by Mark Mulle
Ghast and I free reign of the temple. We can go wherever we want. I was ready to leave yesterday, but after being invited into the temple, I think I want to stay for a while longer. It’s not every day that an adventurer is invited to see something like this. I want to take it all in before I leave.
The villagers have even given Ghast and me a wonderful place to stay. We have our own room within the temple. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was actually the most elegant room in the whole place. The floors have beautiful purple carpets in them. There are no beds in the room, but there are large comfy pink cushions. They are almost like bean bag chairs, but bigger, and so much more comfortable.
The villagers have also been giving us some great food. I thought they were running out of food, but I guess they still had some to spare. Ghast and I had a weird, but tasty, dark red drink that tasted like a strange tropical fruit. We also had a meal of fish and vegetables, which was weird because we didn’t bring the villagers any fish.
Now it’s night time, and I think I am going to go to sleep soon. It has been nice to stay here. I can’t help but wonder what else this strange temple has to offer. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to stay here for another day or two to check it out... I’ll write all about what I discover tomorrow.
Day Eleven: Drawings on the Wall
Dear Diary,
The villagers wanted to show me something today. They didn’t tell me that, of course, but one of the villagers did grab my hand and started pulling me out of my room and down a long hallway, so I kind of figured that they wanted to show me something.
In about the middle of the hallway, the villager that was leading me around stopped. He held up a torch to the wall, and that’s when I noticed that there were some weird paintings on the wall. I should probably explain better. The paintings were literally painted on the wall, almost like something between cave paintings and hieroglyphics. When I looked closer, I noticed that the characters in the pictures looked familiar...because they looked like Ghast and me.
There were little drawings of a girl that looked like me and a Ghast at the outside of the temple with a big box. A little further down the wall, there were pictures of the two characters at a feast. Then there were pictures of the two in rooms a lot like the ones that Ghast and I were staying in... I stopped looking at the wall when I got to that picture. It was just too creepy.
The creepiest thing was that the pictures looked as old as the temple, so it’s not like the villagers painted them when we got here. I can’t help but wonder if Ghast and I have fulfilled some prophecy by coming here...
No, that can’t be. I can’t fulfill a prophecy. I’m just an average adventurer. I’m just getting ahead of myself. The pictures are just a coincidence. They have to be. Right?
Day Twelve: Living like Royalty
Dear Diary,
Things are getting weird around this place. It’s a good kind of weird, but it’s still weird, nonetheless. The villagers are treating me and Ghast like a queen and a king. It’s a pretty sweet life that we’ve got going on in this place. The villagers aren’t doing so well on food, but they keep making us all of these delicious meals. It’s like nothing I’ve ever tasted before. These villagers really do know their way around a kitchen.
Even though all of this is great, I feel kind of guilty for letting the villagers treat me like this. These people don’t even know what a TV is or how to make swords, and yet they are using all of their resources on me when I know what both of those things are. I just feel like I should be the one helping them, instead of them helping me. It’s a really conflicting thing to deal with. On one hand, I wish I could stay here forever. On the other hand, I know I have a duty not to stay here for a long time.
I don’t really know what to do. Ghast seems to love this place. I would feel bad about making him leave. Then again, he agreed to come on this mission with me and to do all of the things that an adventurer does. He must know that all missions, no matter how great, have to come to an end. I hope I can break the news to him. I’ll talk to him about it tomorrow. I hope he takes the news well...
Day Thirteen: Talking to Ghast
Dear Diary,
I was a little nervous about talking to Ghast about wanting to leave the temple...or more like, wanting him to convince me to leave the temple because I like this place too much to leave on my own will. I’m not used to having this feeling since I usually work alone. I hardly ever need to think about other people’s feelings when I’m on a mission. Usually, all I have to focus on are the thoughts and feelings of me, myself, and I; that’s it.
Eventually, I did get around to telling Ghast how I felt about staying at the temple. It felt weird, like I was asking permission to leave, even though I knew I didn’t need anyone’s permission but my own. I wasn’t expecting it, but Ghast told me that he was feeling the same way about staying here. It was weird to hear him say that, but it made me feel better about wanting to leave. I wanted Ghast to have the adventuring experience of a lifetime, and I didn’t want to let him down by leaving a cool temple after just being on a mission for about a week. Luckily, he was more understanding than I thought he would be. I guess he thought it was weird that the villagers were using all of their supplies on us, too.
Anyway, now Ghast and I are packing up our stuff now and getting ready to leave. I just hope we can sneak past the villagers tomorrow so we can get out of here without bothering them. It seems like they have really liked having us here. The last thing I want to do is tick them off. I remember all too well what it was like to have their arrows pointing in my direction, and I would like to avoid that if possible.
Anyway... there’s really no more updates from today, so I guess I will write more tomorrow.
Day Fourteen: What’s Up?
Dear Diary,
My stuff was all packed up and I was ready to leave this morning, but something happened today that change my mind. I can’t really explain what happened. Instead, it feels more like something is going to happen. I have a bad feeling about this that makes my stomach feel like I ate some rotten food or like I’m back in my adventure training classes about to take a test that I didn’t study for.
The temple seemed to have more energy going through it than normal. I don’t mean that there were literally streaks of lightning or anything like that. The villagers in the temple are moving around a lot more than they usually are. They seem like they are panicking about something. I wish we spoke the same language so I could ask them what is going on.
There was no feast today. Maybe they are panicking because they were carelessly wasting their food? Maybe it’s my fault that they were carelessly wasting their food. Of course, it could be something else altogether. After all, I did see someone working quickly on making a ton of arrows. I can’t help but think that they are going to use the arrows for something other than hunting for dinner.
With all of this weirdness going on I feel like it is my duty to stay. These villagers might need my help! I don’t know exactly what they could need my help with, to be honest, but it’s not like I have anything else going on right now. A new mission can wait! I need to stick around to find out what is going on around here.
I told Ghast about wanting to stay, and he seems all up for it. He said he noticed that the villagers were acting strange, so it was nice to know that I wasn’t just imagining things. Tomorrow I hope I can get to the bottom of this. I’ll write more about it once I know what’s going on around here.
Day Fifteen: Dangerous Art
Dear Diary,
I was trying to figure out a way to communicate with the villagers last night, but nothing came to me. This morning, I woke up with a great idea. I remembered the wall art that the villagers showed me when I first got to the temple. I stopped reading the wall after a while because it had started to freak me out, but I knew there was still more to it. Maybe the wall could tell me what was going to happen next, even if the villagers couldn’t.
While the villagers were busy having their afte
rnoon meal, I grabbed a torch and headed down the hallway where the pictures were. Eventually, I found them. I started at the beginning, which was just pictures of villagers building the temple, and then I skipped up to where I last left off, which was a picture of two creatures who looked a lot like me and Ghast chilling in their bedrooms.
The next picture in the line was covered with dust. I pulled my sleeve over my hand and rubbed away the dust. When it was cleared away, I could still see the two figures that looked like me and Ghast. I rubbed away some more dust, and the picture showed that the figure that looked like me was holding a bow and arrow and the Ghast was shooting lasers. Next to the two figures were pictures of a bunch of villagers who looked like they were fighting something.
I had to walk a little further down the hallway and clean up more dust before I could find out what they were fighting. When I was done, I could see clearly that the picture showed Ghast and I leading a battle against an army full of villagers (who were dressed differently than the villagers in the temple).
This was what the villagers were worried about. There was going to be a battle here, assuming that the pictures on the wall were right--and they had been so far. It looks like Ghast and I have to stay here to