9.27 – Dig a little deeper

Legacy Island II

In the Basement of Forgotten Things

No one’s POV

Weeks of mindless searching, rummaging, reading, opening, and discovering had led only to disappointment.

Breaks had only been allowed to eat, relieve himself and call his family. Sleep had been optional.

Xavier had found wands with a little bit of magic in them so that naturals could use them. He’d found books that wrote themselves. Potions to cure the flu. Vampire fangs that turned vampires human. Bones that were instruments. Trees that caught on fire every 12 hours. Books that would only open with blood. Statues made out of poisonous fairy dust.

And then books. Books on failed experiments. Books on werewolf reproduction. Books on bonsai trees. Books on Frisbees.

He went through every nook and cranny, always very careful not to touch the, without a doubt, most dangerous object in the room.

He could feel the Time Keeper’s presence. Sometimes it was restless, wanting him to touch the device. Sometimes books would fall suspiciously close to it, or potions would roll towards it and touch the sides.

Other times, it felt bored. Like it was turning in circles and circles and circles on end.

After the first week, Xavier had no trouble not touching it.

His grandparents weren’t of much help. With the enormous amount of years they had behind them, Xavier had at least expected some kind of useful knowledge. But the two had mostly kept to hiding behind their massive walls, due to all the commotion about supernaturals outside.

Something Zyla, his grandma, kept bringing back up. “It never changes.” She’d said. “No matter what we try, there’s always someone who hates us.” Their plasma supplies were dwindling fast. Industrial plasma production had been reduced to almost nothing due to several complaints.

The huge house generally occupied only Zyla, Simon and Xavier, but there had been one occasion where they’d gotten a visitor.

Alec had dropped by (after continued insistence from his mother. Apart from James, he was the last surviving batch of their children). He’d come bearing news of Kord’s death. Kord, brother of the infamous vampire king Velor, had passed away in his sleep due to plasma deficiency.

He only stayed for a day, and looked asleep for three quarters of it. Alec showed no interest in Xavier’s search. Instead he asked him for information on his own search: the poisoned apple.

Xavier didn’t have much to share, apart from the fact that James had it in his possession, something Alec already knew.

After Nikita’s birthday passed by, and Nikolas’ approached, Xavier grew restless. What he was searching for was not in his grandparents’ basement.

Using his grandparents’ computer, he told as much to his father. His search was proving to be fruitless. There was nothing, no magical artifact that could help him now.

It’s then that James seemed to remember something else, something he seemed hesitant to bring up, but he decided to do so anyways.

Their ancestors, the Whitelight family, had at a certain point in their life, lived in a small town on the other side of the ocean. It was called Twinbrook, and in it was a house that had held four generations of Whitelights. The house was abandoned now, but it had a secret basement, built by one of their powerful witch ancestors which held all sorts of things he’d never seen before. But most importantly, books, lots and lots of books. More than Zyla and Simon had.

If there was anywhere Xavier would find his answer, it’d be there.

It didn’t take much more to convince Xavier.

Either way, he had a feeling that the older the information was, the better.

***

Ridgevalley

Highschool of the Damned

Nikolas’ POV

School. Boring beyond belief. Not because the subjects are boring, or because they’re too hard. No, quite the contrary. It’s all so easy, and we spend days on a subject I’ve already mastered. How much time do you need to figure out Sin is opposite over hypotenuse??

“-first three chapters by next week. The book contains a lot of swears, but I’m sure you’re all mature enough.” Our English teacher said as she wrote the assignment down.

Elvis yawned so loudly I was almost afraid his jaw would crack open. He slumped on the table after that and started to play with his pencils. The teacher opted to ignore him.

This was supposed to be the advanced course. (Which Elvis only got into thanks to my help. Helping him study was a bitch. Never doing that again.)

I was dozing off pretty hardcore. Guess it doesn’t help that I spent all of last night searching for anything relating to marks on your skin giving you powers. Speaking of, I need to remember to ask Elvis about his brother’s tattoo.

