An Old Legend

Blair was leaning over the still drowsy John. She wore a red robe made from silk and was holding a half-filled glass of wine in one hand. Although he was still only half-awake, John’s eyes were almost immediately drawn to the bit of cleavage that her robe did not cover. As Blair moved away from him, John **** himself to look away from the eye candy and try to wake himself up.

“So what was it that you wanted to show me?” he asked. He suppressed a yawn as he sat up and stretched out his arms. He wasn’t under the blanket, so he was easily able to swing his legs over the side of the bed. John then cracked his neck with a satisfying pop. He looked around, and noticed that he wasn’t in Blair’s room. Perhaps he was in a guest room instead? That seemed to have been the more likely scenario.

He glanced over to the nightstand beside the bed. His phone was currently on top of it, although John didn’t remember putting it there. Which meant that someone else had likely done so while he had been asleep. He grabbed it and turned it on to check the time, although he was momentarily blinded by the sudden light. Currently, it was only half an hour past three.

“Let’s just say that it’s something that has to be seen to be appreciated,” Blair answered as she grabbed his hand and pulled him off the bed. Begrudgingly, John let his body fully leave the softness of the mattress below him as he was pulled up from it.

They now stood directly in front of one another, their chests nearly close enough to touch. Blair’s hand, which still held his own, felt soft and warm to John. It was a nice, comforting warmness. The kind that he could have held onto for a thousand years and would have been perfectly content with during every moment. Unfortunately for John, Blair let go of his hand to raise her own hand into the air instead.

You have been invited to enter an Illusion Barrier
Owner: Blair Hollmey
Would you like to accept?
Yes/No

John of course pressed on Yes, and they were both transported to her laboratory. To him, it seemed even more cluttered up and lively than it did when he had been there just earlier that day. If more than 20 pieces of equipment had been active before, it would have been over 50 this time around.

Or rather… I guess it would technically have been yesterday now, huh? John thought to himself as he looked around more. On one of the counters, there was a stovetop grill. And over that grill, was a tea kettle that was currently being boiled, and also had a tea bag inside. With two empty glass cups, a teaspoon, and a small pot labeled with ‘sugar’ placed next to it.

“Hey, Blair… have you been awake this whole time?” John asked. She turned to look at him, and it was only then that he really noticed how bloodshot her eyes were.

“Yep, not my first all-nighter. I can’t reveal the details, but… let’s just say that some interesting results arose from the last case I took, and I needed to run a few tests,” she told him. She walked over to the kettle and turned off the grill. Blair then poured some of the tea into the two cups and mixed in some sugar with a teaspoon. She handed one of the cups to John, who had to hold it by the edge due to how hot it was. “Anyway! None of that matters! Here, come see what it is that I wanted to show you,” Blair said as she led him to a different part of the lab.

There, embedded in the wall, was a series of crystals arranged in a rectangle. A wire connected all of them, and in the space in the middle was a one-way sheet of glass. It was comparable to a framed mirror, albeit one with an unorthodox design.

“I hope you’ll like this, because buying the access to view it cost me a pretty penny a while back,” she told him as she fiddled with one of the crystals. “And now take a look at one of the few places in Hell that can be considered as gorgeous,” Blair finished as she snapped her fingers. An image then immediately came to life in front of them. And the world that it displayed was the kind that John could only have imagined to have been from a fantasy story.

It was the inside of some sort of cave system. But instead of the red flames and black brimstone that one would expect from a place in Hell, it was a vibrant world full of color. The walls, ceiling, and floor were made from a rainbow of gems that glistened and seemed to glow. The light that they produced mixed in ways that could only have been called harmonious. And, although it was barely audible, John swore that he was able to hear a faint vibration-like noise come from them.

Flowers with wide leaves grew out from in between them and seemed to slowly move and twine around one another. Like they were dancing together in a slow and dazzling waltz. Aside from the flowers, there were other kinds of plants as well, some of which had fruit hanging from their stems. They looked like cherries, but seemed far brighter and juicy-looking than any of the cherries John was familiar with. They too came in all sorts of colors and patterns. From red polka dots to yellow stripes and far, far more.

“You know,” Blair began as she looked away from the display and towards John, “I never tried any of the fruit that grows there since their cost is well outside of my price range. But there’s an old legend about them. Let’s see… how did it go… okay, I got it. Supposedly, among all of those fruits, there’s one that’s different from the rest. It has a wavy pattern that slowly moves around the fruit, and the color scheme makes that pattern look like lava. Apparently, if you can find it and eat the whole thing, two things will happen. For the first thing, different people have different versions that they tell. Some say its immortality, others say boundless wisdom. However, no matter who you ask, everyone who’s aware of this legend agrees on the second thing you get.” She stopped, and took a sip from her tea before she continued.

“Mana, and lots of it. Enough to normally kill most Abyssals just from being too much for their bodies to handle. But in this case, even a newborn baby can handle it with ease. How much mana exactly is up in the air though. Some say enough to crush armies and small nations, others say you could raze entire chunks of Hell or maybe even the whole thing. However much it is, you’d be a **** to be reckoned with. Anyway, personally, I think it’s just a load of bull. Because even if something like that did exist, someone powerful like one the Devils or maybe some god would have gotten their hands on it long ago. But that still doesn’t stop some people from going down to try to find it. People who I would bet get charged quite a bit by Keh, the Devil who controls this section of Hell as part of his domain.”

John simply nodded in response as he only really half-listened to the story. He was still too enraptured by the sight before him. Blair too turned back to it, and without realizing it, she wrapped her free arm around John’s shoulder, who did the same in return. There, they sat together as they both enjoyed the warmth on their skin from each other’s presence, the warmth in their stomachs from the hot tea, and the eye-pleasing display in front of them.