RYAN continued to float through the forest at a steady pace, the trees cleared and he came to a stop. Ryan began to lower until he was standing on the ground, his vision blurry and his mind hazy. Then he heard Jasmine calling after him. He turned around to see her and Mac running towards his direction.
No, he though, they can't see me, I'm in a completely different state of existence now, on an astrophysical plane, completely intangi-
He was cut short when Jasmine backhanded him, knocking him off balance.
"You say you're going to keep watch, then the next thing I know, you're gone!" She said
"Wait," Ryan said, "You can see me?" he said feeling his body
"I think you hit him a bit too hard." Mac smirked with a yawn,
"No, I was a ghost just a second ago," Ryan said, "I floated around, then I was pulled to here." Ryan said
"What are you babbling about?" Jasmine demanded, still fuming
They looked ahead, beyond the thick vegetation before them, a large structure was visible. As they pushed through the shrubbery, they found themselves in a clearing in the forest, and standing proudly inside that clearing, was the ruins of an ancient mansion.
The three story mammoth of stone and wood and glass loomed over them, with aged stone pillars and large bay windows with worn wooden shutters, rimming the roof, were stone gargoyles and large chimneys extruded from the top. It had clearly been abandoned to nature, as it was overgrown, covered in dense jungle growth, the foundation was lopsided, as parts had given out and sunk into the forest earth, and it showed clear signs of fire damage and other structural degradations.
"What is this place?" Jasmine asked
"It can't be," Ryan said, staring in disbelief, "that's impossible."
"What?" Mac asked, "You know this place?"
Ryan walked up to it, resting his hand on a stone statue of a wolf that stood at the sides of the stone steps leading up to a porch.
"Do you remember the stories about my family?" he asked, "The Reins Tragedy?"
"Yeah," Jasmine said, "The whole Reins family had gathered for a family event, and they were attacked. Someone, or something, effectively wiped out the entire Reins house in one night. The only survivors were Stephanie… and you."
"Yeah," Ryan said, "apparently the entire family home disappeared, and was never seen again… until now."
Jasmine's eyes widened, "Ryan… you don't mean…"
"Yes." Ryan said, "This is Stormrise Manor, the lost home of the Reins family."
… )]≥( …
As they gazed in disbelief at the crumbling building, made decrepit by years of neglect and exposure to the harsh elements, Ryan was at a loss for words. This had been his home, his first home, he had seen a picture of this place once before, in Stephanie's residence back at sanctum, it had looked so inviting back then, but now…
"How did it get here?" Mac asked, "The Reins estate was in the 45th zone,"
"My dad was known as the master of spatial magik. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out." Ryan said as he looked coldly at the house, "We should leave."
"No Ryan," Mac said, "You need to go in there and deal with whatever's waiting for you. You said it called you here right?"
Ryan looked her dead in the eyes, an odd light reflecting in his electric blue orbs, "I. Don't. Want. To."
"We're already here, what's the harm in looking around?" Jasmine asked, at the back of her mind her sisters warning told her this was a bad idea, but if this house was connected to Ryan, he needed to face it, to move on. "besides, the weather doesn't look very good; better to have a roof over our heads, even if it's a crumbling one,"
As if to prove her point, the sound of thunder could be heard in the distance as the winds picked up.
"Fine," Ryan hissed,
Jasmine went to the porch and was about to open the front doors, but then, she was suddenly blasted back. Ryan caught her before she hit the ground.
"What was that?" Jasmine asked
A faint ripple in the air revealed the presence of a barrier around the entire building. Magik circuits appeared over the manor, originating from the entrance where a red sigil appeared;
"That's a blood seal!" Mac said, "the sixth script of the Salveri Codex."
Jasmine looked at the complex sigil before her, her thoughts flashing to a similar type of magik that adorned Ryan's abdomen. The life seal, the last and most powerful of all the nine scripts. It was said that only someone on the level of a grandmaster magus could master the entire codex. Just how talented was Julia Reins?
