Al followed the girl, silence hanging in the air. From the way she reacted to the news of Calandra staying behind in the ruins it seemed that she was close with her.
"Calandra," Al cleared his throat, "Were you friends with her?"
The girl shook her head, glancing at the pendant at his throat.
"I could never bring up the courage to talk to her. I admired her. She saved me when a monster killed my family and helped me when I joined the sect."
Her eyes glistened, a vibrant olive green, as a tear flowed down her cheek.
"I wanted to prove myself to her and show her how thankful I was and that I would return the favor in the future. I didn't think she'd ever..."
"Hey," Al said, unsure of whether he should pat her shoulder or something. "There's no guarantee that they are dead. I mean, they were strong."
The girl sniffed but said nothing.
"Plus, the Knights wanted her alive," Al said slowly, recalling what Damen had said at the ruins.
The girl looked up, hope and determination in her eyes.
"They did?"
Al nodded, deciding to keep the fact that she was the 'Blessed Child of Kronos', whatever that meant, to himself.
"I'll find her, and pay her back for everything," the girl muttered to herself, just loud enough for him to hear her.
"I'll help," Al said, surprising himself and the girl.
"What?"
"Saving Calandra and Kuzma," Al repeated, his plan for the future becoming clearer in his head. "I'll help. I owe them my life too, and leaving like that..."
Al shook his head.
The girl looked appraisingly at Al for a moment, then grinned.
"Glad to have you," she said wiping the tears from her face and holding a hand out towards Al.
Al took the hand and shook it.
"I'm Al, by the way."
"Keira," she replied, hopping up the face of a large bolder and then extending a hand for Al to take.
Al shook his head and jumped up to the top with ease, shrugging and smiling embarrassedly at Keira's widened eyes.
"Are you from another sect or something?"
"Another sect? No, I didn't even know sects existed until recently."
"You mean you've reached this level by practicing on your own?"
"I have a teacher," Al said after a second. "...kind of."
"Oh, you have a master then. He must be a very powerful mystic to be able to train you up to this level at your age."
"She's got a good head on her, this one," Myrin chuckled fondly from his vantage inside of Al's consciousness.
"Not now," Al hissed at him, unaware if Keira could hear them or not.
"She can't hear me any more than she can hear your thoughts, I'm in your consciousness," Myrin said, sounding put off.
Al noticed Keira staring at him so he coughed and shrugged, hoping to brush past the topic.
"How old are you then?"
"16, 17 next month," Keira said, tapping the trunks of trees as the passed like Al's grandmother usually tapped fruit in the supermarket.
"Oh, we're the same age then," Al said, changing the subject as he saw her tapping the trees. "What are you doing?"
"The sect is protected by may spells, a barrier, illusions and traps. You have to know how to enter it or you'll end up wandering for years in illusions or dead."
Reaching out with his senses again, Al could indeed feel something at work, but there were so many finely woven strands of numen coming from all angles that he couldn't make head nor tails of it. He stepped closer to Keira, not eager to become ensnared in an illusion or killed by a trap.
"It's easy when you get used to it," Keira laughed, noticing Al's proximity.
"Here we go," she added, tapping the bark of another tree which looked indescribable from all the others.
In the space in-between trees ahead of them, a hole in which another reality popped into being. It was strange to behold, the edges of the hole didn't match the surrounding forests at all, yet the landscape beyond the hole merged perfectly into the landscape on the outside. Al stepped around the hole in wonder, amazed as the hole wasn't so much a 2d portal, but more of a bubble. The view he saw through it changed as his position did and, in the distance through this portal, he could see what looked like the scenery in an old renaissance painting of a Greek town.
Thousands of buildings, most supported by massive Greek columns and sporting domes or peaked roofs, were scattered over the peak of a mountain that rose up into clouds and disappeared from view. If not for the sheer number of buildings and the seemingly endless height of the mountain, it all looked similar to what Al thought the Acropolis would have looked like back in the day.
However, unlike the pearly white sheen of the marble that he had become accustomed to in movies and museums, all the buildings and statues were covered with color. Bright pastel paints and tiles adorned every inch of available space. Painted designs were scrawled up columns and massive murals were depicted on flat spaces.
Al gaped, unsure of what he was looking at exactly, there was so much to take in.
"Welcome to Olympus," Keira smiled, pushing Al through the portal by the small of his back and stepped in behind him, the portal closing with a pop behind them.
"This is-, its-" Al shook his head.
"Incredible?" Keira offered, gesturing Al to follow her.
