Hello, everyone. ^~^

First: I'm so sorry, that you had to wait such a long time for the next chapter. T_T

There's still lots of work to do, so chapter 6 might also take some time until it will be finally uploaded. But at least, it's already in progress. (I guess, thing are getting better slowly... X,D)

Thank you all so much for your patience. ^/^~

Hope, you enjoy the next chapter and: So much love to all my readers, and followers again! Thanks for your comments and favs. ^3^

Cya soon, Eeva ^3^

CHAPTER 5: One step closer – Part I

When we finally arrived at our goal, it was already past midnight. I looked to the sky and had a feeling that there was something missing, but I just didn't get what it was, no matter how hard I tried.

"Pretty dark place...", I heard Eugene murmur.

"And pretty quiet."

Cassandra was already attentive beyond the normal again. Her eyes searched the environment but it seemed, as if she couldn't find anything for the moment. But she was right: The place was pretty quiet. No sound of animals, or the wind around here. It seemed, as if the night had swallowed everything in this place...

The only one who seemed not concerned about the situation in any way was Varian. He scanned the place attentively and when he found the spot, where the strange fluid dripped out of the rocks, he walked straight over to them, as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

"That's even more exciting than I imagined...", he whispered in fascination. Then, he reached out for the dripping liquid, but stopped immediately, when Cassandra told him in a stringent manner, not to touch it.

"Remember, what happened to that rabbit, we met in the forest, short time ago? If it wasn't you, who tranformed it, I guess, it must somehow gotten in contact with those drops, or those rocks there... - I'm not quite sure, but I guess, you don't have an itch to find out, what this fluid could do to you, do you?"

She fixed Varian severely with her eyes and then turned to me the same way.

"Or to you, Raps."

I startled and then gave her a friendly 'Sorry-Cass'-Grin, but also put down my hand, with which I had just been about to touch one of those rocks, too...

Varian stayed silent, but for a moment, he stared at Cassandra, then at me and then, he turned towards his shoulderbag.

"Don't worry", he said, when Cassandra was again about to stop him, after he had pulled out some smaller test tubes, which he held straight under the falling drops to catch some of them in it.

"It's all about the proper tools, isn't it? These tubes are boosted, so they should last."

He waited until the first tube was filled with the shiny blue liquid dropping slowly down from the dark rocks in front of him. Then, he put a cork on the tube and placed it carefully next to him.

"See? It's working.", he said, without looking at any of us. Instead, he started filling the next tube and watched the drops slowly fall down inside the glass.

"That was no big deal, anyway."

"That's great, Varian!" I felt something between excitement and relief, when he put a cork on the second tube, too.

"But why haven't the other scientist been able to keep the drops inside anything until now, when the answer is actually that easy?"

"Maybe, they didn't have boosted glass?", Eugene opinioned.

"Or maybe, they're no real scientists after all..." Varian chuckled, but it didn't sound very amused at all.

"Wait a second!", Cassandra scanned teh environment, while listening closely to the silence that surrounded us, "Did you hear that, too?"

"What? Please don't say, there are some more of those monster-animals, Cass..."

"No. It's more like... - Watch out!"

Before I could react in any way, Cassandra had already pushed me aside and against Eugene. While we were stumbling behind her, she headed to Varian, to pull him away from the rocks. And just as she had put the alchemist out of range, there was the loud, cracking sound of breaking glass and the tubes, Varian had used to fill in the drops, bursted into pieces and spread the liquid all over the place.

"Are you okey, Blondy?"

Eugene examined me all over and so did I to him.

"I'm glad, you're alright. What's with the others?", I asked, when we both found out, that neither the glass, nor the fluid had hit us both.

"Cassandra? Varian? Are you okey?" I looked over Eugene's shoulder and realized, that my friends at least seemed to be unharmed. However, what made me worry, was the way Varian stared at Cassandra: Eyes wide open, he first watched her with something between 'Thank you' and confusion. And then with scientific curiosity, when his eyes spotted a certain point on her chest.

When I saw the dark spot on her chest, too, I was so worried about my friend that I couldn't help, but run over to her and start fumbling around with her pullover.

"Pull out that pullover, Cass! Quick!", I urged her untill she stopped me by retaining my fingers.

"Stop, Raps! I'm alright! Just slow down a little...", she said, and after letting go of my hands, she started searching for something underneath her top.

When she finally pulled out a colourful piece of jewelry, it wasn't only me, who stared at it in mere astonishment, as this necklage looked very similar to the one, Varian had given to her on the day of the science-contest...

"Just don't think anything wrong about it, okey... - None of you!", she said and started to examine the trinket closely.

The Cassandrium in the middle was still shimmering in different varieties of purple, but a closer look showed, that there was something moving inside the stone. In fact, it was like there was some kind of strange fluid circling around inside of the stone...

"That's it! Quick, Cassy, I need that necklage of yours!" Varian held out his hands in demand for the trinket and Cassandra gave it to him.

"I can't believe, you're still wearing it...", he murmured more to himself, "But, it seems, that this is just what we needed."

Varian placed the Cassandrium on the ground under the rocks and we all watched with growing tension, how the drops fell onto the stone – and sank into the purple material immediately!

"Now, that's truly something interesting, isn't it? The Cassandrium seems to absorb the drops from the stones... Due to the size of the material, there probably will not be a lot of testing material left – Sad, but that's okey. It will have to do so far..."

Varian continued watching the drops fall down and sink into the smaller stone and after a few more seconds, he took the necklage from under the rocks and examined it carefully.

"I guess, I can work with that.", he said, and circuitously pulled a small wooden box out of his shoulderbag to place the necklage in it.

"Let's go back then.", he demanded, while shoving the small box back into his bag, "There's still lots of work to do."

With those words, Varian got up and walked past us very quick paced into the direction where we had come from. The rest of us just followed – wondering, where this 'back' he was talking about might actually be.