• 3^rd Person POV

“EEK!” Evan closes his eyes as the book engulfed them both. After a while, amidst the darkness he slowly opens his eyes awaiting for the you have died notification. Instead, he is given a familiar sight once again, right back at the entrance of the dungeon where he is standing beside the monument.

Heaving a sigh of relief with Umbra looking around sniffing the air. Evan knew this is a safe spot, so he look at the monument again. “Hmm? There’s more words in it?”

 

“Eyes? What eyes?” Evan look around and sees the very same darkness. Before glancing down and seeing his own hands on what he supposed to held.

He realizes that the [Light Orb] is nowhere in sight in his hand. In doing so, he looks up, the hovering spotlight on top of his head have been reset as well. “I see…” Evan concluded that he has made some progress by activating that book.

“Then… is there anymore of those?” Evan refers to the massive lectern displaying that old leather-bound tome. As usual, he tries to grasp the hovering light orbs from afar using magic as it gives in and landed itself right on Evan’s hand.

He noticed something on that orb is changed. Rather than a glass orb, they closely resemble an eyeball construct now with the mote of yellow light mimicking a pupil. “Hm?” He grew curious as the pupil of this orb seems to look at elsewhere.

Evan turn his body around while staring at the bizarre eyeball, it keeps on looking to that direction like a compass. Whenever he move, it moves as well to that direction.

He takes another light orb that is the same way as well, they are all eyeball construct and the pupils moved by itself to a direction.

Since he’s eager to follow, Evan maintained a spotlight hovering above him using magic while holding one as a compass. “Let’s see here… going to the right…. then north… ah! need to avoid those book stacks.” Evan continues to follow.

Occasionally, he used the compass as a flashlight to see where he’s going. He doesn’t want to fall to a chasm or a trap. Strangely, the flooring of this chamber is worked stone albeit covered with torn pages or singed tomes.

He reaches a dusty room as he can feel the gritty texture of the flooring when he steps. He shines the flashlight towards the room. “A laboratory?” He can see alembics, distillery, mortar & pestle, a board containing ripped apart pages or burned ones.

Shattered glass littered the long tables and floor besides the decoration, Evan notices something else too… upon reaching this place. The pupil of his compass suddenly splits into 4, each to a direction.

Whenever he turns his body, the pupils continues to look at that direction. He decided to follow along for now as he used some of his MP to create a mana armour just in case. Arriving to one point, Evan sees that its pointing to a piece of mirror. It is not broken in any means or shattered, just left out of place.

“???” Evan looks confused while he’s stroking Umbra’s back instead of biting his nails “Woof!!”. Nevertheless, he stored it right inside his inventory.

“It’s just normal mirror” Continuing on, Evan sees that one of the pupils have disappeared. “Huh….” Growing more curious, he moves to other direction following what the ‘compass’ have shown.

They all lead to mirrors as he pick them all up and put it on his inventory. Upon picking them all though, the separated pupils merge together into one as it point to another direction.

“Seriously?” Evan still confused but feels reassured knowing he has something to do and Umbra wags his tail cuddling Evan. “Alright…” He follows the direction as it goes deeper into the laboratory room.  To a rusted door.

*CREAK!!!*

The door creaks loudly as the knob fell upon being opened, “Ah… sorry” Evan thought as he is greeted with a set of clockwork machinery resembling some kind of egg.

“What is this?” Evan doesn’t know what that is, so he tries to probe using magic by sharpening his senses to identify.

“Hmmm… it’s… a hint of transmutation-based magic. More specialized in… ugh my head… specifically time” He stops identifying as he looks at his MP knowing he just consumed almost half of it.

Pulling out from his inventory, a flask filled with liquid blue solution as he dunked down on his throat. “I only have 3 of them left” The flask vanishes as he gained some of his lost MP.

“It seems that my MP regen and constantly putting the spotlight above me using magic counteract one another that means I cannot regen MP. Sigh… I need to make sure not to cast massive spells or I’ll lose all my MP” Although thankfully, the extra MP regen from consuming the mana potion. Gives Evan a surplus allowing his MP bar to regen albeit slowly.

Evan look at that clockwork machinery again for a while, until a flash of recognition dawned on his face. “The egg of time. Made by Archmage Janus. There’s no accounts on what it does on any of the books. So it is still a mystery…” Evan curiosity grew bigger than he can hold.

He touches the clockwork machinery. *CLICKS *CLICKS *CLICKS* the clockwork began to turn and shift as the egg opened like a blooming flower. In doing so,

*FLASH*

Like a camera flash it blinds Evan & Umbra for a second. A moment’s passed, they got their bearings about what has happened as Evan look at his surroundings.

The darkness that’s been covering the entire area have disappeared. The floorings are pristine clean, there are no littered books or pages. And a notification panel abruptly appeared before his face.

 

Evan nods reading that panel, then he look around the area. The egg of time is partially constructed in this timeline as everything in Evan’s & Umbra vision is blurry and monochrome.

They are figures roaming about, their body size & shape indicates that they are humanoid, but Umbra just didn’t pay attention to them. “I see… they aren’t enemies then.” Heaving a breath of relief upon seeing Umbra’s reaction

In closer inspection, the humanoids they are all faceless moving about like a shade which creeps Evan for a moment. and patted the dog to calm himself down.

