Medieval AU
Kara's group had received a tip of where a piece of Eden might be located. word has it that the royal family were to grant a huge bounty to whoever retrieves the piece and surrenders it.
According to the tip given to Kara, along the south of Midvale were ancient temple ruins hidden amongst a growth of foliage in the middle of a forest. The temple was allegedly used by monks to protect an artefact, that artefact being suspected as a piece of Eden.
their efforts to reach the temple—fighting off ghouls and whatever demonic entity—didn't go to waste as they do indeed find the temple, though the scene in front of them wasn't quite welcoming...
a massacre of people lay along the way to the temple's entrance, their blood paving the way.
Some corpses seemed to be just new while some were at a state of decay—arrows buried on their sides and other parts of their bodies, some seeming to have been impaled—if one thing was clear, it was that whoever, or whatever did this is the same being.
it should have been a lucid sign for Kara to step back and maybe decide that the piece is most definitely not worth her and her companions' lives.
but she doesn't.
inching closer to the entrance of the temple, Querl's hesitant voice breaks the silence and halts them from entering, "Are you sure about this?" he asks.
"the piece is here, I can feel it... but whoever did this." Nia then motions to the massacre behind them, "they don't want a single thing touching it."
"if the piece lands on the wrong hands, the world would be more or less fucked," Kara answers.
Alex spoke next, defending her younger sister's case. "the ancient scrolls revealed that each individual piece holds immense amounts of power, and that's just one piece." she sighs, taking a breath. "If anyone cynical even gets ahold of a piece, it's not just us at risk, it's the whole world."
"we're not here for the money, we're here to save the world," added Kara, earning herself reluctant nods from the other two.
they venture inside the temple and into a huge yet empty space, similar to the outside, the inside was in ruins, moss had settled on the walls and most of the pillars holding up the ceiling hand fallen and crumbled into pieces.
"wait." Kara abruptly raises a closed fist, commanding everyone to cease.
she kneels down, grabbing a medium stray rock before throwing it at one of the temple's tiles, an arrow all of a sudden zips through the air—she comes to a dreadful realization that the temple's floors were actually pressure plates disguised as innocent concrete tiles—she thanks Rao that she had half the mind to be careful.
"be careful where you step," she tells them, noting the other different traps that could possibly be lying around.
somehow, somewhat, they make it alive and to the temple's left passageway which seemed to be much safer from traps.
shortly after, the group is greeted by large coffers filled to the brim with gold and jewels, and as tempted as they were to just take the lot and run, there were much more pressing matters at hand than gold.
and like Kara said: they weren't here for the money.
"there must be a reason why people would just leave this much gold just lying here out in the open untouched." Alex even cautioned.
right by the heap of riches was a large rustic style door lined with golden trimming, etched on its front were fiery Glagolitic symbols.
Alex and Nia both figure that it must be some kind of seal as when they threw a crumbled chunk of the temple walls on the door, it burst into flame almost immediately.
The other pair, Querl, and Kara, both wander around the temple to search for anything else that could be important while the other duo figures just how to break the seal.
unsurprisingly, they find nothing but skeletons chained to a wall, more skeletons and dead corpses. (their little scavenging agenda didn't go to waste though, some of the corpses carried handfuls of jewelry and gold)
They head back right on time as a few seconds later, Alex and Nia have both cracked the seal and unlocked the door.
it doesn't surprise Kara that the first thing that greets them was you.
more specifically, Kara spots a woman's seemingly lifeless corpse hunched over by a nearby pillar, caked in both dirt and blood, limbs littered with fresh cuts and bruises though still tightly clutching an unusually glowing, small drawstring sack in their hand.
an equally lifeless, heavily armoured dark elf—which Kara recognizes as one of the guardians of the temple from a little research she did back then—laying beside the poor woman's corpse.
it's not much later that Kara figures out that in a hard-fought battle, the woman managed to kill the guardian and attempted to run away with the piece, much to her luck though, she had sustained so much injury to even get out of the place and well, now, she's dead.
Kara sadly mutters: "sorry" before reaching out to take the bag from the woman's hand.
immediately, a bloodied hand shoots up and seizes Kara's wrist.
behind her, she could hear the rest of the party drawing their swords, just in case things went south.
However, Kara remains calm.
"I'm alive," the woman rasped desperately, tugging at Kara's arm, "I'm alive, I'm alive... please, don't leave me here."
"she's not dead," Kara cautiously throws an arm behind the woman, the other under her knee. "we need to get her out of here." Alex and the rest of the group shoot her a disinclined look but her decision had already been made.
Kara wasn't about to leave a nearly unconscious woman—who is literally begging to be saved—for dead.
tossing the woman over her shoulders and ignoring the look of discouragement from her sister, she shakily gets back on her feet and carries the not-so-dead weight on her shoulder for hours until eventually, they all find themselves back at their camp.
Finally, once Kara sets you down in a handwoven matt and off her aching shoulders, Alex tells her that they'll first need to clean you up as much as they could without having to disturb more of your wounds.
but as soon as Kara goes to undo the first button of the woman's shirt, her eyes blink open, clearly alarmed by the situation.
"Get your hands off me!" the woman cries out, clawing and throwing her hands at Kara's face.
"Hey- hey! it's okay, I'm not going to hurt you!" Kara states hurriedly, catching the woman's flailing arms before they could claw Kara's eyes out.
"Kara," Alex pointedly warns.
the younger sister doesn't relent, "she's just scared, Alex." Kara insists despite the woman still struggling to escape Kara's grip. "hey, you're okay." repeated Kara, giving the woman's wrist (a what she hoped was) a comforting squeeze.
the woman seemed to calm down a bit then, though she was still trembling and inwardly frightened, she had at least stopped struggling against Kara.
after a while, when the tension seems to seep away, Kara brings herself to ask, "what's your name?"
the woman seems to fret at the question, mouth attempting to form words yet nothing comes out, it takes a couple of minutes later before finally, she timidly utters, "Y/n."
what a pretty name, Kara thought, inwardly grinning to herself. "Y/n," she began, "I need you to understand that you're safe here," Kara explained softly.
"We saved you from the temple a few hours ago but now, we have to patch you up because some of your wounds seem pretty bad, would that be okay?"
a nod.
"Okay, Y/n, If I let you go, promise you won't go berserk on us?"
"Yes."
