Chapter 580 - Naga Temple (Patreon)

Hera and Shane spent a couple of hours translating the writing on the wall. The Blessing Ceremony seemed to be a religious prayer of sorts, not a spell that would make something. Another interesting thing was that it was supposed to be performed by a single person at a time. Everything else looked like the crazed ramblings that should be written in a journal. The biggest problem they were having was identifying the actual words used in that writing. Shane had to take a picture of everything with her tablet to see the infrared that would reveal the missing part of the language. On the other hand, Hera could just use her [Observe - Red Sight], but she was nowhere near as proficient as her friend in translating the Naga language.

Aside from the ceremony, the most interesting part so far was the name of the statue. It was right behind it, on the wall. The being depicted was called Kcetzal, and it was the guardian beast of the Naga. Shane turned to Hera, reading that, "Wasn't Chika supposed to be a guardian beast?"

"I think so… actually, no. I think she was like the child of a guardian beast, or Darni wanted to make her his guardian beast. Or just a new guardian beast. I honestly can't remember. Did you ever find out what exactly a guardian beast is?"

"I never told you? They are not that uncommon in older cultures. It's basically a symbiotic relationship between a group of people and a monster. Like, the tribe or whatever feeds and helps the monster grow and become stronger, and in exchange, the monster protects that tribe. In some cases, the creature might even get to the point of giving skills or spells to the people or just letting them raise its children," Shane frowned while looking at a piece of writing, "Do you have any idea what this means?"

Hera looked over and, after a moment, reached out to draw the letters with her hand, "I think this would be like an Skch, then here is Vri. This part looks like it's the beginning of the one going down, so you can ignore those lines. If I got this right, then it would be… 'Hate this island.'"

"Oh… so all this would be the same?" Shane gestured to a large portion of the wall with similar words written maniacally. Some parts even looked like they were scratched by hand instead of made with some carving tools.

"I think so…. Why do you think they hated this place so much?" Hera asked.

"Maybe because they were alone? I mean, from what we gathered that Naga was already alone when they were in the Wailing Valley, right? Then they continued to be alone in the Seven Islands and then here. Maybe it took a long time for them to manage to leave. I mean, according to what we know, they were traveling alone all that time, so they might be starting to go a bit insane with the lack of contact with others," Shane suggested while continuing to translate the walls. Even if they had already agreed that this section was all the same, she was trying to see if there were no hidden messages or passages that strayed from the rest in this mix.

Hera turned to the other side, to a part of the wall that looked very similar to the one Shane was looking at, but the words seemed different. The 'Hate island' was still present, but there were also mentions of a storm, how it was awful and terrible, but in the end, there was a single line that read 'Missed storm.' What made this even weirder was that this phrase specifically didn't seem as frantic as the rest. It was even… sad somehow. Hera was not a linguist of any sort. Her only hint about it was how the carving looked against the wall. The ones talking about how much they hated the island were deeper and had sharp edges, while the one about the storm was softer and shallower.

Continuing her translation, she saw how the emotions seemed to take a turn. Instead of the anger of hating this place, everything seemed sad and hopeless. Phrases like 'Die here' and 'Why bother?' could be seen repeatedly, along with several other messages that showed how depressed the Naga was. There were even a couple of mentions of suicide. However, after that one mention at the corner of the wall right behind the statue, things changed once more. Starting from the next wall, the writing made more sense. Well, as much as the Naga writing made sense. Even now, they had some trouble understanding things.

They didn't use almost any function words like 'The,' 'is,' or 'and,' even pronouns were rare. Shane believed this was because they had more indicators than the actual words to convey a message. Instead of just saying 'I,' 'you,' or 'they,' they would place some sort of pheromone or smell-based marker to explain what they wanted to say. But since Hera, who was the person closest to a Naga that existed, couldn't see those markers, they probably didn't have a way of getting those missing pieces. There was also a chance that those smells faded with time. Maybe it was something that would only last a few thousand years, and since the Naga didn't exist for that long, they never had the need to develop something that could still be read eons in the future.

Hera told Shane about the change, and they started translating these more coherent parts of the text. By the looks of it, it was a journal. The first entry had the label 'Day 4031,' but that didn't mean the Naga stayed here for over ten years. Another unique quirk of their language was that dates should be read backward. So this was, in fact, day 1304. That still meant that the Naga was here for three and a half years, or at least he spent that time writing that journal. Hera frowned, seeing that number.

