Empath And The Golden Magic Bird/Part 3

In Lord Balthazar's castle, the evil sorcerer was sitting on his throne with his raven sitting on top of the throne's back portion, looking rather impatient as he was pondering in his mind about what he had sent the hunters after. Then suddenly the jewel on his ring began to glow, which meant that he had an incoming call from the hunters. He raised the ring up to his mouth and spoke into it. "Yes, what is it that you want?" he asked roughly.

"Your prey has disappeared into the forest, and we are having complete difficulty trying to track it down, my lord," the first hunter spoke. "We don't know where it can be right now."

"You imbeciles!" Lord Balthazar growled. "Must I do everything for you in order to do your jobs correctly? I am the one who's paying you!"

"My apologies, lord, but I don't see how we can find the golden pheasaant that you're after unless there's some way we can accurately track it down to wherever it has gone to," the hunter said.

Lord Balthazar felt greatly annoyed, but he realized that the hunter was right. "I have an idea, but it's going to require your cooperation," he said. "Can either of you go into the forest and find a feather from the golden pheasant?"

"It's possible, but we're not sure what good it will do us at this point," the hunter replied.

"You worry about finding the feather, and I'll concern myself with being able to help you complete your quest," Balthazar said. "Just remember what I said, that I want this creature before sundown or neither you will be paid."

"Yes, my lord, we will remember that," the hunter said before the jewel on Balthazar's ring grew dim.

Lord Balthazar let out a heavy sigh. "As much as I hate having to rely on incompetent help, I might as well see what the spell books say about using personal items of creatures in order to track their location." He went to the bookshelf in his laboratory and skimmed through the pages until he found what he was looking for. "Ha...perfect! Now all I need is that feather, and that golden pheasant will be as good as mine!" - At Feather's stable in the Smurf Village, Brainy and Clumsy were both watching after the golden pheasant, with Clumsy feeding the pheasant some birdseed from Farmer's fields. The bird seemed very happy, as was also Clumsy when he was watching and listening to the bird sing.

"Oh, can you believe it, Brainy?" Clumsy said, sounding very ecstatic. "This bird sings very beautiful music when I feed it some birdseed. Don't you think so?"

"Yes, Clumsy, it's very beautiful music," Brainy said, sounding disinterested. "But can't you just leave me alone to read my own book? I'm sure you're very capable of watching over the bird yourself."

"But Brainy, I thought we're going to smurf this together," Clumsy said, sounding very disappointed.

"Right now, the only thing I wish for you to do is to smurf yourself silent so I can read my book in peace," Brainy said, sounding very annoyed.

"Oh, sure, Brainy, if that's what you...," Clumsy started to say when his voice suddenly went mute and he was unable to speak. He tried to get Brainy's attention, but Brainy was so enraptured by his book that he couldn't divert his friend away from it. Realizing that he would need the help of Papa Smurf, he quickly ran away from the stable.

"Clumsy, you sure seem to be quiet all of a sudden," Brainy said while he was in the middle of reading his book. "Is everything all right?" He looked up from his book, only to see that Clumsy was gone. "Ah, figures...probably has to smurf to the outhouse to relieve himself or something," he said to himself after briefly looking around. "Oh well, I'm sure he'll smurf back to doing his job."

To be expanded on.