Let The Butterfly Touch You

e proceed carefully, or you'll

t reddish glow. Her brows scrunched together, trying to decipher what the faint red glow came from. She continued creeping through the tunnel, following the slight glo

lty Leve

increased due to t

o a strange stillness, the silence pressing down on everything like a weight. At the end of the passage, the stone wall, smooth yet slightly weathered by time, formed an unexpected bou

y still, even though her heartbeat should have been pounding in her ears by now. She took one final step toward the threshold, almost there. Then, without warning, she felt her body being yanked forward. As the floor dropped out from under h

avernous, but the air within felt impossibly vast, as if the very shape of the place had been designed to amplify the sense of isolation. The walls were perfectly round, their curvature impo

anguage. They whispered, barely audible, to the sensitive ear, though their meanings had long been lost. The murals told a tale of an ancient world-one steeped in mysticism, solar w

sharp and crisp, while others had begun to blur and fade, as if time itself had tried to erase them. Yet even in their worn state, they pulse

ls: The Creati

ear the floor, where the stone was still relatively intact. They depicted

ost organic shapes. The figure seemed to hold both power and sadness in its gaze, as though it was both the creator and the sacrificed. Beneath this radiant figure, two smaller gods-one with the features of the sea, long serpentine waves cu

n undertone of desperation-a hint that the gift-giving was not entirely voluntary, but part of a covenant or sacrifice. It felt like

the sun, the fir

ight, where the go

did give, with a

nds of the stone g

the air, as if the very cham

: The Rise of the

rise of the Thalassan Kingdom-the once-great civilization that had inhabited this land. These mur

were depicted in regal attire, their bodies elongated and exaggerated, emphasizing their divine status. In their hands, they held ceremonial objects-one ki

-small sun-shaped amulets adorned the figures, radiating light toward the divine forms. However, there was a marked change in the mood of these murals: where the earlier depictions of the gods had seeme

jars, each containing a Wickwing butterfly trapped inside. The high priests' faces were obscured by the symbols of the sun, but their postures were reverent and solemn. This scene hinted at a darker side of the kingdom's solar worship: a ritualistic sacrific

, a rhyme was etch

in the light'

kingdom, in rad

ey lingered, and

cold eyes beg

meaning deep and cryptic, as if the very stone

ls: The Descen

an to fracture. The sun, depicted in earlier murals as a benevolent force, now appeared more aloof, its image distorted and twisted. In o

faces twisted in pain. Around the sun, the sea god rose in fury, its form swelling like an immense serpent from the depths

pict the moment of betrayal: the gods' retreat, their withdrawal from the people of Thalassa, and the sacrificial heart that had been removed from the figure, now cast into the shadows of the

bandoned the kingdom, leaving behind a cursed and broken land. Th

cene, another rhyme was

nce bright, the

like fire, and ni

heir loss, the g

chests, where no

of grief and regret, as if the very chamber itself

ls: The Silenc

ates of decay. Some were weeping stone tears, while others had cracks running through their bodies like deep scars. The central mural portrayed a golem figure, the largest of them all, with a g

its fiery rays dissipating as it was swallowed by the ocean. The murals ended with this chaotic, dismal sc

ge, the last rhyme was

to black, and th

orsaken, stood s

broken, and al

stone hearts, as

-mighty golems stood as hollow monuments to a forgotten age. Elowen took a deep breath and stepped back, taking in the full scope of the murals. The weight of their story pressed upon her: a tale of creation, sacrifice

al world. The images of the gods, once vibrant and full of life, now faded into emptiness. The gods had withdrawn, the people had perished, and the