Fate and Choices

- Sixteen: The Truth About The Palladiums -

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After fiddling with the security system so many times, Raven finally managed to hack it and make it open for her. She breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped out of the building. Much to her surprise, it was a hanging garden outside the building. Vines of many different kind of plants hung down from the building and very tall trees surrounded the facility. Just then, her vision started to blur. She quickly put her hand on the wall to support herself.

No, I'm fine... I can get by... I have to... she thought.

Then suddenly, she felt her amulet shuddering and she picked it up. The face of a young man with scraggly blonde hair came into view, accompanied with a greenish light.

"Matt?" she asked.

"Raven, Magda told us what happened. Where are you right now? What do you see around you?' he asked.

"Well... I'm inside a facility... with a hanging garden... it's like a greenhouse, but it has a building inside and..." she huffed and puffed as she tried hard to catch her breath.

"That's alright, we'll try our best to find you. Rave, just find somewhere to sit down and hide yourself in the meantime," Matt quickly said.

"No, it's fine... I could see the way out from here... I should be able to escape if I'm careful enough..." said Raven and turned to the maze made of hedges.

What I should do... if I ended up face-to-face with them, she thought, I might need to devise a trap... or...? Wait, is it safe here, though?

Silence fell. The girl said nothing and continued looking around, trying to spot security cameras around.

"...hey, Rave. So Magda and Satoshi told me that we're coming real clean to you guys," said the young man, breaking the silence, "there's something you probably should know... about the Palladiums and how they got taken in. At first, we didn't want to tell you because it's irrelevant... but not really..."

"Get to the point," said Raven and kept herself close to the walls as she used the walls to support her.

"...do you know why Gabe was taken by a harpy?" he asked, "at first, he's the only one we're taking in. Out of his will, by any means... but with his parents' consent. Truth is... we bought him,"

Raven stopped in her tracks. She turned to the pendant, but said nothing.

"What do you mean by that?" she asked.

"...his parents sold him off in exchange for their safety... and a pretty good fortune. You know they have a pretty big house, hey?" Matt continued, "truth is, they were struggling financially and they need to keep paying to keep up their face. They do a lot of charities and donate a lot to develop Dionysia, but it's all a farce. Anyway, back to Gabe - for some reason, the harpy came back to us empty-handed. And then Gabe just disappeared for the past few years until one of our staffs in a magic shop told us that about the Amulet of Dionysia, and then we met him very recently... whatever, you know the rest..."

"...yeah..." Raven replied.

Gabe's amnesia... don't tell me... she thought, it's because...

"But of course, because he was a no show, the boss was mad. He thought we were tricked by the Palladiums. Since they broke their promise, we were ordered to take them all in and extracted their magic," said Matt, "then they escaped, yada yada yada... you know that part,"

The young man leaned back on his ergonomic chair and sighed.

"Rave, I trust your intuition. You're sharper than any of us, compared to anyone I've ever met, to us who are considered prodigy and all. If you say you've suspected that you have met them, then I believe you have," he said, "if the issue is appearance, there's the possibility that they went to someone who can change other's appearance - probably someone under the radar if we couldn't find any data,"