Seeking Oul: Eloria Series Book 2

1: Imprisonment

 8/16/3028

I woke with a panicked gasp when something wet and musty dripped onto my face. There was a nauseating smell of stagnant water and mildew that permeated the air here and I tried not to inhale too deeply. I wiped the foreign substance off with my sleeve and looked around.

To my right, a faint stream of light illuminated what appeared to be steps leading upward. I removed my eyepatch and blinked a few times, waiting for my eyes to better adjust. The steps were made of stone and looked shoddily put together.

I need to get out of here.

I pushed myself up from the jagged floor, and then moved forward toward the dim light with my hands in front of me. A couple steps later I touched cold, metal bars.

For a moment my mind was slow to bring back memory, but then I remembered everything.

I touched the nape of my neck where I could still feel the throbbing sting of a wound from something sharp that had pierced my skin. My friends and I had been ambushed—we'd been so close to reaching the Todaji and Olourian border when it happened.

Damn those bandits.

Martin Ross, Elossai, and Gundhram were the first ones attacked by tranquilizing darts. The last thing I could recall was seeing Katie cry over Martin's unconscious body. Where were they now?

"Guys?" I whispered. I waited for a response. Nothing. "Is anyone here?" I croaked, trying to raise my voice to a more audible level.

"Over here," Elossai whispered. I stumbled to the left, towards her voice. Three steps in, I met the bars adjacent to the first set, before a warm hand touched mine from the other side.

"Elossai, are you okay?" I asked.

"I am," said Elossai, still speaking in a hushed voice.

"Where's everyone else?"

"Katie is in this cell with me. She's still unconscious."

"What about Martin and Gundhram?"

"I do not know... Do you still have it?"

"What?"

"It."

It.

The Elosra Crystal was everything to us.

Immediately, I searched my pockets. I was still wearing my uni-elk cloak, but my pack of supplies, along with the Elosra Crystal inside it, were gone.

My stomach rolled.

"It's not here..." I uttered.

"What?" Elossai gasped.

"It must still be in one of our supply packs. We've got to find Martin and Gundhram," I said. My only thought was to locate my friends, then we could escape and recover the Elosra Crystal. I cleared my throat and spoke louder. "Are you guys out there?"

"What are you doing?" Elossai squeezed my hand.

"They might be held in a cell nearby." By now, my eyes were better adjusted, and I could see the outline of the small cage I was in. I rattled the bars, hoping to find a loose one.

"I have already examined the bars to see if any are loose or weak. The bars are firmly anchored."

"You haven't checked mine." I shook the bars harder, unwilling to give up.

"Aye," said a gravelly male voice. "You better listen to your friend. You can't break out of these cells barehanded."

Several feet in front of me, I could see the silhouette of a man in another cage.

"How can you be sure?" I asked.

"I've been imprisoned here for months."

"Months?" I sighed. "That's just great."

"Pardon me," Elossai started, "we have not had a proper introduction. What is your name?"

"Rydion. Been here with my friend, Jannan—he's being kept elsewhere in this cursed cave. And you are?" Rydion asked.

"Gwen."

Gwen was the name of Katie's favorite doll back in Hemley, which had a striking resemblance to Elossai. Katie had occasionally called Elossai by the name Gwen since our escape from the Ankin soldiers and En-Stanjah.

Prior to this mess, I'd finally gotten my life in order after being found with amnesia at Hemley Park. I'd rented a small apartment and held a job in a hotel restaurant as a server, but my life became emphatically more complicated on my one-year anniversary of my being found.

I returned to Hemley Park with my best friend Martin and his younger sister Katie for what was supposed to be a carefree weekend to find clues about my past. Instead, it turned into a pandemonic juncture that changed my life.

That day, the Ras were looking for me, as were the Ankins. Hidelvus' Ras kidnapped Katie and entered the Ora, a whirling vortex that sent them to Eloria. Only with the help of the Ankins were Martin and I able to enter the Ora in pursuit of Katie.

Up until then, I was Ellis Ann Moore of Earth—an amnesic nobody with a tendency to have occasional hallucinations. I learned later that I am Sye-Liene, the one that both the Ankins and Hidelvus needed.

They say that I'm the only one who can harness the power of the four Crystals to find the Elosra Tree. The inscription on the Crystals all state that once the Elosra Tree is located, it will grant a wish that could bestow the power of sun and sky.

Both the Ankins and Hidelvus need me to navigate the path to the Elosra Tree, but they have very different motives. The Ankins say they want to restore Eloria to peace, while Hidelvus will stop at nothing to use the power of the Crystals for his own gain.

To make matters worse, I don't look anything close to what I used to look like. Razelle the Ra took me into Passim, where I regained the lost memory of how my appearance changed. I learned that I fell into the Ora with a teenager named Lise-An and I fused with her body. Lise-An died in the Ora, and the fusion was what altered my appearance. Were it not for the lucid memories that would time and time again invade my consciousness, the absurdity of it all would have been too much for me to understand.

Razelle was meant to take me into the Ora to retrieve the remainder of my memories, but I didn't allow that to happen. I feared that if I regained the remainder of my memories, I would be lost to the old Sye-Liene and her schemes. I managed to trap Razelle in Passim just before escaping.

Everything pointed to me being a traitor of the Ankins and I didn't need the remainder of my memories to know that. It tears me apart that I could break Keiran Anmus' heart by working against him with Hidelvus.

I can only wish that I had had more time to explain to Keiran before Stanjah and the Ankin soldiers arrived. In Keiran's mind it must have been plain as day that I'd deceived him as he watched Elossai, Martin, Katie, and myself disappear into the horizon on Gundhram's wings. Gundhram—my own personal Ra.

"Just Gwen?" asked Rydion. "Do you not have a family name, and do you not come from somewhere?"

"You did not provide your personal background or family name either," said Elossai.

"You're a shrewd one, I see." Curiosity piqued in his voice. "And what of the one I had the pleasure of speaking to a moment before?"

"El... Ellen." I lied, and not very well.

"El-Lan—that's a fine name. You're Ankins like me, I assume?"

"Yes." Luck. Sheer luck that I chose an Ankin name. Either that, or I pulled the name out of some residual memories.

"What part of Ankinia are you and your friend—" Before Rydion could finish, the clanging of keys and murmuring from above the stairwell made us fall silent. Footsteps followed.