Authors Footnote: Whenever Sophie and Zander are speaking telepathically, rather than write "said via bind," the dialogue will be written with
After a good night's rest and a beautiful breakfast buffet carted to their room at 9 am, the three of them enjoyed breakfast as Sophie kept jotting down notes in her notebook.
"Whatcha working on," Cyrus couldn't help but ask as he shoveled more eggs and bacon onto his plate.
"I'm trying to figure out the best place to leave our vehicle and how to begin searching. The 50 mile marker is about five miles outside this city, but there's a small town with a storage facility 15 miles outside of the city, meaning we'd have to walk another 10 miles on top of the 5 and start tracking toward our destination," Sophie said as she took a drink of orange juice.
"You should relax and eat my love, you spent the entire car ride researching this and we agreed the storage area would be best for the car, we'll have Cyrus rent the storage area, give us the key and we'll park it and I'll conceal it with an invisibility spell," Zander explained.
Cyrus just nodded as he continued to eat, and Zander laughed and said, "you eat more than I do and that's saying something,"
"It's so good and it's all free so why not? Sophie stop and relax, eat food or Scarlett's going to be grumpy with you," Cyrus joked.
After breakfast, Sophie and Zander went to the Sauna to relax, and were thankful no one else was in there so they could run it even warmer.
"You are now in temperatures above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, all stats will increase by 5%," the system pinged.
Sophie laughed and smiled,
When they returned, Cyrus had showered and had everyone's things ready. Sophie and Zander both took quick showers and they were off.
Cyrus dropped Sophie and Zander off two blocks from the storage facility, went and purchased a larger storage facility for a year, returned and Sophie stayed with Cyrus as Zander found their storage unit, loaded up the car, cast an invisibility spell on it, not knowing how long it would last.
The owner ensured Cyrus, aka Chris, that no one was allowed in anyone else's container and if they tried they'd be hit with a "nasty bit of magic."
Zander walked up to another storage unit, after making sure no one was around, and his system asked, "would you like to open the magical seal and open the container?"
He clicked no, and laughed.
"So much for this top notch security," Zander thought as he caught up with Sophie and Cyrus.
"Where too boss lady," Zander said with a kiss on the cheek.
"If we head 15 miles slightly northeast, we should run into the initial 50 mile hurdle," Sophie said and they began walking at a fast pace.
About three hours later, Sophie's compass stopped working and explained her plan for tracking, so they could get out.
"Because it says magic and teleportation is only forbidden in the 10 miles nearest haven, I feel if we mark the trees with some sort of magical spell, we should be able to track ourselves." Sophie explained.
They each agreed not to tell Cyrus about the Phoenix system, as it would be too difficult to explain and if he was captured he wouldn't even know how to give away the difference between Sophie and Zander.
"Well babe, give it a try!" Sophie encouraged Zander, who placed his hands on the tree.
"Would you like to place a directional marker on this tree?" his system asked.
"Yes, mark Northeast 60 degrees with a white arrow pointing inward and mark it southwest 240 degrees with a black arrow pointing toward where we entered."
"Markings have been placed. Please note any directions marked inside this barrier will not correspond to those of a compass. This area has magic surrounding it which makes the area shift at an unknown time frame," the system notified.
Sophie and Zander saw the marks appear and disappear and Zander explained that he'd be able to see them and no one else should be able to detect it, at least he thought. He figured his system would alert him if someone had.
As they journeyed in, they realized they had come to the same marking they originally started at, which made Sophie suggest that Zander start marking them with numbers.
As they continued, they felt like they were making progress as Zander had just marked a tree five.
"Someone please help, hurry my baby!" Zander heard someone screaming off in the distance.
"What the heck was that roar?" Cyrus said, covering his ears.
Zander used his Phoenix eyes to track down a large blue aura and a small blue aura about a mile away.
"This way, follow me." Zander said as he sprinted off toward the aura.
Sophie had also accessed her phoenix eyes and wondered why Zander sounded so concerned over a large roar from animals.
As they got there, a giant brown bear was in a frenzy as one of its cubs was stuck on a rock in the river.
