Interlude 4: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness

Harker walked the empty path to Martius’ lab deep in thought. Whatever was blocking their connection was more than the gnome researcher could crack with the previous iteration of his device and he had spent the last day and a half re-calibrating and upgrading the machine. Lynn likewise was refining her alchemical solutions with frightening focus, leaving Harker with nothing to do but dwell on what he had learned via his visions until the gnome had made his adjustments.

A phantom pain shot through his chest and he stopped to draw vitality from one of his sanguine gems, leaning against a wall for support. Despite his connection to the bloodblade being muted, the curse laid on him continued to flare on occasion, the intensity of such attacks not lessened in the slightest.

As stored lifeforce flowed into him, he found himself drifting back to that day nearly two years ago. Flora had seemed a diligent and respectful student, always willing to go above and beyond in her studies and assigned tasks. At first, he had thought she had played him, slipping under his usually astute readings of people. But that failed to stand up to scrutiny. There was no way she could have hidden an intent like betrayal given the nature of their abilities and how closely they worked together.

Which left the bloodblade as the sole reason she had turned on him. It had been a mistake to show her the artifact his family had been watching over for generations, but he hadn’t thought it would be a danger. The legend behind it was it was created to defeat some unkillable enemy, designed to take some of the immortal’s blood to complete a spell to seal them away. It had come into his family’s possession some time later and had remained a quiet curiosity until he showed it to Flora.

‘Why did it react to her?’ he thought for what may have been the hundredth time. She wasn’t some slouch when it came to her ability to draw out the vital energies of life from blood, the hallmark of sanguimancy, but it wasn’t the most potent. In an honest and fair assessment, he estimated her potential at around three-fourths of his own.

‘Was that why the sword reached out to her?’ he often wondered. ‘Not that she was powerful but because she was weak?’

It made some sense. Strong enough to use the power, weak enough to fall under its influence. An influence none of his ancestors nor him had noticed. That had been a chilling thought when he’d narrowed things down to the most likely reason. How long had the blade been waiting for someone to bring under its thrall? And what intent did it have?

All he had were the occasional flashes that bombarded him after an attack. Most were visions of things she had done, people she had killed. The most concrete one only came about due to Martius’ device: a vision of a portal born out of a bloody sacrifice and the ruined landscape beyond it.

‘She, no, the bloodblade, is trying to get somewhere,’ he’d concluded. ‘And they’re collecting blood to power the spell. How many has she killed? And how many more are going to die if I can’t stop her?’

With a suppressed groan, Harker pushed himself off the wall and continued back to the lab. If nothing else, his presence might make Martius work faster.

---

Much to his frustration, the gnome was out of his laboratory for some reason and Harker paced about the chamber as he waited.

“Don’t think Martius will like you wearing a hole in his floor,” Lynn said in a deadpan tone as she emerged from the room she was granted to work on her concoctions.

Harker regarded the alchemist with weary eyes. She looked as she usually did, cool and collected, but her aura still had a worn edge to it. Whatever happened yesterday when she adjourned to make a phone call evidently still weighed on her, though her sense of professionalism allowed her to mask her emotional distress.

Letting his aura sense fade, Harker retorted, “Perhaps if I ruin his floor, Martius might have a breakthrough during his angry rant.”

Lynn frowned at him. “We’re working with magic that’s not exactly well established. It takes time to dial everything in.”

“I know,” Harker said after a moment to still his frustration. He let out a dry chuckle. “Being aggravated probably isn’t good for my condition.”

Lynn shook her head. “Performing long-range scrying with you as the focus isn’t all that good for your health either, but here we are. If you want, I could try to whip up something. Wouldn’t be a cure, but I can easily make something to heal you and make things easier on you.”

“I have my own methods for dealing with that,” Harker declined her offer. “Plus, you should focus on refining that focusing solution. The sooner we find Flora and deal with her and her gang, the sooner I can get out from under this curse.”

A look of concern flashed across Lynn’s face and Harker could feel her aura fluctuate even with him deliberately restraining his arcane senses. “You sure getting back the thing’s going to undo the curse?”

