When Barry and Kat returned to base, they saw everyone else gathered together underneath an overhang near the lake. Sherry had probably constructed one with her transmutation magic, along with the furniture that was also placed under it. Some of them were taking seats by a round table for their awaited meeting.

  “I’m here.” Barry announced to everyone as he took a seat. “Let’s get this going underway.”

  Sherry brought out one of the two potions from her inventory, the liquid inside the vial was like a swishing bluish-purple galaxy filled with miniscule glowing motes of white light. It was very mesmerizing to the eyes of the beholder, like it came from the cosmos itself.

  Upon studying the potion with his eyes, Barry was able to make out the rarity of the item, but not the name, which was a mystery because it was referred to as “???” with yellow text color. Meaning, the rarity of it had to be higher than Heroic. This was in fact a very prized and valuable consumable to have.

  The alchemist had something to say before handing off the potion. “First, whoever we decide to drink this, you must think about the main quest and its supposed clues in order for you to glimpse into the future about it. This potion allows you to see into the future about what is most on your mind at the moment. So try not to think about something silly or unnecessary, you only have about a minute of future sight once the potion takes effect before it wears off. Understood?” Sherry wanted to clarify it to everyone how important it was for them to remain focus.

  The Nightwalkers were not able to consume the potion because it would not work for them, so that just left Barry’s group to make the decision of who gets to drink the first one.

  After a bit of thinking, Barry raised his hand. “I vote for Ron to drink it.”

  Everyone was shocked, thinking that the responsibility would fall on Barry to drink the potion. Ron was surprised and had to know why. “M-Me!? My thought was that you were going to be the one to drink it. What’s your reason for choosing me?”

  “You have illusion magic, don’t you think that you can just fabricate visual images for whatever you see in the future. It makes sense in my mind, I don’t see a reason why you can’t. It would be a huge help in making us understand what you perceived.” Barry explained, thinking that it was a pretty logical reason.

  And everyone had to agree that Barry’s choice made sense, and urged Ron to drink the first potion. To which, he agreed. “Well, I can see your point. It does make sense, alright I’ll do it.”

  Sherry then handed him the galaxy looking potion in his hands. “Remember Ron.” She wanted to reiterate. “Focus on wanting to find out more about this calamity and nothing else, we need all the information we can get. So no pressure, okay.” She said with a cheery smile that made his heart flutter.

  “Yeah, Ron.” Anna said with a smudge look. “Don’t think about anything unnecessary, only what we need to know.”

  Ron rolled his eyes, he knew that she was trying to mess with him about his crush on Sherry. “Yeah, yeah, I know how important this is…”

  He popped open the potion with all eyes staring at him. Ron then looked at Barry, who spoke to him with some encouragement. “You got this bookworm.”

  And with his task given to him, Ron gave a big, heavy sigh before bringing the vial to his lips and started chugging it. The potion tasted funny, it was fizzy when it touched his tongue, the taste was like plastic, and he couldn’t believe that such a flavor could ever exist. “Sherry…no offense…but was there no other way you could have made this taste any better…” He was gagging a bit.

  “Focus Ron!” Sherry reminded, feeling a bit embarrassed about his comment.

  The world around Ron was being to warp and bend out of place, the environment was becoming distorted as he tried his hardest to think about the answers they were all seeking. He needed to find out for everyone’s sake of what to do if they were to complete the quest and save all of Scion. His eyes began to emit an aura color similar to the cosmos in space, everyone around watched as his very eyes shifted in a mesmerizing galaxy that looked like another world was within them.

  From his perspective, Ron seemed to be drifting through space, with numerous stars twinkling all around him. It was all so breathtaking to him, he felt amazing, like it was the best feeling he had ever been in his life. ‘Answers, answers, give us something, please…’

  Suddenly, the galaxy environment he was in, started to morph into something else. He would find himself floating above a single island of paradise, the center of it was a gated castle surrounded by water connecting to the rest of the ocean outside the island. It wasn’t particularly huge, but it wasn’t small either. Ron would get a closer look at the castle after a shift in scene, and later be shown something interesting. He saw a metal hand grasping onto a luminous blue crystal prism that sparkled in the sunlight. Bodies of, what appeared to be dead aquatic beings with weapons, scattered around the area. Ron could only assume there was some sort of battle that took place.

