Lucidity

Chapter Nine: Getting Closer

Nokia barked like mad when Anwyn returned from the maze. He sprung at her and knocked her over as he eagerly licked her face. The commotion resulted in all attention shifting to the two of them for a brief while, before all except Junior shifted their attention back onto Dale.

"I'm a mage from the Order of the Bell. It's nice and all there but the Elders are just so fussy and up-tight about everything. So, when it came out that one of the novice mages had supposedly found a new chosen one, I decided to take my chance. I mean, you guys could do with a bit of magic and flare on your side. I've luckily been holding onto a pouch of everyone's hair for a while so-", Dale began, but Yaz couldn't help but interrupt, "You had one of his hairs? You just had that lying around?"

"Yeah," replied Dale, "Great for magic, you never know when you might need your fellow magician's hair. I had them all bundled together so I didn't even have to test each one separately. Standard mage practice if you have a brain, really.

"Anyway, as I was saying, I had his hair and people related magic is kind of my speciality, so I tracked you down and here I am!" He did jazz hands - clearly it was just a habit of those in the order - and was grinning like Hazhil smiled - big and wide, though he seemed more genuine. Meanwhile the others just started at him.

Naturally the first one to give him a warm welcome was Hazhil, who smiled like he'd just grinned, "Welcome! Thank you for trying to help us."

Dale had to admit, her friendliness seemed rather artificial, but he was enjoying the praise so he beamed with pride, "It's a-okay! I'm just happy to help where I can."

"And what did you do to Libros?", asked Caitlyn, raising an eyebrow. Dale began rubbing a hand against his mouth and cheek nervously as he explained, "Your friend was being possessed."

"Junior, do you trust him?", asked Hjalmar, a bit bewildered that Junior seemed to be going along with this weird boy. Immediately the arrogant soldier responded, "No. Not at all. But he did get you out of there."

Now Yaz spoke up, having kind of recovered from being in the maze by now, "You said Libros was possessed. Why? And who by?"

"I think you'll find it's 'by whom'," Caitlyn muttered to herself more than anyone else. Oburon heard, however, and did nothing because even though he shot her an irritated glance, it was a glance by his standards, meaning he glimpsed at her for a milisecond.

"I don't know," Dale admitted, his head hanging slightly, "But it can't be good."

In the meantime, Anwyn had rejoined the group, "Do you think it was his intention to trap us in the maze all along?"

"I don't know. But I may have accidentally blocked the mind control because I enchanted one of my cape's buttons so that I can't be spied on. It's possible that spell prevented whoever was controlling him from being able to see what was going on," explained Dale, before asking again, "So, why were you in the maze and which one of you is actually the chosen one?"

"Uh, everyone that was in the maze as a test to chose who's the true chosen one," Kosa responded and seeing Dale's confused expression, Anwyn added, "That's how it usually works, right?"

"No. No, it's not."

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The group decided that tomorrow they would split up. It was now questionable whether the sand mage thing was even true, but as Anwyn had said in the maze, sometimes you need to fall into a trap for information.

Together they'd come up with the plan to have one group remain in the village, in case their enemies came to attack, the other group heading out towards the horizon since fate had this agreeable habit of taking people where they were meant to be. Now the issue was deciding who went where.