"Don't worry so much. They said they missed a storm, and that number of days doesn't mean they were stuck here for that long. There is still the possibility of the Naga writing the journal even before they arrived in this room," Shane tried to cheer Hera up.

"Yeah. I know. I just think it's a shame. If they were a bit more consistent and wrote when they missed the storm, we could get an idea of how long it took for a storm to show up," Hera replied.

"I could ask that when it's my turn to ask questions," Shane suggested.

"Sure, but that is not going to be a cheap question, and you know it," Hera replied and continued reading. The first few entries had nothing interesting. It was just some ramblings about the type of food they ate or how they exercised. Then it changed to some mentions of Abyssia and how they couldn't bring themselves to blame the people of Sky for what they did. Unfortunately, those were the only passages that were worth anything. Everything else looked more like something they were writing to keep their minds busy.

"I think this ritual, the Blessing Ceremony, I mean, was helping them a lot," Shane said before pointing out the days when the ritual was mentioned on the wall. The Naga did that ritual once every two days, but then it became more frequent until it reached a point where they would do it once a day, "Do you mind if I try doing it? Maybe it is linked to a spell, or there is something in the room that would trigger once I do it."

"I get what you mean, but shouldn't I be the one to do it? What if you are right, but the spell or whatever also checks if you are a Naga or not?" Hera suggested.

"That's even more reason for me to try it. If nothing happens, you can go after me. It doesn't seem like it would take that long. The only issue is that we don't have a candle, but I suppose I could enchant something to burn during the ceremony," Shane looked around before pulling some napkins from her bag. She took two, passed one for Hera, and then turned to the wall with the instructions, "Now… how can we make that circle?"

"Oh, I have a way," Hera shook her bracelet and told the snakes that came out to form that symbol. It was a circle with several lines inside that would spin around themselves and connect to others, but the Empress didn't even have to give any orders. The bracelet itself said that the snakes could be used to perform Naga rituals, and it seemed like they already knew what to do.

With that, Shane began the ceremony. It wasn't something long. It just involved speaking a few words and thanking the statue for protecting her while the candle was lit. After a few moments, she had to make a few simple movements, raising her arms in different directions and bowing to the statue. Finally, she had to whisper some words into the candle, which had to be in plain English since they didn't know how to speak Naga. As soon as the words left her mouth, the flame flared and began burning brighter than it ever had before.

Hera was in the corner of the room watching the entire ceremony, and she noticed that when Shane started speaking, all of her snakes, who were still making the symbol in the ground around her, began to channel some mana to the statue. It wasn't their own mana but some mana coming from Shane herself. After the flame died out, nothing happened, and Hera saw how the mana reached the statue, but it all spilled out as if it was a river hitting a wall. 

"What just happened?" Shane asked when the makeshift candle was snuffed out.

"The circle was trying to do something with your mana. Did you feel it being pulled?" Hera tried to see more of the mana, but it all vanished when the 'candle' went out.

"Not really," Shane pulled her status window, "No, hang on. I'm missing a little bit of mana, but less than what I used to cast that spell. I don't know how much it was exactly."

"Humm… Let me try it. Can you light another napkin?" Hera took Shane's spot and started performing the ceremony, just as her friend did. She had to be careful not to get distracted by her snakes as they started to pull mana from her. However, Armory was still on her head, and through the tiara, the Empress knew what was happening.

 The circle created by the snakes started pulling some of her mana when she started speaking the words and carried it to the statue. When the mana finally reached it, the winged serpent seemed to accept it instead of blocking it as it did with Shane's. The flame flared up even more, and the fire engulfed the statue, making the scales glow in a bright orange while the feathers turned a deep shade of red. The pillar that was being used as a support to keep the sculpture's shape shifted, and from the center, a piece of the rock slid down, revealing a hidden compartment. Inside that, there was a thick journal and an odd piece of ebony sitting by the side.

"What's that?" Shane gasped.

"I don't know. Hang on," Hera looked at the statue and reached out, taking the journal. Nothing seemed to happen as Kcetzal maintained the glow and the colors that it had just acquired. Passing that to Shane, the Empress went for the piece of wood next. However, the moment she touched the ebony, the winged serpent roared and flapped its wings before unhinging its jaw and swallowing Hera whole in a motion that was too quick for anyone to react.