Kapitel 90: Forbidden Knowledge
Valentine and Luuk were standing stupefied in front of the back wall of the ruin. The enormous wall before them had a relief sculpted onto it depicting a scene that they didn't quite understand, but deep down they had a feeling that they shouldn't be learning about it.
In the relief, there was a figure that looked menacing standing sideways on the right side. It looked like an old man with long hair and a beard, and a bony body riding on a small horse that was almost the same size as the old man. The man was carrying a pitchfork that he raised high in the air as if charging into a battle. On his left hand, there was a flame burning and there was something that looked like an image in the fire. The horse it was riding looked intimidating, with its eyes hungry for fresh blood. The sculpted image looked very vivid although it was made of stone.
On the opposite side of the man, there was a figure that was not any less bizarre. It was a figure with four heads that shouldn't belong together. The front-facing head was that of a human while the left and right facing heads were a lion's and an ox's respectively. The head facing back wasn't clear, but there was a visible beak, so it was most likely that of a kind of bird. All of the visible heads showed a fierce expression. The figure had four pairs of wings, one of which was covering its body, but leaving the figure's hooves, instead of feet, uncovered. The other wings were stretched far, which made it appear more threatening.
There were several other smaller figures behind the main two sides that were fighting, but they were not very clear. The ones on the old man's side mostly had horns as their defining features, whereas the ones on the four-headed figure's side had wings placed in uncommon positions. It was clear that the two sides were at war, and from the relief, it looked like the old man's side had the advantage of number.
The winged figures came from the top left of the relief with clouds around them, making them look like they descended from the sky, while the horned figures appeared to be crawling from the depth of the Earth. It was difficult to judge which side was good and which one was bad because both of the main figures looked fearsome, especially their expressions which were full of bloodlust. Whoever sculpted the relief had an amazing ability to capture the emotions of their sculpture.
Valentine looked at the bottom of the relief and saw that there was a carving of probably the title of it. It was written in a language he didn't understand, so he tried his best to keep it in his memory. Graham could use divination to find out about it later as long as he could write it down.
"What do you think this means?" asked Luuk in confusion. He was also trying to read the carving at the bottom to no avail.
"I don't know, but I can try to divine it later. More importantly, who do you think these two are?" asked Valentine back.
Luuk tapped his right temple with his index finger to help him think.
"I'm not confident, but I think this might be related to the Deities? I have this feeling that we shouldn't be looking at this," he replied seriously.
"Me too, and I think you might be right. But still, it feels like this is an important piece of information related to the supernatural world," Valentine replied thoughtfully, and then looked over his shoulder and muttered, "G, don't you think the winged figure looks somewhat similar to the one on Pravitatem's death threat?"
Luuk didn't hear Valentine's muttering clearly, but knowing his habit, he didn't ask about it. He studied the relief one more time and the feeling deep inside his heart only grew stronger. The silence of the ruin only served to fan his anxiety.
Valentine and Luuk were just looking at the relief when suddenly, the eyes of all the figures in it moved and stared at them sinisterly. The eyes that were supposed to be made of stone all of sudden had turned to be real eyes!
Luuk jumped back in fright while Valentine quickly got into a battle position.
"BEGONE!!!"
There was a voice that came from a distance but at the same time felt like it was spoken right in their ears. The voice seemed to belong to numerous people speaking all at once, but it also sounded like it belonged to only one individual. It reverberated in the large ruin chamber and then suddenly there was a strong gust of wind pushing Valentine and Luuk back. They covered protected with their hands and closed their eyes.
Whoosh!!
The strong gust blew for several seconds before stopping, and when they came to, Valentine and Luuk realized they had been sent to the outside of the ruin. They looked around in confusion to find out where exactly they were.
"Are we at the entrance of the ruin?" asked Luuk for confirmation; his tone was doubtful.
"I think so, but where are the pillars?" replied Valentine in confusion.
