Why does writing gotta be so dang hard?! Lol Still trying to break through that pesky writers block. :(

Enjoy and as always I await to hear what you think ;)

Chapter Thirty - Curiositas Occidit Cat

*** Leo Cazador ***

“Shouldn’t we be leaving Papi?” Sophia asked.

Since the fire gate was already activated I decided to study the other gates, they were boringly similar except for the earth seal. There was something like a written history on it and around it, some of which was not even part of the seal’s magic, just inscribed history. It was hard to understand as it was pictographs and hieroglyphs I could barely make out. Basically, however, a handful of similar but different races had entered this gate and the place on the other side was prosperous and a place of safe-keeping.

“Hold on,” I said trying to read more but it was mostly gibberish and a lot of guessing.

I had to fight the urge to activate the gate, so instead I moved on to the one that most intrigued me. The light and darkness seal. It was written with old runes of life and death, afterlife and rebirth, creation and destruction, mortality and immortality. The last two caught my attention, I decided to study them closely, if I could fully grasp the immortality runes I could give myself eternal life. It was not like the curse I forced on Captain Morgan, eventually his cells would degrade and he would die probably within the next few centuries or so completely burned out. I could have given him a semblance of immortality, but the seals involved in that had been far too complex to fit on the skin of a single human body. Instead the captain was given an undying but finite lived body instead of an actual eternal one.

I placed a hand on the seal brushing my hand against the runes hoping to engrave the design into my memory for later use. I had forgotten to bring paper for notes, I had not expected to need them.

Suddenly the seal activated. It resembled the taoist symbol of yin and yang as it glowed white and black.

“Papi?” Sophia called out to me startled.

“Don’t worry,” I said peeling away my ha...hmmm…

I pulled...and nothing. I could not move my hand.

I pulled up the earth to my ankles to ground me as I pulled harder...again nothing. I blasted the gate generating an elemental flame between it and my open palm. Not even a scratch. Tendrils started crawling up my hand slowly engulfing it in pitch darkness.

“What’s going on?” She asked coming closer.

“Stay where you are,” I told her pouring mana into me using it to fortify my body. The ground cracked and the air hummed with my power, but still my hand would not peel away and slowly the tendrils crawled past my wrist.

I started blasting elemental wind and elemental water trying to scratch the seal to ruin its magic, but it was protected by a force that was not magic.

“Papi?” She sounded panicked.

“Go!” I told her gathering a mass of light magic in my free hand. “Go!”

“B...but…”

“I said go now!” I commanded harshly. I could see the hurt on her face, the fear, the worry, the hesitation. I said the last in a whisper. “I’m sorry little one...and goodbye.”

As I watched her leave the white light in my open palm suddenly became polluted with darkness as it began to swirl until it resembled the glowing of the seal. The yin and yang symbol of light and darkness.

“Warping destruction!” I screamed slamming my free palm on the seal, it rumbled and but otherwise nothing happened. The only thing I achieved was trapping my other hand.

The entire cavern should have been engulfed in warped space, it should have all been reduced to atomic dust along with me. Yet...here I was and here the gates remained.

The only noticeable thing my attack did other than make the gate slightly rumble was spread the dark tendrils across my body faster. In seconds I was completely engulfed and my consciousness faded with the light.

*** Sophia Cazador ***

The air trembled with the power Papi unleashed inside the cavern, the amount of mana I was feeling was ridiculous even by Papi’s standard. The air was rippling with so much energy that it was messing with my senses as it felt like I was being swallowed by an ocean of power.

The amount of power buckled my knees as my body couldn’t take the overwhelming force. It didn’t hurt, it all felt like Papi’s power and instead of injuring me it was just pouring over and around me. I could see the ground slightly vibrating from the power that permeated through everything.

My head was feeling fuzzy, but just as I was about to fall over completely overwhelmed, the power disappeared. It rushed back into the cavern where Papi was.

It took me a moment to regain my breath.

When I could finally stand I made my way way back into the chamber using the stone walls as a crutch since my legs were still unsteady.

