There he was, standing right in front of one of our school's many trophy cases. Jekyll, the first Siege. He really meant it when he said we would be meeting much often. "Hey, kiddo," he greeted.
"Hey," I replied, "do you always appear to Sieges?"
He chuckled, "No. It was you who chose me from the past Sieges to guide you. Many other Sieges have had my guidance, but not all of them." he looked a bit sad.
I moved closer to him, "I am in a bit of a fix, by the way," I told him.
"Fire away," he accepted. He still kept his eyes on the trophy case. I looked at it, but I couldn't figure out why he was so fixated on the trophies. I couldn't recognize any of the names on the trophy case so if he recognized any then I wouldn't know who it was.
"Okay. So a group at my school showed me a huge scrapbook containing pictures of all their former members. At first I didn't take them seriously until they got to the first picture which was a picture of Daphne. I don't know how much information they have on her, but they say she was their founder together with you. They want to recruit me into their group, but I don't know what to do about it. There are so many missing pieces. I don't know what to do," I said.
I finished explaining to him. Jekyll stayed quiet for a long time before he answered my questions. This was the longest he had ever taken to answer and I got the feeling I was not going to like the answer to this one. "As you must have guessed, I know the answer for your questions. Nothing would make me happier right now than to tell you everything and put all your suspicions to ease. But the truth is, I don't have the power to tell you the answer to your question. The only one who can answer it Ryan himself," he said.
I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Well deep down I had a feeling I would get an answer similar to this, but I hadn't really thought so. "And so to help you," he continued and I listened, "I will give you a tip to approaching him, "Since he is the one recruiting you, let him do it on your conditions not his."
I felt better after that. I could join the Purgers, but then I wouldn't engage in whatever schemes they had planned as my conditions would state. I also had to do all this without getting into trouble with Thomas.
On to the matter of how I came to be meeting the first Siege in broad day light. 'Wait, I had no dream last night,' I remembered. Normally I had dreams every night where I talked to the first Siege. It had become so frequent that it had started feeling like I never get any sleep at all. "How come I didn't dream last night?"
"Huh, oh that's only because I knew we would meet now. So you needed your energy. The training you are going through today is very straining so you needed your rest," he said.
"I don't quite follow. Dreams don't drain me enough to stop me from accomplishing a spell like this one," I complained.
"I wasn't finished," he added shutting me up immediately, "we are going to Armensia." that came as a shock to me considering I wasn't exactly in my physical body right now.
"You mean in this state," I asked him.
"Yes, you have done it before and so has your alpha. She appears capable of strong magic," he said right before a dizzy feeling took over me. I surroundings began to ripple and change violently until we stood right in the Artarak lobby. The dizziness stopped but I could feel my magic nearing its limits. The feeling was similar to when I have reached my maximum speed when I am running. The opening that lets magic flow in my gut feels like its expelling magic at a speed that could break it and there is no way for it to expel more than it is already expelling.
"Right now you are straining to keep the long distance connection from the earth Armensia. A normal artra would faint at this moment and their minds would be forced to withdraw from the endeavour for the first few tries. It takes a normal artra about five tries to get to where you are right now. It's only because of the Siege's immense magical supply that you can still be conscious right now," he explained, "follow me."
I did as he said and followed his lead as he led through the Artarak. Jeremy hadn't said anything. Come to think of it, this was the second time I had arrived here in spirit form and the Artarak's system hadn't noticed me. "Can Jeremy see us like this?" I asked.
"No he cannot. But don't worry, there's another system that does not let magic that is not ours through the premises," he said. He continued leading me through the Artarak and we seemed to be heading for the top floor. Right after we left the stairs, he turned right and faced the wall. He put his hand to the wall and a huge wooden door materialised out of thin air right in front of me. I had never seen this door before and never thought there was even a room that could fit there to begin with.
"Why haven't I ever noticed this door before?" I asked.
"That's because it can only be seen in spirit form and only if you know it is there. There is so much you don't know about this castle and the history of the artras. Each generation that realised they were not powerful enough left something that hey hoped would help the next generation to beat Travas," he explained before opening the room. The room was filled with glowing orbs of different sizes. Each time I approached on it became to shift in colour and form images and when I got even closer I could hear even the sounds that came from it. I didn't exactly understand what the orbs were showing me at first, "this room contains every message the previous artras left for the future. So use it well," he said.
We were about to leave when I noticed a enormous orb at the centre of the room. It pulsed with a different kind of magic and had a different and more powerful feel of energy to it. I moved closer to it until I was right in front of me. It never once reacted to me getting close by showing me images. I almost left feeling it was a waist when it finally shone bright white it nearly blinded me.
