Crossing the Line
Chapter 1: Resupply and Departure
Lloyd walked through downtown Regina with no real purpose in mind. He'd gone to buy food supplies earlier with Maurice and Alex earlier and now he was carrying around a backpack full of said supplies, mostly canned goods and dried food that wouldn't perish easily. Now he was just killing time as Maurice had told him he was going to buy some efficient and useful camping supplies while Alex had gone back to his house to take care of affairs there and pack the belongings he'd need. This left Lloyd to explore the downtown area, not that there was as much to explore as he had thought there would be, he wandered up Scarth street, pausing for a moment at Tramps Book Store to look in the window at a display of board games and old records that were there purely for display. He really wasn't interested in most of the things the store sold, trading cards, and RPG books, so he didn't really bother going inside.
Lloyd reached the end of Scarth Street and turned left. He looked absentmindedly into the shop windows not really taking notice of an anything until he passed one shop that caused his senses to go off as though he had just sensed a Clow Card. Turning he saw what had caused his sense to act up, it was a board that was about the size of a half-sized board game and looked like two squares of the same size stuck together to resemble an eight-pointed star with a thin gold line around the shape equally distant from the edge all the way around. Each point had a different symbol, each of which looked vaguely familiar to him, some emblems he'd seen in a book of Koran's when he was younger, symbols for eight different elements of the planet: metal, electricity, water, wind, fire, earth, light, and darkness, with each symbol opposite the element that was defined as such, water across from fire, wind across from earth, light across from dark, and metal across from electricity; at the centre of the board was the Yin-Yang symbol. Lloyd had never seen the board before but he could feel the magical power emanating from it. He looked up at the sign above the door which read: Tokyo 7, Japanese and Anime Import Store, and then had the Japanese Kanji for those words written underneath them.
"That's a Lazin Board," Kero had poked his head out of Lloyd's backpack, fortunately there was no one within earshot so the bear didn't have to shove Kero back out of site.
"A Lazin board?" Lloyd had never heard of such a thing, "what does it do?"
"A Lazin board is a magical energy locator, if you can get it, it will allow you to track the Clow Cards over a much greater distance."
"So it's like a Clow Card compass?" Lloyd asked.
"Exactly, so if you get it our search for the Clow Cards will go much faster."
"Right, then just stay out of sight and let me handle this. I should have enough money to get that." Kero ducked back inside Lloyd's backpack and the bear entered the store. The bell over the door dinged and the one employee in the store, a balding Caucasian man in his mid 20s who was the teller, He looked up, then down to noticed the bear.
"A cosplayer," he muttered under his breath. Lloyd heard him but paid the comment no mind as he walked up to the counter and asked.
"Excuse me, but how much is that odd looking board in your window?" he asked, pointing to the Lazin Board where is sat in the shop window.
"That thing," the teller walked to the window and returned with the board, blowing some dust off of it as he retuned to the counter, "Not sure, it's one of a kind but I can't see anything of use it might have. The store owner said that if someone wanted to buy it I could use my judgment to set a price," he considered the board for a moment and finally said, "I'll say $70, hope you can afford that."
"It's only worth $40," Kero shouted from Lloyd's backpack.
"What?" the man asked. Lloyd decided to pretend he had just spoken.
"I said I'm willing to pay $40 for it," Lloyd said.
"well, how about $60?"
"$50"
"$55"
"Done," Lloyd handed over three $20 bills and got a $5 in return.
"Thanks," Lloyd said, taking the board under her arm as he left the store. The teller watched the bear leave.
"That was one good costume, his eyes and mouth even moved like they should have. Strange though, he looked familiar but I can't quite place it. Oh well, back to work."
Lloyd walked out of Tokyo 7 holding the board in his hand. Kero poked his head out of Lloyd's backpack and stared at the board.
"I can't believe there's a Lazin Board here," Kero said.
"Well it should help, so how does it work?" he asked the guardian beast.
"I'll show you later, once we're back at the house," Kero's face lit up, "now let's go, we can stop for ice cream on the way."
The bear shook his head, "Is sweet food all you think about," he said, pushing him back into his backpack as he made his way to the bus stop, Alex having given him a key to his house that morning.
"So what exactly does that Chinese Checkers board do?" Alex asked. A couple hours had passed since Lloyd had bought the board downtown and he, Alex, Maurice, and Kero were now sitting in Alex's living room.
"It's not Chinese Checkers you little brat, it's a Lazin Board. Lloyd can use it to find the Clow Cards at a long distance so he can track them down almost anywhere," Kero explained.
"So I take it that thing will be telling us where to go eh? How does it work eh?" Maurice asked
"Let me show," Lloyd said, standing up from the couch and holding the board flat out in his hands, reciting the incantation that Kero had told him earlier.
"Source of Light with Ancient Spin,
Send Forth the Magic Power Within,
Oracles of Metal, Wind, Water, and Electricity
Force Know my Plight,
Release the Light!"
As he said those words, the board lit up and a large dome of blue energy formed before firing out a bright blue beam that pointed south west, even going through the walls.
"So the next Clow Card is that way?" Alex asked.
"Definitely," Lloyd said, "and from what Kero told me, the beam being that thin means it's at least 250 kilometers from here." Maurice meanwhile had been using a compass to set the bearing the board was pointing to.
