Meridias

  Tim gathered the materials he needed. Conceptual enchanting may be more dangerous but it was also easier in a sense. Spell Weave enchanting required the mage to be able to use the magic and to figure out how to piece various spells together for the desired effect. Considering Tim hadn’t been able to use any real offensive or elemental types of magic Spell Weave enchanting wasn’t practical for him to use. Well except for enchanting weapons to reduce their weight. That in itself was a kind of logic puzzle that required four different types of spells. As for the materials needed for enchanting there was Aiontjil, an Elvin metal that is a good conduit for magic and extremely durable, and good gems. The gems would hold the enchantment and Tim would lay conduits through the metal that would carry the effects of the enchantment throughout the object. Tim went to work. An hour later he yawned and checked the time. He should probably get going. He bade Devin goodbye and rejoined the others who had gathered outside the town hall to go home.

  Alicia spent her time hiding out at Cooper’s home. He hadn’t asked her why she was avoiding the others and instead spent his time teaching her or just conversing with her. Alicia was grateful for the company during this time. The others hadn’t bothered checking Cooper’s home again the past few days which somewhat irked Alicia. She didn’t admit it, but some small part of her wanted them to find her here. Before she left on the third day Cooper said to her, “I know that you may not want to face them, but it would be good if you could reconcile with your friends. I’m sure that they are worried about you but they are sure to also be busy with their own lives as well.” Alicia hadn’t known how to respond but nodded politely to the elf. She knew he was right but didn’t know how to face them.

  Chapter 19

  Maria to the Rescue

  Elunduil was tired of calling and getting nothing in return. Today he was going to hunt down Alicia no matter where she was even if he had to go to her house after leaving Meridias. The others were with him. They agreed to split up and search through Ragnarok and Ellica until they found her. “Remember if anyone sees anything we can communicate through the APL device since we linked up,” Tim reminded them before they went their separate ways. Tanis and Tim would search Ragnarok while Elunduil and Felras searched Ellicia. If they didn’t find anything by the end of the day they would pay a visit to Alicia’s home.

  Elunduil and Felras took the transport to Ellicia and proceeded to search high and low for Alicia. They bumped into Cerra while they were walking around and after explaining the situation to her, she joined them. Cerra struck up a conversation with Felras as they walked around. “So Felras I know we’ve met before but I’ve never really talked with you,” she said. “I heard that you managed to bind the Behemoth for a moment. How did you do that?” The elf’s questioning gaze made Felras uncomfortable. “I don’t know…” he replied. Cerra’s musical chuckled filled the air. “Were you trying to keep it from harming Elunduil?” Felras cast his gaze around. “Yeah,” he muttered.

  Elunduil couldn’t help feeling a bit bashful in that moment. “How wonderful! Brothers should look after each other!” Cerra’s excitement always irked Elunduil a bit. Cerra seemed to be a bit of an oddball compared to the other elves like Angurvadel and Galimere. He was sure it was Mr. Elden’s influence on her. Cerra asked Felras other questions while they patrolled the town. What was his age? 12. What kind of food did he like? Pizza. What’s pizza? Felras struggled to describe it to her. What did he want to be when he grew up? Dunno. When she asked Elunduil what he wanted to be he shrugged. He’d never really thought about that sort of thing.

  When they came up to Cooper’s house they decided to check with him to see if Alicia had been there at all today. “I have not seen her yet. Normally she would’ve been here by now but perhaps she is reflecting elsewhere,” Cooper responded amicably. Elunduil turned to leave with the others when the elf called out to them. “She has angst that comes with youth and inexperience. I’m sure that you do too, Elunduil.” Elunduil didn’t have a response and as they left he mulled over the elf’s words. Angst. He thought about Alicia’s reaction to seeing him and Maria together both times she had stumbled across them at interesting moments. If he were in her shoes than her reaction was understandable. He’d probably hide too.

