VRMMO: World's First Glyphborne

Guided either by small fairy lights, softly glowing snowflakes or simply by their own natural dark vision, the party descended the staircase that was hidden beneath the throne.

The Blue Skinned Demon led the way, with Belladonna behind him and Lilith taking up the rear so the more vulnerable members were sandwiched between them.

As they walked, Belladonna couldn’t help but glare at the blue back that was staring her in the face, and it wasn’t just because she could see her face reflected in the chilled steel of the sword on his back.

Narrowing her eyes, Belladonna asked, "Why are you helping us?"

Blue chuckled and didn’t look over his shoulder when he answered, "These rewards are yours by right of blood. However, I would like one for myself, so perhaps you would be so kind as to give it to me for my assistance."

It was an answer that made sense on the surface, but she still pressed the inquiry.

"Sure, but why not just kill us and take it all? After that, we should be weak and exhausted. So why not take our right with more blood spilled?"

Figg let out a worried whimper and jabbed her in the back at her question, as if to ask ’what the hell are you doing?!’ but Belladonna just brushed him off and kept glaring at the demon.

This time he actually glanced over his shoulder. Not by much, but enough to let them see his face.

He was frowning, as if he too was wondering about the same question. His mouth opened to answer, but said answer struggled to come out. Then, his eyes lost their focus for a brief moment, before the frown melted back into a smug smile.

""These rewards are yours by right of blood. However, I would like one for myself, so perhaps you would be so kind as to give it to me for my assistance." He repeated mechanically, without any sign that he realised he was doing so.

Belladonna narrowed her eyes more and looked over her shoulder at Figg, who had a confused and worried look in his eyes, before they shared a silent look and simply carried on walking in silence.

When they arrived at the door, it was their helpful guide that unlocked it. A glowing white magic circle appeared before the door, made up of multiple layers circles that rotated in different directions or at different speeds.

Each circle was littered with runic symbols that Blue immediately started to tap, drag across the formation or alter by pressing his hands against them. All of which he did with a passive and blank expression on his face.

Belladonna’s eyes drank in the sight hungrily, trying her best to memorise the entire thing, before it disappeared after a few seconds. It seemed that their guide knew the combination to this King’s vault almost by heart.

The door swung open, revealing a vast room with low ceilings that was filled with small obsidian pedestals that reached up to waist height on Belladonna. Each pedestal had one singular item on it, even when some of them had the same or similar items displayed upon them.

However even if some were similar, that did not mean there were not plenty of unique items displayed here. At a rough estimate, there had to be around 50 unique items.

"Relics." Blue said, his gaze distant as he looked over the room. "Powerful or strange magical artefacts made by some of the most powerful wizards in our world. Some are even made by the Gods themselves.

Choose wisely, it is possible he has trapped the room. Choose only one to take with you."

The party glance at each other, silently noting the contradiction with his earlier ’yours by right’ comment that had been reduced down to take one. But they didn’t complain, even if it was odd.

They split up, drifting through the room like wandering spirits as they perused the aisles and investigated each of the items. They did not need to wonder what each of them did, as the moment they showed interest Blue would be there to eager tell them all about it.

Vestra had asked him if he had seen the relics or been here before to have such knowledge, but that question caused him to ’glitch’ again. His eyes going blank just as he started to ponder his existence, before he reverted back to the last thing he said as if nothing ever happened.

It was rather creepy.

Belladonna wandered through one of the aisles, glancing with disinterest towards different weapons and armour sets that were resting on the obsidian pedestals. There was no order to the way anything was stored, so she just had to wander until she found something.

She did pause in her window shopping, just for a moment, to frown at a particular pedestal. One that was empty.

None of the party had been over here, she was sure of that, but this was the only empty pedestal in the entire vault. Strange, but not much she could do about it.

She made a few sweeping motions with her hands, just to make sure there was nothing invisible, before shrugging and moving on. A few seconds after she turned her back, a small black hourglass flickered above the pedestal.

It flickered in and out of reality, as if it could not decide whether it should or shouldn’t exist, before finally disappearing once again.

The next thing to catch her eye was a small ceramic figurine. It was of a fox, one that was sitting up straight with its fluffy tail wrapped around its feet. It was small enough to comfortably fit in Belladonna’s palm, and had a grey colouration as if the creator had forgotten to paint it.

However even if it lacked colour, the creator put a tremendous amount of effort into it. From the detail of its face, to the volume of its fur that even if it was solid ceramic it looked delightfully fluffy and soft.

’It kinda looks like Saige. Maybe he would like this, or maybe Lilith would like it even more. Hard to say who is more obsessed with cuteness between those weirdo’s’

Belladonna chuckled to herself, as she reached out and stroked the fox’s head with her finger. Gliding it between its ears which, much to her surprise, were genuinely soft to the touch and shifted out of the way to accommodate for her petting.

She flinched as the head moved, looking up at her with a blank expression. It tilted its head at her, blinking softly as if it was waking up from a long nap, before the fox dissolved into liquid clay and began to change.