The Elementalists: Dawn of Shady Schemes

  I awoke the next morning in quite a positive mood, and went outside to greet Trent, who was already prepared for the trip ahead. He sat at the campfire, sharpening his knife against another, repetitively sliding the knives right and left. Its scratching was one I wanted to cringe at, but I remained typical posture and greeted him with, "Good morning, Trent. I see you've occupied yourself already?"

He nodded. "Waitin' on you. If we don't hurry up, we might not be able to walk through the second floor."

I nodded, and shoved some berries into my face and prepared for the day ahead.

I went back down into the den, where I greeted Kate and asked her about the plan. She pointed out all of the different spots on the birds-eye viewed map on her laptop, pointing out all of the corners and showing me the layout of the second floor. "It's a pretty basic structure," she said. "It's pretty symmetrical, too. You should catch on to everything once you start moving around and get familiar with everything."

I nodded, and was handed the duffel bag of cameras, and made my way over to Trent, who I followed by air (he too, learned about turning into elements, which wasn't spirit related, so I luckily was able to keep that in and refrain from asking him if he knew about the element, too.

We blew as gusts of wind into one of the open window shafts. I got a view of the castle before we entered- it was a dark, dreary castle with a gothic feel. It had walls of dark gray and black shingled roof tops. Ripped up, black triangular flags hung by poles on the peaks of each of the roofs. Shade guards in silhouette-black armor stood guard, looking quite intimidating. The castle felt like a ghost town, and I entered into an atmosphere of no where close to comfort, with solemn, sad silence. You heard occasional hisses that echoed throughout the castle, which were quite loud and spooky. The only thing that seemed to have any kind of color, was the very dark oak, rickety draw bridge, that seemed to be the only way in. I smirked as I thought how many different ways we could get in without it, like the clever tactic we were using now.

We snuck in, turning invisible as soon as our toes touched the floor, and after Trent had a good idea where we were, we divided and began to set cameras around the place. I did it rather quickly and carefully, wanting to advance to the other floors as well.

The inside looked just as dark and horrendous as the outside- torches of crimson fire burned, providing a dim light. Black curtains were blocking the windows, making the inside almost seem pitch black. My immediate sense of nocturnal eye sight went in, and I could see clearer now. The walls were decorated with small, gray bricks, that had a rough texture. Pictures of scary scenes and illusions that made a shiver go down my spine, often with dark hunched, black figures with large white eyes and unnaturally wide smiles, that was quite creepy. A few red candles burned. Dark oak tables and some other small furniture occupied the halls, as well. Crimson rugs adorned some of the space, but typically in front of small side tables, that added contrast to the black, marble floors. Also on the walls were small perches, where you saw what looked like smaller versions of winged, albino shades perched, screeching and hissing. A few ravens and crows were on the perches as well.

I shivered, and avoided shade guards cautiously as I went throughout the hallways placing the cameras in their desired positions.

I suddenly caught sight of a dark indigo purple robe, and had a purple crystal on it, classifying itself as a black magic wielding shade. It slipped through the a secret door hidden among the wall.

Hey Trent, I said. Come look at this!

Hold on Scarlet, I need to finish putting the rest of these cameras in place. He said, and after a few moments, appeared by my side in a flash.

We snuck into the place and found that the shade has entered a huge and secret library. He found a book and left, closing the door behind him. As he did this, we observed huge, dark oak shelves filled with many ancient and hard-covered volumes in their foreign tongue, towering over the seemingly immense ceiling.

I unconcealed myself after a moment of silence, feeling it was now safe.

Shortly afterwards, as I slowly made my way through the rows of bookshelves, Trent followed me. I ran my long fingers through the spines, and said, Wow... it's so peaceful in here. If I could, I would spend hours in here reading.

Tristan chuckled. Of course you would... you got book worm in your blood.

Haha, I sarcastically laughed. You think there's anything in here that could be worthy of putting a camera in?

He shook his head. Not really, maybe put a camera right above the entrance for safe measures? You never know what secrets could haunt this library. There's extra cameras in case of any break or in cases like this, so we can use one of those.

We looked around a few more moments, and then after sticking a camera above the door, we made our way outside, finishing and double checking that all the cameras were in place.

After checking, we made our way up into the second floor, which seemed just as dark and dismal as the first. We made our way through the floor, which had the same layout as the one below us. I navigated my way through the hallways, occasionally jumping at the screeching that echoed down the hallways and made me wanna scream as I placed cameras in the same spots.

I suddenly felt hungry, and Trent informed me it was time to go. With that statement, we turned into gusts of wind that flew out of the window in a natural speed, but as soon as we left the castle, we darted back to camp, eager for dinner and to return to a place that was bright and more... happy.