Quest for the Eighty-Eight Keys

Chapter Fifteen: Where are the Keys?

Rufus walked out of the bathroom, his damp hair pulled into a ponytail. His eyes found Lucy laying in bed, seeming to be asleep. He then looked to the table, seeing that Freed was looking through a book that he had just gotten from...somewhere. He walked further into the room to stand a few feet from Freed, crossing his arms over his chest and asking, "what do you have there?"

His voice had a hint of strain to it, reflecting his lack of favor toward the other man. However, if Freed noticed, he gave no indication as he answered calmly, not looking away from the pages of the book, "trying to find some information on Nyx, Terra, or Lust."

His interest now piqued, Rufus questioned, "what do you mean?"

"I had Levy send this book to me. It's filled with all known information on notorious, magic-using criminals."

"You think they are notorious?"

"Maybe. It's worth investigating, isn't it? Any amount of information would be useful, especially since we barely know anything about these mages."

Rufus nodded. That made sense. It was definitely true that any information they could get on Nyx, Terra, and Lust could be of use to them. He looked back over at Lucy. As he stared at her supposedly sleeping form, he remembered last night.

Rufus snuggled his face into the pillow under his head. He was on the border between wakefulness and sleep. It wasn't a surprise that it had taken him this long to start drifting off to sleep. He always had trouble sleeping on the first night in a hotel. Just as he was about to become enveloped by sleep, he heard the door open and close.

The blonde instantly sat up, his mind in a slight haze. He yawned and stretched before he rubbed his eyes. Once he regained his bearings, he realized that the sound that had woken him was the hotel room door. His head whipped around to look at Lucy's bed, only to find that she wasn't there.

Rufus threw the blankets off of his body and rushed to the door, opening and closing it without a care about the still-sleeping Freed. He raced out of the hotel and searched around the town, trying to track down Lucy.

Eventually, he found the blonde woman. He leaned behind a tree, peering around it to see that Lucy was sitting on a large rock at the side of the river that ran around Podsolnukh. A chilled breeze caused him to shiver and he almost regretted not putting on clothes along with the grey tank top and black sweatpants that he wore to bed. Guessing that she wanted to be alone, he stayed where he was. He grimaced when she began crying, curled into herself.

He felt his heart clench and twist at the sight, the urge to pull her into his arms and comfort her causing him to take a step around the tree, however, he quickly stopped himself and stepped back behind the tree. Knowing that Nyx, Terra, and Lust weren't in the town, he trusted that Lucy would be able to take care of herself and pushed himself off of the tree, making his way back to the hotel.

He hadn't allowed himself to go back to sleep until Lucy had returned. He could tell that Lucy wasn't actually asleep, only pretending. His brow furrowed, an unsettling feeling burrowing into his gut. He had been unnerved by what had just happened, seeing Lucy have a breakdown and cry by herself. He knew that he shouldn't be surprised. Nevertheless, he was still troubled, wanting to comfort her and help her through the pain that her capture and loss had caused her.

The sound of a large book closing dragged Rufus' attention back to Freed. He watched as the rune mage sighed as he rested a hand on the back of the closed book. He then asked, "did you find anything?"

He watched as Freed shook his head and stand up, writing runes on the book with his finger. The large book then dissolved into purple runes. The green-haired man looked at him blankly and explained, "I just sent the book back to Levy. She'll send me another one by the end of the day."