-prelude-

"Should we really be doing this?" asked a young girl the middle-aged man in front of her. She didn't look exactly happy about the fact that they were entering the holy temple of Djarowit. The man guessed her thoughts and stopped walking. He turned to her and put his hand on her shoulder.

"Diana, I told you many times before... The gods stopped caring after they gave us the prophecy. The god of war won't be angry because we're entering his temple to see the tablets. And besides, the gods never said it is forbidden to take a look at those tablets or to re-translate them. Come now, we have to get back before the sun sets." He removed his hand from her shoulder and continued walking towards the prophet's chamber. Diana sighed and followed him. It was true that the gods didn't show themselves for the past 1700 years. But you never knew when they decide to come back again. It's not like they're dead. God's can't just simply die, can they?

After a few minutes they came to a dead end. Diana sighed. Did they take a wrong turn somewhere? No that wasn't possible, there were no sideways. At least no regular ones. She walked to the stone wall that was blocking their way and inspected it. After a minute she turned to the man and spoke:

"It looks like a dead end, but this wall looks more like a strange gate to me. The stone is also different from other walls. What do you think, professor?" The man came closer and inspected that gate himself. He found two torches on either side of the wall. He sighed to himself and lit both of them with his own torch. He wanted to scold Diana because she overlooked the torches but he changed his mind. The two torches now lit up the wall and they could finally see what this wall really was.

 

"Well, it looks we've come to the right place after all." The wall was actually a huge stone shield blocking the way. At first Diana didn't know how the professor managed to figure that out. But she remembered soon enough. The shield was Djarowit's main attribute and she even remembered hearing something about a shield blocking the way to the main chamber of some temple. She let out a load growl; she felt really stupid right now. The professor looked at her and smiled. She knew he wasn't teasing her but she still felt uncomfortable.

 

"Okay, so we've come to the giant shield. What now? I suppose we can't just move it away or go through like ghosts."

 

"Oh, but that's exactly what we're going to do. Not the ghost part, but moving the shield."

 

"What?" The shield looked pretty big, not to mention way too heavy to move. She had no idea how the professor planned to move that thing. Or maybe he was just messing with her? The professor just laughed and opened his bag.

 

"You're such an inexperienced child. Have you never been to a temple before? The gods always welcomed people to their temples. But first you had to prove you're worthy, of course." The professor searched for something in his bag and soon he gave her a small box. Diana looked at him and slowly took the box.

 

"And what am I supposed to do with this?" The professor swung his bag back on his back and laughed cheerfully. He took the box back in his hands and slowly opened it. Inside was a red stone - one of those people usually put on walls of their homes for decoration. She looked at him with a look of doubt. Was he trying to say this little stone will help them move the shield? The sun must've gotten to him. The professor saw her doubts and looked at her with a sad face.

 

"You think I'm crazy, don't you? Well I can't blame you for not knowing the true purpose of this stone. But I'd rather show you then explain. And I think I'll do just that." The professor knelt down and searched for a small hole. He found it and put the stone into it. The stone was just the right size. The professor stood up and stepped back. Diana looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

 

"That's it?"

 

"Just wait and watch."

 

After a few seconds the little stone started glowing a bright red. Not soon after they could hear and feel something move before the shield itself moved upwards into the ceiling. The shield stopped moving after half of it already disappeared in the ceiling. Diana noticed the stone wasn't too high up. It was probably so the one who put it there could take it out again. This would probably cause the shield to fall down again. She looked at the professor and he seemed like he was expecting her to say something.

 

"Yeah, alright, alright. Let's just move on, shall we?" She probably blushed. This was the second time this day she felt like an idiot. She'll have to do more research when they get home. Being an expert in old languages wasn't enough as it would seem.

 

The professor walked into the chamber and Diana followed him. The fire of the torch was lighting up just a small part of the chamber but it was enough to find what they were looking for. Somewhere around the middle of the chamber was a small stone table. They moved closer and saw what they were after. There were five stone tablets lying on the stone table but one of them was slightly bigger from the rest.

 

"In an era yet to come, when the sun and moon meet for the 15th time, three sinners from different worlds will come, and bring the great darkness with them. Yet three warriors from our own world will rise, with the holy light they'll fight the darkness, they'll defeat the sinners from the foreign worlds, and our world shall bathe in light again."

 

Diana chuckled when the professor recited the prophecy. The prophecy they were looking at right now. She looked at him and he nodded. She took a deep breath and looked at the prophecy on the stone tablet. What the professor recited was only a part of the prophecy. The main part that everyone knew. But they didn't come here to look at the rest of the prophecy. There was no need for that; the whole prophecy was translated after all. They were here to check the main prophecy. It all started when the professor said that something 'doesn't feel right' about it. And usually when he got that feeling there really was something wrong. Of course, the chances of the translation of the prophecy being wrong were close to zero. But it couldn't hurt just to investigate it and put his mind at ease. The professor was already thinking how stupid he is for thinking something like that. The prophecy was already 1700 years old. There was no way it was wrong.

 

"Hey... Professor..." Diana looked at him. He immediately noticed the confused look on her face. She called him over to look at something.

 

"Don't tell me you found something."

 

"There was a mistranslation."

 

"What?"

 

"Listen, the real translation should be like this:
In an era yet to come, when the sun and moon meet for the 15th time, three warriors from different worlds will come, brought to our world by the great darkness. Three sinners from our own world will come, with the darkness they'll fight the holy light, yet the warriors from other worlds will defeat the sinners, and our world shall bathe in light again."

 

They were both silent for a few minutes. That couldn't be true. Of course it did make more sense than the previous translation. But still, the other translation was here for 1700 years. Could it be that really nobody before them checked the translation?

 

"Are you sure you didn't make a mistake somewhere?"

 

"Professor, please. I'm quite confident in my skills. And yes, I checked it several times and there is no mistake in my translation." The professor expected an answer like that. He stared at the tablet for a little longer. Then he looked at Diana.

 

"I know. It's just... Come on, we have to tell Doctor about this."

 

Diana nodded and they left the chamber. The professor almost forgot to take out the red stone. This was a shocking discovery. There was even a chance that nobody will believe them. But they had to tell the people before it could be too late.

 

As they left the temple Diana stopped. She thought she saw someone hidding in the shadows and she could swear she saw them smirk. However when she got closer there was nobody there were no signs that someone was there either.

 

"Diana, what are you doing? We have to hurry!"

 

She nodded and quickly followed the professor. Yes they had to hurry, for the 15th solar eclipse since the day they got the prophecy was near...