Looking at the signs, I couldn't help but feel a chill run down my spine. Not because it was cold, but something about all the signs saying the same thing was concerning.
Sadly I don't have many options, except to go there, or wander and find somewhere else.
I guess I'll go to the castle and see what awaits my arrival, hopefully, they can help me with this migraine.
Walking through the streets of this abandoned city, it was creepy yet mesmerising, the ice and untouched snow sparkling in the sun.
The frozen statues on the other hand, are almost like leftover shadows of people within the streets, some walking, some seem to be holding an invisible child, others window shopping or trying to throw snowballs.
And every once in a while, the writing on the houses changes or shifts into other words.
The most common being, Do you like the statues? Is it too cold? What's your name?
Looking at the shifting signs, I realise someone is watching me, the first thought I had was-
"Why don't you come see me in person?"
Why did I say that, that was stupid Scott!
The writing changes in response.
I can't, due to limited movement currently.
Can you hurry up, though?
You could be in danger if you wait.
"Oh, great so there are monsters here too, fantastic"
I then speed up my movement a bit, not by too much though, this place seems to be a bit of a maze.
"So, signs, can you guide me to where I need to be? I'm sorta lost, as you've changed all the signs!" I said exasperated.
Fiiiinnne, I can do it the boring way.
As the signs soon change into arrows on where I need to go.
Following the signs I start to wander mentally, coming up with wild theories on why this place is the way it is, what is controlling the signs, and how it's doing that, why it made the statues, and how it made them if it can't come out here.
After walking for 20 minutes, I finally arrived at the entrance to the castle.
The garden, the grass, flowers and even bugs on the flowers, it's all ice.
The cold is getting more intense the closer I get to the entrance.
The gate itself seems to be in pieces on the floor, weapons scattered all over the place, with a frosty layer on top.
The entrance is blocked by an imitation of the broken gate, made of blackened ice.
It's smooth, and the more I look at this fake gate, the more it draws me in, it's tugging my thoughts away from me, draining my ability to think.
As I walk towards the black ice, it starts to shake and rattle, even crack.
My hand reaches out, seeing my own reflection in the ice.
Just before I can touch it however, the gate completely shatters into millions of pieces.
Revealing the interior
Shaking my head I walk in, confused why I was compelled to touch the black ice.
I stand in the centre of this giant room, with stairs in front of me. A red carpet covered the stairs, and 4 other doorways 2 on each side, all leading to different rooms.
As I stand there, debating on what direction to go.
Du
A piano's soft notes began to play, filling the place with a sense of life, the lights within the castle becoming more vibrant.
More notes play soon after, seemingly coaxed into waking from the first note.
The tunes of the piano start to fill my ears, bringing a sense of security and safety.
The strings of a violin began to be plucked.
Soon catching up to the tune of the slow notes of the piano.
The soft music fades, almost like the music didn't exist.
The silence was only brief maybe a second or two, but it felt like minutes.
The violin strings get plucked once more. As a graceful sound fills the halls of the castle.
The piano once again stirs awake, and the notes are rarer than before.
The violin is the main piece in this song.
As the music continues to play, it fills me with nostalgia for a game I once played.
It reminds me of the evil within safe room music…
It really reminds me of it.
Before I even realised, I'm now standing in another room.
Large, and full of empty seats with a stage at the back.
Standing on the stage is a well-worn, but well-preserved, ivory piano.
It has a sleek glossy brown finish, keys, almost perfectly white, except for the faded blood stains splattered across. You can see the strings move gracefully down when a key is pressed.
The violin is in a similar state, it's a deep chestnut brown, with white strings, and its shell is dented and slightly chipped.
The music is playing but there's no one manning the musical instruments.
Unconsciously, I take one of the seats, mesmerised by the music, my eyes and mind following the plucks of the string and pressing of keys.
The music seeps into my head, slowly spreading, enveloping my thoughts.
There we go.
Let it take over.
Let it lull you to sleep.
The boy's breathing is getting steady.
The boy starts losing himself in the music, his mind no longer wandering, only focusing on what I need him to.
The room grows colder as the boy sits, not seeing the room fill with frozen statues.
