A Journey through Kingdoms

CHAPTER 4- DETECTIVE HOURS

With the sudden capture of Derrick the alchemist, one could only imagine the outcome of it all as the three individuals from before were revealed to be bandits who were now discussing their next plan for the boy as they stood around one another. "Alright. We got the guy so... What do we do now?" Craig asks. They were awaiting their orders from their self-appointed leader at this point, which was the intellectual one out of the three.

"Simple. We take him back to camp and have the boss take care of him," they say as they peek over to Derricks' knocked unconscious body as it lay motionless on the floor, looking like he got hit by a semi on the freeway going 100 miles above the speed limit. Truly, it was an uncomfortable-looking position his body was in for sure but not one you wouldn't see him in. "By the way, what about his stuff? Are we taking it as well or what?" The other inquires about the abundance of raw and processed materials Derrick had lying around.

"Well, we only needed to take the guy with us. But we can also treat ourselves a bit. I don't see the harm in that," the leader amongst them says. Showing a much more mischievous side to him, contrasting his more calculating exterior. "Alright! Dibs on all the shiny stuff!" Craig exclaims as he quickly rushed over to the shelves as they start ransacking everything they could from this little home, which Derrick called his laboratory.

Time passed for quite sometime as the sun was now slowly setting upon the horizon. During this time, not within the quarters of the laboratory but to a more business-like place within the city. Tetsuga exits the tavern premises as he takes a second to take a breather since he was almost worked to death by the bartender after failing to pay up for his splurges. "Okay, Note to self, again. Money first. Beer later," he tells himself, taking a mental note as he raises his head back up to look at his surroundings.

"Okay, What was I going to do?" He thinks. Seemingly forgetting what he was supposed to do after getting off his temporary tavern work shift. "Oh, right. That Derrick guy was going to get taken by those three dudes earlier." He finally remembers as he also now notices the time of day. "I guess stopping them before they get to him is a no-go. Guess it's back to the old-fashioned way," he says as he sighs. He then starts to focus and concentrate on something as he suddenly starts to glow a blue hue. Once the glow grew stronger and had now changed into a more solid blue light that encased his very figure, he opened his eyes as his vision was then bombarded with glowing footsteps.

"Gah! My eyes! Too bright!" Though a bit of a miscalculation on his part causes him to get blinded by an abundance of glowing footsteps,. "I'm never getting used to that, am I?" He says to himself as he rubs his eyes as they gradually get used to the sight before him. "Alright. Fine, tune it to their magic wavelength, and... there we go." He mutters as some of the footsteps slowly dimmer, leaving only 3 sets of footprints for him to follow. "Haha ha! I got you now..." He cackles to himself, not noticing the person that was on his side, staring at him weirdly. He then notices them for a second before giving a comment.

"What? Never seen a man glow before?" He says, which was received with a small shrug. Tetsuga decides to leave that conversation there as he has other stuff to attend to as he goes and proceeds to follow the footsteps to where they led him. "Alright... So it looks like they made some slight deviations from where they were going. As for looking for something... or maybe asking? Could be either," Tetsuga deduces as he observes that the path the footprints took was all over the place. Though it didn't seem like they were in a hurry since the strides they took didn't look too frenzied and far apart.

"After that, they just continue straight towards the... exit?" He says as he finds himself back at the entrance archway of the city. "Huh. Guess it's back outside for me," he says as he casually strolls on by, past the two guards that guard the entrance, whom he had met earlier in the day. "Oh, hey, it's you again. Leaving so soon?" One of the guards asks, taking Tetsuga's attention away from the trail and back over to them. "Oh hey, yeah. Kinda had something to do out here. Speaking of, have you seen a guy with metallic goggles exit here by any chance?" he asks. Thinking it might help him with his searching.

"You mean that Barnes kid? Yeah. He went through here. He made a sharp turn into the forest just up ahead." The other tells Tetsuga as the jester looks over at the path and sees the three sets of footsteps make a hard turn into the foliage and denser forestry. "I can definitely see that. But can I ask why? Who in their right minds would have business in the forest? Besides me, of course," he inquires. I was curious as to what the reason was for Derrick to be meddling around in the dense, dark emerald forest of Veridia.

"Honestly, we don't know either," the knight admits, which was backed up by the other knight as they nodded. "He just usually disappears into the forest after he's done doing whatever it is he does in the city. It got him quite the name in town because of it." They explain this to Tetsuga, who kept a mental note of it all. "Also, I heard that he has like... 3 sets of eyes," the other knight adds, which got weird looks from the previous two. "Now where the hell did you hear that?" The other was much more skeptical of his partner's sources, as it seemed quite outlandish even if they considered the existence of magic.

"What? It's got to be true; it would explain the 3 sets of lenses on the goggles that guy had!" The knight gave reasons that did make sense conceptually, but neither of the two wanted to indulge in that. "Just zip it before you become the new kook of the town," the knight scolds, trying to prevent further second-hand embarrassment from his partner. "I'm just saying," they say before leaning back into their post.

"Well, I think I got enough context. I guess I'll see you two later," he says, waving goodbye to the two guards as he sets off to find Derrick in the forest as he follows the 3 sets of footprints into the forest. A few moments go by as he traverses through the foliage and trees. Making it quite deep into the area, but still no sign of a clearing or something that might hint at what Derrick was doing out here, seeing as those three shady-looking dudes are going through the place as he is going through right now.

"How long is this going to take? I feel like I've been walking for hours," Tetsuga complains as he casually walks through. Suddenly, he notices the footsteps making a hard stop and a sharp turn in a different direction. "Oh? Well, it looks like they found something this far in," he says as he goes to follow where it went. After a bit of following, he happens upon a clearing within the forest. He passes through the trees and exits out to see Derrick's laboratory, situated in the middle of the clearing. "Huh. This is a dinky-looking shack," Tetsuga comments as he approaches the structure.

"Pardon the intrusion," he says as he meters the place and takes a look around. He notices that the place was obviously ransacked of all of its contents, as shelves, boxes, and all of the like are scattered around with no sense of organization. "Yeesh. Talk about a mess," he comments again. Running his hands on the table to check for dust. He checks his fingers and sees that not all that much dust has accumulated on the table, which tells him that the place was ransacked not too long ago.

He keeps on looking around some more before his sights settle upon a vial lying in the shadows of the place. It's radiating green liquid, the only indicator for his eyes to latch onto as he approaches it in a curious fashion. "Huh. Guess they missed one," he points out before picking it up from its spot as he inspects it a little by swishing it around in the vial. "Hope that Derrick guy doesn't mind me taking this. Might come in handy... I hope." Despite its unknown factor, he decides to pocket it in his satchel.

After looking around, he exits the building and looks around the area outside. "Now where did those three run off?" Before he could finish that rhetorical question of his, he noticed that, amidst the sets of footsteps, trailed a trail that followed the path of the footsteps. He turns his special vision off this time as he looks over the trail. "Well, that certainly makes my job a lot easier," he says with a chuckle as he follows the trail that was made from something being dragged. Or rather, someone.