Walking over to the temple took less time than the group assumed it would. Or, at least they think it did?
The fog was too thick for them to see the Blaze so, it may have taken them all day? It was difficult to discern since both Kent and Isabelle had long disassociated to block out the many conversations of Yaga and Alisa.
"...And Seaside Listerns are a cool type of herb that people normally use to make medicine for headaches, but the spirits told me that they actually have a slight but extremely potent toxin that can effect the retina. Which is how I used it to make my Nosey-Nosee poison that can blind someone for as long as three full days!"
"AHAH! That's a wonderful way of using that herb! I never knew that they had an effect like that? Those spirits are something else! Did you do anything funny with that poison?" Yaga asked while walking next to Alisa.
Alisa's eyes shined. "You know I did! This one time grandpa, oh he isn't actually my grandpa but I call him that because he's old and pulled me, Nasak and Denver off of the streets and into the orphanage. I'm an orphan by the way! Anyway, one time he left his tea out on the table and walked away so, I snuck over to it while he was gone and dumped a whole vial into the drink! You should've seen the way he panicked! He thought that his age had finally caught up to him! Screaming and yelling about how the world had gone dark and stuff! It was so funny!!" Alisa and Yaga laughed together.
"Hey!" Kent called out pulling in their attention. "I'm glad that you two are bonding but, we've made it to the temple!" Kent gestured to the massive building in front of them. A building so big that was even more confusing that they didn't see it upon arrival?
It was the center piece of the town, taking up so much space that there area around it could still be called crowded! It was slightly elevated on a wide open stone platform. The building itself seemed to be constructed of brown limestone and had three separate attachments. A smaller room that pushed into a large hall that ended with a massive tower that was constantly spitting out fog like a chimney into the sky!
Alisa slowly lifted her head, scanning the entire building. "Wow! The people that lived here must have really loved their god?!" Yaga chuckled.
"No, Alisa dear. This isn't a temple to any god." Alisa turned to the witch for an answer but it was instead Ms. Chancy that spoke up.
"This temple was made in honor of the Amalgamate Mystic. The being that watched over and protected this town also served as a Warding Prescence preventing any demons, monsters or any other dangers from trying to do harm to the people that lived here. Thus, in thanks to the mystic, the citizens made this temple in the center of the town!"
Yaga turned to Isabelle with an impressed smile. "You knew that?"
Isabelle shrugged. "I did my own research a few years ago out of pure interest."
Yaga leaned close to Isabelle curiously. "Not many people are interested in things like this! Are you a fan of Mysticism, perhaps?"
Isabelle looked at the woman out of the sides of her eyes. "Not in the slightest. Mysticism, like many of the other spellcasting arts, is vastly inferior to magecraft!"
"Do you really think that?" Yaga questioned with a smirk.
"The proof is in history! Was it not Scarlet Dawnlay that fought alongside Kinteth Yenders in the fight against Agralon?" The stared intently into each other's eyes. Kent, on the other hand, had grown bored of just standing around watching to grown women argue like teenagers! So, he pulled Alisa away and went to inspect the temple.
Kent took a step onto the platform on which the temple was elevated. His eyes analyzed everything in his surroundings closely.
Along the edges of the platform there were tall standing torches, a tool used to create light before the creation of Lumi crystals, though there are some places that still make use of them today. In the center of the platform there was a circle made of stacked stones. Kent didn't understand the purpose of this strange formation? It didn't stand too tall, only standing up to his knees at best, and there was remnant ash within the circle. Kent curbed his curiosity for the moment and continued looking around.
His eyes moved to the base of the temple where flowers lined the outer edge of the building.
Yellow, purple, and white. Bunches of these flowers lining the base of the temple on either side of the staircase leading to the entrance. It was incredibly eye-catching!
"I'm not really a flower type of guy but this pattern is so...beautiful!" Kent was almost at a lost for words. His eyes continued to move up the temple, carefully dancing across the brown limestone. He eventually locked his sight onto the entryway atop the stairs.
A pair of pillars connected by an archway all presenting an open hole in the wall. It seemed that the door to the temple was always open to visitors? Kent's eyelids lowered slightly.
"Watcha looking for?" Alisa hopped beside the boy and asked.
"This temple's weird..."
Alisa threw her arms up! "Of course it's weird! Everything here is weird! The constant mist that's thicker on the outside than it is inside! The old broken buildings! The constant slight sound of rumbling thunder! It's all weird, Tyrant!"
Kent shook his head. "That's not what I mean. Look there..." Kent pointed down to the flowers. "...no one's been here in centuries yet the little flower garden in front of the temple is still in perfect shape. There are no weeds or flowers growing past the point that they should. There aren't even any signs of fallen petals at the base of the flowers!" Alisa looked and indeed noticed that the flower garden seemed to be in perfect shape.