  They decided to go towards the town hall next. If Alicia did show up they would see her as she was being dropped off by the transports from Ragnarok. There was a beep from his APL device and he lifted up his arm to see what it was. On the screen he saw a message from Tim saying that they hadn’t seen anything yet. Elunduil tapped on the screen to reply and a digital keyboard appeared on it. He tapped out a similar message and sent it to Tim. “That’s the girl that makes fun of you!” Felras said quietly catching Elunduil’s attention. He looked up towards the transports to confirm Felras’ observation.

  Maria, Daniel, and Dave were walking off of one of the Heracles transports. Elunduil hoped they didn’t notice them but Daniel looked over and waved their direction and caused Elunduil to squirm. He sighed and half-heartedly waved back. Maria and Dave looked over as Daniel shouted something towards Elunduil’s group. He turned towards Dave and said something before running over to meet them.

  Dave followed his brother and Maria hung back for a moment before she followed after the two. “Hey, aren’t you guys going to learn magic?” Daniel said cheerfully. Elunduil might have responded had Maria not been there and looked awkwardly at Cerra and Felras. “Uh…” Elunduil tried to reply but wasn’t sure what to say. “We’re looking for Alicia,” Cerra chimed in. Elunduil was grateful that she’d spoken up. The brothers looked to each other with concern on their faces. “Really? Is she still avoiding you guys? Hasn’t it been like four days?” Dave asked. Elunduil nodded and Dave let out a deep breath. “Wow. She must be really upset. Is there anything we can do?” he asked.

  Maria suddenly swore and everyone looked at her. “That… idot!” she said vehemently. “I swear she should just get over herself it’s not like…” Maria suddenly became aware of everyone’s gazes. She was taken aback and cleared her throat as she composed herself. “Alright since you can’t do anything yourselves I’ll take care of it. This mess is partially my fault anyway,” Maria declared. She turned and walked back towards the Heracles transport. She’d thought she’d spotted Alicia in Ragnarok while she’d been going to the transport building. “Ah, wait for us!” Daniel called out and started to follow after her. Maria wheeled around and said,

  “No! I’ve got to go alone! She’ll feel less pressured if it’s just me!” Daniel looked dumbfounded as Maria turned and resumed walking to the transports. Dave shrugged. “Well I guess we’ll do as she says. What will you guys do?” He asked and Elunduil shrugged. He considered returning to Ragnarok for the time being. If Maria was headed that way then she probably had an idea of where Alicia was. He sent a message to Tim and Tim replied within a few moments. “Let’s go. Tanis and Tim will meet us at the Community Center,” he said. The transport with Maria in it shot off and towards the city as Elunduil and the others walked over and waited for another transport to arrive. Elunduil felt certain Maria would find Alicia. Though he wasn’t quite sure why she was helping them.

  Maria fumed during the whole way back to Ragnarok. She was pissed at Alicia. She wasn’t sure what she was going to say to her when she found her but she would give her an earful. Wait?! Why am I helping him? Shouldn’t I just let him suffer after he… Maria took a breath to steady herself. No, it was her fault. Well it was his fault in a sense for being, well him, but she had been the one that had misunderstood. Maria groaned. This wasn’t like her. She was just being responsible. Yeah that’s what it was. She nodded satisfactorily at her justification. A small part of her knew she was just deflecting her intent, and that she just wanted to help out.

  The transport arrived in Ragnarok and Maria quickly departed the vehicle and set out to find Alicia. When Maria had caught a glimpse of her, or someone that looked like her, she had been going over to the R&D building.
Maria walked over to the building and peered up at its gleaming metal walls. She’d learned from Damon that this building was also fortified from the inside not to protect it from exterior threats but to protect the outside world should something go horribly wrong inside the building.

  Maria walked up to the small door that led inside and saw a knight without his helmet leaning back in his chair behind the desk. “Ah, good day girl! What business do you have here?” He asked nonchalantly. Maria raised a brow at his laid-back attitude. “I’m looking for someone that came this way a few minutes ago,” she replied and proceeded to tell the knight Alicia’s description. The knight nodded. “That girl was here, but she left a couple minutes ago,” he said. Maria thanked the knight and went back outside. She’d just missed Alicia. That meant she still had to be nearby.

