Ch. 75 - Dawn Temple
That structure beneath the thin mist stood upon an open clearing.
Without the shelter of forest leaves, the pure moonlight could fall freely upon the sacred flower beds, making the already luminous petals even more brilliant.
To avoid drawing attention, Tang Qi extinguished his torch and tethered the three horses to tree trunks at the forest's edge.
Borrowing the flawless moonlight, he looked back and noticed Catherine's expression seemed somewhat off:
"Are you alright?"
He assumed it was the thin, elongated wound on her face—treated only with simple herbal remedies—that was throbbing with pain again.
"Don't concern yourself with it."
Unexpectedly, a faint blush appeared on Catherine's cheeks.
She turned her head away, as if unwilling to let this topic continue.
Tang Qi realized what was happening—
Throughout this journey, he'd been held in the young woman's embrace, so that on the jolting horse, the softness against his back kept bouncing and bouncing...
Best not to dwell on these matters any further.
He quickly approached the structure.
This must be a temple that had fallen into ruin.
Tang Qi thought.
It wasn't grand, standing atop a low stone-built foundation, its entirety presumably constructed from marble.
The forest's humid climate and the temple's long neglect had caused what should have been white walls to appear as if covered by a thin dark green blanket—that was the damp moss and vines.
On some exposed grayish-white walls, dark water stains also snaked their way across.
The walls bore no ostentatious or ornate decorative patterns, remaining flat and smooth, instead revealing a simple, rugged quality.
The dome should have risen like a towering spire, but now had collapsed beyond recognition—
Without doubt, it must have once been glorious and brilliant.
Only the ravages of time had left traces of aging upon everything.
Yet it still resisted time, and so it remained standing.
Even in this boundless forest, gradually forgotten by all.
Only the flowers outside the temple, suffused with a soft glow, seemed to still record its past.
Like a hero in his twilight years.
"The scent ends here."
Anbi pinched her nose—no matter what she did, she could only smell the faint fragrance of flowers.
"We couldn't have taken the wrong path, right? This doesn't look like a place where someone deals with corpses at all. I'd sooner believe it was a priest's dwelling!"
"Perhaps precisely because he knew others would think that, he chose this hall?"
The trail ended right before their eyes. Even if they'd taken the wrong direction, they should thoroughly search the place before drawing conclusions.
Tang Qi approached, pressing his palm flat against the door, disregarding the cold, damp sensation as he slowly pushed forward.
The rusted door wasn't locked. Almost the moment he opened a gap, he caught a scent mixed with damp earth, moss, and rotting wood—a fresh coldness that pierced into his nostrils.
When fully opened, he discovered that due to the ceiling's collapse, debris occupied a considerable portion of the space. Mixed beneath the marble were shards of glass, making the interior not as spacious as he'd imagined—
But the dome was very high, with thick transparent glass embedded in the ceiling, allowing moonlight to filter into the room and illuminate the hazy dust before them.
"Water's dripping on my head..."
Melade rubbed his dirty brown hair, directing his eyeball upward to fly about. He discovered dew running along the stone walls, dripping into a puddle with a pleasant "ding-dong" sound.
Stonecrusher's boots stepped onto a red carpet that was more than half destroyed, his solid weight actually squeezing out the moisture it contained:
"This makes it even less likely."
He looked around, couldn't help but mutter,
"It looks pretty tall, but there's actually no second floor, and no rooms at all!
Apart from murals, there's just that destroyed statue and a few rotten pillars—
This place doesn't look like a church, but even less like somewhere for people to live."
"Then what do you think it looks like?"
Dwarves were masters of architecture; his opinion was especially crucial:
"Don't know, but it looks like a hall for worshipping something."
Indeed.
Tang Qi surveyed his surroundings and found there wasn't even a single device in the vicinity that could be called a hidden door.
And the statue at the far end was also damaged, with more than half its body mixed with the ruins, leaving only stone-carved plate armor boots.
Behind it was simply a stone wall, its murals blurred and unclear—impossible to tell which deity it represented or which epic it commemorated.
"Could we really have found the wrong path?"
Tang Qi couldn't help but feel confused.
He even somewhat suspected whether this 'Skeleton' had deliberately left traces, luring them here while he'd already returned to camp to slaughter everyone...
Not daring to jump to conclusions, he could only walk closer to that statue.
Only then did he finally find a tiny clue on the stone pedestal beneath the statue's feet:
"There's no corresponding symbol.
But the characters carved on it are...
'Dawn'... what?"
"It's all been eroded by water stains—how could anyone read it clearly?" Stonecrusher muttered.
Tang Qi could only speculate:
"'Lord of Dawn' Lathander?"
"What's that?" Stonecrusher blinked.
"A god of dawn who attempted to seize dominion over the sun. Spring, vitality, and renewal."
"From your Poet's Academy records?"
Only then did Tang Qi realize that because history couldn't be recorded, the footprints of deities had become increasingly distant, causing people to be increasingly vague about which gods they worshipped.
Only believers in the Holy City, or clergy like Father Lynn, could be certain about which lord they worshipped—
Tang Qi didn't know who either, but it definitely wasn't Lathander.
"But people even remember Gragas, yet such a famous deity is completely unheard of? Or perhaps they don't belong to the same pantheon..."
"What are you muttering about over there?"
"I'm saying this statue was definitely smashed by a dwarf."
Tang Qi compared the boots on the pedestal—the height was about level with a dwarf.
"Fuck off!"
Stonecrusher never expected this bard to be so petty.
Hadn't he just almost kicked his ass?
Tang Qi turned to Anbi:
"You can't smell even the slightest scent?"
The little girl shook her head, looking quite dejected:
"Anbi is useless..."
"You've already done very well."
Tang Qi sighed. No matter what, he could only accept this result.
But just as he was about to stand and leave, he heard Melade cry out:
"Look at the ceiling—what's that?"
Tang Qi looked up, noticing that although the roof was too lofty and most things were hidden in darkness, under the slanting moonlight, he could see there was nothing above.
However, he then realized that Melade's 'eyeball' was circling about the ceiling—
And it had the effect of seeing through illusions.
He quickly looked at Kuru:
"Use [Detect Magic] on the ceiling!"
Kuru didn't know how to use that spell.
But the wand he'd 'inherited' from Starshine could.
So the kobold activated the wand's spiritual light. A faint ring of light burst from the wand's tip, sweeping across the ceiling overhead, clearly revealing some slight distortion.
In the darkness, large, transparent, spherical glass panes embedded in four supporting stone pillars of the temple revealed themselves before their eyes.
Appearing simultaneously were hidden compartments in the pillars.
"A mechanism?"
Tang Qi approached a compartment. With just a light push, it suddenly flipped over, revealing something composed of gears and bronze...
A handle?
"What does this mean? Kuru, detect whether there are any traps on the handle."
Kuru complied, and soon shook his head: "No, traps!"
Only then did Tang Qi confidently grip the handle, realizing he could turn it.
As he attempted to do so, the subtle sound of grinding gears reached his ears.
Melade covered one eye, seeing everything on the ceiling clearly, and suddenly shouted:
"That glass mirror moved!?"