Act 1: The mysterious stone tablet - Chapter 4

It was slightly disoriented that Kyusaku woke up the next day. Still half-asleep, he searched for his glasses and it took him a few minutes to remember where they were. The dark ruins still surrounded them, the purplish stone they were carved in illuminated by their campfire, which had almost gone out.
He threw some more wood in it, and noticed the food that had been left there for him. It was only then that he realized his partner was nowhere in sight, and he couldn't find any trace of where he could have gone. Miya... I hope you're not getting in danger while I'm sleeping, he wondered with a sigh as he took a seat in front of the fire to eat.

His ears twitched at the sound of footsteps echoing in the empty streets, and he didn't even need to turn around to know who they belonged to.

"You're finally awake," Miyaji commented as he came back from who knows where, a lantern in hand. "It's rare to see you sleep so long."

"Well, I didn't dream, for once," the elf said with a shrug and quickly finished his meal.

"So that's why. I wonder where those dreams come from..."

"I would also like to know, but there's more important right now," Kyusaku declared, crossing his arms. "First of all, where were you?"

"You were taking an awfully long time to wake up, so I decided to go look for a path towards the palace."

"And?"

"I found one. But it's a bit odd..."

"Odd how?" The elf inquired, arching a brow in confusion.

"... Well, you'll see when we get there."

Intrigued, the elf hurried to pack their stuff and followed him through the streets.

"Ahh, being an archivist really is my favorite thing," Miyaji commented, stretching his arms as they left their camp.

The elf looked back at his partner, wondering what he meant by that. Knowing him, he doubted that the job itself was what Miyaji liked. At least, he was pretty sure it wasn't the research and theory part of it that he enjoyed. It was more probable that he found the adventurous side of it exciting. Yeah, that sounds more like him.

"What do you like that much about this job?" He finally asked, curious, as they made their way through the silent ruins. "I have a hard time believing you enjoy working for the Archives that much..."

"Isn't it obvious?"

"... No, not really."

"Well, I get to work with you."

The elf was left speechless for a moment, stopping in his tracks until his partner tugged on his sleeve to get him to move again.

He failed to comprehend how he could be the reason Miyaji enjoyed this job, especially when so many people before the redhead had quit because of him.
For decades, his Master's room remained vacant; there was a point where he had a new partner every other week. One of them even left after only a few hours!
That someone would willingly stay was already hard enough to accept at the time, but that he even enjoyed this job because of him? Now that was even harder to believe.

"I... I'm not sure I understand...?" Kyusaku said, completely confused.

"Well, exploring ruins on your own is boring. Doing research on your own is boring. Being an Archivist on your own must be an incredibly boring job," his partner pointed out. "Doing this with you makes it less boring."

And he was right, Kyusaku acknowledged as he thought back to the decades he spent working alone, drowning himself in his research so he wouldn't have to feel the void his Master left behind.

He shook his head and chased those thoughts away. "Still, I'm not the most entertaining Archivist around. Probably the least entertaining, now that I think about it..."

"I don't know what you're talking about. To me, you're plenty entertaining."

The elf let out a sigh. "... Now that, I doubt."

His gaze wandered along the painted walls around them, imagining what they could have looked like in their prime.

Miyaji chuckled. "You're always like this."

"Like what?"

"You close yourself off from others because you don't want to get attached."

"... Now you didn't have to point it out," The elf grumbled, following behind with his arms crossed over his chest; not being able to deny it was pissing him off even more. "My unhealthy coping mechanisms are none of your business."

"Of course they are, you're my partner."

Kyusaku found himself at a loss of words again. Again. This is starting to become redundant, he thought, but he couldn't stop a slight blush creeping onto his face. How annoying. Though, at this point, he couldn't tell if he was more annoyed at his partner or at himself.

"... Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it," Miyaji said all of a sudden, breaking the silence. "You scared me when you fell, and now I'm saying lots of unnecessary things."

The elf wasn't sure what to make of this. Miyaji was worth being open with, he thought.

"It's okay, you're right anyway," he reluctantly admitted. "For a while I pushed people away on purpose. All the Archivists that helped raise me were gone and I didn't have anyone left that I was close to... I just wanted to be left alone for a while, however long that "while" may need to be, but they kept pushing me to take a new partner."

"And eventually you got known as the grumpy sleep-deprived elf who is married to his work."

"That's right. At first, I did do it on purpose... but not anymore. I'm not trying to push people away, I just don't feel the need to have more people in my life. One Miyaij is more than enough; I've already got my hands full with you," he added with a sigh.

The redhead held back a laugh. "I'll take it as a compliment."

Miyaji led him through the ruined streets, the flame of his lantern flickering with each step and illuminating the art-covered walls. Kyusaku had no idea how he could have memorized the path or how he knew exactly where they were, but he still trusted him and followed after him.
He had never been good at directions anyway – even in the Archives, he constantly got lost, so it was better to let Miyaji deal with this.

After walking for about half an hour, they reached the entrance of a staircase that seemed to be leading to the bottom of the chasm.

"This is the only way to the palace," Miyaji confirmed. "All the bridges have collapsed. Or rather... I believe they've been destroyed."

"Could it be to keep bandits away?"

His partner shrugged and made his way down the stone stairs. Puzzled, Kyusaku hurried to catch up with him. As they went deeper and deeper, the light of the lantern revealed graffiti painted or directly carved into the walls. The elf stopped to examine them.

"Demons? What is this passage, exactly..."

"I'm starting to think that perhaps the bridges weren't destroyed to keep something out, but to keep something in."

"… You might be right."

After copying some of the graffiti in his notes, they resumed their attempt to reach the palace. They got to the bottom of the chasm, where a staircase on the other side led to the palace.

It seemed like they'd been walking for an eternity when they finally reached the top – and the palace carved directly in the mountain.

