Parallel Reality

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

"How could you do this to me? My kids will starve now! Let me go! Let me go!" A voice screamed throughout the small village.

"You know the rules, ma'am," the knight clasping onto her said, "no magic in the kingdom. If we catch you doing so, it is punishable by death."

"Can you not make an exception?!" The woman begged, trying to break free. "I need to look after my children. They don't have anyone else!"

"Well," a taller, more sinister-looking man said, looming over the woman and the knight, "maybe you should have thought of that before breaking the law." He smiled before forcefully grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her down to the dungeons of the castle.

She carried on wriggling, but the man had a firm grip on her, and she could not get out of it. Nobody took notice of her cries, knowing that in the near future, she would be dead, just like the rest of them. Hung. With the whole village to witness. It was a horrible sight to watch, but nonetheless, everybody showed up. It makes the magic citizens quieten up for a while, usually a week or two, and then everything would go back to normal. Nobody tries to escape the prisons, or rebel against the system.

Adelyn watched the woman being dragged through the town, then went down to the forest to meet the others. It didn't take long for her to find Max, Crystal, Jade, and Marshmallow, all quietly talking to each other. Adelyn cleared her throat and they all turned around to the girl. She smiled slightly and then walked up to them, before grabbing her notebook from the worn pocket on her dress. She opened the tattered book, which had some notes in it.

"These are some ideas I scribbled down last night on how we could convince the royals to legalise magic once again," she explained, "but I'm not sure if they'll work."

"Well," Max said, looking at the writing, "The library might have some books on magic."

"Yeah," Jade chimed in, "I'm sure that Marshmallow could easily find something useful."

Adelyn sighed and shook her head. "I go to the library quite often, and never have I once saw a book that would help us in this way. There's nothing on magic at all."

Jade raised an eyebrow. "But have you seen the hidden depths?"

Adelyn shook her head, confused.

"Well, there's a hidden passage in the library which leads down the basement. The basement is filled with thousands upon thousands of books, all of which are unseen by public eye. If these books were found by the knighthood, it's certain that they'd be burnt to the ground. These books contain magic, laws of magic, laws on magic, and all sorts, really. If we could find some old texts about previous laws, and see what they did years ago, maybe we could convince the king and queen to allow at least some forms of magic. Dark magic will most likely still be illegal, but none of you have dark magic, so it'll benefit you lot of course. So, I think that this will be our best plan to do research, at the very least."

The others all looked at each other, and smiled. They all agreed to do the research in the library as often as they could. Fortunately, they only had to go to the edge of the settlement, which meant that Max did not have to worry about his demon half showing himself while he is with a large group of people.

When they got to the old building, they stood outside, and Marshmallow went in first. She knew how to easily get to the secret area, and could make sure that the coast was clear for the others to follow. Jade went in after the cat.

"Oh you stupid animal," she said, "where have you gotten to now?"

The librarian piped up, and walked over to the girl. "Be quiet, can't you see that this is a library. You can't go around shouting." He told her calmly.

"Oh but sir," she said as innocently as she could, "I've lost my cat, and I think she wandered in here. Could you help me look for her?"

The man sighed, "Fine, but best make this quick."

While the two were looking for Marshmallow, the others entered the library one by one, and went to where Jade said the stairs were. The stair case was dark, and a little bit damp. They felt like they were spiraling down for hours before they reached the bottom. After going through a short passage way, the people were met with a huge room, covered in shelves, which were filled with books from top to bottom. A lot of the books seemed dusty, and there were several ladders dotted around so they could access the top, but they were all amazed with the room. It was not long before Jade, carrying Marshmallow in her arms, met them, and smiled at them all watching the awe on their faces.

"Cool, isn't it?" She asked, breaking the silence.

The other three nodded their heads.

"But where do we begin. There's so many books!" Adelyn said, getting a little excited at the idea of so much reading.

Jade put Marshmallow on the ground, who instantly wandered off on her own. "Well, we don't need to read everything, but we're looking for quite a broad thing, so, I guess we're just going to have to search around a bit to find a few books to start reading through." She stated, beginning to walk to the nearest shelf.

The other three also went to the shelves, and started to scan them, looking for any books that seemed relevant to their task.

Adelyn knew that this was going to be a long journey, even just doing the reading, but she was happy to be trying to get magic legal once again in Acyle, as the stories told. A life long dream, finally becoming a reality for her, and she could not wait to see how everything turns out in the end.

***

Adelyn yawned. She had no clue what time it was, but she knew they had been reading for hours straight. She was about to suggest leaving it for the day, when Crystal broke the silence.

"It says here," she said, placing her finger on the page, "that magic is neither good nor evil; it's the person who uses the magic that creates those boundaries. However, due to human nature, many people with 'dark' magic become that way, because that's just who we are - power-crazed animals. So, I guess if we could convince the royals that this is true, then we might have a shot."

Max nods his head. "Also here," he added, "it explains that Acyle has always been a place with a lot of magic, and not even that long ago, relatively speaking, did magic become illegal. Apparently, there is a large source of magic within the hill the castle stands upon, and it is very likely that they know about this, and it is possible that at least some of the royals do, in fact, practice magic regularly."

"But even if there was, surely their family wouldn't necessarily know," Adelyn pointed out, thinking back to when the prince returned from his journey.

"That is true." Max agreed.

"Would that be cool, though, one of them hiding something as huge as that from their family, the people who enforce the laws on the kingdom." Jade was getting a little over excited over that thought. "Anyway, we better get going. It's getting late. Has anyone seen Marshie?"

The others frowned, looked at each other, then looked at Jade.

"Marshmallow. My cat."

"Oh." They all said simultaneously, before shaking their heads.

"We need her to be able to get out of her- Oh, there you are." Jade smiled when she saw the fluffy animal sat on the floor a few meters away. "Well, Marshie, you go first. We'll get out when we know the coast is clear." She smiled encouragingly to the cat. Marshmallow went upstairs, and Jade followed, and the other three were not far behind.

The four waited at the top of the stairs for about five minutes, before Marshmallow came back. She gave a slight nod, as if to say that everyone had left the building, and they all made their way outside. Then they all went their separate ways home, planning to do the same again in the morning.

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A/N - Okay, this still isn't a hugely long chapter, but it's definitely longer than the previous one. I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless ^-^