There was nothing that could calm the worry I felt in my heart. The eighth mage's ring box, I knew where it was, but I didn't know who else knew where it was and I didn't know why anyone else would have been looking for it. Much like when I found Jongin's ring box, I was worried that the mage would have gotten hurt and I wanted to find him- to find him and make sure for myself that he would be okay.

Chanyeol was a fast walker; I had realized that as soon as we set out on search for the eighth ring box. In the time it would have taken me to survey the entire floor, Chanyeol had breezed through the corridors and swept in and out of various rooms. They were empty, of course, but I could still see all the furniture that had been knocked around as well as the many papers on the ground. Chanyeol saw it too, but every time I looked up at him to see his reaction, he'd have his head turned away from me.

He wore his heart on his sleeve, Chanyeol did. When he was happy, he showed it, when he was guilty, he showed it, when he worried, he showed it- and I guess he didn't want to show it. As he continued walking down another series of corridors, I realized that the lights over our heads were starting to flicker on and off and with a gasp, I turned my head into Chanyeol's chest.

"I'll protect you." he whispered it to me and despite the fact that I didn't know Chanyeol as well as perhaps Sehun, I knew he was honest and that he would protect me. So I nodded and turned my head back in the direction we were moving in, and occasionally, we found one of the other mages in the room we were going to check next.

"Why are you carrying her?" Jongin had a stack of papers in his hand as he asked this, his eyebrows furrowed in irritance as he glanced from Chanyeol to me and back again. He had come out of the nurses' office, and I wondered what it was he had sorting through.

"She said she knows where the ring is!" Chanyeol's voice was eager and excited again, but his eyes had tightened, and I didn't know if he was annoyed or if he was worried.

"You had a dream?" that was Sehun's voice calling from behind Jongin, and when Jongin moved slightly to the side, Sehun walked up to us with a stethoscope in his hand, "Where is he?"

I shook my head, since I wasn't really sure where he was, but I knew that if we didn't start walking again soon, that we wouldn't be able to find the next mage at all. After tugging on Chanyeol's shirt, the mage of fire nodded and continued in the direction which we had been going.

We were stopped by Suho and Xiumin as well, the elder of which had actually put a hand on Chanyeol's arm to stop his movement, "Where do you think you're going?"

"To find Lay!" Chanyeol answered back cheerfully, and Suho and Xiumin shared a glance before Suho cleared his throat, his arms crossing over his chest.

"Chanyeol, you can barely find your shoes," Suho's eyebrows rose as he added on. "while you're wearing them, too."

Chanyeol seemed to be naturally curious, because he'd ask me what every room in the hospital's purpose was, and though I'd never actually been to the hospital, I answered as best as I could. When we had gone into the morgue that was still cold enough to place dead bodies in, Chanyeol refused to go in past the entrance.

"It's too cold. If I need to use my powers later, it'll take me longer to heat up." Chanyeol frowned as he said this, and without even looking at me, he turned and walked away. He hadn't been as upset when we got into the operation room, but he flinched as he saw all the surgery equipment laying around and backed out of the room like the equipment would come to life and attack us.

Then, we had gone into empty patient rooms, surveying the inside of the room and leaving when realizing nothing interesting was happening in there anyway. There was a lot of equipment laying around in those rooms, as well, though it wasn't enough to make Chanyeol flinch like for the operation room. It was enough to make me flinch, however, because my dream hadn't been as... real as this. Seeing all the equipment being thrown around and knowing someone else had been looking for the eighth mage was terrifying, and I wondered who it could be.

BAP? But they hadn't seemed to be much of a threat, despite the fact that they were tracking our progress and worried about the mages' past. Who else could possibly even know about their existence?

Senior Lee Jinki knew of their existence. I could still clearly remember how he had reacted when I told him I needed to go and find the first mage, and how hesitant he was to let me chase after it. Could it have been him? Or perhaps, someone he knew? I had no idea, honestly, and I was sure that Senior Lee Jinki didn't even know about these rings, so I tried my best to stop thinking about it.