"It makes sense," Jasmine mused, "Ryan's mom was one of the most talented scribes to ever join ARGUS, it's completely possible she'd create a complex sealed barrier with with a blood lock built into it."
"The problem is that even a regular sealed barrier needs a specific key to get through it," Mac added, "a blood lock is keyed to the caster's biometric life data."
They both looked to Ryan,
"This is a Reins blood lock," Jasmine said, "so technically, anyone with Reins blood should be able to open it."
Ryan reached out his hand, and it passed right through, nothing happened.
"It's a blood lock," Mac said, "it needs actual blood."
"What is it with magi and blood?" Ryan grumbled as he pulled out Draxonn and cut his palm open, then held his bloodied hand to the seal again. This time, once his blood touched the seal, it started to unravel and when it was gone, the barrier around the house was lifted. "We're in."
The heavy doors creaked and groaned loudly as Ryan pushed them open, they weren't even locked.
As they stepped into the foyer of the massive home, the tiled floor was cracked and echoed their every step. A thick layer of dust covered everything.
"This place is amazing." Mac said
Ryan tried a light switch, unsurprisingly, there was no power, so then, using his lightning magik, Ryan was able to juice up the old bulbs in the chandelier, illuminating the room, albeit faintly.
"Neat trick?" Mac commented
"Yeah, with a bit of practice I'll never need a phone charger again," Ryan grinned
"What happened here?" Jasmine said, noticing evidence of a battle amid the general debris of decay.
"Check upstairs," Ryan ordered, "I'll check the living room."
"Who died and made you boss?" Mac asked as Ryan walked away, Jasmine puts an arm on her shoulder, "Ryan's probably going through a lot right now,"
Mac and Jasmine went up the stairs, each step they took creaked and groaned, one step even snapped underneath the weight of a foot.
Upstairs wasn't as bad. Things looked withered and aged, but it was all still mostly intact.
"What the hell went on here?" Mac asked
"From the official reports, the house's domain was breached somehow, ther house was attacked one night, Stephanie managed to get out with Ryan, but no one else was that lucky." Jasmine explained,
"It must be so hard for Ryan to be back here," Mac sympathized, "I can't even image how he feels right now."
… )]≥( …
Downstairs, Ryan was walking through the kitchen.
"Alright house," he said, "you've been pestering me to return, well here I am. And what do you have for me?"
There was no reply, Ryan grinned weakly to himself, "Of course you have nothing for me, you're just a house, an old, dilapidated house." Ryan said
He walked to the living room where the rotted remains of a shredded Christmas tree laid by the entrance. The furniture was all over the place, chairs and tables knocked over, decorations shattered across the floor, broken glass was everywhere, and there were traces of what had once been food long since rotted away. Along the walls Ryan could make out dried blood stains, a lot of violence had taken place there. He could practically feel it.
Standing there, where it all happened, Ryan figured he was supposed to feel strange about it. It was like every decision he's made in his life had all led him here, a complete circle back to his origins. However, he felt nothing.
The carnage and destruction that was present here made him wander how Stephanie was able to leave relatively unscathed.
As he wandered through the living room, his mind began to drift. He remembered things that he shouldn't, like how his moms' smile was the first thing he saw whenever he woke up. How his dad used to play with him, how Stephanie would always love to carry him around. All these memories were from his infanthood, too long ago for him to remember, but somehow, being in this house… affected him.
Then, he heard Drake again, "What is this dump? It can't be… holy crap it is." In the mirror, Ryan could see Drake in his reflection, "It's our old house. Emphasis on OLD."
"This isn't your house Drake." Ryan snapped
"But it is," Drake said, "we were both born here, given life to by the same woman."
"What do you mean, given life to?" Ryan asked
"Oh, did I say that out loud?" Drake snickered, "well screw it, I hate you, but I hate ignorance even more."
