Come With Me

They portal-jumped to the Laboratory Maze outskirts, sneaking their way inside with Lady Bluesteed's invisibility spell.

"Make sure you stay close to me. The spell is an area of effect type," she spoke to Kairo and Henka-guard with an acute whisper.

Kairo flicked Henka-guard's forehead, when the man looked too giddy.

"I'm focusing." Henka-guard frowned.

They crept along dirt tracks and stone paths, taking cover behind stone walls and utility buildings. Fortunately, the shadow cabal warriors were careless with their chatter, revealing location checkpoints via eavesdropping.

They picked their way over walls and navigated the shadows toward a marble palace with a gold domed roof.

Eventually they entered a wing of the castle, which they confirmed was the start of the main laboratory maze.

"This is strange." Lady Bluesteed's ears twitched nervously, as her eyes scouted their surroundings, which was a regal corridor displaying royal banners and portraits.

"Why?" Kairo glanced around. He sniffed the air, detecting a fudge aroma. "Is it me, or do I smell fudge?"

"Fudge?" Henka-guard growled and asked for them to step back.

He grabbed his halberd off his back and swung it in an arc, casting a clarity spell.

The spell revealed a long obsidian corridor with no fixtures, features and obvious ends.

Kairo gathered them around his navigator pocket watch, which had updated the area's map. They stared at the north-east point, which marked Genie's location. They were in the south.

"Let's synchronize our navigators, then move out."

They raced through the corridor, using their navigators as their guide. Kairo felt suspicious when they reached Genie's location with minimal trouble.

The few monsters they eliminated along the way had barely impacted their chances for reaching him.

"Kairo. I have a bad feeling about this," Lady Bluesteed said as she shared his feelings.

"It's been too easy." Henka-guard frowned.

Regardless, they continued following the navigator's direction to the lab room, where they saw Genie standing in a glass, cylindrical, cell. He was surrounded in smoky-white water to conceal most of his naked body; he was unconscious.

"Genie! Hang on, we'll get you out of there." Kairo pressed his hands to the glass.

Lady Bluesteed sniffed the air, detecting a build up of magic discharge. "Henka-guard, help me recreate the magic here."

They both stepped onto a large hexagon platform of blue meteorite, and moved their hands with a mad flourish to recall a ring of magical hexagon arrays midair.

"Is this?" They examined the readings within the array.

"Give me a moment." Lady Bluesteed moved her fingers madly across the array to rearrange some symbols.

Kairo's heart raced when he saw the water in Genie's cell bubble, hiss and settle.

"Kairo." Genie's voice was barely audible. He gradually opened his eyes.

"I'm getting you out of here." Kairo struck the glass with Zeus and frowned when his weapon wasn't making a dent.

Genie established a mind-link with Kairo.

"It's no use. My father set up this cell. It's operated on magical arrays, powered by that platform. It'll need a hefty amount of energy to release me."

Kairo glanced at Lady Bluesteed.

"He's here?"

Genie nodded. "He knows you're here too: wants to use us for some interstellar plan to drain Earth." He pressed his hands to the glass with his plea. "Please, Kairo go back. This is a trap!"

"Why?" Kairo shook his head, feeling more determined to stay as his theory was correct.

"I have something in my spirit-heart called the Star Crystal. He thinks you have something called the Cosmic Seed in your grimoire. Together it opens a channel to Earth." Genie further explained that his father intended to drain Earth's resources to save Lux.

"He told you this?"

"No. His many shamans were loose-lipped around me, thinking I was brain-dead in this cell. Idiots." Genie scoffed with flippant airs.

Kairo nodded and told him his plans: how he suspected this was the case and what led up to it.

"You knew about the Cosmic Seed from the weystone altar?" Genie found the fact troubling, for it meant the Demon King had summoned Kairo for the artifact, and some other entity had intervened.

"Are you sure you want to go back to Earth?"

"You said it yourself, Genie. The Demon King wants to drain Earth. I have to go back knowing that. My personal reasons have become planetary. I'm the only one who can stop him!"

"Just you? Pfft, I'm coming." Genie smugly added with his typical flamboyant tones. "You'll be shrieker fodder without me." His tone sobered when he added, "And he's my father. It's up to me to set him right."

Kairo felt glad Genie wanted to come.

"Hurry up and gather my things from that chest." Genie pointed to a chest in the corner, near the platform's blue meteorite slab with a pattern of three crystal orb rows on the top surface.

Kairo retrieved the man's items, storing them in his spiritual sea.

"Are you really going?" Lady Bluesteed stepped before Genie, not hiding her sadness.

Genie smiled fondly, and opened a mind-link with her. "He's my father. I can't let him destroy Earth." He cheekily added, "Besides, I'll get to see Kairo's world and play around with him to my heart's content."

Lady Bluesteed sighed. "Genie, just, both of you be safe."

Genie's expression sobered as he thought of his brother. "Hey, Kairo, in my tunic pocket is a gray-meteorite stone. Can you give it to Lady Bluesteed." He added for Lady Bluesteed, "Please ensure my brother gets it."

Kairo retrieved the stone and handed it to her.

"What is it?" Lady Bluesteed stared at the stone, which looked like any other.

"My goodbye. It'll make my brother's job as Demon King a whole lot easier." Genie added with a serious tone, "Make sure you personally hand it to him. No one else must get it."

Lady Bluesteed nodded as she safely stowed the stone, understanding the importance of her task. Whatever Genie was handing to his brother would only benefit the continent.

"Sick bastards! What'd they do to you?" Henka-guard had been focused on the magic monitor arrays at the platform while they were chatting.

Genie laughed as he explained that his magic had been boosted, while the shamans thought he was a corpse. It was the reason he could open mind-links with them.

Lady Bluesteed went to examine the monitors with Henka-guard. Kairo faced Genie to go over a plan with him.

"Will you miss your brother?"

Genie sighed. "He'll cope fine without me, besides he'll have a continent to rule." He faced Kairo with a new determination. "You and I have a planet to save."

"Hey, Kairo, would you understand this language?" Lady Bluesteed called Kairo over to examine the foreign text on one of the arrays.

Kairo examined the arrays' text; shocked to read old English. Most of it was on one process: he understood enough. "It's a magical process for something called..." His breath got stuck in his throat as he read the term.

"Cosmic Seed." Alric finished the sentence: an aged version of Lyon but with greying mop of short hair, and muscled body in red and black leather armor. 

He entered the room with an army of masked soldiers in black, and white lab coat old shaman men at his back. And Valerr.