Chapter 10: Vanos' Sleep

"She gave you nightmares for the rest of the week?" Vanos asked, as he absorbed the information.

Mosor said, "Worst, this means you're next. You've discovered your part in this, that means your next, and then she's going after Ahmond."

"Why me?" Ahmond asked.

Mosor would have told her. She remembered how Kyofi reacted last time to the idea she wasn't the one with the quality. "It's because you're the one with the third quality." She let silence hit the room.

Vanos said, "You don't know that."

"I do actually," Mosor said. "Ahmond even glows when she touches The Firefly Diary." To experiment, Mosor grabbed the diary, and threw it at Ahmond, who caught it in her mouth. Instantly, she glowed a glow only Mosor and Vanos saw.

Kyofi asked, "What's the verdict?" She got flat on the ground, and clawed the carpet. It couldn't say Ahmond was the one, but she was.

Mosor told Kyofi, "It's not that you're bad or anything. I guess you simply don't have the quality. It's okay, you might have one of ours, but you didn't discover it yet."

"You're saying I could have been the one, except one of you found it first?" Mosor nodded. Kyofi said, "I ain't empathetic. Nor am I strong in will like Vanos."

"You may be useful in other aspects," Vanos said. He stared at The Firefly Diary with a sense of worry. "But how do we know we can work for Lhyna anymore, when she's giving our baby cousin nightmares? Much more the rest of us."

Mosor said, "We can't simply forfeit the diary, guys. We need to find that last piece of the puzzle and find the last treasure, and then we can decide what we're going to do."

"We already have one," Ahmond said. "We don't need to get all three, only make sure that no one has that bit."

Kyofi said, "Lantorn has one, and there's only one currently incognito. Having two would be good."

"There's other teams," Mosor said. "Safe to say it's like one of them has it. After a year, they must have discovered one quality."

"That's the biggest question," Vanos said. "Why is it, that after one year, there's still two treasures? Hasn't Lhyna made it obvious where a couple are at?"

"The only reason we found one of the treasures was because you and Mynt fighting forced you two to go to the moon," Mosor said. "It's actually kinda hard to go to the moon. That's mere luck that two Willpowers faced off."

"Wait, what if Empathy is an exception?" Ahmond asked. "What if two others have to fight to find out where the last quality's treasure is at?"

Kyofi said, "Could be, could be, but I don't think that's it. Probably buried somewhere deep away."

"You shouldn't be able to find these based on chance," Vanos said. "They're probably scattered across the land."

Kyofi said, "But maybe we're onto something. If she can hide things on the moon, where she resides, then maybe she hides some things within dreams?"

"Maybe we're going to have to share a dream?" Vanos asked. "All we have to do is lure Lhyna in."

"It would take some research," Mosor said. "Still, it's not impossible to do, but we're going to have to do some group therapy."

Ahmond said, "Well who said it was going to be easy? I'm ready for any kind of group therapy! Even if that hasn't worked for us yet!"

*

Vanos fell asleep. The moon sent a beam of light, and Lhyna's ghostly yellow form - sometimes silver depending - assembled beside him.

"Time for somebody to go to sleep," she said as she slunk into his brain to play around in his dream.

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Vanos was sitting in class. Which got to him, as he'd never been to school before, at all. Most wolves simply taught their kids the ways of nature, and then some arithmetics. He carried a pencil, and the teacher sat down.

It appeared Lhyna was the teacher. He tilted his head, and she only waved at him. "Now class," she said, "What's the capital of Wysdom?"

He tried to cheat by staring at the chalk, but it was incomprehensible, yet familiar. A scrawl that almost resembled language, yet blurred itself enough he couldn't know it. He tried to focus in, yet couldn't.

This forced him to guess. "I think the capital of Wysdom is Sunnyvilla." He knew this answer in real life, but in this world, he didn't know anything. Lucidity kicked in, and he thought as anybody could.

Lhyna shook her head. "Actually, the capital of Wysdom is wrong. There is no official capital as Wysdom is made up of several districts. With different laws, because it is a collection of city-states. Guess that's strike first."

A buzzer rang, and Vanos looked down to see it. It was red, and stood above the podium. The classroom had been traded in for red curtains and golden walls.

