DECK Prologue

Chapter 3 - Tenebrion

 Ajax opened his eyes after the bright lights from the teleport faded away. He looked around the room but couldn't see anything because of how dark it was. Suddenly, he felt somebody bump into him from behind. Ajax immediately turned around and attempted to use his ability, but for some reason, he couldn't use it.

"Don't panic, it's me," said Cassia with a terse laugh.

"Why do they keep sending us into these stupid dark rooms?" complained Joy with a groan.

"The theme of this does seem to be light and dark, so we should keep an eye on anything light-related when we get shoved into these dark rooms," Artem noticed as he walked towards a wall and began feeling it, searching for a clue. Ajax and Cassia followed his lead, while Joy just sat down in the middle of the room.

"You do know that you have limited amounts of time right?" said a voice echoing from the ceiling.

"Here's a clue, follow the hints hidden in the room," finished the voice. A sound could be heard from the ceiling as the speaker retracted into the walls. The room fell into silence, Ajax and Artem scrambled around the walls trying to find anything, while Cassia advanced towards Joy, prepared to ask for something.

"Found something!" declared Artem as his hands reached an indentation in the wall. As he said that, the sound of steel screeching against steel was heard from where Ajax stood. Ajax reached down to pick up a handful of loose steel plates shaped randomly with uneven edges.

"You want me to toss it over?" asked Ajax as he turned towards the approximate area where Artem was.

"Sure," said Artem, prepared to catch the wrong incoming plates. Ajax created a thin layer of ice on the bottom of the floor and leisurely slid the plates over. Clang! The plates rang loudly as they impacted against the solid stone wall. Artem walked over and picked up the plates before walking back to the hole and trying to fit the pieces of metal into the hole. Each piece of metal was heavily attracted to the hole and stuck like a magnet in its designated spot. After the pieces were all inserted, a thin ray of light started to emerge from the spot in a circular pattern.

A rumbling sound could be heard as the center of the room started to fall apart. Joy dodged out of the way as a gap opened up in the floor under her. A strong beam of light erupted from the floor, revealing what was under the hatch, a statue of an angel slowly levitated out of the pit. Its four wings spread out, revealing its face, or rather, facial area, as a blurry layer of light remained around its head, hiding what was beneath.

The statue had bronze feet but the rest of it was made out of solid marble, with a bronze tint painted over the pure white marble that was only visible in the scratches on its side. At its feet, an unlit torch rolled around on the solid granite pedestal that arose with the statue. Bang! The hatch closed itself again as the statue landed solidly onto its pedestal.

Goddamnit, this again? Thought Ajax as he stared nervously at the only bright thing left in the room: the statue's blurred head. Gears could be heard as the wings gradually stretched out even further, blocking off a large part of the room. Suddenly, the torch on the pedestal spontaneously combusted into flames, lighting itself and creating a string of text with its flames.

"Who wants to pick it up?" said Joy with a trembling voice, as she laughed in terror uncontrollably. She slowly backed up farther and farther from the torch until she felt a stone hand grab her from behind. She screamed in horror as she backed away from the wall, which was now full of thousands of stone hands sticking outwards, frantically grabbing onto anything it can hold onto as if it were being dragged into the abyss. Drops of liquid started to drip off of the wings of the statue and onto the floor, echoing loudly against the confines of the room.