Obscure

Chapter 1, Act 1.

Heroes of this land,
Long do they reign.
And those who bring about darkness,
Shall hang their head in shame.
                            -----

The Queen was dead. So were the ladies of the court. Scattered all around the room, lying lifelessly on the ground, with expressions of joy and horror plastered on their now dead faces. The queen was still holding a broken teacup from her favourite ceramic collection. Lady Nada had specially ordered it from Tstariya's Tinkering Pots – a shop well known for producing handmade cutlery of special kinds.

That brings us to Lady Nada, who was sagging by the door, half flopped on the table resting beside it and half dangling off it. Lady Sarine was wedged between the bookshelf that stood behind her and the piece that fell on her, her mouth still hanging open from the surprise, but surely dead.

A few other ladies died there as well, but they don't matter, not yet.

And where was the King now? Nowhere to be found.

But that was all in the past. The past of the past.

Treasure Hunting – It Begins

Taherah woke up with the hushed sounds that weren't as quiet as the person whispering them tried the voices to be. She groaned and tucked her head under the blanket, not ready to leave her comfortable sheets.

"Wake up!" The figure standing beside her bed – or what's left of it -, jolted her with enough force to imbalance the creaking resting place of hers and, on the floor, she was. She knew who it was and with a groan loud enough, she proceeded to blindly land a punch on the hardly visible silhouette.

"Nghh! Is that Vlarian- The Arrogant I hear?" He stifled a cry of pain effectively while punching her back on her arm and also trying to keep the voices down, avoiding waking up her chamber mates in the process of revenge. Both very good at keeping it down, or so they thought. She hated waking up, she hated the idea of waking up and if it wasn't for the work, she would have nested inside her blanket for God knows ages.

Vlarian dragged her up, holding the fabric of her tunic when she refused to get up decently, and pulled her out of the chamber, into the connected tunnel without giving much attention to the large steps she was attempting to make to keep up with him. The commotion was enough to get her out of her sleep, her eyelids shot up and a sigh made its way out of her mouth. It was the realisation or the defeat, she didn't know. She should have been used to now but no matter how many times he dragged her off her bed and shook the life out of her, she would be the same every single time, dying to sleep.

Being the tall man that Vlarian was, taking steps thrice the size of hers wasn't very unusual of him – keeping in mind they had to rush, the size and speed were justifiable but not to her. That wasn't the only reason, he had some of his own too, she contemplated.

It was dark around these passages and only a few torches lit the way. The tunnels were cramped and worn, though they had seen better days. Everyone wondered how they are still standing after the days they had seen, the bad ones but it was home to Taherah and the likes of her, so they treated it like one. It's been long they have shifted here now and even the rotten ends of this place looked nothing but comfort.

The place where Taherah, Vlarian, and the likes of them lived, was called Shadow Vaults – commonly known as the Barrica Vaults of Ajhara – the fallen Kingdom of the great King Sulemar. These vaults were used as storage at first, by the King, with different tunnels containing different types of goods and even named after them and were made in the shape of a Sectopus, the seven tunnels of the vault connecting to a common area called the Head – that's where Vlarian and she were heading.