The Time of the Hidden

The Ruins of Velberis

The continuation of our journey was long and uneventful. The next couple days were filled with forests, a few speckled villages, and coated with endless tiring walking, until I began to notice something I'd never seen before. Plots of ground were charred to the core. They appeared to hold no life in them, and could never maintain life. The spots radiated a cynical feeling as I passed the spotted blight of the woods.

"What are those black spots in the woods?" I asked Theo while eyeing the land wearily.

"There battle scars on the land from an ancient battle. The wounds were deep and they never healed. Now, nothing can grow there."

"What could have done that kind of damage?"

Theo shrugged his broad shoulders. "No one really knows. A lot of knowledge was lost after the darkening."

"The darkening?"

Theo stole a side ways glance at me with a perked eyebrow.

"What's the eyebrow for?"

"Sorry, it's just sometimes I forget how much you don't know."

"Well it's not like there was anyone to teach me any of this stuff."

Theo shrugged. "Your Dad could have."

This made me stop. "Wait. Are you telling me my father new about all of this!" I motioned to the world around me.

"Well...yes. How do you think he met your mother?"

I narrowed my eyes into thought. Dad new about everything all the I time and he never said anything to me? Why didn't he? The thought of him knowing about everything picking about my brain every so often, but this was the first time it was full view.

I tried to pull my mind away from the subject, it was a conversation for the ideas back with Dad. How long would that be? I frowned on the unsure days ahead of me. I have no idea how long this journey would take. Or if I would return. I tried shaking away the dark thoughts away by distracting my mind.

"So back to my question," I continued walking with Theo. "What's the darkening?"

"It began when the Sith Othwan disappeared. Chaos and desolation spread over the worlds when the balance the Sith Othwan brought was lost. A lot was lost in the time. A lot of knowledge."

"It sounds a bit like the dark ages." I mutter to myself.

"Exactly."

"What?"

"You said it sounded like Earth's dark ages, and that's exactly what it is. The dark ages was a piece of The Darkening."

"Hmm, interesting...but What happened to the Sith Othwan?"

"They just vanished. At the end of the Last Stand of Velberis, they just disappeared. In fact they went missing here." I looked ahead to see a massive stone wall in the distance.

The wall seemed to rot with age, sitting crumbled and picked at by the years. It's rough stones fading black with the destruction in the world. The wall was lifeless, though not completely dead. It felt incapable of change as I neared it, like a static zombie.

I attempted to imagine the wall in its golden years. I saw it standing strong and tall shining in the sunlight, with smooth silver stones perfectly fit together, showing the strength of Velberis.

"What happened here?" I whispered to Theo, as if trying not to disturb the unsettled rock.

Theo wore a frown. "It was the last stand of Velberis, the city of the sword. This battle destroyed the city and launched the darkening. This is the first time I've seen the ruins myself." He said in nothing more than a whisper himself.