“Why are you not meditating like always when we are searching?” asked Tyler as he glanced at Rild, who was reading a book in front of the campfire. For Tyler it was quite strange since he was used to seeing Rild meditating every single second.

The group was traveling around Sandaras for a few days now. It could not be called a search since it would depend on luck if they found the mansion they were seeking. Although it was only a few days, it was visible that the morale of the group was not especially great. They all knew that it depended completely on luck, whether they would find the mansion in a few days, or whether they would need years which they did not have. All they could do was wander around in circles around Sandaras and hope for the best

“Good idea!” said Rild enthusiastically as his face brightened up.”I trust you to differentiate the mansion we are looking for from any other mansion belonging to a rich merchant or noble, which just happen to be here because these are the outskirts of a capital of a nation.”

After saying this Rild immediately closed the book and started meditating. The entire group just looked at him flabbergasted.

“How in the name of the Goddess did you not murder him already?”, asked Fai Reston and Tyler.

“Because he treats only me like this and Reston is his steadfast protector, since Rild is his redemption for plunging the world into the apocalypse”, answered Tyler in an exasperated voice.

“Yes. He does not miss even a single opportunity to make it clear to Tyler, that he hates him because he is a priest. If I asked him about it he would have answered normally without the passive aggressiveness,” confirmed Reston with a sigh. Even for him who was not the center of Rild's aggressiveness it was a very tiring journey so far.

Fai was traveling with Rild only for a few days but he already drove her nearly insane. Fai hated arrogant people and Rild was the epitome of the word. He viewed Tyler as so far beneath him, that he deemed it of utmost importance to insult him anytime even the smallest opportunity arose, he does not take Solana even remotely serious when she wants to talk with him about probably the only thing that interested him which was magic. He showed interest when he talked with her about it but Fai could see in his eyes that he did not see Solana as someone of equal standing when they discussed one topic or another. When Fai tried talking to him she only received disinterested grunts of approval or denial in return.

“Reston, I need to let out some steam,” the fairy proclaimed as she stood up.

“You're not the only one,” answered the knight in return as he also started to get up.

The two of them went a bit away from the campfire and drew their respective swords. Both assumed a battle position as they looked at each other. Both of them were holding standard swords in their hands.

“Fai, isn't your sword a bit too heavy for your sword style?” asked Tyler who was watching them.

“Yeah,” answered the fairy with a dissatisfied look as he glanced at the sword in her right hand. “I had no time to get one better suited for me.”

After saying this Fai once again started concentrating on Reston. After a few moment of silence she bolted towards him. Her sword turned into a blur as she stabbed towards Reston. The knight remained completely unfazed and only moved his hand slightly. The sound of clashing metal reverberated through the night as the two swords met.

“You are even faster than before,” noted Reston before he started a counterattack.

His sword drew an arc as it came crushing down on the fairy in front of him. Before the sword could hit Fai she already moved a step back so the sword would not connect.

“What the hell? Why are YOU so fast? Weren't you a drunk for the last two years? Your speed and reflexes should have dulled considerably!” explained the fairy in a very surprised voice.

“Well, I've also been training. Not on eaters like you but plenty of times on bandits. Where do you think my money for drinking came from?”

As he said that Reston once again attacked. Fai dodged the strike and launched a counter attack which was parried by Reston. This exchange continued for quite some time. Tyler and Solana just watched the two with a smile.

“Well feels just like three years ago, don't you think”, asked the old mage.

“Almost. Just you can see that Fai and Reston both got a lot stronger over the years, but...” Tyler went silent.

“You are concerned about the fact, that you had to start over with water magic since you can no longer advance in light magic aren't you? You think you lost years of you life for nothing, because you used the church's 'Divine Rings' in order to forcefully open the fourth gate of light for a time. You expected to die but survived and lost the possibility to advance in the only element you had a chance to reach the sixth gate in.”

There were different ways to test ones talent in a specific element and she knew that Tyler was tested extensively in every element. His highest affinity and talent was light. It was the only element which would allow Tyler to open the sixth gate of magic. The next best was darkness with a possibility of the fifth gate, then water with hope for fifth but realistically only the fourth. Since there was no known method to normally open the sixth gate of any element available to the world very few people chose to devote themselves to only one element. The ones who did were normally viewed as morons if they did not excel in the given element or like eccentrics if they did, but never as normal people since there was no reason not to pursue multiple elements. Some of them had hopes that a method to open the sixth gate will be found, some are confident enough to find the method themselves and some, like Neln, just thought it was the right way for them.

Tyler sighed as he nodded.

“You are right. But you know the funniest thing? I have yet to give up hope. I always hoped that somehow I would be able to continue to develop my light magic one way or another.”

