Yunara, Kailu, and Manuel stepped into a seedy bar thick with the smell of the spiced cigars that Yunara was beginning to loath.
She crinkled her nose as the potent smell forced itself up her nostrils. "The elusive and wise scholar is supposed to be here of all places?"
The monkey hopped unto the table of an unsuspecting couple that had no idea that an orangutan had placed himself right in the middle of their meal. "He didn't think the Aracs would come to look for him in a place like this. No self-respecting Lord or Lady of renown would be caught dead here."
"By the looks of the bartender,being caught dead certainly looks like a possibility," Manuel remarked, looking at the gruff man behind the bar cleaning out a glass with enormous hands. And Yunara was almost sure that he had a knife hanging at his belt.
"There he is!" The monkey leaped from the table he sat at and pointed at a man that was sitting at the back corner of the bar, laughing loudly with some men at the table with him.
"That's him?" Manuel asked.
Yunara could see why he was dubious. He was dressed in a brown robe and looked to be in his thirties, a mug filled with beer in his hand as he slammed his table in laughter. His wavy charcoal hair was a disheveled mess. A large, crooked nose hung over a fair amount of stubble that covered his chin in a way that made Yunara wonder if he even bathed recently. He didn't look like a scholar by any definition of one.
When she noticed the monkey didn't answer, Yunara turned to the table he was sitting on only to find that he'd disappeared.
"Where'd the monkey go?" Kailu asked.
Manuel sighed. "I suppose that means we're on our own now."
He lead them as they approached the loud drunkard in the corner of the bar.
As he didn't even seem to acknowledge their presence, Manuel cleared his throat. "Excuse me."
Glazed eyes drifted over to Manuel. "Oh, are you talking to me? How can I help you?"
"Are you Shi'ran Dul?"
The man snorted, turning back to the equally intoxicated men at the table with him. "I have never heard of him."
The other men erupted in laughter, Yunara crinkling her nose again at the smell of alcohol mingled with spiced cigar on their breath, an even worse smell than the cigar on its own.
"We don't have time for this," Manuel demanded. "If you come with us, we can talk about it in a more secluded environment."
"I do not know who it is you are looking for, but I am not this Shi'ran Dul you seek."
Kailu sighed exasperatedly and snatched the silver bell from Yunara's bag and rang it. "Tell him we're telling the truth!"
The monkey faded into existence on the table. "It's true, Shi'ran. They are the ones you have been waiting for."
Shi'ran didn't appear to acknowledge the monkey, but then stood from his seat. "Not so loud, not so loud." he looked around, then said in a lower voice, "Maybe I do know of this man that you're looking for, but we'll have to talk about this outside."
One of the men at his table frowned. "Gehn, you actually know who they're talking about?"
"Yeah, it is starting to ring a bell. Don't worry, I will be right back, fellas."
The man shrugged indifferently, chugging down the contents of his mug rather than care, it seemed.
Shi'ran took them outside of the bar and into the torchlit streets, the monkey following after them this time.
As soon as they were outside, he straightened his back, the glaze in his eyes leaving immediately. "Is what Kokl says true? Are you three the Chosen?"
His sudden change in demeanor startled all of them. "Kokl?" Kailu asked.
"The monkey. You see him, don't you? He lead you to me."
"Y-yes," Yunara answered. "We came here looking for you."
"It's about time! Do you have any idea how long I've been coming to this bar every day, pretending to like the people there and acting drunk just to stay hidden?"
Kailu's mouth fell open. "That was all an act?"
"Of course it was! I couldn't very well hide under my actual name or residence, could I?"
"What happened that made you have to hide like this?" Manuel asked.
"The Aracs somehow discovered who I was and came after me relentlessly." He looked around, as if there were someone watching them now. "Even now, I question the safety of talking out here in the open. Come. We will talk in the house that I am renting out at the moment. It's not far from here."
Shi'ran took them to a small building that was hardly anything to speak of, much less call it a home. It was a narrow stone house with small windows, and was one of many on the block. He took them up the stairs that lead to his front door, taking out a key and opening it to let them inside.
"It's been so long since we've been able to talk, hasn't it, friend?"
"Yes, much too long, Kokl. Thank you for watching my home for so long." He took a brush from a drawer and started brushing his wild hair into a neat style. "As a scholar, I've always made it my business to study new things. I've explored places all over the world in search of wisdom. In my research, I found ancient tomes on creatures that the mortal eyes was incapable of seeing without help. Soon, I discovered more and more history regarding the Unseeables, and was amazed by what I found.
"Around that time, there was a group of people forming in Ecencia that were learning about the same thing. To further my knowledge on the subject, I went there. That was when I learned of a woman named Aznia who was leading more and more people to do the same."
Manuel's eyes went wide. "My mother."
"Is she? I've heard she was a very remarkable woman. By the time I was joining the movement she started, she was already dead. But the impact she made was enough to keep it going. The people she was connected to asked me to continue my research on their behalf so they could learn more about what our society used to be like when we still communed with the Unseeables.
"Then recently, I was approached by the Ancient Ones themselves, and they told me that I had been Chosen. I'll never forget the experience. 'You have been chosen, but you are given the option to choose,' they'd said. I chose to help them, and everything went downhill from there. It wasn't long after that that I was attacked on a constant basis by Dark Ones, mostly at night when I was home alone." He shook his head. "I've read fantasy books on fighting monsters, but I never thought I'd actually have to do it! Anyway, I started hiding out here to finally lose my pursuers. I learned that most everyone I was in contact with was a member of the Aracs and wanted me dead."
Kailu crossed her arms. "So now that we're all together, what do we do now?"
Shi'ran frowned. "What do you mean? There are only four of us here."
"The last member is injured," Manuel answered. "He's waiting for us at an inn a good hour away from here, resting."
