Mystery of the Golden Chalice

Elizabeth nodded and replied, "Yup. Let's go take a taxi but have the driver drop us off a few blocks away from the actual address."

She went on ahead and walked outside of the police station to search around for a taxi.

Kinn immediately followed Shofield from the back.

He then noticed a taxi as soon as he reached outside of the police station.

"There's a taxi, lets call for it!" he said.

Elizabeth waved her arm to indicate to the taxi driver to stop. The taxi driver stopped at the curb and then Elizabeth opened the door for herself and Kinn. Once they were inside, the taxi driver asked,

"Where do you want to go, folks?"

Elizabeth replied, "We need to go downtown right away." She showed the driver the address but asked him to stop a few block away from it.

The driver nodded and replied, "All right. I'll get you two to your destination quickly."

He then sped off towards downtown.

While they were in the taxi, once again Kinn noticed a piece of article on the seat. It reads:

Manda Ditch was forcefully terminate one of her minions by shooting her with a gun. However her minion, named Kaytesis suffered a minor injury and managed to escape and was nowhere to be found. The police could not locate them both and now started a mass search on Manda

"Man, once again its Manda's doing! Wait a minute, didn't we read about Manda earlier? Surely this media is a mystery, I mean... how can they get information so fast?" Kinn wondered.

Elizabeth looked over and read the article that Kinn pointed to. She giggled and replied, "It looks like the media are quite clever in terms of investigating this Manda Ditch story. I wonder why she would shoot her minion, considering that Manda was the one who put Kaytesis back in power in the first place. But both of them really deserved it."

Elizabeth looked out the window to see how close they were to downtown.

After reading the article Kinn too, looked outside the window to see the view of Vernicas.

As the taxi driver was making his way through to downtown, Elizabeth continued looking out her side of the window and saw the following before her eyes. On the sidewalk near a government building, there was a crowd of protesters with signs picketing the destruction of Manda Ditch. In the distance, Elizabeth could hear screams of "bring down that witch" and "this is for the victims of her terror."

Elizabeth turned to Kinn and pointed the scene out to him. "Interesting, isn't it? Apparently, this woman is hated here, too."

"That's true, no wonder there were so many articles about her these days" Kinn replied.

"Hmm, this city is quite big... I hope we can find the suspect soon" he added while staring outside at the roads.

Elizabeth nodded and replied, "Yup, it sure this and there are a lot of people out here."

The taxi driver continued heading towards the destination and then after about 15 minutes of driving, the driver stopped a few blocks from the address as requested.

The driver announced, "Here we are, folks. Are you sure you want to get off here? This is a pretty shady part of town."

"Sure, we're getting off here" Kinn said while he paid the driver the money.

As they get off to the road, the surroundings are quite gloomy as if there's someone died.
Suddenly, Kinn heard someone shouting from far away. It was not clear to him as all he could heard was "Picard! Picard! Macarena Picard!", the look on their face seemed angry as if they are trying to kill someone.

"Miss Shofield, do you have any idea what they just shouted?" Kinn asked

After Elizabeth had gotten out of the cab, she heard some shouting as well. It was hard to make out exactly what the voices were saying.

Turning to Kinn, Elizabeth replied, "Hmm it's hard to hear exactly what the voices are saying. Something about dancing and a 'pikachu'? Kinn, what is a 'pikachu'?"

Elizabeth had this confused look on her face.

"I am not sure, Miss Shofield. It's probably someone's name" Kinn replied, he is confused with the language those people were shouting.

"Anyway, I believe we're getting closer to the black market" he added.

Elizabeth nodded and replied, "Yup, sure looks like it. Let's sneak up quietly and see what's going on."

Elizabeth led the way deeper and deeper into the underground on downtown. She headed closer to the black market area. After a few minutes of walking, she saw a group of people huddled around what appeared to be an item. However, she had no idea whether that item was the chalice.

"Lets take a look at that crowd" Kinn said.

He too, sneak into the crowds and look closer to the center of the crowd.

Elizabeth nodded and walked closer to the crowd. She was careful not to make a sound, for she did not want them to detect hers or Kinn's presence. Fortunately, the crowd of people were too occupied by something in the center of the circle which they made to notice either of them. As Elizabeth got closer, she could see the item that they were all looking at more closely and saw that it was shiny. It looked familiar to Elizabeth. She knew she had seen it somewhere before but from where?

Kinn took a look at the shiny object as well...

"Its a cup! Could it be the chalice?" Kinn wondered too.

The person holding the cup had his face concealed with a hood of the black robe he's wearing.

"Ugh, I can't see the person's face! Umm, should he charge ahead and stop him?" Kinn asked

Elizabeth shook her head and replied quietly, "No, not yet. Let's listen in and see what that man is saying."

She then leaned in and tried to listen to what the hooded man was saying.

The hooded man speaking in an odd language, Kinn couldn't understand anything the person says. All he could ever heard from that person was:

"Pikcardia , Macamaca rerena Manda! Pikana khalize roxi via ane gra! Sham Shamanada nada ner vox... Anorex lesbie tu gatha withe Shamlass! Fureva en eva"

The person seems to be talking the same words repeatly. Kinn was confused, asking "Weird, we kinda feel like we're in a different country... These people seems to be talking some foreign language. If only someone here knews how to translate this stuff into English, he sounded like he just said "chalice"".

Elizabeth listened in as the hooded man continued speaking in a foreign tongue. She had a look of pure confusion as well and replied to Kinn,

"Hmm, I can't make out what he's saying. But I could have sworn that he was referring to Manda Ditch in some way. Wait...Do you think she could be connected to the chalice in some way?"

"I believe so. What do we do now?" Kinn asked. He seemed desperate to forcefully reveal the person in black cloak.

Elizabeth replied quietly, "We should probably listen a little more but I think we need reinforcements. There's a lot of people here and I doubt that the two of us can take this operation down by ourselves."

The man in the black cloak continued to chant some other words and then his hood was let down, revealing his face. His face looked ugly, like one of a gargoyle. Elizabeth thought that this face looked familiar but was trying to remember where she had seen such a likeness of it before.

"My gosh, this place gives me the creeps. Even their language!" Kinn was shocked to see the look of the person in cloak.

"What are we going to do next? Should we stop them now?" he added.

Elizabeth nodded and replied, "Yup, we should."

Then she was about to reveal herself to the group when suddenly, the chalice started shining brightly. The man with the gargoyle face then said,

"It is time, my brothers and sisters. It's time for the chalice to reveal its true powers. After tonight, no one will stop us! We will brainwash and enslave the people of this world and get them to do our bidding. We'll take their money and with that, we will be even more powerful."