A few days had passed since the discovery of the ancient artifact in the northern mountains.
The incident at the Magma Ox Forge had quickly become the center of attention among the various guilds. With the formation of the new task force, everyone had begun paying closer attention to anything unusual they encountered in their daily work.
It didn't take long before more discoveries began to surface.
A few unfamiliar engravings were found among the older equipment and structures within the Magma Ox Forge. They were subtle enough that they had previously been mistaken for ordinary decorative patterns, but after seeing the markings on the bracer, the smiths began recognizing similarities they had overlooked for generations.
The Aegis Mountain guards reported finding several more markings carved into old sections of stone and abandoned structures around their posts.
The hunters and forgers' guilds also began reporting their own discoveries.
None of the markings provided any immediate answers.
Some were incomplete.
Others had been damaged by time.
A few were so faint that the guild members weren't even certain whether they were connected to the symbols Ash had brought from the northern mountains.
Still, they were enough to prove one thing.
The strange engravings weren't limited to a single artifact.
They were scattered across the region.
And now people were actively looking for them.
The task force led by Ashtir quickly expanded. Several guild masters joined the investigation personally, while assistant guild masters and trusted craftsmen were assigned to help collect, document, and compare every new discovery.
Reports began arriving at the Magma Ox Forge almost every day.
New markings.
Old records.
Unusual metals.
Ancient tools.
Fragments of equipment whose purpose had long been forgotten.
The amount of information grew faster than the task force could organize it.
Ashtir found himself spending nearly every waking hour between the forge and the investigation.
Meetings that once lasted an afternoon stretched well into the evening. He examined artifacts, spoke with guild masters, reviewed reports, and helped determine which discoveries deserved further investigation.
For someone who had already been busy running one of the largest forges in the region...
His workload had become almost unbearable.
And yet, despite the exhaustion that showed on his face whenever he returned home, Ashtir never once suggested stopping.
For the first time in generations, the dwarves had begun looking at their own history differently.
They were no longer simply finding old objects.
They were beginning to realize that their ancestors may have left behind an entire body of knowledge that had been forgotten.
And somewhere among those forgotten engravings...
The answers they were searching for were waiting.
---
By the time I returned to Metal Veil, the investigation outside the mountains had already begun to grow.
Before crossing the bridge, I stopped beside the memorial.
The three ancient suits of armor stood quietly beside the grave, their weathered metal illuminated by the soft glow of the lanterns surrounding the waterfall. The dagger I had left behind still hung from the center armor, swaying slightly whenever the breeze passed through the valley.
I lowered my head.
"I haven't forgotten."
After a moment, I continued across the bridge.
Metal Veil looked much the same as it always had, but one thing along the main road immediately caught my attention.
A row of mannequins had been arranged beside the path leading into the kingdom.
Each one wore a different set of armor recovered from the deeper tunnels.
Some were missing pieces. Others were heavily damaged, their surfaces covered in scratches and dents. Several carried the ancient weapons that had been discovered alongside the remains.
The expedition team established by King Charles had continued working even after the discovery of the chamber.
They had begun searching for more sealed tunnels, carefully opening passages that had remained untouched for centuries. Whenever they found something that appeared useful, it was brought back to Metal Veil for examination. Weapons, armor, tools, and other strange objects were catalogued and studied by the older children and craftsmen.
I stopped in front of one of the mannequins.
The armor was unlike anything currently produced in Metal Veil.
I reached out and placed my hand against its breastplate.
Cold.
Nothing happened.
I waited another moment.
Still nothing.
"Yeah..."
I slowly pulled my hand away.
"As expected. Nothing."
My eyes moved across the engravings carved into the armor.
"If the adults reacted to the bracer..."
I frowned.
"Why did they faint?"
The thought lingered.
Then another memory surfaced.
I froze.
"...Faint?"
My fingers slowly curled.
I had experienced something similar before.
Not with the bracer.
Something else.
Something I had almost completely forgotten.
The mask.
My eyes widened.
I immediately reached for my bag and began searching through it.
After a moment, my fingers found what I was looking for.
I pulled it out.
The worn white mask rested in my hands.
Its surface was still covered with the strange symbols I had discovered inside the ancient chamber. A spade. A heart. A teardrop. A star. Several other symbols whose meanings I still couldn't understand.
I turned it over.
