The Trail of Greed

Prologue: The Legacy

Lightning struck as the rain poured. Sheltered inside his mansion, a young man stared blankly outside the window.

"Is it the time?" he muttered.

As if nature was replying him, two consecutive thunders cracked immediately. He stepped away from the window and walked deeper into the mansion.

He journeyed through the maze-like corridors, his path illuminated only by a series of dim torches on the wall. At the end of the passage was a staircase leading down. He hesitated for a moment before descending.

Arriving at the basement, he emerged into a spacious hall, much brighter than the previous corridors, lit by dozens of chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. It was mostly empty, save for the altar in the middle.

And the altar had a corpse on it.

"Father..." the man said. "I need your guidance in fulfilling our family's legacy."

The corpse had short gray beard. He stroke it gently and closed his eyes.

"Please, tell me the secret."

He touched his father's face and remained so for a few seconds.

Then he noticed something unusual.

"What the..."

Peeling open his father's mouth, he saw tiny golden key inside, no larger than a thumb. Tentatively, he took out the key and examined it.

"Must be nearby..."

He explored the hall and touched his hand on the walls, searching for a keyhole. After pacing the hall twice, he found the hole and inserted the key.

An intense tremor vibrated abruptly in the basement, causing lines of cracks to form in the wall. He moved backwards, afraid of what might come after.

The quake died down shortly, leaving a brittle wall behind. The lines of crack completely covered a section of the wall, but did not go beyond that. It was as if the wall was designed to crack only at the desired part.

Then, the ruptured section of the wall came crashing down. Had he not moved backwards, he would have been buried in the rubble. Coughing up dust, he slowly looked at what was left of the wall.

A passageway was opened.

He carefully climbed over the rubble and entered. The hidden path seemed to have been abandoned for decades, probably centuries. Spiderwebs covered most of the floors and walls, while dust rested on the surfaces.

As he trekked deeper, he came upon statues of men and women standing beside the path. Each of them was holding an artifact much different than the last. Some wielded swords, bows and arrows, and staffs, while others carried books, pens, and scrolls.

At the base of the statues, there were dust-covered plaques with names and descriptions carved onto them. He randomly picked a statue and wiped the dust of the plaque.

SILVON RADIUS
1201-1278

Legacy:
Widespread famine all over the Raxos Empire.

He gulped and stared up at the statue, who was cradling a sickle and a pile of wheat in his hands.

He moved on to another statue, this time of a woman. Wiping the dust off of the plaque, he read.

ARIA RADIUS
1317-1340

Legacy:
Consecutive demises of the emperors of the Raxos Empire.

It was then that he realized the statues were of his ancestors, who were notorious villains in history.

The deeper he trod, the cleaner the statues were. Finally, he reached the end of the corridor, blocked by a pile of huge rocks. There was the last statue of his ancestors, but the more he stared at it, the more frightening it became.