Chapter Text
Since its genesis countless of aeons ago, Robloxia has always been an ever-expanding cosmos of creation. The whole ecosystem was an embodiment of wonder. Robloxians spawning everyday, building new things everyday. There were entire new worlds and lands spawning every day, too. Various groups rising and falling, making their names, challenging each other, originally all for the sake of fun. Monuments and achievements were being made, legacies being left for the future. And most importantly of all...there were memories.
Now, ever since, the cosmos has gotten much more complex than that. Robloxia, as a general place, isn't the only area we can refer to. There's plenty of different people, from plenty of different worlds. As for how they all interact...
Well, let's use our imagination, shall we?
This tale will focus on two artefacts. The artefacts in question are the Soul Castle, and the Statue of Robloxia. One in the domain of the Spirit Realm, the other—the Mortal Plane. Perhaps not well-known by the majority anymore, but they still serve their own purposes, and hold significant meaning with years of history behind them. And there are still figures who remember them, with varying views each. The two have one thing in common: There were those willing to protect them, and those seeking to destroy them.
Why would there be individuals with such plans? Some would say it was for power, some—the materials. Or these objects of interest were simply in the way of their ulterior motives...Some other reason entirely...Who knows for sure?
How would the loss of these objects affect the world today, anyway?
There was somebody who could answer that hypothetical, and in great depth, of course. However, currently, he was too busy facing a sudden loss of his own.
He scrambled around the library.
He kept them so meticulously organised, you know. There was not one empty space on the shelves.
"No, no, NO! Where?"
That was, until this unfortunate day...
"What happened to them?! Where have they all gone?!"
...when the warlock found his collection in an unacceptable state.
Arcane skittered around, flew from one level to another, bookcase to bookcase. Each time he thought that, surely, it couldn't get any worse, soon after he was proved wrong. With each time, his searching of the place would get faster, more frantic. It was already a stressful beginning, but it just kept getting worse.
Sometimes he'd bump into quite a few things: like the tables, or the shelves themselves while flying. On foot he stepped on his own robes and trip over the rugs, at least once each, and so on, all accompanied with a yelp or a curse proportionate to his pain. He might've been cursing under his breath a lot more during this than he ever had for a good part of his lifetime, for each lack that he'd find sullying this sacred place would bring him closer to tears.
This cycle went on long enough for someone else to wander into the room because of the noise.
"Hey, what's going on?" Dezadon started. "It's never this loud at this...What the—" Then he fell quiet as he got past the pillars and witnessed the mage wallowing in misery, on his hands and knees. He ran and dropped on his knees as well, by his side, with an arm reaching over. "Arcane! Are you alright?!"
"This is just, it, it's—" When Arcane felt the hand on his shoulder, he looked up at Dezadon with the most pathetic look on his face. "—It's terrible!" He semi-tackled the worried spirit into a hug and kept rambling, almost incomprehensibly. "My fountain of knowledge, ruined...! Completely...! They've been, it's all—" The rest of what he was trying to say started to get lost.
"Okay, hang on. Slow down," Dezadon eventually asked in a delicate tone as he caressed him on the nape. He felt a sudden weight dropping against his shoulder, a grip tightening on and somewhat shocking his arms, and he just knew that there were tears staining the leather of his coat. "Breathe."
The anxious seconds quieted down.
A deep breath was taken. Multiple were, some shaky. Dezadon breathed out a thin, cool mist around them while Arcane held onto him for as long as needed.
Seconds turned into minutes. And so the minutes passed as Arcane somewhat regained his composure, albeit still burdened. Soon enough he shifted to rise again, the other man parting from him to allow him before doing the same. He passed his hand through his electrically charged hairs and then played with the rest of it as he let out a sigh.
"I think I'm well now."
"Uh-huh. So, what happened?"
"Just look around," he waved a hand towards the shelves surrounding them. Dezadon hadn't even noticed anything other than Arcane earlier, but now, with a simple "oh" escaping him, he realised what was wrong.
Entire clusters were taken out of the wooden frames, you could say. Multiple lines and series of tomes, gone (From multiple different bookcases, no less). But there were no other signs of damage or tampering to be found on the ever-pristine structure. Thinking about it again just baffled Arcane, enough to put his face in his hands and drag them down, as if attempting to tear it off. Pieces of history, literature, extracts from many different cultures, myths, biographies, studies—so many pieces—half of all the information he had gathered, all snatched away by the unknown.
"You see what I am dealing with here?" Arcane continued, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I haven't even counted all of them yet. You saw how I was about ready to flood my eyes out. But I should get to it, now."
