As the silvery liquid appeared from the thin slit that separated the heavy stone door from the ground for centuries none of the two standing just a few feet away from the door noticed it, the stream was small, comparable to a singular hair, and later on, after growing a bit more, to a thick lock hanging down as to those hanging down from ones forehead.
The silvery liquid crawled through the coarse gravel, evading even the smallest of the rocks, and slowly accumulated beneath the standing Cades, numbing his feet with the same entrancing quality as before, just that it wasn't working everywhere now, just his feet, and still ever so slightly, barely noticeably numbing his mind as he was still talking with the archer, or perhaps just waiting for something that he didn't know yet..
While Cades and the archer were staring at the door, waiting for some reason, the reason being that they desired to wait, so they waited, they felt that something was wrong, and yet they didn't look down, they couldn't, so they simply didn't.
Finally, still avoiding the bare feet of the ehetrian that had long since lost his footwear in the battles, on the island of the bladed grass and even before that, it began crawling up on him and slowly but surely the entrancement began to waver, at least the entrancement that the archer was put under.
With a loud and surprisingly high-pitched scream the archer jumped back, landing on his right leg with a small thump and causing Cades to draw his sword at a surprising speed, ripping it out of the piece of cloth he had been using to somehow hold it to his clothes, if they could even still be called as such.
The archer, however, didn't care, he simply pointed at the silver that was slowly slithering up Cades legs, pulsating in an eery, never moving as it was entering, this time not in the form of tendrils but through the pores.
It would've been a weird feeling if Cades hadn't been entranced but he was entranced, yet the entrancement slowly seemed to fate, his gaze slowly wavering, filling with dread and finally he began moving his head, shaking and not even thinking about the fact that the archer could attack him at any moment now.. and he froze, not knowing what to do, and far too scared to scream.
What was happening ?
Why was this happening ?
How did the silver even know he was out here ?
Was that silver sentient ?
Cades was panicking and yet still relatively calm, his trance was broken, there was no doubt about that, this time he had gotten used to it, or at least his mind had somehow gotten used to it, but his thoughts were still taking step after step, trying to figure out how to save himself, but in truth he was just amassing more questions than he knew answers to.. in a metaphorical sense.
And yet, despite his inherent terror the flow only accelerated, a flow that was practically impossible to see, a still standing flow that looked as if it had simply been frozen in time.
But it hadn't, not truly.
When Cades moved the silver also moved, and he did move, assuming a stance that was a bit more defensive against the archer which now also seemed to have calmed down a bit, perhaps both trying to deal with this crisis in their own way, Cades by defending himself, or at least trying to and the archer by relaxing and accepting his fate, whatever that might be, still panicked, incredibly so, but the had calmed down after looking down at his own legs and starting to exchange his weight from one foot to the other constantly, resulting in what resembled a small but charming dance, especially with the seductive amplification of the constant he claimed to wield, though it didn't really entrance Cades.
Meanwhile the flow had accelerated so much that unbeknownst to the two people standing outside the coins had now almost completely vanished, hundreds, thousands of them had vanished withing just about half a minute, though to the two people standing outside this short span of time had been much longer than that, incomparably so.
And then it just stopped.
There were no screams, no reward, no change except a slightly uneasy feeling that Cades had felt ever since he came to this place, a feeling that had constantly been nagging at him, screaming at him to get out of here, as if he hadn't been trying that, a feeling that was now screaming for.. more.. or perhaps less..
Cades wasn't sure about anything, so he didn't move, the archer kept on jumping around making a grimace that would disenchant every fangirl he would've had if he had lived on ehetria, a fact that, unbeknownst to Cades was the except same scenario as when the archer would've lived on earth.
As Cades was quickly breathing, looking at the nervously dancing archer he began talking, trying to ignore what had just happened.
"Lets go inside."
Not waiting for the archer he put his hands with their long dirty fingernails on the smooth stone door and pushed.
It didn't budge. And Cades heart stopped for but a single fraction of a second.
The archer, still visibly shaking now began walking towards Cades with his eyes still wide open.
As the archer touched the same smooth door Cades had touched he pushed his fingernails, long and durable, though not as long as those of Cades, into the edge of the door and started pulling.
This time it opened without any resistance, except for the resistance expected from a door that hadn't moved in who knows how many generations.
The heavy door slowly creaked open, moving outward with a heavy feeling, this time, as previously mentioned, towards them rather than towards the temple as was the case with the temple he had come from.
Cades and the archer began walking inside, Cades looking around and the archer sitting down atop the altar seemingly still trying to calm himself down.
The breathing of the beautiful archer slowed down until he started looking at Cades who was standing on the other side of the altar, his back facing the archer as he was looking at the inside of the door.
This time the painting of the mysterious figure was different.
It was the very same figure as before, but seemingly much older than the other temple.
However, this time there was nothing surrounding him, instead there was something off about the wall.
The very wall this figure was painted on looked.. pale.. metallic.
It looked off.
However, at that very moment a low-pitched voice, this time without any gurgling resounded within the small temple, causing a brief echo.
"What... " the archer breathed in and gulped once, trying to hide his stress and anxiety about the scene that had seemingly been almost traumatic for him, streaking his long hair back, an act that more so caused it to look worse than it had before, he continued, this time with a slight gurgling sound echoing in his voice. An act that seemed impossible to pull off with the current bodies that they were stuck with. "...was... that ?" At the end of that short exclamation he finally exhaled once more, blowing away the few strands of his golden hair that had been hanging in front of his face and starting to slightly laugh, though it was quite obvious that it was only a false laugh.
Cades turned around, still slightly enthralled, not thinking about safety, though, luckily the archer also didn't seem to be able to think about betrayal right now, however the enthrallment also induced them to be more talkative than they were before, so Cades answered the question to the best of his abilities.
"I don't know."
Cades had some ideas, some fears, some hopes, some things that had no name, some that were simply a primal instinct, but Cades assumed that the silver didn't vanish, no, he knew that, he knew that the silver was somewhere inside him.
But now there was a simple question.
That question was simple, it was whether or not the silver would be.. something for him or not.
He did not know.