Venturing: What Third

“Everyone is gathered?” Yang questioned while her eyes were to me. I silently nodded then turned away from her, gazing off upon the other officers. I split my mouth opened and started to speak.

We are in a mansion of where the crime had taken place. It was a little bit over midnight where the moon was hanged above us and stars shone shimmerly alongside of the moon. Surrounding the mansion was the yard. No other dragons or foxes has ever passed by this building at all. Deeming the place cursed or something along those lines. It had seemed that this was the place where a vixen had called us in for property stolen. But we found nothing around the mansion and she had provided no information about the culprit. For instead, we got a case to do. But it was more like her dirty work than an actual job.

By the time I ended what I wanted to say, I closed my lips and my eyes. Opening them again before scanning around the room in silence before shifting my attention to Yang who spoke a few seconds after the silence “Everyone will be assigned to their normal partner. No complaints?” Everyone shook their heads, a hidden smile came from Natty and Kyro while Zander growled a bit but never complained. With Yang nodding, she turned around and faced the desk and chair that was behind her. Promptly sitting down, the door behind us opened. Kyro and Natty went out first. Followed by me and Zander as we left Yang all alone through the room behind us while the doors closed and locked themselves.

“So there are nine safes.” Zander remarked, recalling the information that Yang spoke to us. I nodded in silence, watching him with interest as he continued relaying. “Only some of them contains what we need. But how are we going to start?” “We could always go forwards and backwards as a strategy, Zander.” Kyro interrupted, fixing his attention to us while I nodded, acknowledging it “That is a good plan. But where should we both-” “We will take the ninth. You guys take the first. How about that?” Zander interrupted, glancing back to Kyro with a smirk or a sneer. Kyro shrugged, raising his claws as he motioned Natty. The pair split off from us, heading southward and disappearing at the corner of the hallway behind us. When they were gone, I growled irritated towards Zander. But he just muttered angrily. His eyes lowered to the floor while his stomps vibrated the ground. With the assigns already set and nothing more can we do, Zander and dI started heading off the hallway we were in towards the ninth safe in accordance towards the black dragon adjacent to me.

We walked the short hallway across. Towards a white exit door before us. Once we had reached it, we turned to the left and started heading down the new hallway. I had noticed that all the hallways we had and had not entered through were all short and to the point. Only corners formed when two hallways were connected to one another. But other than that, I saw nothing else. Even the hallways themselves were boring too. I had to complained, perhaps muttering to myself while I had noticed that the hallways were one color and nothing were inside of them. No vase, no interesting stripes. No uniqueness. It was as if our culprits, the R7, have decided to just keep our focus upon the safes. “What so specials about them anyways?” I growled commenting about them as Zander smirked at me but remained silent as we crossed the second corner.

Before us stood. The ninth safe. All the sides of the safe were gray. “One color.” I muttered staring down onto the safe in silence. Zander just nodded but promptly stepped forth and closed in onto the safe. I walked with him, tilting my head pondering about how we were going to opened it. Neither me or Zander had a clue how. But when I shifted my gaze towards him, he looked surprise or something that his eyes met mine. I raised an eye in interest, shuffled around the safe and came across his line as I lowered my eyes and stared at what was interesting. Upon the side of the safe; were red written letters that formed a string of words. And that into a sentence. Zander read it outloud to me, “‘With nine boxes, count the prime numbers.’” Zander turned to me, “What are boxes?” “I think our culprit meant, safes.” I corrected him and the sentence gazing at the words again as Zander stepped close to the safe and banged the surface of the safe with his claw.

The result was a loud sound that echoed through the two hallways. It vibrated the floor underneath it. However it was strong like an earthquake. Surprise about the ground shaking underneath us, I grabbed onto Zander and pulled him away from the safe just as we both have spotted cracks forming upon the surface of the floor. Those cracks increased rapidly like bunnies until the floor was weak enough was when that part of the hallway broke apart from the rest. Fell upon the abyss below of us while I stared at the hole with widened eyes. The hole was big that it had covered one third of the hallway. Even more so that it had also taken the ninth safe with it too. Rendering it useless to retrieve it even if we knew where it was. In the silence, I got up onto my feet. Zander did too. We promptly dusted ourselves as we heard running footsteps behind us. Turning around, Kyro and Natty came into focus as they stopped before us and frowned.