The faint blue crystalline patterns along the back were still visible beneath the scratches and accumulated wear.
My expression slowly changed.
"...It happened to me too."
The mask had activated.
The dizziness.
The sudden loss of balance.
The feeling that something had passed through me before I collapsed.
At the time, I had thought it was simply because I had worn an ancient mask that had been sitting untouched for centuries.
But now...
I wasn't so sure.
I stared at the symbols covering the mask.
For the first time, I wondered whether the strange reaction of the bracer and what happened to me inside the chamber were connected.
Maybe the question wasn't why the bracer made them faint.
Maybe the real question was...
Why had **I** survived it?
---
I remained standing in front of the mannequin, staring at the worn white mask in my hands.
The strange symbols seemed to stare back at me.
The spade.
The heart.
The tear.
The other unfamiliar shapes surrounding them.
I had spent so much time studying the engravings from the bracer that I had almost forgotten about the mask itself. Yet now that I had remembered what happened when I first wore it, the similarities were difficult to ignore.
The bracer had reacted to the adults.
The mask had reacted to me.
There had to be a connection.
I was so deep in thought that I didn't notice someone approaching from behind.
A hand suddenly tapped my shoulder.
I jumped so violently that I nearly dropped the mask.
"Ah!"
I spun around.
King Charles stood behind me, one eyebrow raised and a faint smile on his face.
"Ashvir."
I quickly straightened myself.
"Your Majesty."
"You came at the right time."
His gaze briefly moved toward the row of ancient armor before returning to me.
"Come. Let's head inside."
I carefully placed the mask back into my bag and followed him across the bridge.
The familiar warmth of Metal Veil slowly surrounded us again. Lanterns illuminated the stone paths while children moved between the houses, carrying tools and materials from one workshop to another. The sounds of hammers and conversations gradually replaced the distant roar of the waterfall behind us.
For a moment, everything felt normal.
Then Charles spoke.
"I heard about what happened at the Magma Ox Forge."
I glanced at him.
"The bracer?"
He nodded.
"Ashtir fainted after touching it."
"And another dwarf did too."
Charles' expression became more serious.
"The adults who directly touched the relics."
He paused.
"They fainted."
I nodded slowly.
"Yes."
Charles looked ahead as we continued walking.
"Do you know why?"
"No."
I hesitated.
"That's actually what I was thinking about."
He glanced at me.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the worn white mask.
"I think something similar happened to me."
Charles stopped walking.
His eyes immediately settled on the mask.
I turned it slightly, allowing the light from a nearby lantern to fall across its surface.
"I found this in the chamber."
"The first time I wore it, those markings on the back lit up."
I turned the mask over, revealing the faint blue crystalline patterns.
"I became dizzy. My vision started spinning, and I couldn't keep my balance."
Charles carefully examined the patterns.
"What happened after that?"
"I fell."
I paused.
"But I didn't faint."
Charles' expression changed slightly.
"You remember everything?"
"Most of it."
I lowered the mask.
"At the time, I thought I was just overwhelmed by whatever was inside the chamber."
"But after seeing what happened to Ashtir..."
I looked down at the mask.
"...I'm not so sure anymore."
Charles was quiet for several moments.
Then he continued walking.
I followed.
"There is something else you should know."
I looked toward him.
"The children haven't reacted to the relics."
I frowned.
"What do you mean?"
"Some of the children have been helping with the expedition."
Charles gestured toward the road behind us.
"They've handled the armor."
"The weapons."
"Some of the tools."
"Even a few of the smaller artifacts."
"And nothing happened?"
"Nothing."
He shook his head.
"No dizziness. No collapse. No strange markings."
I looked at the mask in my hands.
"But the adults..."
"Fainted."
Charles nodded.
"And you?"
"I experienced something similar, but I remained conscious."
Neither of us spoke for several steps.
The possibility slowly began taking shape in my mind.
It wasn't simply a matter of whether someone touched the relic.
Something else determined how they reacted.
"Have you tested everyone?"
"Not deliberately."
Charles' expression became slightly more cautious.
"We don't want to start experimenting with people's bodies without knowing what we're dealing with."
I nodded.
That made sense.
"But we've been watching."
He looked toward me.
"And so far, the pattern remains."
"The adults react."
"The children don't."
I tightened my grip around the mask.
"But I did."
Charles didn't answer immediately.
