Feeble light illuminated the darkness of the underground city, while the crystal slowly regained the vigor lost during the night some where already awake while others still had to sleep.
Looking out of the window, in the backyard, Francis saw a young man with elephant-like features swing his maul in the air as sweat dripped from his forehead. Each swing ripped through the air at incredible speed while, looking closely, one could almost see the imaginary enemy he was fihting. Every time he swong his enemy would respond, this back and forth went on for a while, until he was too tired to continue. Exausted he fell backwards on the ground taking deep breaths to relieve the fatigue.
Watching this sight a small grin appeared on francis face, quickly changing his clothes with another purple coloured suit, he then headed out. Seeing his partner train so harshly in the early morning made him finally realize the reiosness of the mission, if he wanted to survive he would need to give more then one houndred percent for his goal.
....
When light from the crystal on the cieling of the cave finally faded out, I felt the fatigue took over. As my body sank in the warmth of the bed my mind continued to wander, thousend of questions still didn't have an answer. Pondering for most of the night i couldn't get much sleep and laying in bed couldn't help me. Hoping to clear my mind i started training in the backyard, squeezing every drop of strenght from my body with each swing I realised how powerless I had been in the previous fight. Not only that rotting giant overpowered me in every way, but even with right preparation I couldn't be sure to win, my goal was drifting further away and the only way to prevent this from happaning was to gain a new level of power.
Swinging, swinging and swinging again my muscle wriggled in pain, every tme i felt that pain a sense of powerlessness settled deep down in my heart fueling the burning rage that kept me going. This vicious cicle repeated until fatige took over, exhausted i fell on the ground.
Hearing a light sound of footstep i tilted my head only to find Francis staring at me from the door. Coming closer he gave me a bottle of water and a small sparkling berry.
"good work, here, this are wonderfull for fatigue. Anyway... I'm sory for dragging you in this mess, but I had no choice, you are the strongest and most reliable friend I have. And having an accomplishment like this is crucial for receving the approval from the council."
"Don't worry, now we should just think about the next step. we'll talk once finished"
Eating the sparkling berry warm enveloped my body as it relieved my fatigue little by little.
"Oh, there you're, come with me, I need to introduce you to someone."
Interrupting, gurdis appeared on the edge of the yard. Quickly getting up we soon followed her. Now looking more closely to the city I could see people on the street working, helping each other striving to survie while the children played like nothing happened. After a while we arrived in front of a small house, upon entering a sense of warmth filled the air, going straight for what looked like a studio, three figure could be seen talking around a table.
knocking twice on the open door to announce our presence Gurdis said
"i've brought the new arrivals as reported"
"ah, Gurdis, nice to see you...good we were just talking about you lot. Come here."
looking straight at us a middle aged man with silver hair that shined like a moon during a starry night talked.
"it's a pleasure to meet you, I'm professor Adran Nailo but the people here ususally call me Prof, you should have already met Milo, and she is Marilù, a new arrival like you two. we were just talking about your roles from now on..."
"i'm Boja and he's Francis, anyway what does it mean 'our roles'?"
"right, we'll get to that"
sitting down on the chair he took a small stone out of a drawer, tapping on it a series of images appeared before our eyes, each one of them showed different points of views of what seemed to be a crime scene. the most prominent of them pictured the dead body of a small human-like creature with pointy hairs and green eyes, it's body was burst open and blood slattered all over the palce as the organs of the man ripped apart like papare sheets. The scene was gruesome, just by looking at it cold sweat run down my back and deep sense of disgust filled my soul.
The worst thing of all was that i could recognise this man, he was the one that got thrown out of the tavern yesterday night, even if I didn't actually know him, seeing someone that was alive and breathing just a few hours ago look like this made me feel a strange sense of anguish
"As you can see, even in this situation, the monster are not our only worry. Suspecting that the culprit may be among our people I decided to hand over the investigation to some external peoople. all of you here are not originally part of the city, and given your abilities and arrival's timing you are free of charges, hence why I want you to compleate the investigation."
"wait wha--"
ignoring me, he continued.
"Gurdis will be your direct superior, ask her for anything. You are dismissed, good luck."
Quickly shutting down the conversation we were then accompained outside by Gurdis.
I was speechless, once again my plans failed, well it didn't even start, I thought we could help searching provision or anything else that would let us freely roam outside without being conspicuous but life had something else in store for us. This past few months nothing seemed to be going my way, I needed a new plan and quickly.
"As you have heard I'll give you my full support. For starters take this, oh and one more thing...not many in town knows what happened, we decided to keep it a secret for the time being to not create unnecessary commotion, don't mess up."
Giving us the rocording stone with the case's files she left. Looking at her back in the distance, a voice attracted my attention. Standing next to me, a beatiful girl with brown curly hair and blue eyes that could remind one of the vast sky spoke to me.
"Well, seems to me that we'r alone no, what'ca wanna do?"
She didn't seem to remember me, she was probably too drunk to remember anything from yesterday night. She was the one who threw the victim out of the door.
Bringing his hand to the chin Franci opened and closed his mouth for a whiele before finally deciding what to say.
"For starter we should take a look at the crime scene, MIlo can you lead the way?"