As soon as they all dried off and their tails had changed back into their legs and their clothes were back to normal, it was getting dark out. So they ate dinner out on the deck, then went below to find someplace to sleep. The girls decided to sleep in one room while the boys slept in the other. Soon, they were all asleep, after deciding that the younger two, Oliver and Aaliyah, would get the hammocks. All of them, except for Aaliyah. She lay in her hammock and stared at the soft glow that the jewel on her staff cast across the room, listening to Esther's steady breathing from the floor where she slept on blankets and Harmony's soft snores from where she was using her staff as a hammock. She kept pushing her foot against the wall to try and stop the hammock from rocking, but it was near impossible.
As she rocked and stared and listened, she thought of her family back in Motorville. Joe and Grace, her foster parents. She'd been with them for years, ever since she was a baby. They would never fully adopt her, they were too busy. They already didn't like leaving her home alone all the time. ANd now she'd just vanished into thin air! Were they worried? Were they panicking? Had she scared them?
"They're probably too busy to even notice that you're gone." A voice said slyly. She nodded, dozing off at last. But as she closed her eyes, the pure blackness that usually faced her had changed into a room. In the room, was an ugly sort of creature. It had spidery legs, with a skeleton body black hair flowing from its skull. And it's legs were red. The skeleton part of it that was covered with a black robe was white, but the spidery legs were blood red, and looked as though the colour had been splashed onto him, as if something had spilled on them. The creature grinned an evil grin, bugs coming from his teeth. Aaliyah thought she was going faint, or worse, vomit.
"So. You're the one Senkrad has been after! You and that boy." He said, his voice dark, but slightly high pitched at the same time. Aaliyah stumbled back.
"Wh-who are you?" She asked, looking for some sort of weapon, but there was none.
"My name. It is Tortana. I am the slave of Senkrad."
"Wh-who's Senkrad?" She asked, her voice squeaking with fear. Tortana stepped forward a little, more bugs crawling out of his grin.
"Senkrad is my master. But he has been hidden away. His power is great. And mortals feared him. Now he is weak. And he needs more power. You and the Pure Hearted One. You are powerful enough for Senkrad. Your souls are what he needs." Aaliyah jumped back again, trying to get away from Tortana and his hideous face.
"Wake up Aaliyah! Please! Wake up!" She whispered to herself. Tortana laughed a high pitched laughter that rang in her ears.
"Oh. You'll not be waking anytime soon. It was I who put you to sleep. You will stay asleep too." Aaliyah gasped. "Might we bring in the boy. As well?"
"No!" She shouted. "Leave Oliver alone!" She jumped up, but before she could even plan her next move, Tortana held out his wrist to her and webbing shot out at her! It wrapped around her body and held her firmly to the ground. She tried to wiggle out of it, thinking that this couldn't be too strong, it's spider web, but his was no ordinary spider web. "Let me go!" She shouted. "And leave Oliver alone!" Tortana laughed.
"I do not take orders from puny girl. No matter that she is the Heir to Magic. She does not know her own power."
RTNK
Oliver awoke with a start, and fell out of the hammock. He'd heard a dark laughter in his dream. What was that? That was when he heard something thump in the girls' room, and heard stirring.
"Aaliyah? Are you alright?" He heard Harmony say through the rather thin walls. There was no answer from Aaliyah though. "Aaliyah?" Still nothing. "Aaliyah!" Oliver ran into the girls' room and saw Harmony and Esther had run over to Aaliyah, who was stick straight, like someone had tied her up, and she was fidgeting in her sleep, her face a mask of fear.
"Aaliyah! Aaliyah! Wake up!"
"Oliver?" She said, but her eyes were still closed. "Oliver, get away! Save yourself!"
"Save myself? Aaliyah, what's going on?" He asked, but she didn't answer.
"No! Leave him alone!" She shouted. That was when Oliver felt fatigued, and he lay back on the floor, falling into a deep sleep.
"Oliver!" Was the last thing he heard Harmony and Esther say before he found himself in a black room, and saw a horrible looking spider man! Then he saw Aaliyah, was tied up with webbing.
"Oliver! Get out of here!" She cried, still fidgeting, trying to get free of the webbing.
"So. This is the Pure Hearted One." the spider man inquired, coming over, his spindly legs clicking on the floor. "Funny. I imagined you. Bigger. More powerful looking." Oliver stood his ground, reaching for Astra, but found it wasn't there. "Silly boy. I would never make it that easy."
"Who are you?" he demanded, trying to call upon a familiar, but that wasn't working either. He was completely powerless in here.
"I am Tortana. The slave of Senkrad. And the one who will bring him your souls." The he shot spiderwebs at Oliver and bound him.
"Oliver!" Aaliyah shouted,then her bounds blasted off, and she glared at Tortana, who looked shocked.
"That's impossible! Nobody can break my webbing!"
"Well I just did, didn't I?" She told him. Then she pulled out Aurora who seemed surprised to be there.
"Aurora! Purifying Pulse yourself!" Aaliyah told her. The winged cat did just that. "Now Attack!" Then Aurora went after Tortana, who tried to block her attacks, but the cat was pretty good with her claws, especially since the battle with the Selachimorpha had leveled her up quite a bit. She could almost metamorphose already! But that was when Tortana did a magic move.
"Consuming Darkness!" Aurora went stumbling back and Aaliyah cried out, having been cursed. But she wasn't going down so easily.
"Aurora! Healing Tear!" Aurora did the move, even though it didn't do too much, not helping her cursed state. "Aurora! Defend!" Then Tortana came over and started to attack, but it did minimal damage. As he attacked, Aaliyah looked for a weapon. Aurora could only do so much. All of a sudden, she felt Aurora fly back into her chest. The familiar needed to recharge. Aaliyah looked up at a furious Tortana.
