Craig was taken aback by the phantasms as it was his first time seeing them, but quite surprisingly, Rhett and Brianna were shocked too.
Rhett immediately ran to an extensive logbook, noted down the details and read them out loud, "Month of Zeus, 3rd week, Pyr. Cense Centripetal. 3 phantasms one after another!"
"Is there anything similar to this on your record?" Brinna said in an addled voice. Tensing his brows, Rhett turned page after page, "No. Never have I seen so many phantasms back to back and all of them of such huge intensity."
A brown circular symbol appeared on the well and quickly disappeared in the light. Brianna saw the pattern and dipped her index finger in the fermented lime bone powder kept on a small bowl close to the well.
She drew the same unique circular symbol on the slab and on it, she rolled a crystal die, the die rolled several times in the air before resting at a solid six.
She looked at Rhett with horror, "What does it mean? The phantasms.."
Rhett checked the number on the die, "The phantasm is infallible."
Craig saw the that the symbol St. Brianna drew on the slab disappeared as well. Out of curiosity, he asked, "What does it mean?"
Closing the book, Rhett explained, "These are called Indicators, Judas. An indicator is a divination device made from sacred matter which determines the truth-value of a phantasm and hence telling us about its accuracy."
"That's it. I'm not dealing with it anymore." Brianna said and snatched the red gem from the seer's salver.
Craig felt as if the red gem was his, "Can you return it to me?" He said softly re-calculating the overall pros and cons of keeping the sacred relic.
"No, I'm sealing it away in The Aparagorevmenos."
Looking at Craig's confused eyes, Brianna explained, "The Aparagorevmenos is a room right next to The Archives. It's where we keep the sacred relics and manuscripts we consider forbidden."
Rhett fixed his glasses and said, "And sometimes, entities too." and smiled, as if the previous surprise from the abnormal divination was not much of a deal.
'How can you just consider something forbidden? I expected St. Brianna to be more careful than that. Besides, it's mine, I found it!'
Craig then remembered the horrific sight of the fires and re-considered his stance, maybe she is right, maybe it isn't safe.
Craig sat down on the chair with furrowed eyes and looked at the divination well in between.
Suddenly, he caughed out loads of blood. Blood spilled out from his eyes and ears, it came from his nose and chest.
'Wh-What's happening!?'
Slowly his vision weakened and his senses became numb. His body and limbs felt heavier as he fell back, banging his head on the ground, seeing only the concerned faces of Brianna and Rhett who ran towards him.
For a good amount of time, it was dark, totally dark, still Craig was able to think, 'Did I die? Where am I?'
He slowly opened his eyes and got glances of this new place – everywhere he looked, it was brilliant gold.
'Hindu Heaven?'
At an infinite height, he saw a diamond plated cieling with concentric rings having an orb in between them, closely resembling Saturn. Thousands of steel black chains were connected to an obscure figure which kneeled on the orb.
Consumed by utter confusion, Craig didn't dare to move an inch but soon another thing happened —
A gigantic tsunami of blinding white light slowly approached him like a cataclysmic hurricane. The wave tall enough to reach upto the infinite ceiling, it swirled, growled and kept on marching.
For some reason, Craig even though beyond horrified was not able to move, he was too overwhelmed by its majesty.
When the giant wave came close to hitting the chained figure it stopped.
"C-O-M-E B-A-C-K!"
A cataclysmic, abnormally loud sound came out from the storm.
"R-E-T-U-R-N T-O W-H-E-R-E Y-O-U W-E-N-T!"
Craig stood up with nothing but a fragile body to protect himself.
"He has nothing to do with it." The chained figure shouted at the storm, "Leave him alone! Let him go!"
Gigantic mouths opened up in the storm, it growled like a ferocious, mindless monster.
"Y-o-u D-a-r-e c-h-a-l-l-e-n-g-e M-E!"
Countless colossal gushes of fiery light lashed out at them.
A golden barrier was deployed infront of Craig, it saved his life but its impact still knocked him away by miles.
The chains shattered and the figure was flicked away by the immense force, he fell at a greater distance from Craig. As a result, his body broke and bled and got reduced to a beaten pulp.
Craig ran to the figure and looked at him and what a shock! It was wearing the same clothes as the faceless youth he saw in the last phantasm.
This time he wasn't faceless, he had strong, heroic expressions and an acute jaw, his nose was short and slim. Craig descended to the floor and used the folds of his robe to wipe the blood from his face,
"What's happening? Are you alright?" Craig said to the figure in a trembling, horrified tone.
The figure opened his blue-black eyes and touched his wounds.
"Meno... Is it you?" The figure said in a tremulous voice.
Craig didn't understand – but he couldn't bring himself to stating his confusion.
The storm growled again. This time, its intensity was doubled. Craig looked at the storm to find out that it was slowly growing arms, tails and endless, gargantuan tendrils of light.
As soon as the storm released another blazing blow, Craig took the figure in his arms and leapt immensely to the right, barely escaping by a needle's breadth a galactic blast which obliterated the golden plains leaving behind a scorched wasteland of radioactive, annhilated mess.
'What on earth was that!' Craig's heart thundered.
The figure's mouth opened slowly, his bleeding lips quivered in pain. Fine lines of tears opened up from his eyes as he clenched Craig's hands in a shaking grip,
"Associating with me will only bring you more dangers, Meno. You have a hundred more things to do, a hundred more things to live for and another hundred to relish. That's why I request you, Meno, run away! You don't have to die with me. Even in death, I'll remember only one man, it will be you. Your wet, sunny kisses, your eyes and skin like golden leaves! All of them will make amends, your love, your beauty will make amends." The figure said with half-opened eyes.
'If I tell him the truth that his love isn't here, I will only destroy the little peace he has left. To hell with truth, what is truth in front of human comfort? I will keep you in a beautiful lie. Rest with love, my friend.'
Craig wrapped the figure's cloak around him and embraced him, giving him the illusion of intimacy with his love.
"When I'll reincarnate in my 50th legend, I will still look for you. I will repeat the same trials, carry out the same Advent, make the same allies and enemies, fight the same battles, only to reach you, Meno. I.."
Before he could finish, Craig looked up. This time, the storm tripled in size and form. Sounds of collapses came, he looked around to see that the golden world itself was falling apart, being consumed by the storm.
Each particle got converted into golden dust and assimilated into the storm and increased its size exponentially. The storm growled like never before – as if millions of worlds and stars were grinding and churning.
Finally, it came. An all-encompassing blazing white tornado which rapidly swept across both of them washing them away in a frenzy, the golden world dissolved into a mess of blinding white nothingness.