Thirty minutes after General Kar launched a kingdom wide search for the, assumed to be kidnapped, healer and her mysterious patient. Queen Nandi and the council materialized back in the kingdom's central courtyard, using their one-use return teleport crystal. The faint shimmer of their arrival had barely dissipated when a guard swiftly approached General Kar, relaying the Queen's return.
Kar wasted no time. He quickly made his way to the Queen, his face a mask of urgent gravity that immediately caught Nandi's discerning eye. After a swift, respectful bow to Queen Nandi and the assembled council, he bypassed all pleasantries. His voice, usually steady, held an undercurrent of barely suppressed disbelief as he held out the memory crystal.
"Your Majesty, Council," he began, his gaze sweeping over their faces, "An incident of unprecedented nature has occurred. There was an unconscious shadowless stranger, who fell from the sky near the elder tree..." He paused, taking a breath. "Sister Adah was tending to him in the recovery room. During the healing process, a powerful and unknown energy enveloped both of them. I witnessed a swirling mixture of bright white and dark black energy, unlike anything I've ever seen." At first, I believed it was the second occurrence happing, but now I'm not sure. ¨
He presented the crystal. "This recording captured the event. Just as I approached, both Sister Adah and the stranger vanished without a trace. No mana residue, no indication of where they went. I've initiated a kingdom-wide search for the man, presuming he may have kidnapped Sister Adah." Kar's expression hardened. "I have kept this crystal secure, awaiting your return, as I believe it connects to the anomaly you experienced at the Temple."
The council members exchanged bewildered glances, their faces a mixture of shock and growing concern. The Queen's eyes, however, narrowed, fixed on the crystal in Kar's outstretched hand. The pieces of the puzzle, so baffling moments ago, suddenly seemed to begin clicking into place, forming a picture far more complex and dangerous than the previous failed summoning.
"Let's pause now and head to the castle. Don't forget we still need to gather our strength," Queen Nandi said with a grave expression on her face. Queen Nandi turned to Big John and said with a shaky breath, "John, open a warp to the council room. "Then she addressed the royal guards who accompanied them to the temple. "Please go and gather all available royal guards and join the effort in locating Sister Adah. Check known oases and cave systems around the kingdom. Leave no stone unturned."
The royal guards bowed their heads to Queen Nandi as they departed. Clapping his hands and opening them slowly, a warp step was opened by Big John, leading to the castle's council room. The Queen stepped through first, followed by the council, General Kar, and lastly Big John. The warp step closed once everyone was on the other side of it.
The council all stood next to their chairs, waiting for the Queen to be seated by Big John first. General Kar stood next to his master´s Chair, waiting for a command to continue the report. After the Queen was seated, she raised her right hand and then lowered it for the council to be seated. She then cast a gaze towards General Kar and calmly asked him to continue the previous report after the playing of the memory crystal.
The Queen then handed over the crystal to Big John, who was still standing next to her. Big John then made his way to his chair, where he pointed to a specific space on the colorful council table. Mana shot out of his finger, entering the table. A square section where the mana entered opened, showing several slots to insert a memory crystal. Big John placed the crystal into the first slot before pushing it closed. He took his seat as a countdown from 5 was projected as a hologram above the table.
Placing his closed right fist over his heart, he continued. "We still have not found a trace of where they could be. There was neither a mana trace from a spell nor a signature from a caster to follow. This means they didn't use any type of spell or rune to teleport," Kar reported, his voice laced with worry. He fretted over Sister Adah's fate, oblivious to the fact that she was, at this very moment, enjoying the most profound and shocking experience of her life. If he knew, his heart would surely break. With a heavy sigh, General Kar finally said, "There is nothing in the records that matches what was seen on the memory crystal."
Curious about the type of disappearance, Councilwoman Coco inquired. "What was the stability of the space at the point of origin?"
General Kar turned to her and replied, "There were no spatial distortions detected."
Letting her scientific curiosity get the better of her. Councilwoman Coco Eyes turned into a star. She was about to throw out a barrage of questions to satisfy her scientific curiosity. But before she could utter a word, she immediately felt the disapproving gazes from her peers. The gazes conveyed a message of "Wrong and place... Read the room... Do you like your life?" This prompted her to swallow her words as the room went silent to think about the information that was being reported.
Coughing to
With the finishing of the report, and no further questions that would help in the situation. They then dismissed the council, but not before saying in a commanding tone. "For the sake of the citizens, continue normal operations. We do not want further unrest to spread. I will head to my quarters until any updates are established." She turned to Big John and said, "I´ll leave this matter in your hands. I trust that any directions given will be in Sister Adah's best interest." Turning back towards the rest, she continued, "Thus, any further inquiries or updates will be directed to Big John. That is all."
Dismissed, the council stood up, prompting everyone to place their closed right fist over their hearts and bow down. "My queen" Everyone, with the expectation of two, exited the council room via warps steps returning to their labs, quarters, or business.
Big John, having seen the Queen safely through the warp step to her personal quarters and received her silent nod of gratitude, closed the shimmering portal. He then made his way to the command center. The hum of its crystal controls a stark contrast to the quiet intensity of his recent actions. Hours blurred into one another as he watched the monitor, the holographic displays showing the doubled efforts of the search and rescue teams. Despite the relentless push, the indicators remained frustratingly unchanged. The missing pair was still nowhere to be found. The weight of their absence settled heavily in the air, a silent testament to the ongoing, fruitless search.
