.·✧☆Stellarium☆✧·.

Chapter 3

Arthur, Legends and Labs | 2,492 words

I closed the door behind me to hear Violet's voice “did you get it?” I sighed. “Here it is,” I laid it out on the table in the back of the room. I watch her grab it and have it pulse with multiple different colors like it's breathing. In all honesty I find it gross, but I don't say anything to her. Her necrotic looking hands feel the metals as she scans the artifact “I’ll take this in for testing, you did well,” She says to me. “We do have an issue though,” I say as I follow her into the lab observation room. “I kind of blew my cover taking the sword, and the princess may or may not be after it now.” She half turned her head to look at me, “They won't be able to find us right? You weren’t followed?” “No, I wasn’t followed out. All they are aware of is that I took it, they know nothing about the operation.” I sighed and slumped over into a chair to watch her do her thing.

“Good,” is all she said back to me. She put it into a specialized container lined with silver to contain it. She wants to test its properties to continue her research on magic, maybe take it for herself but who knows. She’s the only person probably in the entire world who even knows how to do this kind of stuff, I assume It's from her weird card though. The container is sent into the main lab where the assistants start running the standard diagnostics on it. “So, what's the plan now? D’you need me to run any more errands?” She never looks at me when we speak, concentrated on whatever numbers are showing up here in the control room. “No, not right now, and seeing as you blew your cover I might not be needing you for a while.” I’m not as upset as I normally would be at the cutting remark, being tired and pale from all the magic I used up to fight earlier. Quick thinking with that illusion was the only reason I’m still free and breathing.

“Can you go supervise them down there?” She asked me, right before I was going to say I was headed to bed. “Yeah sure Vi, but I'm going to bed at 1.” I get up to take the stairs down to the main lab. I really hate living underground like this, but it's better than nothing. The hallways are dark and gloomy for the time of night, the candles that usually light the way are extinguished. I can’t believe that she's making me do this so late, especially after finally pulling off the mission we had planned for months. I put on the necessary PPE and walk into the space. All of the assistants are in or have been in a similar situation to us both. Some of us were abandoned, plenty had nowhere to go, and the majority had no magic in their systems to speak of. Life sucks even more now with all of the magic based technology for them, Vi’s mission is to help us all.

I figure I can't just lean on a wall the entire time, so I make a few rounds to watch them. One group was handling the artifact wrong, another used me to double check their calculation on the energy level of it. I only went for a job in the castle because of the operation, but even after all of it’s done I don't feel very accomplished. I hope that I’ll feel better after I rest, and when I’m not so pale that I can barely summon my card. I continue making my rounds, watching her read the long printed papers of results up in observation. When it finally hits 1, I am so tired it feels like my eyelids are made of dense metal. I exit down the hallway to my room, looking at Lab 3, the smallest of the bunch, but nobody’s got high enough clearance to get in there. Not even me, and I’m like her right hand man. I decided to let it go for tonight, it's not a big deal to me. She probably just has something planned that she’s waiting on results to tell us.

As I enter my room the walls and walls of books and chemistry supplies greet me, the room is already naturally dark so I don't have to bother turning off any lights or anything. I really don't even bother taking off any of the clothes from the party earlier, except for the shoes. As my head hits the pillow I kind of wonder if I did the right thing today. Of course I did, I’m helping groundbreaking research that’ll help so many people. I mean Vi had bright white blood and now she has multiple different card colors. Once we present the information we have to the president of Forra we’ll be able to have people doing magic left and right. Even with a low capacity for magic, it's still a hindrance. Tech and advancements going on without the rest of us isn't fair. That's what we’re all working towards, it's not my fault if others refuse to help. Nova just wants to uphold the superiority of having a more powerful card. I guess I also just owe it to Violet to help.

I pass out eventually, and look around. I’m in the hallway to the labs, and at the end of the hall is the door to Lab 3. It’s eerily quiet until I hear clattering metal noises and something hitting the door repeatedly. It's practically slamming into the door, and I press myself at the end of the hall, trying to open a door that's not normally there. With each slam of the door the hallway grows shorter with me in it. I’m now frantically trying to open the door but it's locked, as the slamming grows louder and the hallway shortens by even more. I slam my eyes shut as the door slams into me.

“Are you listening to me?” When I reopen my eyes I’m sitting in a chair in Lab 2 “Arthur hold still, I just need a blood sample.” Vi is looming over me, is she taller than normal? I feel my heart rate quicken “hold still” it repeats to me. I try to jerk my arm towards me, but before I can I feel her blackened hands grab me and her nails sink into it. “Hold still.” Does she normally have nails? Never mind that, I keep trying to pull myself away, or get out of the chair even, but I can't move. I watch as she undoes the safety on the needle. Wait, where are these hands coming from? I can’t see the floor. She walks towards me with the needle in hand, I can't see what it's connected to. The blackened parts of her arms look like they’re about to fall off. I still can't move no matter how hard I try. The needle is about to enter my skin–

I gasp for air and sit up, sweaty from the dream. Taking a moment to collect myself, I go to put something that isn't my shabby ‘dress clothes’ on. I light the candle on my desk, and dip my pen in the inkwell as I cross off “get the Crystalian sword” on the list of things I have to do. It was the last item on the list. I might as well go get a glass of water and try to relax. When I leave my room I'm weary of the door to Lab 3 as I pass. Nothing happens though. I walk into the kitchen, taking a glass from the cabinet and filling it up with water. “Arthur” I hear Violet’s voice behind me, making me jump and drop the cup. It shatters on the floor. “You’re gonna need to clean that up.” She says, her multicolored eyes piercing me. “And good morning.” I still thought it was late at night, apparently I was wrong. I try not to look her in the eyes, the blackened markings follow the pattern of her veins part way down her face. “What time is it?” I rub my eyes. “6 AM. Get ready, we have a meeting today.” She says back while getting coffee, and then she leaves.

