Jeanne and Talulah hauled the greedy little dragon along, stopping before the massive sealed threshold. Standing at the base of the portal, both had to tilt their heads back until their necks ached just to take in its full, imposing height. For a long moment, neither spoke a word.
"What's the next step?" After a short silence, Talulah rubbed the back of her sore neck and turned to Jeanne, seeking guidance on how to proceed.
"Isn't this basically your family's ancestral tomb?" Jeanne looked at her companion in sheer, unadulterated disbelief. "We've made it all the way to the front door, and you're asking me how to get in?" She scoffed softly, shaking her head. "What, do you need me to calculate the Karma for you or something?"
As the words left her mouth, Jeanne reached into her pocket with startling casualness and pulled out a worn, circular compass—a tool commonly carried by self-proclaimed Diviners back in Yan.
If popular Yan stories were anything to go by, grave robbers rarely ventured into ancient tombs without one of these gizmos, using them to magically bypass lethal traps and navigate complex subterranean chambers unharmed.
"Where on Terra did you pull that thing from?"
As an Yan-born Ursus standing on Victorian soil, watching a Laterano-Ursus holy maiden whip out a cheap Yan superstitious prop in front of an ancient royal crypt left Talulah at a complete loss for words.
"I bought it back when I visited Lungmen!" Jeanne proudly displayed her newly unearthed treasure, oblivious to her friend's stunned silence. "The shopkeeper said it was an authentic family heirloom. It was super cheap, and I thought it looked fun, so I picked it up."
Watching Jeanne brag about her cheap bargain, Talulah didn't even know where to begin. Sighing heavily, she asked, "How much did you actually pay for it?"
"Twenty-five Lungmen dollars!" Jeanne answered with absolute pride.
"Well... at least twenty-five dollars isn't a total scam for a little desk ornament." Seeing Jeanne's smug expression, Talulah conceded that she wasn't quite as foolish as she looked.
In reality, identical compasses were sold by the dozen in Lungmen wholesale markets for fifteen dollars a pop—cheaper if bought in bulk—specifically designed to trick naive tourists into parting with their pocket change.
"That toy isn't going to help us here," Talulah said, shaking her head as she stepped up to inspect the massive doors. "This is a Victorian royal mausoleum. Trying to use Yan divination tools to unlock a Victorian crypt... don't you feel like something about that equation is a bit off?"
Ignoring Jeanne's proud antics, Talulah examined the intricate stonework until her eyes locked onto a strangely shaped depression near the center. Reaching into her coat, she produced the uniquely molded key they had retrieved earlier and slotted it into the mechanism.
A heavy, grinding metallic click echoed through the quiet cavern, followed by the deep rumble of ancient gears turning after decades of slumber. Slowly, agonizingly, the massive stone doors began to part.
As the heavy stone slabs shifted, twenty years of built-up dust and debris cascaded from the top ledge like a localized avalanche, catching Talulah completely unprepared.
She had completely forgotten just how long this place had remained sealed. Since the tragic death of the last Aslan King two decades prior, no living soul had set foot inside. Twenty years of accumulated dirt and grime delivered a brutal, coughing punishment straight onto her head.
"Cough! Cough, cough! You... couldn't have pulled me back?!" Talulah wheezed, frantically slapping dust off her shoulders and coat.
She turned around only to see Jeanne standing several meters back, having executed a flawless backward dodge to avoid the dust storm. To make matters worse, Jeanne was holding Fafnir in her left hand, watching Talulah's misery with a radiant, utterly unbothered grin.
"You're blaming me for your own slow reflexes, Talulah?" Jeanne teased, a wicked, playful smirk gracing her lips. "I was busy holding onto this little greedy dragon! How could I possibly have time to watch whether you managed to dodge in time?"
Beside her, Fafnir was being held by the scruff of her neck like a tiny, helpless kitten, her small arms and legs flailing uselessly in the air.
"Cough! Who could have predicted a dust shower like that?!"
After brushing off the worst of the grime, Talulah led Jeanne and Fafnir across the threshold, stepping into the solemn expanse of the crypt to discover what grand landscapes and buried secrets lay within the legendary resting place of Kings.
However, in their excitement, both women made a critical oversight: neither bothered to check if the massive stone doors would automatically seal behind them. In their minds, this was merely a tomb burying past monarchs; what of true value could possibly exist here that would attract unwanted trespassers?
Yet, moments after they stepped inside, before the heavy doors could fully swing shut, a shadow slipped quietly through the closing gap, infiltrating the sacred grounds right behind them.