"That's infuriating," Dezadon said with one last pat on the back. "Do you need help?"
"Yes, please. If you wouldn't mind."
They soon embarked on the mission of naming all that was missing together; one was going around, starting from the beginning, the other was floating closely behind. The bookworm had brought out a few papers on his clipboard and began re-reading about the classification system to the former, as it wasn't something he talked about as much as the contents of what he stored. He flipped through the indexes for all the different shelves in each section as their conversation bounced back and forth well.
This job could've been done alone, sure, but it might not have been as smooth as it was right now, considering the state that the mage was in earlier. Besides, everything feels better to do with a friend by your side. And by the Gods was Arcane grateful; Dezadon was willing to examine the books in his stead and alert him on whatever was missing—be it only individual titles that were read out from the list or the ranges in between them—bless him and his patience. He nodded and wrote everything on a separate sheet of paper.
During small breaks, the knight would pass his hand through the empty spaces between books, feeling an odd familiarity. He remembered the times when it was getting reorganised, the times the contents were being discarded and changed...hell, he even remembered all the way back to when it was first established, and Arcane was getting to work on his collection immediately. What he was looking at right now was a lot of progress that was lost.
The two tried to theorise on what or whoever could've possibly done this, reaching no conclusion. For things to suddenly be this way, this empty, was just unnatural. It was admittedly melting both of their minds.
When he looked at the yellow spirit again, he could see that even though he was busying himself, even though his eyes fixated on the lists and his focus tried to remain on the task at hand, he couldn't shake the restlessness.
When they finally finished examining and sat down, one had his head in his hands again. He already felt exhausted, as if this experience was draining all of his life-force right now.
The turquoise spirit leaned against his elbow on the table, pulling closer the documents and skimming over them. Knowing that Arcane had spent many decades collecting thousands upon thousands of books, he felt his stomach drop from seeing the total number.
He pushed the documents aside and let out a blowing breath. "That's a lot," he emphasised.
"How and why...? Who could've taken all of them? Was it a Spirit or a Soul? I can't think of any spirit who would benefit from theft such as this," Arcane spoke faintly. "If it were a soul, then that would mean...Perhaps there were multiple...?"
They both whipped to look at each other with widened eyes.
"There is no way," Dezadon started.
"But so many of these were related to the Soul Dimension and Soul Wars, among other things—"
"How many souls could have possibly sneaked into your library? How could they have even made it here unnoticed??"
"I'm not sure, but it's evident that something made it here." Arcane then leaned forward as he whispered, "Oh, no, do you think the Castle at the Edge could've been...?"
"I—Don't know." Dezadon pressed his fingers to his temple. "But when? I feel we would've known by now?"
"You're right, considering the guardians there likely never leave their post. Even still, what if...?"
"It's always the 'what if...'" He sighed, but in agreement.
There's silence.
Eventually, a decision is made. They nod at each other.
"We ought to sneak a look. Just in case."
"Just in case."
Deep down in their hearts, they hoped that they were making a pointless journey.
They hoped that they had geared up for nothing, that the Castle would be standing as per usual, its power still in effect and its residents still maintaining it. But in the end, their hopes were in vain.
In fact, the very scenery itself wasn't all too inviting.
Shadowy clouds had formed all the way from the horizon, and they seemed to be growing bigger still, fading the gleam of the brilliant ethereal sky. Already, half of it was practically consumed by the intruding Dimension. They could look in one direction and see oblivion, and in the other, the light that they've always known. This was more than warning enough that the balance was skewed. And now, the natures of the two planes were clashing with each other.
An encroaching darkness. Great thunder rumbling in the distant air. A howling, almost wailing wind, as a tornado seemed to be forming up there.
Going farther down, they didn't find that building they travelled for on the landscape. Instead, there were mounds of ruins. Chunks of rubble, littered about and some even seemingly ground into dust and gravel, painting the soil with ashen colours.
The worst part was, it looked like the destruction was long over. Not for a week. Not for a month, or even multiple months. The dust had settled. A small ecosystem that wasn't there before had been rotting over the debris. There were many cobwebs in the shadows of the ruins that somewhat resembled walls. It looked as if the structure had been gone for many, many years.
And no other being to be found, to boot...
Nothing was right.
The duo looked on in horror at this heart-sinking view.
"Completely levelled. How could this be...?" Arcane mumbled, his own hand muffling him.
