Chapter 3: Friends

As Venice fell into silence, Alex felt it was the right time to act. The city was enveloped in darkness, with only the occasional light of lanterns reflected in its alleys, flickering like remnants of long-forgotten memories. Venice at this hour was like a forgotten kingdom, dormant, waiting for someone to rouse it to life.

He sat at a small wooden table in a deserted cafe, where a single, solitary candle cast a warm glow on the dilapidated tabletop. He slowly pulled out his phone and began calling his friends. Elena, Rafael, Isabella, Luca - each of them possessed something special, as if they all carried fragments of a forgotten legend that now needed to be put together.

He dialed the first number. Elena answered. Surprise echoed in her voice.

- Alex, it's nighttime. What's going on? - She asked, as if knowing that the matter could not be trivial.

- I apologize for the hour," Alex replied, feeling that the somewhat dramatic time of day would be an ally here. - I would like you to come to Venice. It's ... something you might be interested in.

The silence on the handset lasted longer than Alex had anticipated, and then Elena answered, her voice mixing mild skepticism and alertness.

- Venice? You're getting me into something again, aren't you? But okay, it's been a long time since I've been there and I hope it's worth it. When to come?

Alex smiled under his breath.

- As soon as possible. I'll meet you at a certain small cafe, the place has something about it. I'll send you the address.

With a slight smile, Elena hung up the phone. She thought that the son of a bitch was appearing in her life again with a mystery bigger than reason itself. She hadn't seen him in three years, and when he did show up, he always got her into something unusual.

Alex then called Rafael. Rafael - a mathematician with an unbridled curiosity and talents that saw order in all chaos - answering the phone sounded almost as if he anticipated that he was about to hear something that went beyond the limits of everyday life.

- Rafael, I have to show you something. It may be the key to understanding certain symbols I once mentioned," Alex began, and the words hung in the air like a riddle requiring an immediate solution.

Rafael did not immediately respond, but finally spoke up with a slightly resounding curiosity in his voice.

- You speak in riddles, Alex, but you know I'm susceptible to such things. Well. Send me the details.

He said the last word with an air of seriousness, and Alex knew that Rafael would be irreplaceable. There was something about this man that saw the world the way he wanted to see it - every line formed an equation, every puzzle had a pattern.

Later it was Isabella's turn. She had the makings of a teacher, someone who knows every ancient story by heart and feels the rituals whose meaning remains a mystery to others. Alex wondered how to convince her. Finally, he called her.

- Isabella, I have a very unusual request for you. I would like to take you to Venice," he said with conviction.

- Venice? Alex, you know that I don't drop everything just because someone needs help," she replied with a playful smile.

Alex allowed himself a moment of silence, and then said, almost in a whisper.

- I know, but think - dinner, channels and a mystery that can interest. After all, it's like traveling to the old world! What do you say?

Her voice was soft, almost tender.

- So a mystery date? - She laughed. - Ah, you always know how to convince a woman! Send me the details. And the outfit? Chic, I understand? Should I look like something out of a fairy tale?

- Isabella, you are the fairy tale. Whatever you choose will be perfect," he replied with a smile.

- Sure," she replied with a wince.

- Isabella, you look divine even in sweatpants.

Isabella rolled her eyes, but Alex knew that Isabella could not resist such an invitation.

In the end, Alex called Luca, a technical genius with an intuition that reaches further than most. Luca saw things that others did not. His mind was like a puzzle in constant motion.

- Luca, I need your help. I have a certain very old artifact," said Alex. - Your mind will be crucial in its analysis. He does not recognize the refusal.

Luca was silent for a moment, and then said, as if he had discovered what he had long suspected.

- It even sounds interesting. Good. Send me the address.

Alex breathed a sigh of relief. He knew that each of his friends, attracted by the mystery and his unique knowledge, would give Venice new life, new stories and new secrets.

