Prologue Chapter 5

Arkyn felt too serene as his body drifted into sleep. It had been so long that he hardly recognized the sensation. 

He knew his mind was filled with dread and disbelief, yet the soothing feeling of being still had seemed to disconnect him from it all. The dark space was quiet, letting him think without distractions.

He was an observer to his own chaos.

"Four hundred years . . . four hundred and they don't even know what happened to Odbrane. What caused everyone to just disappear?" Arkyn asked the endless void of his dreams now that he could think without panicking.

He wasn't expecting a response since he was accustomed to speaking to himself, so it was rather surprising to hear someone reply.

"No clue, but how about you find out for me, mister Royal Blackguard?" A man's voice joked from somewhere beyond the field of darkness.

Arkyn didn't need to search his surroundings for who spoke to him, he recognized his father's voice for its deep thrum and the low cadence. If he thought hard enough, Arkyn could actually picture his face smirking at him in the voidless space around him.

"And what exactly am I finding out father? How all the people I served have simply died centuries ago? How they might've moved on from these mountains and left me behind as some demented relic of war machines past?"

Arkyn may have been calmer now, but his emotions were still surfacing. He couldn't help but throw his frustrations at his long dead parents.

After all, it was only a dream he thought.

"Interesting, it sounds like you went from avoiding and denying any problems, to now assuming the worst outcome. How do you figure the questions you've asked me are even valid? 

For all you know, the truth could be something you haven't realized in the last few moments."

His father seemed unfazed by him lashing out, but Arkyn also knew both his parents to be rather patient with everyone and everything. Even if it took them half their lives, they still managed to help build operable [Gate Network] Archways like the one inside the feast hall. 

Many other mages and craftsmen gave up on the projects after so many failures, but his mother and father never took the failures to heart. That is what made them so special.

"I don't know what happened, but it doesn't take a genius to realize I'm alone and quite possibly the last living person of Odbrane. There is no need to figure out what traces were left behind."

"Ahh, but you're contradicting yourself there. You just asked about getting left behind and being alone, but you also say there's only a possibility that you are the last living piece of our kingdom."

"Yeah, slim to a degree of near impossibility. That letter inside the journal dates the fall of the castle to four hundred years ago.

The only reason I can imagine that I am still alive is the [Golden Array Matrix]. It kept me awake and without food all this time. Somehow being surrounded in such potent mana kept me from aging beyond an adult body."

Rather than getting a joking rebuttal like he usually did from his father, Arkyn felt the voice grow calmer. "To quote your mother, 'close and near are not the same as exact.' So why not prove me wrong? Go out and see the changed world, then find the absolute truth for yourself.

I mean, you can let your remaining years of eternity waste away, but shouldn't you at least try for the sake of it? Plus, how often do you get a chance to prove your father wrong?"

Arkyn felt unaffected by his father's taunt, but still defeated by his logic. Whenever he quoted his mother and phrased a task as a way to benefit, Arkyn could never refute it. He had always lost to that method and never found a way to win, especially as a child.

"Fine, I'll just start scouring every corner of every world. It'll be quick and simple." Arkyn agreed sarcastically to his father.

"Best to start small I think." He chuckled back. "Don't think you have to take on entire ocean just for a pint of water. Learn what you can about this new world you've found yourself entering. Experience the glory of being as smart as your mother, and as creative as myself. 

Once you've found a place you might call your home and forge, then you should start the difficult search. Who knows, maybe it'll come to you sooner than you expect."

"I . . . I understand . . . thank you, I am sorry for giving you so much grief. It was rather immature of me."

"What else are parents for?" His voice began fading as he accepted the apology. "Oh! One last thing. Your mother would get mad if I didn't at least remind you."

Arkyn still couldn't see his father, but he could picture the wolfish smile he gave when his plans came into fruition.

"Make sure to lock up the Armory when you leave. Can't have scavengers wandering in and rifling through all our old work and your new creations. Good luck my boy."

When Arkyn awoke, the effects of leaving the boundaries of the [Golden Array Matrix] had disappeared and he could move normally again. He opened his eyes to see the sky was now a softer orange and red that didn't force him to squint or wear the blind fold. The sun had begun setting, telling him a few hours had actually passed.

While trying to stand up, Arkyn felt an uncontrollable urge to start coughing and began dry heaving after his tongue could taste once again. Laying face down in the dirt while snoring caused a lot of dirt to invade his airway.

All he felt after a few minutes of solid coughing was clumps of wet dust stubbornly remaining in his throat. The grogginess being gone was the only fortunate part of the situation, leaving Arkyn with a clear memory of the promise he made. 

He felt a lot calmer with an inkling of purpose again and a bit of sleep to clear his mind.

'Well I can't argue with Dusk now. I am now full of dirt and probably just an insane blacksmith. He will never let me live this down.'

Arkyn stood up and conjured a gust of air magic to pick up the contents of the leather parcel. The mountain winds had scattered a lot of the ruined papers down the dirt road, but the journal cover and heavy items stayed close the bones he laid out.

When he returned to the forge, Arkyn was surprised to see the Fractal snake was actually awake again and moving about the forge space. Dusk looked at him intently with his black eyes when he returned, they were reflecting the dying embers of the now overcooked metal crucible.

'For a while there, I thought you might've died in the mines.' Dusk commented once Arkyn's mind was in range to hear his thoughts. 

Yet the human only walked passed him rather briskly.

'What? Are you still upset about what I said earlier?'

Arkyn didn't seem to notice or pay attention, he was too busy putting his hands over to one of the side walls of the forge and pushing mana into a metal cabinet inside one of the walls of the forge.

'I don't actually think everyone is dead, you just seemed so fixated on the past that it bordered on insane-'

"You were right." Arkyn cut him off as he unlocked the cabinet with magic and pulled a stack of books out of his personal vault before walking over to Dusk and placing something on the table he originally napped on.

"Take a look at this." Arkyn unrolled the wrinkled letter onto the table for Dusk to see. 

The leather bag may had spilled, but Arkyn had a tight grip on the now crumpled letter as he crawled back into the area covered by the [Golden Array Matrix], it was still clung in his fist when he woke up.

Dusk only gave the letter a glance before presenting an issue. 'I can't read, I never learned on account of having no hands to flip the pages.'

Arkyn rolled his eyes as he explained how he found the letter, the contents it revealed, and the state of their situation. Dusk took the news better than Arkyn initially did.

'So the war is definitely over, and we might be the last survivors of it while a special relic powering the whole castle has been unknowingly keeping us alive?'

"Mainly keeping me alive." Arkyn corrected. "Fractal Snakes typically live past a century if they feed well. I don't know how long you and I have been here together, but you can't be much older than a decade. At worst for you, you will be starving the moment the arrays stop feeding you energy. At worst for me, I'll shrivel up and age into an ancient corpse the moment I leave."

'It's still a lot to process. We die if we leave all the arrays empowering us, but now that you know there is left above us, you're planning to leave based on a promise you made in a dream?'

Arkyn had to admit the idea was absurd, but the logic thrown at him to find out the truth of Odbrane was still clear in his mind. Finding remnants or descendants of Odbrane would prove difficult, practically impossible, but it gave him a purpose and a sliver of hope. 

A possibility of rebuilding what was lost.

No matter how slim the chances were, he couldn't say that his past was completely gone until he investigated every corner of the Continent first.

"I have a few ideas about what to do next," Arkyn said while shutting the cabinet of his safe. "And as for the Heart and all its arrays, I promised the King that I'd always keep it safe. That just means we are gonna always protect it when we take it with us." Arkyn smirked.