It dimmed and continued pulsing. I felt its magic go through me from head to toe as though it was scanning me. All this time Jekyll only watched what I was doing without telling me a thing about what was going on. The next thing I knew the orb finally began showing me something. At first it was clear that it was showing me a room similar to a study. At one side of the room was a desk with a man seated in it. No this was a boy at least two years older than me. Besides him were two girls whose backs were both turned to me talking to the boy. The girls' voices sounded familiar and they too seemed to be around the same age as the boy.
"You know we need him back Ryan. It's been too long. The …" one girl had started talking but the orb then started glitching like there was something wrong with the recording or something. I willed the point of view of the globe to change until I was staring at the boy's face beyond the girls. It was Ryan and based on the way he looked I could tell that this video was current. Turning to the two girls, I recognised them immediately as the girls who were always walking around with him. I wanted the orb to continue but then I got anxious for it to continue the more the picture got messed. The whole picture then collapsed and returned to its former white pulsing appearance and the words appeared, "Restricted access."
"That orb there," Jekyll began walking over to me, "shows you what you want to see the most. It uses events to answer your most aching question. It can even show the present, but not the future. The magic of Armensia forbids it. And as you can see, there is magic also stopping the orb from answering your question. So like Ryan said, if you want your questions answered then you join him," Jekyll explained. There was no doubt about it now.
Ryan knew something important and I also wanted to know what it was. I needed time to think this through now. I was done asking questions from other people as now I knew they would not answer me and not because they didn't want to, but it was because they couldn't. 'Well played, Ryan. Well played.'
"What is this room anyway?" I asked looking at other orbs. Some held clips of battles of the past. Some were just funny clips of the artras playing pranks on each other. Some were lectures of magic which was said not to have been written down in the books of Armensia. The orbs were endless. I soon realised that each time I saw a different orb, there was the option of bringing up of many others that were similar to it." We call this the watch room simply because we can use that big orb to watch over Armensia. We call that orb the Overseer. It's the only thing in Armensia that has the capabilities of showing you what is going on anywhere in Armensia and it is one of the secrets the artras hold most dear," he continued.
"Why is something like this a secret?" I asked. It seemed like something that wouldn't cause harm if people knew.
"There are many things the Armensians don't know for their own safety. Just imagine someone told you he had the power to see your whole past in one second. That kind of omnipotence is scary. It would mean that the artras can spy on anyone and people don't like to feel like their privacy doesn't matter. There are many other ways people can look at this. One would also…"
"I get it, I get it," I stopped him before he could start giving me examples of ways our lives would be in danger if we ever let out a secret like this. The Armensians being told that the Artras held an item that can let them see anything they want them to see sounded like a very bad thing with the way he put it.
"Okay. But you must also know. The title you were bestowed upon came from Zaraias himself. That meaning behind the title Siege is all taken to be a metaphor. No one has ever really seen a Siege lay waste to an entire army of well-trained elves or even do something equally devastating in comparison. So it is taken that the title speaks more than he is capable of. This shows that the Armensians aren't even ready to believe that a being like that exists. Have you heard of the artra unity spells?" he asked.
"No I haven't," I said.
"Okay. They are spells that can only be cast with a certain number of artras present," he said.
"You mean like the Grand Spell of Ultimate Purification," I asked.
"Yes," he replied smiling, "I am glad you've heard of it. The most powerful spell in all Armensia capable of separating light and dark forces. It draws a fine line between light and dark magic. It can only be cast by all the artras at the same time. It is also extremely hard to pull off since you all have to be in sync. But achieving it will definitely tip the scales in this war. The people of Armensia have started to believe that the spell may not be real. In fact the only reason they still hold onto that hope is because they have seen other artra spells in action before," he explained.
I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole subject. Basically what he was saying was that the artras weren't doing so well and that Armensia was beginning to lose hope in them. That left me with one more question, "Why does Armensia need the artras to defeat Travas?" I asked him and earned a long period of silence.
"No one knows why Zaraias chose beings from another world to save Armensia, except for the fact that they are remarkably stronger than the average Armensian. Once in a while, the Armensians would get tired of depending on the artras and would try to stand up for themselves. Each time the dark wizards slaughtered them until the artras stepped in to save them. They hate it. That it makes them look weak and pathetic, but if it ever comes to it and you are in the situation when they are feeling like that. Remind them of the beast that reside within the Seven Dark mages. That's the only reason they are that much stronger than them and it isn't wrong for them to lean on you for help. Furthermore they must be assured that you will do what's necessary to end this era end darkness and fear," he said concluding his pep talk.
I just had one more question for the all-knowing all-powerful Siege of all time. "But if the people of Armensia have never seen the Siege do something that loves up to his name, then isn't it just that?" I asked him.
"You and I are different from all the Sieges that have ever existed. Soon you will know why that is so?" he said smirking. I could also tell that the chance of him explaining this was just futile as a snowball's chance in hell.