My head slipped out of my hand and I caught myself just in time to avoid a head desk injury. I groaned a little, leaning back in my seat and rubbing my face. When I opened my eyes again the teacher had stopped talking and was giving me a mean warning glare.

If the bell hadn’t rung, she’d have probably jumped on the occasion to ask me to repeat every word she’d uttered in the last five minutes.

***

“Are you serious?” I groan.

“Yeah, I know. I forgot again.” Elvis sighs.

“Dude, it’s just one picture!” I sigh, staring up at the ceiling.

“When I go visit my brother I don’t think oh let’s take a picture of that tattoo while I’m at it.” Elvis snapped.

“Well can you at least tell me what it looks like?”

“They put a bandage over it.” Elvis shrugs. I throw my hands up in the air. “Stop it, stop that.” Elvis hmphs, giving me weak kicks. “I’ll remember next time.”

“Whatever let’s go eat lunch.” I say, pushing myself up.

Elvis snaps out his phone almost immediately as we start walking checking simblr or whatever.

“Oh yeah! Did you hear? The Talent Troupe is coming to Ridgevalley in a few months!” Elvis exclaimed, showing me the article.

“Isn’t that Tyzel’s family?”

“I’m so excited for this.” Elvis said as he scrolled through the pictures. “Talk about talented. Watching the videos and being there is just not the same. I’m going to save up to go see them when they come here.”

“Maybe I’ll stop being grounded by then.”

“I’m going with or without you.”

“How nice.”

Elvis and I settled outside to eat our lunch and hang out. We’re taking advantage of the sun as much as we can before we’re forced to eat inside the stuffy cafeteria because of the snow. The leaves were just barely beginning to change color. We still had a few months before that happened.

I tackled my math homework, which happened to be my next class. My grades probably make up for my attitude in class. I have a teacher who’s always so pissed when he hands me back a good grade though. To the point where he looks for stupid details to deduct points from – like forgetting to write the date. But hey, I’m a lot more attentive to detail now.

“You do your homework last minute, under the darn sun, in one of the most uncomfortable positions ever for homework and you still manage to get 95% on basically everything??” Elvis complained. I smirked. This stuff just comes easy to me. It’s so amusing to see people like Elvis struggle for hours on a question that took me five minutes to solve.

“What can I say? I’m crazy smart.” And I like to learn. My pa had crazy good grades in school, better than I do, but that was because grandpa always worked him to the bone. Pa’s more lax with me when it comes to school work. I remember when I was younger, he’d tried to sit down with me and help me with my homework, but it didn’t take long for him to realize I don’t need any help at all. He hasn’t asked me if I’ve finished my homework since third grade.

Elvis pulled out his cellphone as I went about defeating the bonus questions. Apart from the odd bird or scream or background chatter, a weird silence settled between my friend and I. It seemed really out of place. Like there was some noise missing to our lunch break.

Elvis looked up and around. “Hey. Where’s the ice queen?”

I put my homework down. Oh yeah…the noise was Salandra. She usually sat with us for lunch and chatted away about random things. “I dunno.” Was she actually pissed at me when I saw her working at the museum? Geesus is she always going to be pissed when I spot her in places that’s not school?

Elvis shrugged. “Hey man, you never did tell me what you did with that treasure you found.” He said, deciding to fill the void with his own chatter.

The subject made me smile. “This thing?” I asked, taking the jellybean out of my pocket. “Nothing yet, haven’t really concentrated on this lately.”

“Is it eatable?” Elvis asked.

“Hell no! Don’t eat my treasure!” I exclaimed.

 

“I’m thinking I might know what to do with it in my basement. I found a tree with jellybeans that looked the same. Expired jellybeans though.”

“Expired jellybeans? Wait, you found something cool in your basement? You never told me! It was all I need to open it and then you ran off to summer camp.” Elvis hmphed.

“Well hey do you want to see it? There’s some scary stuff down there though. Might not be the place for chickens.” I teased.

“Did you just call me a chicken?”

“Poc poc?” I flapped my arms.

