He spotted something nearby, but was unsure if it was actually there. A dark figure with glowing white eyes slowly made its way up the crater edge. As if on cue, it stopped and stared at Draven. The void adept reached out towards the thing weakly with his left hand, but soon lost the strength and dropped his hand. The creature moved towards him with a steady pace, and stopped at the bottom of the tree. It could not reach Draven from his position, for it was not tall enough. That didn’t stop the determined being, however, as it leaped up and grabbed hold of Draven’s legs. A quick tug pulled the void adept free of his tangled garbs. The faceless threw Draven over its shoulder and started its trek up the crater edge again.
Once the two reached the top, the faceless carelessly tossed Draven on the ground and sat down, staring at the rising moon. Draven tried to keep his consciousness, blinking his eyes to clear his vision and rolling over on his left side to calm the pain in his right, but the darkness of sleep slowly took him.
Draven awoke to see Ferlyne staring down at him. The fire adept smiled widely and sat straight up.
“At last you are awake, master!” Ferlyne cheered.
Draven sat up and rubbed his head. “What are you still doing here, Ferlyne…I don’t have the Adept’s Stone anymore,” he explained.
“I know that much. I saw the assassin leaving with it,” Ferlyne said casually.
“And you did not pursue him?” Draven asked, confused.
“You must understand…I was tired from battle and could not keep up if I wanted to,” Ferlyne said.
“Stop acting like you didn’t just join my army for the artifact…” Draven said, his tired eyes staring at Ferlyne accusingly.
“Well of course I did…but you see, I spoke to this thing and it changed my mind!” Ferlyne said, pointing to the faceless standing nearby like a statue, staring at the sun as if challenging it.
“Stop lying to me…that thing doesn’t have a mouth to talk,” Draven reasoned.
“No, but it has hands to write,” Ferlyne countered, holding out a piece of rolled up parchment.
“…and you just happen to always carry pen and paper with you?” Draven added, hardly amused.
“Exactly! I am a poet after all,” Ferlyne stated, handing the paper to the void adept.
Draven grumbled as he snatched the paper and began reading it. Slowly, he lowered the paper and stared at the fire adept in surprise. “This is…kind of like the writing in Tier Bastion.”
“It’s an ancient language that used to be the main merchant language that almost all nations could speak before they were united in their separate kingdoms. The writings in Tier Bastion happen to be a type of dialect,” Ferlyne explained.
“What help is this to us, then?” Draven asked, shoving the paper back at the fire adept.
“Well, I can read it,” Ferlyne replied calmly. Draven stared at him coldly for a moment.
“If you could read this stuff, why didn’t you say so when we were investigating those writings?” Draven snapped.
“Because I was only taught the basics of this language back in my homeland, and the dialect in Tier Bastion only used the same characters…other than that I could make little to no sense of it. Luckily, however, that thing seemed to understand my ignorance of its language and wrote everything in a simplistic form so that I may translate it…which I did so here,” Ferlyne said, handing Draven a second piece of paper.
Draven read over the paper, his eyes widening in surprise and a grin peaking on the edge of his lips. He chuckled as he put the paper down. “So that’s why you decided to stay. There is a second artifact…”
“Indeed, and that thing has agreed to help us find it,” Ferlyne said eagerly.
“Under what conditions?” Draven asked suspiciously.
“That we help it find its brethren,” Ferlyne continued.
“Why would it need our help?” Draven asked, looking towards the faceless.
Once again as if on cue the faceless turned to match the stare at Draven. Its right hand plucked a pouch from its belt and spilled the contents on the ground. Two orbs, one green the other purple, along with two strange circular tokens with a hole in them was all it contained. Draven picked up the items and looked at them. An ebony black hand reached down and picked up the green orb and one of the tokens. It dropped them into Draven’s other hand and pointed at them intently. Draven dropped the other items and put the two the faceless had pointed out together. A flash of green energy poured over the token as it lifted from Draven’s hand to float in the air. Wind and electricity began swirling around it, and in a flash of energy, a second faceless being began to form in the token’s place. Where the first was white, this one was green, including the lifeless eyes and designs on its clothing, which were also in a different pattern. The two adepts turned to the original to see that it had benefited from the appearance of the second one, its clothing returning to its former gleam.
Draven rubbed his head as he looked at the two. “If that’s all they need me for…why’d they not just let you do it?” he asked Ferlyne.
“Well…from what this thing explained to me, only one with an element not derived from the original six elements could activate the tokens…and this adept had to be human,” the fire adept tried to explain.
“Ah, so that leaves void and omni that are capable? I’m starting to get it now,” Draven reasoned. “So, where does that thing decide we’re going to go, next? And does it have a name?”
“As of the name, I already asked and got just a creepy glare. I haven’t asked where it wishes to go next,” Ferlyne said.
“Well, start talking…” Draven said, pointing at the two faceless.
“Well, start talking…” Draven said, pointing at the two faceless.
Ferlyne stood up and started speaking a strange language, going slow and steady for his lack of understanding. The two faceless looked at each other. Slowly, the original reached out its hand, motioning for the paper. Ferlyne handed it paper and a pen. The faceless began to write something down and then returned the items. Ferlyne read the paper and nodded his head.
“Well…?” the impatient Draven asked.