Work Text:
Chapter 52- Dead End Lead
Part 1- Salt Lake City
The Buss began to pull out of the station, revealing Liz, Alex, and Bip standing behind it. They looked off over the traditional looking village built running down the mountainside and into the valley below. Running through the valley was a long lake that seemed to glow silver in the sunlight going from horizon to horizon. All the buildings had Thatch rooftops simplistic designs.
“Well… this isn’t what I was expecting,” Liz said.
“This doesn’t look like the kind of place we’ll find a massive corporate office,” added Bip.
Liz turned and walked over to a small stand under the shade of the bus stop holding a bunch of different flyers and folded pieces of paper. She pulled out one of the pieces of paper and began to unfold it before looking down to read it.
“According to this, Steel lake City is the oldest city still around in the entire country.”
“Does it say anything about where we can find the Ora building?” Alex asked.
Liz turned over the sheet of paper to look at the map on the opposite side. She scanned the map intently for a few seconds before looking back up to Alex.
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Guess we’re gonna have to look around. Come on let’s get moving, we’re burning daylight,” said Alex as he began to walk off, following the path down the mountain.
Bip let out a long sigh before flapping his wings and taking off behind Alex.
“Come on guys, what’s the hurry!” Liz yelled after her companions before following after them. “Cant we at least do a little sightseeing first, it’s not like the building’s going anywhere.
Part 2- Dead End
The group stood, their jaws dropped and eyes wide open in shock as they looked off into the distance. In front of them was a long yellow and black striped tape blocking their path. Beyond the tape stood the remains of their objective, crumbled down to rubble scattered all over the ground. several workers wearing high visibility clothes and hard hats strolled around the site, cleaning up the rubble. The group continued to stand in complete silence and disbelief.
“W… what the hell happened?” Liz stammered
“They must have known we’d come here and destroyed all the evidence before we could get to it,” Alex replied.
“I don’t think I can take any more set back like this,” Bip added in a hopeless and empty tone.
One of the workers closes to the group turned around as he heard them talking. He had his hand raised in front of him glowing a light blue with a cluster of rubble hovering in front of him with the same glow.
“Hey, you kids!” The man yelled, snapping the group out of there disbelief. “What are you doing here? This is an active worksite, you can't be this close without a hard hat at least,” the man continued before returning his gaze to his work.
The man moved his hands, shifting the cluster of rubble through the air and over a bin before letting in drop inside with a loud thud. Alex, Liz, and Bip walked towards the man, ducking under the tape to get closer. The man turned to see the group approaching.
“Hey what did I just tell you? You’re definitely not allowed in here, get the hell out before I call the boss down here.”
“What happened here, how did the building come down?” asked Alex.
“Huh? How the hell should I know? I’m just here to do a job. Now beat it Kid’s I’m not kidding around,” The worker said before lifting up another pile of rubble.
“So what’s the plan now?” Liz asked.
Alex turned around to look at the rest of the group.
“Guess we should comb through the rubble for any clues,” Alex replied
A figure walked by the closed-off area stopping as he heard the group talking. He looked over to the group as they talked. The worker let out a long loud sigh of frustration.
“What don’t you understand…” The man said before quickly turning to face the group. “About getting the hell out of here!”
The man raised his hands and with a hefty shove pushed the group out under the security tape and onto the ground outside.
“Ow… rude,” Liz muttered.
“Go to school or something!” The man yelled as he went back to work.
The stranger from outside the tape walked over to the group as they pulled themselves up from the ground.
“Well well , it looks like you lot are still getting into trouble… guess some things don’t change,” Came a familiar voice.
The group turned around to look at the stranger only to be greeted by the familiar face of Tobin smiling back at them.
Part 3- Catching Up
Liz, Bip, and Alex sat on the matted floor with their legs crossed and hands in their laps. Across from the group sat Tobin in a similar position.
“It’s good to see you again, I tried to keep in contact with as many people as possible after the test but you guys kinds just fell off the radar,” Tobin said
“Yeah haha… sorry about that, we’ve been busy doing the whole mage thing,” said Liz.