To make matters worse, a fully armed squad was currently making its way through the subterranean tunnels toward this very location, holding an identical key to the one Talulah had used.
The curved, sharp horns atop their heads clearly signaled their origins—a unit of veteran Kazdel mercenaries, or so they appeared on the surface. But one look at their pink-haired leader revealed that their true identity was far more dangerous than simple guns-for-hire.
"The interior space in here... is massive!"
Jeanne marvelled aloud as she and Talulah advanced through the grand hallway, taking in the sheer scale of the architecture.
Talulah remained quiet, her eyes drifting over the imposing stone statues lining the grand avenue. These were the likenesses of past Draco and Aslan monarchs, though time and humidity had eroded many of their features into smooth, unrecognizable rock.
At the very center of these regal statues stood a gargantuan monument that lacked a face entirely. Though the statue had clearly been placed here decades ago, the facial features had never been carved, leaving a blank, eerily smooth slate where a majestic visage should have been.
Both women instantly deduced who the blank statue was intended for. This was undoubtedly meant to represent the Aslan King executed on the gallows during the political upheaval twenty years ago. Following his tragic demise, no noble or official cared enough about the buried past to fund the completion of his monument.
Neither Jeanne nor Talulah offered any comment on the bleak political reality. Talulah simply stared at the blurred stone monarchs in silence, lost in her own inscrutable thoughts.
"It's almost ironic," Talulah said after a long silence, a complex, self-deprecating smile touching her lips. "Even though I carry the blood of the Draco, I know virtually nothing about who these people were, or the historic glory my lineage once held in Victoria."
"If you don't know, then you don't know. What's the harm?" Jeanne replied, holding a remarkably detached perspective. "This nation severed its ties with you long ago—why waste energy trying to reclaim something that cast you out? Isn't it better to just focus on what's right in front of you?"
For a unique existence like Jeanne, abstract concepts like historical legacy and royal lineage held very little weight.
Truthfully, those things didn't matter much to Talulah either. Her momentary melancholy was merely a fleeting reaction to standing inside the quiet hall of her ancestors, realizing how much burden the Draco bloodline carried across Terra's history.
"You're right. These ancient monuments don't really have much to do with my present life anyway," Talulah conceded with a light sigh. "I suppose I was just overly dramatic after seeing these statues. I didn't expect the Draco legacy to feel so heavy."
"Tch, you think the weight on your shoulders is heavy?" Jeanne scoffed teasingly. "If we were comparing the sheer weight of what I carry on my back, it would blow your mind completely."
Jeanne spoke with complete disregard for royal grandiosity. To someone whose internal timeline was as bizarrely stretched as hers, these ancient stone halls felt rather ordinary. In a sense, she was beginning to understand how Kal'tsit felt after surviving nearly ten thousand years on Terra—viewing the rise and fall of empires with a quiet, unbothered detachment.
"There's nothing valuable here at all..."
While Jeanne and Talulah were chatting, little Fafnir had completed a full lap around the grand hall. To her profound disappointment, the vast chamber contained nothing but cold stone, completely devoid of glittering gold or shiny treasures.
"Maybe the real vault is deeper inside?" Jeanne suggested, gently patting the crestfallen dragon's head to comfort her voracious appetite for wealth. "It would be pretty wasteful to build a crypt this massive just to store a bunch of stone statues, wouldn't it?"
"Let's keep moving forward, then," Talulah agreed, stepping toward the inner archway. "I also doubt a royal mausoleum would end with just an empty reception hall."
As they crossed into the inner sanctum, Jeanne's gaze instantly locked onto an object resting in the center of the chamber.
Positioned atop a stone pedestal was a single, immaculate longsword driven deep into the solid rock floor. The entire chamber was completely bare, save for this solitary, striking weapon.
"What is that... the Sword in the Stone?" Jeanne blinked, staring at the strange sight.
"That's... Sigh of Kings?" Unlike Jeanne, who knew virtually nothing of Victorian lore, Talulah instantly recognized the legendary blade, her eyes widening in realization. "I can't believe this sword actually exists... I always assumed it was nothing more than a bedtime fairy tale."
Driven by a sudden, innate pull, Talulah took a step forward, reaching out toward the pommel of Sigh of Kings. She felt an overwhelming urge to draw the blade and witness its legendary power firsthand.
However, just as her fingers were about to brush against the hilt, a golden blur lunged from the shadows above.
Jeanne reacted instantly, her body tensing as the creature landed gracefully between Talulah and the pedestal. As the figure stabilized its stance, a magnificent, golden-maned lion turned its piercing gaze upon the intruders.
"That... is not a blade either of you is meant to pull!"