They recognized the shape of the cave wall near the entrance where the pillars should have been. However, in front of them was now nothing, and at the space where there should have been the ruin's corridor, another cave wall was standing tall instead. It didn't look unnatural, which made them even more confused. It was as if there had been no ruin in the first place.
"Something has made the ruin vanish. I guess the knowledge we learned was forbidden," said Valentine while still analyzing the new cave wall in front of him.
"But why not kill us as well? It should have been very easy," said Luuk.
Valentine really didn't know the answer to the question, so he shrugged. Luuk made a good point. If they weren't supposed to learn about the relief, it would have been much better for whoever made the ruin vanish to kill them along with it. Instead, they just chased Valentine and Luuk away unscathed.
"Whatever it is their intention, we're lucky to be alive. Let's get out of here while we can," proposed Valentine.
Luuk nodded and the two of them started going back where they came from, once again traversing the huge chamber of the cave that made Luuk feel suffocated. Since some time had passed, they had to concentrate harder not to get lost. They needed to make sure that they walked in a straight line. It took them longer than it did when they first came to the chamber to find the way out, and once out, they started walking faster.
Although there was no real danger following them, they just felt uncomfortable staying around the place where something had just made a whole ruin disappear. The cave floor was still as slippery as when they came, so although they wanted to get out quickly, they still had to be careful. They didn't want to slip and get impaled by a stalagmite.
Valentine and Luuk got out of the cave safely some moments later. They sat on the ground and panted while resting. They felt much more tired than when they fought a ghoul for some reason. However, in the forest, they were not completely safe yet, so they had to get going right after they recovered some energy.
Once feeling rested, the two men got up and went back to the entrance of the forest, following the same path that they had taken to get there. After walking for some time, they arrived at the creek again, but this time there was no Graham to stop the flow of the water. Valentine looked at Luuk and the latter shrugged. He really didn't think he could steal the water's ability to make clothes wet because it didn't work that way.
The two men put their feet in the water and the cold sensation quickly spread throughout their bodies. They put their other feet down and tried to quickly cross the stream. Their shoes had all gone wet and the water seeped into their pants. It was a very unpleasant feeling.
Once they were across, Luuk quickly chanted.
"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare the water on my pants and shoes mine!"
He made a swiping motion with his right hand and suddenly water started dripping from his palm. His pants and shoes were now magically dry. He repeated the same thing with Valentine's clothes and shoes as the targets, and once more, water appeared on his hand and he let it drop to the ground below. Both of them were now dry and continued their way out of the forest.
They arrived at the periphery of the forest not too long after and quickly walked to the side of the street to stop a public motor carriage that drove by. It didn't take long for them to find one because the street was still busy at that hour. They got into the motor carriage and told the driver to take them home to Tuinstraat.
The ride home took them longer than the ride there because the traffic was worse. They paid the driver and went into the apartment building where they lived.
"Do you want to watch the divination?" asked Valentine to Luuk as they were walking up the stairs.
"Why not?" he accepted the invitation eagerly.
The two men went to apartment number 23 with the sign 'Hymes Detective Agency' on the door. Valentine unlocked the door and entered his apartment, followed by Luuk behind.
"Wait here," said Valentine to his guest.
Luuk took a seat on the sofa comfortably, slouching on it. Valentine went to his bedroom and lied down in the bed still with his coat on. Once he closed his eyes, he fell asleep only seconds later and Graham woke up in his place. He quickly got up and went back to his office where Luuk was waiting.
"Come here," beckoned Graham as he sat in his office chair.
Luuk got up lazily from the sofa and sat on the chair opposite Graham. The latter reached into his pockets and took out all the items that they had got from today. On the desk in front of them, there was a pale leather belt, an expensive-looking brown wallet, a hunting knife with a red gemstone embedded on it, and three small gemstones of different colors. There was a red one, a green one and an orange one, each the size of his thumb tip. The wallet, hunting knife, and gemstones were the five valuables that look had stolen from their target while the belt was what they got from the skeleton in the ruin.
Graham took out his lighter and lit it. After that, he concentrated and repeated a question in his mind.
'What are these gemstones?'
