Pillar of Yita

The group crossed the wooden platform at the inn’s entrance, the drafty planks creaking like a door that hadn’t been oiled in years. The once bright bonfire on the stone platform not far away had also extinguished, with no one paying it any heed, leaving only a mess.

Climbing the steps, the boiler inside the main door emitted a dim red glow through the grating, wheezing and clanking. A dwarf goblin listlessly stood by the crystal mine, hugging its knees, nodding off.

The utility automaton was still there, but its head was drooping. It no longer shook its rusty arms to greet every guest entering the inn; it remained motionless, a crack on the record crystal.

No one knew when the automaton had broken, but no one cared. Tianlan looked at the hollow shell, feeling a sudden sadness, ”The last time I came, it wasn’t like this.” She murmured to herself.

But their last visit had been over a year ago.

”Hello, Mr. Shayek.” Fang Hong now saw clearly the hunched figure standing in the dark corner of the hall and suddenly understood who Princess Briana said was waiting for them here.

”Hello, young one.” Shayek replied in a hoarse voice, unhurriedly.

The old caretaker’s back was more bent than when they last saw him, and perhaps it was an illusion created by the shadows, but the wrinkles on his face seemed deeper, giving off the impression that in the time they hadn’t seen him, he’d somehow aged considerably.

Princess Briana’s low voice reached his ears, ”It was just this person watching us from behind the window, I don’t know what your relationship with him is.”

Fang Hong turned his head back but saw the Elf Princess with her hood drawn, facing forward without moving, seemingly never having spoken. How she transmitted her voice he couldn’t fathom.

Only then did he turn back to Mr. Shayek and say, ”Mr. Shayek, we are here to find the owner of this place, the one you serve. You should know he sent us south for a task, and now we have brought back the items and results.”

He paused, ”But while we were at Iron Reef Bay, we got word from the Black Goat Commerce Association that he and Mr. Lucius are no longer here, is it true?”

Shayek stepped out of the shadows, and the firelight from the furnace projected onto his aged face.

He looked at everyone quietly with his gray eyes that shimmered with dim Silverlight before finally speaking, ”You’ve misunderstood one thing, young ones, the owner has already sold this place to your people; it no longer belongs to us.”

He slowly turned his back, making a gesture to invite them, ”But I know the reason for your visit, and I’ve been waiting here for quite a long time. Please follow me.”

The old caretaker walked first, heading toward the corridor in that direction.

Fang Hong and the others exchanged glances and hurriedly caught up.

The pale moonlight penetrated through the window on one side of the wall, spilling onto the mottled wooden floor of the corridor, with the crisscrossing light and shadow constantly shifting over Shayek as he moved forward.

The old caretaker suddenly spoke again, ”You might have noticed that this place is vastly different from when you were here long ago; both people and things are no longer as they were. The dwarves and dwarf goblins who were here have either left or scattered. Now, it’s just my old bones watching over this place, for which they are willing to pay me a meager salary...”

He turned his head to look out the window, where the silver moonlight fell into his deep eyes, dark as a pair of gateways. Shayek’s voice was somewhat ethereal, ”...And now, darkness lurks upon this land, with certain things returning and reemerging—as you have seen, death and decay are reclaiming this world.”

This wasn’t the first time Fang Hong had heard such descriptions.

But everything he had seen and heard along the way made him realize all of this more profoundly—especially the combat not long ago.

Yet he still couldn’t quite grasp how, in just a year, this place, once bustling, had become like this.

”So Mr. Shayek, what exactly happened here? Was it just the attack on Charter City that brought about such change? I heard snippets from some people about that great battle, where they resisted the Dragon Beast invasion.”

Shayek stopped and replied, ”I noticed the commotion outside earlier, but those few dragon beasts you defeated were actually among the weaker ones.”

That’s precisely what concerned Fang Hong.

”But how did they end up coming here from Charter City?”

”After that attack, many things happened—the Giant Dragon’s henchmen spawned from the darkness, appearing throughout Tarun. Not just here, from Elpaxin to Gula Port, you can witness such scenes along your way.”

”First came the dragon beasts, followed by the inexplicable disappearance of people from villages and towns, leading to whole villages and towns vanishing. More importantly, some new things emerged from the darkness—”

The old caretaker’s voice was unhurried, yet mingled with another tone, resonating silently in the darkness. But when listened to carefully, it was merely the echo within the corridor.

Even so, it was enough to make one’s hair stand on end. Tianlan couldn’t help but swallow hard and ask: ”...new what?”