"So, that's pretty much what I came up with," I explained, taking out the journal from the shelf and handing it to Althea.
She took it and looked it over. While she was doing that, I took it upon myself to add a few more things to my spreadsheet.
Yes, I made a spreadsheet: don't question me.
During the hours my sister was pretty much ratting us out to the enemy; I'd practically turned this place upside down looking for clues while organizing everything along the way.
"So far, I've gathered that the person who wrote this journal had a major role in the creation of the Golem. The Golem was a machine that was supposedly going to end the war between the Annferd and Glorian Kingdoms. Unfortunately, due to the lack of a suitable power source, they weren't able to get it to function properly. So they held a meeting to decide how to proceed from there, then a guy named Duke Maris convinced the King, your Dad, to summon the heroes, us, to power the Golem," I rattled on, hanging the spreadsheet to the wall.
I took a few more sheets of paper from the stack on the table, then used my trusty pencil to scribble down a few more notes. While researching, I discovered a lot more things about this world. For example, why Annferd and Glorian didn't get along too well, which honestly is kinda idiotic, but predictable. As they say, you're not you when your hungry. It's quite impressive what you can do when your life depends on it.
"Knowing my father, the person who wrote this is most likely dead; the thing I'm curious about is this gate he speaks of. What is it exactly?"
"It's a portal," I answered
"Portal?"
"Yes, a type of creation that can teleport a thing or person from one place to another. The gate was one of the creations that inventor built. He left one to help us escape."
"I see, he must've been a great inventor. I wonder how many runes he had to gather to create such a thing," Althea mumbled, placing the journal on the table and fiddling around with the potions.
I was about to hang up my new notes when I stopped. Right, runes, there wasn't much information about them.
I turn to Althea, "Say, what exactly are runes?"
Althea placed the potion back where it was and explained, "Runes are stones that are used to power technology."
"There's technology here?"
"Well, there aren't many rune mines in our territory, so our country doesn't have many means of industrialization."
"Oh, okay, I get it, but uh, there's one tidbit that doesn't line up."
"And that is?"
"Well, there's no mention of Runes being used to build the gate or Golem," I say, flipping through the inventor's journal.
"What?" Althea said, clearly confuddled by my words, "How is that possible? How did this person manage to create these inventions and make them work without Runes? It doesn't make sense."
"If I were you, I'd be confused as well, but unlike you, I've done research," I explained, tossing the journal over, "It was quite an interesting read."
She caught it and flipped through the pages with an astonished expression. Phuong came over and read with her.
"So you found all this out in just a few hours?" she asked
"Yes."
"And here I thought, you just slept all day," she scoffed
"You'd be surprised how much I get done in a few hours, unlike someone," I jeered.
Phuong frowned, and rolled her eyes in annoyance, "I hate you."
"Love you too, my darling sister," I teased, always nice to take a jab at Phuong once in a while.
"Anyway, instead of sitting around, let's start planning. You did say you'd help us, didn't you?" I scowled while glaring at Althea.
Althea glared back at me, "Of course. I keep my word," she answered, putting the book down and taking a look at my wonderful spreadsheet.
Phuong also took a look at my hard work. Listen, this spreadsheet took entirely too long to make and too much of my sanity was lost, the least I can ask for is for it to be appreciated. I walked beside Phuong, hanging up more notes.
Phuong turned to me, "Minh, since you're the smart person, I'll leave the planning to you," Phuong said before stepping back to sit on the table.
Typical.
-------------------------------------------------------
So uh, I've been sitting here for the past, whatever time it is right now, and watching these two plan.
Why am I not helping? Because I don't want to, and I'd probably set something on fire if I did.
As I watched Althea and Minh plan, I decided to read the book that Minh found.
I flipped through the pages, noticing all of Minh's notes and doodles throughout, I smiled to myself. Guess that habit still hasn't changed either.
I kept reading, there was this weird section with symbols. It was pretty cool. I stopped at an example page. On the page, there were written symbols, It looked like a page from a spellbook or something with confused cat drawings drawn on the margins.
