RIPPLES IN THE WATER

RIPPLES IN THE WATER

** In The Base of Acidic Volumes**

***

**The Year Is 2142 on a Saturday night, a chilly evening with no wind that seems to be passing through the cracks of concrete in this neatly built apartment building. **

partment Suite 3B-115, A delicately accurate structure that’s been carefully built with precise intention to fit the podium upon the digital environment in which it stands, facing south from the peak of the city treeline that is lush green with a synthetic biodiversity and a high concentration of wild botanical appeal to it.

The movement is rather slow and almost none existential, as if this side of town is cut away from the fabric of ecology, it is sweet and calm, and rather quiet under the watchful eye of the crescent moon. 22:45 PM, Camilla is busy downstairs, working through out the night to perfect a spell for the coming journey she’s about to embark on. Down in her basement, as silent as the steps of a squirrel moving on a busy road, and as gentle as an infant’s kick to the belly of its mother’s womb.

She's experimenting with unknown elements of foreign metal alloy that is pure in its natural form, writing down names for new potions that she has been mixing, trying hard not to get her hands wet, for the rare chemicals she wields could cause more harm than they did when she bought them of a notorious dealer in the hidden depths of ‘Black Rock’, the city of danger that never sleeps.

Camilla has managed to get some ingredients for a few of her projects, from the market under the surface of the metropolitan city and some of the items she was bale to afford at the time where:

Sodiam Chloride in its crystalline form (3 Ellies); a glass cylinder full of Iodine crystal rocks with some broken to fine dust (33 Ellies); a glistening jar that is half full with a mercurial substance (20 Ellies); two carbonated crystals of Potassium Chloride (7 Ellies); two cubic chunks of Magnesium in solid form (15 Ellies); She managed to get her hands on an Amalgamated Rock of foreign metal which was a mixture of Vibranium, Petrollite Crystals, Arquerite, & Tin which costed about (99 Ellies) for the rock to be sold in its purest form, that is untainted after being smulged through the black market by the miners who work in the farthest part of Elaris.

Camilla was slightly furious earlier on the fact that she was only able to get these items on the market for “177 Ellies” or (177 Electrums) as some may call it in the upper parts of the city surface. This is the reputation that has come to be known about this vibrant metropolis, which is formally called ‘Black Rock City’ because of the crystalline base which forms the main foundation of its structure that has it protruding from the depths of Elaris like some kind of a fortress.

The city embodies half the energy that is needed to run Elaris alone in its purest form, without technical interference and synthetic manipulation or degraded forms of power generation that is being run by the corrupt government tower which lies in the middle of the metropolis, governed by artificial intelligence and guarded by an advanced military sect which only takes orders from the ‘High Priest’society, a collective of supreme intellectuals who govern the whole of Black Rock City and the country of Elaris.

While trying to come up with new charms to add to her bag of tricks, she feels that a whole new door of tools to explore lies open before her, and right now she just feels like she has enough power at her disposal, with the book now seldomly advising her and providing more insight on what she wants to do, it also uses the necklace to tell her about what to avoid. The book seems to whisper messages into her mind by speaking directly through the necklace.

‘The Beak of Soldor’ a unique piece of bone that seems to be of some kind of an ancient bird, petrified in a spoon of glistening fluid of golden amber, some nectar of some sort that has now hardened out of age an extreme heat, locking the mysterious artifact in place and protecting it from the elements.

She begins to feel the shift of temperature in the atmosphere of the room, although she knows she’s alone in the basements, she’s well aware that nothing is ever certain in the planes of Elaris, anything can shift very quickly and her years of work could be ruined any minute.

**Now she's felt a presence in the room, she begins preparing to pack up her materials**

Camilla carefully monitors the boiling liquid that she’s cooking in a jar mixed with other herbs, and without even realizing it, a piece of metal comes into view, past her side eye so quickly and sharp, and diagonally slicing through the metal laboratory desk, shattering a few glass tubes and knocking off another pot that was full of bird feathers on the table next to her desk.

As if sent by a sonic force from another realm, the metallic object spins out of control while on the floor, and then flies straight back from the direction in which it came, scraping Camilla’s inner side of her hand as she tries to shift herself out of the way in an abrupt swing to the right, crashing into the boxes on the wooden shelf next to her.

Blood trickled down her fingers, dripping onto the darkened basement floor, but she didn’t flinch. The world felt eerily still, as if even the city had stopped to watch. She wiped the sprinkle of blood off her face and proceeded to tear up the side corner of her crop top shirt to tie around her bleeding hand.

The blade seems to have left a deep cut on her sleeve, and a small gash on her hand as she twisted a smile whilst playing on her cherry looking lips that are now reflecting the rooms light onto the side making them shiny from the glossy lipstick she used. ‘Just a trim,’ she whispered, glancing down at the bleeding wound on her sleeve, and begins whispering a few distant words, as the basement light flickers and a screeching sound surrounds her etherealy as if coming from her body’s aura.

**The job was done. Or so she thought...As she still wasn’t finished with her charm preparations, before the event occurred**

A bright golden purple light swirls around the room, with sparkles flying in patterns around her sleeve coming from her other raised hand, as she’s now muttering words to herself louder and louder, whilst the cut on her sleeve weaves itself together as if an invisible surgical operation was being applied to her.

As the wound begins to look like it is patching up, a figure appears from her left side, appearing shadow first on a pile of boxes that have fallen to the floor beside her, and footsteps slowly coming into audibility. She tries to look up, to see who the shadow belonged to, before getting struck with hard and heavy blow to the side of her face, knocking her out cold, as she slowly falls down to the cold marble floor in her basement.

** The golden swirl and purple light slowly dimmers away, as the screeching sound fades into the background, before her mind drifts out of consciousness…. *FOOTSTEPS* Follow her into a deep sleep, as her mind fades away with her vision…. Slowly into darkness…. She Goes…. *FOOTSTEPS* Getting louder and louder…**