Their pants were heavy. Bellies inflating and deflating in quick succession while their eyes stared to us. Kyro was the first to speak, wondering if we were alright. I just nodded in answer, acknowledging him as Zander grumbled and crossed his arms. He gaze upon the wall behind us while Kyro seemed relieved and smiled only faintly following afterwards. “What did you guys find?” “Only a note from the ninth safe. What about you guys?” “A note from the first safe.” Kyro echoed my answered as I looked perplex at him in silence before nodding. “What it say?” “‘Out of all the multiples of the total number of boxes, only one is a prime.’” “That sounds like a math question.” Zander commented, Kyro nodded in agreeance. “That is because it is however.” I followed Kyro and Zander perked his ears in interest, “Regardless. We need to figure out the ninth box’s clue.” “What was it?” Kyro tilted his head as I recited the clue, “With nine boxes, count the prime numbers.” “Disregarding one?” Kyro tilted his head, I shrugged. In the following silence, me and Zander watched Kyro as his eyes were staring at the ceiling. Then he lowered his eyes and spoke towards the two of us, answering “Four.” I nodded, before grabbing the walkie and pressed the black button on the side, reciting what the red dragon told us before releasing the button again and exhaled.

“I wonder if all the safes have a clue upon them?” I stated my concerned which Kyro laughed about shaking his head. “I doubt it actually.” He remarked, I tilted my head to one side staring at him before breaking into a smile and nodded after him. “Yeah. Considering that only three clues were about. I am beginning to think there are not anymore.” Kyro nodded before he turned away. Zander stepped to me and lined himself up perfectly as he turned his head towards me and spoke. “Well with the ninth safe in the depths. How can we gets its contains now?” “I do not think that the ninth safe has something inside of it.” I said without looking at him. Zander nodded after widening his eyes then softly normalized them before chuckling. “Guess the only thing we could do is find the fourth safe then in accordance to that answer.” “Do you know where it is?” Zander questioned, shifting his gaze at me and tilted his head to one side. I shook my head, “I do not know.” I turned to him, “Should we split up?” “I think so. To cover some ground at least.” Zander answered, I nodded after him. Then we walked up the remains of the hallway and split off once we reached the end.

In the next silence, nothing had actually happened. It was boring and silent from where I was walking now. As my eyes stared upfront towards the horizon, my mind begun to ponder about the two clues we have acquired. But only one answer towards the first clue. ‘What was the second?’ I frowned, thinking to myself as I walked the halls. Crossing another vertical road where it crisscross my halls as I decided to turn right and headed down. ‘Was there a third clue somewhere?’ I wondered, ‘Why were there two? What is going-’ But before I could finish that question. The lights above me shut off. Plunging the halls into darkness while I flinched and returned to reality from my inner most brain. I glanced to the horizons before and behind me as I looked around for someone to be there. When I had noticed the halls were empty as they were when the lights were plunged, I darkened my face and growled as I grabbed my pistol and walkie at the same time and hoisted them up. I pressed the button and called out towards the other officers. They responded easily.

“Yeah. It got dark here. Wonder what happened?” Kyro said, “Someone must had shut off the lights or cut off the power while we were inside. Where was the juice box? Outside or inside the mansion?” Natty explained following it up by questions afterwards which were answered by Zander, “The ‘juice box’ you are looking for is outside the mansion. A poor choice to place it there. But whatever i guess.” “Why was it outside?” Natty growled, “Not sure. Blame whoever owned this place.” Zander answered and that was the end of that conversation as silence answered after Natty and Zander. For the first few minutes of silence, I had not realized that I stopped in place. I closed my eyes and inwardly sighed to myself before pressing the button again and spoke out towards them, “Alright. If the juice box is outside. Someone go and fix it right now. The rest will keep finding that fourth and second safe.” “‘Second safe, Ling?’” Kyro echoed me with a question at the end of his answer. I spoke proudly to him, “Yeah. Second safe. Your clue was easy to figure out however. It did take long for me to answer it though while I was running around looking for our safe.” “What is the-” “Do not care, just find it already.” I growled at Kyro.

