(Dew): All right, the new direction we're taking the muse section in is-

(Char): clobbers Dew with a giant mallet

(Dew): x.x

Uhh... what was that for?

(Char): I'm tired of his suggestions. When a section has me in it, you don't need anything else.

...I'm going to move this along before I say something, and then you do something I'll regret.

Review Responses:

Caster of Chaos: I'm running a school? Crap! Taxes!!

Midnight C: Everyone... might become reunited... eventually... and Mia's luck... might... mean something... eventually... but do I want to give it all away right now? It would ruin my cliffhanger-ing opportunities!

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"So, before we start looking," Sheba said, walking side-by-side with the other two Jupiter Adepts along the city streets, "is there anything that we'll particularly need to buy?" Ivan stopped and leaned on a wall to think, cutting his cheek on a jutting brick that he somehow hadn't seen in the process. Feizhi shook her head.

"I'd say healing items, to start," she commented dryly. Ivan blushed, but agreed, while Sheba simply smiled at him and gently tapped his arm in a playful "you're-an-idiot" sort of way. The group wandered the streets of Chefru until they came across the plaza. Much of it was fire damaged, but the shops that were essential to them weren't damaged enough to be closed.

Dipping into his reserve funds, Ivan purchased a full supply of Herbs and divided them amongst their group of three. Ivan glanced over the girls armour as they put their Herbs away and offered, "Maybe we should worry more about our armour, too." Sheba looked at his light armour, which was severely cracked along the side, and suggested the same.

"All right, then. Armour shop," she said, and the group walked off in another aimless direction, looking for the next place they could buy from.

They wandered into an alley, hoping to find a connecting passage into another section of the plaza, but were abruptly stopped by a strange man, clothed in a dark cloak that covered his whole body. The cloaked stranger approached them, swaying very slightly, and demanded, "Do you have one?" Ivan didn't reply, but merely furrowed his brow. With a subtle nod to Sheba, he attempted to distract him for a little while, buying Sheba time to use to probe his mind to see if he was a threat.

"Have one what?" Ivan asked levelly. Sheba blinked twice, and then reached backwards to share the link with Feizhi, as though she couldn't believe what she was seeing in his mind and wanted verification.

"Do you have a-"

"They were here!" Sheba exclaimed, cutting him off entirely. "This guy encountered Jenna and Mia yesterday!"

"And was horribly rude, as well," Feizhi bristled. The man swayed more.

"What do you expect?" he questioned. "They think it's a stone! A normal, bloody stone!"

"A sto- what is he talking about?" Ivan asked Sheba, cutting himself off with little provocation. Sheba took his hand.

"Here," she said, extending her mind to his and showing him the events of yesterday. Their minds linked, Ivan saw the encounter from the perspective of the man, in every detail. He watched as the man advanced on Jenna, as she took the Masamune protectively and guarded the stone, and as she knocked him back with a burst of attacks.

"Hmm... effective combo. And it looks like Garet finally got around to giving her that blade," Ivan commented. "Jenna and the Masamune, oh, that's scary..."

"Forget that, did you see their so-called stone?" Feizhi said excitedly. "Did you see what it was?"

"Oh..." Ivan said, traveling back into his thoughts to look over the memory again. This time he paid attention to the item, and used the man's memories to decipher exactly what the girls were safeguarding. "Oh, it's a... wow," he said breathlessly. "That's cool. That's really, really cool."

"I know, hmm?" Sheba said happily. "Won't they be surprised?"

"According to legend," the man said, "they're found on wasted battlegrounds, and only if they are treated with extreme care and attention will they-"

"That won't be a problem," Ivan commented. "The way those two seemed to be protecting it, it shouldn't take long at all for it to-"

"This is so exciting!" Feizhi interrupted, unable to hold in her excitement any longer. "Not only were they just here yesterday and we have a good chance to catch up with them if we move quickly, but there's a good chance that when we do catch up to them, they'll have a-"

"At any rate," the man said, swaying a little less now, "if you do catch up to them-"

"When," Sheba interjected.

"When, of course," he corrected himself. "When you catch up to them, please tell them I'm sorry for how I treated the two of them yesterday. I was... well... I suppose you could say a... a wee bit... drunk?"

"...a wee bit?" Ivan asked unbelievingly. "I'm surprised you could tell it wasn't a stone," he laughed.

"At any rate, we should go," Sheba said suddenly. "We should get there to warn them about it... you know, just so they aren't totally surprised when it-"

"Yeah," Ivan said, just a bit too quickly. "We should."

"Thank you for your assistance," Feizhi said, bowing. "I shall tell them that you didn't mean any harm." The man could have been smiling under his cloak, but they couldn't tell, at any rate.

"I believe they would have rested at the inn overnight; perhaps you can find more information there," he offered by way of leaving. They thanked him again and headed off to explore the city a little more, keeping an eye out for the inn.

They did a little more mind-reading and found out that the accident that had occurred had involved a strangely aligned leveler (Mars, they assumed, due to the fire damage) and at least Mia and Picard, as many of them had seen the pair of Mercury Adepts at the scene.

Eventually the trio wound their way to the inn (the excitement of finding Mia's group had completely erased the idea of getting new armour from their minds) to find more information. They headed off to speak to the innkeeper behind his desk for more clues.

