(Oct 1st)

“So you understand then? You need to start stepping up to your duties here.” The male voice filled the room as the form of a well fit old man stood with arms crossed. His eyes were focused upon a redhead who was fruitlessly paging through old books, but like all her other attempts at research she came up with nothing. After all it was hard to learn anything from a book you couldn’t even read.

“The problem is I don’t even know what my duties are.” She answered, punctuating her words by snapping the book closed. The specific tome she had chosen had been one of the ‘newer’ ones she could find, and the binding was still in good enough condition that she didn’t worry for her mishandling of the item. “You’ve never really gone into much detail. All you’ve told me is to help fix this place up. Oh, and that I should research stuff that I know nothing about.” She huffed at him. Frustration was building. She had been trying to find information on using the flora on her wonder for medicinal purposes but had found nothing of use.

It wasn’t like she could have Cashel read the tomes to her either as it would take an eternity to go that route and Cashel admitted to not being able to read everything. So that was not an option she was even willing to attempt.

Her mentor seemed unphased by her lash though and instead leaned against the side of the table she was using. “You haven’t really come looking for information.”

Gwen scoffed at him. “Yea, because I know what I am doing or what I should be doing.”

Closing her eyes the redhead took a deep breath. Her temper was getting away from her and Cashel certainly didn’t deserve the brunt of it. “Look, how about we play mentor and student some then?” She raised a brow. “Tell me what I need to know so that we can get past all of this and I don’t feel like I am just pretending to know what I am doing.”

Cashel studied his successor for a moment before shrugging and pushing away from the table. “Alright then. Let’s get to it.” He paced away from her stopping to glance out a small window, on of many, that circled the specific research room they were occupying. “I told you about the purpose of Hy-Brasil and what was done here?” The question was obviously hypothetical as he quickly continued on without pause for an answer. “Well, the Knight of Hy-Brasil is here to make sure people don’t abuse the island and to lift the fog when needed.”

“Whoa...wait, what? What is there to abuse here? I mean, even when this place was up and running I doubt doctors would waste their time on people who didn’t need healing.” Hy shifted in her seat, sitting back in the chair, crossing her legs and with arms folded.

Turning back to Hy, Cashel rested a hand on the stone sill of the window. “Well, one of those things is connected to the other. With this place having a sort of numbing or healing effect on people, many find they have little worries or cares while visiting the island. Now, most won’t notice much as their time spent here is short, but a few, especially researchers, will find the pull to stay on the island very alluring.” Before Hy could interrupt with another question Cashel charged forward with his explanation. “A hard time of seven years.” He held up his hands with seven fingers pointed upwards to emphasis his point. “That was the limit. Any longer than that and people tended to lose themselves.”

“Wait, you’re not making sense here. So, your researchers could only stay 7 years or they...what? Get ill? Is that what you mean by lose themselves?” By this point Hy was both fascinated and frustrated by Cashel’s storytelling.

“Every seven years the fog was lifted so large amounts of people could depart the island without fear of shipwrecking or getting lost in the fog. That mass exodus made sure that no one fell prey to the wiles of the wonder. In a way, the Wonder purges itself of people who aim to abuse it.” Cashel sighed and rubbed at his brow before leaning against the window sil. “If a person stayed longer than they are suppose to something happened to them. It was some sort of sickness that hasn’t been understood, but the end result is the person’s death. The way that the deaths occurred, usually horrific and suicidal, meant a negative energy is created and the fog, that is there to protect the island from wayward travelers, traps this negative energy. These trapped energies are referred to as Sidhe, and truthfully I never experienced one in my time as a Knight. Well….while living that is.”

“Whoa!” Hy leaned forward in her chair, brows furrowed as she attempted to soak all of the information in. It was a lot and it left a lot of questions. “OK, first off, were the Knights only allowed to stay 7 years, too?”

A shake of a head. “No. We are immune to the after effects of the island. It’s assumed because we hold a connection to the Wonder itself that we are not harmed by this illness.”

“Alright. Ok, so….this illness. It claimed people’s lives if they stayed too long. I don’t understand why anyone would want to risk it then after the warnings.”

“People are strange things. How many times have you thought, ‘Oh, that could never happen to me’ only to find out later on that yes, it could and did happen to you?” Cashel questioned back. “It’s that same principal. No one thinks a horrible thing could ever happen to them. So, our duty as Knights is to keep people from overstaying their welcome. This helped protect the Wonder and those visiting. Having Sidhe roaming around is not healthy for the Wonder nor healthy for the souls trapped within the mindless entities.”

At the young woman’s slightly confused look Cashel sighed. “The souls are unable to return to the cauldron to be reborn. They’re stuck here.”


Her lips making an ‘Oh’ Gwen felt like she was beginning to understand when… “OK, so why the push all of a sudden? There hasn’t been people on this island for a long time. Why the sudden interest in me picking up my duties as a Knight and I suppose lifting this fog?”

Pushing away from the window sill Cashel paced the room. “Because during the absence of a new Knight people have found their way here either by accident or on journeys to find the island. Many lost their lives here and are now roaming the island as Sidhe. They need to be purged and freed back to the cauldron.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”

“You need to figure that out yourself.”

She stared. “What?”

“Every Knight does it differently. They need to find their own way. It’s a soul searching sort of ability, you have to want to do it.

Hy was speechless for a moment. “This….this is crazy. What good are you as a mentor if you can’t mentor me to do my duties for this Wonder?” She was both angry and upset. There was a strong desire for guidance. To be told ‘this is what she needed to do’ but it became clear that she wasn’t going to get that. Instead, she was being told to go ‘soul search’ and to ‘find the way herself’. It was such a hippie like notion that she vaguely wondered if Cashel had perhaps been a smoker in his younger days. Because that makes sense, Gwen. Come on.

“I didn’t say it was going to be easy.” Cashel countered back to her.

“That’s obvious.” The retort was short as Hy stood up from her seat. “Look, I’ll see what I can do. But, with no direction or indication on what I need to do, I don’t even know where to start. I…”

“Try taking a walk around the Wonder and get to know it.” Cashel interjected. “That’s always a good start. You’ve spent most of your time here in the castle and very little exploring the rest of the Wonder. Go and get a feel for it. See what’s out there.” His voice was calm and soothing as he spoke. The man had learned that fighting fire with fire never turned out in anyone’s favor. Instead, trying to douse the flame was a better option and one that seemed to work frequently on the Knight in front of him.

Biting her lip Gwen took a deep breath through her nose before slowly letting it out. Her face, red from her heightened state, slowly began to return to it’s natural pale tone by the time she spoke again. “Alright. I’ll do that then. It’s not like I have anything else to go off of.” She conceded. What else was she suppose to do? Besides, she had been wanting to spend more time getting to know the nooks and crannies on the island. Not to mention to see what it was that seemed to be calling to her from somewhere out there. “Next visit I’ll go and explore.”

A beaming smile broke through the bushy beard that covered Cashel’s face. “Perfect! I think it’ll do you good and you’ll learn a thing or two about Hy-Brasil. For now, I’ll keep my comments to myself and wait for you to try and find your own way to deal with the Sidhe.”

With the trade-off agreed upon, Cashel left his successor to continue upon her silly chase to try and understand anything left in the thousands of written records on the island.