"Spill," Ryan said
"Alright, alright…"
But before Drake could speak Ryan felt a presence in the building, one that wasn't there a second ago. In the corner of his eyes he saw something pass by behind him in the mirror.
"Who is that?" Drake asked in Ryan's head
"You can sense it too?" Ryan asked
"Of course you imbecile, a monkey could sense it… oh look; one did."
Ryan ignored the vindictive voice and ran towards the source of this strange presence. He walked to the corridor, where he saw the shadow of someone leaving at the other end.
"Hey you," he called, "wait up." Ryan ran towards him.
He wasn't sure what he was expecting, maybe deep down a tiny part of him secretly wished it was his dad. That maybe his dad was alive all these years, trapped in this house.
He followed the mysterious figure into a room, but when Ryan entered, the room was empty.
"What?" Ryan asked himself
He looked around, but somehow, the figure was gone, yet all the windows were sealed shut and there was no disturbance indicating teleportation magik had been used, so it was as if the person just simply faded from existence.
"Who was that?" Ryan murmured to himself.
Ryan looked around; he appeared to be in some sort of study. The room was circular with only the doors that Ryan had come through as the entrance. Opposite that was a thick mahogany desk and office chair with a picture of Ryan's mom and Ryan which meant the study was his dads, behind the desk were large bay windows. Ringing the walls of the study were in-built book shelves, all stocked with different literature; a five volume book set on the alchemical applications of rare and common cheeses [Yes, really. Cheese], a fifteen volume set on history's most notable wars, there was even an eleven volume set on magus superstition.
Ryan whistled when he looked at the vast collection of books around him, "Man, my dad loved to read."
He looked around at all the books, and something didn't seem right. In this room, among all these books, he had this nagging sense that there was something amiss. It kept bothering him, picking at his brain and he knew he wouldn't rest until he found it out.
Along one bookshelf, he noticed a small sky blue notebook, hidden among thick indigo encyclopedias, barely noticeable. Obvious camouflage, but why?
As he approached the book, he knew something big was about to go down. He gingerly pulled the book out of its place with his index finger.
The book fell onto the floor… nothing happened? Nothing kept happening for the five seconds Ryan looked at the book, then, he picked it up. The pages seemed to be stuck together. Why hide a book no one could even open? As Ryan holds the book, the cut on his hand bleeds onto it and that's when something happened.
… )]≥( …
Jasmine and Mac were still upstairs when the entire building trembled, dust rained down on the two of them and they could hear a commotion coming from downstairs.
"What has that idiot done now?" Jasmine asked
"C'mon, let's go check it out." Mac urged as they walked out of what appeared to be a nursery, where the faded evidence of some sort of ritual was found around the crib.
They rushed down the stairs to the study, where Ryan was standing in front of a staircase leading down.
"Ryan, what is that?" Mac asked
"Does my surprised expression not indicate my lack of understanding why this staircase just came out of a book?" Ryan asked
"Wait…" Jasmine said, "this staircase came out of a book?"
"Yes, as soon as I opened the book, it flew to the floor and became this." Ryan said gesturing at the massive staircase before them.
"We need to get down there." Jasmine said
"I'm sorry," Ryan said "did you not hear the part about it coming out of a book?"
"No, but I'm curious." Jasmine said, "That is dimensional layering magik, high level space-type magik. First the use of one the Salveri Codex, now this? Plus…" Jasmine was almost about to tell Ryan he had a life seal on him, she didn't know how he'd react so she opted to not tell him.
"Plus, what?" Mac asked
"Never mind," Jasmine said, "besides, if your family went through the trouble of securing this basement that badly, there must be something we can use inside, we should check it out."
Ryan looked like he was about to object, but then he shrugged, "alright, fine."
The three of them proceeded down the mysterious steps into the unknown that lay ahead, all-the-while oblivious to the fact that miles away, a mysterious pursuer was on their trail, stalking ever closer to its prey.