The Basilisk Arc: One

Sous slid out of her room with the bucket of her father's bones were in.

"THE HOUSE IS GONNA BLOW UP!" She yelled as she ran past Shadow who was sitting in his recliner drinking a nice cold beer. 

"WHAT?"

Sous ran out the house and came back empty handed; she went back to her room and came out with her books, and her novice alchemy lab kit dashing out the door. 

"THE HOUSE IS GONNA BLOW UP!"

"WH-"

KABOOM!

Sous, Shadow, and Clarence stood outside of the now rubble that once was the house. Clarence let out a sigh, his ears drooping a bit. 

"Why did you call me?" 

Shadow smiled, a bit embarrassed. "I was hoping maybe you could put it together again." 

"I'm an alchemist, not a spell caster." Clarence looked down at Sous and saw her wand sticking out of her pocket. He took it out and handed it to Shadow. "Here's her wand. Bye." And with that, Clarence dispersed into a dozen bats and flew off. 

Shadow stood next to Sous and thought for a moment, trying to see if he could remember the spell word for repairing something. He scratched his head with Sous' wand. He looked at her. "Does your spell book say anything for repairing something?" 

She shook her head. "I was hoping we could go into town so I can get some more advanced books." 

By this time Shadows neighbors began to come out of their houses to see what happened, making Shadow feel even more humiliated at what Sous did. He already knew she was dabbling in one of those portions or whatever and did something that caused it to blow up. 

He closed his eyes. 

"Monica, do you think you could help repair our home Sous blew up."

"That's hilarious. Yes, I can but it may take a week or two. I'm a bit busy with the kids," Monica replied. 

"That's fine. We plan to travel to Trey." 

"Oh yeah, why?" 

"Sous thinks Apex may be getting supplies from the elves."

"She's right-"

"What?"

"She's right. We are receiving supplies from a clan in the Valley of Trey. Omegas aren't allowed in those meetings so I don't know who the clan is."

After speaking with Monica through telepathy, he looked at Sous, and decided they would stay in a tavern for a couple of days and then head out to Trey. 

After taking a bath, Sous sat on the edge of the tavern room's bed reading one of her new books. She also purchased a belt that allowed her to keep three potions on her at all time: health, stamina, and shield. Sous informed Shadow she didn't believe her parry spell was that effective against the Alpha so thought it was better if she created a potion for such opponents. The shield potion was in the newest book Shadow purchased for Sous regarding alchemy. 

Sous managed to save some potions as well. Sous Bullets, a silver substance created with two elements: silver and diterpenoid alkaloids, a chemical element that can be found within a flower called aconitum. The flower was found in regions in and around mountains which included Trey. The health potion was created using the elements of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and zinc. The stamina potion was used with the same chemical elements but with nitrogen also added. Then there was the shield portion consisting of eicosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acid. 

Shadow cleaned his new weapons he purchased since all of his weapons beyond the ones already on him were burnt to a crisp from the explosion. He purchased a pump action shot gun and a lever action shot gun; he also purchased a Colt Anaconda and a Colt Army Model 1860. 

While Sous spoke to him about the potions and their chemical make ups, he cleaned out his new toys. Listening to Sous speak was like listening to an adult at times. Sometimes when she spoke in such a fashion, he would forget how old she was. Then she would do something stupid like challenge the Alpha or blow up the house. 

"Do you like alchemy?" He asked her. 

"Hmm hmm." 

"Which do you prefer: alchemy or spell casting?"

Sous thought for a moment. "I like sparring and I hope that when I go to the school, there's a human teaching. I think humans make the best teachers because they invented martial arts." 

After a couple of days, they left the tavern after Shadow got word from his job that they were going to send him a mission that would work as a way for them to get to Trey, so they left early in the morning and made their way via bus to the river bank to Nadia's Port. There was a man waiting for Shadow that had a boat waiting for them. 

It was a blue tug boat with black floating devices on the side of the boat. Once the man handed the anchor to Shadow, he left, and Shadow helped Sous on the boat. In the back of the tug boat were wooden barrels. Sous looked them over as Shadow was getting everything situated. 

"Don't touch those barrels, Sous."

"Why? What's in them?" 

"Basilisk eggs. We gotta take them to Trey." 

Sous didn't inquire much but she figured the elves were using them to create some type of potion. One of the newest books she got was on animals and basilisks were an animal that was becoming rare in certain regions because of the stealing of their eggs. As powerful as the basilisk were, their eggs were completely vulnerable and went for a fortune. It was a lucrative industry and an industry Sous hated. 

She stepped back from the barrels and walked back to Shadow at the front of the boat. Once the anchor was up, he honked the boat and smiled at Sous. 

"Alright, let's hit the stream!" 

The boat began to move down the river. 

"What river is this?" 

"Oo, I guess we should have gotten some geography books especially with all the traveling we've been doing, uh." Shadow laughed. He placed the boat on automatic so it could drive on its own at the same speed consistent with the speed of the river. "This river is Lake Travis. It travels all the way to Trey. No turns we gotta make or nothing. We keep straight." Shadow was quiet as he led her down below where the kitchen, office, restroom, and bunks were. "You know what me taking this mission means, Sous?" 

Sous nodded her head. "Basilisk eggs are on demand and they're very expensive. You're expecting bandits." Shadow nodded his head and gave her a small smile. 

"The majority of the eggs are going to Trey but there are some stops we're going to make as well. Small stops." 

"How long will it take us to get to Trey?"

"About two days." 

Later that night, Sous went to the back of the tug boat and opened the barrel. She looked at the eggs bobbing up and down in the water. They didn't stand a chance. Once they were sold, they would be cracked open, and killed. She put the top of the barrel back on it and walked down into the cabin below. She went to the desk that was located in the small sleeping quarter and began to read an intermediate spell book. She began to think about how Jacob was doing in school. It had been a couple of weeks and already she wanted to visit. Then she thought about Kara and how she was doing, making her blush. Then she quickly thought about the fight she had with the Alpha and wondered whether or not Kara hated her for even daring to fight against her sire. 

Sous moved the spell book out of the way and pulled the basic spell book toward her. There had to have been some type of communication spell. A spell where she could send something to Kara to keep in touch. Some people were strong enough to use telepathy but Sous was nowhere near that. 

She flipped through the pages, searching. "Tsk, not a single communication spell." She closed the book and went back to her intermediate book and read the table of contents. Nothing. "What the-" She got up and walked to Shadow who was sitting in his captain chair just looking over the river for the night. "I want to talk to Kara but don't know how." 

Shadow turned to face her. "You can't. You don't have any animal messengers, you don't know any enchantment spells, nor do you have any possession spells." 

"Well, do you know any?"

"Nope…well, telepathy. I can relay your message to Monica and she can relay it to Kara." 

Sous' face turned bright red. "No!" 

Shadow shrugged. "Our first stop is in the morning. I'll see if I can contact a fox to deliver a message." 

"Make it a wolf." 

Shadow slapped his forehead, wondering why he didn't think of that. "Okay, a wolf. I'll attempt to find a wolf to deliver the message, K?" 

Sous nodded her head and walked back down to the cabin bunks to finish her studying for the night.