A Land of Flowers and Fae

Trapped

With nothing to do, Lavan sat with his back rippling the barrier spell. His eyes closed as he reached out with his magical senses. Trying to figure out what was GOING ON. That and ignore Dahlia. From what he could tell she was double checking the rune connections and ensuring the spell frameworks were in place for the power transfer.

Responsible spellcasting. For your garden variety evil purpose. This was why alchemists got a bad rap in his mind.

"What are you doing now? Forming a soul-sucking matrix?" Ruby asked snidely. Making a couple of the Guardians titter.

Dahlia sounded terribly annoyed and put-upon for an evil mastermind "Theres no such thing as a soul-sucking matrix Ruby. You'd know that if you'd got anything higher than a 'met standard' at the Academy"

Emeraldo sounded like he wanted to pat his friend on the shoulder "Oooh shes got you there Red"

Ruby sniffed "She's obviously doing something malevolent"

Dahlia's voice was cutting "Don't overblow my malevolence to hide how incompetent you are Ruby. You were by far the easiest Guardian to capture"

Topaz's honking chuckle sounded above Ruby's enraged gasp.

Couldnt they be a little more grim? Wasn't this a hostage situation? He was TRYING to find Elina's magical signature. But she was either just outside his range or was hidden in the soup of magical signatures around him. Though, strangely, he'd stopped feeling any of the firebird's magic for awhile now. And the fungus were getting steadily harder and harder to feel. What was happening?

"Don't you laugh at me Topaz! You got caught first!" Ruby snapped.

Topaz shushed him "I was the first one to get caught which means I had no reason to think someone was trying to kidnap me. You all had a heads up"

Amethyst spoke in her subdued voice "I bet Azura was the hardest to catch"

"What about me?" Emeraldo squawked "I put up a real fight!"

Azura hummed "I did put up a fight as well but technically Lavan got caught last"

"He doesn't count" Saphirette sniffed.

"Why doesn't he count?" Azura asked with an edge of thunder.

"Oh that's it" Topaz trilled "Dahlia settle this argument for us please. Who was the hardest to catch?"

Lavan felt a pounding start behind his left eye. Were they seriously having this argument?

Dahlia seemed nearly as exhausted. He didn't envy her having to contain the Guardians for days on end like this. He certainly wouldn't have done so based off their annoying personalities alone.

"If you must know" his apprentice said "Azura took down the highest number of the group sent to catch her. Emeraldo took the longest to grab since he dug himself into his burrow. Of course that's excluding my old teacher here"

"See! Told you" Emeraldo preened.

"And Lavan?" Azura asked.

Dahlia snorted "Would you like to tell them Master. Or should I?"

"I'm not going to glory in fighting your puppets Dahlia" Lavan answered crisply.

There. Was that a sparkle of Elina's magic? It was so faint.

Dahlias voice got nasty "See there's a reason I apprenticed with him. He's a real monster. I took a force of 80 dryads. 400 fungi and three flocks of firebirds to take him. He decimated half of them"

Lavan clenched his jaw at the comment "I didn't kill any fungi or firebirds. They didn't choose to serve you"

"You didn't give the same consideration to my fellow dryads though did you?"