Ch 16: Dark (water) research

Hundreds of noisy clicks and clacks stacked a brightly lit room, filled with firbolgs dressed in white lab coats who were furiously typing down on old computers or on stony typewriters. While small compared to other parts of Caer, the lab was considered it's own sector, and a heavily regimented one as well. Half of the regulations were a evergrowing list that ensured the safety of the people there; while the other were set in stone rules set up through traditions and long-forgotten guidelines.

Even in terms of aspect you could notice a trend; besides the mandated garb, the staff also had another thing in common - all of them had a piece of their body bonded with a metallic part, either as an extension of their flesh or a replacement. Most of them ended up that way after starting working there, talking about their reasons during their water breaks about how they were “inspired by ch- ex chief Blitz; He is such a genius asshole, I hope I don’t have to talk with him, just the chance to work with him.”

Most of them toiled, studied, and analyzed in one of the seven hangar sized open rooms, with walls plated at one point with pristine platinum tiles; now, though, they are scratched, burned, or filled with weird substances that no one managed to clean down. Only a few specials ones had a space of their own, tiny rooms that could only hold a fracture of the ammount of paper one researcher could produce. Amongst them numbered Blitz, one of the Union members who helped Lian and Ogda escape the desert layer. His room was poorly lighten, by choice, with just a few lamps highlighting some papers on his work desk, and the tint blue coming from the cocoon they brought along, now emanating a ceiling encapsulating halo on the walls.

-” Yap, yap, yap...” muttered the firbolg while reading some lines on an old, cathode monitor; Blitz’s focus was stitched on deciphering the cocoon as fast as possible. He was familiar with these kinds of entities from previous hunts, and knew that he would have to work fast and meticulously to get as much information about it before it became a danger. And there was also another issue that he had to resolve quickly; fortunately for him, help was already on the way. A sudden drop in the surrounding temperature announced the arrival of his aid.

Blitz -” Welcome Feth…and his underlings?” asked the researcher, intrigued when he saw that his colleague brought other people with him.

Assistant -” Underlings? UNDERLINGS”, screeched a small, blush firbolg, with symmetrical coral-like protrusions expanding from her head. “I’ll let you know that I’m Mister Feth's assistant!”, she violently spurted out, waving her hands around and accidentally hitting the corner of a table.

-” Oh no, oh no, oh no!”, cried out the third newcomer, a human teen who was on his knees, with a backpack on the ground, violently opening it to search for a med kit. “Are you hurt? Is there a cut? We can’t let a cut ruin the next photoshot. Let me take care of it quickly.” Before he could rip a bandage, the wound was already closing, and the girl shrugged it off like it was nothing.

Assistant -“Nothing to worry about, I’m always keeping myself as healthy and perfect as possible. Like a polished jewel”, she thought while making sweet eyes at Feth, as she waited for him to praise her for how she healed herself.

Feth just gave a faint smile, ignoring them, and addressed the problem they were there for. “This subject is like the others?”, he asked, hovering his misty palms over the case. Blitz continued checking the results he was receiving from a computer behind him and silently nodded his head up and down.

Feth -” I see. If that’s the case, it’s quite impressive that it survived that desert layer, seeing as the flood there happened more than a decade ago. Does it still contain…”

Blitz raised his head from the monitor with a frustrated mug, tapping the desk with his fingers in a wave-like rhythm to calm himself down. “I don’t have conclusive data but…agh!”, he let out an annoyed belch. “After what I experienced during the hunt, my intuition tells me that it has a large quantity of the flood infecting it. Dormant probably.”

Feth's emerald eyes turn to the case, inspecting the cocoon even deeper with his gaze. His featureless face rarely portrayed any emotion, but for a few moments, the fog briefly formed a smile on the firbolg's featurless face.