  After being shown this vision, the scene changed into another. An ominous forest with weirdly disfigured trees and wandering wisps of white orbs floated about. Ron could see mysterious shadows roaming in the background, along with audible sounds of what could be chilling humming and laughter. Even though it was only a vision, Ron was still spooked to his stomach. He would then see thorn vines and roots similar to the ones he saw from the Nightwalker’s ruined city. A scene of a vine wrapped around a glowing green crystal prism was shown to him, as it slithered away through the mystical, haunted forest. Shadow figures of different kinds were sprawled around the area, still and unmoving.

  Another clue was shown to him, morphing the environment into a land of volcanic activity. The sky was blackened from the smoke produced by a great big volcano that was surrounded by magma and land. Ron couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw what was flying around the area of the volcano. There were wyverns soaring through the sky, swooping down and attacking what was an army of some kingdom. Drakes, four-legged creatures that were cousins of dragons, had also been spotted fighting against the army. These soldiers of this army had a malicious, dark aura that emitted from all of them. After a quick change in scene, Ron saw a soldier clutching a red crystal prism for a moment until the vision faded.

  The environment shifted again, showing Ron a tundra biome with intense weather brewing in the sky. The howls of the wind blowing around were heard, picking up whirlwinds of snow dancing everywhere. From a bird's eye view, Ron saw an abandoned village near the top of a snow peaked mountain, with raging thunderstorms brewing in the clouds above. The vision flashed, now presenting to Ron a massive ice palace with odd otherworldly beings with bluish-purple scales and flesh, ascending the mountain towards the palace. A short vision of one of these strange creatures was shown holding onto a cyan crystal prism, surrounded by corpses of monsters with snow-white fur, before ending the vision.

  And finally, Ron would see one last clue to the main quest. He was now in a darkened room with a spotlight casting its light down on a roundtable. Multiple different voices spoke out at once in this curious vision, he was only able to make out a few words from what was being said. Those words being: “Retrieve all 8 keys…world domination…defeat contestants…”

  With this final vision being brought to Ron, the environment around him began to collapse and reform back to the reality he was in. He could feel the effects of the potion beginning to wear off as his eyesight returned to normal. Finding himself once again in his chair with everyone watching him with anticipation of what he saw.

  Ron started to experience a bit of nausea from the aftermath of consuming the potion, placing a hand on his head as he tried to ease the headache he was feeling. Sherry noticed this and handed him a cooled towel with some chewing herbs to help with his discomfort. He thanked Sherry for her kindness.

  “So…” He began explaining what he saw. “There’s quite a bit to unpack what sort of visions I saw. I’ll do my best to replicate everything.” Ron flexed his hands as he was about to manifest exactly what he saw with his illusion magic.

  He reconstructed everything that was shown to him, including the sounds. Everyone pulled their minds together as they watched Ron’s vision with utter curiosity, trying to make sense of what the visions were telling them.

  It became clear to them all that their goal to stopping this unknown calamity had something to do with these keys that were the crystal prisms being taken from these mysterious beings from these different places. Only 4 out of the 8 supposed keys were shown to them so far. They could only speculate that based on the words, “World domination”, that these keys were required to achieve said feat.

  The scene about the weird vegetation spreading in an ominous, spooky forest was familiar to them all. It seemed like the same phenomenon that they witnessed during their escape from the ruined city. But not only that, the strange monsters that they saw from the tundra biome were Eviscerators, as Barry and the Nightwalkers pointed out, having encountered them before in the past.

