Basil and the Slumbering Emerald

Taking The Emerald

Basil wakes up in his moonless night forest again, the forest is darker than usual still and he can hear Darkened lurking around. Putting his track skills to the test, Basil sets off in a sprint, hurdling over fallen trees, and letting his sense of direction guide him. He feels like he has been running for hours but he doesn't stop, he has to keep going, he can hear the Darkened coming. Pushing forward Basil sprints into a clearing just as they begin to swarm him Basil wakes up. Shaking the dream off Basil, gets up goes for a jog, buys a coffee and heads back to Mattias's.

They spend the day practicing again, going over everything Basil has learned so far so he can build upon it. Mattias takes the time to teach Basil everything he can about the elements. As he does the days of January quickly melt into the days of February. Nearly a month of training goes by and Basil still feels like he isn't learning enough. Petril and Gram are still missing, and each day Basil dreams of that moonless forest getting more and more filled with Darkened.

February thirteenth, comes and Basil starts the day as he has every other day, going for a jog and getting a coffee wishing that Eros were there to tell him what to do. He returns home to start training with Joe. Joe teaches him how to clock attacks with magic, stop bullets and knives, throw a proper punch as well as use magic as a weapon. He teaches him a disarming spell and a modified cutting spell that is used for lethal effect. Basil picks it all up quickly, his mind now fully set on learning everything he can to go looking for Petril and Gram.

That night Basil wakes up in the forest and begins his sprint, using magic to kill and detour Darkened as he runs. Unlike most nights he makes it back to the ruins, the moonlit statues destroyed, the gossamer white doe lay in a pool of poisoned blood. "Take it Basil... Take it and save them. Save them all." A voice urges. Basil goes up to the stone pedestal and reaches into the water, plucking the emerald from it. Immediately Basil wakes up in a cold sweat. He checks his palm and inside it is the most perfect emerald he has ever seen. It is a rectangular cut with perfect clarity and hue. Basil gets out of bed and gets dressed, he steals a bookbag and fills it with supplies before writing a note, pocketing the emerald. Basil focuses his magic and disappears into the morning frost of early February fourteenth.

A couple hours later Mattias and Kelkian wake to find Basil gone and assume he just went for a jog until they find the note. It reads:

Dear Kelkian, Mattias, and Joe, I can't do this anymore. I can't sit around and wait for my training to be complete. Gram and Petril aren't going to be okay unless we do something. Last night I found the slumbering emerald in my dreams. Call me reckless but I'm not going to waste this chance. I'm going to get Gram and Petril back. Please don't be mad and please don't come after me. If anything were to happen to you three I'd feel just as guilty. These Darkened want me so bad? I'm going to give them what they want in the worst way. I love you. Basil.

Mattias and Kelkian go and get Joe and together teleport back to Granite Bay, Minnesota.

Basil walks up the steps to his former home and uses his old key to unlock the front door. He walks inside and finds the Darkened waiting. Normal looking people with black eyes and no souls. Basil uses a cutting spell on both, slicing them open and leaving them to bleed black all over the carpet. Basil head upstairs to the room he was called his own and finds another Darkened waiting for him. Basil uses a force push spell to knock it into the wall with enough force it goes unconscious. When it wakes Basil has burned, cut, and killed every Darkened around the house, piling their corpses up in front of the only living on. It tries to break free but Basil slams it back down into the chair and gets in it's face. "Where did you take Petril and Gram. Where are they?!" Basil demands and the darkened grins, poison in it's smile.

"Why would I help you... not that you could rescue them anyway. We knew you would come for them." It laughs in Basil's face. Basil uses a cutting spell to lop it's hands off.

"TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE!" Basil demands using fire to cauterize the wounds. The Darkened hisses and screams in pain.

"They're at the big rusted warehouse on the edge of town just fucking stop!" The darkened cries over his hands. Basil lifts the dream from the darkened, the bodies gone and his hands intact. Basil sets the house on fire and walks out headed for the warehouse district.

When Mattias, Kelkian and Joe arrive they find the house in the process of burning down, bodies of Darkened scattered on the lawn. All three share a look of deep concern. "I knew Basil was upset but I didn't expect him to snap like this. He doesn't know much magic, but it isn't the first time he has cast a spell without learning it." Joe sighs and Mattias nods.

"If he really does have the slumbering emerald then I'd almost feel bad for the Darkened. No one can stop that kind of power." Kelkian mentions and Mattias shrugs.

"We don't know if he can ever control it let alone use it to it's full potential." Mattias argues. The three head to Petril's just to find more Darkened bodies bleeding and burned scattered around the house. With no where else to check the three of them go about cleaning stuff up and contacting the unbound government.