As night loomed over the kingdom, Big John requested General Kar to visit him in the command center. Upon arrival, General Kar was asked to sit down. Taking a sip of whisky, Big John was deep in thought. "How is it possible the two just vanished into thin air? What's even more outrageous is that the stranger didn't have a shadow but bore no signs of being a lunatic. I suspect the two will have undergone the third occurrence of immersion. That, in itself, is ridiculous. It would be the first time in the history of the kingdom that something this bizarre has happened with any occurrence. The scrolls do not mention any incidents matching this stature. Kar, when did you say he was first noticed?
"Kar, are you going to answer me, or are you going to stand there?" Big John raised his voice, pulling the General from his reverie. Not noticing that he did not voice his question.
"Master, you didn't ask your question?" General Kar kneeled with respect before continuing, "Ask away, master."
Big John's face flushed with embarrassment as he realized he hadn't spoken the question aloud. He waived a dismissive hand and apologized before asking, "When exactly was our Jane Doe discovered and what time did, they vanish?"
"The stranger was discovered today, around noon, and the two disappeared at 12:45 Master," General Kar replied.
"That can't be a coincidence, can it? What did you find out after viewing the surveillance orbs where he was found?" Big John pressed.
Kar hesitated, reviewing his notes. "Master, all of the previous orbs in that area have been destroyed by an unknown cause, and none of the surrounding orbs have captured anything. Well, one did capture something like a shadow that was cast in the area. Now that I think about it, it happened thirty seconds before the closer orbs were destroyed.
At this, Big John shot straight out of his chair, eyes wide. With a wave of his hand, he opened a portal. Without hesitation, he grabbed Kar with a mana hand, and both figures disappeared into the portal. Once again, the Queen and her council were brought together again.
"Alfred, you better have a good reason for interrupting my studies. I feel that I was on the verge of enlightenment," Elder Bernard exclaimed. The rest of the council shook their heads in agreement.
"I called you all here because I want to pick your brains. I believe I've found the hero or stranger, and Sister Adah," Big John said with a strange expression.
With annoyance, Elder Yu chimed in, "Big John, just spit it out and stop wasting our time."
Heaving a long sigh, Big John replied, "I know we all have important things to do, but this is about the most important task we have now." He paused. "So, as you all know about the recent events that took place, I'll update you all on what I've found."
Big John started from the beginning of what they all knew before delving into the minute details they might have missed. "What are the chances that the two events could be related? Both events happened on the Ides of March. The hero summoning, which we believed failed, happened first. Thanks to Queen Nandi, we discovered there was dark energy, which seemed to explode in the transference beam. Placing the time from when District 13 recorded a weird shadow fall over West Nile City, exploding the nearby orbs, which moments later led to Jane Doe, exactly a minute and a half after our failed summoning? We all felt the dark energy in the cave, which I believe to be the same as the mana emitting from the stranger at the temple. I can't find any other explanation that says differently."
The room fell silent as everyone tried to find anything that didn't support Big John's claim. It wasn't that they didn't accept what Big John said to be possible. They were just being cautious, not wanting to miss any other angles. In the end, they came up with nothing that made much sense.
The Queen was the first to voice a question, "It does seem that the two incidents are connected, but what about the blight? How does it fit into this puzzle?"
After the Queen's question, everyone shifted their gaze to Big John, waiting to hear the answer. At this point, they all had to admire his resourcefulness. Without speaking, they collectively acknowledged him as the only one with any leads or ideas to the matter. This wasn't due to the lack of trying on their ends but not being able to come up with anything useful. No one would admit this out loud, of course.
Big John looked around the room, confirming no one had anything to input. Since everyone's attention was on him, he concluded they had nothing to add. He inwardly let out a sigh and thought to himself, "I must have been the only one who has made headway in the investigation or come to this line of thought. I was hoping for further input to solidify my thoughts, but the incident was unprecedented."
Inwardly rolling his eyes, Big John heaved another sigh out loud, before he answered. "I have a hypothesis for that as well, but I don't have any correlational evidence to support it. In the entire lifespan of the Kongo Kingdom, it's only been caught and recorded a handful of times." Big John stopped and looked at Elder Yu.
Elder Yu's eyes lit up with fire before he jumped up and slammed the table. "Occurrence three mana immersion! How lucky I could be! Give me a copy of Kar's healing cave recordings, I must study this now!" The passion and fire in his words awakened him from a 30-year depression of not being able to find even the slightest clue to this ultra-rare event. The smile on his face was so wide it looked scary. Everyone could even see him drooling. Who would expect anything different from the head archive mage and leading alchemist?
It wasn't important if Elder Yu stayed for the rest of the meeting, especially since Big John needed him to prove his theory right. He took out one of the copies he'd made in advance and tossed it to Elder Yu. The moment it reached Elder Yu's hands, he teleported back to his lab for immediate review.
Queen Nandi couldn't help but giggle sweetly at her brother before returning to a stoic expression. In her usual smooth soft voice, she stated "We definitely can't let any of this get out, even if it is only whispers. If word gets out about our kingdoms lead healer being kidnapped without a trace, it will attract a lot of unwanted attention from our enemies and cause civil unrest.
Kar stood in the corner, amazed by the grand meeting room. He snapped out of his daze when he heard Elder Yu's excitement about the possibility of the third occurrence. Although dazed, he was still listening to everything that went on, expecting nothing less from his Master to take the lead.