Al nodded dumbly. The view of Atlantis Al had seen in the caves was one thing, a distant and dim memory, much of its vibrance lost, but this was truly the Mount Olympus spoken of in the myths, in front of his eyes and all around him.
"I felt the same way when Calandra brought me in," Keira said, misty eyed, looking around in melancholy.
"I have no words," Al said finally, drinking in all of the details he could.
"Well you'd better find some, because we're about to meet one of the elders here," Keira turned right, through a narrow, shaded, alleyway that opened up into a wide park with neatly trimmed hedges and a burbling fountain in the center.
The park was surrounded by buildings and the only way in or out seemed to be the narrow alleyway that Al would have missed if Keira hadn't pointed it out. At the other side of the park, a large domed building loomed over them imperiously. The outside wasn't painted with as many colors as the other buildings. The paint was merely an accent to the walls of the building. The entirety of the walls were one enormous and continuous carving.
Gnarled forests and rolling grasslands that led into deserts and oceans were carved in detail, not one spot the same as another. Ancient cities, bustling with people and activity, were dotted around as well, with people shopping in markets, driving horse-drawn carts, soldiers marching in unison, and sailors wrestling with the lines on ships all populated the carving. Animals of all sorts, mythological and otherwise, habituated the wilds. Al saw dryads singing and dancing amongst the trees, satyrs playing the pipes, a family of griffons nesting on the edge of great cliffs and even a dragon, flying high above the grasslands. Al could stay there for hours looking at the carvings and still not even come close to seeing everything.
Keira stepped inside the doorway, which surprisingly lacked any doors. It was just a massive arched opening to the inside of the building. As Al followed her inside, their footsteps echoing on the cold marble and granite floors, he gaped at the inside of the dome which had gargantuan statues of the gods looking down on any inhabitants of the room. Each statue was as big as the woman from the Statue of Liberty and each were crafted using what appeared to be precious metals and other materials that could only be magical in nature. Their eyes seemed to follow Al as he followed Keira to the center of the room.
"Well well, Keira, back so soon?" An articulated female voice called out, drawing Al's attention away from the statues.
A tall woman, with long, wavy, gray hair that was pulled into a bun. For her clothing, she wore a shawl around her neck, a simple blue garment that she wore over pure white robes, the folds as crisp and clean as a statue. The woman had a calm demeanor and held herself in a way that added to Al's original impression that this woman was elegant, regal, and used to being in a position of power.
"Madam Eleanor," Keira intoned, bending her knees and giving a painful looking curtsy.
"How many times must I remind you, widen your stance and place one leg behind the other," Madam Eleanor tutted, moving Keira into the proper position. "A curtsy isn't meant to look as though you need the restroom."
Keira muttered something that Al couldn't hear, to which Madam Eleanor harrumphed in response.
"Well I don't care that the others prefer saluting. We are an institution to teach the ways of Mystics, not an army, no matter how much it may seem that way with all of our weapons training. In the past, Greek mystics were of equal standings to kings. We were honored as the children of the gods! While many of the old ways have been abandoned, the least one could do is conduct oneself with dignity."
Madam Eleanor's gaze went from looking into Keira's eyes to behind her, where she noticed Al watching this unfold uncomfortably.
"And who might you be? I don't believe I saw you during the most recent sect exam and, old as I may be, I still haven't forgotten an Olympian's face."
"Uh, I'm Al. I'm here to join the sect?"
"A sentence does not begin with an 'um' and are you telling me that you are here to join the sect or asking me?"
"I'm telling you that I'm here to join," Al repeated firmly, flushing red and feeling as if he were a student in school again for a moment.
"Now now, don't give me that look," Madam Eleanor chided, "you'll be suffering much worse that corrections on etiquette if you manage to join."
"So can he still join now, or does he need to wait until the next sect exam?" Keira asked, relieved that Madam Eleanor's attention was diverted.
"While normally he would need to wait, I'm quite intrigued, so I'll test him personally. It's not often that we see one as young as he, already at the Mana Internalization stage."
"Mana Internalization?!" Keira exclaimed.
"Is that not why you've abandoned your quest and brought him to me?" Madam Eleanor asked, hands on her hips.
Keira shook her head.
"No, and I haven't abandoned it. Saber and Yiannis are still tracking the Cyclops now. I brought him here because he said that he was being chased by the Knights of Elysion and he had Calandra's pendant."
"Oh, the Knights?" Madam Eleanor asked, eyes narrowing. "You will need to tell me everything, " She lifted a hand and conjured something that shot out of the building before Al could catch a good view of it and then turned to Al, "however that can wait until after your exam, boy."
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