Our Planet has Crashed [COMPLETE]

eighty three - KOTLC

Sophie POV: 

Dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dead. 

Fragments of sentences sliced through her consciousness.

How could the Councillors be dead? All of them? Lumenaria fell? Again?

No. They couldn't have done it again. The Neverseen can't just take people away! They don't deserve it. They should all—

"Miss Foster!" a squeaky voice cut through Sophie's internal monologue. 

Sophie shook her head to clear it of her thoughts, and Sandor shoved her behind him, sword raised. She peeked behind his burly form, only to gasp. 

What she should have seen was a group of elves mourning their leaders. What she saw was four Neverseen members, throwing down the elegant door of Everglen. 

Weapons were raised, aimed and thrown. And, much faster than expected, the four members of the Neverseen were knocked out and tied up. Sophie walked cautiously over. They weren't Lady Gisela, Gethen, Fintan, and Glimmer as she had expected. They were really random people. She was sure they'd never met them before. It wasn't even that Trix person, although they didn't know who he was. 

Mr. Forkle came up behind her, making her yelp in surprise when he said, "I don't know why they're here, but it can't be for a good reason. I'm going to Solreef to check on Mr. Tam. If the Neverseen are attacking houses, they must know that he is missing and we have him." He removed a crystal and held it up to the light.

It flashed red. "What . . .?" said Mr. Forkle. He tried again. Three times. Four times. The fifth time a stream of runes appeared. "Unavailable?" asked Fitz from behind them. "How does a crystal become unavailable?"

"Here, you can try mine," Alden said, and passed a pathfinder to the wrinkly man. But it was Unavailable too.

No one's crystals seemed to work. Were they trapped here? Would teleporting work?

Sophie peeked outside, trying to see if there was something wrong with the light. What she saw made her gasp and nearly topple over from the surprise. 

A huge, glowing forcefield—like in Atlantis—created a dome over the property. They would really have no way to get out. Was that why the leaping crystals wouldn't work? Dex's gadgets couldn't break a forcefield so big, but he was trying. And they had to get to Solreef as soon as possible, so there was no time for Dex to try. Which made the important question Could Sophie teleport through a forcefield? No one knew. But they had to try. 

Naturally, Grady and Sandor protested, but in the end Sophie won. She and her long line of bodyguards—and Mr. Forkle, and Dex, Jensi and Fitz—levitated so high until Sophie's head felt woozy and the others down below were like ants—or specks of dust.

But she relished the way the wind made her feel alive, something she thought wasn't possible after learning the heart-wrenching news about the Councillors and Lumenaria. The exhilaration made her forget. Maybe she shouldn't, but she wanted to. 

When they reach Solreef, Linh—who had stayed there with her brother—was waiting for them on the last step on the really tiresome and long stairs. She was wearing green, and had a somber look on her face. But she gave them a tired smile as they approached. 

"Hi. Tam's fine. We subdued the four Neverseen members that got here. They're currently sedated in Tiergan's basement." she said. Sighing, she added, "We haven't made much progress with Tam. He's sedated now, but we tried talking to him before. He just stared at us blankly and wouldn't react to anything. It's honestly kind of draining," she said, and for the first time Sophie noticed the dark shadows under Linh's eyes.