Tales of Harmony

What surprised Lux the most was how clean everything seemed. His father’s shop barely showed any signs of the intruders who had attacked them that night. The old bookshop was almost in a perfect state. Only the occasional scroll was out of place, but that could have easily been written off as the work of a distracted costumer. No, if he hadn’t been here that night, he would have sworn nothing was wrong.

Which explained why there hadn’t been anyone bothering them as they approached. Lux had expected to find at least one or two guards investigating the scenes, but with how serene the scenery was, he wasn't’ surprised to find that hadn’t been the case. He wasn’t really sure how to feel about that.

On the one hand that meant they wouldn’t need to deal with anyone bothering them while they investigated the shop, on the other, it meant that their opponent was skilled enough to attack and capture his father, without leaving any trace of doing so, speaking volumes about the type of foe they were up against.

He remained silent, as he lead the others to the backroom from which he escaped.

“This is the place,” he said. They were standing in a small but comfy room, located on the second floor of the building. A giant wooden table dominated the center of the room, accompanied by an old armchair sitting on its far head. Dozens of shelves, filled with ancient scrolls and old tomes, lined every wall except for one, where a huge map of the land was posted to the wall.

Lux signaled them to wait, then he walked over to one of the shelves behind the table and grabbed one of the books, causing Blaze to raise an eyebrow at him.

“Seriously?”

“It’s simple, yes,” Lux shrugged, “but it works.” He pushed the book into the shelf, followed by two others on different rows, then he stepped back as the shelf began to tremble. A moment later a bright flash encompassed it. When it faded, the shelf was gone, together with a large chunk of wall behind it. In its place there was s small spiral staircase, that, from the looks of it, led to somewhere below the shop.

“This is the tunnel I escaped through,” Lux said while Snow walked over to inspect the tunnel. “My father stayed behind here to face the intruders.”

“The Verity” Dawn said.

“That’s what he called them, yes,” Lux nodded. He watched as Dawn gave a signal, causing the twins too spread out and search the room. While they searched, she pulled out a hoofful of crystals - the same ones she had used before - and hoovered them in front of her face. She said something he couldn’t hear and the crystal began to glow, then they too began to circle the room, pausing here or there before quickly moving to the next object or place they were curious about. Dawn then closed her bag and began searching the room herself.

With nothing else to do, Lux too began searching the room. Maybe there was something in his father's notes that might give them a clue to what what going on.

Seconds passed in silence while everyone searched for anything useful. Then minutes. Then hours. Over time their search had moved from Bright Light’s study to the rest of the building. From the bedrooms, over the livingroom, to the shop and even the garden behind the house. It wasn’t until the sun was already peeking over the horizon that Dawn decided to call for a break.

“Found anything?” Dawn asked. They had gathered back in the study to discuss their findings. She was standing in the center of the room with Snow and Blaze flanking her on either side. Lux meanwhile had positioned himself on the opposite side off the room, near the passage he had escaped through.

“Not much,” Snow said and shook his head. “Whoever did this is good. They barely left any clues to their presence at all. If Lux hadn’t clued us in to what happened, we wouldn’t have discovered anything at all.”

“But you did find something,” Dawn clarified.

“Barely,” Blaze nodded. “There are signs of struggle, although as Snow said, they were covered up pretty well. A couple of scratches in the floor and the furniture, a few items out of place and a hoofful of hair. Nothing you would notice until you were explicitly searching for it.”

“It was the same for me,” Snow agreed. “There were barely any hints of the conflict, though I managed to find a few spots surrounding the house that indicate someone was observing the house for a while.”

Dawn nodded as she listened to her friends, her expression not changing at all. “As I thought. Magic scans came up short as well. There were a few unusual readings around the secret exit, that might indicate that someone was trying to interfere with it, but those readings might just as well have come from the magic used to hide it in the first place.”

“Which means we have nothing” Lux said, drawing all eyes to him.

“Not quite,” Dawn said and shook her head. “We don’t have much, but we have at least one clue. In order to pull of something like this the attackers must have been quite skilled, eliminating a random robbery. Also the modus operandi, albeit not that rare among trained soldiers, is eerily similar to how the Verity operated.”

She walked over to Lux. “So while we don’t have much, the little we do have seems to match with your father’s story.” She paused in front of him, their eyes meeting. “Except for one thing that doesn’t quite fit.”

“And that is?”

“Their seal,” Blaze said. She drew a symbol in the air that vaguely resembled a stylized V. “They usually leave it behind somewhere, when they finish a job. You know the whole “strike terror in the hearts of your foes” stick.”

“But we didn’t find anything of that sort,” Dawn said. “Which either means whoever did this wasn’t with the Veritiy at all, or …” She trailed off, as she stared at Lux.

The moment Blaze had drawn the symbol in the air, something had flashed behind his eyes, as if he had suddenly remembered something, yet was unsure as to what exactly it was. Now though it seemed as if he managed to remember, as he rushed over to the map on the wall. Quickly he grabbed some of his fathers notes from where they were lying scattered on the ground..

“I’m sure I saw…” he murmured under his breath as he skimmed through the notes. His eyes widened and he franctly began picking up more and more off the notes from the ground. He then began placing them one after another over the map, until they began to form a pattern. Once he was done, Lux stepped back, observing his work. At the same time the other three stepped closer, as they too took in his work.

The notes Lux had placed onto the wall indeed created a pattern. Each note was filled with random writings by Bright Light, each one recording some form of trade agreements he had made over the last couple of months. What was interesting however, was that all off them focused on a particular point in the city, the haven located at the southern edge of the city. Furthermore, each one was marked with a couple of decorative lines, usually somewhere around the edges. On there own those lines didn’t seem all that special. In fact, they weren’t all that different from most off the decorative patterns found on a lot of Bright Lights notes. However, now that they were placed directly side by side….

“Well, that’s either one heck of a coincidence,” Blaze said as she stared at the all too familiar symbol. “Or…”

“Or we just figured out where to go next,” Dawn finished. She turned around, her expression grim. “So, who’s ready for a field trip?”