Insomniac Player

The garden slowly settled back into life around them. The crystal streams picked their gentle current back up, butterflies drifting through the flowers again like nothing had happened at all.

Only the shattered remains of the Guardian gave any proof a trial had taken place here.

At the center of the broken marble, the chest sat waiting. Damien and Daria stared at it for a while before either of them moved.

Daria crossed her arms. "...Go on. You earned it."

He pointed at himself. "Me?"

"You answered all three riddles."

"We answered them."

She rolled her eyes. "Don’t get humble on me now. Without you we’d both be fertilizer by now."

"If you insist." He walked over to it.

Nothing about the chest matched the ones he’d seen described elsewhere, no jewels, no gold trim. Carved entirely from white crystal instead, ancient runes shimmering faint under the sunlight, the lid warm under his fingers when he finally touched it.

"Please be something useful." He took a breath. "A weapon. Or money. A lot of money."

Daria shook her head at him. "I’m voting weapon."

He laughed and lifted the lid.

Click.

Soft golden light spilled out. Both of them leaned in.

The light faded, and quiet settled over them.

"..."

"...Is that." Daria blinked. "A piece of paper?"

Inside the crystal chest, one folded parchment sat by itself. No legendary weapon, no pile of treasure, nothing but old paper.

He picked it up carefully. "Has to be a clue. A map, maybe."

He unfolded it. Ancient script rearranged itself into readable words as he watched, and a faint window opened alongside it.

➤[Hidden Record]

➤[Those who seek tomorrow shall first understand yesterday.]

Beneath it, an unfamiliar verse unfolded.

["When the first stands alone, the world awakens. When the third walks beside it, kingdoms take root. When the ninth whispers farewell, the old road ends. Yet beware the tenth child who follows quietly. Not with blade. Nor with thunder. Nor with plague. Green shall descend from the heavens, and the seas of gold shall become forgotten. Those who prepare before the song begins shall laugh while others mourn. Those who ignore the silent counting shall suffer beneath a summer sun. Remember the path of numbers. One. Three. Ten."]

It just ended there. No explanation attached.

He frowned. "...That’s it?" He read it again, twice more, each pass leaving him more confused than the last.

"One. Three. Ten." He said it under his breath. "What’s the silent counting?"

Daria leaned in beside him. "Let me see."

He handed it over.

She read through it once. "...Poetry." Read it again. "Bad poetry."

"I don’t think it’s meant to be poetry."

She kept reading, brow furrowing further with every line, and after a solid five minutes she finally gave up. "I don’t get it."

"Yeah. It’s a lot."

She folded it and handed it back. "You’re the brains here. I throw fire, you solve weird old-man riddles."

"I solved the others because they made sense eventually." He looked the parchment over again. "This one feels unfinished. Like there’s a piece missing."

"Almost sounds like a warning."

"Warning us about what, though?" He read it over once more, chasing the phrases without finding anywhere they connected. Green descending from the sky. Seas of gold forgotten. Silent counting. None of it held together no matter how he turned it.

Eventually he folded it back up. "I’ll hang onto it. Maybe I’ll understand it someday."

"Or some old scholar will figure it out for you."

"That works too." He tucked the parchment into his inventory. The moment it vanished, the chest itself dissolved into light, and a fresh notification opened for both of them.

➤[Dungeon Cleared]

➤[Rewards have been distributed.]

Golden light wrapped around Damien, warmth spreading through him, muscles going lighter, senses sharpening another notch.

➤[Level Up!] ➤[Level Up!] ➤[Level Up!]

He smiled. "...Three levels."

A second pillar of light surrounded Daria, though only a single window appeared for her.

➤[Level Up!]

She rolled her shoulders. "...Finally. Twenty-one. That maze earned every bit of that."

Whatever pressure had been sitting on the dungeon lifted the moment it was cleared. The flowers stopped watching them, the vines stayed still, and even the maze itself seemed to straighten out on the way back, like it had already conceded the point. The carnivorous plants slept through their whole retreat, and the vine-serpents never showed themselves once.

Hours later, they finally broke free of the forest and reached the lonely aerial station, the platform nearly empty this time of night, a soft voice overhead announcing the next arrival in three minutes.

Daria leaned back against the railing. "...You know."

"Hm?"

"I still don’t buy your stories."

"What stories?"

"The Horn. The dagger. All of it." A faint smile. "Someone’s hiding something."

He scratched the back of his neck. "I really can’t say."

"Convenient."

"Very."

She laughed, quiet, the first real one he’d heard from her since they met. Whatever distance had been sitting between them felt smaller for it. The train pulled in a moment later, bound for Aetherfall, doors opening with a soft hiss.

She stepped in and turned back. "Take care, Sleepless."

"You too."

"And." She pointed at him. "If you ever crack that ridiculous poem, I want to hear about it."

"You’ll be the first."

The doors slid shut, and the train pulled away into the dark. Still night out here, hours having passed inside the dungeon while barely any time had moved outside it, the way these things apparently worked.

By the time he made it back to the apartment, the city sat wrapped in the same darkness he’d left it in, like it had been waiting for him to catch up. He unlocked the door, kicked his shoes off, and dropped onto the bed fully dressed.

The parchment stayed in his hand, and his eyes stayed on it. The symbols across its surface seemed to shift the longer he stared, some trick of the eye or something genuinely alive underneath the ink, he couldn’t tell which.

Minutes stretched into an hour, his eyes burning, a dull ache building behind his temples, and still he refused to look away.

"..."

The ache spread further, sharper now, the concentration finally costing him something.

"Tsk." He gave up.

He tossed the parchment into his inventory, watched it vanish in a flash of light, and let his head fall back against the pillow.

"So much for mysterious treasure."