That night Lina sat in her bed leafing through the books she had borrowed from the last library that she visited with Zelgadis. But just like what happened with Sylphiel, Lina was finding references to a goddess from an ancient mythology. It turns out that's mostly what everyone found or at least from what they said. Lina knew very well that Gourry hadn't been looking at all and that Xellos was hiding something. He may have found a lead but of course I wont find out that. Damn him and his secrets!
She closed the book she was looking at and opened up another one. When they were all talking about the quest Phil found it especially interesting, so there was very little trouble convincing him to let Amelia come along too. They were all going to leave that next morning and Lina was hoping to find some sort of lead so that they would have a destination in mind when they set off. But as things went as they were Lina was out of luck. She had no clue were to start and none of the books they looked at were helping that much. Lina closed the last book, she found nothing. Since it was late she was just about to turn in for the night when she heard a faint knocking on her door.
"Miss Lina? Are you still awake?" The shrine maiden spoke softly.
"Yeah sure Sylphiel, come in." Sylphiel complied and opened the door and came in quietly. She was dressed in an elegant nightgown; obviously she was just about to go to sleep herself. Sylphiel's nightgown was white and lacey and gave her an angelic appearance with her long hair in a loose braid. While Lina felt silly compared to Sylphiel in her flannel pajamas.
"I hope I'm not disturbing you."
"Oh no, sit down. What's troubling you?"
"Um well I... no it's stupid, I can't say." Sylphiel stared down at the sheets picking off invisible lint.
Lina raised an eyebrow. "Sylphiel just tell me what it is."
"Well, I um have been having strange dreams lately..."
"Dreams? What type? When did they start?" Lina spoke very fast startling Sylphiel a bit.
"I'm in a place that is dark with no color. Only everything turns red and I'm warned about interfering with something. That if I do I'll be killed. The dreams themselves are not that scary, but I still end up feeling strong senses of dread when I wake up. They all started a week or two before you came to visit me. I didn't tell you before because I thought maybe you might think I was silly or something."
Lina sat back for a moment and thought very hard. What is going on here? Are they following me or are they going after people I know whether or not I see them? "Sylphiel don't worry too much about them okay?"
"You mean they don't mean anything?"
"Oh no, they're nothing, just go and get some sleep." Lina didn't like lying to Sylphiel, but she knew it was better off that Sylphiel didn't know what was going on.
"Thank you for listening to me Miss Lina. I'll go now, goodnight." "Goodnight." The soft-spoken shrine maiden quietly left Lina alone in the room with her thoughts. "This is just getting weirder and weirder as the days go on. But I guess those shadow things aren't going as far as attacking her as well. But then that could just be a matter of time. That's assuming that the dreams and the shadow creature's appearances are related. Doesn't make much sense at all. I guess I'll have a little talk with Zelgadis in a morning. I wonder if Xellos or Amelia is having the same dreams too?" Lina set up the trap around her door. The same pots and pans one that Zelgadis had set off earlier that morning. She also put up a few magic guards and locked the door.
The next morning Zelgadis was drinking his morning coffee alone in the royal dining hall. Like usual he was up earlier then most. He was thinking about some things when the sound of quiet footsteps altered him from his thoughts. His hand was over his sword ready to draw it but instead of an enemy, Lina entered the room.
"Are you that paranoid Zel?" Lina chuckled sitting down next to him.
"After that incident I think I have reason to be..." Zelgadis mumbled and went back to sipping his coffee.
"After what incident?" Lina glared at him with her ruby red eyes. Zelgadis could see that from the tired and redness of her eyes and bags underneath them that she hadn't slept well the night before. Probably the very same reason on why she was up so early. But one thing was for sure, when Lina didn't get enough sleep Lina was more temperamental then normal. And if she's more temperamental then normal you do try and get angry by saying something stupid or not answering her questions.
"Nothing." Apparently Zelgadis hadn't fully learned this yet.
"Nothing my ass! Tell me!" Lina growled at him while she had his head in a tight headlock.
"(ACK!) Alright!" Lina released the even more blue chimera and he gasped very loudly for air. "You know I was attacked by one of those shadow creatures right? Well I was attacked when I was damn certain I was alone."
"Where were you and what were you doing?" She was still giving him the evil eye cracking her knuckles slightly.
"I was taking a bath..." Zelgadis mumbled very quietly.
"You were what?"
"I was talking a bath in the royal Sailune baths okay!" Zelgadis hissed out loud enough for Lina to hear. He was already trying to fight off his forming blush on his face, he didn't need everyone else to know about it.
"The royal baths? So you were fighting in the nude?" Lina smiled coyly poking him the side.
"Yes I was." Zelgadis glared at her or least tried to, but he was blushing way too hard.
"Oh wow, that must have been a sight. Too bad I wasn't there to help out." She grinned even larger. Zelgadis was blushing and very wide-eyed at her forwardness. Hell even Lina was blushing at what she said.
"Well in any case, as you know the Sailune royal baths are not only underground, but very well protected. It's impossible for someone to sneak in while it is locked and even if they could there are guards protecting the entrance."
"Maybe someone was in there before you went in?"
"No I made sure I was alone. There was no one in there when I went in."
"But then how could someone get in then?"
"One of the many questions I've been pondering since I left for Siaraag with Gourry."
The two of them sat in silence for a moment, both thinking very intently.
"What about a teleportation spell?"
"Nice try Lina, but there are magic guards up, you can use magic to get in or out of there. Don't bother wasting your time trying to come up with answers to questions that probably will only be able to be answered with time." Zelgadis said very sagely.
"Well in any case Zel, I head something very odd last night."
"What?"