  Maria started walking towards the other side of Tel’kedar. Let’s see what was Alicia thinking right now? Maria was sure it was something stupid about Elunduil. That girl was probably beside herself over this whole situation and stuck wondering what she could do. Maria stopped in her tracks. It wasn’t all too dissimilar to how Maria had been acting around Elunduil when she’d been thinking up how to approach him. She thought about the situation some more. Alicia had been avoiding everyone for four days. That was more than enough time for her to mull things over and to entertain the idea of approaching her friends again. Alicia probably needed some kind of push, or at the very least a rude awakening. Maria was more than happy to give that to her.

  She spent the next half an hour walking from building to building in Ragnarok. Alicia had to be lurking somewhere around here. She sighed as she stood in front of the tower. Her eyes darted around to the various buildings as she scanned the area. She looked past the transport building and stopped and looked back over. Hold on! What if Alicia had thought of actually trying to reconcile with the others? Maria rushed over to the transport building and darted inside. There was a small lobby on the inside where people could wait while a transport was brought out of the bay. Maria looked around. No one was here. She was about to turn and leave but decided to at least look around first. She noticed a bathroom sign over a door to the left side of the lobby and decided to look inside.

  Maria hadn’t expected to find anything but her heart skipped when she entered the restroom. Alicia was standing there with her back turned towards Maria. She opened her mouth to call out to Alicia and hesitated. Alicia hadn’t noticed her. If she backed out now she wouldn’t have to confront her. She shook her head. No! This wasn’t the time to chicken out. “Hey!” Maria called out brusquely. Alicia whipped around in surprise. When she recognized Maria she appeared shocked and unable to speak. Maria hesitated for a moment before she stepped forward. “I don’t know what you think is going on, but avoiding your friends isn’t going to get you any answers.” Maria crossed her arms as she stared down Alicia.

  Alicia cast her gaze about and looked like she was struggling to speak. “Look there isn’t anything going on between me and Elunduil. He doesn’t even see me that way so…” Maria trailed off. Bitterness welled up within her but she couldn’t deny the truth. “Look what happened was a misunderstanding on my end. It won’t happen again but you can’t just sit by his side and hope for something to happen. You have to make a move before someone else snatches him up.” Alicia looked taken aback for several moments. Her mouth formed an ‘o’ shape. It seemed like she understood what had happened. “I-I see. I guess I jumped to conclusions,” Alicia stammered. Maria sighed. “Well you get the basic idea. Now go talk to him and stop hiding out here. He’s in the community center with the rest of your group.” Maria whipped around and briskly walked out of the restroom. She hated having to say all that stuff but now she could get out of here.

  She went to the community center and found Elunduil and the others sitting in the outside section of the building. They appeared to be engaged in some sort of holographic game of chess except the pieces were knights and elves. She approached the table and cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. “All right I cleared things up with Alicia. I’m sure she’ll be here at some point, so I’m going to bail,” she said. “Let’s go Daniel, Dave.” Maria then turned about and walked towards the exit. Daniel and Dave gave each other a concerned look and after apologizing they excused themselves and followed after Maria.

  Elunduil looked to the others. They didn’t have much choice but to wait and see if Alicia would show up. Elunduil went to the other side of the table that the brothers had been occupying. “I guess I’ll take over for them,” he said. Tim responded by moving one of his pieces on the board and grinned. Elunduil frowned. The brothers had been losing so he was at a disadvantage currently. He wasn’t particularly good at chess either. He shrugged and moved one of the few pawns up. “Heh,” Tim moved his bishop and took Elunduil’s pawn. He sighed. Yeah, he was going to lose. They continued their game and eventually Elunduil was left with a rook, two pawns, and his king. He’d managed to whittle Tim’s pieces down to the point where he was left without his pawns, but he still had his bishop, his queen, his knights and his king.

