The Magical Stone

Chapter 3

    As the sun rises for another day, Lance was deep under the blankets while resting in his hammock in his room. Shelia was the first one to get up early to start the day of patrolling the castle grounds today and geared up and got ready.

But before she was about to leave the knight quarters. She went to check on Lance by carefully opening the door and sees him still asleep. She smiled a little and closes the door and headed to the castle grounds to group with the other knights that she was assigned to of the post.

A couple of hours have passed, Lance got up and climbed down from his hammock and changes from his PJs to his normal clothes and walked out of his room.

He went to go see what the knights are up and and noticed Lucinda and Tina are in a deep sleep and went to Lindsey's room and saw her asleep as well. He noticed Shelia already left and decided to find something to do and an idea popped into his head as he wanted to help Empress Lola with her garden.

As he hurried to the garden, he went to the shed to get the watering can and filled it with some water from the well. As he started watering the flowers, he sees a green glow in the flower patch and went close to it carefully. And there it was, the magical stone laying on the ground glowing. He picked it up and examined it out of curiosity.

"Whoa...." He says as he sees it glowing magically in his hand.

"HEY!" Someone shouted from a distance.

Lance got scared and puts away the magical stone fast in his pocket before he sees Carlos coming with an angry look.

"What the hell are you doing in our Empress's garden?! It's a crime to trespass here!" Carlos shouted out of anger.

"I just wanted to help her with her garden." Lance says out of fear.

"Regardless, you are still trespassing! You are coming with me and..." Carlos didn't finish as he sees Empress Lola coming.

"Is there a problem here Carlos?" Lola asked.

"This runt is trespassing in your garden and i was going to take him to the dungeon." Carlos says

"That won't be necessary since he was only helping with my garden. So go back and go do your part in my castle or I'll send to you to the dungeon for yelling at a child by your prejudice act." Lola sternly says with a serious look.

Carlos didn't say a word and walks away. Lola sees Lance trying not to cry and she tried to calm him down by helping with the garden. Lance smiled a little while He helped plant some new seeds.

Meanwhile, The girls woke up from their sleep and Lucinda went to go wake up Lance but noticed he wasn't in his room

"Girls! Lance is gone!" Lucinda shouted with fear.

"What?! Where is he?!" Lindsey asked as he tried to find him around the place.

"Oh. There he is." Tina says as she pointed out the window.

They saw him and the empress having a good time getting the garden together and the empress was starting to have a mother bond to him a little but doesn't notice it yet.

"Looks like he wants to serve for the Empress to build trust with her." Tina says.

"That's a start, we do want him to feel more welcome here." Lindsey says.

"I'll go make some breakfast, why don't you girls and get dress and get ready to go to your watching posts afterwards." Tina says.

"Okay then." Lindsey says as she went to her room to get in her armor and grabs her sword.

Later during the day, the garden was cleaned and fixed up for the day and Lance picked up the tools and placed them in the shed. While he was doing that, he was starting to feel weird and felt some kind of unusual power that is coming from the magical stone.

As he picked up the shovel, he noticed it was even more lighter as a feather when he picked it up and placed it on the wall. He then tried picking up a wheel barrel and was shocked to the bone that he can pick it up easily over his head.

He was confused until he grabbed the stone from his pocket and noticed that the power from the stone went inside him.

The stone then vanishes as it absorbs into his skin and was scared out of him mind of when he saw it disappear. He started to have strength, power, and agility inside him. He heard the empress coming in the shed while putting the last of the tools away.

"You okay child?" She asked with concern.

"Uh, yes I'm okay you're grace." Lance says.

"Good. Since the knight are going to do their daily watch patrol, you are going to stay with me til they are done with their task. Come I do have better clothing for you to wear and a nice bath to help start your day." Lola says as she carried him back to the castle.

Lola started to have a odd feeling inside Lance but brushed it off when she asked her servants to get Lance cleaned up and nicely dressed for the day while she had to watch him while the knights are busy protecting the castle grounds.