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Chaptr 394
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Leesa's Advent Chapter 395
Leesa and Rave gazed out over the stark, forbidding landscape. This was not a place anyone would visit willingly, that was for sure.“We’ve got two choices, I guess,” Leesa said finally. “We can stay right here and hope that the magic somehow undoes itself and we end up back home, or we can start looking for whomever or whatever might have had a part in this and get them to undo it.”“I vote we start searching,” Rave responded. He looked around them once more. “You’re the wizard—pick a direction.”With the pale sun almost directly overhead, there was no way to label any direction. Leesa spun around in a slow circle, surveying their options. There was nothing as far as the eye could see in two directions, and she had no real desire to head any closer to the volcanoes. That left only the woods, if that’s what the dark outline in the distance was. She raised her arm and pointed toward it.“That way,” she said.“Works for me,” Rave agreed.She took Rave’s hand, not wanting to chance that
Leesa's Advent Chapter 396
As Leesa and Rave pushed onward across the barren plain, they encountered no more serpents, saw no creatures of any kind. Nonetheless, Leesa kept the invisible shield wrapped around them, protecting them from any more strange and unexpected dangers this place might suddenly throw at them.Another hour of hiking brought them close enough to see that the dark line they had viewed from a distance was indeed the edge of a large wooded area—more of a forest, actually. The trees bore no resemblance at all to the grotesque, stunted trees that dotted the plain, nor did they look at all like any trees Leesa had ever seen.They weren’t all that tall—perhaps thirty-five or forty feet at most—but they were astonishingly lush and beautiful, covered with bright, emerald green leaves edged in a golden hue so bright it almost glowed. The leaves grew so close together they formed curved, mushroom-like caps that blanketed the top half of every tree. So thick was
Leesa's Advent Chapter 397
The surviving wyvwern had now disappeared from view, leaving Leesa and Rave alone at the edge of the forest once more. The attack was already beginning to feel unreal, but the lifeless carcass of the creature stretched out on the ground just a few feet away provided grim evidence that it had been very real indeed.“The sooner we figure out a way to get out of this place and back to where we belong, the happier I’ll be,” Leesa said.“I’ll second that,” Rave agreed.Leesa stared at the virtual wall of plant growth beside them. She didn’t know why, but she had a feeling that the answers they sought lay somewhere inside this forest. She still didn’t see any way she and Rave could enter, however. She was growing more and more tempted to try to blast her way in, but she held herself back. She would save that drastic step as a last resort.“I guess we may as well keep walking and hope we find a path into this
Leesa's Advent Chapter 398
We leave the scene of the motorcycle gang massacre quickly, in case the sound has drawn unwanted attention.As we hurry up the hill on the side road at a rapid march, Kai maneuvers himself alongside me. I hold back a smile—it’s always nice to have him close by. His scouting duties don’t allow this to happen nearly enough for my liking. I almost long for those few days when I had him all to myself, before the others caught up with us back on the California coast. Not that I’m not thrilled to be reunited with my dad and my friends, of course.“Are you okay?” he asks.“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say. “Those guys never even got off a shot.”Kai doesn’t say anything—he’s not the most talkative guy I’ve ever known, for sure. I like being reminded that he cares, though. I struggle to come up with something to keep the conversation going.“You reacted awfully fast back there,” I say. “Before any of the Marines.”Kai shrugs. “I was ready. It was pretty clear there was going to be trouble, so I had an
Leesa's Advent Chapter 399
I catch his eye and we exchange smiles, but have no chance to talk before he’s off again.We follow along behind him, but he’s moving at a fast jog and is soon lost to sight around a curve in the road. Once again, I find myself marveling at his physical conditioning. He doesn’t seem to ever get tired even though he’s traveling much faster than the rest of us, and by coming back and forth, he’s covering a whole lot more distance besides. None of the Marines show any signs of fatigue, either. As for me, I’m glad we seem to have left the steepest slopes behind us, though I’m certainly not going to sound like a wimp or a whiner by voicing that thought aloud. I bet my friends feel the same way. We’re all in good shape by now, but we’re for sure not Marines.With the heavy gray cloud cover looming over us, darkness begins to descend early. December twenty-first is already the shortest day of the year, and we’re far
Leesa's Advent Chapter 400
Dawn has barely broken when we’re up and preparing to be on our way. No one is tired or complaining, though—we’ve gotten used to going to bed early and waking up with or before the sun. We all down a quick, cold breakfast of energy bars and C-rations and then we’re ready to go.Kai is waiting outside for us. His long hair is damp and plastered against his head—whether from an overnight rain or a heavy mist I don’t know—but he looks completely rested and refreshed, even though I doubt he slept much, if at all.As soon as we step out the door, Kai comes directly over to my dad and me. I’m pretty sure I see excitement in his eyes. And why not? We’re all pretty sure we’re going to find the portal we are waiting for today. For most of us that means venturing into unknown dangers, but for Kai it means going home. So why wouldn’t he be looking forward to that?“Good morning, Leah,” he says before turning to my dad. I only have time to smile before he begins giving Dad his report.“Everything
Leesa's Advent Chapter 401
Our wait for the portal to appear is a short one.“Anomaly!” Radar shouts less than fifteen minutes after we arrived at the edge of the forest. She points to a spot about halfway up the hillside. “Up there.”There’s no sign of any portal yet, but Radar is never wrong. We’re all ready to hurry up the slope, but my dad stops us.“Not yet,” he says. “We stay here in the trees where it’s safe until we see it begin to open.”Dad’s being smart and cautious to the end. Radar’s warnings sometimes come as much as ten minutes before an Anomaly actually occurs. There’s no need to expose ourselves just yet.The wait now seems interminably long, but in reality it’s probably only three minutes or so before the air begins to shimmer right where Radar pointed.“Okay,” Dad says. “Let’s go.”We hurry up the ridge, being careful not to get too close to where the Anomaly is forming. All the Marines hold their weapons at the ready—there’s no guarantee this is the portal we’ve been waiting for. It’s possib
Leesa's Advent Chapter 402
There was nothing Leesa and Rave could do about their diminished powers, so they set back out on their trek along the magical path. Always ready and alert, Rave’s keen senses were now extra aware and heightened. He was still supernaturally strong and fast, and with his fire remaining hot inside him, he hoped if it became necessary he could still use it in the way he slew vampires—by using the fire from his mouth. He wasn’t sure if that would work against the kinds of monsters that seemed to dwell in this place, however.For her part, Leesa had never felt quite so anxious. In all the adventures she had survived in the past, Rave had always been beside her at full strength. Usually Dominic had also been there, and she had her own magic to rely on as well, even though her magical abilities were much weaker back in those early days. Now, in what was probably the most dangerous place she had ever found herself short of the Necromancer’s magic table, her mag
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