When I open the door, a dark room with… cobwebs and nothing but a simple chest.
"There is nothing inside…" Karina says.
"I was waiting trasure." Aurelia goes in past me.
The house has a single floor and one room and I basically set it up and never used it after that. With Amber I never really cared about building a base or starting a community, I just set up my base in place and just called it a day, never returning here.
"You just built a house in the middle of the most dangerous area known to every living being…" Lisa observes. "That is… either stupid or extremely brave."
"Priest, I have done both." Aurelia crosses her arms.
"Haha…" I answer in sarcasm. At least she is self aware enough. "I just forgot about it and now we can use it."
"And what good is for us a base that is in the middle of nowhere?" Lisa asks. "What if a monster appears and attacks us?"
"I bet I can crush them with one swing!" She goes out running and makes her scythe appear. "Let me at…!"
I cast [Vines] on Aurelia and the magic plants stop her in her tracks. She trips forward and complains.
"What the fuck?! Let me go!"
"You won't be able to take on them without the proper equipment or support. These monsters are nothing like the things we have fought so far." I warn her.
"What? Hey! I have come to the Nothing in the past! I can go pretty deep!"
I sigh and then walk outside. I remove the vines from her.
"Lift me." I open my arms.
"Y-you are so serious all of a sudden…" Aurelia says.
"Just do what I say. You will see."
She doubts for a second, but she approaches me anyway and wraps her arms around me. She holds me tight.
My breath hitches when I feel something press into my back… specifically 2 things… soft. I swallow saliva.
We lift up, her wings start to swing heavy on her back and quickly pull us up into the air, rising into the sky like we weighed nothing.
Karina is, obviously, close to me.
"You tell me how high." Aurelia says.
"Y-yes!" I say, trying to focus and keep my cool…
I am such a loser.
The horizon slowly expended in front of us. Again, no forests, nothing that can be considered a plant grows there. There is a volcano and a magma river in the distance, mountains, greyish plains… a dead land. The occasional giant beast appears in the distance.
And then, behind the nearest mountain, something not natural rises.
"There." I point.
"W-what is that?" She asks.
Two giant pillars the size of skyscrapers on earth are visible, positioned in the middle of the Nothing, uncanny in their existence, something that somehow made its way there.
"That, Aurelia, is the Gates. We are as close as possible before we run into danger."
**********************************************
"Y-you are kidding me, right?!" Lisa comments. "H-how?! Why?! Besides the fact that you knew this the whole time they were there… why would you build so close to them?!"
We are back in the ground, Aurelia is still processing the information.
I was not sure how they would react to this information. Normally no one talks about the gates.
Karina doesn't seem shocked at all. While Aurelia and Lisa seem to be having an existential crisis, she is the most relaxed in this situation. She knows about video games and computers… maybe she got this information too.
"The Gates are real… Ellen, Demisaus, Kroneus, please… help us and tell me we are safe… I am not committing sin, right?" Lisa starts to pray. From under her robe, around her neck, she takes out a pendant and holds it tight in her hand.
"You broke her." Karina says. "You are not thinking of opening them, right?"
"No, not going to open them…"
At least, not now. Not with all I have seen as of right now. I am not running that risk when I know what happens when you open them.
"You know what the Rapture is, right?" Lisa looks at me. "T-the lift of the Veil… the scriptures warn us that…!"
"I know about all of that, Lisa." I answer. "And that is what is worrying me, because the day I was cursed they stole something from me."
I pause and take air.
"That item is one of the required to open the Gates."
"And why did you have it?" Aurelia asks. "And how did you reach this spot? We are too far from the limits of where I am willing to go, yet here you planted a house!"
That was in the game. It was hard to reach this point, but I did. Why? Challenge. Just because I could. I had a nice collection of items to wear and use and used each one to defeat the creatures from this area, and I planted the stone to claim the territory. That way, I could come to the Gates when I was ready.
"I defeated a cult some time ago and they had it… I knew what it was and held it in my person."
I lie… because I wanted to gather them.
"And now someone else has it." Lisa says, and when her eyes go wider, and her hands go into her mouth, I know she arrived at the same conclusion as I did. "The Traveller! He is revealing this information, isn't he?"
"W-what? What about that Traveller guy?" Aurelia asks, confused.
"I don't know, but I have my fears… Maybe, and just maybe, he told them about the items, and that is why Orianna attacked me."
But I leave the worst part for myself, because I know with more details than them what the Rapture is.
In the game, it is an endgame event meant to unlock progression beyond the soft cap limit for combat stats. Dungeons stop going up in danger levels at one point, and then comes exploring this part of the Nothing. I reached this place thanks to using equipment and items. If you defeat it, dungeons continue going up in levels, and new stronger monsters are introduced.
But the worst part is what is making me scared. I am trying to stay calm, but I know what will happen when the Gates open and the last Veil between worlds is lifted. I have seen it with other characters, made them confront what walks out of those pillars.
Fought it, used everything I knew about the game.
And each time.
I failed.
And the save got crippled to a point of no return.
If someone else opens the Gates and lets that thing in, I hope they are prepared, because sure as hell I am not.