclamation!”, the youth hurriedly explained as he walked closer and closer to the mausoleum. A foreboding pressure emanated from the structure, causing the siblings to become uneasy. However, the promise of fortune outweighed the dangerous feeling bubbling in their guts.

“Hey sis, help me push this thing open”, the youth said as he began to push against the black gold door. With an eye roll and a sigh, Alyra went up and began to help push the door open.

“On three. One, two, three-whoop”!

As the siblings began to push against the heavy looking door, it suddenly gave way as if it was just a simple wooden one. Stale air quickly passed them, smelling the breath of the dead. The tomb has clearly been sealed for a very long time.

“That was…easy”, Alyra commented

“The door must’ve weakened or something over the centuries…or it could be a fancy forgery…”, the brother said moreso to convince himself than his sister.

As their eyes adjusted to the darkness of the mausoleum, the siblings eyes soon grew wide at the sight that greeted them. The inside of the mausoleum was full of silver trinkets such as goblets, plates, candelabra and small statues. Anyone of these trinkets would be enough for the two to live in comfortably for quite a few decades. But the most eye-catching thing was at the very center of the mausoleum.

“Look at all this stuff! We’re rich, bro!”, Alyra quietly exclaimed.

“Hey… what’re those?”, the youth said while pointing at the center of the mausoleum.

Sitting at the very center of the mausoleum was large obsidian slab, meticulously carved with depictions of the moon, the stars and wolves. Laying upon it was a corpse, dressed in luxurious robes and adorned with silver rings, bangles and chains and a silver death mask covering its face.

The thing that caught his eyes, however, were the gauntlets the corpse was wearing.

The metal seemed to gleam even in the darkness, a pattern like water over its surface. On the dorsal side of the gauntlets were perfectly cut moonstones that seemed to capture the light from outside. These gauntlets would be a work of art, if were not for the dagger-like claws made of ivory jutting out of the knuckles.

“What beautiful claws…”, the boy said.