Smolder

By Kukaburry

Chapter 6 - Puzzle Pieces

During the midnight shift, Cole, Dave, and Arie stayed up to discuss the runes since they would need to get used to the new sleep schedule quickly. "So did you both get all the way through the Runes?"

"Yeah, I read both walls," Dave replied proudly.

"I only got halfway through the second wall," Arie admitted. "But I was trying to decode them myself."

"That's stupid, why waste the time?" Dave snorted as he leafed through the folder.

"Shut up Dave," Cole snapped gruffly and looked at Arie with a raised eyebrow. "That's actually a good idea Arie, I didn't think about that. If we can detect a pattern then we can have luck decoding some of them."

"But isn't there a curse on the other two walls or something? That Geb guy said they shifted around at night."

A thought began creeping into Arie's brain. Maybe that piece of information was the most important one. "Maybe that's part of the puzzle," Arie suggested more to herself than anyone else. "What if the runes reveal different pieces at different parts of the day? What if it's not actually shifting?"

"Wouldn't someone else have figured that out by now?" Dave's voice was thick with skepticism.

"Dave makes a good point. It would've been easy to notice a pattern after a few days."

Arie stuck to the idea forcefully. "Not if people were rotating like we were. How long have they actually been trying to solve this?"

Cole shrugged his shoulders. "About seven months, give or take. I really doubt someone would have ignored something as simple as that."

Sighing in momentary defeat, she leaned into the back of her wobbly chair and tapped her finger restlessly against her forehead. "There's got to be something they overlooked, right? Cole, did they write down anything that showed up on the walls before?"

"I'm not sure, I can check with Geb in the morning."

Dave snatched a plum from the bowl in front of them and took a large, sloppy bite, spraying flecks of juice across the front of his shirt. "So, Cole, why do they really have us locked down here? What aren't they telling us?"

"You seem to think I know more than I'm letting on," he replied evenly with a hint of a smile tugging at his lips. "That's interesting."

"Obviously it's not just because of some weird mummy stuff going on in here. We've all heard crazy stories about dark wizards running around and starting riots." He leaned forward and held the half-eaten plum in his out-stretched hand. "What really happened to the last group that was down here?"

Arie looked up from her notes, intrigued by the conversation. "Look, it's just a rumor, I don't know if this is even true, but one of my colleagues heard that the last two groups were taken hostage by a band of dark wizards. They call themselves the Skin Crawlers."

"Why are they called that?"

A grim look pulled Cole's features downward and his eyes flicked between Arie and Dave multiple times. "Because sometimes they kill their hostages and… make the skins crawl back to their families."

A cube of ice slid from Arie's throat down to the pit of her stomach. No wonder her parents didn't want her to go. Had they heard these reports of demented wizards enchanting the dead skin of their victims just to torture the families? She then wondered if Marty knew about the reports and had oh-so-conveniently forgotten to tell her about it.

"Williams, hey," Cole snapped a finger in front of her face twice. "You okay? You look paler than usual."

"Sod off, I'm fine," she replied with extra snark. "So now because of a few lunatics we're trapped down here?"

"I'm sure we could get some security to go with us into the city if we wanted."

"It was supposed to be a rhetorical question," she sighed. "Well, since we can't do anything about it, let's look at the message from the first wall? It's a pretty typical riddle."

"In my heart you shall find a brute of Sunny lines. In my eyes is breeding the face of yours and thine. In the rear you shall hear the slice of Pluto's vine. Three small ? to shake their fears and ? both space and time." Dave read the scroll twice in a row.

"It almost rhymes, doesn't it?" Arie murmured. "I actually translated a few of them differently than they did - do you mind if I substitute them?" Cole nodded and inched closer to look over her arm. Awareness crept into her stomach. "In my heart you shall find a beast of Sunny lines. In my head is well bred the face of yours and mine. In the rear you shall hear the slice of Pluto's vine. Three small tears to shake their fears and - both space and time."

Cole leaned away only half a centimeter and tapped his chin with two fingers. "That does sound better, and almost sing-songy," he mused. "It really only took you a couple of hours to retranslate this? That's really impressive." Arie shrugged feeling a little self-conscious. She hardly ever received compliments on her work since none of her friends understood Runes. Also, her boss gave little oversight on her work so the only person she could brag to was Fred who, while intelligent, found Runes just as perplexing as she found Transfiguration. Cole's blue eyes crinkled as he smiled.

"What's that last word though, it kind of seems like it's the most important here," Dave interrupted Arie's flirtatious thoughts. "And why are they talking about Pluto? Do they mean the wizard or the planet?"

"Well, both I imagine since Pluto is named after him," Arie replied dryly, seriously wondering about the IQ level of this kid.

"Duh, I know that part. I mean is it a clue about him personally or is it something about the planet?"