As the boy's eyes slowly glaze over, becoming one with the music.
I say in a soft and quiet voice into his ear, making sure he can hear me.
"It's ok now, time to rest."
It goes dark as Scott falls unconscious and falls to the floor, only to be stopped by a single, snow-white tail.
2 days later
A soft and delicate humming wakes me from my sleep.
I jolt up, sweat rushing to my back as I remember what happened, the music, what was that music and why was it something I know?
And whose voice was that at the end?
Looking around I see I'm lying on a giant bed, with frozen flowers on the nightstand next to me, the curtains partly open, letting the smallest amount of light illuminate the room.
It has a dresser in the right corner and for some reason, multiple tables surround the bed, one on each side and one at the bottom of the bed.
The only chair is in the corner, hanging from the back is a snow white tail facing me.
That's weird.
Trying to see what else is around the room, sadly seeing nothing of interest I get out of bed and head to the curtains.
Before I could get off the bed to open said curtains a notification appeared in front of my face.
{Hello new user, you have been gifted a brand new system called the werewolf system, I hope it suits your liking :3 }
Well, this is new, and refreshing. Let's see how this goes horribly wrong.
Another panel opens after I finish reading.
The werewolf system currently runs on an energy consumption method, which is called moon essence.}
Oh, that's interesting, a thing to keep track of.
{Moon essence is automatically collected and stored at night, if the moon is on display without obstruction it has a slightly better collection rate.}
Of course it does.
{Moon essence is what allows you to use abilities like your wolf ability, runes and spirits while in human form, some powers will only be at full strength while at night.}
"Interesting, but what happens when I run out?"
{wait, let me finish}
"Ok, ok, I'll wait."
{I will open the stat menu in a second. Afterwards, if you have any questions, please look to the right.}
{have a joyous day :) }
{status}
Name: Scott Grimes
Bloodline - generic human(sadly useless)
Class: werewolf pup
Level 0/10
Exp 0/10
Rank 20-
Magic -n/a
Aura -n/a
Miasma - rank 20-
Shop - unavailable
Moon shards 0
Quests - unavailable
Artefacts - ice pendant
Strength 1
Constitution 1
Agility 1
Mana 0
Mental strength 1
Stat points 0
Skills
Wolf transformation(uncontrolled), heightened senses.
Starter pack( a useful one this time)
The systems panel closes once more, and I look to my right.
A pair of black and piercing ice blue eyes stares at me from the side of the bed.
Looking at those eyes, I don't know why, but I feel dread, I need to get away, so I grab the closest thing to me and throw it toward whatever is staring at me… that being a pillow and rolling off the bed.
I sprint to the door, thankfully it's unlocked and looking back, the eyes are just following me.
I run forward without looking, a mistake I'll find out in a second.
"Watch out for."
I suddenly start to flip over as I slam into something, then, I fall.
"The railing… never mind." A sigh escapes their lips.
Hitting the ground a second later as I wind myself, still, I try to stand, with no success.
"Ahh I see what happened, um don't look me in the eyes for a tad ye, my eyes give people the scares for some reason."
"Oh, why don't you give me a look down or whatever, I hear looking at something pretty calms you."
I look towards the top of the railings and what I see is, a pair of snow white fox ears, white, long flowing hair that seems to be made of ice at the tips, and faint red lips, along with those creepy eyes.
She walks around and I can now see what she's wearing, a black choker, a loose-fitting black top that exposes the shoulders but somehow has sleeves and a blue pendant.
On her lower half, she is wearing blue jeans and sturdy walking boots and she is holding a pillow behind her back.
"Sooo, you calmed down yet, I really want to have a chat, like I haven't had a nice chat with someone for ages. Being stuck in this place got boring so fast."
"Oh and another thing."
A pillow hits me in the face.
"That's for throwing a pillow at your humble saviour."
"So, you're going to have a chat with me? Got a question? … something… please."
"Ummm, what's your name lady?"
Ohhh, I'm a lady, how posh…
A small smile appears on her face.
Right, I'm Sapphire, nice to meet you." A beaming smile appears on her face.
"Oh Scott, how are you feeling, are you refreshed?"