He frowned even deeper. "So you found me last? Oh, wonderful. No hurry to find me or anything," he said as he fumbled around in a drawer in the corner of the room looking for something. "I've only been hiding from the Aracs on a near constant basis on my own all this time is all." He finally pulled out a pair of glasses, fogging them up with his breath and cleaning them with a small cloth before pushing them up on his face, completing his transformation from a dead beat drunkard to a nervous bookworm in mere minutes. If nothing else, he was a good actor.
Kailu rolled her eyes. "Oh, quit complaining. We came, didn't we? Anyway, my question. What now?"
The air glittered as Lorenn appeared in the middle of them. "The Ancient Weapons. Do you remember Fernando telling you about them, Yunara and Manuel?"
"Yes, but he didn't give us many details," Yunara pointed out.
"If Manuel's been reading his father's diary often enough, he might know about the mission his parents embarked on long before he was born."
Manuel frowned. "Yes. But as far as I could see, he didn't actually describe what their mission actually was."
"He was instructed not to record in any given place the exact specifications of their mission, or they would risk the danger of their enemies learning of it. As you already know, the Ancient Ones did a similar thing centuries ago and locked away the Dark Lords by selecting another five as their Chosen and giving them powerful weapons that enabled them to lock away the beasts. These Weapons were then sealed away in hidden sanctuaries. When the Dark Ones used the Aracs to get rid of the sanctuaries, the Weapons were lost to the Aracs, and though there were seals that prevented the Aracs from accessing the great power of the Ancient Weapons, they kept the Weapons closely guarded by Arac agents that passed down the task of keeping the Weapons out of our hands for generations. At least until Aznia and her husband Manuel IV were requested by the Ancient Ones themselves to get them out of the hands of the Aracs and hidden away until the day that they were needed. I wasn't apart of their missions, but I understand they were very cunning, your parents, Manuel," Lorenn added, her wings fluttering in excitement. "Oh, to have seen them! Your mother's daring and your father's wise plots! I've heard they were truly a sight to see."
Yunara noticed Manuel's features softening, and her heart warmed at his being able to see what brave people his parents were through the stories of others. She wasn't sure if he had the opportunity to get to know them in life, but he was lucky to now have so many people to give testimony to them. She knew if she had an account of her parents' good deeds the kind of pride that would swell in her heart. Though she didn't know the experience for herself, she could feel through him the happiness Lorenn gave him with that small reassurance.
"So where are these Weapons now?" Shi'ran asked.
"They hid them with the Imanu. One named Darius. As I'm sure Shi'ran can tell you, the Imanu can be difficult for mortals to come in contact with."
"You mentioned that," said Manuel. "Difficult how?"
Kokl cackled in a mocking laugh, striding over to Shi'ran's side with the lopsided canter of a monkey and swinging himself onto his shoulder. "For one thing, unlike most Unseeables, they don't interact with your world as much." he emphasized 'your' like it was a petty thing that was beneath such creatures like the Imanu. "They more oftenly preside in the parallel zone rather than Earth or Caorfi. And then of course, communication itself can be difficult because they don't speak with the mind like the rest of us can. With all the power that resides within them, they would overwhelm mortals with their presence in your minds and potentially kill you. And unless you speak the ancient tongue, which I very much doubt, you wouldn't be able to speak with them without an interpreter."
"Of which I'd be happy to oblige," Lorenn said with a bow. Kokl shrugged indifferently, diverting his attention to picking at Shi'ran's hair instead, to which Shi'ran didn't seem to care at all.
Kailu groaned. "We've already wasted enough time coming all this way to find Shi'ran. At least the rest of us were relatively close. Where are we going to find this Darius? China, I'm guessing."
"Finding me is wasting time?" Shi'ran objected.
"Enough you two." Lorenn rolled her eyes, an odd-looking gesture on an owl. "Imanu aren't found in any given space. Not in the way you understand space to be. No Unseeble is. I can be here." She vanished.
In a heartbeat, she had reappeared on top of the table sitting in the room. "Or here." She vanished again.
Yunara jumped to find her perched on her shoulder. "Or here. Or even China in the same amount of time. Space means nothing to us. We wander about your world within a matter of instances. You have but to gain our attention and we appear."
"Then do we just call them with the silver bells like we do you?" Kailu asked.
"It's not quite that simple," answered Shi'ran, pushing his glasses up his nose. "The silver bells don't really call their attention very well. It's best to try to create an environment the Imanu would naturally be drawn to and wait for them to appear, like I've done in the porch of my own home. It would help if we knew what kind of Imanu we're dealing with. Maybe I've encountered its species before and can help you. All of the information I've gathered on the Unseeables and the Imanu is all recorded in my office at home."
Lorenn's head perked up. "Such knowledge! What a rarity you are to know so much about us! Perhaps I can help. Darius is a..." Lorenn proceeded to make noise that sounded somewhat like singing, unutterable sounds that left Shi'ran looking daunted.
"Hmm... yes. Do you have a picture?"
Manuel's eyes widened. "Maybe we do! My father's book of illustrations may have it."
Realization dawned on Yunara. "That's what those creatures were. When I looked through the book for the first time, I remember seeing creatures I'd never seen before that didn't belong to Caorfi, at least not as far as I know. They must have been Imanu."
"The book is back at the inn. When we return and rejoin Luca and Youssef, Shi'ran can help us get started with finding–"
The figure that suddenly appeared before them stopped him. "I'm afraid we've run out of time."
--
Hey all, I decided to change my updating schedule, and now I'm only posting 1 chapter a week. HOWEVER, if you want to read more, you can check out my new story, Dragon Bones -- Wedded, which will be updated every Thursday, also at 1 chapter a week.
Catch you later ;)