Feth -” Infected you say…Hmm, right. The usual method to freeze this substance works fine for a few days, but since I must repeat it, I considered trying a more…definitive method. Today, I brought my lovely assistant to help me test out something I thought about.” Feth then approached the coral firbolg and surrounded her with his mist- “Little red pearl, your ability is extraordinary. Have the same faith in it that I have in you, ok? Remember, your success here guarantees you an immortal name remembered for centuries… Everyone will know who you are - now and forevermore- “

Without being given a “start” sign, Blitz pressed a button, which opened the container. Feth marveled for a second at the cocoon, admiring something about it that only he could see. A few seconds later, the temperature dropped and rose in a set interval, while a mist started blanketing the cocoon. It changed from hot steam to a cold mist from one second to another, and soon after a black liquid started to leak out of the pupa. The mist then guided it out of the pod, carefully moving towards a table, while the researcher checked the trail of empty particles the dark water left in its track.

-“All good so far”, noted down Blitz.

Feth then motioned the human boy to bring a container and keep it steady. The mist firbolg, with attention and care, guided the black liquid towards the teen. Even kept inert by the fog, the dark water behaved weirder the longer it stayed outside the cocoon, and drops of it managed to escape the steam prison they were in. Blitz managed to shot most of them except for one, a droplet that slithered closer to the teen’s arm and tried to “bite” one of his fingers off.

The frightened human took a quick step back and bumped his leg into the coral firbolg. He turned his spooked face towards her, and before he could even stammer an apology, she chastised him:

Kira - “Tsz, get a grip already, are you seriously scared off by some water? Get back there you wuss, you will be fine, Mister Feth is here;” The teen gulped, then turned around and felt how his hand was being enveloped by the silky, cold touch of the head librarian’s ghostly hands. The boy’s nerves froze in place, with him no longer shaking the bottle.

- “It’s ok”, said Feth in a voice that only sounded soothing, but underneath it, you could feel a certain disdain for the fact that he had to intervene at all. The teen quickly turned to Blitz, but the firbolg seemed oblivious to what was going on.

Teen - “I... I understand. I’ll keep it steady”, replied the human a moment later.

After collecting all that was left from the dark liquid, Feth then silently called over his assistant with a motion of his finger. “You know what to do, little pearl.”, he said, before giving the girl the bottle. She stared at it for a moment, as all the bravado from ago left her body the moment it came down to do her part. “Maybe I can refuse it”, she thought, before she felt Feth's emerald stare pressuring her into drinking the liquid. “No, no, I’ve got to do it- I’ll be remembered forever”, were his assistant’s last thoughts before she drank the entire bottle.

It took less than a second before her entire body started heating up like overheated pipes, ready to give up from the pressure. Feth used his mist to try and help her cool down, but it wasn’t enough to make any difference. The librarian then made a weird demand to Blitz, telling him to: “Get ready to shoot”. Right after, the coral branches started to grow out of control, expanding rapidly around the laboratory, cracking the walls and trying to expand beyond them.

-“NOW BLITZ”, shouted Feth to wake his colleague from his daze. “SHOOT AT THE BASE OF THE BRANCHES!”.

As commanded, Blitz started firing from where the growths spurred on indefinitely; his aim was accurate, and his volleys were fast enough to stop the corals from expanding beyond the confines of the room.

Blitz's attacks left him out of breath with how fast he had to react, and he was too tired to ask follow-up questions of Feth.

Feth -“Marvelous display”, said the librarian with an implied smirk hidden by the featureless face he used to portray himself. “I expected something like this, but this exceeded even my wildest hopes. You did well”, he said, while picking up his assistant in his arms, demanding the teen to follow them. “We’ll bring her to the medical center, but don’t worry, she is only passed out. She managed to -purify- the dark liquid as we wanted. Blitz!”, he yelled out before exiting the room. “I’ll send you more information about what just happened after -this- “pointing towards the girl. “For now, let’s just say that this was a test to see if there are other ways of disposing of the dark liquid.”

After which, he flew over the rubble and destroyed parts of the surrounding rooms that were caught in the incident, leaving the teen in charge of apologizing to anyone affected. Blitz was left speechless, but at the same time, he felt like there was nothing else he could do about the matter. Somehow, he felt stuck in place. “Goddammit, I should have told Masso about involving Feth in my research.” Before he could finish talking out his frustrations, the other researchers there started checking up on him.

Crowd - “Mister Blitz…what just happened?”.

The firbolg huffed tiredly and started to think about an excuse. “…just an incident with the cocoon. It reacted weirdly to some tests I tried out”, he blurted out at the last second.