  The 1st and last vision regarding the beings holding onto these crystal prisms were unknown to them. Regardless, this was the best lead that they could have ever asked for. Everyone praised Ron for being able to uncover the start that they needed, as well as, replicating the visions he saw.

  However, the more Ron thought about the different colored prisms, he would feel something resonating within him. He couldn’t help but think that maybe it wasn’t the first time he had seen those prisms before.

  Suddenly, something would appear to everyone that would provide them a bit more insight into what was in store for them. It was a system notification, informing them of a change in the main quest description, which was the following:

  ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

  Main-Quest

  Title: The Fall of Scion!

  Description: Clues of Scion’s great calamity have now been discovered! Travel across Scion in search of 8 crystal prism keys connected to something grand and miraculous. Be warned, you and the rest of the contestants are not the only ones seeking these prisms…

  Objective: Locate and retrieve each prism in order to progress to the next stage of the Main-Quest.

  The first location of one of the keys will be pinged on your world map. Should the prism be kept in possession for longer than 12 hours, the next prism's location will be revealed a while after.

  Time Limit: Less than 9 months

  Reward: All Contestants will receive 50,000 Gold and 100,000 Exp. The one to contribute the most will receive an ever greater reward, with the second and third receiving a lesser, yet generous, reward compared to the first place contributor.

  Penalty: Your pleasant and total eradication from existence! (?? ? ??)

  ????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

  Once everyone was finished observing the new update that was given to the main quest, they inspected their world map to see where the first key was pinged at on their map.

  Barry had not looked at the world map in a while, and was shocked to see how far he had traveled from Haglethorn, all the way to where they were at now. The Nightwalkers new home was positioned almost perfectly in the center of the map, with Haglethorn being located in the east, along with Ned’s village and Puck’s treehouse. Everything else that he saw was a fog of war, meaning he had no sight or view of any place else because he had never explored those zones.

  “For the first key, it's located out in some ocean within an island. Just like the vision Ron showed us all.” Barry mentioned, thinking about the castle that was centered within the island. “I’m not sure how we’re supposed to travel that far without any viable transportation, let alone traverse through the ocean aside from swimming there. That would be ridiculous.”

  “And not only that, based on how the quest description is worded; us, the contestants, are not the only ones trying to retrieve these prisms.” Anna added. “And those people or things that were holding onto the different colored keys, are our competition, and we can’t let them have those. It’s clear that they’re the ones that could potentially cause the fall of this world.”

  With the position of the first key being shown worldwide, everyone there knew that they could not waste any more time, since these villains were probably racing to obtain it.

  That was when Calista had a solution to their problem. “Transportation will not be an issue, so don’t worry about that. As for the rest of the keys, locations, I will thoroughly search the lands for the rest of the locations before they are revealed to everyone. That way, we’ll be one step ahead from these sinister beings.”

  The witch then walked up to Kat and handed her a small silver bell with peculiar engravings and skull designs. “Here, you may hold on to this. Ring the bell after this meeting, and speak with him. Let them know that his services are needed once more by me.”

  Kat was nervous being entrusted with something by Calista, but accepted it. “Y-Yes, ma’am, thank you.” Calista nodded, she could sense that Kat probably looked up to her as a role model.

  Barry’s group wondered how the bell would provide them a means of transportation, they could only assume that it was magical. However, based on Barry’s perception, he could see that the bell was a Rare item with the name being considered, “Bell of Wakening Spirits”.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  ‘Transportation via spirits? That sounds interesting.’ Barry was amused by the item.

  Sylvia raised her hand high, having something to say to the group. “Hey, soooo, you guys will probably need some help over there at that paradise- I mean, mysterious and not-so-gorgeous, castle in the ocean. Which just so happens to be the Ichor Ocean. Do you think maybe I could join in on your travel there?” She had a cheeky grin on her face, clearly looking a bit too happy to volunteer.

  Her brother crossed his arms and looked at Sylvia, rolling his eyes. “Sylvia, just admit that you mainly want to go because it’s like a vacation for you.”