"You know that you and I are the only ones having these weird dreams? We're actually not the only ones."
"Who else?" Lina shushed him as the one of the servants came in asking what she would like for breakfast. That very same servant left in a daze towards the kitchen after taking Lina's order. "Man what is up with your appetite lately? I know you like to eat, but you have been eating way more then you normally do."
"Well from what I've managed to find out I lost a few days. To me it only seems like I was kidnapped two days ago, but it was really like a week ago. I was asleep for quite a large bit of time and I guess this is my body's way of making up for the lack of nutrition. I'll probably go back to my normal habits in a few days or weeks." Upon mentioning her stomach it growled. But then what do you expect, she's hungry.
"I'd hope so or you're going to be wasting more money on food... Anyway who else is having these dreams?"
"Sylphiel."
"Sylphiel? Why her? And when did it start? After you went to visit her or after Gourry and I went?"
"Actually that's the weird part, she started having these dreams before I came to visit her."
"Huh? I guess we can rule out the whole following idea. But then they might have anticipated where you were going and went there first."
"Maybe..."
"Has she been visited by our little shadow friends too?"
"If she has, she hasn't told me yet, so I doubt it. Looks like just you and me are being targeted for the time being. Isn't that nice?" Lina smiled and spoke in a very sarcastic tone.
Zelgadis returned her smiling shaking his head and went back to drinking his coffee.
A few hours later everyone had dribbled down for breakfast. Various things were dealt with, like getting supplies and returning the books that were borrowed from yesterday. Even Xellos was forced to return that 101 awful and annoying jokes book. Once Amelia had found out that he still had it in his possession. She whapped him in the face replacing the previous days book shaped red mark that had finally disappeared the night before. Xellos was grumbling all the way over to the library that he had borrowed it from but he took in gratitude in a little piece of information that Amelia didn't know. When they were at the library the day before he noticed in the 'books for sale' bin that a copy of the 101 most awful and annoying jokes was in there and for sale for a silver piece. And had a silver piece on hand when he went through the library doors.
Lina sighed. They were almost ready. They had everything they needed all they needed to do was wait for Xellos and decide were to go, the later being the harder thing to do.
"Damnit if we had been able to find out something yesterday then we wouldn't be having this problem." Zelgadis scowled.
"What did we do before when we went on that search for that book thing?"
"It was the clair bible Gourry and we got some leads from people telling us where it might be. Like Xellos, he told us a few leads, of course they were mostly false ones but at least he gave us an idea on where to look."
"Well then why not Xellos for a few leads on those keys!" Gourry beamed and everyone sweatdropped.
"Maybe we would, only Xellos didn't have any idea what Elendar was let alone where to find the keys!" Lina beamed him over the head with her fist.
"But why do we have to wait around to that damned fruitcake? Why can't we just leave without him?" Zelgadis scowled again.
"Oh I'm not waiting for Xellos, I'm just trying to figure out a place to head to. Why were you waiting for him?" Lina said simply and well Zel facefaulted.
"Oh you aren't waiting for me Miss Lina? I'm hurt! You would leave and abandon me?" Xellos walked in acting all hurt and sad. In normal cases Amelia would have come to his defense, but at this moment she was a bit annoyed at the trickster priest. But then normally Xellos would teleport in. He was still lacking a few of his normal power so teleportation was out of the question for him. On the plus side (for Amelia that is) the red mark was still on his face.
"Yup." Lina smiled at Xellos. He was going to retort back with some other comment when one of the servants came rushing in.
"Miss Lina! Miss Lina! I have a message for you!" The servant waved the note in the air. She handed it to Lina and left quickly.
"Oh great not another one." Lina threw the note behind her and Zelgadis scrambled to catch it.
"What are you talking about?!"
"Well I don't want to read a love letter." Lina looked out at the ceiling sheepishly.
"You don't even know if it is! The last time you got one of these in Sailune it turned out to be a message from Alfred."
"Yeah a trap where I ended up losing my magic powers." Sarcasm dominated her tone of voice.
"Temporarily. Well I don't care I'm going to read it." Zelgadis opened the note and read it. The note clearly asked for Lina and her traveling companions to meet with someone in front of the ice cream stand near the central fountain. And that it was concerning the keys that they were searching for. "Lina you have to take a look at this." Zelgadis handed it to her and she quickly scanned the note.
"Hmm... this could still be a trap but hey at least it's the best lead we've got so far. Actually this is probably a trap, who knew that were we were looking for the keys anyway? All we did was go to a couple of libraries." Lina glanced at the note skeptically.
"Who knows, but hey you never know Lina this could a good thing." Zelgadis said positively. That's when the two of them looked at each other odd. The Gods! It's like we have switched personalities or something! Both of them thought at the same time. Which was followed by a mutual shudder.
"Well Miss Lina are we going to visit this guy or not? And what's his name?"
"According to this her name is Kilana. But I guess we could. If it's a trap, it's a trap. We've gotten out of worse situations in the past. So let's go!"
Lina and company picked up their stuff and went off to meet this mystery person. Though Xellos went with them, he couldn't shake the feeling that the name Kilana sounded familiar somehow.
The servant that gave Lina the message, or the person that had appeared to be a servant went outside and around back.
"Did you deliver the message like you were instructed?" A woman with dark midnight blue hair approached the so-called servant.
"Yes I have done what I what you told me. Now I would like my pay." The man held out his hand to his employer.
"Oh you would, would you? Well this should suffice." The woman put her hand in his all the man's eyes bugged out in terror as he tried to scream but his pain was much too great in order for him to manage that. He mouthed out the words Damn you! before he was turned into ash. The blue haired woman cackled and blood red eyes almost glowing as she phased out and teleported away.