"Have you seen anybody like this?" Ivan asked once the introductions were made. He then launched into a quick description of each of their comrades. The innkeeper nodded.

"Yeah, they stayed here last night," he said. "Ate just over there, at that table," he nodded. Ivan gave the same unnoticeable nod to Sheba, telling her to Mind Read for more info while he kept him talking.

"Can you remember where they said they were going? We got separated from them, and we're trying to catch up," he explained.

"Yeah... the blue-haired one... the girl, I mean... she mentioned something about going east... it was just loud enough for me to hear," the innkeeper recalled. Sheba Mind Read him for a split second, then nodded to Ivan, showing that his words were true.

"Thank you, sir," Ivan said courteously. "That helps us a great deal." The three of them left the inn quickly. Sol was only at midday, so they had plenty of time to catch up if the group only left this morning.

"Are we sure they left to the east?" Feizhi wondered. Sheba nodded.

"Positive," she said. "Here, I'll show you... I didn't get much, though. People are strangely resistant to Mind Read in this realm... but I did get enough." She took both of their hands and linked to their minds, recalling the image.

They saw the scene in the inn in their minds, to be played as many times as they wanted. They saw Mia, facing away from them towards the fireplace, sitting down at the table, with Garet strangely on the floor and Felix and Picard already seated. The inn was quiet enough that they could hear her say, "I'm heading east, myself. Across the Doango Mountains." Either the inn got louder or they started speaking quieter, because they couldn't hear much else. Garet got up and sat at the table, and the memory ended just as Mia started to rise.

"Okay. That'll do it," Ivan agreed. "They must have gone east."

"I wonder what's east... and where was Jenna?" Feizhi wondered. Ivan frowned.

"Something wrong?"

"Just a weird feeling. It's nothing," Feizhi said, shrugging and shaking her head, sending her hair flying behind her. "We should go if we're going to catch up."

"All right," Sheba agreed. "Let's go east."

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Sol was nearly down across the Seula plains as Mia's group made their way across it. The plains were long, but at the pace the group was accustomed to walking, they had managed to get across it by sunset. Before them stood a majestic shrine, coloured in stone of Red and Yellow.

"We've found one!" Jenna cried out, running ahead, still clutching the stone in her arms. "A shrine, it has to be! Look at the structure!" Picard was a little more grounded, but he felt optimistic as well.

"It is strangely familiar to the Elemental Lighthouses... I think this is the real thing," he agreed.

"Awesome!" Garet exclaimed, running towards it. "Let's get there so we can camp there tonight, and climb it in the morning!" He bolted toward the Shrine, then, suddenly stopped, pitched forward, wheeled his arms to correct himself and fell backwards. "Ack!"

"What is it?" Jenna cried, worried.

"Not... good!" he replied.

The others reached where he had stopped and their hearts sank. The plains acted as a disguise. The path to the shrine was a bit more complicated than they had first thought. They had come to the end of an island, and the Shrine that was so close lay on another island, much too far to cross by conventional methods.

The island the Shrine sat on was relatively small. It was roughly diamond shaped, as though all the dirt was funneled into that shape over time. The vegetation on the island was sparse, and the few plants that were there looked sick and deprived of water. On the underside of the island, large roots were sticking out, dangling from the bottom and side and swaying with the wind, giving the impression that they were consciously moving and searching for water to absorb. Just looking at it made some of them thirsty.

"Well... that's just not useful at all," Felix muttered, looking down at the sulfuric and lava-ridden surface of the planet.. "Bloody useless." Picard smiled.

"Yes... generally if something isn't useful, it is useless, thanks so much for pointing that out," he quipped.

"I see a sign," Jenna pointed out, waving her hand in the direction of a plaque off to their left, which lay parallel to the end of the island. "Maybe that's useful?" she suggested. Mia walked over calmly.

She studied it and read the words, "The Grand Seula Island Bridge," aloud. "It's inscribed here, but... that's it. Nothing else."

"There's no bridge here," Garet pointed out, with all the finesse of a Mars Adept.

"Nope," Picard agreed. Jenna shook her head and was about to speak, but something else caught her attention.

"Ow... this stone is getting hot!" she complained. Mia moved in and examined it.

"You're right," she agreed. "It's... oh... Mercury, it's cracked!" Jenna gasped.

"How can it be cracked?! I've barely let it out of my sight!" she exclaimed. "There's no way! Unless it... Garet!"

"It wasn't me!"

"Well... maybe this is a good thing?" Picard offered meekly. Felix shook his head grimly.

"A random item that Jenna is attached to is unusually hot, as in, heated in a bad way, and cracked, as in, broken in a bad way," he said summarily. Picard pursed his lips and stepped back.

"...that's not useful at all."

"Bloody useless..."

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(Dew): x.x

It's a lot more peaceful with him unconscious.

(Char): I agree. I should do that more often.

Yup.

(Char): To you, I mean. For the plot twists.

Eeeee... this is not good...

But what would make it good is if you (yes, you!) reviewed! So why not? It's not gonna hurt, and it's perfectly tax deductible! I might even give you a mail-in rebate...