Laboratory

Libarius and Gracia walk inside of the dirt room and look around. The room is spacious, much more than it needs to be for one person, even for a small group of people. There’s a turn to the right just as they enter, leading down a short hallway. Opposite the wall, the same stone wall of the underground pathways beneath Polaris, is an alcove with dirt bars growing between the top and bottom. Gracia pauses as she looks at it.

“Is this… a cell? Why did he bother to make a cell in a temporary base?”

“I could wager a guess, but I would rather investigate the rest of the room before I tell you.”

The pair walk back to the crack Libarius had made in the wall and go deeper into the room. Behind the cell they find a slightly raised platform of dirt. There’s a second platform atop the first, and atop the second is a large clay pot. Libarius walks up to it and places a hand on the pot. Even without any fire, it feels hot. Libarius pulls back his hand without any sort of pain.

“I see. This pot is in use, Gracia. Though I cannot easily reason why he’s done this, it seems this room is his laboratory.”

“A laboratory? But does that explain the cell?”

“It does. Dark mages aren’t quite known for their experiments on the willing.”

“So it’s for kidnapping…” Gracia seems downcast. “Hold on, why would he plan for kidnapping somebody and experimenting on them if it’s only a temporary base? How long was Marisk considering staying in the city?”

“Likely as long as it takes for him to acquire Lama. He’s desperate for power after all. Though a laboratory seems excessive regardless.”

“If he’s already using it, I guess we need to investigate.”

“Indeed.”

Libarius lifts up the pot lid and the two of them look inside. Inside the pot is some brown and black liquid. Although there’s nothing to stir it, the liquid remains in constant motion, slowly mixing itself inside the pot.

“This must be mud, right? I wonder what he’s making it for.”

“There is no small number of possibilities.”

“Do you think it might be a focus?”

“If it’s mud he ought to be manipulating it, so it would not serve well as one.”

“You’re right. But I can’t imagine that he’s making it to use in his spells. It’s easy to get mud whenever you want, after all. But it’s a little blackish too, so maybe that’s what it is? Like some kind of poison?” Libarius peers into the mud for a while longer. He then takes off one of his gloves, revealing, as Gracia expected, a scarred hand. He dips one finger into the hot mud then puts it in his mouth. “Libarius?! Is that really safe?!” Libarius spits the mud out onto the ground.

“Indeed it is. The other substance being mixed in is blood, Black Marsh’s own.” Libarius shakes his finger clean and slips the glove back on.

“So… Is he making homunculi? Is he trying to fight a war?”

“I would rather he not. Fighting a war against a man like the Black Marsh ought to be shameful for Polaris as well.”

“If he’s even going so far as to use his blood… Maybe Marisk is going to use them to search for Lama?”

“That would be the most sensible reason, but it truly is possible he only intends to amass war power before he’s hunted down.”

Libarius slides his thumb over his middle finger, holding his left hand near the pot. A small flame bursts to life at his finger tip. He condenses it into a beam and points it at a single point on the pot. Soon enough, the pot cracks open. The blood-filled mud spills out in a viscous goo, pouring down the platforms slowly.

“Let’s see if he’s started doing anything else in here.”

Libarius and Gracia descend from the short platforms, walking back to the center of the room. As they walk, the ground gives out from under them. They both fall into a narrow pit, hidden by a thin layer of dirt. With how suddenly they begin to fall, Gracia cannot slow them fast enough. She falls first, able to soften her landing with a spell, Libarius able to drag against the dirt walls for long enough to stay above her. With Gracia fallen and Libarius falling towards her, she’s able to slow him down before she crashes into her. With so little time, he still falls heavily on top of her, and the two of them get tangled up in each other, their bodies pressed together. Libarius had fallen with his back curved, his head near Gracia’s chest. Gracia unfurls his back and pushes him away, as far as she can in the tight space they find themselves.

“My, it seems we were too late after all.” A glob of mud falls down as Libarius raises the back of his hand to meet it. “Though I suppose this one is still half-baked. With its body incomplete, I doubt that Black Marsh can see through it. He might not even be able to feel it at all.”

As they look up, there’s a shambling figure made of the blood-soaked mud, barely held together by faint magic. It falls into the pit head first, bits of its body coming off as it does so. Libarius raises his arm straight up and slides his thumb over his pinkie.

The mud ruptures apart and splatters onto the walls around it in the air. The homunculus was blasted apart by several invisible bursts along its body. The force was so strong that none of the mud could fall down, instead all of it being blasted into the walls. Gracia stares up in shock for a moment, then begins to cast a spell once she’s recovered. The dirt beneath the two of them begins to raise up until it’s become level with the room again. Libarius and Gracia stand up, and return to the pot, where they find the spilled mud to now be gone.

“How irritating. Like this it’s clear that Black Marsh can likely make a homunculus whenever and wherever he pleases.”

“But with how weak this one seemed, it doesn’t feel like it would be very dangerous. Even if he could make a whole army of them.”

“Even a non-mage soldier could likely defeat it, indeed. Though it does make searching him out more irritating if he can send them out in his place. At this rate it might perhaps be faster to simply wait for him to return here and end him as he enters.”

“I guess so. But if that’s the case, I almost wish we hadn’t found this place so quickly.”

Suddenly, red light begins to fill the room from the entrance Libarius had cracked open.