“Perhaps not just by reclaiming it,” Harker admitted, suddenly feeling very tired. “But it should be possible to undo with some work.”

“If it doesn’t come undone on its own, you’ll have to let me look at it,” Martius said as he marched into the lab, arms laden with a number of crystal rods.

Harker didn’t address the gnome’s request and instead asked, “Think you’ll have something working today?”

“Fairly confident I can have it working in an hour,” Martius answered in a haughty tone. “These should give us the boost we need to overcome our problem.”

“All we needed was more power?” Lynn asked as she and Harker followed Martius to the machine.

“With the signal from the artifact dampened, more power was always going to be part of the equation,” Martius explained as he unloaded the crystals onto a worktable. “Most of the reworking I’ve been doing is to ensure the power output isn’t going to fry Harker or overload the system. However, these are more than just additional power. They’re charged with mana from those with dream related abilities.”

Harker let out a hum. “I presume you came to this idea because I had that dream.”

The gnome nodded as he sorted the rods. “If our hypothesis is correct, while your connection to the artifact is weakened, the connection to the person you saw through is still active, for lack of a better way to categorize it. I didn’t design the machine to amplify a person-to-person link, but that phenomenon is close enough to what it was made to do for us to switch modes with the proper modifications.”

“Which these mana rods will do, right?” Lynn asked.

“In theory,” Martius answered. “We are dealing with interconnected souls and trying to bridge the gap between them and bypassing the artifact that brought them into proximity. Complicated doesn’t even begin to describe what we’re trying to do.”

“But you’re confident this’ll work,” Harker said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be explaining everything to us.”

“You know me too well,” the gnome remarked. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to install these.”

“I’ll get the solution prepped,” Lynn said. “That hour timeline still in play?”

“I suppose we can delay if you need more time to get ready,” Martius jabbed, eliciting a huff from the alchemist.

“More time? I can get everything ready to go in fifteen,” Lynn asserted.

“Then we’ll be ready in an hour,” Martius said. “I know I’ll be done by then.”

Frustration flashed across Lynn’s face and she turned sharply and marched off to prepare the solution.

“Her fuse is a bit shorter, isn’t it?” Martius noted as he began to install the crystal rods.

Harker let out a disapproving hum and Martius continued, “Right, none of our business as long as she keeps up her part of the contract.”

Harker nodded and stepped away to give the gnome room to work. While he didn’t necessarily need any preparation to play his part, he believed that a clear mind would help to reduce the strain on him and hopefully make this attempted contact work. Still, as he tried to prepare his mind, he found himself distracted by the little he knew of their intended target.

Beyond the small scene he had seen through her eyes, the nervousness that colored her aura spoke volumes of her situation. He was confident she had not joined with Flora willingly and thought he could offer her protection from the blade’s powers and turn her against his former pupil.

A slight twinge of discomfort came with that angle of attack, as he wasn’t sure he could make good on such a deal. He had failed to protect himself from the bloodblade’s power and if his belief that she had some ability to read people like his own panned out, he wasn’t sure if he could keep the truth from her, especially given how close their auras would be.

‘I can’t even say that this liaison can’t be kept secret,’ he despondently thought. ‘Flora was less intune to people’s auras than I am, but I have no way of knowing if that still holds true.’

Despite his misgivings and fears, it was the best way forward. The threat Flora posed was too great to stop for the sake of one girl. He let out a sigh and toyed with one of his sanguine spheres, the weight of heavy consequence settling on him.

---

Kiera softly crept along the dark passageway of the hideout, moving slowly to not alert anyone of her presence. She stiffened when she felt Bill’s prickly aura approach from behind her.

“You should know better that skulking about isn’t enough to hide from me.” Bill’s gruff voice sent a fearful shiver down her spine and she spun to face him, suppressing a wince as the thorniness of his aura scraped against her.

“B-bill, uh, hi,” she stuttered out as the burly man stomped closer. He stopped close to her and Kiera subconsciously made herself smaller.

