Archidiam: a broken kingdom

Chapter 4: Daddy Luci

The trip took a total of about 30 minutes before they could see the castle in the distance. It was dark grey and huge. She could see at least 6 spires, there were probably more. There was one big tower in the middle with some sort of light shining inside it. The castle had a lot of rooms as she could tell from the windows. There was a 20 ft wall protecting the castle and guards were patrolling around it. Stella was impressed to say the least, she had never seen a castle before never mind one of this size.

Behind the castle, there was a gigantic, active volcano. It was probably 5 times as big as the castle. Compared to it, the castle looked like an ants nest. The lava pouring out of the volcano was flowing into a river. It flowed down the mountain and into a big lava pool next to the castle.

Surrounding the castle was a town. It had a market with small stores. The market was completely abandoned, and so seemed to be the town, only minimal movement could be perceived.

There were lamps all over the city, including the castle. But once Stella looked at the lamps closely, she realized that they weren't lamps, they were floating lava puddles. Some were high up over the town, others were low enough that if someone jumped, they could get burnt by the lava.

Around the market there were many tiny houses. Some were made out of stone, others were made out of metal, but the ones that stood out the most were made out of obsidian. Stella noticed that many of the houses were falling apart, especially the stone ones. Stella supposed it was because of the volcano, but her gut told her differently.

The wingers flew down to the castle, they landed running on the bridge between the town and the castle. Luckily, they stopped just before crashing into the castle door. Well it wasn't much of a door, more like bars.

The others started getting off the wingers, Stella was a bit intimidated by the height though. Mare, Ignis and Sombra jumped off the wingers and Stella was about to get down when the winger bucked her off. Since she wasn't ready for that, she fell off.

"Shit!" Stella screamed as she fell to the floor, but before she hit the ground, Mare's arms were wrapped around her holding her up.

"Be careful there Stella, you could've hurt yourself" said mare helping her stand up.

"Thanks......again..." she said a bit embarrassed.

"Are you OK Stella, you worried me!" said Ignis pushing Mare away and hugging Stella.

"Yeah...i'm..fine.......cant....breathe.." staid Stella struggling in the deathly hug.

"Sorry!" said Ignis letting her go.

"I think we should head inside, Lears is waiting" said Sombra guiding the group to the door

"Who's Lears?" asked Stella nervously

"Wait and see" said Sombra suspiciously.

The group headed to the door where a pair of guards were waiting.

"Who goes there?" asked one guard impatiently.

He looked like he was in his mid twenties, Stella couldn't see much through his armor, but the parts of her face she could see pointed to this fact. Hi armor was dark grey, it looked like steel, but perhaps lighter. He was wearing a helmet that covered his head and a scarf that covered his mouth and nose. He had a weird looking weapon attached to his hip. It was some kind of whip sword. It was curled but you could see its metal pieces.

"Oh shush you, you know who we are Dakleon" said Ignis to the guard.

"Its part of the protocol miss"