Chapter 1
Mia asked as the carriage driver looked back irritated.
“Yes! This is the address Nalu gave. How many times are you going to ask?” Violet said giving the driver a reassured look.
“Along the river and towards the r...rocky side of the bank is not an address” Mia retorted clutching the carriage tightly.
“You know the way wizards talk. Never give the straight answer” Violet replied.
They kept going along the river. Mia looking everywhere for any huts or houses. While Violet clasped her mother’s locket in her hands hoping that this time they’ll find some clue. Two months ago her mother had given her the locket on graduation. After completing her training she was finally going to become a professional hunter alongside her sister Erica and Mia. They had always planned to form a party together and become the top hunters of the city. Until two days after graduation her mother and sister went missing. Violet remembered the last conversation she had with Erica. Erica was asking them to let Luke join their party. Mia was totally against it, she never liked Luke since last year when he transferred from another academy. Although Violet never paid much attention to Luke until Erica became friends with him but even she didn’t like him much. Maybe because of his sudden intrusion in there party and ruining their name VIMIRICA, the goddess of bravery which she had thought of from their names after a lot of efforts.
“Finally!” Mia sighs.
A tall house was standing rather dangerously inclined towards the river. Violet wondered how much magic dust it must require daily to keep it from falling. Being hunters who cannot use their body aura to perform magic they had to rely on magic dust to use magical weapons or spells, so every hunter from early on is taught to try to minimize the use of dust. Hunters are humans with just a slightly more aura then normal people, while wizards are among the top races who have great aura capacity, that’s why they even live longer than normal humans.
The driver stopped the carriage a little far from the gate. Violet gave him three silver coins and told him there is no need to wait, they don’t know how long they will be inside, which he seemed glad to hear.
“I don’t think that was a good idea. Are we going to walk back to the city? I didn’t even tell my mom where we were going and I am sure your father knows nothing about it also. What if we get in trouble? I mean I am not afraid of any wizard but we cannot use our special move without Eri...”
“It is going to be okay, don’t worry. Nalu said we can trust him.” Violet assured her.
Ash woke up with a headache and a severe hangover. He looked for his glasses and found them under his leg.
“Fuck! Fourth time this week”
He put them in his pocket, and looked around. The same room in which he had been sleeping for fourteen years came into view. It was the most normal looking room in the house, even though it had a wild flower growing right in the middle of the wall which could bite your head off. Two walls were lined up with shelves filled with books, tubes filled with liquids, broken glasses and clothes. On the wall with the flower in the middle there were two doors on both sides. Ash headed downstairs through one of them. The other one had a lock even bigger than the plant. Probably to prevent the plant from eating it.
Ash went to the ground level which was the kitchen and the living room combined. He walked rubbing his head toward the shelves, picked a brown bottle filled with brown beans and started making kaufi his favorite remedy for hangover, blue eyes and also can be used to remove magical disguises which he discovered two years ago when he brought home a 588 years old witch who was disguised as a young girl and gave her the drink accidently. After that he made it a point to offer it to every date and uninvited guests.
The stairs creaked and a very old man with a bent in his back and a very long white beard which was blue in color at the tip came down. The beard came up to the man's knees
“Kaufi Gren?” Ash asked.
“Keep that nasty thing away from me, last time I drank it I could not use the anti dandruff spell for months! You know how difficult it is to maintain my beard without magic?” Gren retorted.
“Not in a good mood today huh? Me too, last night at the bar there was a half breed betting that he could drink more bottles of green sea whisky then the age of the oldest guy in the city. I told him your age he didn’t believe me then I showed a photo of your beard and he lost all his money”. Ash laughed.
“Don’t make fun of me kid. Where are your g..?”
A knock on the door came and they both turned swiftly.
“Maybe it is the half breed!” ash whispered.
”Shut up!” Gren retorted and moved to open the door, while Ash wore his glasses.
VIOLET
The door opened and an old man with grey eyes and a long white beard looked down.
“Can I help you?” The old man asked with his low voice while looking at the marks on their neck.
Hunters had a simple system of ranking. Every hunter had a flower on their necks of four to eight petals with different colors to represent different achievements. Being new hunters Violet and Mia had four petals with the lowest petal colored white, the lowest petal tells the city or nation which passed the hunter.
“We are looking for Mr. Grendwint”. Violet replied.
“Are you sure this is the right place”. Gren asked eying them closely. His eyes started changing color to black.
“Umm… Professor Nalu sent us” Mia said a little shocked.
Gren eyed them for a few more seconds, until he finally moved back "Come in".
Violet followed the man inside in what seemed like the living room at first but was more of a kitchen. She had seen her share of wizards, Nalu's office had all sorts of weird stuff, but nothing came close to this house. But even through the snake skins and hanging cauldrons, her eyes caught the other man standing near the kitchen shelves, he was young, with black hairs. Violet guessed him to be around her age. He was wearing glasses which had one light blue colored lens and the other was normal but with a big crack in it. Violet realized she was staring too much and looked away.
Gren directed them towards the table and motioned them to sit.
“I am Grendwint, how can I help you?” Gren said.
“We need to travel to somewhere, Nalu couldn't help us but he said maybe you could” Violet said hesitantly not coming to the point at once, most of the people whom she had asked for help were really quick to shut them off when they heard where they had to go.
“Nalu is a very efficient wizard. I don’t think I can be of much help if he can’t” Gren said looking confused.
“We need to cross the Forest of Light” Mia blurted out giving Violet a let's get it over with look.
The reaction they received was not shocking, Gren gave all the expressions of a shell shocked person his aged face covered with beard allowed him, Ash on the other hand choked on the kaufi and Gren had to get up and hit his back a couple of times to make him stop coughing.