"Let's start off with question number two," Lhyna said, now dressed up in a dark blue dress. Her dress ended in frills, only exceeded by her crescent shaped tail. It attached to her form, and allowed him to see all the fur underneath.

"How many searchers are there for the treasures, and what are the three qualities for said treasures?"

Vanos thought to himself about the question. Now full mental faculties revealed themselves, and he knew the answers.

But he didn't, as he didn't know the answers in real life, which was messing him up. "I would say, there are roughly twelve searchers, and the qualities are Willpower, Empathy, and not being a huge jerk like Lhyna."

Lhyna raised an eye, and the buzzer rang again. "It's more like twenty one searchers. And in case you're wondering, you don't get to know the third quality."

"We'll find it out, sooner or later," Vanos said. He stared down at the buzzer, waiting to see if it'd change for the last part. It didn't.

Lhyna said, "More like later. Now this last part is going to require someone from the audience, right?"

She called up Mynt, and Mynt stared at her brother. She sat at a podium, and had two red X's over her head, as did he now. This meant both were in sudden death.

"This is a Sudden Death match!" Lhyna said. "The two of you will face off, and the first one to answer a question correctly does not end up with traumatizing nightmares! Let's start."

A screen next to them wrote in digital lettering, in bright red. "What is the final treasure to uncover?"

Vanos wasn't sure, and Mynt swooped in. She answered, "The final treasure is an unclaimed gem."

"Sorry, trick question," Lhyna said, shaking her head. "There are no more final treasures to uncover, only final to you."

Vanos couldn't understand that part. Did that mean someone already discovered the last treasure then?

Beyond the stage formed a pit of eternal darkness. Same as what Mosor faced, and Vanos felt himself sweating. Time to take it slow, take it simple, and win this next question. Then he could get out.

Lhyna said, "What is the first of the three treasures?"

Vanos could only guess, but he knew the three treasures. "The mirror," he said. "The Mirror of Storms."

Mynt said, "I think it's the Gem of Mists." It wasn't a bad guess, neither were, considering they didn't know first to what capacity. First made, or first discovered? Twice buzzer rang, and Vanos smacked his head with his paw.

Lhyna said, "Once again, a trick question. None of you know the first of three treasures." They reacted in shock. Shaking her head, Lhyna said, "I'm doing this all night if I have to folks."

Mynt said, "This is getting ridiculous." When darkness swallowed the ramp and came towards her feet, she shrunk away.

Lhyna said, "Not that ridiculous now, is it? You're all lucky I'm giving you this information, but no information is coming without a potential risk. Now, who made the three treasures?"

Mynt said, "Lhyna."

A red buzzer rang. Lhyna said, "Actually it was made by someone even stronger than I. I'm not even a Lightning elemental, why would I have made a Sword of Lightning?" She laughed. "Perhaps I've spoiled too much." Mynt shook her head. Vanos agreed, knowing this information was invaluable to him.

"I'm here all day, all night," Vanos said. "I don't have work." He did have work. He didn't know why he said that. To intimidate Mynt, obviously.

Lhyna said, "Okay, in that case, mister all work, no play, let's give you a new question. Where is the Gem of Clouds at?"

Vanos said, "If I knew, then I would have it, wouldn't I?" He then remembered all of these were trick questions, therefore, he could respond with a trick answer. "It's on the planet of Voto."

Lhyna laughed and said, "I guess that's fair." The buzzer rang green for him, and Mynt fell into the darkness screaming. "You're smarter than I gave you credit for."

Vanos said, "And you're meaner than I gave you credit for. Why are you doing this?" He growled and she approached him.

"I am not attempting to be cruel, Vanos. You and these three are going to fight, and I'm giving both of your teams a chance to incapacitate the other. Mosor didn't get the job done, but you did. That leaves only one versus one left."

Vanos growled again, but he didn't stand as tall as Lhyna who was almost five feet tall. He was only maybe four feet tall. "Don't you dare touch my little sister."

"I don't think you can enforce that," Lhyna told him. He slunk down. "I think it's about time I go for the night. I too have sleep to think of." Soon as she attempted to leave, a gooey substance, purple and thick, slithered onto her.

"What in the world?" she asked as it covered her. Then three more wolves appeared. Kyofi, Mosor, and Ahmond.

"Welcome to Vanos' deepest nightmare," Ahmond said to the goddess. "It looks like we're on time, too."