Collapsed towers and trees growing through the stone structures made it clear the massive stone structures were abandoned a long time ago. The stone walls weren't the only thing in the area, though. The remains of campfires had been left outside the buildings, signaling the stay had been long or there had been several groups. Aatos would have loved this place.
When Hazel ran the biggest building she could find, the lack of windows surprised her. She couldn't see due to the dark. It would be no use walking around blindly, so she came out.
"Does anyone have a flashflight?" Hazel asked the others who all shook their head in response. None of them had a flashlight on them. Probably not even matches.
Luckily, the stone roofs in some of the other buildings had weakened over time enough to have some cracks to cast light and the group eventually found one with enough light to explore. Hazel noted the stone of the buildings looked the oldest she had seen, and that the floor was fully covered in moss.
There was some kind of a door with stone buttons next to it. They needed to find a code. Different kinds of symbols covered the walls. A scroll lied in the corner on the room, but the group was too busy trying to make up if the symbols were images or writing.
Some were easy to recognize as images, but hard to see the true meanings behind them. Encarved circles with cracks, a splitting silhouette of a person, a burning circle, and a lot of flames decorated the wall. Some of them were even trickier. One person saw a tree, another a fire, and a third a face in the same symbol. The meaning seemed to shift.
One part looked like a map filled with mechanical looking symbols and people portrayed as variables in a system. It made Remy think of Aatos once again. His love for technology could have helped them solve this.
Ocean touched the wall and managed to feel something. He felt the heat, saw the fireless flames, heard the screams and sensed the fear. Slowly, he took his hand off the wall and went back ro the present. The air in the ruins was slightly damp. Nothing compared to the heat he just felt.
But with Maya and Hexa, the air held its a cold breeze. The two had arrived to Etherium after the coast cleared from bounty hunters. Maya noticed the way Hexa paused at every harmless sound she heard. As they walked, she searched Hexa's eyes, looking for any bit of emotion under the fear that made them wide, but couldn't find any in the voids.
"Are we back in Etherium?" Hexa asked quietly, her usually confident tone completely shattered.
"We are, but they can't catch us. Don't worry too much about them," Maya reassured her.
"It's not that. Well, you wouldn't get it if I explained it," Hexa flinched again shortly after responding. Maya shook her head.
"The other islands are far away. Let's find a place to stay for tonight," she said. Hexa nodded.
With that said, they found their way to the Eternal forest, the only place Maya thought nobody would search. Food sources were unknown, since barely any people had reported from the forest. They looked for a cave, an easy source of wood, or anything that could make up as a shelter.
As they walked through the forest, Maya noticed fresh footprints and measured them. Some were the size of an adult's foot, some not even close to the size. Shoe sizes don't tell everything, but judging by them, there had been a group of kids. Maybe some young adults as well. An average bounty hunter's shoe was not that small.
Hexa was confused about Maya measuring random footprints in a forest, but the two of them still started following them to the unknown path. The forest kept getting denser as the path of footprints carried on. They were going into a part of the forest Maya had never explored.
The footprints ended when the forest floor changed to a stone flooring. Ahead was an old stone wall that looked cripple. Maya noticed a symbol carved into the wall. Waves. A symbol that hadn't been in any textbooks Maya had used. Something was ahead.