The Stone Master, and The Blindfolded Creator

The Ruins

As the sun began to rise, casting her gleaming rays on the inhabitants of a sleeping village, one by one people began to wake up and begin their day. In a small house near the edge of town lived a man who always wore a blindfold. He was very mysterious, and didn’t talk all that often. Everyone thought he was strange, so he had no friends, but that never bothered him because he had a friend, once. The only person who could hold a conversation with him was the village elder. She lived more near the center of the village where others would come for her guidance. Or she would tell the village children stories of the past. Once upon a time, that man was one of those children, listening to her telling the story of the great war. It was his favorite story, sometimes you can catch him listening in on the stories.
    On this particular morning the man found himself walking to the old woman’s house. His chocolate brown hair bouncing with each step he took, hands in his forest green hoodie, the green earth patch visible on his shoulder. His black combat boots squished in the wet morning grass but at least his gray pants weren’t caked in mud this time.
    When he got to her house he knocked 2 times, and waited for a response.
    “Who is it?” Came a reply, however the voice sounded much too young and masculine to belong to the elder. But before I could answer I heard the old lady smacking someone with her cane and opened the door herself.
    “Ah, I thought it was you,” she cooed. Behind her was a young man wearing a blue shark onesie and sunglasses blushing like a school girl. “Don’t just stand there, come inside!” She shrieked. Not wanting to make her mad I stepped inside her cozy home.
    The 3 of us made our way to the living room. The old lady offered me a spot on the couch, and I sat down, while the young man sat on the other side. The old lady sat down on a rocking chair.
    “So, what brings you here today?” She asks. I looked over to the other man and feeling a bit shy I pointed to him, then to myself with a questioning look on my face. She seemed to get the question. “That's my grandson, his name’s Shark, Shark this is Sabre. There now you’re acquainted, tell me why you’ve come or leave.”
“Geesh old hag be nice to him!” Shark said. I was honestly surprised he said that, was he sticking up for me? “I get it, you're cranky because I’m late, but I told you me and the gang found some ancient ruins that we want you to check out.” Now this piqued my interest. I wonder which ruins he’s talking about?
    “And I told you to stay away from that section of the forest. And I FORBID you from entering those ruins!” She shrieked, was she scared? Or just plain angry? Either way, now I need to know more about these ruins, and why they're forbidden.
    “But Grandma!” Shark started.
    “No butts!” She countered. “I know you my dear, I know despite what I saw, you’ll end up in those ruins. SO if you’re going to go, leave me out of this!” She huffed.
    “Seriously we can go!” Shark beamed, "but what about the ancient writings?” He asked.
    *Huff * "Take him with you,” she said while pointing at me. “He can translate them better than I can.” Before I could protest, Shark was already in my face with stars in his eyes.
    “Wait really?!” He said like an excited kid when given candy. I could feel heat rising to my face because of how close he was, and I was embarrassed by my so-called “skill”.
    “I-I mean ye-yeah?” I stammered, internally cursing myself for doing so.
    “Cool! You’ve got to see these ruins, you'll love them!” He said, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the exit.
“B-but-!” I tried to protest but the elder just waved with a victorious smirk on her face. ‘I’ll get you for this you old witch!’ I thought.
He finally stopped pulling me once we were outside of the village. He led me through the forest on the NE side of the village. We walked for many hours, and didn’t arrive till noon. When we got to the ruins my breath was sucked right out of my mouth. They were huge, almost like a mini castle, but they were also familiar. Waiting by the ruins entrance were two other people. Both were wearing animal based onesies similar to Sharks. One wore a green tree frog with a gigantic tongue, the other was a moose with what looked like real antlers.
“Yo Shark you’re finally back!” The moose one shouted when he saw his friend.
“Dude who’s the newbie? And where's your grandma?” The frog man asked.
“Nathan, Moose, meet Sabre.” He said while gesturing to me. “Sabre these are my friends, the one in a moose hoodie is gorge, but we call him moose.” He said, gesturing to the moose man.
“Sup man, do you like moose milk?” He asked.
“And the Green guy is Nathan, but we sometimes call him Unspeakable.”
“Hey man, nice to meet you.” Nathan said, offering me his hand to shake. Hesitantly I shook it. These 3 didn’t seem like bad guys, and they certainly weren't like any of the villagers.
“Nice to meet you” I said while smiling.
“So Shark why’s he here?” Moose asked again.
“Oh right, my grandma didn’t want to come, but she said Sabre here is amazing at translating the ancient texts.” Shark explained.
“Can he decipher pictures too?” Asked Nathan. Looking at something near the entrance. Curious, the 3 of us walked over to see what he ment. And if seeing these ruins was a shock, I almost had a heart attack seeing those images. The others must have seen the look of shock on my face because Nathan asks,
“Hey man you ok?”
“Y-yeah…” I replied. Which was kinda a lie, I just couldn’t believe there was still one standing after all these centuries!
“What is it? What does it say?” Asked Shark.
“I-it’s not a message, it’s a warning.” I said. “This image with the caged animals and people means this place is a dungeon. And that mark at the top, it means these ruins date back to the great war.” The others stared at me slacked jawed. I don’t blame them, these dungeons were used to house dangerous prisoners during the war. And if this place belongs to the side of good, then some really bad and powerful creatures must be sealed within. I was about to say we shouldn’t go in, but it was too late. Their shock turned into smiles, and they started to plan where they would go, how they would fight, the fame, everything. It was nuts! This was going to end badly, I could tell. But I was dragged along with them. Being pulled deeper and deeper into the ruins, unaware of what was lurking inside.