The bear began to charge the group and Cyrus and Sophie turned to run but heard Zander roaring back.
"I'm here to help, let me get your cub for you." Zander said to the Mother bear.
"How can you hear me and talk to me? I was about to take my anger out on your group and have a nice meal for my cubs," the bear said back.
"Kind of hard to explain, let me show you instead!"
Zander partially transformed into his Phoenix form with just his wings and hands as claws. He then flew over to the cub and said, "don't worry little guy I can help you," to which the baby cub roared and took a swipe at Zander.
"What the hell is he doing, that cub is going to rip his wings off," Cyrus said.
"He will be ok, we can see the auras of humans, animals, etc and unless they're profound in magic, we can see a second or two ahead of their movements because the energy moves before they do," Sophie explained to Cyrus, who just shrugged and said, "that's pretty cool I guess."
With his Mother's roar, the cub stopped swinging its one arm wildly, while holding on with his other, as the river current was quite strong.
Zander flew over, picked him up, being careful not to puncture his skin and was surprised at how heavy the cub was, as he flew it over and dropped it off by his mother.
"You stay near your Mother, Father and brothers and sisters little guy," Zander said with a smile.
Cyrus and Sophie just heard more roars from Zander and the bears.
"Thank you so much, strange human with wings," the Mother bear said and the cub just said, "sorry mom I wanted to get us fish," and the mother bear picked the cub up by her mouth and threw him on her back.
"For helping me out, I will tell you there are many dangerous things in this forest and if you can't tell, you can get lost quite easily. I've seen humans spend so much time, lost, they are eventually near death, especially when the colder seasons set in. Be careful, not every being you meet will be kind, even if you do them a favor," the mother bear warned.
"Thank you, I'm just happy to help. Do you happen to know how the time and landscape moves here?" Zander asked.
"Unfortunately it's very unpredictable, which is why we stay near this river with our cave nearby. I've heard travelers running for their lives, screaming things about wild beasts, some of them gravely injured. It's a blessing for us from Solace, I believe, as food isn't always easy to come by for a family," the bear stated.
"Everything my wife and friend over there do is for Solace, which is why we are seeking a place called Haven that's said to be secret to all evil of this world," Zander said.
"Well I wish you luck, thank you again," and the mother bear charged off with the cub.
Zander calmly walked over and was confused why Sophie and Cyrus were looking at him funny.
"What's with the looks, did you see a ghost or something?" Zander asked.
"Well, we heard you roaring back and forth with that bear. Can you talk to animals Zander?" Sophie asked, with her scrunched up angry face he usually loved to see.
"Apparently I can, and the bear warned me not every being in this forest is nice, that many humans get lost in here and eventually die, and the time and movements of the landscape are unpredictable," Zander said.
"Great. Talking to bears, hidden forest of death, what could go wrong?" Cyrus said with a nervous laugh.
Sophie was back to her usual cheery self, as they gained vital information about the situation they were facing.
Sophie noticed her amulet began to light up, in a very light shade of black.
"Warning. New quest: defeat the incoming hoard of D ranked beasts."
Zander immediately used the eye of the phoenix and saw about 20 black auras swirling and charging right at them.
"Quickly, be ready to fight and kill on sight. We have enemies approaching," Zander said.
He and Sophie changed into their Phoenix form and Cyrus bumped his fists together.
"Time to show you who is really #1 now that we're not in school," Cyrus said as he focused and activated his chi.
For the first time, he too could sense the enemies coming and a giant grin on his face appeared.
"Looks like you two aren't the only ones that can sense them. There's 27 to be exact, whoever takes out most wins seconds on dinner," Cyrus said in an amped up voice.
"No one's getting seconds for dinner on the first day, but you can save it in case we have to ration our food if we're stuck here for a while," Sophie said while rolling her eyes.
"Will you two get serious," Zander exclaimed, as a hoard of 27 wild beasts, which looked like a large grey wolf pack approached.
"Additional quest received. Slay the Alpha. Reward, Unknown. The Alpha is a C rank beast, good luck!"
This was not the type of system ping Zander was used too.