Chapter 22

Plot Hooks

Sephie awoke in her bed, feeling an absence next to her. It was still dark, both indoors and outdoors, yet she could clearly see that the other half of the bed was empty.

"Hun? Tyroth?" she asked, but there was no response.

Getting up, she walked out of the room to see if she could find her mate. The night air was cool, even indoors, and it sent faint shivers down Sephie's spine as her naked body was exposed to it.

Looking around, she saw that the doors to the children's rooms were closed, and she assumed that they were sleeping soundly, but there was still no sign of their father, so Sephie made her way downstairs.

Once there, she noticed a faint light coming from the study, only for it to grow in strength for a short moment before fading again. The door was slightly ajar, so she carefully took a peek inside, only to see Tyroth sitting by the desk with a lit candle on the corner, a few small stones to his side and a flat tray filled with fine sand that the dragon was writing in using his claws, a deep frown on his face as he studied his writings.

"Honey?" Sephie asked, making Tyroth almost jump out of his skin.

"Sephie? I thought you were asleep." he said, taking a few breaths to calm down from the shock.

"I was, and so should you be, love." she responded and walked inside the study. "What are you doing up at this hour?"

"Trying to figure out this." Tyroth said and picked up one of the small stones and held it out in front of him. "Viin." he said in clear voice, and the stone began glowing with a warm light similar to that of a lightbulb, but it only lasted a few seconds before dying out. "Still not stable…" Tyroth sighed.

"Where did you find that?" Sephie asked.

"I've made it. It was just a normal stone I picked up outside, but I've been trying to enchant it to work as a light source. Just can't get it to work properly yet."

"Seems to work fine to me. Nice and bright."

"True, but it doesn't last more than a few seconds, then I have to remake the enchantment from start before it can be used again."

"Ah, and that thing you said, viin, was it? That's dragon for… shine?"

"Not bad, that's exactly what it mean."

"I've snapped up a few things over the years, especially when you've been teaching the children. But why shine? Why viin?"

"It's only an activation phrase, nothing more. I needed some way to trigger the enchantment, and using the dragon language should make it harder for others to accidentally activate these things. Besides, the language itself was almost pure magic in Skyrim, so I think this makes it work better."

"Okay, but why now, in the middle of the night."

"There are so many things that we don't have any longer, and not just quality of life stuff, but some nearly essential things too. I've been working on this for days now, a way to fix those issues, and tonight, I just couldn't let it go. It feels like I'm so close to solving this too."

Sephie smiled, but shook her head at her lover, and walked up behind him, putting her arms around his neck and lowering herself to rest her bare chest against his back and her cheek against his.

"You're working far too hard, my dear Tyroth." she said softly. "You can't solve everything at once. Let's give this a break, and you can try again another time with a fresh perspective. So come with me to bed and let me help you take your mind of things."

"That doesn't sound too bad actually." Tyroth admitted, and reach up to caress his mate's cheek, to which she nuzzled him back.

Standing up from the desk, Tyroth put out the candle and let his beloved lead him back to their room.

Early the next day, Louie was preparing for making breakfast in the inn. Ever since Tyroth and Ragnir had returned from the capitol, Louie's mood had improved greatly by the new supplies they had brought with them, especially the spices and the new large pot.

When they had left the old Mutopia, Louie had been forced to leave most of his old pots, pans and other utensils behind, much to the cockroach's dismay, and while his current kitchen wasn't like his old one, it was finally starting to feel like home again.

Sounds from the dining area caught his attention, specifically that of the main door opening and closing with footsteps following shortly.

"Guests? Already? Better have a look." he mused to himself and walked out of the kitchen, seeing just whom had entered his inn.

"Mikey! Kate! Good morning!" he greeted the couple happily. "What can I do for you?"

"Shut up, fuck off and drop dead." Kate snarled, but it wasn't in the usual sharp tone, but more drained and tired, lacking of any real bite.

"Easy now, babe." Michelangelo said to his girlfriend, and quickly turned back to the shocked cockroach. "Sorry, dude. She's not really herself today. Don't take it personal." he said apologetic.

"Hard not to, but… you know what, never mind. I bet something tasty will brighten her mood."

"Only if it's coffee… but we don't have any fucking coffee!" Kate said loudly, only to slump down on a chair in what seemed like a total defeat.

"What's wrong with her?"

"She's not been sleeping well, and neither have I." Michelangelo said, trying and failing to stifle a yawn. "And no, it's not our own fault."

"It's that fucking scratching." Kate said.

"Scratching?" Louie asked. "You got rats or something?"

"Maybe, but we don't really know." Michelangelo said. "We checked the house before we moved in, and we couldn't find any signs of animals, only dust. But a few weeks ago, after we've gone to bed, we started hearing this scratching, but no matter how much we search, we never find where it comes from, and it's been going on since then. Every night. It's starting to take its toll, you know what I mean, dude."

"I can imagine. Lack of sleep was something that happened rather often in the military, even among the kitchen staff. Maybe you should see if you can have Donatello or Leona build you a rattrap, they if any should be capable of it."

"Great idea! I'll do just that, once we've gotten some grub."

"I never thought I would find any kind of vermin that I'd hate more than Percy and Rattletrap…" Kate groaned.