"Uhhh, what?"
"Oh right, um so the system you were granted had, taken a part of your soul, it's how lower deities make systems and stuff, like a shortcut, I fixed the gaping hole the busted system left in you when I ripped it out."
"That's a lot to take in."
"Scott, want some food? I'm getting peckish." As Sapphire waves her hand saying to follow.
"Why'd you change the subject?"
"Just follow."
A small amount of time passes
"So Scott, the necklace I gave you has two functions, the first is to protect you from certain negative effects, the second is to hide the Miasma radiating from your body from becoming a werewolf."
"Any other questions?"
"What happened to the city, and why are you stuck here?"
"Ah, well, the city was the aftermath of me, the entire city and most of its people were infected with a demonic disease, which affected the soul and forced them to become demons within 3 days, and well, this was the only way to stop it from spreading."
"The reason why I'm stuck here is related to that as well, so apparently the chaos deity that made and had the disease spread was not a fan of me destroying it before it could infect the planet sooo, he and his buddies jumped me. Sadly for them, me being the demon-killing badass I am, killed almost all of them. Sadly, that last one was able to use some sealing magic and got me stuck here."
"So, why didn't they kill you instead of sealing you?"
"Well the last demon was not physically strong enough to do anything to me, so instead he used his demonic friend's bodies and Miasma to seal me and a large amount of land away"
"The worst part was, that demon somehow tricked the heroes of that land to band together to help him get rid of me, so that's also probably why you were sent here as well, I guess that daft deity thought I was evil and assumed I'd rip you apart. Instead, I'm going to help us both escape."
"And how do you plan on doing that?"
"Well, with you of course, you see I need you to be here when we get rescued."
"My plan involves me destroying a bit of the outer layer of the seal, making a bunch of energy and stuff escape. Doing this will make whatever the closest dimension, that being the one you were meant to arrive at, and its residents think a new and unstable dungeon is here and they'll send scouts to search it."
"Before you ask why I haven't done that before, the reason is beucase I need to burn a bunch of mana and other Essenes to do so, doing this will pretty much destroy my body and leave me as a spirit of some kind, most likely a guardian spirit, but because I'm not use to that state, I could be forced into something or someone which I don't want to happen. Mainly because whatever I'm put in it will probably, definitely explode."
"So instead I'll provide you with my bloodline and become your spirit guardian instead, the reason for that is, if you have my bloodline you won't explode. Sadly, as I ain't a mother or have any family left, so I can't bond with anything, so you'll have to do, ok." An innocent smile is plastered on her face at the end.
"… … what do I get out of it?"
"Well, you'll be able to get out of here, you'll have a cute kitsune following you around, I can be a mentor of sorts, I can help with the system you have and guide you…and I get out of here."
"Talking about the system sapphire, why do you have a spare one, and how do you plan to give me your bloodline?"
"The system was not just lying around, I made it like… a day ago… as for the bloodline thing, this is where an item comes into play."
Sapphire then proceeded to walk over to me, putting her hand behind my ear and pulling out some sort of ice crystal that had a red liquid inside.
"Ummmm."
"Oh what is it, am I too close to you… Don't worry you'll get used to it soon."
Sapphire then put the crystal into my hand and said, "Now, shatter it."
{Assimulating bloodline, knocking the user out to avoid unneeded pain}
"I just woke up, come on."
"Night night Scott, don't let the bed foxes bite."
Scott is then knocked out and slumps into the chair.
"Right, I guess I'll put the sleeping beauty here in a bed again, then I'll get to breaking that outer layer, I'll give him a couple more presents for when we get to that proper dimension for him, might as well."
************
Word count 2579
Hello again, so apparently this chapter might not of been updated :/ oops.
I hope this chapter was good and that I explain some stuff decently, if I haven't just say in the comments and I'll do my best to explain in the next chapter or something.
Hope the characters so far are ok.
So for the foreseeable future I only plan to release 1-2 chapters a week, this is mainly so I don't give myself burn out and stuff, but if we get certain miles stones with power stones or something them I'll do my best to release addisonal chapters.
Have a great day/night everyone and I'll see you next chapter （＾∇＾）