Those Nyarlagroth's have impeccable timing, don't they?
Anyway, this chapter is a little slow at first but hang in there, it gets good.
I should be posting the next chapter on Thursday ;)
Chapter 4: New to New Jersey
•^-^•
"I don't like you going by yourself," Jim said as he stood at the entrance of a huge sewage pipe that led out into a city river.
Claire smoothed out the wrinkles of her favorite Papa Skull t-shirt and some black jeans. She changed into them after they arrived at the underground gyre station, but the station only led to the sewer pipe they stood in.
"I'll be fine. I'm just going for a food run," Claire looked up at Jim.
"Why can't Merlin go with you?" Jim asked with a hint of desperation.
"Because last time people kept coming up to us, wanting to take pictures with him and his 'cosplay armor', we're trying not to be noticed remember." She was glad she packed away a change of outfit in her backpack. Her purple suit of armor drew attention as well.
"I still don't like it. There's something off about this place." Jim looked out over the river from the darkness of the pipe. All he could see was a normal looking city teeming on the other side of the river. But he could shake the feeling that there was something else here, something…dark.
"It's bound to be a little weird. It's New Jersey. Don't worry, I'll be back before sundown." She held his hand for a moment before she let go and shouldered her backpack. Claire exited the pipe and stepped onto a small walkway that led up to the street level. She looked back at Jim smiling to reassure him before she turned and walked into the sunlight.
Jim took a pained uneven breath and returned back to the gyre station where everyone was waiting.
•^-^•
After hours of searching, Claire finally found a donation store that sold old socks in bulk. The city the gyre station was under was called Bellridge. From a public statue she saw, it said this city was founded by people who made bells almost 200 years ago. The garbage bag filled with socks slung over her shoulder felt as heavy as a bell as she walked back to the gyre station.
While she traveled she wondered how they all would find the new heartstone. Maybe Merlin had some magic spell that points you to a heartstone? Not likely, but you never knew with him.
She began to imagine what the heartstone would look like.
Would it be as big as the Arcadia heartstone? Or would it-
Claire felt a light tug around her neck. She stopped and pulled out her necklace. The medallion jumped from her fingers and was being pulled into the air towards one side.
"What?" She looked around to make sure no one saw her necklace medallion floating in the air. She turned towards the direction the necklace pointed and found it went northwest of where she was. Confused as to why it wasn't pointing the direction NotEnrique was. Then maybe, she thought, the necklace isn't pointing to him, maybe it's pointing to the heartstone? She had been thinking about it when the necklace came to life.
Claire held the medallion with her hand to keep others from seeing it floating. She began to pick up her pace to hurry and tell the others her discovery.
Yet, as she walked the necklace began to slack. She stopped. She concentrated hard on the image of the heartstone, but the necklace still slowly sank. To see what would happen, Claire walked back the way she came. The necklace instantly lifted itself again and tugged harder towards the direction it pointed.
She stopped again unsure of what to do. She could either follow where her necklace led or go back to the others and possibly lose the location of the hearthstone. With that thought, she pulled out her phone and quickly texted Jim.
Following a lead to the heartstone. I'll be back soon :)
Hopefully, the smiley face would help Jim not freak out about her running off. She checked her phone, It was still half an hour until sunset so she still had some light left to safely explore. She dumped the garbage bag of socks in an alley that she could easily find later and followed the point of her necklace.
•^-^•
After even more walking, Claire's necklace led her to a big park sunken into the earth filled with trees, walking paths, and a giant overpass that ran through it. Although the beautiful sunset basked the park with vibrant colors it seemed odd to her that there was no one there. With it being summer and all, she thought that there would be at least a few kids on the playground, but there weren't even any adults walking around. The stillness seemed eerie.
As the last rays of sunlight faded over the horizon the park slowly grew darker and lampposts were turning on. Claire had just reached the center of the park when the necklace dropped down and stopped moving. She took it off and swung it in her hand, again nothing.
"You look lost. You should leave the way you came," said a gruff voice with a slight New Jersey accent from the growing shadows.
Claire spun around. A big man with thick arms, dark clothes, and for some reason wearing a ski-mask under his hoodie, leaned against the wall of the park's overpass.
"Thanks for the suggestion, but no thanks." She said defiantly, determined to stand her ground. Under normal circumstances, she would have high-tailed it out of there, but she had a purpose for being there. No one was getting in her way.
"Well then get lost, this is my territory." He said nonchalantly.
"Since when is a public park someone's territory?" She challenged.
"You must be new here. I guess we'll have to show you how this park is our turf." He pulled away from the wall and just then from the darkened tunnel under the overpass, five more thugs came out and stood by the first thug, all big and dressed similarly.
On second thought, maybe this was a bad idea.
Claire raised her fists, a little nervous to fight 6 guys at once, when two of the thugs had their feet kicked out from under them. They both hit the ground hard. Everyone looked to see an old man in armor bringing up his staff from tripping the thugs.
"Now it isn't nice to treat a lady like that now is it?" Merlin smiled smugly.
"What are you doing here?" Claire yelled.
"Saving your skin, you ought to thank me," Merlin said casually.
The first thug had enough of their conversation.
"Get them!" He commanded the rest of his gang.
Four of them attacked Merlin head on. The wizard dodged each strike and delivered hits just as fast, sure to not use magic in front of humans.