"Hold on a sec eh, I can figure out where we need to go eh," Maurice got up and picked up an atlas, turning to the road map of Saskatchewan and using a ruler to find the direction and measuring the distance so he could find where they needed to go
"Looks like it's pointing towards Portal eh,"
"Portal?" Lloyd and Alex asked.
"It's a town on the border of Saskatchewan and North Dakota in the United States, we may need to cross the border eh?"
"Well are we supposed to walk there, I don't wanna that far!" Alex said feeling a bit miffed.
"Hey if I can walk that far then you should at least try to!" Lloyd retorted.
"I agree that walking all that way is a bit too impractical eh," Maurice said, "we can catch a bus to Estevan and then portal is only about 35 kilometers from there, we can easily walk from there eh."
"The bus? I thought that was just for inside the city," Lloyd said.
"You can take busses between cities you know, I can't believe you walked from Sasktoon to here because you didn't know that," Alex said. Lloyd ignored the fox's comment.
"So can we leave today, Clow Cards have a nasty habit of not staying put," Kero said.
"We should be able to eh, we just need to get to the bus station soon. I was able to get the rest of the supplies we need for this eh." Maurice thought of something, "Lloyd do you have a passport?"
"Yeah, I do actually," he reached into a pocket of his vest and pulled out his passport, "Madison Julian helped me get one while I was in Saskatoon."
"How did you manage that?" Alex asked, skeptical.
"Let's just say that it was an arduous and annoying process and I'd rather not have to recount it," Lloyd said, looking exasperated.
"I can imagine," Alex said sarcastically, "but as long as we're ready, we should get going now, before it gets too late."
About half an hour later, Alex, Maurice, and Lloyd were standing in line in the STI bus station downtown, each of them had been able to purchase their own tickets and their ride was set to depart in about 10 minutes. Alex was in front with Maurice behind him and Lloyd in the back. They were standing in line because they wanted to get in line on the bus first, and take the big three person seat at the back so they could sit together, none of them too keen on sitting next to someone they didn't know. People were piling up behind them at the moment as the boarding time approached.
One man approached the line and observed it, groaning as he was too late to get in a reasonable spot in line. Seeing that the three lead positions were taken by strange beings he sighed and moved to the head of the line, cutting in front of them. Alex was appalled by the person's lack of courtesy and angrily tapped his back to get his attention. The man whirled around to see who was trying to get his attention, and was mystified until the fox spoke up.
"Down here!" the man looked down and was surprised to see the little fox glaring up at him angrily and tapping his foot on the ground, "that was our spot you just cut into."
"Are you kidding me," the man said angrily, "Some little toy is talking to me and telling me what to do! Why is everyone waiting behind you? You're not even human you shouldn't even be allowed to take the bus!"
Alex gritted his teeth and balled his fists, "Why you!" he drew his right hand back, ready to throw a punch. But Maurice stopped him, using his strong hand to hold the fox's fist in place.
"Alex, you just finished your probation and I don't want you to get in trouble again so soon." Alex sighed and relaxed his hand and Maurice released it. The man ahead of him showed contempt with a snort and turned back to face forwards. Lloyd had watched this proceeding and truthfully, he had wanted to deck the man himself, or electrocute him, but this was not the time or place for such a thing so he retorted.
"I bet if you had kids you wouldn't think so little of us."
"Yeah, I bet," the man said, deciding to ignore the furry creatures behind him. There were some hushed whispers behind the three animals but most of them were commenting on the rudeness of the man, who was obviously from out of town, as the people in the city had come to know Alex and Maurice through association or word of mouth and treated them fairly, people from out of town tended not to think so highly them so events like these would be expected to happed at a bus terminal.
The boarding call was sounded and the three animals followed the man onto the bus, thankfully the man took a seat at the front so the three of them were able to take sears at the back after putting most of their stuff underneath the bus so they could claim it in Estevan. The bus ride was pretty boring, 3 hours of listening to the rumbling of the tires, they conversed for a while about how they would proceed, deciding that Lloyd should check the location and distance once they got to Estevan, but they all agreed that they would stay in a hotel for the night before moving on, so they would be well rested in the morning. There wasn't much to talk about really, the four of them, including Kero who was asleep by now, already knowing most everything about each other. Maurice pointed out several landmarks he had seen before as the bus traveled south east.
Finally the bus pulled into Estevan and they claimed their luggage at the bus station. Maurice was the first to a pay phone and called for a local taxi to take them to a nearby hotel. They stood outside in the late afternoon and waited for the Taxi. The grey cab arrived and the driver at first looked like he felt he was in the wrong place, but once Maurice explained that they were real they were able to load their luggage and set off for the hotel. The hotel was a comfort inn, and they were able to easily get access to a room with two beds, Lloyd volunteering to sleep on the floor as he was used to sleeping on the ground. That night as they were getting settled into their room, Alex asked.
"Hey, Lloyd, are you sure that crazy magical compass of yours led us the right way?"
"As far as I know it did, it's the first time I used it so I might have made a slight error, but the Clow Cards are scattered and the board might have homed in on the largest concentration of them, or the average direction for all of them since their energy is hard to pick up on at such a large distance," the bear replied, "I'll check the direction in the morning, but for now, I just need some sleep."
"Yes we all should get some sleep eh, we have a long road ahead of us and who knows when we'll be able to sleep under a roof again eh," Maurice said.
Alex sighed, "Yeah yeah." He lay back and muttered to himself, "I'm starting to regret this trip of mine." Before closing his eyes and trying to sleep, waiting to see what the next day would bring.