Chapter 18

A Wayward Disaster

Korun

It took a few hours for everyone to get ready. Somehow, my mother managed to make cold weather clothing for everyone in that time. Sapphie packed a few books that could guide us in the tundra and we set off. Garnet seemed to be distracting herself with Annalise and Larimar. Sapphie was bouncing ideas off me about what she might be able to do with her magic. My mother and father were having a silent argument. Don't get me wrong, neither of them were angry. In fact, both seemed oddly worried.

Time didn't seem to pass in this world regardless of whether something was alive or frozen. How much does a world have to be set off balance to stop moving? Without time, it was hard to tell distance. Conveniently, no one could ever get hungry, so there were ups and downs to this whole situation. Ever since I got that charm back, I've felt different as if something has awoken inside me. The Wayward Crystal was coming into view. The thing was enormous! It looked to be just over 20 feet tall. Everyone gathered in front of the crystal.

"Look at all that falling snow!" Anna gasped.

Larimar admired it as well. "It is a truly beautiful sight."

Sapphie projected her voice, "On my count of three, we will walk through the Wayward Crystal. One..."

I looked over at Luea and picked her up. We both smiled at each other.

"Two..." She continued.

Anna gave Larimar a thumbs up. My parents exchanged worried glances. Garnet took a deep breath.

Sapphie looked at everyone once more. "Three… Charge!"

Everyone stepped into the crystalline surface.

When I reached the other side, I was facing the sky. I saw what looked to be shooting stars falling in all directions. No wonder Wayward Crystals were seen as unreliable. It was unstable to transport multiple things at once. Now everyone had been separated. This was a terrible start to my quest.

I felt something move around in my jacket. Leua poked her head out. "Did we make it?"

"Yup." I replied. "It's a good thing you leaped into my jacket in that last moment. That might have contributed to us not getting separated."

We both froze to the crunching of footsteps in the snow behind us. "I wasn't expecting to find a jewelpet and a human laying down in the snow." The voice sounded familiar.

I returned to my feet with Luea in my arms. A white lion jewelpet stood in front of us. "Who are you?" I asked.

"I am but the guardian of this temple." He replied.

I whispered to Luea, "Try looking him in the eyes." She nodded and stared into the eyes of the other jewelpet.

"My name is Granite." He covered his mouth with his paw. "How is it that you made me speak?" He asked.

"Magic is a mysterious thing. No matter how much you embody security, your defenses aren't perfect." I replied. "It was nice meeting you, but we have to reassemble our group." I conjured a magic sled with the wave of a hand. Luea and I got seated.

"You can use magic?" Granite asked.

"Who knows?" I waved farewell and the sled moved on its own.

Luea laughed. "You should have seen the look on his face. It was really funny." She paused a brief moment. "What were you doing back there?" She asked.

"He guards that temple. To be more precise, he guards the artifact in that temple that we need to eventually obtain. If he knew what we came for, he might have become hostile. By leading him on and confusing him, he will ask himself all the wrong questions and won't suspect us for the right thing."

"I see your point. If he is a guardian, he might be really scary as an enemy." She shivered. "Wait, how is this sled even moving? I thought the ground was level."

"Magic." I shrugged. We continued sledding magically across the tundra.

Anna

"Larimar, where are you?" I called. I saw a tail sticking up from the snow. "Larimar!" I ran over.

"Mmph…" She squirmed. I grabbed her waist and pulled. "Mm! Mmph!" Her head dislodged from the snow and I landed on my butt. "Be more gentle Anna!"

"Okay… okay." I sweatdropped. I looked around. "Where is everyone?"

"I think that crystal shot us off in different directions." Larimar said.

"Look at all this snow. I never expected there to be a place like this in Jewel Land." Snow covered the land as far as the eye could see.

"Locating the others will be hard. No matter where we start, everything is all the same." Larimar observed.

"We could use magic. Remember what Korun told us before we left?"

"Yes, but his instructions were vague. Is it really a force that can be so easily influenced?" Larimar asked rhetorically.

"It's worth a shot." I closed my eyes and interlocked my fingers. I thought about finding the others. I didn't have any particular method in mind, but I still felt this energy forming something. I opened my eyes and two small metal rods fell in the snow. "I did it!" I exclaimed.

