The Netheron Chronicles by Joseph Black (the giving tree read aloud txt) 📕

walls, and floor of the room; it gave off a soft blue light. Magical.
Detrick gasped as he stepped out next to him.
Tauren knelt down and pulled up a sprig of the growing plant, rubbing its fine branches between his fingers causing them to crunch and stop glowing.
Beneath the patch of moss he had pulled up he saw the floor of the chamber, rough and looking as though time had eroded it away. Strange, he thought.
Detrick sighed, smelling a sprig of the moss.” I don’t think this is your ‘Arluine’ Fortress.” He said slowly.
“Oh?” Tauren asked, cocking an eyebrow.” Why do you say that? What else could it be?”
Detrick grinned good naturedly, shifting his battle axe on his back.” Well A: I’ve never heard of any fortress named Arluine. And B: this place is ancient. Didn’t you see those halls back there, or the building stones this thing was made of, or even this floor. The Netheron Wars were just over 80 years ago, not five hundred, if not more.”
Tauren opened his mouth to respond, but shut it quickly, Detrick was right. He quickly saw the flaw in his idea.” Then what do you think it is?” He challenged.
Detrick shrugged.” There’s no way to know without exploring a bit more, but I’d say that this is from long before the Netheron Wars, hundreds of years before probably. I’d guess it was built at the beginning of Netherons time.”
Tauren had a suspicious feeling growing in him, but he quickly pushed it back down.” Then why haven’t we ever heard of this place? It’s huge; it can’t have just ‘disappeared’ from history.”
Detrick shrugged again.” I don’t know. The only way to figure out anything about it is to poke around a bit, and I for one, have had my interest spiked.” He gazed down at the glowing moss on the floor.
Tauren nodded, hoping his suspicion wasn’t correct, turned, and headed down the right hand corridor, closely followed by Detrick.
The corridor was lower than the room, but it had more of the glowing moss in it, and their way was well lit. They went cautiously, a thick dust in the strangely fresh air causing them to lose their ability to see any distance down the hallway, now obviously man made.
After a few moments the roof became higher and they were able to stand up.
Tauren suddenly stopped suddenly and stepped over to the side of the hallway, kneeling over to examine something he had noticed under the moss. Carefully he pried away the moss and looked under it.
“What is it?” Detrick asked from behind him.
He felt something made of metal, and pulled some more moss off of it.
All of a sudden he pulled away a larger clump of moss, and felt a sickening jolt of surprise deep down in him.
“A corpse.” He sighed in response.
And indeed it was. The armored body of a man, stone cold, but still surprisingly intact. Not having begun rotted yet.” It’s fairly new.” He added after a moment.
Detrick leaned over his shoulder, whispering.” Poor fellow, he wasn’t a Halavarde.” Tauren nodded, not recognizing the beautiful white and green cloak that the man wore as belonging to any kingdom he had heard of.” Maybe he was from this place.” He added after a moment.
“And hasn’t rotted after this long?” Tauren sighed.” I think my theory that this was Arluine was more realistic.”
Detrick shrugged.” I don’t know. Maybe this air, being underground, with this weird moss. . . “
Tauren shook his head.” I don’t think so. Let’s keep going.”
Detrick didn’t argue, and they continued on, down the hall.
Taurens heart beat faster, wondering what had killed the man, curiosity overwhelming him. What was this place? Who had ruled it? Why did the moss glow?
After a few minutes they came out into their first major room.
It took them one glance, and they were suddenly able to make a few more conclusions about this mysterious place.
This castle had been invaded.
And this room was where its defenders had made their last stand . . .

Chosen of Fate.