What I saw there made me stop in my tracks.

“Papi?” I called out awkwardly racing to him as my legs wobbled slightly beneath me.

He was kneeling in front of the seal facing away from it as if he had come out of it and had dropped where he stood. His hair was burning a strange black and white and his eyes were were glowing a different color each, one black and one white.

He looked up towards me and what I saw there was something I never considered he could ever experience. I remember seeing it on my own face once, it was an expression that brought up many long repressed memories. Despair.

He was crying tears of blood as his eyes continued looking at me. There was something else in his eyes, aside from the pain of despair, it was guilt.

I wanted to rush over and comfort him, but before I could the glowing of his eyes faded and the fire on his hair died away and as the last of the burning flame disappeared he crumbled to the ground.

“Papi?” I called out carefully approaching him. in just a few steps I was beside him and knelt down. My hands went to his head, I gently placed a hand on his cheek wiping away some of the blood from his eyes. My hands registered the heat of his skin, he was burning up!

The fever was strong and he was already starting to sweat, which was both a good and bad sign. Good because it let me know that whatever the seal had done to him it had not killed him but, it was also bad because it was a testament to the heat of his fever.

The glowing of the seal had died out by now.

I anxiously scanned the room for anything useful, but there was nothing in the chamber to help me care for him or carry him away. I was still too unsteady to focus my magic, I would not be able to strengthen my body properly enough to carry him up the long distance to the upper town pockets.

I remembered the teachers, they should still be within a few minute’s travel time by grav skating.

Confusion and worry raged through my mind, there was just so much to process and I didn’t understand what was going on at all, except for the fact that Papi was now on the ground, unconscious and in an abnormal state.

Before I left to find the teachers I moved him to a more comfortable position laying him on his back. I removed his black leather coat and used it as a makeshift bed so that the cold stone beneath him would not chill his body and so that the coat would not trap the heat within and potentially hurt him.

I used his shirt as a rag, I tried using the water element ring to gather some from the air, but it wasn’t working. Since the rings were connected to Papi the light and darkness seal probably messed with my rings through him. No matter, from his earlier attacks Papi left many water puddles. I chose the cleanest looking among them and dabbed the shirt in the liquid, after draping it over his head I promised him I would be back with help and left.

The wind roared around me as I swiftly cut through the tunnels, they were wide enough that I could be recklessly fast. I needed to find the teachers quickly, who knows what that seal had done to him!

I caught up to the Teacher Mages and the Professor in just a couple of minutes..

They were surprised to see me.

“What’s going on?” Teacher Mage Norma asked. “Did you forget something?”

“No!” I quickly replied out of breath. I stopped using hard gravity to anchor me to the ground, due to the force I had been using to rocket through the tunnels my body was still pushed a couple yards before the hard gravity could stop me.

The dust around my feet quickly settled before I broke off the gravity skill.

“It’s Leo,” I explained. “He turned on the light and dark seal!”

“Really?” professor Dolan perked up. “What did it do? Did it also let something through?”

“No!” I shook my head. “He needs your help!”

The teachers looked confused.

“I’m sorry child,” the professor sighed. “My bones are far too weary to travel back, my residence is less than a quarter distance ahead. Tell him I will gladly aid him tomorrow.”

“You don’t understand,” I cried out desperately. “He needs your help! The seal, it did something to him!”

The teacher mages looked at each other surprised. The intrigue in the professor’s eyes returned.

“Really?” he asked. “what?”

“I...I don’t know,” I replied.

“Is it something serious?” the teacher mage Gysh asked concerned.

“Yes!” I replied. “He...he’s on the ground, he was bleeding from his eyes...and he was on fire!”

Both of the teacher mages exchanged extremely worrried glances.

“We are going to need a medic,” TM Norma said. “Burns need to be treated quickly.”

“He’s not burned,” I siad.

“But you said…”the teacher said.

“It wasn’t normal fire,” I explained. “Please, just help me carry him back.”