"Take this!" Phuong lunged at me with her practice sword, swinging it forward.
I blocked it, pushing her back, then followed up with a punch to the gut. She fell back, landing on her butt. I stepped a few steps back, stopping by a scoreboard drawn in the ground.
It'd been around two weeks since we started training. Eugene'd been away for some reason, something about securing guards for an event. Althea had also been busy with things, so me and Phuong had been passing the time by either beating the shit out of each other, playing games, or sleeping all day. But honestly, I'd been really bored.
I used my practice sword to draw a tally mark on the scoreboard. Phuong came up behind me, wrapping her arms around my neck while looking over my shoulder.
"1, 2, 3, 4... 23 rounds."
"That many?"
"Yup, I counted," Phuong said, letting go of me and crouching down to recount. I crouch next to her leaning on her shoulder.
She turns to me and asks, "You wanna do something else, I'm bored."
"Sure, what do you wanna do?" I ask.
"Hmm," Phuong rested her head on mine with her thinking face, "Let's go explore!"
"Huh, why?"
"We've done nothing but train for the past few days, plus we have nothing better to do," she reasoned.
Meh, point taken. I helped her up, leaving our practice swords on the ground, and went inside.
We walked around the castle and looked at various rooms. For some reason, we weren't allowed in the ballroom or the kitchen, and there was a suspicious number of guards around the place. It was weird, but I didn't really care. We wandered around for a little longer until we came across a room in the basement of the castle. Don't ask me how we got into the basement because I honestly forgot.
Phuong pushed the door opening up to a spacious room with a big table cluttered with plants, herbs, and an assortment of empty bottles and paper. A large shelf covered the wall, filled with books and potions- at least that' was what I thought they were. Anyway, the room was a mess, papers everywhere, stacks of books piled up, stains on the walls and floor, and a small pile of broken glass shoved in the corner. The room was dimly lit and looked very creepy. In light of that, we waltzed right in.
We went in, narrowly avoiding shards of glass and potion spills. We checked out the place and looked through books that looked like they hadn't been touched in years. Overall, everything was very dusty. I took a look at the plants on the table while Phuong looked through the books lying around. The plants were dried out and the leaves effortlessly turned to dust by the slightest touch. How long have these plants gone without water, and is that my place to know? Probably not.
"Minh, I found something," Phuong called. I went over and took a look. It was a leather-bound book, the pages yellow and wrinkled. Phuong opened the book, causing a puff of dust to fly up.
Of course, the dust got in my eyes, leading to some riving in agony as one usually would.
Through my poor red eyes, I look over Phuong's shoulder as she flipped through the book.
We both read through it, but some of the words were hard to read due to ink smudges. From how it was written, the book was most likely a journal of sorts, each page having a different date on the top right corner and a drawing of different plants every so often. After, god knows how long, we reached the end page, and um... let's just say that this page was… concerning.
31stdayofspring
Idon'tknowhowmuchtimeIhavebeforetheyfindme,butImustwarnyou.
TheGolemhasbeencompleted,butduetothelackofpower,it cannotfunctionproperly.Duringthemeeting,hisMajestysuggestedthatwefindorcreateapowersource.IwasjustabouttosuggestapossiblesolutionwhenDukeMarissuggestedthatwesummonheroestousethemtopowerthemachine.Itriedtoargueagainstitbut,tomydismay,theKingagreed.
ItriedeverythingtoswayHisMajestyfromthedecision,butasyoucansee,myeffortswereinvain.Thesummoningwillbecompletedsoon.Idon'tknowwhetherourkingdomwilllastuntilthen.Thekingwillmostlikelyputmetoexecution,butbeforemydemise,Iwanttosetthingsright.
Ineverwantedtoshedmoreblood;theGolemwassupposedtobringpeace,notcausemoredeaths.Ionlypraytowhoeverisreadingthis,Ibegyou,warntheheroesiftheyeverdocome.Takethemfarawayfromthiskingdomandneverlookback.I'veleftagateinahiddenareainthegarden.Takethemthere,andthey'llbesafe.
Icanhearthemdrawingcloser;itwon'tbelonguntiltheyfindme.IonlypraythatMotherDianawillwatchoverthem,pleasehurr-
And it cuts off... holy shit, we're screwed!
SideStoryDated-14yrs
TheLastGoodbye
I hurriedly finished my breakfast and placed my empty dish in the sink. Then I grabbed my bag and made my way to the front door.
Before I left, I waved goodbye to an urn sitting on the living room shelf, "Bye Dad, have a great day, we'll be back soon, love you!" I said before leaving out the door and meeting Minh and Mẹ in the car.
I slumped down into the car seat next to Minh, taking out my phone as Mẹ started the car. Minh rested his head on my shoulder, as I scrolled Ao3 for new fanfiction. I scroll through the list until I felt the car stop. I sigh, no new fanfics today.
Minh and I got out the car, wave Mẹ goodbye before climbing the damn stairs to the front door of school.