Returning Magic (Private)

[Maeve Valor]

Meara wills herself to try and wake up.

 

[Darkbloom]

"My turn now." The orc prepares to strike down Lightbloom with his great axe. And he would have been successful, too. Were it not for the arrow that flew through the open window, first knocking the great axe out of his hands, and then a second arrow that pierced his skull.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara slowly starts to regain consciousness and opens her eyes.

 

[Darkbloom]

Lightbloom is searching the room for the tome. The two orcs are dead, one Meara killed and another one with an arrow between his eyes, having been shot in the back of the head.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara gets up in extreme pain holding her shoulder where the axe came down on her. "Ugh, what happened?" She asked looked over seeing the other orc with an arrow in him. "Who the hell's arrow is that?"

 

[Darkbloom]

"Beats me. It flew through the window. I looked in the direction it came from, but didn't see anyone. That hardly matters though. How are you holding up?" He stops looking for the tome, giving Meara his undivided attention.

 

[Maeve Valor]

She lightly took her hand off her wound making her hand soaked with blood as she winced looking at it, "It's deep, but I'll manage. After you find the tome, we should head back to the inn so I can tend to this wound and rest."

 

[Darkbloom]

"All right, just sit there for now. Having known Thomas since we were kids, his hiding spots for special things have been rather unique." Lightbloom goes back to searching for the tome. Although, it's not really a search. He scans the book shelves lining the whole room. Once he finds it, he pulls on the binding and something clicks. A pedestal with a book on it... The tome they've been searching for, rises up about waist height.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara limped to a nearby chair and sat down as she was listening and watched Lightbloom until he finally found it. She tilted her head to get a better look from where she was sitting and said, "It certainly does look ancient. I wonder what makes it so special though. I don't suppose you have anyone else in mind that can translate it?"

 

[Darkbloom]

He opens the tome to read it. "The last word we heard Thomas say was 'sunset'. There's a reason for that. When sunset arrives, the light will shine through the window to that piece of glass right there. The glass will redirect the sunlight to the translation. He's been working on it for years, and he finally figured it out."

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara looked through the window outside to see that thankfully the clouds were parting and she started to see the sun beginning to dip over the horizon. "Well, it looks like that should be happening here soon."

 

[Darkbloom]

True. The sunset was just about here. When its light shined through the window, it hit a piece of glass, which redirected it to one, two, three more pieces of glass before a medium sized container is lowered from the ceiling by numerous gears and other machinery.

Lightbloom opens the container for the translated copy and puts that and the real ancient tome in his inventory. "Can you walk all right?" He asks Meara.

 

[Maeve Valor]

"Yeah, I'll be fine, just don't walk as fast when we head back okay?" She said as she took hold of the bottom of her cloak and ripped the bottom part off. She then wrapped it over her shoulder and under her armpit finishing it off by tying it with her teeth and dominant hand since the makeshift bandage was in an awkward place.

 

[Darkbloom]

"All right. Walking pace will be slower. Time to go." They walk out of the room and building, walking slower due to Meara's injuries. Normally they'd probably only take five minutes to return, but now it was closer to thirty minutes. Within that time, the sun fully set and the stars were beginning to appear in the sky, little dots of light that lit up the town in a bit of a glow, even though there were no street lamps to light the way. At the end of the walk, they arrived at the tavern.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Once they were at the tavern, exhaustion overtook Meara feeling as if she could have easily fell asleep as soon as they walked in through the entryway. Instead of having her classic mug of mead or ale before bed, she skipped that and walked passed the bar. She didn't even bother wishing Lightbloom a good evening because she was in desperate need of a bed as she began walking towards her room.

 

[Darkbloom]

Today of all days was the roughest one, seeing Thomas murdered like that. But Lightbloom and Meara were now in possession of the tome along with the translation, having been greatly assisted by Thomas. Lightbloom didn't mind not being addressed at the end of the day, he was just as out of it as she was. He also went straight to his room, unable to do anything else except collapse on his bed and sleep.

