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The gate opened slowly, only to cause Jay and Anya to grip their weapon tightly for a moment once they saw what was on the other side.

Before them, a sprawling legion of stone guards were waiting.

Thousands of them, all kneeling towards the pyramid, surrounding it from every side. Behind the wall there were no more ruins and no traces of destruction – only a flat plane of the black stone covered with the statues.

To the left and right there were thousands more statues, stretching as far as the wall went – yet none of them moved at all.

Surely they would have heard, and even felt, the deep groaning sounds of the white gate opening?

Jay and Anya only held their breaths. They didn’t dare make a sound.

As they watched for a moment though, nothing happened. There was no movement on either side of the wall; only the soft cold wind which seemed unending in this dungeon.

“Surely they would have done something when Dark came flying over the wall?” Jay thought.

“But I heard no statue movement… and why are they all kneeling…”

Jay squinted at them, looking a little more closely.

In front of each of them, small piles of stone rubble formed.

“Hmm…” he squinted, trying to see it more clearly.

Something wasn’t right.

Jay decided to have Dark move forward and walk closer to the kneeling statues.

Still no reaction.

Next, he had Dark move between some of them._.

Still, no reaction and not so much as a tremor.

Finally, he mentally commanded Dark to attack one of them.

*Shring~!*

Darks daggers gashed one of the statue’s heads, leaving a puff of stone dust in its wake and some small pebbles which echoed in the silence.

Still, there was no reaction.

“Huh?” Jay thought, beginning to move forward slowly.

Anya remained still but Jay and his skeletons continued to approach the kneeling statues.

When he was finally close enough he tried to analyse them, but there were no notifications or anything.

Getting closer, and a little bit more bolder, he marched forward and spartan-kicked one from behind, causing it to faceplant and crumble.

No notification, no reaction. Nothing.

With a sigh, he went to stand in front of one.

“I see…” he had a solemn look on his face as he checked over the statue.

A large gaping hole was in its chest – the soul stone had been ripped out completely.

The Helvetian statues were basically just that – statues.

It was quite strange as it seemed that the statues did this willingly; each of them in kneeling positions and forming perfect rows and columns, like the orderly troops they were.

“It’s ok,” Jay waved, “they’re all dead.” He called Anya, who rejoined Jay at his side with a puzzled look.

“What happened here…” Anya whispered, feeling like her voice travelled to many of the statues in this massive flat area. She didn’t want to take the chance of waking any of them until she knew for sure.

“No clue… but I guess we’ll find out.” Jay said, looking towards the pyramid.

The party walked across the endless field of helvetian soldiers towards the fifth pyramid, weaving through the dead statues. It was an eerie feeling.

Each of the kneeling statues were still as tall as them, silent as they eternally sat, and Jay and Anya solemnly navigated past them quietly.

Jay wondered how such a big army originally could have been sustained with food among other things, but then he remembered a mural he once saw of Helvetia.

The vibrant green city was thriving with plants and life, making it seem that they were just as in touch with nature as they were magic.

Losing their living, breathing city must have only fuelled their desire for revenge even more deeply.

It seemed quite backwards as they went from a city filled with nature and magic to a paved wasteland where the statues were very much anti-magic.

Up ahead something stood out. It was a strange triangular prism pointing out of the ground; a monolith. Like the path and the gate it was similarly a cream-white colour. It was about five meters tall and as wide as Jay’s shoulders.

Despite itself being white and implanted into a white path, it stuck out like a sore thumb, like a beacon amongst the endless black-stone soldiers.

“Odd…” Jay thought as he approached it.

Jay checked the statues around it before getting closer, making sure they were actually deceased like all the others.

His escape plan was relatively simple: run.

The numerous dead soldiers would block the path of any other pursuing statues, as they were large and wouldn’t be able to slip through the graveyard as easily as Jay or Anya would.

Thankfully, there were no living statues around and Jay concluded that it wasn’t some elaborate trap, so he approached the white monolith.

Jay saw his reflection as he drew nearer to the white monolith, and after looking at each side, he found that at the back of it something was socketed into it.

“Hey, here you are,” he smiled, immediately trying to pull it out of the socket; it was the white locket he lost, which had since flown away.

Unfortunately it wouldn’t budge, and neither could he try to pry it out as the white locket was a perfect fit – there was absolutely no seam.

