Chapter 6: Break In

Ren and Victor watched quietly as Corin carefully examined the shard. The orange glow of the shard lit his face as it took a heavy expression. "There's no doubt about it," Corin said as he placed the shard down on his desk, "It's a piece of the Exacore." The two god class maestros visibly tensed when Corin confirmed their suspicions.

"Exacore?" Victor blurted out, "What the hell could he want with it? Doesn't he knows it'll kill him if he uses it?"

"Draven is a madman," Ren stated.

"Regardless," Corin said, "An artifact like the Exacore, in the hands of Draven, no good can come from it." There was a silent agreement between the three. "If memory serves, the Exacore was broken into four shards, you two need to find the other three."

"Easier said than done," Victor said dismissively, "We have no idea where they are."

"And any clues are nothing more than myth and legend," Ren added. Corin grinned.

"Ren," he said, "You of all people should know that legends and myths are steeped in truth. I have people searching through these stories and weeding out the impossibility, though it's up to you two to inspect the more plausible ones." He paused. "And I hope this goes without saying but this goes out to no one, those who should know already do."

"yeah old man," Victor said, "Business as usual," He said as he left the room with Ren. As silence set in Corin leaned back in his chair and stroked his beard, closing his eyes which were filled with regret.

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Eli was in a panic. Everything had to be in order, his bed, his shelves, his floor, everything had to be spotless. The sound of his doorbell pulled out of his craze as he raced down the stairs, for the door. "Hey, whoa, did you run a marathon or something?" Alice joked.

"ha-ha," he mocked breathlessly as he grabbed Alice by the wrist. "Come on, "

"Whoa, hey, what's the rush?" Alice said as she pulled back her arm. Eli took a deep breath.

"My mom, she has a habit of, um, overreacting."

"really?" Alice said, unable to hide her growing grin.

"Alice?" Eli said as he saw her grin, "Don't" he whimpered.

"Eli!" she blurted, "At least wait until we get to your room," Eli was completely shell-shocked at her mock sultry tone and hid his face in the palm of his hands as a silent set in, a silent which gave way to an approaching crescendo of footsteps.

"Kitten!" Eli's mother said, "you didn't tell me you had a girlfriend." Before Eli could retort his mother already stood face to face with Alice. It was clear that Alice was taken off-guard, she had the same look that people get when they meet a model or any beautiful person.

"Hi, Mrs. Whisp," Alice said shyly. Eli's mother pulled her into a massive bear hug.

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"You can call me aunt Jen, or mom, whichever you prefer." Eli let out a painful cry. "You know," Jen said as she pulled away from Alice, "I always thought my son was going to die alone, thank-you for giving a mother hope." Alice couldn't help but snicker.

"Mom!" Eli begged.

"Right," Her whole face lit up as she lightly tapped herself on the side of her head, "refreshments, you can sit anywhere," She said as she moved towards the kitchen.

"Kitten?" Alice said with a stupid grin as she turned to Eli.

"Shaddup." was all he managed to say.

"Here they are," Jen came back in with a tray of glasses with lemonade. When she placed them down on the coffee table in front of the couch where Alice was sitting she reached into a drawer and pulled out a massive book that made Eli's blood run cold. The book was titled Album. Alice lit up. Eli pulled the journal from Alice's bag and ran to his room before his mother had the chance to pull up her favorite picture. One of him standing with nothing on save for a towel tied around his neck as a mock cape.

It wasn't long before Alice waltzed in, trying her best not to keel over in laughter. "You're sixteen?" she asked trying to spark conversation.

"Yeah, so?"

"You look way younger."

"Shut up," Eli answered.

"Hey, what's the matter kitten," she said. Eli lifted the journal, already opened.

"All this is deeper than we thought." Alice took the journal and went wide-eyed as she read. "Apparently that 'Exacore' does something incredible. It funnels all the magic out of a willing person and blasts it in its raw form. Alice had nothing to say. "Apparently, a long time ago, some people broke it into four shards so that it couldn't be used."

"Can it be fixed?" she asked.

"supposedly, the pieces will reattach simply by being the presence of one another. Alice?"

"yeah?"

"How hard is it to manifest living creatures, like the ones we saw."

"very hard,"

"how much magic would someone able to do it have?"

"A lot. Eli?"

"yeah?"

"Do you want to stop?" Eli thought about it for a minute.

"No, as you said, I'm the one with the visions, this is my adventure." Alice raised an eyebrow, "Our," Eli corrected.

"Oh, look at that," Alice blurted out.

"What is it?" asked as he peered over into the journal.

"I think this is the library," Alice said.

"The library? the one we've been suspended from?" Eli asked sarcastically.

"Yup, seems we're breaking in.

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The streets, even at night, were lit brightly by car headlights and street lamps. Eli sighed at the realization that not only did he recently start sneaking out of his house, but it felt like he spent all his time playing the thief.

Before long he approached the library but noticed that there was no one around. All of a sudden a scream burst right beside his ear causing him to jump about five feet off the ground. His fit of terror was broken by uncontrollable laughter. Completely vexed, and embarrassed that screamed like a girl he marched off.

Alice caught up and pet him on the head, snickering at the instinctive purr-like sound. "How many times are you going to do that?" Eli whispered.

"All the time," Alice replied snidely. Eli said nothing. "Well, we better get climbing," she said as she manifested a rope with an anchored end from her sketchbook.

"Seriously?" Eli asked in disbelief. He looked up at the height he would have climbed and let out a sigh. Despite his portrayed un-enthusiasm, he was actually very excited. It took the pair five minutes to get to the top of the library where they opened a hatch on the glass ceiling. "I seriously can't believe we're doing this."

"I know right, it's like we're spies," she said with a sparkle in her eye. The pair made it down to the bottom floor unscathed and began looking. After a while, the only place left to be checked was the door where they first found the book. "It's still locked, and we don't have the key."

"Don't we?" Alice asked sarcastically, pulling out the keys from her back pockets. "I never gave them back, figured we would use them again. how smart am I right."

"Yeah, you're a genius," Eli said sarcastically. The other side of the door was exactly like it was before. Alice flipped a switch and went down the stairs, with Eli close behind. Once down they started turning the whole secret room upside down. They were about to give up when Eli noticed a very old scrape on the floor in front of a massive bookshelf. "Give me the journal," Eli called out to Alice. He flipped through the pages until he saw the words, 'The Fallen God' written boldly on the page that led them to the library. He looked back at the bookcase and examined the spines of the books closely until he saw one that had the exact same words.

Without thinking, he pulled the book which caused the entire bookcase to shift revealing a massive, hidden corridor. "You're the genius," Alice said as she ran past Eli. If she looked back she would have seen him blush. The hallway was very different from the rest of the library. It seemed older, and more reverent somehow. At the end of the hallway lied another door. A massive and ancient one, that had thousands of intricate carvings radiating from a concave circle with the image of another circle with a swirl inside of it. "It must be some kind of lock," Eli said.

"I've seen that symbol," Alice said

"Really where?" Eli asked

"You're not gonna like it." Eli gave her an expression that just screamed, 'you don't say'.

"I saw it back at Corin academy."

"What? no." Eli's heart sunk.

"Also, I don't think they're going to give it to us."

"No. no." he knew where this was going, and didn't like it.

"So we're probably going to have to steal it."

Eli threw his hands into the air and conceded. "Fine, okay, let's do it, let's break into Corin Academy."

"That's the spirit," Alice said ecstatically, and Eli sighed.