Judging from those, Minh had no idea what these symbols meant. At first glance I didn't either; but then, I noticed something. These symbols looked like Greek and fancy looking English merged together?
How did I know this? Because I did the same thing when writing incantations for my Wattpad stories.
Cringe times those were.
I looked closely at the letters to try and decipher what they meant. The first symbol was a fancy F and so far the rest was Greek.
I held out my hand and recited what I thought the text said, "𝔉ιρε."
Hold on the fuck just came out of my mouth?
I look at my hand, which now has a small raging fireball in my palm, "HOLY SHIT!" I screamed.
Minh and Althea turned around.
"Aliya!" she shouted, bolting towards me, and Minh quickly grabbed a cloth and put out the fire.
He wrapped the cloth around my hand, patting it down.
"Minh, hey, calm down, I'm fine," I assured
"Phuong, you literally almost burned your hand off, what the fuck do you want me to be calm about?!" Minh yelled.
I took off the cloth and showed him my hand. There were no burn marks anywhere. Althea exhaled in relief, and Minh groaned, bonking me on the head.
"Ow!"
"That was for giving me a heart attack you little shit," he scowled
"Aliya, what did you do?" Althea asked, her hands on mine still shaking but less than before.
Despite their panic, an excited grin crept up my face.
"What are you smiling for? You almost died!" Minh reprimanded
"I can't help it! How can I not be happy right now?"
"Excuse me? There are a lot of reasons to NOT be happy at this moment, like, oh I don't know, almost burning your hand off!"
"Okay, okay, I get it, but I didn't get my hand burned off, did I? That should count for something," I smiled, waving my hand around
"What should count is not getting your hand almost burnt off at all! How, pray tell, did you even get fire in the first place?!" Minh scolded, firmly grabbing my almost burnt hand.
I only grinned, "Magic, that's what!"
"Magic?" Althea chimed.
"Oh, sorry, I mean that I used Graphien."
"Used what?" Minh queried, I held up the book, showing the page with the symbols, and pointing to the title, "Graphien, when I read the symbols here, the fire appeared in my hand."
"That's bullshit."
"It is not bullshit!" I argued
"Phuong, do you expect me to believe that you somehow read in another language with perfect pronunciation and tone?" Minh argued back.
I paused for a moment, you know he's got a point there. Dang it, I hate it when he makes sense. But, I won't let his logic overthrow me. This time I'll win the argument for sure.
I took in a deep breath and shot back, "Yes." nailed it.
Minh exhaled and groaned, "Fucking god, you're exhausting."
"Thank you, I take great pride in it." Winning by default isn't that good, but it's still a win, so I'll take it!
Minh rolled his eyes and snatched the book from my hand, rude but okay. "Let's say, you actually did cast an actual spell. Mind enlightening us on how you made it possible, idiotic sister of mine?" he asked looking over the text a few more times.
I ignored his jab, got off the table, took a piece of paper, and wrote out the symbols I recited on it. I hung it on the wall with all of Minh's notes. "You see, the symbols in the text are actually just fancy English and Greek letters jammed together to spell a word," I explained, writing the translation below the script, "The first symbol is F and the rest is Greek. As a whole, the script spells the word fire. So you see, when you recite the script and imagine what the spell does, then it comes into reality," I added, standing triumphantly with a grin on my face.
"Mmhm?" Althea mumbled, very confused.
Right, Greek probably doesn't exist in this world, is there? Just when I was about to explain some more, I got cut off.
"Greek is a language from our world," Minh explained.
"Oh, I see," Althea said.
Damn it, stop stealing my thunder!
"Anyway, so the script is just a bunch of different letters?" Minh asked
"Yup," I nodded
"And how do you know this?"
"You're asking a lot more questions than usual."
"Maybe because I just watched my sister evoke the spell fireball from Dungeons & Dragons like a wizard. I'm surprised I'm not raising more questions."
"Okay fair," I conceded, rolling my eyes. "So, uh, you know how I used to write Wattpad stories?"
"Yes, you forced me to read them. I'd never been so traumatized in my life."