"We need to find him." It wasn't me asking for myself, but me asking because I was starting to actually panic like never before. Chanyeol glanced down at me the same time that I looked up at him, and with a silent nod of agreement, Chanyeol hurried down the corridors. I was already sure that no one took the next mage's ring box, since the box was safe and seemingly unharmed, but my heart was beating as if that information was too good to be true.

"Wait, is that-" Chanyeol cut himself off, something I realized he seemed to do a lot, and walked up to a door at the end of the hallway. I hadn't taken a good look at it in my dream, but Chanyeol's eyebrows furrowed as he read the sign on the door, Zhang Yixing. I don't know why he was just standing there, but a moment later, he kicked the door open and waltzed in like he owned the room, "Is he in here?"

I looked around to make sure this room was what I saw in my dream, and surely enough, it was. Being in the room then was much more terrifying than seeing it in a dream, because it smelled heavily of some herb I wasn't sure of, and the cobwebs that occupied the room worried me. Why did this room seem to be untouched but at the same time destroyed?

Like in my dream, Chanyeol walked over to the dusty old desk chair and put me down on it, briefly chuckling at my disgusted expression before he turned away and started looking for the ring box again. He hummed as he looked for it, occasionally swearing and throwing objects here and there as he did so.

"You'd think a doctor like him would keep his room clean." Chanyeol had been stepping on several sheets of paper that he had no interest in until one set of papers caught his interest and he pulled it to his face, "EXO-"

I had zoned him out in order to search for the ring myself, my eyes just barely taking in the books and papers spread out across the ground before my eyes fixated on the portrait. It was of some old lady I didn't know, and it certainly didn't fit in the office setting.

Was he still in there, like he was in my dream? What if someone had gotten there before Chanyeol and I had? Maybe that would be unrealistic, since reality never strayed far from the dreams I had, but there was always the chance that something could change the outcome of the dream. There were tears going down my face, and though Chanyeol's gaze was on the stack of papers in his hands, I had a feeling he was as worried as I had become.

How could I get to the portrait without getting out of the chair Chanyeol placed me in? How could I get to the eighth ring box to make sure the mage inside of it was alive and well? That portrait was blocking my view of the inside, and I found myself wishing for a way to remove the portrait.

That's when I blinked and opened my eyes only to see that the portrait had caught on fire. I gasped as I saw it, alarmed that I had once again been able to do something without even realizing it, and that seemed to snap Chanyeol out of his thoughts.

"Yun Seung!" With a gasp of his own, Chanyeol ran to the portrait and pressed his hand against the fire. I wondered why the fire didn't affect him for a moment, but when I looked closer, it was as if his hand was absorbing the fire that came from the portrait, "You must not be very artistic."

I knew he was joking as he said it, but it didn't help me feel better about setting the portrait on fire, even if it was to look for the hidden mage, "He's behind the portrait."

"Behind...?" With a hum, Chanyeol gently lifted the portait off the wall and bent over just slightly in order to peer into the hole that had been covered by the portrait. I tried to peer over his shoulder, but Chanyeol was tall and it was nearly impossible to see anything but his broad shoulders.

In frustration, I closed my eyes and bowed my head, unable to take the suspension of whether or not the ring box was actually there. Chanyeol cleared his throat, and I looked up at him to see if he had any luck, but Chanyeol was already standing in front of me, leaning forward, with the ring box in his hand.

"You found him." I breathed out in relief and gingerly took the ring box in my own hands, my eyes running over the familiar black velvet casing with the silver lettering of EXO around it. The only thing that upset me when holding the ring box was all the marks covering it. It was obvious that the ring box had been hidden for a long time, but it was in such a bad condition that I realized that someone had already tried to open it.

"No, we did." Chanyeol's answering grin calmed my fears just slightly, but I turned my gaze back to the ring box and was worried all over again. It was like when I had found Jongin's ring box, marked and hidden away, but this time just seemed to be a little worse. Someone turned the entire hospital upside down in order to find this mage, was unable to open it and use the mage's power, then hid it again so no one else could try and use the mage he wasn't able to use.