Exhausted, Kyusaku fell to his knees, panting and wiping sweat off his forehead.

"Why are there so many stairs here..." He whined, finally deciding to sit on the ground.

They took some time to rest and have lunch before exploring the palace – or what was left of it. For some obscure reason, it was in a completely different state than the rest of the city, which was barely damaged aside from erosion here and there. The palace, on the other hand, had clear signs of destruction.
It was completely empty, with no furniture or decoration safe for a few broken vases lying around. The paintings and murals all had parts that seemed to have been deliberately destroyed, as evidenced by the traces that were clearly those of a sword.

Pencil in hand, the elf approached one of the less ravaged murals and started sketching while Miyaji looked around. It was obvious that it had been done on purpose, and the only areas that were damaged all depicted the face of what seemed to be the same individual.

This was way too specific to be the work of bandits, and they were starting to see what might have transpired here.

"I'm getting the feeling that they didn't like their king very much," Miyaji commented, standing by his side and observing the mural, before turning to him again. "Did the tablet mention how he died?"

"Apparently he was afflicted by an illness that left him disfigured, and ended up killing him. But we can't know if it's the truth just from the tablet..."

After Kyusaku finished his sketch, they ventured deeper into the palace, hoping to find more information, though Kyusaku had a feeling that it would prove difficult this time. Archivists often spent days — even years in some cases — piecing together the clues they found in order to reconstruct history, so this wasn't exactly unusual and the elf had done it many times before.
Rediscovering how life was centuries ago, learning the names of people from another era and making sure their cultures were remembered was a beautiful thing, and the motivation of many Archivists.

However, it seemed the people who lived here didn't want their king to be remembered in the slightest.

The palace was actually a lot larger than Kyusaku expected. It didn't seem that big from the outside, but numerous rooms were carved directly in the mountain, along with a multitude of underground floors. They also found traces of other floors above ground, but they seemed to have collapsed a long time ago, maybe even before the kingdom was abandoned.

As they made their way through the different floors, Kyusaku noticed graffiti inside the palace too. The more he saw, and the more he felt that Miyaji was right in saying that these people probably did not like their king much.

At some point, they decided to separate in order to cover more ground, and Kyusaku tried his hand at deciphering some texts they had found while his partner ventured further in an attempt to map out the area and potentially find what they were really after: the king's tomb.

The both of them met again for lunch; Kyusaku sitting with notes scattered around him, and Miyaji with his neatly folded map of the palace.

"So, have you learned anything?" Miyaji asked over lunch.

"I got the gist of it. Well, mostly."

Kyusaku set his food aside and took out his notebook.

"It seems the last man who ruled this kingdom was quite something. Apparently, he wasn't very interested in his people; he was a passable king at best until an epidemic struck the kingdom," the elf explained.

"Ah, a classic."

"He didn't help his people at all, but things changed when he caught the disease which left him completely disfigured. He couldn't take it and became a tyrant who abused his people."

"And did he really die from the disease?"

"The records were rather... conflicting," he replied, scratching the back of his head. "There was no text actually describing his death, but I found some saying that he recovered from the disease before he became a tyrant. My guess is that he was assassinated."

"That's what I thought too; it correlates with the state of the palace..."

The elf let out a sigh. "True, but I'd really like to find his tomb..."

"Oh? Even though you can't handle the dead?" Miyaji teased, an amused smile appearing on his face at Kyusaku's reaction.

The elf felt a chill run down his spine and grabbed his arms in an attempt to comfort himself.

"I would rather not have to visit that place, but it's a precious source of information. I can't miss out on it. However..."

They had already explored a huge portion of the palace, but still no sign of the tomb. They only brought with them a few days' worth of food and their water was also running out quickly; they were out of time to explore this place.

Miyaji crossed his arms over his chest, a proud grin on his face. "Then you're gonna like what I found."

Miyaji took him to the deepest point in the palace, to a large cave shrouded in a darkness so thick that their lantern's light could barely pierce it. A thick cloud of dust surrounded them, disturbed by their footsteps, and an unpleasant smell permeated the air, prompting Kyusaku to cover his nose.
Vaults closed by heavy stone doors lined the walls of the cave, each decorated with murals depicting the life of those buried inside.

One of them, located further in the cave in an isolated corner, immediately caught his attention — it was the only one with no murals. Unable to contain his excitement, he rushed towards to inspect it more closely.

"This must be the one we're looking for..."

"Judging by the lack of decoration and the crude craftsmanship, probably. This king was really hated... I'll open the door," the redhead offered.

Miyaji was about to push the heavy stone door, when his partner stopped him.

"Wait, there's some text engraved here..."

He stepped back to have a better look, while the elf grabbed his notebook to check what he'd written on that ancient language.

"'May your eyes bleed and melt away if you dare gaze upon me.' This sounds like a curse," Miyaji commented after translating the text.

Shocked, Kyusaku turned to his partner with wide eyes. "You can already translate it from memory?! That's incredible..."

"Eh, not much. When you've lived as long as me, you become really good at stuff like this."

The elf rolled his eyes, putting his notes away. "And how long would that be?"

Miyaji shrugged. "A century? A millennium? Who knows! I stopped counting a long time ago."

"So you've lived for a long time, yet retain a youthful appearance; you have heightened senses and possess an incredibly strong and seemingly invulnerable body..." Kyusaku summarized before turning to his partner, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "I know what you are, you're a vampire!!"

His partner seemed surprised at the remark, but burst out laughing after a few seconds. "I'll admit I share some similarities with those walking corpses, but I'm very much alive. Try again," he added in between laughs, before taking a deep breath. Miyaji's expression became serious again and he placed his hands on the door. "Now, you better prepare yourself; who knows what we'll find inside..."