Slowly an image appeared in the flame and the two men looked at it closely. It showed a handwritten note with the drawings of gemstones with different colors and only the texts next to the red, green, and orange gemstones were not blurred out.
'The red agate has the power of adding a burning effect to weapons, and the potency of the burning effect depends on the size of the gemstone and the power of the Jeweller embedding it.'
'The verdelite had the effect of boosting the wearer's recovery speed and elevating the mood, making the wearer more resistant to negative effects. The potency depends on the size and the power of the Jeweller.'
'The Spessartite garnet is a very rare gemstone that has the ability to boost the wearer's strength, speed, and stamina, similar to that of a War Marcher's War Drum, but weaker. The potency depends on the size of the stone and the power of the Jeweller embedding it.'
After reading the note, the image disappeared slowly.
Graham looked at Luuk and said, "You should become a Jeweller faster so we can make use of these gemstones ourselves,"
"I'll do the ritual tonight, don't worry," replied Luuk shortly.
Graham then put the pale leather belt in front of him and concentrated on the flame again.
'What is the effect of this belt?'
The flame burned brighter and formed an image gradually. It showed a person wearing the belt fighting an enemy, and after the enemy had used their ability, the wearer of the belt was somehow able to use the exact same ability that the enemy had shown. After that, the image disappeared and strangely, knowledge got transferred into Graham's and Luuk's brain who had seen the image.
Graham focused on the new piece of knowledge in his brain and it turned out to be the detail of the effect of the pale belt in front of him.
"Did you also get it?" asked Graham to Luuk.
"Yes. Apparently this belt is called Purloin," replied Luuk.
"It allows the wearer to use a weaker copy of someone's ability. It's limited to two copied abilities and two uses per day per copy. That means in total the wearer can use four copied abilities per day. This is interesting. However, any mediums or rituals required in the original ability will still be needed, so it can be useless if we copy the wrong ability," added Graham, "However, the belt also has negative effects. First, will announce the wearer's presence occasionally to enemies, just like how it got our attention back then. And the second, using copied abilities takes much more power than the original does, and the method to copy an ability is only by seeing the ability being used first, so it can be dangerous sometimes,"
The belt was so far the most powerful item he had found despite its negative effects, and he wanted it for himself because it would complement his abilities well if he could copy Luuk's theft power and perhaps someone else's. However, he didn't know how to convince Luuk to let him have it without using his persuasion power.
"You can keep the belt if you allow me to keep the rest of the loot," Luuk said suddenly, and then added, "And help divine the next contract scroll for me,"
"Deal!" replied Graham immediately.
With the battle loot out of the way, now he only had to divine the main dish: the mysterious text under the relief.
Graham picked up a pen paper and wrote on it the text carved at the bottom of the relief from memory. He couldn't divine the carving directly because the ruin blocked his divination last time. Once the text that looked almost exactly the same as the carving was written on the paper, he picked up his lighter again and lit a fire once more. He was concentrating on the flame in front of him while Luuk watched closely as an image started to appear from the flame not long after.
In the image, there was the same text that Graham had written on paper that was in a language they didn't understand. Soon after, another text appeared and floated above the original one, and the new text was in modern Tulpan, which they could understand right away. Graham and Luuk read it carefully.
'Knight Furcas valiantly leading twenty legions of spirits against a damned Cherub with his degenerate army of angels'
After they had finished reading it, the image slowly disappeared and strangely, the ink on the paper also burned, leaving just a blank piece of paper on the desk.
Luuk looked up and saw Graham, who was still holding a lit lighter in his hand, in deep thought, and the latter's expression showed a slight shock.
"What did you find out?" asked Luuk inquisitively.
Graham slowly looked up and made a serious expression.
"Did you get a line in an unknown language when you have pleased your Deity?" he asked weightily.
"Yes. Is it related to the text just now?" replied Luuk.
Graham nodded, and his face was like someone who had just gotten an important revelation.
"Furcas seems to be the true name of my first Deity. It's a depiction of the Deity of Fire Divination!"
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein