It's time we finished up the third ark of this mystery.
twisterblake2015: Thank you for reviewing every chapter up to this point. Even if each review is a single word, I still appreciate you taking the time to leave your thoughts.
The group stared at the paper. All of them were thinking hard about what it said. Shaggy seemed to be talking to himself. He would ask a question, seem to listen for a bit, before asking another. After a few minutes of this he turned to Elsa.
"Elsa do you know if there are paintings displayed somewhere in this castle?"
Elsa thought hard for a minute. However it was Crystal that spoke up. "I saw some paintings in that hall that lead to the garden. Maybe that is where we need to look?"
Thorn and Tanis shook their heads.
"The clue mentions a town, and I didn't see any paintings of towns while we walked through that hall" Thorn said.
"Thorn's right," Tanis said, "but I'm sure I saw a painting of a town somewhere."
"The only question is where" Crystal said.
"Well for now let's return to the dining room" Shaggy said.
The others nodded, and they all started walking toward the stairs leading down.
The young woman followed the group smirking. She had a chance to read the clue over the shoulder of 1 of the women, and she knew exactly where to look for the painting mentioned in the clue. So as the group reached the ground floor and turned toward the dining room, she flew the kitchen and the stairs leading down into the basement.
As Shaggy sat down at the table he stiffened. Then shooting to his feet Shaggy waved for everyone to follow him. Puzzled the other girls jumped to their feet and rushed from the dining room toward the kitchen.
Descending the stairs the group found themselves in the basement, and leaning against the wall was a life-sized painting of a town.
Shaggy was scanning around the room looking for something. He ignored the painting, and continued searching the room.
"Uh Shaggy" Tanis asked. "What are you looking for?"
Crystal was also scanning around the room. She could feel something hiding nearby, but she couldn't see it. She was determined to help Shaggy this time.
Thorn was examining the painting. "I don't see anything special about this painting."
Elsa tried to move the painting away from the wall. Too her surprise She couldn't move the painting at all. "Hay, the painting seems bolted to the wall."
Tanis and thorn tried helping Elsa, but even with all 3 of them they couldn't move the painting even an inch.
Shaggy sighed and turned his attention to the painting. Pulling out the clue again he scanned it. "The clue mentions a paint brush. Maybe we need 1 of those to find the next treasure."
The girls nodded.
"There are some paint brushes in a studio on the second floor" Elsa said.
Shaggy nodded. Tanis will you go with Sibella and look for these brushes please? I don't want anyone to travel alone for now."
"Sure thing Shaggy" Tanis said as she and Sibella ran upstairs.
On the second floor Tanis ran through the hallways while Sibella flew alongside her.
"Um Bella? What happened to you anyway?
Sibella frowned. "I don't remember much. After you and the others stepped through the arch I just took the time to admire the flowers in the garden."
[Flashback]
Avoiding the roses Sibella walked around the garden, stopping at different flowers to bask in their scents. She was impressed with the variety of different flowers. There were roses of course, pansies, cosmos, tulips, lilies, dandelions, dandelion puffs, Jacobs ladders, carnations, and violets. Sibella had never seen so many flowers in 1 place. She wondered if there was some magic keeping these flowers alive.
She had walked maybe half way around the garden when she heard a voice singing to her. At first she wondered if Thorn was back, until she heard what was being sung.
"Come to me my little bat.
You will give me control, and be my little rat.
Don't fight me on this beautiful warm and sunny day.
No matter what you do I'll get control anyway."
Sibella tried to hide from the voice, but no matter where she hid the voice seemed to find her. As a last ditch effort, Sibella ran toward the doors leading back into the house.
[End flashback]
"The only problem with my plan was someone was already standing there blocking the door. A girl with long blue hair tied up in a long pony tail. A small sleeveless black shirt showing off her stomach with a matching set of black leather pants being held up by a loose grey belt. She carried a guitar, and as I approached she strummed a cord. The strange thing was as the notes played a wave of energy shot out of her guitar and hit me in the chest. I must have blacked out, because the next thing I remember is waking up to Shaggy kissing me."
Tanis looked thoughtful as she and Sibella entered a studio. Grabbing a paint brush Tanis asked, "Didn't Debra tell us stories about a ghost that her brother had to fight that used those types of attacks?"
Sibella paused for a minute, before her eyes widened. "Yeah! Let's get back to the others quickly."
With that the 2 girls grabbed more brushes just in case, and ran back to the basement.
While Tanis and Sibella were collecting the paint brush from upstairs, Shaggy and Crystal were continuing to scan the room for a threat while Elsa and Thorn watched them.
"Shaggy where is Debra anyway?"
Shaggy looked up at this question. "She hasn't returned from a task I gave her yet."
Thorn looked puzzled, until she remembered how Shaggy had asked Debra to speak with him in the garden alone. "May we know when she will be back?"
Shaggy smiled a strange smile. "That depends on how this search goes." With that he returned to scanning the room.
A few minutes later Tanis and Sibella came running down the stairs carrying paint brushes. "We got em" Tanis cried. Without warning a masked woman appeared, snatched 1 of the brushes out of Tanis's hand, and sent her flying with a simple punch. Not even stopping to glance at any of the people in the room, the masked woman ran to the painting, and tapping it with the brush in her hand disappeared into it.
It all happened so fast that no one had time to react. However after snapping out of the shock brought on by the suddenness of the attack, Shaggy hurried over to Tanis and turned her over. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was shallow. He saw where she had hit her head, and he was scared she had hurt herself so badly she would die from it. Never mind the fact she was technically already dead.
Sibella knelled beside her friend. "What do we do now? We can't leave her here alone."
