Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story by Kirill Klevanski (essential reading .txt) 📗

even fewer were those who had lived to tell their tale. Ash was one of the few, but, with Gods and spirits as his witness, he’d prefer it if he didn’t have to meet with someone like Hu-Chin ever gain.

“Here we are, at last!” Mary exclaimed when they came to a huge gate forged from black metal.

The heavy doors didn't seem to have opened for the last few hundred years. The ice that covered them had grown as thick as a young oak. And the higher you looked, the more dangerous the tips of the huge icicles glittered. The wind picked up and Ash felt as if he wasn’t looking at icicles but the fangs of a monster.

“But how do we get in...?” Mary wondered aloud.

Before anyone could voice their ideas, the flower in Mary’s hand began to rise into the air. It whirled around like a dancer, and then floated slowly toward the gates, where it froze for a moment. Ash noticed that large drops of sweat were rolling down Lari’s forehead, and that the knuckles that gripped the hilt of the blade were as white as his lips, which were drawn into a thin line. The rest of the Stumps were also on edge. Everyone was both horrified and intrigued by what the sleeping Graven’Dor had to offer.

“I’d rather you let it sleep,” Ash thought. “And Anna’Bre with it.”

As soon as these thoughts crossed his mind, the flower came to life again. The petals, each the size of a child’s fist, trembled, and gradually approached the ice covering the gates. The flower seemed to melt into crystalline crust, leaving a narrow tunnel behind it, that instantly filled with a thawed water. When the flower touched the gates and seemed to sink into them, the travelers were almost deafened by the thundering creaking and rumbling.

The age-old ice sheet cracked and shattered, the hinges screeched, having long forgotten how the touch of oil felt. What had once been a cobblestone floor now looked more like the floor of a cave. A torrent of violent wind burst from the dark, forcing the travelers to bend over in an attempt to protect their faces from the sharp ice that tore at their clothes and woolen cloaks.

“Oh, this is just great!” Blackbeard exclaimed, once again lamenting his poor beard. “Just one time, can I—”

“Quiet!” they hushed in unison, but it was too late.

The huge icicles, as if angered by his voice, cracked at the base. Like a rain of arrows, they fell upon the travelers. Ash struck the ground with his staff, and for a brief moment the party was covered by a sphere of fire. Less than a heartbeat later, the Stumps were drenched in a cool shower.

Blackbeard’s teeth clattered like castanets.

“W-What...?”

Before he could finish his question, Ash struck with his staff one more time, and the Stumps cried out from the heat that closed around them. All the moisture evaporated from their clothes, and with it, the remnants of their good mood. Ash felt uncomfortable under the angry stares of his companions, but no one dared do anything.

“Come on,” Mary ordered and led them inside.

The mage conjured a sphere of magic fire, and enveloped Blackbeard in it. Walking in front of them all, he lit the way for them. The dim light couldn’t completely drive away the darkness. Soon, the hall turned into a theater of shadows.

The ancient columns, stretching into the seemingly endless corridor resembling a patch of a moonless sky, sparkled with icy ornaments that snaked across the once-beautiful marble. Shadows, fleeing from the magic fire, hid in crevices, lurked in corners, and danced on the walls, frightening the travelers. What the universe had ordained as a harmless fragment of masonry, the theater transformed into something terrible.

The silence, lovingly nurtured over a millennia of slumber, trembled faintly from the grinding of teeth and the clang of weapons on the metal brackets of the scabbard. Alice was the most frightened of them all. She clung to Lari, who, although he was also scared, put on a brave face so that she wouldn’t be afraid.

Even Ash’s knees trembled with fear.

Once, while still sitting on the balcony in Mystrith’s palace, he picked up a collection of old legends. Some of the stories recorded and carefully passed down were covered with such a thick layer of dust that even a hundred dwarves wouldn’t be able to dig out its gems. Flipping through the pages of a children’s book, which wasn’t befitting for someone like him, Ash came across a surprisingly beautiful story. Like many others, it, too, boiled down to “love,” “compassion,” “honor,” “loyalty,” and other terms that he didn’t understand at the time. However, this didn’t make the “Legend of the King” any less interesting and beautiful.

It was in this story that the glorious adventures of the Last King, the first king-mage, were preserved. Born on the day that his village was burned, born out of a dead womb, he should have been the most terrible evil, but fate had something different in store for him.

The fickle mistress, who never let anyone fall in her favor, led the future legend along a thousand roads, put him through even more troubles and storms, graced him with curses and forgiveness, friends and enemies, love and death, until she finally put him on the throne. Never before, and never after, was there a time when the people lived better than under the rule of this lost king. Whether you were a noble with a lineage going back to the root of the tree of ages, or a simple shepherd who had recently carved his first pipe, the King was fair to all. But as any storyteller whose stories were their bread and butter say: “in any story, only the beginning and the end matter.”

Ash didn’t argue with this wisdom — the beginning was