I used the broom to sweep up the shattered glass, the room needed to be swept anyway. Another meeting, maybe she’ll say what's in Lab 3. I kind of don’t want to know what it is now. It's pretty irrational to be this worked up over a dream though. I decide against getting another glass of water, and make my way back to my room.

All I think about is about what the next steps are, and what she’s keeping from the rest of us. I know I’m not really supposed to question her, especially when she took us all in, but I can't help it. It bothers me that she won’t let me know what's behind that door, even just for peace of mind. I feel like tearing out my hair, but instead I sit down and choose what to wear to the event. I decided on a professional-ish shirt and dress pants, since I wore the good stuff last night (and it probably has blood on it). I make a mental note that I’ll have to do my laundry later.

Time feels like it passes slowly, I put the clothes on and get moving to the seminar room. On the way there I decided to test if the door was locked to the lab. Just to be helpful to Vi of course, I would only let her know if the door was unlocked and nothing else. It was locked, unfortunately. Everyone fills in the seats as we all patiently listen for her presentation. The chatter of the other people dissipated as she walked up to the podium and began to speak.

“So as most of us should know by now, we have secured the Crystalian Sword artifact. From the diagnostics run so far, we already know it has potent magical energy inside of it.” She presented the sword contained in a glass box, sitting on a table behind her. “From here on out we will be running specialized tests on the artifact to test for a few different things, for instance, the materials it's made of, its magical holding capacity, sharpness and a few confidential tests occurring in Lab 3.” I applaud myself for being able to predict that she would talk about that lab. “A special few of you have been selected to help me personally conduct research in Lab 3, and I've gone out of my way to talk to you about the position.” She barely talked to me at all last night, and definitely did not mention this. Is it because I messed up? Blew my cover? Why is anyone other than ME getting the opportunity, I brought back the damned artifact.

“I'm sure that all of you who have not been selected must be wondering a few things, probably about what’s in Lab 3.” Yes, and also why I wasn’t chosen after doing all of the dirty work. “It has a very special purpose, holding a new technique being tested in order to bring the gift of magic to more people. I am going to be the first test subject, which is why I will personally be working there.” So it really was nothing then, I’m sure that it's probably more chemistry equipment. I really shouldn't be so freaked out over a dumb dream. But I also don’t think it's the brightest idea to do the testing on Violet, her hands, arms, and face are all blackened due to early testing of chromaglobin transfers. The magic hadn’t reacted well and started killing cells in her body, the only reason she still has both hands is because she did multiple successful ones, using the energy transfer to keep them functional. I can’t stop her, but I really hate the idea of more zombie body parts.

Someone raised their hand to ask something. “Can we know more about the technique being tested?” they asked. “For right now the research is almost entirely confidential, once we are done it will be revealed to you all. But believe me, this is the last step in our journey to bringing our cards to life.” The itch was back, I really wanted to have more information revealed about that room.

“Do we have any more questions?” She asks all of us, and while yes I definitely have more questions, I keep them to myself. No reason I need to stick out right now. “Alright, good, before I dismiss you all I want you all to remember that next week we’re going to be doing medical trials on chromaglobin transfers. Big thanks to our volunteers who are undergoing the process. Okay, you’re all dismissed.” As people start to leave I get up to talk to her about my position going forward.

“Violet,” I greet her. “Arthur,” she replies. “Do you know what I’m going to be doing from now on?” I ask. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, I have a special job for you,” She says. I’m excited, “Really? What am I going to do?” “I need you to go out and find information for me, you aren’t being stationed in Crystalia anymore.” I mean, not exactly the most exciting job but it's still something. I’m a little disappointed to not be in Crystalia anymore, but also I don’t want Nova to find and confront me again. “Information on what?” I ask. “Fennagons.” I look at her like she has three heads. Those are bedtime stories, myths, there literally are no such things.

“What? Fennagons? Like angels? You… you know those aren’t real, right?” I wonder if she’s gone off the deep end and become insane. “You know how important you are to me as my right hand man Arthur, and you know how important my research is to me” I nod as she says this. “I’m not having you chase silly bedtime stories, of course they’re not real. I think that the texts that speak about them might have something that we need in them though.” The myths? Really? “I’ll go look for stuff about it if it's important for research.” “Good,” is all she says to me as she walks away.

I have no idea what could be so important about angels though. Even if they were real, they would be impossible to find anyways by virtue of being shapeshifters. I feel like I've been sent out on a wild goose chase. I'm confident this is completely because I blew cover at the castle and this is some sort of absurd punishment.