Shaggy nodded, and seemed to talk to himself for a minute. Again without warning a form seem to rise out of Shaggy's body. After a minute it took the form of Debra.
"Debra?" Elsa asked.
"I'll explain later. Right now you all need to get into that painting before she finds the treasure. I'll stay with Tanis, and make sure she recovers."
Shaggy nodded and held out a hand for a brush. "Let's go. We won't let her get away with hurting Tanis on top of stealing the treasure."
Elsa, Crystal, Sibella, and Thorn all nodded as each took a brush. Walking up to the painting each tapped the painting with their brush, before being sucked right in.
Shaggy and the girls found themselves in a small town. They could see a few houses. A shop with a sword on the sign above the door. A shop with a picture of a bottle on the sign above the door. A building with a picture of a bed above the door. And a building with a picture of a gold coin on a sign beside the door. The group looked around in surprise.
"What is this?"
"It looks like aa town from the mid-evil times."
Shaggy was looking around for the woman who had hurt Tanis before coming in here. "This kind of reminds me of a town from an old role playing game. If I remember right, the sword on that sign means the shop sells weapons."
Thorn looked interested. "I use to play those when I was younger. What kind of rpg do you think this town is from?"
Before Shaggy could answer, Crystal who had been scanning with her device cried, "Got her. That masked woman is in the building with a bed on its sign."
Shaggy turned toward the door in question at once. "This usually means an inn. It's sub post to be a place for people to sleep. Well let's go see this woman, and if she isn't asleep we'll fix that." So saying Shaggy walked toward the inn with the girls following him.
Back in the castle Debra stood watch over Tanis. She had already called her brother and asked him for help. She knew it would take him and Momo a little bit to reach her, but she was willing to wait. While waiting Debra pulled out her notes she had been taking while hiding inside Shaggy, and looked to see if she could answer any of the other questions that were sure to come up.
She tried to focus so she could help Shaggy solve this mystery. The problem was her mind kept drifting back to her feelings for Shaggy himself. Having spent time with his very soul, Debra knew that Shaggy now held very strong feelings for every one of the girls who were with him here. She also knew he was conflicted because of these feelings. If he had his way he would merry every single one of them, but the laws where he lived wouldn't allow this. Debra while sharing his body had suggested he setup his own monster castle. She had explained that this would cut him off from most of the world, but he would be able to make his own laws, and that would allow him to marry any and all monster girls he wanted.
Debra was startled out of her thoughts by a noise from the stairs. Turning invisible and hiding Tanis Debra watched as a young woman walked down the stairs. Her face was mostly in shadow so Debra couldn't see who she was. The woman didn't stay long, just looked around for a minute, and then walked back up the stairs.
Once she was out of sight Debra whispered "That was weird."
Meanwhile in the town Shaggy and the other girls had found the woman they had followed into this painting. She still wore her mask, but something had knocked her out. Beside her was a note. Picking it up Shaggy read it while the girls looked over his shoulder.
"Young to old and to young again will reveal my treasure."
"Young to old and to young again? What could that possibly mean?"
Surprising everyone else, it was Crystal who answered Sibella's question. "According to the scan I took when I was searching for this woman there are 3 towns here, and looking around makes me think this town represents young."
It was then that Thorn spotted a map on the back wall. Walking over to it she spotted each of the towns, along with a pencil lying on a little ledge in front of it. "Hay everyone, this may be what the note means." Pointing to a line that someone had started drawing Thorn said, "I think our mystery person tried to connect the 3 towns on this map, but did it wrong."
Shaggy smiled. "Sibella will you fly to this town" he asked while pointing to the town the last person had started with. "Talk with the people there, and see if you can determine if this town represents old or not."
With a nod Sibella shifted to bat form and flew off.
It was an hour later when Sibella returned. She looked very excited.
"Welcome back Bella" Shaggy greeted her. "What did you find?"
Sibella walked over to the map, picked up the pencil, and started drawing a line from the town they were in, to a town to the southeast, and finally to the town in the northeast. As she finished by bringing the line back to the first town, a pedestal covered in strange symbols rose out of the ground. On this pedestal sat a red necklace covered with numbers, and seeming to show the current time.
"So that's what the first clue meant" Crystal said.
"What do you mean Crystal?"
Crystal gave Shaggy a soft smile. "Remember the clue we found after finding the first treasure?"
[Flashback]
"I am never young.
I am never old.
I give and take life.
I cannot be bought, or sold."
[End flashback]
"The clue was referring to time, and this necklace represents that."
As Crystal reached to lift the necklace, everyone was surprised to see a sheet of paper appear where the necklace had once laid. Smirking at the pedestal Shaggy picked up the paper and read it to the girls.
"Congratulations on finding my second treasure. As before you may stop at this point, after all I can't really make you go on. However if you want to find the next treasure this clue will give you an idea of what you re looking for.
A mix of blue and yellow.
Though described as sower it can also be sweet.
Even if you are full.
If you see this you'll probably want to eat."
An: yay the third arc is now done. We're making progress. I'm finding this harder now than when I first wrote these chapters. I used more than 1 game reference in this chapter. I'll point them out next time.
Speaking of game references, the reference from chapter 19 was a reference to the game "Soul Blazer". In the first area your character, who is an angel btw, uses a paint brush to enter paintings to destroy the monsters in them.
Just 1 word of warning. Although there are multiple town paintings in "Soul Blazer" I didn't use that games towns in this chapter. I'll let you all try and figure out what game I was referencing there.
I'm going to be taking a short break for a week to try and get my head back in the mystery. Oh and don't worry about the villain who was stunned here. We'll unmask her at the start of the next ark. See you all then.