Chapter 16 - Exploration Of Hope

“Nico! Ivy! I thought I would find you guys here.”, Justus said, smiling as he entered the Garden of Watersia right before we were going to leave it. I was about to interject, but he stopped me. “Do not ask how I know you would be here. It was just a lucky guess.”, he said, pointing his finger to his head while winking to be funny. 

I just stared at him as if to say “Bruh”. Ivy looked at him like he peed his pants. 

“Ahem. You might wonder why I am here, right? Well, I have spoken to the Keeper Administration and they are fine with letting you two explore the city of Stonelight and the village of Mistfall, which is not too far away.

They are only allowing you both to do this without supervision because they trust me to look over you. They think I am conducting some sort of test or experiment on you, which is quite funny.”, Justus said while chuckling to himself. 

Both of my eyebrows raised at hearing him chuckling. Justus was in a funny mood today, I thought as I crossed my arms. 

“The good news is that you both will leave the floating fortress of Keeper Academy for the entire day! Enjoy it to the fullest because tomorrow you both start classes and I heard there is a preliminary test which I can’t tell you guys about because you both need to focus on your task right now.”, he said to us his tone switching from funny to serious. 

“I will accompany you both to Stonelight while you explore and have fun. Other Keepers are patrolling Stonelight, so I will have to stay with you guys while you are there.

Then, when the other Keepers aren’t looking, you both will rush to the village of Mistfall and look around. By that, I mean go search your house. You will find a lot of answers there.”, Justus said while walking past us to head to the airfield. 

Ivy and I didn’t even have time to reply. We both ran to Justus’s side and followed him to the airfield.

The airfield was very close to the entrance of the academy. The airfield is where all of us gathered the day we were all invited to Keeper Academy. It was a sprawling open area spread out in a semi-circle, which had several arches in various places.

Each arch had a Keeper next to it. All the Keepers were wearing white cloaks lined with green, as well as the Keeper Academy logo of a halo placed on each side of their shoulders. 

Once all the white-cloaked Keepers saw Justus, they all bowed. Sensing my confusion, Justus turned to me and said, “They recognize me as the vice leader, so it’s showing respect. The Keeper Principal insists on lower status Keepers to bow to higher status ones.” 

“That’s horrible,” Ivy said in response.

He nodded back to her while saying, “Also, to explain a little bit more about the airfield. These Keepers are all, of course, wind users who brought you all up here. They are all incredibly powerful and the academy trusts them with its security. However, no matter how hard they work, they won’t be able to become a World Keeper or a high-class one because they can’t wield light magic.”

He paused before speaking again. “The only way to become a Keeper without using light magic is to graduate from the various Keeper Academies in Glozaria.” 

“Please take us three down to Stonelight. I would like to show them the supermarket.”, Justus said while the wind keeper bowed and started conjuring a bubble of controlled wind. This bubble of wind levitated and gradually brought us down to Stonelight. As the wind keeper left us once we landed, Justus scanned the area. 

“You guys go have fun in the supermarket without me. I am going to chat up some of the patrolling Keepers. When you see my signal, run toward Mistfall. I plan to throw a party here in honor of the Principal Keeper, so my signal will be fireworks, distracting everyone else.

I planned these fireworks. I just have to talk to Duke Grey before they go off. Meet me in the plaza in around two hours after you look around Stonelight and thoroughly explore your house again”, he said grimly as he quickly left us in the dust. 

“Well…want to see what’s around Ivy?”, I said, turning toward her. 

“I would love to Nico!” she said while smiling and grabbing my hand in surprise. 

The next fifteen minutes felt like heaven. We explored the various food stands, saw different shiny jewelry being sold, and we saw some children running around laughing together. Every time we ran to some place new, Ivy would grab my hand and lead me there.

I am not saying that was why it felt like heaven, but I will not deny it played a part. The moment felt like there was hope I could do anything in the world with her. 

We were wrapping up grabbing some donuts when we saw everyone walk to Stonelight Plaza, the center of Stonelight, where the statue of the “hero” Ezreal Vicious was located. I like to call him the fake hero because my gut was telling me this was not the guy who fought off that massive wave of Eradicators to save humanity.

It didn’t look like that guy saved anything in his life. Even though on the surface it looked like everything was perfect, I am pretty sure most of it was an illusion that was harming innocent people. 

People were now flooding Stonelight Plaza. As we saw the first few fireworks burst into the air, we knew that was our signal to blend into the crowd and escape. This time, I grabbed Ivy’s hand and somehow led us out from the enormous crowd. My eyes scanned our surroundings. We were in the clear for now.

My feet dug into the ground and took off as Ivy ran alongside me into the woods. 

We ran and continued running until I saw a familiar waterfall. “We can stop here”, I told her as I let go of her hand to place them on my knees to rest. Instead, Ivy grabbed my hand more intensely as she raced into the waterfall. My feet were too tired to resist, so before you knew it- 

Splash!

We ended up soaking wet in the waterfall. The thing is, I didn’t mind it because we were laughing so hard. We splashed each other as if we were water benders. It was so much fun that for a moment I forgot about our task.

“We don’t have too much time left to explore my house. Let me show you around”, I told her as I got out of the waterfall and attempted to dry myself off. 

“Oh, shoot you’re right!”, Ivy said as she quickly got out of the waterfall and dried herself off. After we did our best to become semi-dry, I led her to my house, which was just a little further down than the waterfall. 

“Mistfall is so beautiful!” Ivy said in awe as she noticed the many canals and rivers around us.

“I agree”, I said to her as the mist started appearing around us more heavily to impact our vision. I didn’t even notice the mist much when we were at the waterfall, but that’s because it didn’t reach us there in time. 

We approached a huge two-story wooden house that resembled somewhat of a log cabin.

“This is what I call home”, I told Ivy as we walked through the front door. With a soft thud, the door closed. The house was clean, mostly. The furniture and light fixtures didn’t look fancy, but the kitchen and living rooms were quite spacious. 

“I don’t know what we are looking for, but you can look anywhere around the house. You can look upstairs in my bedroom and the guest bedroom. I will check all downstairs since it’s on the larger floor.”

Ivy ran upstairs and started looking around.

My eyes scanned the kitchen, making sure nothing was out of place. Then I checked the living room. I searched the entire first floor four times and came up with nothing. Then I heard it, the noise that changed everything. 

“Hey Nico, I think I found something. You should come see this.”, Ivy said from above.

My feet smacked the wooden steps, causing them to creak as I rushed upstairs. When I arrived in my bedroom, I saw Ivy holding a piece of old crumpled-up paper.

“What is that, and where was it?” I ask earnestly. “It was under your bed frame and it appears to be a letter,” she said as she handed it over. 

My eyes widen, my breath becomes shallow, and my voice becomes gone as I read who the letter was from before reading all of it. 

With all my love, 

Your Mother