"Then, we go to the walls..." Kent moved finger from the flowers to the temple wall. "Every other building that we've seen here has had some sort of wear and tear! Be it moss on the walls or sections of the buildings crumbling from weakness in structure after years of exposure to high amounts of passive mana in the air. But the temple doesn't have any scratches or blemishes! It's like it was just built a few days ago?"
Alisa's eyes slowly widened. "Woah, that's-
"I'm not done." Kent said cutting her off. "Those torches have fresh ash, same for the inside of that rock enclosure at the center of the platform, and speaking of the platform there's no sign of dirt anywhere!" Alisa felt dizzy from looking around the platform so fast.
"Wooah! Th-that's a lot of things!" Alisa tried did her best to recover from the overload of information when Isabelle and Yaga finally stepped up.
"What's happening over here~?" Yaga asked playfully.
"This temple's in perfect shape while the rest of the town looks like it was raided by pirates or attacked by demons!" Kent said resolutely. "We've only been here for an hour, at best but, this place is definitely the weirdest of everywhere else in the town. And that isn't even talking about the fact that we couldn't see it when we first got here despite the massive tower that's just standing there!"
Both Yaga and Ms. Chancy looked around the temple platform and noticed each of the things pointed out by Kent.
Yaga gasped dramatically. "Oh my? That is quite interesting indeed! What do you think caused this, Ms. Chancy?"
Isabelle causally glared at Yaga but responded to her question anyway. "I have no clue. My best guess would be that the magic here is centered around the temple and only the temple. However, we've seen no proof that Mysticism has the power to keep a place in a static state of beauty. And I doubt the Amalgamate Mystic would've had time to come up with a spell for something like that?"
Yaga and Kent both nodded in agreement. Yaga then lifted her finger as though she'd had some sort of epiphany. "Well actually? Isn't there another possible answer to this situation?"
Kent and Isabelle both turned to the woman simultaneously. "And what might that be?"
Yaga smiled innocently. "There could be someone watching over the temple. Cleaning it after each cycle of the day. Making sure the gardens are kept up all nice. Even changing the wood in the torches to make sure that they can still burn!" The group stood in silence after hearing Yaga's proposal.
She cocked her head slightly in confusion. "What's wrong?" She asked. "Do you two not think that solution is viable?"
"It would be viable if this place was easily accessible but it's famously not!" Kent explained. "How in the hell would someone have made it up here to do all of that?"
"Well, we all made it up here, didn't we?" Yaga asked sarcastically. That means it'd be fully possible for someone else to get up here! They would just need to forgo disclosing any information about their journey! Like, I don't know..." A small smile crept onto Yaga's face. This one much more...twisted than her normally pleasant ones.
"Why the Sinbad Pirates made it up here didn't they?" Kent's eyes flashed slightly with shock but it quickly faded.
"That's just an urban legend!" Isabelle shot out clearly upset. "If we're just going to spit out nonsense then why not say that the person that kept up this place was the mystic themself?"
Yaga giggled in amusement. "That was actually gonna be my second answer! After all, the Amalgamate Mystic was, in many depictions, described as possibly having immortality due to the nature of their ever shifting appearance!"
Isabelle's face turned sour. She bared her teeth at the witch before her. "Do you think this is some sort of game, witch?"
"Why of course I don't, mage!" Yaga and Isabelle once again stared each other down while Kent stood in between the two like a ghost.
'Not again...' He groaned in his mind. He slowly backed away from the confrontation of the two women. He did not want to be caught in the crossfire of these two fighting!
Once he was a few feet away, the young man let out a breath of relief. "Phew! That was gettin' tense! Right, Ali-Alice?" Kent had only now realized that Alisa was gone. As well as Trouler and Nuka?
He looked around for them when he saw Alisa standing atop the stairs. She was right in front of the entrance. Something had changed, however?
Now, a dense and mystifying mist slowly leaked out of the entrance. It drifted into the air like a fog but also rolled onto the ground and formed a puddle at the base of the stairs like, strangely enough, a stream of water?
There was also the sound of thunder that Alisa pointed out that she'd been hearing this entire time. Kent ignored the comment at the time of hearing it but now he too was hearing the low rumble.
Except this was clearly much louder than a rumble!
Kent quickly moved to the base of the stairs and called out to the girl. "Alice! What're ya doin' up there?"
"The spirits..." Alisa answered monotonously. "They're telling me that something's in there?"
"Okay? Well, if the spirits told ya that then why didn't ya tell us? Or at least me before you, y'know, tried to go into the temple alone?" Kent slowly started climbing the stairs after Alisa. His feet seeming to disappear under the thick fog rolling down them.
"I'm the only one that can see it." Alisa reached out her hands and placed them onto the wall of fog. Seeing that the girl was planning on going in, Kent tried to hurry but felt something wrap around his ankle causing him to trip!
He looked back to see the fog coiled around his foot like tentacles of mist. Kent reached down to tried to free his foot but pulled back when the mist shocked his hand! No, it wasn't the mist but something sparking within it?
"Yowch!" He cried loudly. His yelp got the attention of the arguing adults who had only just now noticed the situation.
