Esoterico: A Hidden Land

Chapter Thirteen: The Balcony Incident And The Note

Ryan stood dumb for a while. Then somehow he asked, "What do you mean by gone?"

"Gone, man!" Rudy snapped, "Stolen! It's not in the place I had kept it!"

Ryan stepped inside the room and said, "Let me see; where did you keep it?"

"On my bedside table, where else?" Rudy said weakly.

They approached Rudy's bedside table. There was nothing except the bedside light orb. Seeing it, Ryan said, "Anybody can steal it from here, dude. You oughta be-"

"What should I do now?" Rudy whimpered.

"Let's search," Ryan said, "in case it rolled over and fell somewhere."

The two buddies searched the whole room like hound dogs for almost half an hour, but all in vain. Let away the phial of essence; not even a needle was found. It was totally gone.

"Where in the world did that freakin' phial go?" Rudy said, panting.

"Search every other spot in the room," Ryan declared. "It could be that you left it somewhere else."

"Maybe," Rudy said, and he began to search. They left no stone unturned to find the essence. Ryan and Rudy both searched every nook and cranny of the room, but the results were the same as the plates piled up on the grand table after lunch or dinner-empty.

As they both were panting, Ryan said to Rudy, "I couldn't believe it but now I admit-it's stolen." "Yeah, it's nowhere in the room," Rudy replied, "Either it's taken out of the room or it's-"

"Taken out of the school." Ryan remarked.

"We gotta report it to Armædéone," Rudy said. "He can make the right decision in this crisis."

"Yeah, go on." Ryan said, "I'm joining you in a while."

"Fine," Rudy said, hurrying out of the room.

Ryan stood up. He's got something in his mind. A suspect. The Hansens! They could do it! And if they really did, then-

Ryan hurried to the Hansens' room, swearing at them from inside.

As he went through the corridor, it took only a minute to reach the Hansens' room. The door was ajar. Ryan approached the room, kicked open the door, and thundered, "You-" but before he could say anything more, he noticed the room to be empty.

Ryan entered the room. The messiest room he had ever seen. Nothing was inside the cabinet. Instead, their things were on the bed, under the table, and scattered all over the floor.

"Is this the room of a scypher or a dog?" Ryan thought, and at that moment, he realized the big mistake he had made. Bob and Tom don't even know that Rudy is the werewolf; let away the essence. Then how can they steal it?

Realizing the mistake, Ryan stepped to exit the room, but it was too late by then. An invisible force pushed him and knocked him down so that he hit the bathroom door, which was closed.

It was Bob and Tom. They were in the room now, and Tom had used the pushforce charm on Ryan, whose head twinged in pain.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Tom barked,

"Er-I was-" Ryan tried to find or make up an answer.

Suddenly Bob completely changed the topic and said, "Wanna duel, dog-nose?"

"Yeah! Let's see what you can do against us!" Tom hissed cheerfully.

"Well, you dumbo; you don't know what duel means." Ryan said, slowly getting up, "Duel ain't two against one."