Jay funelled some mana towards it but it acted as if it were now just another inanimate object.

“Mm” he frowned lightly. Whatever he had sensed in it before had similarly disappeared, its power all gone.

As the triangle monolith was halfway between the pyramid and the gate in the middle of the road, it seemed quite obvious this was some sort of automatic gate key – but Jay only had more questions.

– Why was this one key left outside the gate?

– If not for Jay, who was it meant for?

– Whose magic charged the key, and why did he feel a strange connection to it?

– Why had the gate been shut in the first place?

– And what did that have to do with all the guards being mass-executed, or ‘freed,’ as Sedulus would say?

There were no obvious clues around, and nothing else on the otherwise smooth monolith, so for now Jay only had one choice: to move forward.

“I will just have to find my own answers” Jay looked towards the fifth pyramid.

Once again the party crept through the destroyed statues and eventually got to the pyramid entrance.

A short staircase led to the flat entrance area, which was lined by white pillars on either side. The pyramid was made from the black stone but the floor was made from the upgraded white stone.

Compared to the rest of the weathered pyramid, the white stone seemed relatively new.

Jay and his party ventured into the large entrance area, each of their steps making echoing noises. It was akin to a grand cave they stumbled into.

Soon it became darker and they found themselves at the bottom of another staircase, yet this time there was light at the top peeking down towards them.

“Let’s go slowly.” Jay whispered, sending his skeletons up further ahead of them.

The staircase was long, wide, and the roof was high. It was like scaling a small mountain as they went upwards and even had to stop a few times, taking a rest and eating some travel rations.

Finally, fifty minutes later, they reached the top.

The room was majestic, massive, and dazzling; streams of light came in from somewhere in the ceiling, lighting up the entire room as it bounced off white pillars and the white polished floor.

It was an understatement to say the room was massive; at a glance, Jay guessed that it could have fit the whole of Losla in it.

“Hmm, it’s bigger on the inside?” Jay thought as he looked around.

While the pyramids were massive, they did just walk up the stairs for a long time, so it was hard to tell if there was some sort of dimension-type magic at play. Each pyramid since the first one only got bigger and bigger, so Jay couldn’t be sure.

“Oh well.” he shrugged, not thinking too deeply about it. It wasn’t like it mattered too much after all.

Large pillars lined each wall, each as wide as the white gate they just passed through, and each of them engraved with imagery of plants, trees, flowers, horses, glade deer and all manner of life; even a snake raven was depicted among some other creatures Jay had never seen.

Jay and Anya could only look around in awe at the craftsmanship.

Truly, it seemed that the craftsman had spent hundreds of years on this – and knowing the longevity of the statues, it probably did.

“Surely they would have told me about this…” Anya gasped, looking around the room.

“Eyes forward.” Jay whispered, pointing to the middle of the room.

In the middle of the room were three thrones on an elevated platform, overlooking all things below them.

The large throne in the middle which was the size of a house, decorated with complex patterns using the white and black stone. Even from here they could tell it demanded respect.

Jay and Anya approached slowly, trying to look out for any traps or tricks. Like everything in this dungeon, nothing was straight-forward.

They slowed down as they approached, seeing figures in each throne, and the largest one was the easiest to see.

In the large throne sat a slender, tall statue. It was made from blackstone like all the others – though it seemed that much of its armour had been gently chipped away, replaced with some new white stone pieces to cover up the unsightly stone masonry work.

At first it alarmed Jay to see such a large slender statue, but he noticed that like the statues outside, it also had its soul stone missing, taken from its chest and placed gently on the arm on the throne – though it was apparent that it was removed with the utmost gentleness and care.

Jay sighed, glad that the larger statue was dead. He was glad he wouldn’t have to fight someone like Sedulus.

The two other thrones were more normal sized – at least normal sized by helvetian soldier standards. However, unlike the large throne, its occupants were still moving.

It seemed that Jay and Anya had ventured a little too closely as the statues simultaneously stood up.

Two smaller slender statues, each female in origin, and each with their own new white stone armour stepped off their thrones as they noticed the trespassers in their pyramid.

“Go.” Jay said, sending his skeletons in immediately.

***Bonus big chapter Do you think the white stone means anything? What do you think it means?***