The Hanging Gardens IV

The Hanging Gardens IV (also known as Page 40: Lost Treasure) is the fourth checkpoint in The Hanging Gardens.
==Dialogue==
===Start===
Wilfred
: "My word—that was amazing!" Wilfred stares at Faust, almost worshipful.
Faust
: "It was nothing—you should've seen the manticore I skewered in the mummy's tomb! Anyway, you had a letter to give me?" Faust smiles and takes the letter. He glances at it quickly, then openly stares as he notices the date.
Wilfred
: "Oh... yes. I wrote it when I was first cured, but there was no one here to deliver it... It's not as if I didn't want to get it to her! But better late than never, right?" Wilfred is embarrassed to admit it, but he seems so excited to finally get the letter to his fiancee that he's willing to accept a slight loss of face.
Faust
: Faust sighs. The date on the letter is from 90 years earlier. It breaks his heart to have to tell Wilfred, but he can't deceive the poor man. "I... I don't think this letter can be delivered to her."
: "I'm sure that eternal life makes it hard to mark the passage of time, but perhaps you have sensed it... Many years have passed. You have eternal youth, but your beloved... is no longer here." Faust's voice is quiet as he struggles to break the truth to Wilfred as gently as possible. Much to Faust's astonishment, Wilfred doesn't seem surprised by this news.
Wilfred
: "I know. I like to... pretend she's still alive." Wilfred confesses, his voice flat.
: "When I came here, I thought I had discovered a great treasure. I reveled in it, celebrating this newfound life and thinking up new ways to enjoy it... And when I came to my senses, I realized that I'd lost the greatest treasure of all. I'll never see her again... and I have all of eternity to think about that. To remember the life I left behind. I'm so sorry... Forgive me, Lottie..."
: "The day I gave up the experience of aging, of death, of... love... the day I started to drink from that cursed fountain... is the day I stopped being human." Slumped over on the ground, Wilfred looks broken by his experiences. He is a man who has lost everything, left only with the time to reflect on his mistakes.
Faust
: "No, don't say that... WHOA!!"
Wilfred
: Faust jumps back. Just as he'd been reaching out to comfort Wilfred, there was a loud crack, like the sound of a thousand hearts breaking, and Wilfred turned into a plant.
Faust
: Faust stares at the plant that used to be Wilfred, silently reflecting on his last words. Eventually, he stands back up and decides that he must press on.
===Against Ironbark Carnivore===
==Navigation==
Category:Gaia Chronicle Checkpoints
Category:The Hanging Gardens