“Anything you want to tell me?” Bill grunted, his voice rough like sandpaper and ground glass. Before Kiera could even formulate an answer, another presence manifested right on top of her, the same one she had felt a few days before. In her mind’s eye, she could make out the image of a worn looking dark haired man, streams of vibrant crimson flying around him and a dark red wound on his chest spewing black ichor.

“Oi,” Bill’s voice dragged her out of her examination of the mysterious man and she flinched, both from the suddenness of Bill’s interjection and a flash of anger for the invasive aura.

“Um, no, I’ve got n-nothing new,” she finally managed to say. A part of her wished she could tap into the aura practically on top of her, draw out some of the self-confidence that was present under the anger and curiosity that rippled on its surface. But she couldn’t go halfway with her ability and she didn’t want to provoke Bill by invoking her powers.

Bill spat on the ground and Kiera stepped back to avoid getting spit on her shoe.

“What the fuck have you been doing all day, huh?” he harshly demanded. “I know the boss didn’t have you do anything today.”

“I-I kept as much of a track as I could,” Kiera timidly said. “I have to be careful, since there were others around. And they only went out once and he hasn’t really changed from what I told you yesterday. And then he went to his home alone.”

A predatory grin broke across Bill’s face. “So the bastard’s not on some record breaking rise to the top? Good.”

Bill licked his lips, and Kiera suppressed a shudder.

“I think tomorrow’s lookin’ like a good day for a hunt,” he continued. “Boss doesn’t have you doing anything then, right?”

“N-no,” she answered, a sinking feeling settling in her gut. She knew what he was about to ask. The aura remained inquisitive, giving her the impression that it, or he, was watching this for some reason. Not that she could dwell on that idea, given the real problem right in front of her.

“Then you’re going to be coming with me,” he said with the finality of giving an order. “We’ll tail him and if he don’t got any backup, we’ll trap him.”

Not keen on further disobeying the boss’ order, Kiera asked, “A-and what if he’s not alone?”

“Then we’ll have to separate ‘em,” Bill said, his tone clipped like he thought she was stupid. “I don’t want to wait anymore and the boss isn’t going to stay blind to me pulling some of my due forever. I’d love to hunt down all of ‘em, but getting just the newbie’s enough for now.”

He took a step back from her, a dark gleam in his eyes and the vines of his aura quivering as if they were about to spring out and attack.

“Don’t stay up too late,” he ordered as he walked away. Kiera remained rooted in place far longer than she had to, the intrusive aura bombarding her inquisitive pulses. It was odd to feel live emotions and she was somewhat grateful she didn’t have to experience it regularly. She began to shakily resume her journey back to her lonely room. She had been intending on heading to bed, but despite Bill’s less than nice urging, she didn’t feel like sleeping anymore.

‘Especially not with someone watching over my shoulder,’ she thought at the aura clinging to her. It continued to radiate its inquisition, though now there was a sense of irritation along with it.

‘Who are you?’ she pondered as she slipped into her spartan room. She sat down on her cot and stilled her mind, pushing away the lingering fear and anxiety plaguing her. Once she was as calm as she could make herself, she pushed her magical senses outward, making sure there was no one around. She also checked the thin, barely there string that dangled from her right index finger. It faded into imperceptibility but she knew where it flowed.

Nothing about it indicated any awareness of the covert goings on, as usual. It merely served as one of the links keeping her here.

‘Not that I have anywhere else to go,’ she sadly thought. Shaking that thought from her head, she asked aloud, “Okay, can you hear me?”

The aura quivered slightly and Kiera wondered if that was the equivalent of a nod.

“If that was like a nod, could you do it twice, please?” she asked. When the aura quivered twice, Kiera felt a small rush of excitement and she stood up, her breath quickening. She began to pace, her thoughts racing.

‘So it, no, he can hear me. And could probably hear me before. So they know Bill’s idea, so this isn’t someone reporting to the boss, right? But, how? Why?’

Kiere racked her brain, trying to think of anything she’d done to invite this person, but found nothing that could explain how his aura and hers became connected. And why he wanted to contact her. She stopped in front of her trunk and opened it, fishing out a notepad and pencil.