He looked at me for several seconds.
"Yes."
His voice was quieter.
"Which means you're different from the others in some way."
I looked down at the mask again.
The thought made me uncomfortable.
I had always considered myself just another child of Metal Veil.
I trained.
I studied.
I helped around the kingdom.
Nothing about that seemed particularly special.
Yet now, two completely different ancient relics had reacted in ways that none of us understood.
And apparently...
I wasn't the only child involved.
"Maybe we should tell Ashtir," I said.
Charles nodded.
"We will."
"But carefully."
I looked at him.
"We still don't know what these relics are capable of."
He glanced toward the streets ahead.
"And until we do, I'd rather not have every child in Metal Veil treating them like toys."
A small smile escaped me.
"That would probably end badly."
"It would."
We continued deeper into Metal Veil.
The questions had only multiplied.
Why did the relics react to some adults?
Why didn't they react to the children?
Why had the mask reacted to me?
And most importantly...
What was different about us?
---
Charles led me deeper into Metal Veil until we reached the entrance to the king's chamber.
The heavy wooden doors opened with a low creak, revealing a room that felt strangely different from the grand royal halls described in the history books.
It was a king's chamber, but only by Metal Veil's standards.
The walls were carved directly from the mountain, with sections of rough stone still exposed between carefully fitted blocks. Thick wooden beams supported the ceiling, while old dwarven craftsmanship could be seen throughout the room in the form of reinforced metal brackets, carved furniture, and simple decorations made from whatever materials the kingdom could spare.
There were no mountains of gold.
No towering statues.
No extravagant throne.
Instead, the room was both refined and rugged, reflecting the kingdom itself.
Everything had been built with purpose.
Charles walked toward the center of the chamber before stopping beside a large wooden table covered with maps, reports, and sketches.
He looked down at them for a long moment.
"So many discoveries..."
His voice was quiet.
"And yet we've found almost no answers."
I remained silent.
Charles picked up one of the reports and glanced through it before placing it back on the table.
"The ancient chamber. The weapons. The armor. The strange metals. The engravings."
He slowly shook his head.
"We keep finding pieces."
"But we don't know how they fit together."
He turned toward me.
"Ashvir..."
I straightened.
"I'm going to graduate in a few months."
"I know."
A faint smile appeared on his face.
"I've said it before, but I suppose I didn't really understand what it meant until now."
He walked toward the window overlooking the deeper parts of Metal Veil.
"I promised our people that I would uncover the truth."
"I promised them that I would find out what happened to the dwarves who came before us."
His voice became quieter.
"But I won't have enough time."
I remained silent.
Charles looked down at his hands.
"I know I've said too much."
He gave a small, tired laugh.
"I suppose that's what happens when you're young enough to make promises and old enough to realize how difficult they are to keep."
He turned back toward me.
"The next king in line is a good man."
"He is intelligent. Responsible. He understands our people."
"I believe he'll become a good king."
"But..."
Charles paused.
"I don't think he'll finish this."
His gaze shifted toward the reports scattered across the table.
"Not because he doesn't care."
"He simply has other responsibilities."
"Running Metal Veil. Protecting our people. Managing the kingdom."
"The investigation will eventually become another task buried beneath everything else."
He walked back toward the table.
"And I don't want that to happen."
Charles placed both hands against its surface.
"So before I leave..."
"I want to entrust this mission to you."
I stared at him.
"Me?"
He nodded.
"Directly."
"You've already shown more interest in these discoveries than most adults."
"You've spent weeks studying the engravings."
"You found connections that even our craftsmen overlooked."
"And now we've discovered that you may react differently to these relics."
He looked directly into my eyes.
"I don't know why."
"Neither do you."
"But I believe you'll keep searching."
Charles straightened.
"So..."
"What do you think?"
"Are you up to it, Ashvir?"
For a moment, I simply stared at him.
The weight of his words felt far greater than anything I had expected when I entered the chamber.
This wasn't another assignment.
It wasn't a request to help with an excavation.
He was entrusting me with something he had promised an entire kingdom.
I slowly straightened my back.
Then I raised my hand to my forehead in a formal salute.
"As the king wills."
Charles stared at me for a moment.
Then a small smile appeared on his face.
"Good."
He turned back toward the table.
"Then let's make sure we leave you enough clues to continue where I stopped."