  “Nuh-uh, that’s not true at all.” She denied, shaking her head. “I want to go because I know how important securing these keys are, don’t you think they’ll need the help of a vampire by their side?”

  “Hmmm…” Edward did not believe her at all, despite her innocent appearance, he knew underneath her facade was someone that desperately wanted to take this opportunity for a good time at a place of paradise. “Lies, you can’t hide the truth from me, sister. Buford, will you go in her place?”

  “W-What!?” Sylvia was shocked, she couldn’t believe her brother was refusing her to leave with Barry and his group.

  Buford wasn’t a fan of travelling across the ocean, something about being trapped in the middle of nowhere but water, didn’t sit right with him. Still, this was a serious matter that could not be ignored, and he was willing to step up to the plate. He scratched the back of his neck and replied with a bit of uneasiness. “I suppose I can for this journey, I would have rather travelled to any of the other places we saw. I only hope we’re not stranded…”

  “Perfect.” Edward smiled, as he watched Sylvia pout in frustration with her back turned.

  “It’s settled then.” Calista clapped her hands together. “I will try to locate the places where the rest of these prisms are, by scrying through my crystal ball. Buford will join Barry and his group to retrieve the first known prism, and everyone else stays behind to continue to help build the camp. Of course, once I’ve made sure I’ve found the right places, I will inform everyone and send Edward and Sylvia on their way to retrieve it. That way, we’ll be a step ahead from our enemies.”

  And so that was the plan they all agreed on. With the meeting coming to a close, everyone left to either prepare for their journey to the first prism, or continue fortifying their base.

  Barry remained in his chair to message Ned first, before Oswald, about what they had discovered from using the potion of future sight. He informed Ned of how him and his team were already planning on heading over to collect the first key, and to wait on standby till they knew the specifics of where exactly the rest of the keys were from one of the witches of the Nightwalkers.

  And almost on cue, Sherry would shout with joy. “G-Grandpa! He messaged me back! He’s alive!” The sudden notification from her grandpa, made her click on the message without a second thought. But the smile on her face would slowly be wiped away. “Wait…what?”

  Barry then received a message from Oswald shortly after. He was curious what sort of message Oswald would send his granddaughter to have a look of worry. His message read the following:

  “Barry, I am alive, nothing can keep this old geezer down! After you all evacuated, the strange vegetation began to expand even further, and I had to find my own way out through the swarm of plant monsters. But worry not, I managed to burrow my way out back to the surface with my magic…however…when I resurfaced, the city of Haglethorn was in shambles.

  I provided as much assistance as I could to defend the city and save lives, but these vicious freaks of nature proved to be too much even for me. The vegetation spread like a contagious plague and overwhelmed Haglethorn…we had failed the event quest that was given. Mother nature now has control over the city. And so, I abandoned the city with my life intact.

  So please, let me know what you learn from the consuming the potion of future sight. I have seen the update of the main quest and hope that you all have seen it too. Message me back as soon as possible.”

  After reading Oswald’s message, he replied back with the same information he provided Ned. But also, gave Oswald the coordinates to Ned’s location from his map, so that they could reunite and be ready when the time came to retrieve the next keys that Calista located. The two geezers agreed to meet with one another, they sounded excited to start another adventure with each other for one last time.

  Sherry kept communicating with Oswald a bit more about what had happened so far since they escaped through the portal. Barry would leave from his seat to join up with his group, last seeing them heading out to a different area nearby.

  The silver bell that Calista had given to Kat was now being rung by her. Sparkles of silver glitter evaporated in the air while producing a wailing sound of unintelligible voices. Nothing happened after ringing the bell. “Was something supposed to happen?” Luna asked, puzzled.

  “I don’t know…maybe I need to ring it a couple more times?” Kat assumed and started ringing the bell a bit more aggressively, hoping for a different outcome. The ominous voices continuously wailed non-stop as she did so.

