Riddles of Lenia

Chapter 19

Hello again, fellow humans!

Or fairies. Or Elves. I doubt there are any dragons, as I'm still breathing.

It's been quite a while since we've last spoken. Personally, I think a character as amazing as myself should make many more appearances, but I'm not a "main" character, yet.

Well anyways, let's catch up, shall we?

I, Jackson Stenhouse, am currently trespassing on the head constable's property, along with my friends. With the king's warrant in hand. And palace guards and government officials in tow.

Seriously...

What even is nobility? I'm starting to think I have my work cut out for me. 

This is too much for a servant's son...

Why are we here? Of course, it's to find Viola! Also, probably a couple of fairies. Isn't this too crazy of a situation for a twelve year-old boy to be handling himself? And I really do think that splitting up wasn't so smart of a decision... So I just need to finish this as soon as possible!

I reached into my trousers' pocket and pulled out my most recent invention. Actually, it's not really new technology. It's based on something already existing, I just made it smaller. This is something called a tracking device.

The original tracking device is an ovular machine about the height of a short woman, and the width of five well-built knights standing shoulder to shoulder. It's made out of a white stone covered in light green and soft pink speckles. The whole thing needs to be made out of a single stone of that size, so it's very expensive, and not very practical.

We have three in the kingdom. One in the royal palace, one with the law enforcement bureau, and one at The Elfheim School of Magic Research. They're so big and heavy that they couldn't be moved even the owners wanted them to be. And since they're so expensive? You have to have special clearance to use one. It's really not convenient at all.

The original is used by placing one's right hand on the stone and summoning a decent-sized magic circle. Mana is inserted into the stone while thinking of the person that's being tracked. The machine activates, and then an image appears of the person in question. It doesn't actually "track" anyone, it just shows their surroundings. If you aren't familiar with the area that they're in, you're out of luck.

It's just not practical!

So I simply made a new one.

For starters, I wanted something that could actually lead me to the person in question, so I chose a slightly different material. I also wanted something portable, so I chose a material as magically dense as possible.

Well anyways, the finished product is a rounded triangular black stone with, again, light green and soft pink speckles. The stone fits smoothly even in my child-sized palm. I've also tied a thin strap of leather around it to be used as a necklace.

Without further ado, shall we activate the tracker?

I placed the stone in the center of my hand and formed a small magic circle around it while thinking of Viola. The stone heated up while bright pink runes glowed and covered the entire surface. The runes began to quiver as they lifted off of the stone and condensed mid air into a dark pink arrowhead of about an inch and a half in length.