"Please open." the ring box had no reason to open for me, since it also didn't open for whoever else attempted to find it, but I found myself hoping it would, because I wanted for the mage inside to be reunited with the friends that were still turning the rest of the hospital over trying to find him. My fingers opened the box easily, and after a moment of looking down and smiling at the ring with the symbol of a unicorn's horn on it, I pulled it out of the case and slipped it onto one of the empty fingers on my right hand.

After a moment of covering my eyes to make sure I wouldn't be blinded by the white light, I had uncovered my face and looked at the male who came from the eighth ring. He had a sharp pair of eyes that seemed to be looking at things miles away, a long face, and a single dimple.

"D-did you summon me, ma-master?" His voice was gentle, shy, afraid.

I glanced over to Chanyeol and noticed that he was staring at Lay with his eyes narrowed in curiosity, but when he noticed I was looking at him, he turned back to me and tilted his head.

"Go get the others, Chanyeol?" With an excited nod, Chanyeol tore out of the room and down the hall, leaving me with the eighth mage that was trembling where he stood, "I'm Yun Seung, who are you?"

"I-I'm Lay, m-master." his eyes were darting around the room in worry, as if he were expecting for something to jump out from the shadows and attack him.

"Call me Yun Seung." His trembling stopped immediately and he widened his eyes in surprise as he looked back at me, and only then did he notice the wounds covering my body.

"I'll heal you, ma- Yun Seung." he walked forward with shaky footsteps and held one hand out to touch my leg, but I had quickly grasped onto it with my hand. Lay flinched and attempted to pull his hand back, but I refused to let go, instead leaning forward to bury my head against his arm.

"Thank you for opening for me."

He never answered, and I never expected him to. The two of us lapsed into silence, with me trying to keep my tears in, and with him just being in surprise that a "master" like me was there and not humiliating him.

"Lay! Yun-" Tao's voice was calling for me eagerly as the mage burst into the office Lay and I were in, but Tao had silenced himself as he saw what state the two of us were in.

"Tao!" Lay's gentle voice was full of surprise as he called out the younger mage's name, and I let go of his arm as soon as he called it, "Chen!"

"Oh, our precious unicorn." Chen let out a sniffle and then cackled afterward, and I supposed it was because he used a nickname that Lay wouldn't appreciate.

I knew they were hugging, since Tao was the first to pounce on any of the mages we were to find. My head was bowed as they hugged, and I refused to look up even when the other mages walked in and crowded the already small office. Their voices were eager as they greeted the eighth member, and claps were heard as the mages clasped their hand against Lay's shoulder each time they hugged.

"Wait," that was Lay's voice again, stopping the chatter coming from all the other mages as the eighth mage walked over to me and slowly got onto his knees when he realized I wasn't going to look up at him, "You are the one who summoned all my friends?"

When I looked up at him, I noticed that his eyes were laced with gentle curiosity, and I nodded, only causing for those few tears to escape my eyes again and drop onto my lap.

"I'll heal you on one condition, then." I stared at him to continue, though the tears were falling again without relenting, and I barely felt the gentle reassurance Suho gave me when squeezing my shoulder lightly.

"Treat me the same way you treat them, because if it's you that's making them so happy, I want to be a part of it."

And like that, Lay had joined us in our quest to find the next four mages.

Sorry for such a late update, guys! I promised to give you updates every day but I slacked off because a distant uncle passed away and things were pretty hectic for the past week. How have you all been? Okay, I hope!.

I apologize for not having a lot of the mages' interactions in here other than Chanyeol's. I've been trying to make it so that they all get to speak at least once a chapter, but this was pretty hard, since I was focusing on finding Lay this chapter.

Without further ado, here's today's question!

Now you've seen all kinds of introduction dreams. A cave, a wind farm, a sketchy basement, a storm, a frozen lake, a flowing lake, an errupting volcano, and an abandoned hospital. What other type of introduction dreams do you want to see for the rest of the mages? Also, this is a bit of a spoiler, but the nightmare about a spooky hallway and a light following after Yun Seung? Yeah, that's also an introduction dream.

This update is now over! As always, please read, subscribe, upvote, and comment! All of these things are appreciated but not mandatory... though I assume you're reading this in order to do the rest of my requests... otl. Sorry for being weird. I'll update again soon!