Tales of Astora: Legacy

Chapter 85: Diary of a woman

Chapter 85: Diary of a woman

Days have passed since the undead sage Theoron, now known as Noroeth the lich, has locked himself inside the study at the demon lord's castle without even taking a single step outside. After having asked Lilith to warn everyone not to disturb him under all circumstances if she ever wanted to see these scrolls analyzed, the sage has drown himself ever since in this mountain of books he has gathered from both the archives of the Vault and the ridiculous amount of texts from the Artificer's mansion. Driven by both his passion for grasping ancient knowledge as well as to solve the crisis at hand, Noroeth was determined to find out the mysteries behind the Oaths made between the old demon lords and the Artificer.

But that was only one of the many things he must uncover from these old scriptures. The matter of Akroma being buried in the underground of Ragna has raised some serious concerns, although the only people who knew or were informed about it were Lilith, Archna the Spider Queen and Noroeth himself. The reason for this secrecy was to limit the knowledge of this dangerous weapon from being spread around, preventing people from using it or accidentally awakening it. For now, the only measure that has been taken so far was scouting the continent using the spiders' network to make sure there would be no trespassers who could disturb Akroma. As for the rest, the Goddess could only hope that an effective countermeasure would be developed in time before something bad happened.

However, the biggest problem of analyzing these texts would be the translation of the old language used. The process took a lot of time since the language was now dead and long lost, only found in very few ancient scriptures. Thankfully, the sage possessed centuries worth of knowledge and experiences in this kind of task, making the process relatively easier for him than someone else doing it. Of course, that was not to say that it was simple to do. And so the translation was ongoing, slowly but surely. Yet even though there have been some progresses, the few words he has translated so far did not make any sense and only added to the mystery.

In addition to this, Noroeth has also found a diary which seemed to belong to Tia, the wife of the Artificer and probably the closest person to this mysterious character. But could her diary actually contain important information that could help him solve this mystery?

"Hmmm....so far nothing relevant. Only babbling about her daily life with her husband...Now I feel guilty for reading this woman's diary." The lich sighed. He has tried to skim through this diary to quickly get back to the translating task in hope of finding something interesting but to his dismay, there was nothing. The diary only spoke about their normal daily lives with some moments of drama but absolutely nothing about what Noroeth was looking, at least based on what he has read so far.

But then, after hours of examination, something odd came up.

"Day XXX

Today, Marcus finally succumbed to my begging. I knew he has been doing something down there at his facility for years but my stubborn husband would not let me to see what it is. He always said that it was still under construction so it might be dangerous me for to be there. Such a worried man! I know that I am not the strongest woman out there because of my illness but he is just too overprotective. I can handle myself.

Still, that is until now. Finally I will be able to see what Tartarus is.

Looking forward for tomorrow's visit."

"Tartarus? Isn't that the thing in the underground of the castle of which Mephisto always talked about? I thought it is just a cave to hide our troops? " Murmured Noroeth before resuming his reading.

"I was wrong.

Marcus has committed a terrible mistake. I thought he was doing something good, something that would help people. I don't know much about the order and politics of the world nor am I interested in finding out but I can say with certainty that Tartarus will not help anyone if it is unleashed. That thing should have never been created.