Venice greeted them like a dream - hazy, beautiful and disturbing, full of promises that aroused both fear and fascination. Alex gathered them in the same café where a few days earlier, surrounded by whispers of ancient secrets, he had asked them to come. The wooden table was illuminated by trembling candle flames, scattering shadows that crept along the walls and corners like spectral witnesses to their meeting. They looked almost like ancient prospectors, united to discover together the secrets behind the symbol of the Ice Fire Moon.

Elena, Rafael, Isabella, Luca - each of them had their own key to the story, a skill that could illuminate even a piece of this mysterious puzzle. Alex looked at his friends, feeling pride and gratitude. This moment, which seemed to herald a new adventure, pulsed with an undercurrent of tension.

- Alex," Elena spoke up, her green eyes gleaming in the flickering candlelight. - What did you really discover? Why did you bring us here?

Alex dragged his hand through his hair, wondering where to start.

- My dear friends," he said with a smile, somewhat theatrically, but sincerely, "thank you for coming here. This city has something in it that I can't describe. I believe it may conceal the answer I seek. A mystery that has to do with the Ice Fire Moon.

Elena raised her eyebrows, as if he had just told her a ghost story.

- Are you kidding me?

Rafael took off his glasses and looked at him doubtfully.

- Alex, these legends are fairy tales after all. Stories that grandmothers scare children with.

Isabella, in turn, asked the waiter for wine and nodded at Alex with a slight smile.

- Start from the beginning," she chuckled, as if not wanting to reveal her thoughts yet. - Just wait for the wine, because I can't take these stories sober.

Alex smiled at her gratefully. He turned back to his friends, his eyes shining with mystery.

- Isabella, I think I was able to find something that we talked about in Istanbul. Symbols that will introduce us to something mystical. - He spoke the words calmly, almost in a whisper, as if each had its own hidden meaning.

Luca listened attentively, and a shadow of a smile appeared on his face.

- So, what? Unicorns? The holy grail? Alex, seriously?

Alex allowed himself a quiet laugh.

- It's... more complicated. - He pondered for a moment, searching for the right words. - I saw during meditation a vortex of water meeting fire, a combination of elements that suggests balance. Here, too, I discovered symbols that represent this. Symbols whose meaning goes far beyond what we know. There is a certain place in Venice, on an island opposite the whirlpool. All you have to do is find the geographical location.

Luca rolled his eyes, but you could see the hidden admiration in his gaze.

- I guess you weren't stoned at the time? If I didn't know you, I wouldn't have gulped it in my life. So we should look for a place where water and fire meet? Okay, if anything, I'm turning on the simulation. Maybe we'll find something.

Elena smiled broadly, interrupting the argument with a light tone.

- Sounds great! As usual Luca throws ironic comments, but we're all here because Alex knows what he's doing.

Alex looked around at his friends, knowing that each person had a role to play. His plan had worked.

- That's why I brought you all here. I think we can all get closer to this mystery together.

Rafael put his glasses back on and mused.

- If we can determine where the vortex of water and fire intersect, we could find something. We just need to approach it scientifically.

Isabella took out a notebook and started writing something down.

- Venice is full of rituals, symbols, traditions whose history is lost in the darkness of the Middle Ages. We need to trace the traces it has left over the centuries.

Luca looked at the tablet and launched his analysis programs.

- Well, I will start the simulation. Perhaps we can locate the meeting point of water and fire. I'm betting that it involves volcanic lava flowing into the sea. At least that's what I can promise.

Alex felt a sense of excitement. He looked at them and knew that they were about to embark on a quest that he himself had already stopped believing in, and yet he knew that this was their moment.

Elena bolted from her seat with such momentum that she bumped into a waiter carrying another drink for Isabella.

- I feel that we will find this place! This is something you don't figure out just like that. It has to be felt with the heart! - she announced with sudden passion, unaware of how close to disaster she was.

