Seven in One

Chapter 7: "Moonstone"

Ignoring the minotaur body for the moment, they inspected the damage done by the goblins and the minotaur to see what could be salvaged. "My Laptop!" Teron cried, as he discovered it hacked in two, one half still on the table, the other half across the room near the smashed door. It wasn't even repairable, as it was literally cut in two, down the center of the screen and keyboard base.

"I think we have bigger problems," April said, pointing to Paul who was still stunned after getting slammed around by the minotaur and then by Felix.

"Put him in bed and let him sleep it off," Ashton suggested.

When no one objected, Calvin hauled Paul to his feet, placed one arm of Paul's over his shoulders, and his own arm around Paul's waist, then led him toward the bedroom. "Where's Sevin?" called Calvin, moments after disappearing into the bedroom.

"What do you mean, where's Sevin?" asked Kristine. "He's a comatose body. He can't just get up and walk out of here on his own, can he?"

"Remember what the minotaur said: he got what he wanted. Was he referring to Sevin?" April wondered aloud.

"What would he need with Sevin's body," Felix asked.

"Maybe it needs it for the same reason we do?" Ashton responded.

At that moment, Sevin's phone rang. Picking it up off the floor, Felix glanced at the cracked screen. "It's Joana," he responded after recognizing the number.

"Well answer it!" April exclaimed, waving her hands for everyone to be quiet. "Don't make her wait."

Sighing, Felix pushed the acceptance button and held the phone to his ear.

"Are you on your way home yet, it's family movie night or did you forget?"

Joana asked cheerfully.

Felix glanced at everyone and turned around. "Give me twenty and I'll be there." Not waiting for a response, he canceled the call and turned back to everyone. "Gotta go. Don't get yourselves in trouble." Sticking the phone in his pocket, he walked out, heading home to pretend to be Sevin yet again.

Teron glanced at the clock, it was eight thirty. "Guess you two should head home too," he said, looking at Calvin and Kristine. "We'll clean up and see what we can find out about this , 'L'appel du vide' or 'Call of the void'." Nodding in agreement, Calvin and Kristine left, promising to be back in the morning, nine o'clock sharp.

The other three finished pickup up the living room until it was decent enough, and dragged the minotaur body into the tunnel so that it was out of the way. Sinking down onto the couch, April asked, "Okay so now what?"

"We look for anything we can find out about the call of the void." Teron said, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

"Ok but we only have the one phone. Your laptop is destroyed, and the tablet has hoof-mark stamped into the screen, making it kind of difficult to see anything." Ashton responded, turning the tablet around to show Teron.

"Dude, I don't think it will even turn on." Teron responded depressed. "Fine you two get some sleep, we can take turns, I'll start researching and will wake one of you up in a few hours."

Without answering, Ashton pulled April off the couch and shoved her toward the bedroom. "Go tell Paul to make room." As she left, he turned back to Teron. "Wake me up when you're tired, we can just let April sleep."

He whispered before following her into the bedroom.

---

Nine o'clock came sooner than anyone expected. They were all still exhausted but knew that Sevin was running out of time and they would need to find him. "So this is the information that we found," Teron announced after Kristine, Calvin and Felix had all arrived and settled in.

"People believed that they saw was an omen or spirit that had taken over the body, and was released upon death, which, would sort of explain the black fog that rose out of the body both the times we've killed those things attacking us."

"ok, but that doesn't explain it supposedly taking Sevin's body, or the fact that it said we can't defeat it now." April said, remembering back to the day before. "And assuming it needs Sevin alive then it would need us as well. But wait, if that were the case, then that would be the evil spirit, shouldn't there be a good spirit as well?"

"Yes." Ashton responded, nodding his head in agreement.

"So where is it?" Paul asked. "We obviously haven't seen it."

"I discussed with Ashton, the night you all broke free," Teron said. "And we think, the initial flash of light that accompanied the burst of energy, might have been the good half. But it dissipated into the night."

"Then maybe," Kristine suggested, "it went to the only other light source available at the time?" When no one answered, she continued. "The moon."

"And how do we get it back then?" Paul responded, depressed. "It's not like we can just walk up to the moon and take it back."

"Maybe we can," Teron said, grabbing a book off the small bookcase and flipping through the pages. "The Mesopotamians believed that certain gemstones held magical properties and could interact with the spirits. They also believed that those spirits could be controlled by celestial happenings." Grabbing his phone, Teron searched celestial occurrences and smiled. "There's a lunar eclipse tonight, guys. That would classify as a celestial event, and if the 'good spirit' is out there, it should be drawn to it and we can harness it. We just need to find this gemstone." Pointing at an image that was on the page he was reading from.

"Where are we going to find a moonstone?" April asked, as she inspected the image more closely.

"How about at the museum?" Kristine responded, remembering back to her museum visit with her mother at the start of summer vacation. "I think the gift shop had different kinds of rock collections for sale. We can check it out."

"We should get moving then," Calvin responded, "Pretty soon the museum will be busy and will take forever to get into let alone out of."

---

Coming around the corner toward the center of town, they arrived at the second largest building on the street, the museum. "Tickets are five dollars per person," Kristine said reading the sign posted on the door.

"How much money do we have?" Scrounging in their pockets, they managed to collect twenty seven dollars and some spare change. "Ok, how about Kristine and I go in and look in the gift shop?" Teron suggested. "We don't know how much the rock collection will be if they even have what we want, so we should save some money for that."

Everyone agreed, and Kristine put all the money in her pocket and walked into the museum with Teron. Paying for their tickets, they soon disappeared from view and everyone sat down on the steps to wait.

---

Kristine lead the way to the giftshop and once inside, they headed to the back wall where there were display cases of stones for sale. Teron started picking up the cases and reading the prices: "Eight four dollars, Sixty nine dollars, Fourty two dollars-"

"Wow they're expensive." Kristine whispered. "Maybe we should look to see if there is one with a moonstone first?"

"Right," Teron agreed, looking at the labels. Finally he found one, after five minutes of searching. "Here we go." He showed her a collection of twenty five stones.

"How much?"

"Nine five dollars," he responded, reading the price tag, then looked at the sample size, an inch and a half. "Do we really need one this big?"

"Here's smaller," Kristine responded, holding up a smaller case that held fifteen stones instead that were about an inch in size only. She looked at the price, "Nineteen Ninty-five"

"Sold!" Teron said, grabbing the case from her hands.

"But we don't have enough money." She responded, pulling what was left out of her pocket.

"That's what credit cards are for, dearie." Teron teased, pulling out his wallet and extracting his blue visa card. Walking to the register, he paid for the stone collection and they left the gift shop and museum.