Larimar walked over and picked them up. "A pair of divining rods. These might just work. Good job Anna!" She held the rods together and started pivoting herself. After a quarter turn, the rods pushed out away from each other. "This way! There's something this direction! Follow my lead." We walked off into the snow.

Luea

The sled slowly came to a stop and I could see a familiar red cloaked figure in the distance. "Look, there's Garnet!" I pointed diagonally right.

"Good eye!" Korun acknowledged. We walked over to her and Korun called her attention. "Garnet!" She didn't respond. I turned her from her side onto her back and removed her hood. Suddenly, Korun pulled me away. "Something isn't right." He said. He was right. This odd dark aura shrouded Garnet's body. Korun enveloped his hand with magic and reached over placing his hand on Garnet. The darkness was expelled from her body and dissipated into nothingness.

"Korun, what happened to Garnet?" I asked.

"Some of the dark magic of the world was trying to seize control over Garnet's body, but she seems to have some sort of immunity. Probably from the time that Dian and herself were under the influence of this same magic."

"Why does this power only affect jewelpets?" I asked.

"It stems from negativity. Jewelpets were created initially as creatures to bear and spread positivity. When jewelpets were first brought into the world by witches, each pet was built to draw power from and represent good characteristics. Jewelpets that were created and formed after that time came about from powerful concepts or more complex feelings. That essence of being a positive force makes you the natural enemy of the darkness we face." He explained.

"Some characteristics have negative sides to them though. What about that?" I questioned.

"The witches realized that drawback a little too late, so some jewelpets had become evil long ago. Eventually the dark side was sealed off in the jewels which it could be. Those for which that was not possible became classified as the magical class black jewelpets. Any jewelpet in magical class black was considered to represent something that was either too vague or a double edged sword."

"The truth is good, but sometimes it hurts to hear." I said to myself.

Korun sighed. "Other magical classes can't achieve their full power without understanding the bad side of what they embody. The fact stands that most jewelpets aren't willing to accept that they too have darkness within them."

I realized something. "That makes them weak when that darkness controls them! They fuel the darkness with the negativity of not being able to accept it meaning that they become, in a sense, lost."

"In Garnet's case, she seeks vengeance against the darkness for taking Dian away from her. She accepts that it is out of love. That's why the darkness struggled to take control of her." Korun stated.

"How do you know all this anyways?" I looked him in the eyes trying to get my jewel to work its magic.

"I've always known. I was created with this knowledge already tucked away in my memory." I continued staring into his eyes. "I admit your eyes are beautiful, but their influence doesn't work on those who are already telling the truth." He put his hand on his face. "Besides, I hardly understand why I only have fragments of knowledge. There are parts clearly missing, and I can only guess as to why very specific parts are gone."

"Magic is weird." I stated. I looked around and light glinted off something in the snow. I blurted out. "Has there always been sunlight in the tundra?"

"Good point. Maybe this place is protected by something, so the light hasn't left here yet." Korun concluded.

"Time still feels frozen though." I said.

"It is possible that the two occurrences aren't directly correlated." Korun suggested.

I got up and walked over to where the light caught my attention. A jewel charm with dark cross shaped crystal was in the snow. I picked it up.

"Korun! Luea!" I turned to see Annalise waving at us. "I'm glad we found you!" She exclaimed.

I walked back over to Korun. Korun's father came snowboarding in from another direction with Rose on his head. Rose jumped down and survey everyone present, "Korun, Luea, Anna, Larimar and..." She looked around.

"Ughhh. What happened?" Garnet asked confusedly. Korun helped her to her feet.

"Oh! Garnet was hidden there! That makes sense." Rose looked at an odd device in her hands. "Looks like Sapphie made her way somewhere while we made our way to you. She's not moving from her current location by the looks of it; everybody get ready to get on the move." Rose took control of the situation.

Everyone besides Korun's parents got on the sled and we followed their lead. Rose seemed kinda pushy and on edge. I couldn't help but wonder why. We soon arrived back at the temple Korun and I started off at. The only big difference was the figure of another human approaching the large doors that I would guess led inside. It looked like Erin. No, it was Erin...