  Eventually, after about a minute, something strange occurred. By magic, a gray mist manifested around them in a swirling circle, nearly touching their feet. Within this gray mist appeared a large shimmering figure that lapped around the group, they all huddled together, unsure of what this being was.

  Their answers would soon be given when the mist finally dispersed, revealing to them what it was. A white spectral carriage drawn by two ghostly horses emerged, galloping around them one last time before coming to a halt. Everyone was astonished to see a couple of real spirits in person, especially one that they could see.

  “Um…” Luna pointed to the empty driver’s seat. “I’m guessing someone needs to drive the carriage? So, does anyone know how to drive or-”

  Immediately, the carriage door slammed open, cutting Luna off from finishing her sentence. “An’t no one is driving this carriage besides me! Now who in the underworld are you folks, and who is ringing my bell so damn much!” An irritated voice shouted out from the carriage.

  Stepping down from the vehicle was a ghostly man in a ranger outfit wearing a flat cap that had a feather sticking out from the side. A spectral raven was perched on his shoulder, stretching out its wings. The ghost man seemed to be in an irritable with the way he approached them, the group was a bit uneasy at the sudden appearance of a spirit eyeing them up and down.

  And when he got to Kat, who was showing obvious signs of nervousness, he gave her the stink eye for a couple of more moments as he looked at the bell in her hand. “So, it was you!” He shouted at her, causing Kat to flinch. “You know how annoying it was for me to hear that shit blasting in my ear!?” His raven also cawed in her face.

  Kat responded instantly, with an apology. “N-n-no sir! I-I’m sorry-”

  “I felt like going on a rampage! I thought to myself, ‘Finally, after so many years, Calista calls for my services once more. Maybe she requires the assistance of me and my beautiful animals’, but no!’ ” He slammed his foot down, giving Kat another scare. “I come here and find a group of children playing around with something they know nothin about! So how did my bell end up in your childish hands!”

  Everyone could see that Kat was too scared to speak to the spectral being, and so Ron stood up in her place. “Um, Mr.Ghost sir, we-”

  “That’s, ‘Abe, the Greatest Animal Whisperer of All Time’, and you would do well to address me as such.” Abe corrected Ron with a bit of sass in his voice, his bird repeated the title he referred to himself as.

  Ron gave an awkward smile before responding. “O-Okay, well Abe, we-”

  Abe’s raven cawed at Ron just as Abe looked at Ron with an irritable expression. “No, no, no, you gotta say the whole thing! Exactly as I said, now try again.”

  “Alright, Abe the Greatest-” Ron was then interrupted by Anna.

  “Yeah, no, we’re not calling you that every time. It’s ridiculous.” Anna told Abe, standing her ground in a firm tone.

  The animal whisperer snapped his fingers and groaned. “Damn it, no one ever agrees to call me by that title…” He glanced back at the bell and at the group one more time, he was curious where Calista was. “Well, anyone gonna tell me why I’m here?”

  “Calista’s busy right now, she’s the one that handed us your calling bell.” Barry chimed in. “She told us you could provide transportation to wherever we need to go. In short, we’re trying to save the world and need to make haste to our destination before things get worse.”

  Abe rubbed his chin, thinking about Barry’s words. “Save the world, huh…sounds pretty important…what kind of trouble are we talking about?”

  Barry continued. “All we know is that we need to retrieve 8 keys that are crystal prisms, scattered across Scion. One of them we know the exact location, but it’s out in the Ichor Ocean. Calista told us to speak to you, believing you were someone reliable for the job.”

  A slight grin formed on Abe’s face, he paced around the group. “Reliable, huh? Well, I don’t mean to brag, but I AM the best there is when it comes to transporting folks from point A to point B lickety-split. So if Calista told y'all to ask me for my services…” He stood tall and proud in front of his carriage, crossing his arms with a cocky grin. “You’ve found the right cabman for the job!” His bird flapped around his owner before landing on his hat, looking confident itself.

