Concepts [III]

"Gold!"

Lucian's excitement swelled, and he kicked the rotten corpses to the side in a bit to get to the shining coins scattered beneath. Not only were there a few small pieces of gold, but he found some jewelry, a few crude tools, a pair of strange goggles, and some metal coins that looked like they were some form of currency. To Lucian, it looked like the adult sabercat had attacked some caravan, drug the bodies and packs back with it, and piled up the loot among other animal corpses.

"Wha-" Lucian began to ask a question, but the stench from disturbing the corpses caused him to hack the moment he opened his mouth. He ran outside and took multiple deep breaths after a vigorous coughing fit threatened to toss up his lungs. As his mind and senses cleared, he realized that the gold was nothing to be excited about. The tools and the other items, however...

"Ed, why would there be remains of other creatures on this Tile?" Lucian asked. "How exactly did these Tiles come to be here?"

[Error]

Lucian grimaced, but it was the answer he'd been expecting. He had a theory, but without having more information, there was no merit to it. In his mind, he pictured an area the size of these Tiles magically disappearing from whatever planet it had been on as the Tournament was starting. Anything that was within said space would travel along with it. And those people whose bones he'd found... Maybe they would become missing persons, just like he would be.

There were hundreds of missing person cases every year. Was it possible that there were some that had ended up in this dreadful place before him? Could it be that many of the people who had suddenly vanished throughout history had met with the same fate? It wasn't an impossible theory, and he felt that he was onto something.

He looked around the Tile, wondering just what other secrets the Land of Nowhere could be hiding. Could there be people stuck on some of these Tiles that weren't part of the Tournament? If his theory was correct, it was entirely possible. His heart began to ache, and the feeling of loneliness began to creep back in.

"There will be plenty of time for conspiracies later, Lucian," He told himself. He took a few deep breaths before holding in the air and running to the end of the tunnel. It took a few trips, but eventually, he managed to gather all of the tools, materials, and trinkets that he found beneath the pile.

There were a couple of shovels, a few small carving knives, a pair of tongs, some metal wedges, a sheet of metal with different-sized holes, a few hammers, and some other odds and ends. The tools were primitive, but not too much so. They looked to be a few centuries behind what Lucian was used to on Earth, but he had no doubt that they were the best thing he would acquire for a long time in this place. It looked to him as if the sabercat had attacked a traveling metal worker and his family.

Once he sorted through the tools, he looked over the jewelry, gold, and coins. Almost all of the jewelry was fashioned from intertwined strands, and most looked to be silver, with a few pieces of gold. The coins were either gold or some type of iron, and there were more scattered on the cave floor that he hadn't grabbed due to the stench.

Aside from the tools and jewelry, there were some random pieces of cloth that he assumed had once been clothing. There were also the goggles, a small pouch with more coins inside, and a small knapsack that had somehow survived its stint in the tiger's den. Lucian carefully opened the knapsack, curious to see if there was anything practical inside.

Inside the pack, Lucian found a mat, some rolled-up articles of clothing, a straw doll, and a hand-carved horse that looked like it was meant for a child. His excitement over finding the loot drastically faded as he held the doll and the horse figure. Lucian placed the two items back into the sack and walked back into the pit, ignoring the smell and approaching the pile of bones.

For the following hour, he sifted through the hundreds of bones and rotted corpses until he found two small, human-like skulls. They were a bit different from a human's in that they had small horn shapes protruding from the temples, but they unmistakably belonged to children.

One was almost entirely bare, and the top of the skull had been busted. Though heavily decayed, the skull still had bits of flesh attached to it, and a few long strands of hair remained at the top. Lucian wasn't sure where the children's bodies were amongst the rotting corpses, and he didn't know enough to find them. He left the cave with dead eyes and picked up a shovel and the knapsack as he passed the pile of loot that he's acquired.

Lucian made his way to the edge of the [Borol] Tile, on the far corner between it and the [Orelia] Tile that he'd just opened. Using the shovel, he began to dig just in front of one of the many waterfalls. It was a beautiful location with many of the white and pink flowers adorning the moss-covered wall. As he dug, he began to hum, and the first line of the grim poem entered his mind once more.

"With blackened eyes and hardened soul..."

"Hardened soul..."

The rabbits slowly gathered around him as he hummed the tune. One by one, their eyes began to turn red, and his awareness began to fade. Lucian's vision began to warp, and the beautiful scenery before him started to change. He didn't stop digging and simply accepted the change with an apathetic gaze. Darkness closed in from all sides, and Lucian was soon digging down into an empty void.

*******

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