“Okay, so you seem to hear me,” she said, flipping past sketches until she reached a clean page. She put pencil to paper and continued, “Let’s keep two pulses for yes, one for no. Now, what should I ask you?”

---

Harker blinked as Martius’ lab came into blurry view, the gnome and Lynn both radiating various amounts of worry. He tried to move and found his limbs nearly unresponsive and the heavy weight of exhaustion crashed upon him.

“What happened?” he asked, the words coming out of his mouth nearly slurred.

“It seems that prolonged contact puts a heavy strain on your body,” Martius reported as Lynn willed a stream of some pink concoction towards his mouth.

“This’ll help perk you up,” she explained and Harker allowed the stream to slip past his somewhat chapped lips. It went down warm and he felt a small amount of strength return to his body.

“How long was it?” Harker asked. “Didn’t exactly have a clock to watch.”

“A little more than an hour,” Martius answered as he reviewed the various outputs of his machine. “I hope they were fruitful.”

Harker’s face setted in a small grimace and he said, “Not as much as I would like. We were able to establish a method of communication but it was horribly inefficient. Being limited to only being able to essentially nod makes things difficult.”

“So no info on their location I’m guessing,” Lynn surmised.

Harker shook his head languidly. “No. I couldn’t get her to ask questions in that direction. The closest she got was asking if I was an enemy.”

“How’d you answer that?” Lynn asked, a frown on her face.

“I lied,” Harker replied. “Not that it worked. She’s odd. I don’t think she could feel the emotions of others but clearly felt mine. Not that her magical senses are dull. Quite the opposite, but I figured our abilities were more similar.”

“Don’t disregard your gut instinct,” Martius advised. “There is some common element between your two abilities. I can see that from the feedback. But we can muse on what that similarity is later. It doesn’t sound like getting caught in a lie damaged our endeavors.”

“She followed up with ‘Are you an enemy of the boss?’,” Harker continued, a frown forming on his face. “That I answered truthfully, but something about the question bothers me.”

“What do you mean?” Lynn asked.

“Neither she nor the brute that has her keeping tabs on someone who escaped their grasp refer to their boss by name,” Harker explained. “It’s always just ‘Boss’. And it isn’t Flora, they’ve used ‘him’ and ‘he’ in reference. There’s something about it that rubs me wrong, like they’re compelled to not refer to him by name.”

“That implies this ‘Boss’ might have some notable name,” Lynn surmised. “Or he wants to remain as off grid as possible.”

“Both make finding out where they are harder,” Harker said. “But we have an opportunity tomorrow. They’re going after someone who got away. If I ride along, I might be able to find some landmark or overhear something.”

‘And I might be able to stop Flora from adding another victim to her tally.’

“That might not be the smartest move,” Martius said cautiously. “We don’t know how much strain your body can take, especially without a long enough recovery time between sessions.”

“We don’t really have a choice, do we?” Harker retorted. “We’ve hit a wall in regards to pinpointing a location. This is the best opportunity to get something concrete.”

“And if you die in the process?” Lynn cut in. “Doesn’t help anybody if the location dies with you.”

Harker knew their points had merit but being so close to a tangible lead was too much for him to ignore.

“How about only short link ups?” he offered as a compromise. “Just so I can look for anything we can use to narrow down their location.”

“That might be the best compromise,” Martius muttered. “There could be some issues with such quick boot ups, but I think the machine can handle it.”

“But can you?” Lynn pointedly asked Harker.

“I think a few minutes won’t put me in any danger,” Harker confidently answered. “An hour is a bit draining, but I’m not on ****’s doorstep. I’ll be fine.”

Seeming to realize that she wasn’t going to sway him out of this, Lynn sighed and said, “Since you’re going to do this, I’ll make sure I’ve got some stimulants and restoratives ready. And you better get some rest.”

“That is something we can wholeheartedly agree upon,” Harker remarked with a small chuckle. Letting out a small groan, Harker pulled himself out of the machine and trudged his way to his chambers.

‘One more day,’ he thought, his mind oddly focused in spite of the exhaustion dragging his body down. ‘I’ll find where Flora is and we can end this.’

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