"Alisa? What are you doing up there?" Yaga asked but Alisa didn't respond. Her eyes were opened unnaturally wide and the pairs of silver stars in her eyes seemed to have also grown in size. Her mouth loosely hung open as she continued to push against the wall of mist.
"I can see them!"
Isabelle pushed away from Yaga and ran to the bottom of the stairs. "Who do you see, Alisa?"
"I see mom but she's not alone?" Kent and Isabelle locked eyes upon hearing that Alix was inside.
Kent gave up on freeing his leg and just called out to Alisa again. "You see mother in there? That's great! Is Holiday with her?"
"No, not Eric. It's someone...weird?" Kent frowned.
"Weird how?"
Sweat started to pour down Alisa's face. "It's a person, at least I think it's one? They look so...horrifying!" Kent could tell that Alisa was starting to panic again and did his best to break free from the mist tendrils holding his leg but couldn't get close without getting shocked!
"Gah, shit! Hang on, lil sis! I'm comin'!"
Alisa's skin paled. Her feet tried to move away from the mist but her hands seemed to have gotten stuck somehow. "N-no!" She shook her head. "Stay away from mom! Stay away from me! GET BACK NOW!!"
"ALISA!"
Kent, in a final desperate attempt, summoned his Blizzard Storm Spear and stabbed it into the mist around his leg! The mist shook slightly as though it'd been hurt then gently released his leg.
"Finally!" Kent picked himself up from the ground and raced up the rest of the stairs! "Alice!" He screamed while scrambling to the top! Once he made it up Alisa turned her head to face Kent.
Kent saw the tears flooding out of her eyes and the fear filling her face. Kent reached out to try to grab her right as several mist tendrils extended out of the entrance and surrounded Alisa.
With a tremble in her voice Alisa spoke.
"Big bro, help me!"
Alisa was then grabbed by the tendrils and yanked into the temple!
"ALISAAAA!" Kent screamed as he rushed toward the entrance! He slammed into very same wall of mist that Alisa had touched! He pushed, punched, and kicked at it but nothing changed!
The temple seemed to be refusing to let him inside!
"You piece of shit! Let me in! Let my mother and sister go! Let them go right now!" Kent pulled out his spear again and tried to stab the mist like he had done to free his leg. This time things didn't go his way!
As soon as the tip of Kent's spear hit the wall Kent's entire body was sent flying back as a wave of energy was unleashed from the within the temple! He flew down the stairs and fell right on top of Isabelle Chancy.
They both groaned as they fell to the ground. Kent looked up at the entrance in shock when Isabelle shoved him off of her.
"Watch where you land, pirate!"
"They're gone..." Kent said quietly. "They're all gone! And it's my fault again!" Kent slammed his fist against the ground. He grinded his teeth together as the sight of Alisa being snatched right in front of him replayed in his mind.
"I thought that I could at least keep one person safe! Alisa..." Kent gently placed his head on the floor and clenched his fist tightly! His body sat prostrated in front of the stairs of the temple.
Isabelle stared at the boy in this pathetic state and could do nothing but scoff. "Serves you right pirate."
"...Eric..."
Isabelle turned over her shoulder where she saw Yaga standing motionlessly.
"What are you talking about now?" Isabelle turned to face the woman with folded arms.
Yaga turned to face the woman with a serious look in her eyes. "Before Alisa got pulled into the mist she said the name, Eric. Does that mean that he's here?"
Isabelle hesitated for a moment before smirking and nodding. "Yeah, a boy named Eric is a part of this expedition! Eric Holland, as a matter of fact! What does it matter to a witch like you?"
Yaga's entire face twitched as something clicked into place within her mind.
"Hah! Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe!!!" Yaga started laughing maniacally! She was laughing so hard that her head was being thrown back from the sheer force of her cackles! It was so intense that Kent looked up from the ground!
"Eric's here? ERIC'SHERE!!" Yaga screamed like she was cheering for her favorite celebrity! "He was right! Oh, why did I ever doubt him?!" Yaga stared into the sky and spun with her arms out.
Isabelle and Kent just watched without saying a word. They were confused and disturbed as they wondered the reason for this woman's sudden elation!
"He's here! He's here!"
Finally Isabelle had heard enough! She stomped her foot down and screamed at the woman. "WHO'S HERE?! What's so special about Eric?!"
Yaga suddenly came to a complete stop with her back turned to the two of them. She stopped so quickly that it was as though she'd never been spinning in the first place. She then placed her hands behind her back and turned on her heels to face her pair of new acquaintances.
They both felt an intense chill run down their spine when they saw the look on Yaga's face. Her eyes were squinted as though she was staring at a long lost friend. Her pupils were dilated and shaking in excitement! She was grinning so hard that all of her teeth and gums were visible!
"Why my son's here, of course! Allow me to reintroduce myself..." Yaga bowed deeply to Kent and Isabelle.
"My name is Yaga Holland. I am the mother of Eric Holland!"