Tauren and Detrick gazed about the room in amazement; the room was huge, hundreds of yards long, and every inch of it was covered in glowing moss and plants. Tauren heard sounds among the low shrubbery, the sounds of small animals running from them in fright, a sound he was used to in the forest.
Suddenly they froze, at the far end of the room were the figures of at least twenty men, all standing, behind them a massive, moss covered throne with yet another figure seated in it. Tauren whipped an arrow to the string of his bow, but Detrick put a hand on his arm.
“I don’t think they’re alive.” He whispered, the tone seeming appropriate for this room, this tomb.
Tauren stopped himself, and saw that his friend was correct, the men at the far side of the room were covered in moss, only glints of their armor and ready weapons, and they were frozen.
Then he noticed something else about them, there were two lines of men, standing opposite each other, swords, axes, and assorted weapons readied as though they were in the process of killing each other when they had been frozen.
Then he noticed something else, and it all fell into place.” This was the throne room”, he whispered,” Half of those men there are Halavardes, they attacked those others. That’s the king in the throne there I’d wager. And then . . . “He trailed off, not sure what had happened next.
Detrick shifted and sighed.” And then they froze.” He looked sad.
By silent agreement, they kept their weapons ready as they paced across the moss to the other side of the room, trying to keep the sound at a minimum so as not to disturb the echo’s caused by the massive room whose roof simply went into darkness, fading out of reach out of the soft moss-light.
Tauren stopped next to one of the men and carefully edged around him, pulling his cloak with him so as not to get it caught on the mans lowered spear. He appeared to have been in the process of giving a heavy stab at the man facing him, his face, clear of moss, was clean shaven, and savage, lips curled back, eyes filled with hatred.
A corner of his cloak showed through the moss on his back identifying him as a Halavarde.
Detrick scraped a handful of moss from one of the defenders faces, reverently, as though not wanting to de-sanctify the dead. He sighed.” I think I believe that this is that Arluine you mentioned. I’ve never seen this coat-of-arms; this place is huge, magical, and it is completely inexplicable that I’ve never heard of it before.”
Tauren shook his head.” But why haven’t you? I grew up with Arrels, I don’t doubt they told me the truth, but I’m certain they withheld something. My grandfather did too.” He felt a flash of anger, why would they do that?” Do they want to forget the past? The always told me that the past makes the present. . . . Are they that ashamed of the present?”
“Or afraid of the past”, Suggested Detrick grimly,” the way these men froze, I’d bet that it took a while for this castle to fall apart and all this moss to grow. They could have been dead since the castle was destroyed.”
Tauren frowned.” Maybe they’re not dead? Just frozen.”
Detrick shook his head.” We are dealing with magic, so who knows.
Tauren shook his head in frustration.” They’ve been out of life for a while now; I doubt it will make any difference with us passing through. They’ll just sleep on till the end of time. There’s not really anything we can do.”
“Other than find answers for all this.” Detrick added.” I’d give a lot right now to know a bit more about this place and what was going on here when this happened.”
Carefully Tauren turned and walked up to the throne, walking carefully. Walking on my grave? The thought flashed through his mind in an instant and he gritted his teeth, this was strange, and creepy.
Detrick was only a step behind him.
Slowly he started to go up the throne’s massive steps, being careful to keep his leather boots from clicking on anything.
“Tauren, look at your feet!” Detrick suddenly whispered violently from behind him.
He started, and then noticing that it wasn’t a cry of alarm, he glanced at his feet, and gasped. He had scuffed his boot on one stair and scratched off a bit of the soft moss, underneath of it gleamed . . . gold. He bent down and scraped a bit more away, the entire throne was gold; he also saw precious stones embedded in it, rubies, diamonds, emeralds, every imaginable gem.
Detrick scraped off a bit of moss on the floor behind Tauren and sighed.” Gold here too, I’m starting to think this entire room is made of gold. Do you have any idea how much money we have here?”
Tauren shook his head.” I don’t think it’s ours, and even so. I don’t think I want to try to take any of it.” He glanced nervously at one frozen man beside him, sword raised over his head, savage war cry half smothered in moss, green cloak intact still. He half expected him to keep up with the swing and cut Tauren in half.
Slowly he turned and faced the throne, the figure sitting on it was tall, quite tall, wide shouldered, and, surprisingly, he didn’t have a speck of moss on him.
One would have expected an old man, wise and withered, sitting there. But instead there was a young man in place of the expected, he looked almost alive, wide blue eyes alert, a slight, triumphant smile creasing his perfect skin, long black hair flowing behind him.
Tauren winced, he looked so