  Barry’s group was relieved to know that Abe was willing to be their cabman for their mission. But Luna had a question about his carriage. “Can your carriage fit all of us in it? I don’t mean to sound rude, but it looks kinda small?” It did appear to only contain four people at a time.

  Abe laughed. “Listen here little lady, don’t let the exterior fool you from what’s really inside. There’s plenty of space in my carriage. It’s basically a home inside, you’ll see when you step inside. And if you're curious about how we’ll traverse the ocean, just you wait. You’ll see all the neat bells and whistles that my baby has in store, not to mention my lovely animals fit for swimming.”

  With her answer given, Abe went up to his horses to check on them. “If y’all have any more questions, feel free to ask. Just let me know when everyone is ready, and we can get to moving in a jiffy.”

  Puck and Luna went up to Abe, curious to know a bit more of what kind of animals he had with him. Abe would then summon a couple of small animals like groundhogs, ducks, and chipmunks, allowing the two to play around with them for the time being.

  From that point on, everyone took their time to make sure they were prepared for their journey to the island of paradise. Sherry told the group that she was going to stay behind and work on their new home, this news made Ron feel a bit upset because he was hoping to get to know her more but understood, knowing that it would not be the last time they would see each other.

  “Barry.” Edward called out to him. “I’d like to have a word with you before you leave.”

  The two walked up to the lake, Edward took a seat on the ground staring out and spoke. “Barry, before we were thrown into this game from the gods. Was there anyone that you cherished so much, yet lost because of something tragic?”

  The question sounded like it could be personal, based on Barry’s thoughts. He himself did not know how to answer Ed’s question, because he couldn’t remember much of anything from his past life since the gods took that away. “No…I can’t say that I have. Why do you ask?”

  Edward paused for a moment, he was hoping that Barry would be able to empathize with what he was about to tell him. “I ask you this question because…I was in love with Sherry’s mother, Ivoria before she had died by the Chakarie.”

  Barry was surprised to hear this fact, his thoughts ran around till he made a crazy conclusion. “Really? So then…are you trying to tell me that…you’re Sherry’s father?”

  A great big chuckle sounded off from the vampire, he was actually predicting Barry to make such an assumption. “Haha! Jumping right into a wild conclusion are you, Barry? Well, the truth is…no, I am not. However…” His expression turned into sadness. “I would have really liked too, if only I had met Ivoria sooner, then maybe she wouldn’t have been gone from this world. And Sherry would still have her mother…”

  Listening to Edward was all that Barry could do for him at the moment, he wasn’t sure how to comfort Edward with his guilt of not being able to save Sherry’s mother.

  Edward continued. “I never confessed my love for her, but at times it felt like she shared the same feelings I did. And the last time that I found her, was when we agreed to meet each other somewhere at night in the city, she told me that she had something important that she wanted to tell me.” His voice got darker, reminiscing what had happened. “I wondered what it could have been at the time, I was surprisingly nervous for some reason…then disaster struck.”

  He paused for a moment before speaking again. “What a fool I was, I had taken my sweet time getting together some flowers for her, while asking Sylvia repeatedly if I looked presentable for Ivoria. When I arrived at our agreed spot, I found Ivoria in the most peril state that I never thought would be possible. She was injured and bleeding on the side of an alley, there were Chakarie that were chasing her down, the ones being the cause of her pain. Outraged, I showed no mercy for those sick monsters and quickly tended to Ivoria’s wounds…she…smiled when she saw me…placing a hand on my cheek before leaning in for a kiss…succumbing to her wounds…” A single tear fell down from Edward’s cheek. “I was too late…”

  Edward then pulled out a sealed envelope with a pink wax stamp on it. “She had this on her when we were planning to see each other…” He then handed it to Barry.

  Barry opened the envelope, inside were two glistening rose rings and a love letter. He read the letter, which basically proved Edward’s suspicions about Ivoria wanting to be with him. It was supposed to be a surprise confession in the form of a letter, asking if he would have liked to marry her and start a new family with Sherry. “Edward…” Barry was speechless, he didn’t know what to say.