"Why don't we end this charade?" he told her. Then he began to create a symbol with his finger. "Heart Wrencher!" Aaliyah screamed and ducked her head, then felt something hit her, but it wasn't painful. She couldn't see anything.
"Did it work?" She heard Esther's voice.
"Hard to say. She's moving around a bit, though." Drippy told her.
"Oliver? Aaliyah? Are you two alright?" Harmony's voice came through.
"Come on, guys. Wake up." Swaine whispered. Then Aaliyah sat up, gasping. She wasn't with Tortana anymore. She was back on the ship, all of her friends surrounding her. She was also on the floor, under her hammock. Oliver was sitting up too, looking confused.
"What happened?" He asked. She shrugged.
"I don't know." Harmony knelt down and inspected the two.
"Hm, doesn't look like an enchantment." Esther tilted her head.
"You can tell?" She asked. Harmony gave her a look.
"You're surprised?" Esther shrugged. She had a point.
"What happened to you two in there?" Marcassin asked the two shaken kids.
"I was laying in the hammock, just…" She chose not to tell them about her family issues. They weren't important currently. "thinking, and as I dozed off, I heard this voice. Then I was in this dark room with this strange looking man! He had spidery legs and a skeletal body!" Oliver nodded.
"And he said that he was the slave of someone called, um… Senkrad?" The four older ones of the group gasped, then looked to each other.
"Tortana." Marcassin said, his face paler than normal.
"It's not possible. He's dead!" Swaine told them, nervously.
"Yeah, and he's supposed to be the Guardian of Senkrad's Prison!" Drippy added.
"He must have come back and was hypnotised by Senkrad." Harmony told them, gripping her staff tightly in her hand so her knuckles turned white.
"Who's Senkrad and Tortana?" Esther asked. The adults exchanged looks again.
"Could it really have been only been thirty years ago?" Marcassin asked them.
"It should have been forever." Swaine grumbled. Harmony turned to the teen and the two kids.
"Senkrad was once human like us. He was a very powerful wizard too, a Great Sage, alongside Alicia, Rashaad, Khulan, and Raoul. Alongside, they worked with my mother, Dalia."
"They protected this world long before we were all born." Marcassin added. "Alicia and Raoul had even done the trials together, while Senkrad had done them with Rasaad."
"They all worked very hard to keep the peace, until Shadar, the rotter, came along!" Drippy cut in. Swaine nodded.
"The five sages and the Songstress had gotten together to discuss their strategy against him. Senkrad had wanted to join Shadar, in hopes of creating peace and not war. But the other sages and the Songstress didn't approve of Shadar's methods, and Senkrad became angry."
"He went rogue, and became dark." Harmony told them darkly. "He killed everything in his path, becoming less obsessed with the idea of peace and more obsessed with the idea of death, until there was no good left in him. He wasn't even human anymore. Just darkness."
"So, the four remaining sages and the Songstress sought him out. They wanted to try and save him. But it was much too late. So they instead trapped him in a glass prison of pure light, the one thing he could not destroy, and they hid him far away, leaving Tortana, who was a unicorn at the time, in charge of guarding him." Marcassin said lastly.
"However, the pure essence of the dark power inside of the glass prison was too much for Tortana." Swaine added. "He went mad, and eventually killed himself."
"And now he's back, and he's evil?" Aaliyah asked, three of them silent through the whole story.
"That's what it looks like, don't it?" Drippy said quietly.
"And now with Alicia, Raoul, and Dalia gone, only Rashaad and Khulan could possibly withstand his power." Marcassin said sadly.
"But what about us? What about you and Harmony?" Oliver asked. "You're a Sage and the Songstress. Can't you two help them defeat him again?"
"Not on our own." Harmony told him. "He's far too powerful for a single wizard or witch, let alone a still developing Songstress and an underage Sage. We only know this from stories our parents told us. No, we need Rashaad and Khulan. They'd have a spell or two saved just for the likes of Senkrad and Tortana." Oliver jumped up.
"Then those are our next stops! Al Mamoon and Perdida!" Aaliyah stood up too.
"Yeah! We'll get those spells and we will stop Senkrad from escaping his glass prison!" But the adults didn't look so sure.
"Are you two sure about this? From what my father told Marcassin and I, Senkrad is extremely powerful." Swaine told them. Oliver nodded.
"We have to try at the very least! We can't just let him win!' The four adults exchanged looks a final time, then nodded.
"Alright then. We'll set out for Al Mamoon first thing tomorrow." Harmony told them. "For now, let's get back to bed." Then the boys left, but Aaliyah realised Esther hadn't moved, hadn't spoken. She had just sat there, looking white as a sheet.
"Esther? Are you okay?" Aaliyah asked her, kneeling down. Harmony crouched down on her other side. Esther nodded slowly, swallowing.
"Yeah, it's just…" She sighed. "My father worked with Senkrad on the trials. He mentioned once that the man he had done the trials with had been his childhood friend. He was friends with Senkrad as a child. Do you think that… he and Tortana… that they might…?" Harmony shook her head, understanding.
"No, Esther, no. Your father is a good man. He would never work with the likes of Tortana. I can promise you that." Aaliyah nodded, understanding now.
"Yes, definitely. From what Oliver told me, your father would never go evil. He would never turn against you like that, not for the world." Esther nodded.
"Yeah. I guess so." Then she gave both of her friends a hug. "Thank you, girls. I guess I just needed a pep talk, huh?" They nodded, then Aaliyah yawned.
"Now let's get back to bed. And hopefully not dream of Tortana anymore." Harmony remarked. Both of the younger girls nodded, then they all went back to bed.