I had a four day weekend, so I made the most of it to write this up. Thanks for the support already shown on this story! And thank you for the advice, AssaultRookie. I know I have a problem with run-on sentences and comma splices (that's what my old Language Arts teacher used to call them). I guess I just have a habit of feeling the need to explain things... And thank you for the offer, KKKstories.
To Gradyleeward: A- I have a plan for that scale thing much further on. B- I've never really been good at or liked using other people's OCs. C- If you're talking about Huskymudkipz, I don't watch him or Ssundee, so I barely know about them and that's why I barely mention them. D- The reason Krystal and Ty are the only ones of the hybrids who can use magic is because they're part dragon, as Seto explained in chapter 14 of Hardly Human.
Anyways, chapter 2! I said I can't handle writing about normal life, so I'm gonna just jump into the fray!
"What!?" I snapped, wide-eyed.
Mist nodded, fear in her pale blue eyes, "I have no idea where he is, but I found this when I came back from this morning's patrol!"
Every morning and evening, a patrol of recruits was taken along the river to check for any signs of squid activity. Sometimes the timing of the patrols were varied in order to try to catch the squids by surprise.
She was holding out a slip of paper. It smelled odd, like it was old paper.
I took it, and read aloud, "'Searching for your dear brother, wolf girl? He has been taken and put to the test. Let us see if he will survive...'" I flipped the paper over, "Signed by 'Vignar' That's one of the priests we went to, a while ago"
"Which church?" Ty immediately asked.
"The big one, with lots of holy people. The Church of the Holy Notch, I believe?" I recalled, having a hard time because we'd been going around to a lot of the churches and chapels.
'Put to the test...' Enderlox muttered, as we were quickly going to the church.
Try as we might, we couldn't find the priest named Vignar anywhere in town, and those in the church who probably would know his location only gave us their honest estimates.
In other words, we had no idea.
I knew Shade could handle himself, but the note's talk of putting him to the test made me uneasy. The five of us were a family, and we would stick together. Shade was like my other cousin.
As we were forced to return to the main building in the dark, Mist whimpered, her ears and fluffy tail drooping, "What if we can't find him? What'll we do, Krystal?"
She and Ty looked to me.
"We'll find him" I promised, "Even if it means spending all day and night searching for a month of more!"
"But not tonight" My brother put in hastily.
"Why not?"
"Because maybe Shade will be okay without our help. Maybe all he needs is a bit of time"
"All right" I agreed, then turned to my wolfy friend, "But until we find your brother, I'll let the other generals know that you're not available for patrol. We'll go out straight away in the morning"
She nodded.
(time skip)
In the morning, I went out for a quick flight before I joined up with the other two.
I wanted to see if I could spot either Shade or this Vignar with my enhanced eyesight, going from building to building in search.
The day before, Mist had tried to follow her brother's scent trail or perhaps catch the scent of the priest, but had failed both due to the sheer amount of people in the city.
I returned and met with the others just as we'd agreed. I sent a maid to the children's building to tell Hector that I wouldn't be there to see him today, that there was something going on.
"Where do we start today? The church again?" I asked my brother.
He nodded, thinking, "That's probably the best place to start. We have no idea where else to look"
"Let's just go, okay?" Mist seemed less afraid and more upset today, which didn't make much sense, but was understandable.
"All right"
But I had something else on my mind.
"Mist, do you still have the note?" I asked out of the blue.
She looked a bit taken aback, "Yeah. Here" She gave it to me once more.
There was nothing more written there, but I was thinking about something else.
"This paper smells old, oily, and musty. Where can we find paper this old?" I prompted.
"In a church, or a library, not like that helps" Mist mumbled.
"Actually, it might. We've only been looking for Shade and Vignar in churches and places of religious significance. We haven't been to any libraries. And the library most likely to contain paper this old..."
"Doxyn's!" My brother exclaimed, "The old, nearly forgotten, religious archive! I can't believe we forgot about that!"
Doxyn's was the library where we'd been looking for the oldest ways people used to contact Notch. It was part of what used to be the original town, before the city was built up. An old brick building in fair condition, though no one entered those doors except the keepers and the very few people who came searching for something very old and not available in the main city archive, mostly people who had permission to copy items for the latter reason.
"That is the priest's hint? Why would he take Shade to a library?" The wolf girl asked.
I patted her back, "Doxyn's must have secrets. Every good old building does. And a library most of all. I promised you, we'll find him"
When we arrived at the old structure, I was slightly surprised.
"It's closed" Ty said the moment he spotted the sign in the window.
"'Out of town for a few days. Come back on Monday' They're hiding something, all right" I added, reading the smaller note attached to the closed sign.
"That's odd, even though they're closed, the door's not locked" He'd just tried the door, and found it swung open easily.
Mist crossed her arms, "Why would it be? They don't have anything worth stealing, and most people who come here would turn away at the slightest chance not to enter"
"I don't think that's the case" I said quietly, sensing Enderlox agreeing with my deduction, "It's more like they're expecting someone..."
