🏆 THE AMBY AWARDS 2023 TOP PICK - DIVERSE LIT 🏆
It's Rin and Hye-jin against the world. Or so it should have been.
Nagara Rin and Joon Hye-jin, college sweethearts and passionate gamers, have lived a fairytale marriage. Not even a decade after did...
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Dust and other unholy particles covered every ounce of air I breathed when I came upon the temple. My heart and lungs couldn't have recovered from the arduous climb through the set of stairs I found carved right into the side of the spire, and now, they're being filled to the brim with allergens.
My soles crunched against fallen debris which have once been part of the pillars, the ceiling, and the walls. Aside from the wind making howling noises as it passed through the crevices of the crumbling building, it was deathly quiet. Not a critter squeaking on its way to collect acorns. Not a bird squawking in the distance. Even the rustle of leaves were swallowed by a force bearing down on everything else atop the spire.
I gritted my teeth and trudged towards the set of steps leading up to the Temple's entrance. It was everything one would expect when visiting a ruin. The stones were overrun with slippery alga, albeit a bit more colorful than the boring shades back home, the cracks on the ground sported bouts of life growing in between, and the floor felt like caving in with every step I took. Bring tourists here with their phones and unbelievably loud voices, it would have looked like home.
Except it wasn't home. This was the last resting place of Haalor, the Guardian of Darkness. He was a primordial creature created by the Divines to protect one part of the secrets of the universe, which was condensed into scripture—the Book of Haalor. It is believed this book details all of the ways of the darkness, including the magic of chaos and ultimately, the magic of creation.
For it was through nothing that everything came to be.
Or at least, that's what the information board popping up on the edge of my vision told me. I didn't want a tour guide, but it looked like I needed one.
Either way, I was here for that book. Back when I first played this game, having the Book in your inventory meant being boosted in the magic and skill stats, even going as far as providing enough XP to let you skip two levels up if you play your cards right.
The quest was also quite simple. Go to the Temple, ring the bell three times, and defeat the stone monster that appears. Of course, I always just use one of the three honing spells I know, which lets me craft a sword that could penetrate the soul of a rock. That's also according to the skill list information in front of me as I go ahead and search for said spell.
In reality, it was just me and a lot of smashing buttons, the character swinging their sword at the creature until its HP died off.
I reached the Temple's center, which was just like how every temple ruins in movies looked like. The dust still hasn't relented, given the age of this place and how long it remained untouched. Which begged the question—how come nobody was talking about the Book and how come nobody has one yet?
Or I'd do myself a better one—were there an infinite number of Books of Darkness for all players back when this was a game or was it just the Book of Darkness?