“The sound fits you.” Veronica said as she appeared with her twin brother at her side. “What are you guys talking about? It sounds interesting!”

“I’m hungry for chicken now.”

“Niko was just telling me all about his cool basement he decided not to share.”

“You have a cool basement!?” Veronica exclaimed, her eyes sparkling. “Wait, what’s your definition of cool?”

I smirked. “Monsters.”

“Monsters?” Elvis inquired with some decent amount of concern.

“Well just one technically. It’s a freaky plant thing…”

“Yeah, count me out.” Joel shook his head.

“Count me in! So after school we head for Niko’s basement?”

“Er I’m kind of grounded guys.”

“But you can have visitors can’t you? Yeah you can! We’ll see you after school then!”

“Okay fine, but only you two. Anymore and my family might start getting suspicious.”

***

Meanwhile…

Salandra’s POV

“Thank you very much for today Salandra.” My ex-science teacher said as I finished up. The school committee had a thousand and one jobs that nobody wanted to do and they were willing to pay for the person who wanted to suffer through them. I had to sacrifice my lunch for this one, but it would be worth it in the long run. “You’re really a great help. It’s fantastic to have you help out. I know you probably would’ve wanted to eat with your friends.”

“It’s no problem at all! I’m glad to be of service.” I said with a convincing smile.

“Ah right, before I forget…” He said, pulling out an envelope from his back pocket. “Here’s your pay.”

I took the small fancy envelope with the school’s logo on it, and I had to resist hugging it in front of the teacher.

“I’ll see you…tomorrow after school?” He asked hesitantly. I nodded in confirmation. He smiled and left, leaving me to rip the envelope open to see how much I’d earned.

With this I had about 145$ saved up. It wasn’t anywhere close to 5000$, but I’d only been doing these odd jobs, wherever I can find them, for a few weeks.

I think this is a good start! If I keep this pace and accelerate it a bit, I should reach at least 1000$ in a few months. And then I can show my uncle that I can gather up enough money and repay him for my mom’s medical bills.

A few months is a long time though…

I still had few minutes left to my lunch break, which I decided to use to search for my friends. I found three of them chatting pretty intensely about something. I only caught a few words…after school, cool stuff, behave, might not work.

“Hey guys!” I called with a wave and a smile. “Are you planning something for after school?”

“Ohhh no,” Niko replied, looking really irritated.

“No, no, no. Not you too, nope. Classes are about to start up anyways.” Nikolas said, waving me off.

“Oh um, I don’t-?”

“I mean this is a private conversation.”

“Oh my god you’re so rude!” Veronica exclaimed.

“What did I say?” Niko asked her. “I said only two! Unless you don’t want to come after all…”

“Geesus he’s spouting threats. I got it I’ll be nice.” Veronica said.

I’d already been forgotten from the conversation as the three started to walk away, talking about what next class they had.

“Sad faces don’t suit you Ice queen.”

Somehow he makes it a mission of his to find me every single day at horrible times. Well really any time I see him is a horrible time.

“Now’s really not the time.” I sighed, knowing he wouldn’t take the hint.

“It’s never the right time with you.”

“Maybe you should take that as a sign.”

“But at least I want to spend time with you. Those others, your friends, don’t work as hard as I do. Because they can’t see what I see.” The honey filled words spilled out of his mouth like he actually meant it, but I knew better.

“Is this called stalking? Can I report you?”

“They don’t deserve you.” Zac said in a lower voice. “He doesn’t deserve you.” He added, with an intense stare.

“Go away Zac.” I said, crossing my arms.

This is Zac, he’s just spouting out bullshit to try and get me on his side. They do want to be friends with me. Nikolas said so himself!

Yes, he made sure I knew he did, and the fact that he does still makes me smile.

I am wanted.

 

 

So yeah Kord died of old age. Game sort of dropped this on me. So much for those plans. *curses the sim heavens* (jk, didn’t really have important things planned for Kord yet. RIP. I like to think he made up his mind at the end, on whose side he was really on.)

Also SAL FEELS