New clues and new questions
Let us pick up our tale where we left off, shall we? The Archmages split up in Jasper Park, so they can find clues about the supernatural entity, but the wolves also noticed their presence, said Dandelion.
Shalidor and Fannaeras went to the place that the blood-elf spotted the most clear traces.
"Here is the place. You see 'em?"
"I do. Clear as day, they are, too. I should be able to reconstruct the illusion..." he said, stepping forward. He seemed to keep feeling the ground, going forward, backwards, sideways, as though he was using a metal detector. He stopped at one point. He closed his eyes and started to mumble, one of his rings starting to shine. As he was concentrating more and more, the ring and his hand were shining brightly, and walls started to rise.
Fannaeras knew they were only shadows of what they were, but they seemed transparent. "Must've been made of... glass?" thought the elf frowning. When Shalidor rised, there was an entire labyrinth formed. They looked around it, and the Archmage spoke:
"It looks like someone was trying to make a kind of ... game? Let me try to replay the movements."
He rasied his hand and the ring began to shine even brighter, as was his hand. A shadow of a wolf pup appeared at what seemed to be the start. Shalidor's ring stopped glowing, but his hand continued to.
They witnessed everything that had happened three days ago, Pennywise's introduction, heard the conversation between Dean and Kyle, Humphrey and Kate's hopeless attempts to save him, and finally his death.
The walls faded, Pennywise's threat echoed, and the two adult wolves left hurriedly. Shalidor lowered his hand and the warlock and mage stared in silence for a few minutes. Finally, the human broke the silence:
"Well... it looks like we're doing with a monster called Pennywise, which looks at least like a clown, but can make even illusions of people or animals, and make it look just like it was them..."
"Pretty much. What the fuck did Kyle mean by "floating", though?" asked the warlock.
"Maybe this clown does something related to it to his victims... He must have been the one to kill John too. Anything normal wouldn't have killed like that. And he seemed hoisted into the air, you said."
"Most likely. Can't think of anything else that would manage to do that."
"Don't think we can learn anything else here." concluded Shalidor.
"Nope. Let's see what Ithilden and Lara managed with camp." replied Fannaeras.
As he finished that, he whispered a spell, and the amulet projected an image which cleared almost instantly, revealing Lara.
"I was just about to see what are you guys doing. I'm sending the coordinates to camp now, Mithrandir and Kharazim just returned. See you here."
The transmission ended, and their amulets buzzed.
While Fannaeras made a portal, Shalidor extended his hands and concentrated on the place. The two teleported at the same time and vanished on the spot.
What they didn't know though, two certain wolves had seen what they did, and they were exchanging intrigued looks. It was Garth and Lily, who were patrolling the territory for the second time that evening. They quickly ran back to the Leader's den, to report what they have witnessed.
That night, at the Leader's den
"So, besides that clown, we got these other fuckers to deal with now?" seethed Eve, clearly angered.
"Mom, they seem to want to help, maybe we should talk to them..." began Lily.
"NO!" shouted Eve. "We shouldn't trust them in the least, Lily! They're humans! Maybe they're resposible for summoning that thing!"
"I don't think they are, they only now learned it's name, and what it did to Dean. How could they have summoned it and not even know it's abilites?" Kate argued.
"And if they did it, what would they even show up for? They would've just sat comfortably and watched it murder us, if they wouldn't have cared!" added Garth.
"We should have as many allies as possible, don't want more enemies than we already have." said Tony reluctantly.
"I think they're right, Eve." said Winston tiredly, as his mate opened her mouth angrily. "I don't like the idea of contacting them at all, either, but I don't think we should let vanity get the better of us. Just like Tony said, more allies would be far better than more possible foes."
Eve only scoffed, and curled up in a corner of the den, still fuming.
"Leave her be for now, dear." said Winston, as he saw Lily wanting to go towards her.
"We'll disscus this further in the morning. Come at our den tomorrow at the first lights of sun rays. We shall think of how to approach them." said Tony.
The younger wolves nodded and departed.
"What do you think?" Kate asked Humphrey, once they sat down in their den.
"Well, Claudette and Stinky will sure have a hell of a surprise once they return..." chuckled Humphrey. Kate also laughed and replied.
