"Let us examine the exterior before entering this ominous place. After that, we will spend one month exploring the interior for anything that might be useful to the Avalon Society," Cate said as she began examining the writings on the walls.
Since the writing was very dense and done in hieroglyphs, the group had to use a spell to translate everything into the language each of them knew best. The Translation spell was very simple and common. Cate, the Mage Born, Mary, and Jordan all easily cast it, and Cate had to cast the spell onto Albrecht, who was a vampire and not a magician.
They began reading through the writings all over the pyramid. The hieroglyphs covered the pyramid from top to bottom. The vampire, who could fly, was in charge of reading from the upper parts of the pyramid. With their combined effort, they managed to read through everything and combine their notes in less than two days.
"Cosmic order is shattered. Subjects weep at chaos. The cycle of rebirth has fallen into darkness and the dead are forever doomed for the underworld. Death moves over the earth as all plants decay before the sight of the sun. The afterlife gains a new king."
These phrases were repeated all over the pyramid. In fact, they were the only things written. Cate and her team tried to decipher what these words meant but in the end, they could not reach a clear conclusion. Cate sent this information back to the society before they entered the pyramid. The entrance was wide open for anyone to go in as they pleased, but the dust on the floor showed that no one had entered this place in a very long time.
With the statues gone, the group entered the place without any issue. They moved through a long, dark corridor that seemed to have no end. Just when Cate was about to do something truly drastic, a light appeared at the end of the tunnel. They had not faced any traps, and there were no more guardians. They emerged into a large golden hall that was filled with nothing but silence.
"Is this just a normal pyramid?" Mary asked.
She closed her eyes and tried to peer into the secrets of this place. Cate thought about stopping her, but she refrained from doing so. Since Mary was their seer, stopping her from carrying out her role could end up costing them their lives. Cate and everyone else waited for Mary to divine their future. As they did so, they stayed at the entrance to the golden hall. It was very suspicious that the large hall before them was empty. The floor, walls, and ceiling were made from the purest gold possible. Everything glowed with an alluring light, and yet there wasn't a single thing in the hall. There was a single entrance into the hall, and they were standing in it. For some reason, they all felt that something was wrong with this hall.
After a few minutes, Mary opened her eyes and looked around as though she were a lost child. "What is wrong?" Cate asked with some confusion and fear in her voice. She could see how much confusion lay within Mary's eyes. This confusion had come out of nowhere.
"Where is this place? How did we leave the Immortal Realm?" Everyone looked at Mary with confusion.
"I thought she was a seer. How useless can she be that she had to ask us for information?" Jordan said. She had held herself back for a long time now, and these past few days had allowed her to gain enough confidence to mouth off. Cate did not bother retorting at this moment. She grabbed Mary's face and looked into her eyes, trying to get some answers. She found none. All she saw was confusion and fear that was rapidly taking hold of Mary. "She had lost her memories of the recent events," Cate said. After that, everyone used their means to try and peer into the secrets of the hall before them.
"The ancient king will return to rule over his people," Mary repeated, saying this until the simple sentence began sounding ominous.
As they investigated the hall, Mary began regaining her memories, beginning with them being handed the mission to come to this place and investigate the pyramid.
"Since we have found nothing wrong with our investigative methods, let us move forward and see what this hall has to offer," Cate said.
"I think we should wait and see what happens. Since this pyramid has been in place for thousands of years, I am sure that it will be here even after another thousand years. We can take our time to investigate," Albrecht said.
The vampire made sense, but Cate was not having it. She was determined not to waste too much time on this mission.
"I was not making a request. This is an order," Cate said as she moved closer to Albrecht, looking into his red eyes with an intensity that reminded the vampire of how fearsome this woman could be. Cate left the vampire after a few seconds when she saw in his eyes that Albrecht had remembered his place in this team.
"Since the hall is suspicious, we will turn it into dust."
Cate did not explain her plan before she began chanting. The magic in the surroundings began to move according to her will, and before anyone could object, she sent a wide beam of power into the hall. Boom! The beam collided with one of the walls in the hall, creating a powerful explosion that made the entire place shake.
When the dust settled, everyone was surprised to find that the previously empty hall was now filled with a writhing darkness that seemed to have a life of its own. Cate was going through many changes, and one of them was her vision. She had begun seeing the flow of magic, and right now, she was not seeing darkness before them. It was a living being made of darkness, evil, and untold levels of malice. The being was tied up with golden chains that pulled its limbs in four directions. Two chains were tied to its legs and entered the golden floor, with three of the chains tied to the ceiling. Two of the three chains were around its hands, and the third was around its neck. The chains were pulled taut, allowing the being barely any movement.
Cate was shocked the moment she laid eyes on this being. It looked at her, and she looked at it. There was silence in the hall. Cate was the only one who was able to see the being made of darkness, but this only lasted for a second before Mary saw through the darkness and saw the being herself.