“So what happened with that building? You know the one that came down?” Alex asked.
“Huh? Don’t know. Came down a few weeks ago, guess it was just poorly constructed, good riddance anyway I say.”
“So I take it you’re not a big fan of the Ora corporation then?” Bip asked.
“What? I just hated that building, me and the rest of the city it was hardly in keeping with the city’s aesthetic.”
There was a silence amongst the group as they waited for someone to speak.
“What about you? If I remember correctly you came here to study under that Ramond guy tight?”
“Yeah... I learned a lot under him,” Tobin said as he looked off at the wall to a water painting of Ramond. “After he passed, a lot of his students thought I should take over and become the new grandmaster, but even more wanted to take control for themselves. If I’m being honest, I didn’t really want to take over, but after the old man's will was found it kind of put any rest to the discussion of who would be his successor. A lot of people decided to straight-up quit and go to form there own dojos, and even those who stayed did it more out of respect for the old man less so them for me. With all that going on I've barely even had time to look at the guild board let alone do any mage work. And now with all this curse business going on everyone wants me to fix things… but I mean what can I do about it.”
Liz, Alex, and Bip looked across at each other confused before turning to look at Tobin.
“What do you mean by a curse?” asked Bip.
“You mean you haven’t heard? I thought you guys had come here to sort it all out?”
The group simultaneously shook their heads.
“Well.. supposedly the village is under some sort of curse, with how old this city is they have all sorts of old myths and legends, I try not to pay to much attention to it. A couple of months ago, kids all around the city started disappearing in the middle of the night. The strange thing is it only happens to kids with some sort of magical ability. Most of the city is blaming it on one of their old myths.”
“what’s the myth?” Liz asked.
Tobin closed his eyes and took in a long breath.
“Supposedly in ancient times there was a peasant woman who’s beauty was unmatched. On top of that, she was a powerful magic-user. One day a duke passed through the town and found himself enamored with the women. Within a week the two where married. The man lavished her with all sorts of beautiful and fancy gifts, by all accounts the pair were very happy. After a few months, they started trying for a child, and that is when things began to take a turn for the worse. No matter how hard they tried the women couldn’t conceive. The high society that the women found herself surrounded by started to whisper about her, talking about her failings as a wife. After a while, she couldn’t take it anymore. She used her magic to make the children of those who would speak ill of her disappear in the middle of the night. Soon people would gossip, claiming she was the one taking the children, soon they to would find their children being taken in the night. Eventually, with age, the women’s beauty began to fade and her husband left her, not long after she died, alone and bitter. Even after death, however, she continued to curse the city, taking the children of anyone who would gossip about her. Most of the people of the city believe that the curse is responsible for all the disappearances,” Tobin explained.
Liz looked down to the ground as she began to rub her chin in thought.
“Children disappearing huh? Maybe we should take a look at it,” Liz muttered.
“No way,” Alex butted in. “I’m sorry but we’ve gotta focus on our own goal here, tomorrow we should go back to the building sight tomorrow and look around for any clues.”
“Come on Alex… don’t act like your not a little interested, what if the disappearances have something to do with the building collapsing?”
Alex looked off in thought for a moment plunging the group into silence.
“You’re welcome to stay here till the morning, usually the bunks are only for students but none’s staying here at the moment anyway,” said Tobin.
“I mean… I guess, as long as it wouldn’t be any hassle,” Liz replied.
Tobin began to stand up.
“Please… I insist. I'll go get everything ready.”
Tobin walked off to ready a room, leaving Alex and Liz to discuss there next course of action.
____________________
TO BE CONTINUED
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________Thanks you for reading Chapter 51 of Mage. This is my first chapter back after my break so still getting back into the groove of things, i hope this new arc is as fun to right as the previous. If you like what you see please consider dropping a Kudos and maybe checking out the rest of my work. Also for any updates or if you just wanna see my cosplay adventure please consider follwing my tumblr here https://www.tumblr.com/blog/50funny and until next time have a good one.