Chapter 1: What lies behind it?
After waking up from his sleep, Roland was informed by Nightingale about Lighting and Maggie findings last night. The adventure duos set out in the wastelands on their quest to explore more some ruins they had found. Inside the duo found a door that appeared to be locked with some sort of magic.
"What else did they find in there?" asked Roland. "The girls said that most of the place was pretty much desolated except for a small passage way that lead to the door, but along the way they could see some symbols on the walls, but most of them were erased or incomplete."
"Does the Taquila witches had anything to say about it?" inquired Roland while taking a sip of coffee that was waiting for him on his desk. "Agatha said that she does not recall nothing about that place, she suggested that maybe the witches in the Third border town could have some sort of answer." Responded Nightingale while she was watching Roland sleepy face drinking coffee.
On the cafeteria part of the castle Lighting and Maggie were retelling they newest discovery to everyone that was willing to listen to them. "It was thanks to my advanced explorer instincts that I was able to discern the blockade to the door from the rest of the walls that surrounded it" boasted Lighting while standing on her chair pointing to the sky. "You got lucky that the entrance caved in when you went to rest on the wall after we decided to take a break from the exploration to eat some mushrooms" replied Maggie. "Don't tell them that…" franticly yelled Lightning. "What did you find inside?" asked Mystery Moon, as a certified detective on her own way, mysteries like these always made her excited. "Nothing much, the place was in rubbles and besides some sort of symbols and a door, everything appeared to have been destroyed by time. "And what was behind the door?" wondered Mystery Moon while she got closer to Lighting to ear her reply. "We don't know." Said the girl, "We weren't able to open the door." "Maggie turned into a beast and tried to destroy it but nothing happened." Said Lightning with a sulked expression. "Yeah, when I rammed into the door, some strange symbols similar to the ones that were on the wall appeared on the air covering that small part" said Maggie in the same mood as Lightning, this was the first time they found something they could not get inside. "What will you guys do now?" asked Mystery Moon a little concerned with the duo. "We will not give up that easily…" said lightning with her spirit up again "…we decided that it was best to return and tell his majesty about our discovery and then we will return there with a plan crafted by him to solve that mystery." On that instance Lily walked in and asked a little surprised "Mystery Moon what are you still doing here? You will be late to your duties." "Oh that's right!" exclaimed Mystery Moon while she got up with a piece of bread in her hand and left hurriedly.
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"It's best to send Soraya with them to the place so that she can paint the symbols, that way it will be easier to find out if the Taquila survivors knows anything about this mysterious door." Said Anna to Roland, she came to his studies like she always would do before going on to her duties in Neverwinter. "That would be the best approach in this kind of situation. Since Lightning and Maggie have already been there it should not be a problem to do that, but still I will talk with Tilly to ask her if Ashes would be willing to go with them." Said Roland smiling while holding her hand. "You do that, I will go now!" Anna got up, she kissed him on his forehead and left the studies. " Then I will go after Tilly." Said Nightingale from inside the mist, but before she left Roland felt and invisible kiss on his forehead.
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The team composed of Lighting , Maggie, Ashes, Phyllis , Lily, Soraya and Tilly arrived at the location, when Tilly heard of Roland request she decided to come along with Ashes to investigate this ruins, Phyllis was asked to join them because she could offer some sort of insight if the ruins were truly left behind by former Taquila survivors, Soraya was here to paint the place and it's symbols for Originals Carriers to see, Lily was asked to come by Roland in case some sort of ancient disease was incubating inside the chamber behind the locked door. They arrived at the door and Ashes again tried to destroy the door, when she did that the symbols flashed around it and the wall, in that moment Phyllis talked "This is an ancient vault, they were produced long before the Taquila time, only one was found before, there were rumors that there could be more of them, but nobody bothered with searching for them, because the was with the demons at that time was more important."
"Do you know how to open it?" Asked Tilly. "I might, the records said that when the first one was found, five witches were able to use their magic power to remove the barrier that locked the door." "Then we will do that after Soraya finishes her paintings". It did not take long for Soraya to do that, after she was done Tilly placed her hand on the door, when she did that four more symbols appeared on it, each witch placed their hand on it and infused it with their magic power. One by one the symbols surrounding the place began to fade until they heard the sound of the door unlocking. "Lady Tilly please stand back, ill open it" said Ashes, she held her sword in one hand and pushed the door open.
When it opened a dim blue light came out and the contents of the sealed room became revealed to them.
Behind the locked door left on this ancient there were countless shiny blue stones and a small tablet was sitting on top of a pedestal, on the tablet there was a black crow with shiny red eyes sitting on a extended hand, it appeared as if the painting was alive with his read eyes staring at everyone behind the door, under it there used to be something written, but after centuries of decay most of it were already erased by leaving no explanation what this tablet was and why was it left here. The blue stones were slowly losing their shine. The witches entered the room and looked around, Lighting and Maggie picked some of the stones to take back with them. "Is this all?" asked Ashes a little surprised that the door only had what appear to be some sort of sigils of illumination and a painting. While they were in there the stones lights faded away and what happened left them all surprised. Everything inside the room disappeared, the tablet and the pedestal, all, including the stones on the ground. When seeing the stones disappearing on the ground Lighting checked her bag and saw that those she had stored also disappeared, only one stone remained, and it was the one that Maggie was holding in her hands. After this incident they decided it was best to return to the castle and report everything that happened with Roland.
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"Those are spirit stones, according to what we learned from the knowledge left by the ancients witches, those were the first attempts at creating sigils, they were created using a witches magic, but were not very powerful, their main purpose was to store magic power and while that could be useful, the magic stored on them could not be retrieved again, they could only be used as batteries to support the kind of barrier you guys found" said Pasha "We created some of them during the age of Taquila but found out that if infused with a different source of magic power it would lose its effect after some time, the stronger the magic, the faster it would disappear. That's why the union decided it was not worth the effort.
"What about the painting?" asked Roland. "I also do not know about the painting, the same thing happened on the first ruin we discovered but on the first we discovered there was a crown on the crow head and some treasures around it". "Well if that's the case, I'll have Soraya make a copy of it and send it to the third border town, since it appears to be part of the witches history, I think it would better to not let it fade away in obscurity, maybe in the future we will find out the true meaning behind it." "Thank you, your majesty." Said Pasha in a cheery voice.
Roland left the conference hall with the witches, he patted Lightning and Maggie on their head and said "you guys did a good job finding a part of witches history, I'll have the kitchen prepare something delicious for you two!" Both the girls cheered together while they all went on their separate ways.
And so the mystery behind the ancient ruin was discovered and life in Neverwinter returned back to its normal self.
On Maggie's room the stone that she had kept, was being stored inside a special container created by Soraya magic next to the window, she was asleep, tonight she had forgotten to close the curtains of her room, when the moon light shined on the stone, it changed it's color, from bright blue to a burning crimson, just like the eye of the crow for a moment, before returning to it's blue color again.
The End?
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
KuralKing
KuralKing Tried my best to create something just for the Hardcore Badge to be honest, but if you enjoyed it you have my sincere thanks.
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