“Well we have Rild now. And didn't he already say that he has a way to help you?”

“Yes. But I do not know how long it will take and in the end... my path may clash with his.”

Tyler looked at Rild with a conflicting gaze.

Solana put her hand on Tyler's shoulder as she tried to reassure him.

“The worldmages were powerful beyond anyone's belief. If they wanted to eradicate the church they would have done so already. Even if Rild is talented beyond belief he was very young when we killed him. Now imagine an old and experienced worldmage. They probably would have opened the sixth gate of magic in multiple elements. That and the fact that they probably have a few artifacts of unmeasurable power would make them quite the threat to any power. Even for your church. But they never moved against it, although it would be in their best interest to eradicate it since it spewed propaganda against the worldmages for goddess knows how long.”

“No they couldn't. The church... it has...” Tyler clearly looked uncomfortable when talking. After a few moments he took a deep breath and continued.”The church has beside the three known artifacts two more secret ones and one of them is powerful enough to repel the worldmages no matter how powerful they are. It is an armor. It is one of the supreme artifacts of the worldmages. 'The holy armor' to be exact. I only know about it because of my father's position in the church.”

“Wh-Wh- What? How did your church acquire such a thing? Even our mage families do not have something like this!”

Tyler smiled a self deprecating smile as he answered.

“Because it was given to us by a worldmage.”

Solana looked flabbergasted at Tyler. A worldmage gave an artifact of such power to the church. It was impossible.

“Why would the worldmages give something like this to their enemy?”

“It is because the church was not always the enemy of the worldmages. At the very beginning we were actually their servants. In fact the truth is even more surprising. Actually the very first divine father was...”

“... the 41^st worldmage Reginald Nyzen” interrupted Rild who stopped meditating and opened his eyes.

Tyler just nodded. Solana just looked between Rild and Tyler in a perplexed manner.

“Don't be so surprised. The original church was the worldmage's personal army for a long time. In fact Reginald Nyzen was not even the one who created it, he just recreated it. The church of the goddess existed prior to this, but after the second eater invasion the entire world got nearly annihilated. The church buildings got destroyed and the people had other problems to take care of. After four or five generations of worldmages the world was stable enough to start rebuilding military power, so Nyzen once again called the church into existence. It's actual role was the one of the goddesses warriors and priests. The real ones, not the shitshow today which is abusing these names for their own good. To help spread their influence a bit faster he gave them the armor in order to let a chosen champion of the goddess to appear invincible due to her blessing. It was kinda like a con if you think about it. Well one day Nyzen passed the seat of the worldmages to his niece, who was an incredibly talented mage but an exceptionally bad leader. She just appointed other people as the heads of the church. In fact the next three worldmage's did, because they just couldn't be bothered to manage an army which will only see it's use in another eater invasion. Already see the big stupidity? In the end the church were normal men not saints. After having all this power for so long do you think they will just give it back to the worldmages? In the end we lost. We already lost the most powerful artifact the worldmages had and since the armor was the second most powerful we could not beat it. Even with our third most powerful the staff Atsurio we tasted defeat. The church became a separate entity from the worldmages. At first it was not that bad. They still acted on their founding principles: healed people, protected the weak, took in orphans and taught them. But then after a while they started to play the game of 'who can be the most corrupt and self centered in the shortest amount of time' and we all know how that one ended.”

Rild finished his little speech with a quite depressed face.

“Also the armor's name is not 'The holy amour' it's Sylklir. Also how do you even know about Reginald Nyzen and especially the armor? There should be no one who remembers this story since the church started to annihilate any bit of knowledge which did not suit them. ”

“Thanks to my father, I could read about the creation of the church in the secret archives. To be fair not much was written. Only that the founder was the guardian of the goddess. Back then I thought it was the title given to the first divine father but now it's pretty clear who is meant.”

Rild was looking Tyler with a bewildered face.

“Who the hell is your father? He must be pretty high in the church hierarchy if you know about Sylklir and are able to visit the secret archives.”

Tyler did not answer.

“Don't try. He hasn't even told us,” answered Solana in Tyler's stead.

“Tell us more about the first artifact you lost” chimed Fai in.

Rild looked surprised at the fairy and the knight sitting to his left.

“Since when are you two here?”

“Probably the middle of your story. Reston did not need much time to beat me.”

“How he even beat you? You were training on eaters for the last years.” asked Solana curiously.

“Darkfire. I'm not using it against him but I'm using it against eaters. Cuts trough them like a hot knife through cold butter. Now quiet. It's the first time I heard him talk in a non condescending manner so I want to keep this going as long as possible.”

Rild shot a glare at the fairy but answered her query nonetheless.