"They will indeed..."
"I think this is the best shot. We shouldn't tackle this thing alone, you heard what Garth said, those two guys concluded it's quite powerful." said Humphrey.
"How do we even know they're right, though"? Kate asked her mate, seeing he's quite confident.
"They seem to wield magic too, don't they? Never seen anyone that can reconstruct illusions, or teleport, personally. I would trust their opinion on the matter rather than someone else's." smiled Humphrey.
"Yeah, guess you're right..." murmured Kate. "Good night, love".
"Same to you." They curled up to each other, and fell asleep. Runt was still in Shadow Forest, but he promised to return when his siblings did.
Meanwhile, north-east of the Pack
The two friends have been in for quite a shock when they saw the "camp". It was a giant tree, which supported illuminated rooms on it's thick, white branches, and a ladder on it's trunk. Lara dashed down to greet them.
"Well, do you like the camp?" she asked grinning.
"Where the fuck did you get a whole luxury tree-house in about an hour?" asked Fannaeras, mouth agape.
"From fucking Lorthlorien." chuckled a deep voice behind them. They turned to see Ithilden smiling.
"It looks damn amazing, druid. The elves of Lorthlorien have this?!" asked Shalidor, amazed.
"For certain priviliged people, they do." laughed the night-elf. "I planted it, and Lara quickened it's growth, and there you are. It would've normally been at least an hour to fully grow, but the impatient lady here made it into a few minutes."
"Let's head inside, it's getting cold and the lady more impatient to hear what you two found." laughed Lara, ascending the ladder. They followed her.
The inside was luxurious, to say the least. Each Archmage had his own quarter, with all their mainpossesions already there, and a massive main room, right in the middle of the tree's golden foliage. They were all made of splendid birch wood, and it even had beautiful crafted furniture and floating lamps.
"They really wanted to show off, didn't they?" laughed Kharazim. "They even stole our shit to and placed it here, to cap it all off."
" 'Steal' is an ugly word. We merely took the liberty of bringing it here. " laughed Ithilden. They all sat down around a table, which had a appetising roast carribou in the middle, with salads and seasonings all around it.
"Treat yourselves!" said Lara loudly. They all obliged, and started feasting. For a short while, only clinkets and cutting noises were heard, untill they all finished, and all the food vanished, only for drinks to take their place.
"Thought we should have something to wet our throats while talking." said Ithilden. "Who wishes to start?"
"We shall start." said Mithrandir, clearing his throat.
"We arrived at the ranger's office, and we knocked on the door. Initially, there was nobody answering. Just as Kharazim wanted to go and try looking through the windows, the door opened. There was a surly-looking man, not very old, with a scowl on his face. He started the conversation quite friendly, I must say..." Mithrandir projected the memory with his staff and a quick spell for everyone to see.
Flashback from about an hour earlier
"What the fuck do you two want?" asked the ranger.
"We merely wanted to talk, sir. Nothing more." said Kharazim, obviously taken aback by his attitude.
"Fine." he said tartly. "Tourists or hunters?".
"Tourists."
"Come." the ranger replied. The two tourists followed him into an office. They noticed that on a neighbouring door it was written "Ranger John Hockstetter". This one was "Ranger Patrick Star".
The ranger gave each of them paper to sign.
"You paid at the entrance?" he shot at the mages.
"Of course." replied Kharazim quickly.
"Give me the tourist visa."
"Excuse me?"
"Tourist. Visa. Now." growled the ranger, as if he was preparing to pounce on them.
The two knew they couldn't worm out of this one anymore.
"Knock him out." said Mithrandir hurriedly to Kharazim using the amulet to communicate, so only the monk could hear.
"Righto." With a quick, but precise and hard hit on the head the ranger slumped on the floor.
"Hoped it wouldn't have to come to that..." mumbled the old wizard. "Let's look around here, then I'll modify his memory."
They investigated for a few minutes in silence, before Kharazim found a photograph.
"Take a look at this. It's a photo of him and another ranger. Might be the other, John."
"Might be. Strange that he doesn't seem to be looking for him, don't you think so?" replied the druid.
