"What the hell just happened?" I thought as my eyelids slowly blinked out the blur, and my foggy eyes had become clear in a minute.
I was sitting in a leather, tannish brown, chair, the backing leaned back like a dentist chair. It was comfortable at least. It didn't twist my neck uncomfortably. "My neck!" I thought. And with my right arm that had been broken and drowned with my blood, I felt that it was fine. In fact, it felt refreshed! Wait a moment...
"Hey, take it easy." Came a layered voice. I blinked and rubbed my ears. "Look at me, your ok." It was Francis's voice who had waken me. My ears slowly adjusted and as they did, so did everyone's voice. They did not sound like dreaths anymore.
"What happened?" I asked getting up but I was pushed back.
"Don't get up so soon," Francis commanded "how do you feel?"
"How did I get here?" I asked demandingly
"I had Lucas use an illusion on you, relax, I also put a dulling sedative in your water, so we could drag you across to the Oblivion Room. Now answer, how do you feel?"
"Fine I guess, but I want to be told what happened." I insisted and I examined my surroundings.
The air was cold but fresh for some odd reason, there were no windows. The walls were made completely of reinforced stone, cut to the letter. You couldn't fit a blade of grass between them even if you tried. The ground was of white marble and the entire room was surrounded by statutes probably worth more than the entire room combined, well if you didn't count them of course. They were statues of great wizards that had become extremely powerful, like Orni Haufdar. Anyways, Lucas was on one of the chairs and was slowly waking up. I still wanted to know what happened.
"So, have you figured it out yet?" Francis asked me.
"That was a lexicon, wasn't it" I said remembering the Hearthwood tavern and the entire town itself. That's when I realized that everything had been fake. Even the people had been fake. It was all fake!
"Good." Francis said taking a sip of his coffee.
I pointed at the coffee cup "Hold on, is that your second coffee?"
"No," he responded "it's my third."
"That much caffeine in just this morning can't be good for you." I remarked using my arm to rub my eyes, "now can I get up?"
"Be my guest." He said "Oh yeah, and if anything I am drinking so much caffeine because of your friend. I usually get up at 7:40, then devour my breakfast ALAP before going to class."
"ALAP?" I asked greatly confused. "Shouldn't it be ASAP?"
"No, as late as possible. I don't want to be early, that would result in 1:20 to 1:40 minutes of lost time I could be sleeping. Life's hard enough as a third year you know."
I sighed, and then there're was brief silence, only to be broken by Lucas arising.
"Lexicons are powerful stuff, don't you agree?" He asked me. He stood up and motioned me to follow. On a small desk in the middle of five chairs was a black box.
"A lexicon..." I whispered under my breath. I had a million questions, but I asked just one. "How are they made?"
Lucas narrowed his eyes and his voice became cold. "Kathrian." He said, his eyes filling with spitefulness. "Sells them for about a million each. Only she and her company, Armelda Industries know how to make one. First time her name was uttered to me was when my best friend, Martin was almost killed by a faulty lexicon. He had gotten a so-called "natural" heart attack when going into one of Kathrians lexicons. He was rushed to the restoration wing where master wizard Durnroot had had to heal Martin himself. I don't want to get into the details though."
