The Deep: The Tale of a Lost Guardian

Chapter 10: The Test

"The Nektons are good people, Proteus." An old man with a long beard walked in, with his cane that has a nautilus shell in an amber-like sphere on top. He now stood in front of three people who wore dark navy gray robes with a gold color trimming in the middle and end of the sleeves.

"Perhaps. But they are not ready for the revelations contained in the Chronicle of the Deep." The one in the middle is named Proteus who is the head of the Guardians. He held a staff with the same amber-like sphere on top.

"They cannot read Lemurian."

"And yet still they piece together clues. They stumble upon discoveries."

"And in so doing they demonstrate that they are our greatest hope."

"Or ...our greatest problem. There are secrets we guard with our lives, Nereus. Don't forget that." Proteus reminded him.

"Let them prove themselves." Nereus bargained.

"How?" The Head Guardian asked.

"The Ephemychron."

"Impossible. The area is too dangerous. Too impassable. No one's been able to find it.

"No. They haven't." Nereus slightly shrugged, "Consider it a test."

"And so they fail like everyone else - what does that prove?"

"But what if they succeed?"

—

"My prince, must you always run off to avoid lessons when I'm occupied with a vast amount of work?" Tsuki walked through the main square. She had a neutral face, but her eyes showed irritation. A teen chuckled sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head. The faces around them and him were blurry in the dream.

"Sorry, I promised my little cousins I would hang out with them before they had to go." Tsuki's eye twitched at the answer. She took a deep breath, not wanting to lose her cool in front of the three younger kids that were looking up at her in curiosity.

"You know when you have your lessons, why choose this specific time? You know what? I'll watch over them while you go attend your lessons." She placed her hand on the prince's back and nudged him towards the palace. "And you better get there quickly now or your sister will scold us both!"

~~~

"Be careful of the scrolls please, I just organized them." Tsuki was in her personal study room where she spends most of her time when she doesn't have duties that need her to be traveling or by the royal family's side.

A little girl held a cylinder case, looking around it. "Ms. Tsuki? How do you open this?" She attempted to pull the lid from one of the sides off. Tsuki turned away from the dreaded paperwork she tried to put off.

"Hm? Oh, that's a special case I give to scientists that are close friends of mine. I want to make sure that whatever they're sending is protected, it can even be impossible for me to open it." Tsuki held her hand out for the cylinder case.

"Why make it hard for yourself to open it?" The oldest of the children asked. The little girl handed the cylinder to her.

"We've come across interesting things with the new species of plants that were discovered in an ally region. It has strange effects on the mind and we theorize it could be used as a lethal weapon to slowly kill the victim. We are currently looking for an antidote for it, and we don't want anyone to steal or destroy the research. That's why I made the protective case just for my close friends and head researchers." Her eyes looked at the papers on her desk, "Recently my friend Laureus discovered a coral that is like the plant we were researching on, but the symptoms were weird. The man who found the coral was speaking incoherently and had strong food cravings. The poor man didn't have a filter when it came to secrets or speaking in general, spilling about his feelings for a lady he knew. I'm actually leaving tomorrow to see if I can heal him."