Two other thugs ran towards Claire and she booked it through the trees off the walking path. She nimbly ran around trees off the walking path and into a playground. She hopped into a swirly slide just before the gangsters reached her. They couldn't fit inside the slide so they started bashing on it, hoping to knock her out of it. Eventually, she lost her grip and slid down enough for one of the goons to grab her ankle and yank her out. She screamed as he tossed her with surprising strength clear across the playground and into a nearby tree. She crashed through bows and branches as she fell to the ground.
"Ow," She said to herself, a little out of sorts sitting up.
Across the park, Merlin was still deflecting blows but saw Claire get flung into the tree.
"This is no time for climbing trees, when are you going to fight back?" He called out at her as he swung his staff and used Rule-Number-Three on one of the thugs. They fell to their knees and curled up into a ball.
She grunted in frustration at the comment. Looking around for something to fight with, she found a thick tree branch that had broken off. One of her pursuers ran towards her, now with a knife drawn. Claire gasped and grabbed the tree branch. She quickly deflected the jab and the thug's momentum caused him to run head first into a tree with a loud CRACK. He hit his head so hard it splintered and broke chunks off the tree bark. The goon slumped to the ground, out cold. The second gangster behind her was surprised by the sudden turn of events.
Claire faced the other thug.
"Alright tough guy."
She snapped off the leafy end of the branch and spun it in her hands getting used to the weight. Then she held it firm and pointed it towards the brute.
"Let's dance."
Claire yelled as she ran towards him. She was about to strike when suddenly, a dark figure jumped down from a tree and landed squarely on top of the thug, knocking him out.
Claire stopped and lowered her branch.
"You know I had that under control," she said a little annoyed.
"Under control? You got thrown into a tree!" Jim said irritated, proving his point.
Jim hopped off the thug and winced as he straightened himself, holding his rib-cage. Claire's annoyance evaporated as she realized Jim must have ran all the way here, injured, for her. The action humbled her.
"Thanks...for coming for me." She said guiltily.
Jim sighed, letting the last of his anger go.
"Claire, what's going on?" He asked sincerely.
"Didn't you get my text message?"
"Yeah, but it made as much sense as Blinky's conspiracy theories. Tell me, how is almost getting killed by muggers 'following a lead to the heartstone'?"
"I'm sorry to put you through all this, but I promise I can explain everything." As Claire talked about how she got to the park, the thug that Jim knocked out, woke up behind them.
He shook off his dizziness and pulled out his hidden dagger. The goon aimed it at them threateningly.
"That's it, you better get out of here or I'll-"
In a flash, Jim swung his sword from its resting place and held the point inches away from the gangster's ski-masked face. Jim let a low growl leave his lips.
The thug let out a small shriek and dropped his knife as he ran away. Jim took a ragged breath and leaned on his sword from exhaustion. Claire came over to Jim and helped support him. They watched as the brute ran towards the rest of his beaten friends. The first thug from earlier looked back at Jim and Claire, there almost seemed to be recognition in his stance, but he turned quickly and disappeared under the shady overpass with the rest of his gang. Leaving them alone in the park.
"If you two are done wooing each other, I believe you will want to see this."
Almost alone.
Merlin faced a tagged wall, part of the overpass in the park. Jim and Claire walked over to him.
"If I'm not mistaken, which is highly unlikely, it would appear that some of these colorful inscriptions are in trollish."
Jim took another glance over the graffiti and found that there were trollish characters sprayed onto the side of the wall.
"It is trollish! Then that means trolls are nearby."
"The hearthstone must be close!" Claire beamed.
"But where?"
As Merlin and Jim talked, Claire looked around for more trollish graffiti, but found none. Then the knife, the one the thug had nearly used on her earlier, caught her attention. It seemed bigger than an ordinary pocket knife. Curious, she went over and picked it up. She turned it over in her hands and found trollish letters carved into it.
"They're here!" She proclaimed with excitement. Jim and Merlin stopped and looked at her confused. She walked back to them.
"The trolls were right here. Right in front of us." She gave the blade to Jim, who turned it over in his hands, eyebrows raised.
"Are you saying we just fought trolls?" Jim asked.
"That would explain their dimwittedness," Merlin snided. Jim and Claire chose to ignore the comment.
"Maybe following those trolls can lead us to the heartstone." She urged.
They all looked towards the overpass.
"It's worth a shot," Jim said before they walked to the shadowed short tunnel. They split up and searched for clues, then Jim pointed to a spot on the ground.
"Look at this," Jim said as small amounts of gravel were strewn about in patterns on the concrete ground.
"Are those...foot tracks?" Claire pulled out her phone and shined the flashlight on the ground. They followed the tracks until they came to an abrupt stop in front of the wall that was halfway through the overpass tunnel.
"This is where they end," Jim said. Claire pulled out a horngozle from her backpack.
"We'll see about that." she dragged the point of the horngozle along the wall and made a doorway. Light immediately shimmered along the drawn edges as she pressed the center of the doorway. The section cracked and the rocky pieces moved out of the way revealing a wide stone stairway that led deep underground.
Bright orange Geode crystals lined the walls like hallway lights, illuminating the descent down.
"No turning back now," Jim said and led the way down the passage. The doorway closed and engulfed them into the earth.
•^-^•
Meanwhile, in an abandoned building in New Jersey.
A hooded figure looked up from his ancient texts as he sensed a shift in the city around him.
"So the prophecy will come to pass after all." He closed the old book and stood up from his studies.
His eyes glowed golden as a malicious smile spread over his face.
•^-^•