The area is brightly lit albeit all in monochrome colour with shifting figures wandering about in odd speed and sometimes slower than usual.

He looked at the ‘compass’ in his hand and atop his head that function as a spotlight. They didn’t get affected by it rather his compass now shown a different direction to follow.

He did just that, following along until he reaches the destination and realizes that he’s back to where he started the dungeon.

The monument that he recognize is different, rather than a normal obelisk. This one is now formed like a human seemingly manipulating a clock without touching it.

“I’m guessing that is Janus. How come he’s relevant in this scenario?” Evan looks confused but nevertheless, he looked at the ‘compass’ once again and it is deactivated not showing any light or the one above his head.

Instead, they vanish and reappears once again making a path of floating orbs atop the room. Towards the centre of this dungeon.

“I see… hmmm… if everything change by the egg of time, does that mean the centre location of where I died before changed as well?” Evan thought of that as he giddy up Umbra and walk following the trails of that eyeball like constructs.

He continues forth until he encounters the very same stage, but it is brightly lit allowing Evan to see what’s going on. Galaxies adorned the ceiling, starlit skies painted across the walls, orbiting planets can be seen on the walls & ceiling

Widening his eyes, Evan recognizes this “Its… its… a planetarium!”  it is breathtaking to look at, even with the monochrome colours.

There are also humanoid figures sitting down with one larger looking figure right beside Evan seemingly standing there without any movement.

“GRRR!!! WOOF! WOOF!” Umbra barked to the top, indicating that it is an enemy or a threat with Evan immediately looked up to the ceiling.

Evan can see what’s on the ceiling now, instead of a bright spotlight that almost blinding to him. It is a cage where the inside of it lies a triangular hexahedron that seems to be hovering & slowly spinning around.

*TSSSSSS*

Soon after, a beam of light emerges through the bottom point to the stage boring a hole through. “Ah! I see… so that is what killed me before.” Upon looking at that small floating octahedron. The shade besides Umbra began to move, it appears to be putting something on where the light beam hits. Evan is surprised as the inventory panel opened by itself and the mirrors that he got being high-lighted.

Evan brought out the mirrors as he put one on the bottom light copying what the humanoid figure just did. But he uses magic instead of manually putting them knowing how dangerous that beam of light area.

The beam got reflected back to the floating thing as it is now separated to three different beams leading to different points. Each boring a hole on the planetarium walls.

“What do you want me to do? Hmm…” Evan look around seeing the three beams trying to think of where he would reflected it back.

Until the shade again slowly and steadily move to each of the point and put something on them. Confirming that Evan should put a mirror on where the beam hits.

Wondering what, he glances to the triangular hexahedron. He notices something, that ever so slightly. The bottom side of the hexahedron glints and realizes that it doesn’t spin by itself now. Rather it is fixed in place inside the cage.

Understanding that, Evan manipulated the other three mirrors from afar consuming his MP to do so. He can see his MP bar slowly and steadily goes down, but he persists.

*CLICKS*

When the last part of the mirror have been affixed. The beams of light is pointed to the bottom sides of the triangular hexahedron. It began to glow even brighter than normal and now spinning increased its speed steadily.

Soon after, a portal have been opened with that a notification panel appeared before him.

 

Multiple ping rings through Evan’s panels from the status, to inventory, etc. But his mind have been trained in a sense to tune them out. Because he’s seeing something that is much more spectacular.

Through that portal, it spews misty darkness with Umbra just sat like a good dog seemingly unaware that the darkness clouded the entire planetarium and expands more to the corner of the building completely engulfing the figures as they appeared to be running away.

The prominent figure that put something there seems to be standing there in quiet before stepping forward and face the portal

Evan instinctively closed his eyes as he felt the mist engulfing him, but it doesn’t harm him or anything as he realizes that it is a cutscene after the completion of the dungeon.

The constant darkness coming out from the portal continue to engulf everything in its path as the books, tomes, and more being knocked down due to the shifting figures running away. The triangle hexahedron glows brighter and spins even quicker. The line that created the portal did not fade rather brightens.

*CRASH*

Then the cage containing that hexahedron broke with a loud sound of metals creaking apart. With that, the hexahedron freed from its cage.

It hovers and spins erratically to different direction and the beams of light moved everywhere hitting some of the shifting figures as they vanish upon contact. Yet the line that made the portal still intact even their source have been disconnected

Until it hit the mirrors, breaking it to pieces and the light lines faded closing the portal for good. But the hexahedron continues to spin even faster as it emits an incredibly bright light.

The shade that stood in silence just now have stepped in front of the deactivated portal witnessing the hexahedron chaotic spins.

The figure outstretched its hands to the air, he summoned several orbs from thin air as he took some light from that thing and infuses it inside the orbs as it become spotlights showing the exit with one served as a container to that uncontrollable hexahedron.

Then the massive looking figure vanish to thin air with the dungeon completely closes and kicked Evan & Umbra out.

*WHAM*

Evan fell face first to the ground with Umbra nudging Evan’s waist to try to make him stand up. As Evan stood up from his prone position, he looks forward as he sees several figures wearing different coloured robes with the same symbol of the mage’s guild turn their head towards him including players as well.

The sunlight comes from the windows as the chatters come to a halt. They bore a look of surprise seeing a completely unknown person came out from the wall. A notification panel pop before Evan as he stands up.

 

“Oh…no…”