  “I don’t want to lose Sherry, like I had lost her mother. And now that we are being treated as toys for these wretched gods, Sherry is put into even more danger. I haven’t even shown or told Sherry about her mother’s letter to me. I don’t want to lose her, Barry. For Ivoria and my sake, I will do everything I can in my power to ensure she lives a happy life.” Edward was determined to make it so, to rid any and all troubles that would burden Sherry.

  Barry could feel the energy Edward was giving off, it was similar to how he felt about retrieving all the memories he had lost. “Edward, I may not know what it’s like to feel loss from losing someone dear…but I can relate to the intense emotions you are feeling right now. You clearly don’t want for history to repeat themselves by potentially losing Sherry, so you are determined to do all that you can to protect her. I, on the other hand, have something that I wish to retrieve back what was rightfully mine. The gods took something that was mine, and mine alone, and it enrages me every single waking day.”

  He remembered all the intense scenarios that he had gone through before continuing his speech. “Edward, I remind myself the reason why I’m fighting to survive through this game, and it strengthens me. So I say, if you are ever doubting whether you aren’t capable of protecting Sherry, look back on past moments of happiness with her mother as your own source of strength. And don’t think that Ivoria is no longer with you…”

  Barry handed back Ivoria’s letter. “You knew what her answer was going to be, you were going to say yes, and be her husband and Sherry’s father. So even in death, Ivoria had already agreed to be with you. Channel those emotions as we go through the struggles we face, and protect Sherry with all you can. Thinking otherwise is no longer an option, don’t you agree?”

  There was a moment of pause as Edward processed everything that was being told him, but upon gathering his bearings, Edward grinned. “Barry, you may seem like a stoic sort of person, but you sure know how to get someone like me to realize how important it is to keep it together.” He rose from the ground and stuck his hand out. “Thank you, for clearing my doubts of protecting Sherry. And making me see that Ivoria is not truly lost.”

  Looking at Edward’s offer of a handshake, Barry accepted it with a firm grip, while also scratching the back of his neck. “I’m not even sure what I said sounded off as encouraging, I don’t see myself as an advice giver when it comes to things like this. But I know we can’t give in to doubt, that shit doesn’t exist in my mind. So take those emotions of yours and let it fuel your desire to accomplish what you want. There are no what ifs, only will and do. And you WILL keep Sherry safe.”

  Edward truly appreciated Barry’s words, thinking how wrong he was about Barry being a total madman. That was when Buford called out to Barry. “Hey! We’re all set to get going, let’s get to it.”

  Sherry was there with the group, wishing them the best of luck before they left. “Well, Barry.” Edward said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Your carriage awaits, and I’m sure you’ll retrieve the first key.”

  They went over to rejoin with the rest, Abe was in the driver’s seat with his hands on the reins, waiting for Barry and his team to board the carriage. Everyone promised to return back with success as they waved goodbye. While the rest of her team went inside, Anna sat next to Abe to provide directions of where to go, starting their journey.

  Upon stepping in, the others were bewildered by the space that Abe was talking about. Through the door, they entered a cozy living room with a couple of doors leading to different rooms. They did not dare to peek inside those doors unless otherwise, and instead picked their choice of seats to relax on. There were some books for Ron and Kat to read in their downtime, while Buford, Puck and Luna continued to play with the small animals that Abe summoned.

  Barry had a whole couch to himself and decided he would try to force himself asleep so that he could continue his training with Thalia inside his dreams. “I’m going to sleep, everyone. I’ll take Anna’s shift next to give Abe directions, so wake me when she decides to switch.” Everyone agreed to wake him later.

  And with that said, Barry shut his eyes and tried his best to feel sleepy. It took him about half an hour till he forced himself asleep, drifting off into his dream world to meet Thalia again for more training.