  While Elunduil was thinking of his next move he caught a glimpse of orange out of the corner of his eye and looked over to it. He saw Alicia standing by one of the many windows looking into the courtyard and she was looking over at him. Before he could do anything she turned and walked away down the hallway and towards one of the rest areas. He looked back at the chess board. It almost seemed like she’d been waiting for him to spot her. He stood up. “I’ll be back,” he said. The others were bemused as he quickly walked towards the courtyard doors. He heard Tanis shout excitedly as he took Elunduil’s place. He felt apprehensive but as he reached the doorway.

  He stepped through the doors and into the main building. Alicia had gone to his right. He walked down the hallway until he came to the path the led up into the rest area. He stopped in his tracks for several moments. This is where she’d gone. He took a breath and forced himself to walk around the corner. He didn’t spot Alicia so he cautiously walked forward. Along the hallway there were several doors that led to individual rooms that one could sleep in. Further ahead and up the stairs the walls were lined with sleeping pods that one could put themselves into. Elunduil headed up the stairs and looked around the room with the pods. He didn’t see Alicia and there wasn’t really anywhere for her to hide unless she was in one of the pods.

  He decided that it was a bust and walked slowly back down the stairs to return to the others. When he reached the bottom of the steps he saw Alicia’s friend, Stephanie waiting for him. “Hello, Elunduil!” she said. “I’m afraid the princess is in another castle.” Elunduil frowned at her. “Really, do you know where that meme comes from?” he asked with a deadpan expression. Stephanie nodded and appeared a bit embarrassed. “I wasn’t sure you’d recognize that one. You did say you never played those games,” She said. Elunduil shrugged. “Don’t tell anyone else! Anyway Alicia is having me relay a message for her.” Elunduil’s interest was piqued. “I’ll only say this once so listen closely.” Elunduil nodded and Stephanie relayed Alicia’s message to him.

  By the end of it he was taken aback. “That Maria girl was kind of rude though. She just barged into the restroom while Alicia was talking to me through the stall … Wait why I’m I telling you all that?” Stephanie appeared flustered and Elunduil shrugged. “I don’t know. People seem to trust me?” he replied. Stephanie shook her head and left while muttering to herself.

  As soon as she left the hallway Elunduil practically raced back to the others. “What the heck happened? Did a creepy hand rise out of the toilet and ask you for toilet paper?” Tanis asked when Elunduil returned. He shook his head and told them about Stephanie’s message. Tanis rose to his feet. “Well we’ve got to go then! Tim call your mom for a ride!” Tim frowned at Tanis. “Why not call your parents?” he asked.

  “Because you live closer! Actually Elunduil call your mom you live the closest,” Tanis said. Elunduil n
odded and they hurried back to Tel’kedar so they could leave Meridias. Felras pointed out that they were already running low on time as they entered the portal and returned to Earth.

  Elunduil made a beeline to Mr. Elden who was at the front desk and asked him if he could use the phone. “Of course Elunduil! You’ll have to step over here,” he replied. Elunduil went to the other side of the counter and saw a till underneath the desk as well as a stool nearby. He was surprised that Mr. Elden wasn’t sitting on it but he didn’t have time to worry about it. He picked up the phone and dialed home. He awkwardly explained that he needed picked up and taken somewhere else. He didn’t disclose all the details but when he put down the phone he gave the others a thumb up. The group waited outside in the shade where it was cool. A few minutes later Elunduil’s mom pulled up in the parking lot and the group piled into the car and were on their way to where Alicia was waiting. He could only wonder what Alicia had in mind as they drove down the streets to their destination.

  ***

  Joel was training out under the blistering afternoon sun with Ashblade. Normally he would’ve questioned the man’s sanity however they were training in a new bodysuit that was designed to keep them cool in the heat and warm in the cold. “Why are we just now using these?” Joel had complained to Ashblade when he’d first brought out the new suits.