Later that day, Sharky was searching through another one of the many shipwrecks off the coast of Mutopia. After finding the chest with silver the first time he explored the old wrecks, he had made a few trips back to see if he could find any other treasures.

Exiting the wreckage, he walked across the seabed to where he had left his net-bag, and placed what he had found among the rest.

"Let's see here now… seven old daggers, four swords, tip of an anchor, I think, a load of ship nails, several iron fittings, a few feet of chains, and a handful of those half-silver coins. Not a bad haul, if I may say so myself." the shark said after counting his finds, tying up the net to secure everything.

"Sure, everything but the coins is seriously rusty, but we can still use it. I'll admit, I would never have thought that we could just melt it all down and it will be fine as rain again. Gotta hand it to Loki, that kid really picked up the whole blacksmithing thing like it was nothing.

… and here I am, talking to myself."

Sharky shook his head and sighed, but shrugged and took a deep breath of sea water through his gills.

"I guess there are worse things to do. But, man, this water is so clean, far better than Lake Michigan. I think I'm gonna love it here. Well, better head back, while I can still swim with this cargo."

Picking up the net-bag, Sharky was just about to take off when something caught his attention. A sound of some sort that was carried on the underwater flows, and the more Sharky listened to it, the more… human it sounded.

That struck the shark as very strange, as he was the only one he knew that could be under water for long times. Sure, the turtle brothers could hold their breaths quite long, but not even they could speak down there, at least not more than a word or two.

Curiosity getting the better of him, he just had to investigate who or what was making it, and swam off into the deeper waters.

The closer he got to the source, the clearer he could hear what it actually was, a form of song, one without any words, just various tunes that formed a soft melody that echoed along the seabed.

By now, Sharky had found himself in a forest of seaweed and kelp with many large rocks dotting the seascape. The voice was very close now, and he could tell that it belonged to a woman, or it would above the surface, as under the surface, he had no idea what to expect.

Pushing away some kelp, he finally found the source. Sitting on a rock in a clearing, was a young woman with ocean blue skin, ears that looked like fish fins and green hair that moved in the currents like the seaweed it resembled. She wore a skintight tunic that ended just above her knees, dark green in colour and with a fish scale-like pattern. The colour gold could be seen sparkling in the sunlight from above, reflected on her rings, necklace and earrings.

She had her eyes closed and was singing seemingly only because she wanted to, and the melody was slow but soft and serene.

Sharky stood as if petrified, almost completely mesmerised by the beautiful song. Several minutes must have passed by the time that the song came to an end.

With the song over, the woman rose from the rock, opened her eyes, and spotted Sharky, her eyes widening as she saw something that she was not expecting.

"Uh… hi?" Sharky said, casually waving and flashing a kind smile at her.

Fear flashed across the woman's face and she quickly turned around and swam further out to seas, and at a great speed at that.

"Wait! I didn't mean to scare you!" Sharky called, but she was already too far away to hear him, or she just didn't listened. "Geez, she's almost as fast a swimmer as I am."

Deciding that chasing after her would only make things worse, Sharky headed back towards the shore. He still needed to deliver the salvage he had collected, and talk to someone about what he had witnessed, someone that knew more about this world than him.

Meanwhile, over by the blacksmith, Donatello, Loki and Cam were piling in several chunks of rock in the smelter.

"There, that's the last of them." Cam said as he closed the hatch to the smelter.

"Then stand back." said Loki as he walked over to the opening under the smelter where firewood would go, but it was empty. Holding out his hands, the glowed red before igniting, and a stream of fire was shot into the space. "This will get very hot, so anyone with fur should stay well away."

"Good advice. Iron requires a temperature of over 1500 degrees Centigrade to melt, 1538 degrees to be exact." Donatello said factually. "Anyone that will be working with this must wear some form of protection."

"No arguments from me." said Cam. "In fact, I'd rather be in the mine digging, than working in this kind of heat."

"We're not even at our target heat yet." said Loki as he kept up shooting fire from his hands. "Should be passing 900 degrees shortly."

"You got that good of a grip on the heat produced? Impressive." said Donatello.

"You can thank dad for that. He's taught me and sis very well. It's all a matter of pacing myself and maintaining control."

"Hey, we got something coming out now!" Cam said excitedly as he pointed at the open drainage pipe of the smelter, where a small trickle of liquid metal had begun to make its way down towards the ingot mould.

"That can't be iron." said Loki. "I haven't even reached a thousand degrees yet."

"Hold that temperature for a moment. Let me have a look." said Donatello. With a thin steel rod in hand, he scraped up some of the liquid metal, letting it cool so the nearly red hot colour would give way for the metal's actual colour.

"It's… It's silver."

"For real? Silver like those coins Sharky fished up?" Cam asked.

"Correct. And while this is just a small amount, maybe three or four coins worth, it does show that there are traces of silver in the mine. How much is too early to tell yet, but we should check all the ore we will be melting, just in case."

"Then I'll keep the temperature a little longer before heating it up for the iron, so we get as much silver as possible." said Loki and smiled, he already knew what he wanted to do with the silver.

Just some minor things that I wanted to get out there, in case I want to continue on any of them in the future, hence the title of the chapter, Plot Hooks, 'cause that's what they basically are.

We'll see what happens next, another day. :)