Enderverse: The Virtuous Knight

Chapter 3: "The Key to the Portal Gate"

The sun above the dark town began its descent down into the far horizon. It was only a few more hours until the light from the sun will begin to fade away, and as the moon appears from the other side of the horizon. As of now, Felix and his squadron were still searching for the artifact in the town.

Felix stepped onto the dead lawn that belonged to a large, two-story house. The house itself was in a state of complete disrepair and ruins. The wooden boards that made up the outside walls of the house were rotten and decayed, and the windows were all broken, with shards of glass sitting below the windows that were once their undisturbed home. Just by looking or being near this house had brought an uneasy feeling.

Felix didn't say or think anything about the house, as he only had one goal in mind that he cared about; to find the supposed 'holy' artifact. Near the front of the pathway that lead to the house's entrance was a heavily dented and beaten-up blue mailbox. Felix looked inside the mailbox, only to find nothing inside, and instead the mailbox was filled with just rust and dirt. Upon closer inspection, Felix saw some scratch marks on the side of the mailbox. These weren't ordinary scratch marks however, as these were scratch marks that formed two words.

"KANE RESIDENCE"

Felix said to himself. Upon reading the words etched into the mailbox, he learnt that this large and possibly prestigious house had belonged to the family name, Kane. Felix had a slight feeling that this family should be a name he should know, but he didn't find the family name familiar, this was his first time finding about the Kane family.

Felix looked at the dark house once again. He took a deep breath and began walking to the entrance of the house. As he took each step, he could feel and hear the pebbles of the pathway break and crackle beneath his feet. This was the only thing he could hear. When Felix reached the end of the pathway, there was an entrance. Felix reached his right hand to the door knob, but he didn't feel anything. In fact, the doors that once stood where the door should've been were somewhere else; Felix looked down, and sure enough, he saw a brown, broken door in front of his feet on the ground. The beaten-up state of the door led Felix to believe the house was broken into by thieves, and they kicked the door down to steal potential valuables.

Felix stepped to the side and walked past the broken down doors to avoid further damage to them, not like it matters anyway, and he looked around. In front of Felix was a set of stairs leading up to a second floor, the stairs itself appeared broken with holes in each step, and it looked like it was about to collapse the moment it took on more weight. Felix decided to not bother with the stairs for now.

To the left of the staircase was a doorway, missing its' door once again, and a closer look into the doorway revealed a room that appeared to be a kitchen. Just from standing at the entrance, he could see that the drawers and cabinets were all opened and empty and full of dust and cobwebs; another example of thieves coming to this house and looting it.

Felix looked to his left and there was a hall with several doors on each side; much like the entrance doors, some of the doors in the hall were kicked down from their hinges. Felix looked to his right, and saw a large room connected to the main hall; the room he was in now. From here, he could clearly see half of the large room, and from here he could see that the room was completely trashed; tables were flipped, chairs were thrown, and bookshelves were knocked down. You could feel the small amount of dust in the house being sucked into your nostrils as you breathe.

Time to search this place.

Felix decided to start searching for the artifact in the large room to the right of him. He stepped over the broken entrance doors again and entered the room. As he did, the amount of dust grew, and breathing got difficult. Now that he was inside the large room, he could see the the other half of the room which he could not see previously. There were only more bookshelves and chairs, but these were not thrown around, and stood upright like normal. There was also a large fireplace which upon closer inspection, was full of burned remains of mainly wooden logs, but also pieces of paper ripped from books. Felix looked down at the ground and saw that the wooden floorboards were dusty and rotten. But, in front of the fireplace, there was an unusual square made from the dust. Inside the square, the floor there was completely clean and the floorboards seemed new. This clean section of the dirty flooring seemed unusual, but Felix didn't pay any mind to it, and forgot about it.