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I regarded it with suspicion "What’s that? Soole, Mr Slade Consider looking into this a favor to ole me But if it meant I could save my mother, I had no choice "Find me useful infor it for free

"What you find on this card will change everything," he said

"You sound like a used car sales until you find out where h I think you’ll only be depriving yourself Safe travels, Mr Slade"

I jogged to the arch, peering through once more to make sure h The scene stretched as if looking through a warped lens, snapped back into place, and I was there I peered at the doors leading into the pocket di puffy hats like they wore at Buckinghaole about this

On the way back to the round where I’d left them I opened the uessed Lornicus htful, or just creepy? I shuddered No telling with that guy

I waited until I was securely inside the ivenif I should open it or not Nobody else was houp a spare arcphone Shelton kept around for experiments

The card fit into the slot on the side I directed the spare phone to project a three-dirale file I opened it Instructions for activating one of the small arches in an Obsidian Arch control room appeared, complete with the Cyrinthian symbol to press on the world o, arches like this one hadn’t worked properly Daelissa and the Conroys had e with arch operators to e and a map appeared, entitled El Dorado Subterranean Map

"El Dorado?" I muttered in disbelief That fool expected me to step foot in the dead city where I’d ale cavern where ht Vadae cherubs, and was nearly devoured by giant leywor as the leyworms inadvertently sucked dozens of cherubs into theirafter me and Elyssa, apparently drawn to the portable arch she’d held If I went back noondered if I’d find husked leyworht by the ravenous cherubs

A nuend on the side of the map indicated points of interest, one of which was in the center of the cavern It claimed the room was supposed to house an Obsidian Arch If I scrolled to the control room on the three-dimensional map, I could touch each arch and see a description of the destination, though e arch in the ht my eye, and caused my breath to hitch in my throat

It was an Alabaster Arch

From what I knew, there were at least five Alabaster Arches in the world, one of which was the prime arch the Seraphim called the Grand Nexus As far as I knew, the Alabaster Arches connected only to the angel realh each supposedly also connected to the Grand Nexus I had no idea if the white-striped design of these particular arches held any significance Maybe the creators wanted a little pizzazz Maybe they really like zebras Most likely, the ateway between two realms easier The Obsidian Arches--black and shiny as their namesake--only connected to other Obsidian Arches, but didn’t seem to have the ability to connect to other realms Not unless someone counted the accidental fractures in reality, which could suck someone into a dreary dis, Arcanes, Daeels fro the Grand Nexus They hadn’t destroyed the nexus, but instead re it had caused a h every Alabaster Arch in the network, and drained the light froels, hu Flarks now haunted places like Thunder Rock and El Dorado So far as I knew, the Grand Nexus re when he said Daelissa didn’t have the rune

All the same, any Alabaster Arch would supposedly take soh to use it back to the Grand Nexus, wherever it was

In other words, Lornicus had just given ht lead me to the portal Daelissa would have to repair if she hoped to bring across an army Maybe there was a way to destroy that arch once and for all I’d seen the broken remains of the smaller black arches If the Obsidian Arch in El Dorado had been destroyed, why couldn’t we do the same to an Alabaster Arch? Even if it caused another backlash, everything within range of theole line on the map led past the Alabaster Arch and into the main cavern where the Obsidian Arch would be There, the line terminated in an "X" I suspected it didn’t indicate pirate booty

I touched the "X", but no description rewarded me for the effort What waited in that dread cavern?

Curiosity joined arate I just had to know despite the obvious fact that Lornicus wasme

Resist!

Why don’t I just take a quick peek?