Acadia Restoration

Chapter 15

 Laiko slunk into the corner of a nearby shelf, so he wouldn't be seen. He peeked around the corner to see the blonde man speaking to Luna. However, Laiko could see the man's attention was on Alex. He knew exactly why too, the man must have been able to smell the magic pouring from Alex. Once the man walked to a different section of the building, Laiko grabbed Norah. She looked at him with a startled expression as he gripped her wrist. He lowered his face to her ear and whispered, "We need to go now,". He didn't want to draw any attention to the group. It wouldn't be long before the man returned.

"Why what's wrong?" her icy eyes flashed with worry.

"I'll explain later," he replied. Norah rounded up the group. They quietly exited through a back entrance. No one noticed that Jade had pocketed a few books into her enchanted bag. The back of the library left them on a dirt path, with a strange amount of trees.

"Where did you say that waterfall was?" Laiko asked. Jade pulled out the book Norah had been reading from her bag. Norah took it and flipped through the pages.

"It says if we follow this path, it leads directly to the park," she scowled as she flipped the pages for more instruction. The noises of the city vanished as they walked along the path, this struck the group as odd, since they hadn't even walked that far. Already the city was out of view. "Shortening magic," Norah mumbled to herself. She had only come across this type of magic once before and that was when she crossed that first land bridge from Cadean to Hukoth. This type of magic made distances shrink.

~~~~~

Alex felt on edge, he felt as if he were being watched. Even though the rest of the group seemed fine, his magic kept sending him little hums or pings of warning. He wearily looked around himself. He watched leaves fall peacefully around him. A crisp autumn breeze ruffled his hair. All the trees around them were coated with oranges, yellows and reds. In Gema, the seasons didn't change much, but he knew most continents were experiencing the beginning of spring. The autumn atmosphere of Wolchnard was throwing him off since it was January.

Weather and seasons were strange in Acadia. You could be in the middle of a warm flowered field and one wrong step and you'll find yourself in a blizzard. When they first arrived in Wolchnard it had appeared to be spring. Perhaps it was the shortening magic throwing things off.

He felt his magic sending him little pinches, with each one he scanned the trees. Nothing. The pain of the pinches only grew. He gripped his arm in pain as he felt a shock wave surge through his arm, almost like a compass. He turned his head in the direction of the shock and in the distance, peeking from behind a tree was the man.

"Run," he said to the group. As they broke into a sprint they could hear the crunching of leaves behind them. Luna turned swiftly and fired an arrow. They all paused to watch it. It would've impaled the man, if it weren't for the portal he opened up and disappeared into. They were all too focused on running to comment on it.

"There!" Max pointed at the sign for a park. They ran past the sign and into the park. The park was mostly empty except for a few random families. They could hear the roar of water as they approached the waterfall. As they ran they didn't notice the gate blocking off the waterfall. Alex caught himself on it as he looked down into oblivion. The water just kept going down and down and down.

"What do we do now?" Lily asked while she attempted to catch her breath.

"We jump," Laiko said.

"Fuck no," Luna replied as she hunched over, also trying to catch her breath.

"We can't just stand around waiting for that dude to come back," Cristina countered.

"I don't do heights," Kelp added.