"What...? But we were just hearing from them yesterday!" Dezadon broke out yelling. "And they were fine! When did they—!?" and then he groaned, hitting his palms against his helmet in a state of near-panic.
"Are the others aware of this yet?"
"Shouldn't they be? The...others...?"
There was a pause as Dezadon said that. It's as if he couldn't remember who they were for a moment. Like the memory was actively burning away.
"The..." ...Arcane failed to continue. The duo looked at each other, all their thoughts halting for a moment. Dezadon then shook his head and stood closer to the other, shoulders tensed as he scanned the area again. Arcane gripped his staff closer, eyes now fixed on the ground, the sense of something shifted, twisted out of place, something broken clawing at his mind.
The blades of grass rustled as the wind blew a bit stronger. Dark rainfall was starting.
It's impossible. It's impossible for all this to have happened overnight.
For souls to flood into the Realm, to tear down the Castle and spread out afterwards? Without a single alarm raised? No sign of change—Nobody to acknowledge it? It was utterly absurd.
Then that raised the question, were the others okay?
Saving their breaths, they left the Edge of the Realm to check up on their community. Surely the lapse of memory would mean nothing if they saw them...
...
They couldn't find the others.
None of the guardians were around, nor their peers. Many important spirits were missing. Many were unrecognisable. They also saw stray souls along the way, genuinely clueless ones, that really shouldn't have been there. Some old souls, some newly spawned, that had just arrived in the afterlife. The poor noobs...
After a bit of asking around, there was no new info they could gather other than the aforementioned.
When Arcane mentioned going to check in with the Spirit King Himself, Dezadon, for reasons unknown even to him, shuddered at the thought and shook his head. It's as if that would've been the final straw for his calmness. It was only an idea on Arcane's part, and he didn't judge as he felt similarly—So they immediately went back to their place after, and crashed in the library again.
When they had settled, the yellow one at a table and the turquoise one on a sofa nearby...the air felt stale. They sat and lay there. The warlock held his documents close as if they'd disappear if he let them go and mumbled on, while the knight quietly stared up at the ceiling, unblinking. He hadn't bothered getting out of his armour; something told him they'd leave again soon. What a long day already.
Although nothing had changed since they left and came back, the library felt far emptier now.
They also kept an eye on each other.
They felt that they had to. Whatever was happening, it wasn't just about the buildings anymore.
After many glances and moments of accidental eye contact, one spoke up.
"Arcane."
"Yes?"
"I feel awfully dizzy."
"Heavens above, me too," he stood up, slowly. "I've felt like that since..." ...He exhales.
"Yeah..."
The silence and stillness was uncomfortable, so the knight sat up, leaning and head hanging low as he kept his gaze steady. He clasped his hands together. It seemed Arcane was uncomfortable with stillness as well; he held out his hand as he was levitating something from out of Dezadon's view, towards himself. Then as it floated into Arcane's hand, he saw a cloth.
Arcane uncovered the crystal ball in his palm, and peered into it with a furrowed brow. The blinding light that emanated from it soon hid his face. He remained unflinching.
Dezadon watched and waited, fidgeting. He needed focus.
It was rare to see Arcane look so frustrated, so he could only wonder what was going on in his head. His interlocked fingers tapped the backs of his hands. It was quiet. He swallowed nothing as his core swelled with anxiety, expecting something big, a story long and dreadful when the mage didn't dare reading out the visions as they were being shown to him.
Eventually, the light faded away, the clear crystal was dismissed, and the spirit looked up with a grim expression.
"What did you see...?"
"Hmm." He put a finger to his chin in his thoughtful pause. "A few things," it didn't sound good either way, as small dark clouds framed his neck, "but I'll keep it short."
"We'll be gone like the rest, supposedly."
"What?" Dezadon quickly rose in shock. "That's it?"
Arcane only huffed in response.
"Have you...nothing else to say?"
"My dearest knight, I need you to understand something," he waved away his clouds, but the atmosphere was still uneasy as he slowly approached. "It's best if I don't speak of it any further. Besides, I'm not fully certain of it."
"Ah. Is that so?"
"I'm truly sorry. But we have something catastrophic at hand, so we must focus."
"You know I trust you either way. Well, what are we going to do now, then?"
"How about we check on the Spirit Arena? See if it's also affected, and perhaps we could see our mortal friends along the way?" he said as he took out his staff again.
Were they part of the visions, or...? Dezadon wasn't going to question it any further—"Alright, sure. No time to waste."—bringing out his sword and shield.
Arcane extended his free hand, and Dezadon firmly took it. After a moment, they disappeared together with a flash.