“I think it’s too big of a coincidence for it not to be the Monty that we know,” Hades says thoughtfully.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if he had a hand in this too. He has his finger in a lot of pies and likes to be involved in things,” Khaos adds.“Which makes sense actually, now that we know what we know about Monty.”
“Good point,” Rival agrees. He looks at Farren, “Can I see what Sage gave you?”
Farren nods, and hands the handful of stones over to Rival, “It would probably be best if you looked after them anyway. I am definitely going to lose them. Since they’re so important, I don’t want to risk putting them in a pocket of the Void and not being able to find them again.”
Rival hums, but he’s so focused on what he’s doing that I’m not entirely sure that he has heard what she’s said. Fortunately, Farren doesn’t get offended and simply smiles at him.
“I’m sorry, I think I need just a couple of seconds to freak out for a moment,” Rast starts.
Hades smiles sympathetically, “Shit, sorry, man. We’re all so used to this sort of shit that I forget that you aren’t.”
“What he means is please proceed with your freak out,” Kill states.
“Thank you,” Rast says somewhat controlled, and then immediately devolves into a less controlled rant. “What was that? Random people who don’t live here just showed up and then disappeared, no one is supposed to be able to get through to this realm. I went through hell to get to your realm, and you’re all just popping in and out like there’s a fucking portal.”
“If it helps, I do think that it is limited to just Farren and now Sage, although Sage had help from Monty, which means she had help from the goddess. At least I assume that she did, unless Monty went off on his own again, which would not be surprising at all,” Khaos explains.
I’m not sure that his explanation is exactly helpful though.
“I just, it’s, I mean,” he stumbles over his words.
“Sorry,” Farren mutters. “I would say that it gets better, but it hasn’t yet, and the surprises just keep on coming.”
Rast smiles, already done with his freak-out, although I would wager that it's because of Farren and not because he’s okay with the crazy turn of events.
He nods, “So long as you don’t mind me freaking out for a bit, I’m sure that I’ll get used to it at some point.”
“We don’t mind, man,” Loki replies with a smile. “We all still freak out too.”
“There’s enough for each of us to have one each and then one spare,” Rival suddenly says, proving that he hasn’t actually been listening to anything that we’ve been saying.
“If it were exact, then I would have said that it meant that there was one for each of us,” Mayhem points out.
“Do you know the material?” Khaos asks curiously.
Rival shakes his head, “No, is it something that anyone else recognises?”
Everyone leans closer to look at the rocks in Rival’s hand and then shakes their heads.
“It looks familiar,” Khaos says. He shakes his head, his frown deep, “I don’t know why. I can’t place where I know it from, but I definitely recognise it from somewhere. Hopefully it will come to me.”
“She said that we wouldn’t need them for a while, and we don’t exactly have the resources to research them at the moment, so I think we should carry on before something else finds us,” Rast suggests.
I have to admit I’m impressed with how he’s handling the latest thing that’s been thrown at him. It gives me hope that he’s going to be able to handle everything that’s coming as well.
“Agreed,” Storm says.
Rival carefully puts the stones in the inner pocket on his jacket, and then we carry on walking, picking our way through the trees. Fortunately, there seems to be an albeit overgrown path that we’re following. At least I think that it used to be a path. I’m guessing that it is simply because there isn’t as much growth on this part as there is on the ground surrounding us. It’s fascinating to me that this place has different levels of dark that allow us to know that it’s different times of the day.
Although, according to Rast, that’s a new development and isn’t the norm for this place.
I look at Farren.
It’s because of Farren.
My instincts are screaming at me. I just don’t know what that means.
