79 Eagle Eye (1/2)
As my eyes closed and darkness enveloped me, the vision of The Fool's card appeared in my mind's eye, and not for the first time did I wonder if the other Tarot cards appeared to those who possess the fairy gifts of other clans. Twenty-two major Tarots. Twenty-two major fairy clans. It kind of made sense.
”Oh, great fool, let me see the unseen that I might know the unknowable,” Immediately after I whispered the magic words, I felt my fairy gift stir.
Heat concentrated on the surface of my shut eyes like I'd placed my face too close to the fire. And what began as a stinging pain transformed to a familiar warm soothing sensation that told me Fool's Insight was now active.
Varda interrupted my concentration with, ”Um, Commander, shouldn't we get to the fallback site now?”
”I need to find Luca first… the trail is right here,” I insisted.
I opened my eyes and found myself viewing the ground from high up in the clouds. With this birds-eye-view, I surveyed the campsite below me like an eagle searching for its dinner while it soared in the sky.
A few things caught my notice beneath the foliage of sparse trees. Small fires still dotted the camp of broken tents and dead bodies. Here and there, a group of blue armored soldiers worked tirelessly to pack our stuff and prepare our fallen comrades for our journey out of this deathtrap. But no sign of my brother or the pixie who whisked him away to safety.
I searched past the grove of trees to the hill above it and back down to circle the surrounding area. I got nothing. My eyes returned to camp hoping to find some small clue as to where they might have gone.
”Luca!” I hissed between clenched teeth. ”Where the hell are you?!”
As soon as Luca's name escaped my lips, something interesting happened. The world around me dimmed to a dull gray as if I was viewing it all through slightly dark tinted sunglasses. At least the surroundings did. But the people moving down there, both fairy and human, began to glow in shades of white and blue.
”W-whoa… what kind of trippy show am I seeing right now?” I asked in surprise.
I wasn't expecting the light show. Nor did I understand how it happened. One minute the world was full of color and the next it was like looking at human-shaped stars across a sky of different shades of gray.
For a quick moment, I'd forgotten my search for my brother and the only thing that mattered was figuring out what new power I'd awakened and how could I use it.
”Why can't Fool's Insight come with a manual,” I complained to no one in particular.
”What?” Ashley asked. ”Are you going crazy on us, Dapper?” Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
”Jury's out on that one,” I admitted while my mind exploded with questions. Had I gone crazy? Or was this new phenomenon just a new skill I'd awakened in Fool's Insight? But if so, then how did I awaken it? Did my fight with Jimmy Jonas actually help push me past my current limits? But I didn't feel any different and it wasn't like a pop-up window appeared to tell me I leveled up or something! There were just too many questions that didn't I didn't have answers. ”I might be going slightly crazy…”
”Are you alright, Commander?” Varda asked in a worried tone.
”I'm about to be,” I said confidently.
What was there to be confident about? Well, I had just noticed a third glowing color in the scene below, and it seemed to be an answer to my unspoken question. It happened the moment I thought of Luca again. A ghostly golden glow, dimmer than the surrounding lights, appeared in the spot where I'd found Shaqs' body. At first, I thought I was seeing the heroic troll's actual ghost. But then I watched as the fading glow began to move in a southernly direction, gaining in speed as if it were flying to escape something. The further it got, the brighter the glow seemed to get.
”That's no ghost…” I said, understanding almost instinctively.
”Dean, are you going to keep talking to yourself or would you like to fill us in?” Ashley asked in a sharp tone.
”Sorry… it's just… I think I found Luca's trail,” I admitted warily even though I was nearly a hundred percent certain I was right. I'd played enough open-world video games to know I was looking at a kind of projection. Maybe even the aura of someone in flight. If so, the surrounding white and blue glow must have been the auras of my fellow Foolhardies.
”You found a trail?” Ashley's tone was skeptical and I could just imagine her with her arms crossed while she gave me a raised eyebrow.
”I think so,” I answered. I squinted. ”Hold on. I'm going to try something...”
To prove my point, I zoomed down to where I stood and found my silhouette wrapped in a brilliant white aura that was brighter than everyone around me. To my right, the Ashley-sized avatar was also clad in a white glow. But on my left, Varda's form was a shiny blue. The fairy members of Ashley's shield squad were also wrapped in a similar blue glow while all the viseres had auras like mine.