Professor Layton: Conundrum of the Vanishing

Chapter One

"Ugh... So bored..."

Grunting and complaining could be heard a mile away throughout the Gressenheller University campus. Everybody who knew anything about anything knew exactly who was causing all the noise. Nobody even questioned it at this point.

The student who made such sounds was one Foliis Dohim. She was something of a celebrity among the students at the school whether they chose to accept it or not. The year before, Foliis had solved a mystery behind a group of psychics in a creepy town that stood nearby, one Psylias.

What most didn't know was that Foliis was one of the psychics herself. Through a long and complicated series of events, the auburn haired teen had discovered a few little truths behind her origins. It was a long and complex story, one she never chose to explain to anybody purely for her own convenience.

Foliis let a small smirk appear on her lips. She could totally mentally ask one of her siblings, Faith or Fey, to help her out with the answer to her current homework question. It was about some book Foliis had never bothered to read with her thin amount of patience, but she was pretty sure that one of her siblings had read it. She wasn't sure if it was Faith at it with her Braille books or Fey reading like the little dork he was, but one of them had glimpsed every page inside of the book her question was about, which would be a helpful asset in her quest for answers.

Before Foliis could mentally send out waves that contacted her siblings, her computer let out a beep. "What the...?" the short tempered girl asked. She minimized her homework page and went to the email section of her computer, her mouse gently scraping against the table it sat upon.

A small click from the device indicated that Foliis had clicked on the email that had just created a sound. She watched white overcome her screen in silence, curious as to what it could be.

Words appeared slowly, their black text so small that she practically had to squint to see even the capital letters. Muttering a few vulgar words that are best to not be repeated, Foliis zoomed in on the email so that her deep brown eyes could see things a tad bit better.

Foliis read over the email in her head, each word intriguing her further and further. A smile of anticipation made its entrance on her face. Just to make sure that it was real, the happy girl read the email aloud into the empty air around her.

"Foliis Dohim... You have hereby been invited to the island Bohimika... We would love to have you and a handful of London teens and children solve a mystery for us residents regarding recent events involving terrible earthquakes and the appearance of strange men and women none of us have ever met. Please be in Bohimika by the seventeenth of May so that we can properly brief you and your fellow investigators on what you need to do to solve this case." Foliis laughed like a giddy child and prompted her computer to print out the email. She had to tell Byrne as soon as she could.

Byrne was Foliis' partner in crime from the case that had earned her the fame she possessed on the campus of Gressenheller University. Well... He was one of her partners in crime. There were seven of them in total, nine if you counted Caj. Byrne and Foliis had grown close since the previous case, so she wanted to tell him before spreading the news to anybody else.

Foliis picked up the phone and hit the area on the screen that speed dialled Byrne's cell phone. She grinned as she let the phone ring, the dull tones making her heart beat faster and her smile grow wider. She hadn't been this excited over a phone call in ages. It was wild to think that she was really so excited over this. She had been less excited after getting a perfect score on her math exam the semester before, which was saying a lot.

"Foliis?"

Byrne's voice made Foliis giggle lightly. She immediately masked it by speaking. She didn't want Byrne to hear her act like a childish girl with a crush on a football player in middle school. Foliis didn't want anybody to hear about that side of her, in fact. "I got an email you might want to hear about," Foliis told him, cutting to the chase as fast as she could.

"Was it about an island called Bohimika?" Byrne questioned from the other end of the phone.

Foliis' smile faltered slightly. "How did you guess?" she asked. She had been hoping to tell him all about the email, so the fact that he already knew put a bit of a damper on her good mood.

"I got one too," Byrne replied. "Casey gave me a call and told me that he got an email too. I'm willing to bet that almost everybody, if not everyone, in our group got an email from whoever sent it to us."

"What do you think we should do about it?" Foliis asked. The way that Byrne was referring to the person who sent it as a mystery worried her a little bit, even though she'd never admit it to anybody but herself.

"I don't think there's much we can do other than do what the email told us to do," Byrne told Foliis. "So pack your bags. Once this semester at Gressenheller is done and over with, we're going to be putting in a brief appearance at the island of Bohimika."

Foliis let herself smile, one of pure satisfaction as opposed to the prideful and overly confident grin she normally displayed. Another mystery was just what she needed. This was going to be so much fun.

And hopefully, she wouldn't end up being the unwitting mastermind behind the entire mess. That would be a nice change of pace.

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Next Friday (3rd of March) will be my last Friday out at a tournament so my updates will return to normal

Thank goodness making up for Friday updates sucks

-Digital