The startled waiter wobbled on his feet, and the glass with the drink soared straight toward Isabella, landing with a loud "splash" on her pristine white, exclusive pants from. For a second there was such silence in the café that one could hear a plan for revenge forming in Isabella's head. Everyone froze, watching the cold gin and tonic soak into the fabric, and the expression on Isabella's face went from indignation to pure horror.The waiter, pale as a wall, rushed toward her with his worn-out cloth, but Isabella raised her hand in a warning gesture that would have stopped a speeding train. As the waiter moved to wipe up the stain, she stood up abruptly and almost screamed.

- Where with that rag! It's Chanel, not a bar apron!

The waiter was almost at a loss for words, and his English suddenly turned into a mixture of something between apology and complete incomprehension.

- O-o-o... I'm very sorry, Mrs.... I didn't mean to... It's just... well an accident.... - he bubbled, blushing, his hands shaking as if he had just tried to fold origami in time.

Isabella, without taking her eyes off him, squinted like a predator.

- An accident? Is that what you call this ... this massacre? - In her voice one could hear the cool sarcasm that would not be shamed by a professor pointing out a mistake on the blackboard to a student.

Suddenly Alex decided to add his three cents and smiled, looking mischievously at Isabella.

- Ladies and gentlemen, here is the lady of ice and fire in the flesh!

The waiter, even more horrified, squeezed his hands in a silent plea for forgiveness, and Elena, seeing that the whole situation was turning into a disaster on the scale of an ancient drama, decided to step in.

- Is, really, forgive him, it's my fault," she confessed with a face that simultaneously expressed remorse and a barely suppressed giggle. - I tripped him. I wanted to get up, but... it came out as it did," she muttered, doing her best not to laugh.

Isabella measured everyone with a gaze that made it clear she wasn't going to forget this moment, but seeing the waiter's dumbfounded face and Elena's contrite expression, she couldn't stop the corners of her mouth from lifting slightly.

- This "accident" had better get out of my sight. - she muttered, sitting down with a dignity that remained unshaken even under the weight of the spilled gin.

Luca, who was clearly fed up with the drama, tapped his fingers on the tabletop.

- If the esteemed ladies have finished deliberations on the issue of drenched clothes with juice with percentages, how about we return to the topic? After all, we probably have a plan, don't we?

Rafael laughed under his breath.

- Right, Luca. And the waiter is probably already laying out his epic tale of the beautiful lady and the drink he spilled on Chanel," he made a significant pause before adding, "And he won't forget to add how he almost lost his head for it.

Elena chipped in with a characteristic gleam in her eye.

- So is everyone ready? Then when and where do we set off? Not counting this little downtime?

The group fell silent, analyzing the plan, though Luca seemed more interested in the next anecdote than the trip.

- Remember," began Elena with theatrical passion, "that intuition will guide us further than any rational plan. It is the heart that will show us the way.

Isabella tore her gaze away from her soiled pantsuit and sighed heavily.

- As you say about "intuition," I'm already dreading what will come of this, but well, let's see where it takes us. Of course, as usual, we are getting into something beyond what we consider rational. Bravo Alex.

Rafael, looking out the window at the illuminated Venice, commented with a hint of melancholy.

- This city already has enough mysteries anyway. Maybe it's our search that will help decipher them at least a little.

Elena glanced down at her notes, where she wrote down every clue, vision and even her own theories.

- And I," interjected Luca, without taking his eyes off the tablet screen, "already have simulations of this legendary "meeting of the elements" ready. We'll see if at least this vortex even exists. My calculations point to a possible configuration in this particular location. It should help us confirm what Alex saw in his departure.

Alex looked at everyone with gratitude and slight irony.

- It seems that we are no ordinary team of tourists. We have an adventure ahead of us that could change us all. And to this, each of you brings something unique. Maybe even something useful!

When Venice began to be shrouded in the golden lights of the west, their discussion came alive again - full of jokes, banter and plans. Adventure awaited, although they were all aware that whatever befell them, this trip would be full of not only secrets, but also surprises.