"Pluto's vine," Cole repeated. "A vine is a stalk. Pluto had a Trident in Muggle history, didn't he?"

"No that was Poseidon. I think Pluto got a Helmet of Invisibility. This wouldn't even make sense."

"How do you know so much about Muggle history?"

"Well a lot of our histories are mixed together. Pluto was a merciless wizard who killed millions of Egyptians, but Muggle history has him as the Protector of the Underworld. It's kind of strange how his job role shifted."

"Do you think maybe his power is something we're looking for?"

"Could be, no one knew how he killed so many people so quickly and then just disappeared."

Dave, bored with the chitchat about Pluto, snapped his fingers. "Can we get back to this now? So it's probably not the wizard since we don't know anything about him except what some idiot muggles said. How about the planet?"

"Astronomy wasn't my best class," Arie admitted.

"Well isn't it the planet of Scorpio?" Cole more stated than asked. "So vine could mean a Scorpion stinger. Those things can whip around pretty good."

"Yeah, you've never seen a blast-ended skrewt apparently." An involuntary shiver creeped down her back. "Why is 'sunny' capitalized in the first sentence? That must mean something."

"Beast of 'Sunny' lines?" Dave murmered. "Well if Scorpio is Pluto's beast, what is the sun's beast?"

"It's Leo - a lion."

A lightbulb went off in Arie's head. "Scorpion tal, lion heart, and 'a face of yours and mine' meaning human, right?" Her excited voice caught the attention of both the boys. "You know what that is, right?"

Cole slowly smiled and locked eyes with her. "I can't believe it. This is impossible."

Dave looked between Arie and Cole. "What?"

"It's a Manticore." Arie whispered.

"But those are just some Muggle fantasy aren't they?"

Looking at Dave pointedly, Cole said dryly, "Obviously not."

Arie stared at the page where the blank still remained, eyes scrunched tight in concentration. "So we need the tears of a Manticore for… for something."

Cole poked her in the side of the head. "I'll check with the others to make sure 'tears' is right." Arie gave him a small glare of doubting her, but she understood why they would need to check. "Don't think about it too much. I think we did pretty good for the first night, we can leave them our notes and see if they know what that word is. It's almost six in the morning, we should get to sleep soon."

Dave stretched and jumped up, eager to finally sleep, leaving Arie and Cole alone. "You did really well tonight. I'm impressed." Cole's eyes squinted as he smiled. "You said you just left Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, history of magic and runes were the only classes I was good at." She admitted with a small blush.

"Kind of like me, I almost didn't leave because my potions grades were complete shite."

A soft giggle escaped Arie's throat. "Cole, do you.. do you think you could try and find those old copies of the runes?"

Watching her with a curious expression, he shrugged. "I can see what I can dig up. It'll be kind of hard since," he gestured at around himself, "we're kind of trapped down here." A small sparkle appeared in his face. "Unless you want to go exploring sometime."

He was definitely flirting with her now, Arie felt it, and small butterflies of anticipation fluttered through her stomach. "I.. don't know." She wasn't sure how to act around him yet and instead gave him a non-committal answer.

Cole shrugged again and stood up. "You staying? You look ready to fall over." It was true, Arie felt like her eyes were going to glue closed any moment.

"Yeah, I want to look through these a little bit more. Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself."

"Alright, have fun sleeping on the table," he grinned.

Arie rolled her eyes at his implication then stuck out her tongue. He snatched her tongue and gave a deep, throaty laugh. "Be careful with this thing. People might get the wrong idea." Cole's face loomed near her own and she felt her heart stop momentarily then speed up to several beats quicker than normal. An image of Fred grabbing her tongue the first night they started 'fake dating' flashed through her mind and a feeling of nausea swept through her. "Hey, you okay?" He relinquished his hold on her tongue and bent lower, feeling her brow.

Sidling away from his hands, she forced a fake laugh. "I'm fine. Trust me, I'll go to bed soon. Night." When Cole finally left after ensuring she wasn't feeling unwell, Arie sighed deeply, wishing images of Fred wouldn't keep rushing back to her unexpectedly. She felt both angry and guilty for thinking of him when another guy was trying to flirt with her. Determined to rid herself of all things Fred, Arie wiped her brain and took a sheet of parchment with her outside the tent to trace the newest runes. An hour later she fell asleep on a pile of sand near the back wall.

Hallo! Guten tag! Danke! Yep I'm flying over to Germany soon and those are about the only words I know besides 'Wasser ulna gasse'. I'm doomed. :'(

Anywho, those of you who are wondering which chapter had the 'tongue grabbing' – It's chapter 3 of A Friendship Broken :D. Such a cute scene. I get all sparkly when I think of everything in that chapter. Let me know what you think of the chapter, and go ahead and guess what's coming up soon. I've given some subtle hints.