The silence came. My claw shook with vibration as I finished settling the walkie back onto my pocket and my eyes rose to the horizon again. The halls were dark and where I am, it was silent. The ringing echoed in my ear. A bit irritated by it however as I walked a bit further off. Reaching the end of the hallway again where the vertical lines appeared before me again. Slowly, I lowered my eyes and stared at the line before shifting my attention towards the ends of the halls. Two doors were presented to me. Two doors were the same color. But a different shading. We had already noticed this when we had first entered in before we got situation inside the office at the center of the mansion however. We had also noticed that the mansion was small; despite it looking big from the outside. This is because, the mansion was only one floor. No staircase leading to basement or the next floor above. It was a bit surprising however when we realized it.

I heard movement. My wings shuffled anxiously and I turned around. My pistol was aimed at the horizon. I clicked. But never squeeze the trigger. My heart was pounding against my chest while I waited patiently for someone to come out from the shadows. It did took a long time however before someone did at my command. Out from the shadows came Kyro. I lowered my pistol acknowledging him with a bright smile and sighed. Kyro noticed this and asked, but I shook it away. Demanding other information. “Natty is heading back to the office.” “Where is Zander?” “Heading outside to fix the juice box.” “Really?” I tilted my head to one side in interest, “I thought Natty was going to do it.” “Same here.” Kyro commented while his eyes split from mine and gaze around our surrounding. The darkness had turned dimmer. It would be pitch dark soon. The silence had fled away when we heard loud footsteps echoing our ears. More and more came. My eyes narrowed. I grabbed Kyro and haul him behind me as I turned around, retreating through the hallway that I had just entered through. Back upon the vertical line again, I stepped to it and ran alongside. Straight towards the silver door that was in front of us.

We barged in. The door opened without hesitation and allowed us in. It closed behind when we were inside the room with Yang who was standing up from her seat, gazing at us in surprise or silence. Her eyes met with mine. Yet a flap of her wings and created wind that brushed against our scales, rendering us awake as we rose our eyes towards her. She growled and pushed away the chair behind her, walking around halfway through the desk that was sitting in front of her as she walked towards us. “What is going on outside? And where is Zander?” “He is outside.” Kyro reported to Yang who looked surprise at us before growling, clouding her expression “Get him back in here now. The outside is troublesome now.” “How so?” Kyro asked with a tilt of his head gazing at her while her eyes narrowed at him, “There are swarms of unknown species outside the mansion.” SHe reported, but gave nothing else as she turned her back to us and facepalmed with her claw attached to her face. “Please tell me that you both found the papers-” “No we did not.” I answered immediately feeling ashamed while Yang shifted her attention to me and widened her eyes. She muttered something underneath her breath. But said nothing else following it. For she walked straight towards the chair, pulled it in towards the desk and rose her claws. Motioning us. We walked as commanded.

“Quickly. We have no time at all anymore.” She growled at us “What do you mean by-” I started, but she threw her claw at the back of my head and forced me to crouch. I stared upfront to the drawers in front of me. There were three of them. All of them had white signs attached to their surfaces. However only one of the three were safe. Me and Kyro turned to one another in silence, frowned but whimpered as we gaze at the drawers before us. SIlently, but quickly we chose the middle drawer. It opened suddenly on its own. But what was really surprising was the lights had came back on again. SIlence reigns over our heads as the ringing sounds echoed my ears. I breathed and relaxed, easing the tension I had upon my body as Yang smiled suddenly at us but remained silent. Regardless of the victory we had, we turned our attention to the opened drawer and looked inside.

A silvery red envelope stands before our wake. I looked surprise at it but said nothing else as I reached over and grabbed upon the envelope, hosting it out from its cavern and stared directly towards me. I flipped it over and exposed its backside to us. A red circle appear between the opened flap of the envelope and the body. On the circle was a picture of a black feather. I blinked, surprise as mixture of feelings rushed through me. As I stared onto the circle and the feather within the circle, I heard Kyro spoke. I flinched upon his wording but nodded. For without hesitation, I grabbed onto the circle of the envelope and peeled it back. Once it was out of my sights, the envelope opened on its own. A piece of paper was revealed. I grabbed the paper and unfolded it into three. Revealing a letter within.

Upon reading the paper together, we all concluded that.

But before we could get our thought out. The door slammed opened. All of which flinched and startled as we whipped our heads out and gaze at the opened door. Standing before us was a black raven. He was smaller than normal ravens however. Although his wings, claws, feet and eyes remained the same. As he caw at us, he flapped his wings and declared. “Your unit shall accompany me through my dangerous time!” Yang, me and Kyro looked at one another in silence before slowing nodding in union as he caw again.

‘What did we got ourselves into…’ I pondered to myself.