Sunrays poked through the curtains of the room in the inn that Lina was sleeping in. Lina scrunched up her face and tried to block out the sun that was shining on her. Eventually she gave up and opened her eyes. She had to squint because it was a very bright sunny day. She yawned and stretched and made a mental note to make sure the curtains where completely close before she goes to sleep at night.
Lina swung her legs around to get off the bed and almost broke the circle of pebbles that was surrounding her bed. She frowned in confusion. Those things again? Now who keeps putting them here? And for what reason? Lina looked over to her night stand and saw that the stone that she had taken from the previous time that the stone barrier had appeared was still there. And there was an identical one on the floor in the same exact spot in the circle that the other one had been in.
Figuring that it would be best to leave the stone circle alone she picked up the stone from her nightstand and got dressed. Then she pulled out some paper and a pencil and copied out each of the symbols she saw in their order. Since they're here I might as well go see if I can find some information on it. She finished marking the symbols down and left to get some breakfast.
When she got down there Amelia and Sylphiel were already downstairs eating their breakfast.
"Good morning Miss Lina!" Amelia spoke cheerily through her breakfast that was in her mouth.
Sylphiel shook her and smiled at the famed bandit killer. "Good morning Miss Lina, did you sleep well?"
"Until the sun woke me up." Lina said as she sat down. As soon as she sat on her chair a waitress immediately handed her a menu. "Wow, that was quick. Okay now what do I want..." Lina took a few minutes to tell the waitress her order and the waitress smiled and jotted the whole thing down. The waitress with the order completely written down went off to deal with the order. Jeeze we've definitely been here for a long time. The staff is starting to get used to me. "So I'm Zel and Gourry not down yet?"
"No they haven't. Gourry-dear is sleeping in like he usually does and well I guess Mister Zelgadis still needs rest."
Lina nodded in agreement and then tried to steal some food from Amelia's plate.
"Miss Lina! It's unjust to take other's food without permission!"
"Well I'm hungry and how do you think I feel watching you two eat while I still have to wait. I'd say that's unjust too!"
Amelia thought about that for a moment trying to decide what her answer would be to that statement when she noticed that Lina was trying to take food off her plate again.
A little while later Lina finally was served her food and was digging in with a ferocious feeding frenzy.
Sylphiel glanced over at Lina and frowned. "Um Miss Lina...?"
Lina said something that could be translated as 'what?!'
"Well there's something I wanted to talk to you about."
Lina swallowed the food in her mouth. "What is it?"
Sylphiel stared down at her empty plate. "That's night when I went to bed everything seemed fine in my room. I got ready got in my bed and went to sleep. Nothing seemed weird or out of the ordinary. But when I woke up this morning I found something strange. In my room surrounding my bed was a circle of different colored, polished, palm sized stones that each had a different symbol on it."
Lina almost choked on her food. Uh-oh. "That's interesting. Um what did you want to ask me about?"
"Well if you knew what they were, what their purpose was, and who put them there."
"Yes Miss Lina I wanted to know that too!"
Lina gave the Sailune Princess a weird look. "Why? They were in your room too?"
"Yes they were."
Both of them stared at Lina expecting answers.
"Um... well... I really don't know."
Both girls facefaulted.
"You mean you really don't know Miss Lina? Did they appear in your room too?"
Lina thought for a moment. Should I just pretend that I've never seen them in my room before, or do I tell them? "Yes." She decided on the later. "Are the stones still in your rooms?"
"No they disappeared once one of us picked up one of the stones. But we still have the stones that we picked up. Hey Miss Lina do you think that Mr. Hender would be able to tell us anything about them?"
"Maybe."
"Okay then we should go ask him about it then!"
Lina sighed. Just as long as they don't find out anything of Zel's ex-demon part roaming around. But who is doing this with the stones? And for what reason? I guess since their were in all three of our rooms that they were in the others too. Hmm... maybe I should go check on Zelgadis once I'm finished eating. And with that Lina took another big mouthful of her breakfast.
Zelgadis woke up to the sound of something opening his door. He instantaneously reacted before he even fully woke up and lunged forward with sword drawn and in hand.
"Whoa!" Lina yelled and sprung backwards in reaction. "Nice to know that you still have those reflex actions without your memory." Lina nervously laughed. Next time I'll think twice before I sneak into Zel's room. But damnit, he was just as fast as we was a chimera...
Zelgadis lowered his sword and was a tad confused on what he had did. Wha? Why did I do that? How did I? "I'm sorry, Lina is it?"
"Yes Lina. And no problem Zel. I just wanted to go see how you were doing." Lina peered into his room and saw the very same stones that had appeared in her room.
"Um fine I guess." Zelgadis rubbed the back of his neck. "I still can't remember anything though..."
"Oh well it's probably going to take a little while before you'll get your memory back fully."
"Yeah I guess." Zelgadis stretched and looked around and noticed the stones surround his bed. "Huh? Now what are those?" Zelgadis went over to examine them and Lina followed.
"Those have appeared in my room, Sylphiel and Amelia's rooms too."
"Hmm... I wonder if this has anything to do with that blurry thing I saw last night..." Zelgadis mumbled under his breath.
"What did you say?"
"No it's probably nothing." Zelgadis declared a bit sheepishly.
"I don't care if you think it's nothing I still want to hear it." Lina spoke in a very dark and commanding tone.
Zelgadis sweatdropped. "Um okay... Well last night I woke up and well I saw what seemed to be a blurry transparent thing in front of my bed. But then I rubbed my eyes and the thing was gone."
A blurry transparent thing? What the hell... "What did it look like?"
"Besides being blurry and transparent? I don't know. I didn't see it clearly. And it was also dark in my room. Why what do you think it was?"
"I don't know..." I guess I need to talk to Mr. Hender about this...
Inside a strange void the creature slept not knowing that people were finally starting to become aware of it.