“In all honesty there is nearly nothing to tell about it. We somehow lost it.”

“What do you mean you somehow lost it. The most most powerful artifact of the worldmages and possibly the world and you just 'somehow lost it'?”

“What I mean is that we do not know the story. Whatever happened destroyed most of our archives at the time and for some reason the event itself was not recorded in the archives which were started after the incident. And since it happened at the time of the 3^rd worldmage and his apprentice the 4^th it happened so long ago, that even IF something about it was written it is probably lost even to us. I mean how long ago was it? At the very least 6030 years or so ago. In all honesty I don't even now what the artifact exactly was. After that incident only mentions about it appeared in the archives, but never a full description.”

“Isn't it a bit weird? How could an order like yours not have any mentions of it after it disappeared? Wouldn't it be smarter to have a description as exact as possible in order to find it again one day?”

“True, but like I said, we have no idea what exactly was going on back then. A lot of worldmages, my master included tried to find any mentions of the artifact, but the only thing they ever found was some kind of mysterious mentioning about it's material which in all honesty does not bring us a lot of useful information.”

“Tell us, maybe Tyler read something in the secret archives or I in the ones of the mage families.” chimed in Solana.

“I doubt it strongly but very well. I think the only piece of half burnt manuscript that was found was was something like this: '… and to create it we took a piece of the golden guardian of the world which he infused with his very essence. With a drop of his golden blood. We had to sacrifice a lot in order to gain such a boon, but in the end it was very well worth it. With this our order will strive towards the true goal of magic with even greater strides so one day one of us will...'. So any ideas? “

Solana and Tyler went into deep thoughts trying to remember anything about a golden guardian of the world with golden blood. It was obviously not a worldmage since worldmages did not have golden blood. Maybe it was a metaphor. The priest and the old mage tried to remember anything which came even close to mentioning something like this.

“I may know something about it.”

Rild looked surprised at Fai who said these words. She knows something about it? Although Rild did not believe that it was something useful or even correct he was ready to be positively surprised. This matter was a grief to the worldmages for as long as they went back. Losing their most powerful artifact and without any possibility to track it down in any way was very disgracing and annoying to them.

Fai at this moment had her eyes closed. When she opened them and looked into Rild's he felt extremely uncomfortable. He could see blank fury in her eyes.

“The royal family of the fairies, is said to be the descendants of the so called 'golden guardian' and they inherited his golden blood. It gives them hyper regenerative powers among other things”

“The fairies have a royal family? Well that is some interesting information. But I don't think this is something to take seriously. It's probably some sort of propaganda. How the human nobles claim to have blue blood, but in reality it's just as red as a farmers. And isn't a quick regeneration something normal for you fairies?”

“No, it's true. If you cut off the arm of the prince and stab him in the face he will regenerate in a minute or so. Believe me on this one, because I tried it and can confirm that their blood is indeed golden.”

“I-I see. Thank you for the information. It is probably part of what our order is looking for. Bu-But did you just say you hacked off the arm of the fairy prince and stabbed him in the face? That explains why you are in the human world. Do I have to fear for my safety around you? I prefer my arms and my face just the way they are.”

Fai smiled a cold smile when she answered him.

“No. You can help me grow more powerful. So you are safe. For now.”

She added the last part in a more joking tone.

“Do we have to worry about royal fairy assassins while you are with us? How come you never told us anything about it?” asked Reston in an alarmed tone. Although he knew only one fairy, he had a very high opinion of their skills thanks to Fai. Royal fairy assassins were not something he was keen on dealing with.

“No, if they knew that I still live, then they would have tracked me down long ago. For me it's quite positive that we fairies never leave our forest,” answered Fai nonchalantly.

Rild, Tyler and Reston were looking at the fairy with a tinge of fear. Never mind Rild even Tyler and Reston heard about this the first time. They knew Fai had some problems with the rest of the fairies but they could not imagine the problems were with the royal family.

“Well it does not matter at the moment. We are searching for a mansion if you guys forgot it,” interrupted Solana the thoughts of the three man.

“Well at least I got some information connected to the artifact my order searched for goddess knows how long,” said Rild with a content voice.

The group started to prepare for sleep. Rild got the first lookout shift.

When he was sitting there he was thinking about what he learned. The golden blood of the fairy royal family got his interest. Even the worldmages did not have any mentions about the royal family of the fairies in their archives, which was kind of weird. Even if fairies were a secluded race, there were some of them who ventured into the human world from time to time. It should be known that the fairies have a monarchy, but for some reason nobody knew about it until now. Why was that? It's not something special to have a monarchy so it shouldn't be a secret. So why was the monarchy never mentioned?

