Death... and me

They tried to open it, but the power protecting the locket made it impossible. Of course, they could force their way through, but everyone there was pretty sure whatever was inside would be destroyed if they did that. 

Roan looked at Rean. "Is this some kind of small formation protecting the locket?"

It wasn't Rean who answered, though. Instead, it was Sister Orb. [No. It is absolutely not a formation of inscription. If it was, even if I didn't have the level to hack into it, I would at least be able to tell that it was a formation. Of course, the story could be different if we are talking about a formation or inscription that far surpasses the system's detection ability.]

Sister Orb could even detect Legendary Level Formations, so Rean found it hard to believe this locket had something higher than that. "Still... If it is a formation, what kind would need to be for you to not detect, Sister Orb?"

[It would need to be something at a level higher than Legendary... which doesn't exist in this Universe. Simply put, it would need to be something from outside,] Sister Orb explained.

Rean, Roan, and Kentucky were even more sure now that this locket wasn't protected by a formation. "Since it is not a formation... could it be some kind of fairy special ability?" Rean asked. "I mean, fairies can control and use karma. Perhaps they have some kind of karmic sealing?"

Roan didn't discard that possibility. "Perhaps..."

Kentucky couldn't help but ask. "Then what did she mean with you would know what to do with it? Other than your mother, I don't remember anyone who has something similar to it."

Rean and Roan instantly looked at Kentucky. "What did you say?"

Kentucky looked back at them, confused. "About your mother?"

"Yes!" Rean nodded. "I've never seen Mother with anything similar to this locket, so how can you say she had one?"

Kentucky found it stranger. "That is my question, you know. How come you did not notice it? Sure, she wore it under her clothes all the time, but I'm sure I've seen it once. Well, I didn't have any interest in it, so I've never asked what it was. I thought you knew it. Are you sure you are her sons?"

Rean and Roan ignored Kentucky's last remark and immediately entered the Soul Gem Dimensional Realm. They instantly teleported to where the new System/Freedom Sect was being built in there, finding the location where most of the Varen Tribe members lived. Hamarlia was obviously there, too.

"Oh! Rean, Roan, what is it?" Now that she lived in the Dimensional Realm with Turen, the twins would often visit her, so she didn't find it strange that they came once again. "Do you want more deserts?"

Rean quickly shook his head. "That's not it, Mom. Here, take a look at this." Rean then took the locket out, passing it to Hamarlia.

Hamarlia and Turen were quite surprised to see it. "This... it is exactly the same as my own," said Hamarlia.

Turen could tell that, too. "That one your grandfather gave you before passing away is indeed very similar. Didn't you say it was some kind of family heirloom or something like that?"

Hamarlia faintly smiled as she remembered her grandfather, who had passed away years before the twins were even born. "It is indeed. From what he told me, it has been in our family for as long as his own grandfather remembers, so it might have quite a few hundred years. It is from the time before the Varen Tribe was even formed."

Rean and Roan looked at each other, finding the situation quite weird. "This other locket was given to us by Rana."

"Rana?!" Hamarlia's eyes immediately lit up. "Where is she?! Bring your mother to her!"

Unfortunately, Rean shook his head before explaining everything that happened. "In the end, this locket was given to us. What surprised us was that we didn't even know you had something similar to it. It was Kentucky who told us that."

Hamarlia narrowed her eyes. "Are you really my children? How come you never noticed I had it?"

Kentucky nodded. "That's exactly the question I asked them. To think they could be this unfilial... truly disappointing."

Rean and Roan felt like frying the chicken right there and then, but they restrained themselves. "Ahem..." Ahem tried to brush the topic away. "So, Mom, we tried to open it to see if there was any information that could tell us where Rana went. Do you know how to open it?"

Hamarlia nodded with a smile. "If it is the same as my grandfather's, then it is fairly simple as long as you know the method."

The locket had three tiny pins that barely appeared on the three corners of the locket. Hamarlia then pulled one of them and spun a little before pushing it back. Following that, she repeated a set of specific movements that took the twins by surprise.

Turen looked at them, understanding what they were thinking. "I only recently took over my avatar, so I had forgotten about it. But now that you and I are seeing Hamarlia's actions, it is indeed quite weird. Varen Tribe shouldn't have had such a complex mechanism."

Rean nodded. The problem wasn't the mechanism, as he had found some during his time in Sunkan. Instead, it was the size that bothered him. Without fine-precision tools, which you probably would find very hard to acquire even if you used the Sasamil Empire's connections, you should be able to make something that good. Yet, Hamarlia's side of the family had this and kept it for so long.

*Clack!*

When Hamarlia finished the last set of movements, there was a small sound coming from the locket.

*Clack, clack, clack, clack...*

Following that, the locket seemed to come alive as even more mechanisms seemed to work inside it. By now, Rean had already discarded the idea of Sunkan Planet. "There is absolutely no way Sunkan had any place capable of crafting something like this..."

*Pin!*

Just as the locket was about to open, another sound echoed in the twins' minds. It's just that only they heard it.

[New Quest Available]