The next part of Painted Relics' story is here!

To read the previous parts in Rhea's quest, you can find them here on this page HERE
(I know this page isn't the prettiest at the moment as I had issues getting it working the way I wanted, so this is just a stand in till I can get it looking the way I want!)
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"The sand was rough and sharp against her paws, resembling caltrops more than grains. 

“Thanks for the -“ Rhea began to say, before seeing that the rowboat that took her here was already making it’s way back out to the parent ship, where it would sit and await her return. 

“24 hours before I head back to shore, with or without cha”  she was warned by the captain. Not the most reassuring send off.

Taking her first few steps into land, she could see why. No, she could feel why. This place had an aura to it, baked into it’s foundation. It was anger, it was dread, it wanted to hurt. Rhea took a gulp of trepidation and could feel Pik scooting around in her side bag, shrinking himself down as he surely felt the same aura. The shoreline was littered with all kinds of detritus from the sea. Logs, seaweed, shells, and remains of cargo of all kinds. Broken crates spilled their long rotted and dried husks, mingling with broken pottery and scraps of rope. 

Even the wildlife didn’t want her here. Multiple times on her short walk into the mainland she was accosted by small, four pincer-ed creatures. They wore the detritus of the beach as shells, snapping at her with angry piercing eyes and grumbling strings of what she thought was warnings. Stepping up the eroded beach into the grasslands beyond, it wasn’t any better. The tall grasses were tough and razor sharp, the trunks of the trees were ringed with thorns, and she had to defend herself multiple times from these crab-like creatures as they fell upon her from the treetops, using the hard casings of fruit as both their shell and their method of attack. 

“Gah! What am I even looking for?!” Rhea yelled out to no one in particular. The hateful aura of the isle had long gotten underneath her skin, only exacerbated by all the cuts and bruises she had received thus far. Pik was no worse for wear though, at least physically. This thought comforted Rhea, but only a little. She could still feel something, hidden in that aura. Something that called out for her attention. So she pressed on, and not happy about it. 

After another hour or so of tripping over bones of unidentifiable creatures and climbing over rocks that also seemed to have thorns, because of course, she found what she didn’t know she was looking for.

In a rocky clearing, a circle of trees stood, all bent inward as if they were whispering to each other, canopy’s intertwining to cover the area in intermingled shadows. In the center of this clearing was it’s own circle, of rough irregular stones. 30 feet across, the rectangular stones stood tall for the most part, a good few of them broken and worn down with time. It has stood here for a long time. 

In the center of this circle was a stone, cut and sanded completely flat on one of it’s sides, buried straight up and down in the rock, small piles of stones built around it in three circles. Upon this flat face was carved runes, in a language Rhea had seen a few times before. On the coin weighing down her pocket, or the parchment found in the streets a few moon crossings ago, the ancient language that held the very secrets of kyvalore that she and many of her peers were trying so desperately to decipher. The stone face was covered in this script, all available space taken up by it ordered neatly in rows, clearly a message of some kind. 

What lied at the stone’s center however, shook Rhea to her core. She saw it last, almost as if it hid itself from her until there was absolutely nothing left she could possibly look at. A figure seemed to float above the smooth stone. It was made of shadows. The shadows of the trees, the shadows of the sun, the shadows of the rocks, the shadows of the soul. It was constantly shifting, constantly flowing. It was everything, it was nothing. It was a voxibell for a moment of a second, before twisting and turning, making the form of an avilli a few seconds later. In between these seconds it was everything. After these seconds it was everything else. The only constant of this shifting form was it’s cold white eyes, Round orbs of the purest light and malice, regarding Rhea at the edge of the clearing. 

She felt it then, reaching out to her and Pikk, through her mana. It did not speak, but it was trying to, Rhea could feel the words in the undercurrent of the mana that was brushing up against her own, like the shadow of a fish in the current of a river. It pulled at her, tugged at her magic, but not in a malicious way. In opposition to the intense feeling of dread that filled her, it almost felt gentle. It was guiding her closer, it wanted her in, it wanted her to touch the stone it resided over. Could she? Could she go against every screaming instinct inside of her to get to safety and away from this island? But how could she not? Get so close to this mystery and actually discover what is going on, and just leave?

What would she do?

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Something in Kyvalore stirs.
Want to change what happens next? Check out the current story quest here !