As we passed through a large cobble gateway, the muddy path opened up to a small plaza.
Simple farmhouses were clad together with thick fortress-like walls, and stoic-looking men were hauling crates of weaponry up steep stairways.
The town felt both busy and empty at the same time.
Everyone's expressions just held a certain grimace unfit for farmers.
Other than the literal castle wall, the town itself was exceptionally dull. The images of bright flowers and fruitful trees that flickered in my mind were replaced with overgrown shrubs and withered grey roses.
"Well, it's certainly... Hollow," I broke the silence.
Without even a hint of surprise at my words, the twins shrugged.
"They renamed it the Hollow Keep not long ago," Cayden said, his tone matching his cold expression.
"They?" I replied, although Cayden's response was cut short by a raspy, authoritative voice in the distance.
"Where in Ravaryn have you boys been? It's almost dark out," a small elderly woman strutted across the muddy plaza.
Her hazel eyes seemed to absorb everything in one swoop; however, the moment her gaze met mine, she flinched, and for only a moment, her eyes went wide in surprise.
"This is... Everett!" Cayden introduced.
"By the looks of things, he washed up on the rocks."
The old lady's eyebrow rose in disbelief as she took in my appearance once again. "And you're uninjured?" she asked, before inspecting my body.
"You should ave' seen it, Grandma. He was lying behind a gigantic rock that was protecting 'em from the waves. He must have been launched over it by some gargantuan wave," Ezra chortled.
The level of absurdity in his story makes it hard to believe.
But instead of shock, the elder's expression only softened into a knowing smile, making me all the more confused.
"Now now, boys and Everett dear, how about coming in for supper?" she beamed, her eyes still locked onto mine.
But before we had the chance to reply, the evening silence was shattered by the piercing chime of a rusty tin bell that screamed across the valley.
Everything that followed was a blur.
The elder and the twins' expressions went from joy and shock to a cold, calculating stare in the span of seconds, before men and women began frantically sprinting around us.
"What's going on?" I asked.
But the moment I finished the words, my companions had already vanished into the crowd, each going in a separate direction.
Their actions were so quick and wordless that I assumed this had happened hundreds of times before.
Without time to think, I began weaving through the crowd, hoping to catch up to Cayden and figure out what in Ravaryn was happening.
However, before I could reach him, I was instead intercepted by a large, burly man who blocked my path.
"Make yourself useful, boy!" his baritone voice boomed in my direction before slamming a small yet uncharacteristically heavy box into my stomach.
My eyes frantically tracked through the crowd in the hopes of picking up on Cayden's trail.
After accepting that he had already vanished, I instead began following the burly man to wherever he expected me to carry the chest.
After only a few paces, though, my body began to experience the full weight of the box.
I leaned backward, clutching it over my chest as I hauled myself through the mud.
What in Ravaryn's name is inside this thing, I thought to myself, as I began inspecting its surface.
The chest was lined with brass plates and covered in an intricate array of silver runes etched, or rather moulded, into its dark wooden surface.
My eyes almost popped straight from my skull as I realised what I was carrying.
The many sealing runes in place to suppress its energy were no joke, and with how heavy the transport box was, it was clearly filled to the brink.
"But why on earth would a small farming village have boxes of Etherium Crystals?" I thought aloud.
As I reached the base of the fortress wall, I realised that there were four similar boxes piled together.
"FIVE," I basically screamed as I processed what I was seeing. Just one of these boxes would be worth a small fortune, let alone five of them.My jaw dropped.
After my initial daze had subsided, I inspected the crowd once more, in a final attempt to make sense of the situation.
With this many Etherium Crystals, you would expect to see an army nearby preparing for war.
But in place of steel swords and dazzling armour were men, women, and children alike carrying rusty, bent blades and wearing torn linen shirts.
As if it would help piece the puzzle together, I began climbing the rickety stairs that wound their way up the fortress wall.
And the more I saw, the less it made any sense.
The villagers all shared the same hardened gaze of a seasoned warrior.
Everyone my eyes could see was taking up swords and spears before grabbing their share of Etherium Crystals and lining up like soldiers.
My head spun in circles as I clambered my way up the narrow staircase. A wave of relief washed over me as I spotted a familiar lanky boy standing atop one of the wall's pathways.
I flung myself from the stairs, desperate not to lose sight of Cayden again as I weaved my way towards him.
"Cayden!" I clasped my hand over his shoulder.
"What the hell is happening!" I gasped.
"We're under attack." His brows furrowed as he spoke.
"Attack? Who in their right mind would attack a small coastal village like this?" My confusion deepened.
"It's not who, but what," Cayden said as he began assorting an array of arrows with simple black stone heads into a quiver at his waist.
"There's no time," He continued. Before I could react, he held up a small sword between us, gesturing for me to take it.
However, the moment I did, a deafening crackling sound thundered across the valley.
It was as if a giant glass window had split into thousands of pieces before raining down on the village like razor-sharp hail.
Pieces of reflective shrapnel whizzed through the air as Cayden began climbing further up the ladder. This time, I followed suit.
As we wound up the small staircase, I caught glimpses of the twilight sky above, as pieces of metallic glass continued to rain down, reflecting fragmented lights as they sank into the wooden floorboards above.
As I clambered to Cayden's side, it took all the strength in my body just to stay on my feet under the thick energy that hung in the air.
The once-tall grass and farmlands that stretched beyond the wall had become lifeless and grey. Even the distant sea had lost its blue.
But most shocking was the far horizon, where the sky's purple light met the mountain caps, gigantic slashes of bright yellow light stretched across the violet sky, taking the form of cracks in what seemed like the very fabric of our world.
I could hardly believe what I was seeing, nor comprehend the consequences that would follow.
All I could do was stand frozen in place, my jaw slackened as I watched in terror.
"We call it The Withering," Cayden said.