Rild looked at the sleeping Fai in thoughts. In his mind there were two theories. The first one was that the fairy monarchy was something new which appeared only recently. That would explain why there were no mentions of them in the archives. But there was something which contradicted this line of thoughts. According to Fai's words it was believed that their golden blood was the inheritance of the so called 'golden guardian of the world'. It would be impossible to convince the fairies out of nowhere that your blood is not some kind of elemental mutation like Fai's darkfire, but the inheritance of some sort of divine being. This meant this fact is already old enough and known well enough to be taken as a fact.

“Which means it's probably my second guess,” murmured Rild for himself.

Rild's second theory was that the fairies were forbidden to talk about the royal family to the humans. But how could they prevent any and all information leaks? If a fairy left the forest they could just tell anyone about anything. And yet in the 6000 year old worldmage archive there was nothing about the royal family, which would mean that literally every fairy who ventured out was loyal enough to the royal family to never mention them. Not their friends, not to possible families they started in the human world. Rild did not think that the worldmages were powerful enough to know about everything happening everywhere so they may just have missed that bit of information, but Rild believed that something like that would have spread naturally if a fairy let it slip. One person would have told another and that person another and it would spread. At the very least there would be a rumor if not a hard fact. But how come that only loyal fairies who didn't talk about the royal family went out to the human world? Wouldn't it be more logical that the disgruntled left instead of the loyal ones?

“Except maybe if the royal family had a way to completely control who could leave and who couldn't and all the fairies who wandered around the world were their spies sent out to gather information about the current affairs of the humans or just someone who they deemed was loyal enough not to talk,” Rild was muttering,” and then there is something like Fai. She said they think she is dead.”

But what was that for? What does the royal family gain from this secrecy? It's not like a monarchy is something special, so it probably must have something to do with their blood. But that too is somewhat unrealistic, the fairy forest was a deathtrap to anyone who set their foot in. One of the northern empires once tried to invade the forest in order to gain more land, but it ended only in the complete destruction of the army. And they did not even get that far. Could it be, that the royal fairy family feared an extraordinary strong enemy who could bypass the forests protection and threaten them directly? But who could it be?

The worldmages would not become their enemies even if the fairies possessed the long lost artifact. It was not the style of the worldmages to spent their strength and energy on a strong enemy if the said enemy did not threaten to break the seal they were protecting. They even gave up on retrieving Sylklir because it was not indispensable in doing their duty. Rild had no doubt that the royal fairy family was powerful. The descendants of a being who even the worldmages had to bring a lot of sacrifices to in order to get a “boon” of something infused with only one drop of blood and that something later became their most powerful artifact, were probably pretty powerful themselves. The church? They had a very deep foundation and quite a few powerful artifacts, but they had no one truly powerful like the mage families had. So maybe them? Also not very probable. Although the mage families had their archons they would not be strong enough to be a danger. So another power which Rild did not know about? Rild did not believe that such a power would be able to hide itself from the worldmages. But then again the royal fairies did just that. Rild sighed and stopped thinking about it.

Rild stood up and went to wake up Solana for her night watch.

A few hours later Rild woke up because of someone poking his side. He half opened his eyes and saw Fai standing above him.

“Hmmm. What is it Fai?” Rild asked half asleep.

“Just wanted to ask you something. How does the mansion we are looking for look like?”

“Why are you waking me up for something like this?” the worldmage asked in a sleepy unhappy tone.

“Just answer me and then you can go back to sleep.”

“Fine. It is in the shape of an L. The walls are normally white, but green vines are nearly everywhere so it would seem completly overgrown and not much of the white would remain. The mansion itself is pretty big and has abrown roof. All around it is a pretty big garden. Basically everything about it screams 'earth mage residence'”

“I see. So something like this.”

Fai pointed to the side of the camp. Rild sat up to see what the fairy was pointing at and opened his mouth in surprise. About 20 meter from their camp started the garden of the described mansion.

“That's all I wanted to know. You can go back to sleep now.”

“Screw you. Everyone wake up!” shouted Rild who was now finally fully awake.

The group did not need long to get their things together.

When they stood in front of the garden's border Rild took a deep breath.

“Brace yourself. The space inside is different. For you guys it will probably be nothing, but for me it will be literal hell. Well on the bright side. Tyler might also suffer a bit,” he said with a grim voice.

“Why me?” asked Tyler.

“Inside the space it's two and a half times the normal gravity. Reston and Fai have trained bodies so they will be able to cope with it. Solana has opened the fourth gate of earth and should be able to negate it. But the two of us have nothing. Also you all better start praying the guardian is already gone.”

“Guardian?”

“No use worying about it now. Let's get this over with.”

With these words the group stepped inside.