The interior was dark when we entered, and looked like the stereotypical haunted library, minus the cobwebs and some of the dust.
I flipped a lever and heard redstone click, a moment or two passed before the lamps embedded in the ceiling turned on. "Old wiring" I commented.
All of a sudden, Mist's nose twitched and her ears shot straight up, "I smell Shade! This way!"
She dashed off down one of the aisles between shelves, leaving my brother and I to follow her.
My friend ran for so long, I was almost convinced that she was chasing a false trail until I caught scent of it myself.
Among the overwhelming musty scent of old books, leather, and paper, came the scent of Shade, and a fainter bit of the sharp metallic scent of blood.
We came to a dead end, but Mist was still sniffing around, "There's something here, it doesn't end. I can still smell him somehow behind here"
I nodded, and wordlessly started to pull books off the shelf carefully. Who knew what knowledge these tomes contained?
Eventually, after a long, agonizing minute, I slammed my hand down on a hidden button.
Once again, there was a redstone delay before pistons pulled the wall apart, revealing a hidden doorway leading to a long and narrow hall.
The wolf hybrid took the lead again as we continued, not that there was any other way for the trail to go.
The hall led mostly straight, though there were a couple of sets of stairs we had to go down, leading me to believe that we were currently underground somewhere.
We walked slower, now that we were following something definite.
There was no doubt that all three of us could scent our cat friend as well as what must be the priest. The religious man's scent was heavier. "Vignar must have left Shade somewhere further down and then doubled back to get out" I deduced, though we'd all been thinking about it.
"Let's just find my brother and get out of here. This place makes my fur stand on end!" Mist commented, snarling a little.
My own brother and I silently agreed.
After the path went on for a while longer, Mist dashed forward again, but this time, I could see the reason.
"Is he there?" Ty called, and we ran again.
She had spotted a door, though there wasn't much light to distinguish it from the dark of the tunnel, which itself had only been lit by the glow of my eyes.
The silver-haired girl busted the door open, and ran to the dark figure struggling on the floor.
My hand found an extinguished torch, which I quickly relit with a little blow of fire.
The violet flames illuminated the tiny room. The walls were bookshelves, imbued with magic. Little white symbols levitated between the books and an odd table in the center of the room, beside which slouched our friend on the floor.
Shade's green eyes were wide and he took a deep, gasping breath when his sister ripped off the gag covering his mouth.
I looked him over as Mist continued to untie him, searching for the source of the blood scent, "Where are you injured?"
He shook his head, black hair matted slightly, "Little scratches. Most not my blood"
Mist embraced him as soon as she completely freed him, "What happened? I came home and you were gone, and this was on the table!" She was holding the note again.
But the first thing Shade did was look to me, "Thanks for helping us. I didn't know what she would do without me"
"Just explain what happened, you know we'd do anything for each other" I requested, "I get the feeling that this involved our little god issue?"
He nodded in agreement, sitting up more comfortably before starting his story, "In the morning, I guess after Mist left on patrol, I guess I was catnapped? I woke up in a chamber, not like this one. It was all stone brick. The man there was one of the priests of Notch from that big church we went to last week. He said he wanted to test us hybrids, and had chosen me because I was 'The only one alone of the two untested hybrids'"
"He must have meant you and Shade. Maybe he thought Krystal and I were proven in a way because of how we fought during the squid battle" Ty mentioned in the moment of quiet.
Nodding in agreement, Shade went on, "In the chamber he had me in, he released wave after wave of mobs, and I had to fight them. I still had my obsidian sword, thank your mother, but it was still rather difficult. That's why I have scratches and I smell like blood. After that, he used some kind of anesthetic gas or something to knock me out again and brought me here. I've only been awake a couple of hours. I'm glad you guys found me"
The cat hybrid thanked us again.
Once everything with him was settled, I went to check out the room.
It was tiny, not big enough for more than about six or seven people to be crammed in. I had to keep my wings tucked close to my back.
In the center of the room was what I expected was supposed to be the main purpose of this room, something I'd only seen in books.
An enchanting table.
Not even Seto or the Sky Army had one of these. From what I'd heard, they were rare in real life. Though according to what Mitch had told me, there was usually at least one in each Hunger Games, which was a simulated killing game he and Jerome liked to play, and were champions at.
The shiny black stone was the same material as mine and Shade's swords. In this case, the black stone block had top corners of diamond, and was covered with a red cloth, on top of which lay a book.
"I didn't know one of these existed in the city" Ty admitted, only now realizing what the table was.
"It must belong to the owners of the library. They must have been keeping it secret for a long time" Mist added.
"We can't take it. Only a magic user can make use of one, and Ty and I don't know how to yet. Plus, if it belongs to them, we're not going to steal. No matter how rare it is" I said, "Now let's get out of here"
Yeah, one-chapter action here. It'll lead into the main plot, eventually. I kinda just wanted to develop these four/five as a group/family.