Four hours later, he wakes up. Not really what he was hoping for, seeing that all the humans would still be asleep at this time. He spends the rest of the night watching the sky from his window, as the stars disappeared and the sunrise appears, casting an orange glow over the sky and the clouds. Lightbloom isn't artistic, but if he was he'd have wanted to draw this scene.

 

[Maeve Valor]

As the sun began to shine through the window, Meara woke up and sat up with a wince. Her wound felt better and she was able to walk around just fine, but it still stung. She changed into her regular clothes and didn't bother to gather her things just yet. She went to Lightbloom's room knocking on the door. Meara had hoped they could start the day by going over the tome together and figure out just why exactly was it so important to so many people.

 

[Darkbloom]

Lightbloom stands up from his chair, walks to and opens the door. "Come. Translating the tome, even with the assistance from the other book, might still take some time." The bed sheets have been made, looking as if they'd never been used. He sits at the table, briefly looking through the translate help book.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara took a chair that was near the bed and slid it to the table he was at and sat down next to him. "What seems to be the problem trying to translate it? Maybe I can help somehow. They do say that two heads are better than one," she smiled warmly having not put her hood over her head just yet because it was just them two in the room so she didn't really need to worry about anyone seeing her.

 

[Darkbloom]

He looked up when she smiled, and he near skipped a heartbeat. Combined with her beautiful white hair, she was the very depiction of an angel. Dammit Lightbloom! Pull yourself together! But... She's so pretty... There's a back and forth in his mind, making him feel conflicted. I wasn't originally expecting to meet a life partner... No! Focus! He hasn't shown much emotion throughout their partnership, so he decides he can let loose a tiny bit. "True, two heads are usually better. Based on the size of the tome, this is a fair amount of information included in here. A lot could be superfluous writing, but we won't know until it's all translated. Seems to be about five thousand words, making it... A two or even three day process. I've observed other people translating other books from one language to another. It's not easy in the slightest bit." He chooses this moment, when he stops explaining, to return Meara's smile.

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara seemed oblivious to the current argument that was going on in Lightbloom's head as she briefly thought that he had a very nice smile; but then his words had sunk in so she then slightly frowned with a sigh, "So what are we supposed to do for the next couple of days? Should we try to gather information about one of those secret temples?"

 

[Darkbloom]

"All we need is here. The book and the translation. Thomas didn't translate it into outright common. No, he must've known more sinister forces were also trying to get their hands on it." Lightbloom opens the translation and shows it to Meara. "Although, it is only in standard alphabet form. We just have to spend the time translating each letter, and with five thousand words, that is what makes it take so long. In a way, he was probably also thinking that if someone else did steal the tome and translation, this would help the right party in terms of buying time for them to find where it went."

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara was confused for a moment before she understood what he was saying. "So... do you mean that this tome is connected to the whereabouts of the temples? Is that why so many people were after it?!" She stood up surprised, but she then noticed how loud she was getting and sat back down. This was all too much of a coincidence for her. What were the odds of the object that she was looking for would be the key to helping Lightbloom on his journey? "Just what exactly does destiny have planned for us?" She thought before continuing on with her observation.

"Damn, so that means I can't sell it. Because since there are others that want it, that means there is some truth to all this in some way. Or at the very least there are other people like you who believe in magic which will definitely complicate things for us on this endeavor," she sighed leaning on the table.

 

[Darkbloom]

"If I was a human, and wanted to wipe out magic entirely, I'd hire some things like those orcs to grab the ancient tome. Since someone already knew Thomas had it, it would make sense for the boss to send some lackeys for it. However, I doubt he or she knew Thomas had hidden it, and orcs aren't known to be very bright so there's no way they'd come back with the tome, much less the translation." He's been looking closely at the translation and the first page of the tome. " I've already found the word 'temple' in here, meaning this is the very book that'll tell us where it is. Now only... Four thousand nine hundred fifty words to go."

 

[Maeve Valor]

Meara went into deep thought, "It makes sense for the Humans to eliminate anything that might threaten their regime. I seriously wouldn't put it past them to do employ people to do this even if they didn't actually believe in magic, but just looked into it for good measure in case it was real."

She snapped out of her thought process and said aloud, " Alright, so that just leaves my other question still. What should I do in the mean time? to help since it seems like you got this covered for now."