The Shadow Key Part 2

It is hard to know better with an old friend coming back into your life, but sometimes it can be deadly, not to know.

Tales of Heroes and Villains

The Shadow Key

Written by: The Traveling Bard Age Tomb

Draft 2

Part 2

By: Chase L. Currie

I’m going to kill him, Melanie hissed to herself, almost crawling along the wall to get back to the Palace. If Wesley had any brain cells, he wouldn’t walk into the Shadow Library, the Hoods library where they kept thousands of spell books, during the day. The moment he stepped into the building, all of the Hoods in there would know he shouldn’t be there.

                Rare books, Wesley's words echoed in her mind. The words were sending her into a deeper rage. She should have seen the lie behind them or the truth in them before drinking anything he gave her. He did trade in rare books, spell books that were no longer in the Realm. The Shadow Library held books which most squirrels would believe were destroyed.

                The damage he could do with any one of those books would be unthinkable. She doubted he could use any of those books, but he could sell them. She didn’t want to think about it. She didn’t even want to think about Wesley finding one of the books with a demon held in the pages.

                Melanie and the Five had faced a few too many books with demons trapped in them. They were never easy quest. They had even lost a few of the Five on those kinds of quests, but that had been the point of the Fearless Five, to do the quest no one else could or would.       

                Melanie had to find him before it became night again, and when she did -

                “Ma’am, are you okay?” A cool voice asked from behind her.

                She glanced over her shoulder in the morning sun to find two City Guards staring at her. They both held on to their spears and their other paw on the hilt of their swords. They both knew she was a Hood, but they haven’t seen many of them drunk.

                “I’m fine,” she barked at them. “Leave me alone.”

                “Yes, ma’am,” the other squirrel said, and both of them spun on their heels, fleeing from her.

                Melanie could have got them to help her to the Shadow Keep, but she didn’t want any other Hood, mostly the other Five, to know what happens to her. She wanted to find Wesley. She wanted to hurt him.

                Why did you do this to me, Wesley? Melanie asked herself, watching the City Guards rushing down the street. The rumors had been true; he had started to hang out with a group of thieves. A small group low in rank on the streets trying to work their ways up the leader. They wanted to become big players in the underground, and to that …

                If Wesley stole a powerful spellbook. Oh, that would help them move up the ranks. And just so happen Wesley was best friends with a Whispering Hoods.

                Not just anyone Hood.

                One of the best Hoods in the Class.

                I can’t believe I saved you, Melanie cursed to herself. She had saved him from a few cutthroats from chopping his head off a few years back. She paid them off, but it didn’t work. She beat those cutthroats into the ground and then had the cutthroats tossed into the dungeon. They were never bothering anyone again.

                “You can’t be messing around with those kinds of squirrels,” Melanie told Wesley.

                “I won’t ever again,” Wesley spoke another lie to her.

                How many lies have their friendships been built on? A few? A thousands? She didn’t want to think about it anymore.    

                It took an hour too long to get back to her room in the Keep. The effects of the drug had started to wear off, but they still hung on around her. The drug made her eyes feel fuzzy, and her head start to spin again, but she got there to her large room.

                The bottles lining her writing desk were several different elixirs; each one of them had a different effect. Some of them were poison for her blades. Another gave her super-strength, but the one she picked had been the elixirs to kill off the drug.

                At least, she hoped she picked the right elixir; the drug had made it hard to see. She had put it back down for a second, trying hard to make sure it was the right one and picked it back up. She wished for the first and only time she had labeled the bottle, like Eloise Birchblade, the only Sword Saint in the Hoods, always told her to do.

                He started to label his bottles after he drank an elixir making him sleep for a whole week. Everyone couldn’t stop laughing for a few days after he woke up. He wouldn’t dare drink a bottle unless it was label afterward.

                She down the green and red elixir, hoping it was the right one and not the blood boiling poison. She dropped to the floor, lying on her floor, closing her eyes shut, waiting for the elixir to burn off the poison.

                Moments later, Melanie jumped to her feet and enraged her once best friend to stab her in the back. She raced over to her chest, pulling out Fairyblood, the throwing ax she willed as her main weapon. She flipped it around in her paw before sliding it on her belt. She spun on her heels, sprinting out the door and pass Dante Swordsin, the leader of the Five.

                “Uh, Melanie, where are you going?” He asked, standing in the hall holding a stack of papers. “You look like you’re about to go kill someone, are you? Should I be worried for Lake?”

                “I need the day to myself,” she growled, not looking back at him. Dante shrugged, not wanting to get in her way, feeling sorry for the squirrel who did. He went back to his duty teaching the new class of Hoods while Melanie went looking for Wesley.

Author's Note

I have been working on these story little tales for Whispering Oaks for some time but have kept them in the background. As I’m sure many of you have noticed, I haven’t been posting a lot; lately, there is a reason for it, but sadly, I can’t get into that right now.
However, I am going to start posting more stuff for Whispering Oaks. I wake up most mornings thinking about this world, missing it if I’m honest, and I can’t keep walking away from it. Mostly due to the fact, it keeps pulling me back to it.
I have to work on another world which I also love, but I’ve been letting Whispering Oaks sit on the back burner for a while now. I think I got overwhelmed with the dream of the world. Now is the time to get back into it, and I hope you enjoy what is to come.
As always, please remember when you are about to critique any of my work on here that most of this is world-building notes for me. These stories or letters you are reading are my warm-up writing to the novel I’m currently slaving away on. I say this in the hopes you will go easy of my poor grammars and spelling errors. I try my best to catch what I can when editing, but I’m not that good at it, as you will see. By all means, please help me with story flow, plot holes, characters, and so on. And if you like a character or a world or a tale, let me know. I would love to build more of what you guys like. Also, feel free to interact with me on any matter when it comes to this world. I want a relationship with my readers, and my door is always open.
With a tip of the hat
Chase