Chapter 1 - Leaving Dunova

"A fine crew, if a bit out of your way to find yourselves here. Let's proceed so you can decide what you make of this place."

After confirming some things with Leon and the crew, Velisse leads the party further into the crater. It doesn't take long before the group hit a road block. There doesn’t appear to be any clear path down to the bottom. At first, the crater has a shallow slope, but it's obscured by the sides of buildings half toppled and collapsed. What used to be paths snake between the buildings, but they’re blocked by fallen rubble and debris.

The whole area whispers of the life that once used to live here. It seems so lifelike a city that the group can practically see children playing while their parents chatter with each other. The streets are narrow but regular, and it seems the place is arranged with purpose. Yet something eerie plagues the group. The statues you can see here and there, their faces lost due to age, remind you of those in the parade squares in Dunova. They all seem to look to the centre of the crater and the building there in.

The central ruin, deep below, is massive. It pulses with purple energy, which seeps between the seams and cracks of the black blocks that form its body. Around it, though they're hard to see at a distance, are tents hidden among the ruins. Every now and then the group can see someone moving only for a moment before they disappear into the colossal building. At the front, a door opens like a maw ready to swallow anything that comes too close.

"There are others up ahead. We should decide what we want to do when we inevitably meet them." Velisse waved the others to take a more circumspect approach to duck behind one of the ruined buildings, now that they had spotted other people.

"How would we even descend further? All the paths appear blocked"

"Well if there's one thing an airship lacks, it isn't ropes. Maybe we could repel down into the crater?" It might be a good idea, but Jezlyn isn't looking forward to a solution that involves so much muscle power.

"If they can get up, they should be able to get back down. Maybe there's a hidden pathway or stairway we're not seeing," Strong Ail suggests, peering into the edges to see if there's any cleverly concealed way to get up or down.

While it’s not easy for Ail and the rest to see, they do start to notice the signs of a path snaking through the rubble. If they chose it as an option they’ll need to work as a team to see themselves down it.

"A path! I'd lead the way, but it seems hard for me to navigate through in my heavy armour."

"Maybe . . . if we all work together to get down there. Pinion says

Velisse eyed the less brawny members of teh group. "I could lend a hand for the awkward bits." She secured her sword properly behind her back, tightened whatever straps she had, and put up her long hair even more tightly, before starting to navigate the way down.

"Should we tie a rope around each others, so if one fall we can hold them up or fall together as a group?" Strong Ail suggests with a smile.

"I don't know if you've seen me but I won't be able to hold any of you up," Jezlyn says with an arched eyebrow. "But if you need a leader to go down first, I'm your woman."

The terrain proves to be even more difficult that you expected it to be. The crumbling ground slips as you try to make your way down safely, and the obsidian blocks are too heavy to move. By the time you make it to half way, the sun has moved toward evening and an oppressive heat has settled into the crater leaving you sweating and disoriented.

Right as you move to the next section, ready to carry on down just a little, you hear a rumble. It starts gradually at first, and slowly gets louder. Right as Pinion and Jezlyn realise what's happening, a nearby aqueduct bursts and they don't have time to warn anyone. Water cascades down across scree slopes and fallen buildings. It engulfs you and carries you with it.

You're further disoriented by the wave as you pass murals daubed on surprisingly intact buildings. They consist of strange looking angels and twisted creatures. Some have many eyes, while others carry the sun and the stars. All glow with purple energy. The blocks become larger and pulse with purple glyphs, while others have brass pipes which you know have been added far more recently.

The wave eventually dumps you in a pool of water at the start of a a concourse, leading to a large cylindrical building in the crater’s centre. What look like old columns of black stone line the well kept road, but they’ve crumbled into disrepair. Around them you notice the broken forms of Elonian Knights.

Some lie broken and discarded, their parts strewn out in the dust. Others march on cracking limbs, spewing sparks of magic into the air. The signs of a battle are evident all around, and just like whatever had taken down the airship had damaged them just as easily.

---

The inside of an ancient building.

The walls are made of deep, black stone blocks. Purple light glows from angular symbols carved into their surface. Everything is geometrical, with impressive precision. The only alterations to the clinical, clean lines are places where time has worn the stone away or cracked it irreparably.

Lanterns hang from poles that have been placed since, displacing the layer of dust that gathered on the floor. They mix with the purple glow casting long shadows across the empty room. They’re placed to illuminate a wide bronze pillar supporting the chamber roof high above.

Cracks adorn the pillar as though lines on an artist’s canvas. From them, intense energy seeps out. It fills the room with crackling static, volatile and ready to explode with the slightest bit of encouragement.

We hear the sound of approaching armoured footsteps. They echo off the walls, until they come to an abrupt halt. From off screen, a silver gauntlet hand reaches for the pillar, and softly follows the lines of the ancient symbols.

"The archaeologists from Elonia were right." A woman’s voice, thick with joy, speaks. "The disaster buried the compass here, and it’s been left ever since. We have it now though, dear brother, and you can return to me for good."

Two figures are silhouetted against the light. One is a giant clad in thick plates of armour. They give it the appearance of a statue more than a living creature. The other, shorter and thinner, carries a lance far taller than they are.

Time, it might seem, is running out.

Velisse had no love for the Elonians, but her ears perked up at the mention of whatever artifact the pair ahead of them were mentioning. A compass? Why that could point her way to what she had lost!

She needed a moment to clear her head though, in order to figure out what her best course of action was.