What is the damned crow upto now ?

The crow found himself flying atop thick layers of cloud, he could not remember why or when had he taken the decision to take the flight again, the last memory he had was of the sea serpent Azadaha, but it was too hazy to recall properly.

He quickly plummeted down and gasped, below the clouds, was an odd shaped mountain that vaguely resembled a sleeping stone giant, the behemoth of a structure had huge wide gashes on its side as if something even larger had completely mauled it at some point,

Every single feather reacted to the scene infront, the crow visibly shivered flying down, he had some idea of where he was. A small bagpack was latched on the crow's back which he could not remember how or when had he accquired.

Something snapped in his mind,

he lowered down until he landed upon the edge of one of the long gashes, there he spotted a dark cave, descending down to abyss, on its entrance were roughly drawn stairs of stone completely weathered down by time, he sighed and then entered the cave.

First there was complete silence in the dark cave, then some mutters were heard, with bare form of gossips to them, then as the crow descended further and further into the cave, the mutters became more sinister.

"Damn those monsters damn those beasts damnit they killed him i promised him they took him away damn them damn them damn them for ruining my world and sucking greedily its pure beautiful energy out i hope they die leaving nothing but barren land behind i hope they die"

The crow stopped midway, and looked around, completely fazed, he could not remember how or why he was here but something deeper, an unknown force pushed him to descend even further,

halls and halls of darkness passsed by as he kept going downwards, it felt as if his each step echoed throughout centuries, throughout history itself, he could not stop getting shivers.

Faded memories that had no beginning or an end just dust and longing, just rust and sorrow, danced through his battered mind and soon everything stilled, as he reached the lowest part of the fallen giant, unlike the enormous halls he had left behind, the space at the bottom was nothing but a small tiny chamber.

Inside it was an old scroll with 'Kairvan accords' written upon it, and a small mat was laid upon the stone surface, a lonely candle burned in the corner, then everything blackened.

**********

Aatish had ordered all the forces to pull back and hide in a tiny village to the north called silfaair, only a few hours were left until the sovereign was expected to launch another brutal assault at the army, atleast what remained of it.

The creatures in the army were mostly valiant with a tinge of seasonal cowardice, they had been born in continuous trauma and oppression so to follow a free leader, was difficult at times,

Currently, Ardavan, a faction leader, led them in ranks towards the hiding, they had been told of the plan, atleast the part that convened them, the whole game that was underway on shargh was much sinister and brutal.

Aatish was not present within them herself, she had left early to take care of something.

Thousands of metres below the encampment of Rohaan, She walked behind Lakeer, the map maker had seen better days and limped instead of walking, he had a broken look in his eyes.

They passed through tunnels until one of the tunnels abruptly ended and opened into what looked like an interior of some royal structure, there was a great carpet laid upon the ground and remnants of utensils were sprayed all across the floor.

There were ashes and bare remains of wood too,

Lakeer limped towards what could have been a door or an entrance thousands of years ago, Aatish followed, her luminance brightening the dark space.

Beyond the door, was something Aatish had never hoped to witness.

She gasped as the corridor abruptly ended, infront was an inverted castle as grand as a huge city, it looked like khandaq but on a much grander scale. But perhaps the most surprising thing was, It digged further into the ground despite being thousands of meters below the surface level already.

Aatish grabbed Lakeer and pushed herself into the air, the corridor behind crumbled and a moment later and disintegrated into ashes, with that they began the descent.

She looked like a tiny flame in an endless abyss floating downwards, Lakeer could not believe his eyes either, the mapmaker fluttered behind her, he was after all nothing but a stack of well put together sheets that had vague resemblance of limps to it, the Nakshaayirs did not draw maps with the usual method, and noone really knew how they came up with maps, but they were extraordinary.

A nakshaayir could produce only four maps of in their entire lifetime, they had different grades within them, the highest grade was called 'Khaaqi', the places they could map directly depended on their ranks, those who reached 'Khaaqi' grade could map even the gateways and whole planetoids.

Lakeer's great grandfather was such a Nakshaayir, he had been the only one to reach Khaaqi rank in thousands of years and had made the entire map of Shargh himself including the monuments and interiors of the citadels.

there were only a handful of Nakshaayir left in the entire sehra.

After descending for some thirty minutes Aatish reached the bottom,

Lakeer immediately patted her back as she looked behind, he had climbed up to her shoulder.

There, she spotted a large steel gate that had thick bars upon it and behind it, was an enormous spherical structure dug deep into the wall, infront of the structure stood a figure wreathed in darkness with two menacing horns that protruded backwards.

Amawas looked different, as she stood waiting for Aatish infront of the ancient interplanetary gateway.