"Yeah... real fucking strange. I would look for you guys if you randomly went missing. Something ain't right with him, I think."
"Could be."
"Found anything else?" asked the monk.
"Nope. Let's see his office."
"Right behind you."
They walked out and entered the other office. It was dark, but seemingly in order. They found his wallet, keys, cloak, everything.
"Must have dissapeared on patrol." said Ithilden.
"Yep. Maybe we can learn something from all his possesions, let's look."
The druid found a picture in his wallet.
"Must be his wife." he concluded, showing it to the monk.
"Mhm. I found this too."
He showed him a paper which declared Betty's decease, John's wife.
"So she's dead too. In a car crash, and he survived. Didn't dissapear under strange circumstances."
"Interesting. He has family alive though..." said the monk distantly, rummaging through a photo book which he found.
"These pictures were taken a week before his dissapearance. But nobody is looking for him. That's so fucking strange."
"I know."
After a few more minutes of searching which led to no avail, they were about to leave, when they saw something out the window, moving through the cold dark.
"What's that?" asked the wizard, pointing to it. They both stared at it. It was a red baloon, just floating out the window...
"What the fuck?" he asked.
"Good question..." replied the monk.
The baloon popped. They stared at each other blankly for a few seconds before hurrying outside. It was nowhere to be seen, not even remnants of it. They only stared at the cold dark, and the night was still as stone, nothing moving.
"What the hell even was that?!" said the monk, confused.
The mage held his staff high and sent a white, transparent wave through the surroundings.
"There's nothing here. Nobody, not even a soul."
"I'm really fucking confused."
They received a transmission. It was Lara.
"Hey guys, head back to camp if you're done. Here are the coordinates. Found anything?" she said.
"Righto. Yeah we're done. We found some interesting clues, we'll tell you all about 'em when we're all gathered." said Kharazim.
"Good. I'm gonna call the other two, see what they're doing. See you soon."
"Bye." The transmission ended.
"Almost forgot." Mithrandir went inside, modified the ranger's memory, and came back out.
"Let's head back."
The old wizard teleported, and the monk ran on place before vanishing as well.
End of memory
The projection dissapeared and the wizard lowered his staff. Then, Shalidor and Fannaeras also shared their discoveries. Lara broke the silence which followed:
"So, we're dealing with a monster in a form of a clown which names itself Pennywise. It can create powerful illusions and without many traces, imitate voices and other folk perfectly, maybe even influence other people's minds, determining them not to meddle. But it doesn't work on us... or maybe he didn't even try yet. Though, I think it knows we are here. Maybe not exact whereabouts, but it knows we could bring him trouble. It murdered at least three since we got here, maybe even more before."
"You think it's feeding on them?" asked Ithilden.
"Most likely, doubt it's doing it for no reason at all." said Kharazim.
"Won't be an easy task tracking it, doesn't look like it leaves many traces..." added Fannaeras.
"It seems it has large fangs, though. At least we know one way which he attacks." said Shalidor.
"It might also attack psihically, we don't know yet." countered Lara.
"Actually, Shalidor, didn't you had a feeling we were being watched?" remembered the warlock.
"Now that you say it, yeah I did." replied the mage.
"Then why the fuck didn't you do anything?" asked Mithrandir confused.
"It wasn't any supernatural shit, it was normal animals." countered the blood-elf.
"Maybe we should look back again then, we might find them again."
"What use would that be?" asked Mithrandir, still not seeing their point.
"First off, we have one big enemy already. Don't want the whole forest against us, we literally arrived only today. Second, the animals might know more actually..." said Ithilden thoughtfully.
"We should have as most allies as we can." said Kharazim. "They might have noticed Pennywise's presence too and I doubt they like it, it killed two wolf pups already. The enemy of our enemy is our friend."
"Yeah, might be an advantage." said Lara. She looked outside. "It's well past midnight, let's go to get some rest, I for one am tired. We'll figure it out tomorrow."
They all nodded and went to their rooms, falling soon asleep.
A/N: The amulets were activated last chapter, if you remember. They basically activate telepathy for close proximity. They take up energy to use, so the Archmages use them only when they have to, not all the time. When they use them, the text will be Italic.