"Okay, they weren't that bad."
"You weren't the one who was forced to read them," Minh deflected.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever; back on the subject, I used to combine Greek and English to write incantations for spells. That's how I recognized the symbols," I explained, proudly puffing up my chest.
"Oh, okay."
"Eh? try to show some enthusiasm, will you?" I pouted
"Alright, fine," Minh said, clearing his throat and sarcastically saying, "Wow, you did such a great job, I'm so proud of you."
"Not what I was looking for but good enough, I guess," I muttered, going back to Althea's side.
She smiled softly at me, "I think you're quite clever for figuring that out."
"Thanks, it wasn't really that hard anyway, no need for the praise," I said, smiling awkwardly while fidgeting with my fingers.
Minh rolled his eyes, "Alright, love birds, enough flirting, let's get back to the matter at hand."
Fuck off Minh.
Minh hands me a sheet of paper and a quill with ink. Guess I'm an assistant now. That's fine.
"Alright, so the safest escape route we know of is the portal in the garden, but due to the high security as of late, we won't be able to escape as easily," Minh explained, turning to me and Althea, "Anyone have any ideas?"
"There's a banquet three weeks from now. I could ask Eugene to loosen security in the garden. That could give you a chance to escape." Althea proposed.
Banquet? Is that why Althea's been so busy? Well, she is a princess. It makes sense for her to help out. The banquet is three weeks from now. I wonder if we'll be going. Hmm, Althea in a ball gown... wait, no, no, no, Phuong this is serious, no time for daydreaming. I sat back on the table, holding the paper and quill while Althea and Minh did the brain work.
"We'll also need supplies after we escape."
"I'll prepare rations, money, and other supplies you'll need."
"Alright then," Minh nods, stepping closer to me, "Phuong."
"Got it," I replied, my quill moving fast on the paper: at least a month of rations, weapons, clothes, money, and water. I also wrote down a few book titles I spotted in the library.
I know we won't need all that, but I would like to argue that... it would be really boring without them.
We continued discussing future plans, like what we were going to do after we escaped, where we would go - that kind of stuff.
"Okay, everyone knows the plan; we escape using the gate, we travel to a nearby town, and then we plan from there, got it?" Minh asked
"Yup," I nodded, giving a thumbs up
"Understood," Althea agreed
"Alright, looks like everyone knows their role," Minh said, "Althea will gather supplies and open the escape route, I'll make sure everything goes according to plan, and Phuong... uh, you just... try not to die."
"Thanks, I feel so encouraged," I rolled my eyes, handing the list of supplies to Althea.
With the plan in mind, we left the basement. Althea went back to the study, Minh went back to our room with a bunch of books about Graphien, and me? I decided to follow him, plus I wanted to do more magic!
As I walked towards Minh and his room.
Side Story Dated - 15
Bad Feelings
I flip through my notes while waiting for Phuong to come out of class in a skip. She stops in front of me, shoving something in my face.
"Guess who won a bet?" she beamed
"Judging by the fact that good old Jackson is currently blocking my vision, I'm guessing you?"
"You are correct, my fine gentleman! We're getting snacks today!" Phuong cheers, holding the poor crumpled bill like the holy grail.
I roll my eyes at her dumb cheering, stuffing my notebook in my bag, then stood up and left her behind as one does when they're in the presence of an annoying person.
"Hey, wait up!" she calls, catching up to me with annoying ease.
Note to self: learn how to walk faster.
We exit the school building and come to a crossroad. As we cross the street, I feel something off. It was just a second, a feeling of dread. I look to my right and my vision goes black.
I feel cold but extremely hot at the same time. All I could see was darkness, as I felt like I was sinking for some reason. As far as I knew, I was alone, with only my thoughts and the ringing headache to keep me company. After a while, I got used to it. Ignoring my numbing body, I got comfortable and prepared for slumber. Just as I was about to drift into the land of dreams, I was rudely yanked from the abyss that I had now accepted as my new home.
I opened my eyes and as I sat up, I found myself surrounded by randos.