Toss a Pinecone

Next morning, mainly due to Lilac's merciless assistance, Rosamund was up and about with the sun. He dressed himself in common clothes, which were nonetheless tailored and made from high quality materials. The only difference from his usual outfits was less embroidery and better mobility. It didn't matter much, he was still handsome as ever.

The brothers had a quick breakfast and let Bluebell know they will be off for a morning walk. Bluebell informed them that Adanita and Teodolit already went to the city, and that Nivelir was still asleep. Rosamund left him written instructions on today's order of business. Lilac prepared a large backpack full of necessities, and they left the manor.

They met up with the two pirates in the woods behind the manor. Teodolit was sitting on a tree stump with Adanita standing nearby. She looked a bit distant and concerned. Nervous, perhaps? Stressed? She greeted him with a smile nonetheless. Teodolit meanwhile seemed to be quite alright, if mildly annoyed.

The reason for his annoyance quickly became apparent. Teodolit was clearly well accustomed to walking on ships, and cobbled streets weren't much of a problem to him either. However, the soft uneven ground, riddled with rocks and roots that even Rosamund almost tripped over a few times, clearly didn't mix well with his pegleg. He was walking while holding onto Adanita's arm, with the help of a branch that he found on the way. Rosamund and Lilac matched their pace with his both out of consideration, and because Lilac started marking trees as they walked. Sure, they won't go a far distance, but it would still be easy to get lost in the forest without a path.

The brothers started a casual, light conversation. Adanita wasn't in much of a mood to talk and Teodolit was too focused on walking, so they didn't participate much. Rosamund made them both laugh a few times, which he decided was a great success. And since nobody was stopping him, he started talking about his second favourite subject: plants.

He could tell he was boring Lilac out of his mind, but he didn't really care. It could be considered payback for the way he woke him up this morning. Rosamund asked him to do it, but payback was a necessity nonetheless. He learned that this was what older brothers needed to do, too. The pirates tuned out to his speech, Adanita clearly preoccupied with other thoughts. Yesterday she deeply appreciated that he went to inform her of new trouble coming, which made him happy. He made the mistake of keeping things from her once and it almost escalated beyond Nivelir's abilities. He wasn't going to do it twice. Unfortunately, she previously didn't interact with the royal family, so she didn't have much advice for him. Discussing ideas was good enough, he supposed. Talking slowed his mind down, explaining things helped him organize his thoughts. And currently, a speech about every plant they ran into in the woods lightened the mood, too. Adanita seemed less anxious, even if she wasn't really listening.

Rosamund decided to take joy in the little things. He was feeling much better than yesterday. The poison wore off and the walk was doing him some good. He was left a bit out of breath on steeper parts of their journey, but all in all, he had recovered. The air in the forest was clear and fresh, filled with the scent of trees and the earth. The morning sun shone weakly, obfuscated by both the branches and the clouds. There will be another storm coming soon. He could feel it. The wind blew from the sea carrying the heavy air with it.

Which was great.
If and when Lilac causes another explosion, the smoke should be dissipated by the wind before the citizens of Hipparcos notice it. Just to be sure, they decided to go to the other side of the hill, away from any possible prying eyes. Rosamund presumed his reputation with the citizens didn't yet fully recover from all the scandals. The last thing he needed was for the word to go out that he was practicing dark magic.

It didn't take them long, perhaps a bit over an hour and a half, to find a decent place to do the experiment on. With this time, he will be able to come back before noon, clean up, and go to the Capital to have lunch with his parents. The group stopped at a clearing in the forest. The slope was very mild and the distance from the trees was enough that they wouldn't accidentally start a fire. They were now a decent distance from the manor, too.

Lilac looked around for a few moments before turning to Teo.
"How's the wind?"
"It should be strong enough," he said, sitting down on the ground. He didn't seem to be tired from the journey, he simply worried about falling.
"Well, I will be counting on you should it go awry. Rose, help me out."

Rosamund came over to him. Lilac set his bag down and started taking out items which included a small shovel, which Rosamund used to clear out a patch of ground for him. He removed the grass and fallen larch needles and other leaves that covered the area. The men picked up some stones and set them around the cleared earth, to prevent the possible fire from spreading. Lilac poured sand over the ground as additional security. It seemed that this fire had really frightened him. Once they were done, the magic circle drawn on a piece of paper was pinned down with a few small rocks on its corners.

"We'll need another lock of hair, Captain," Lilac said, handing her the scissors.
"Ah, do you need a mirror?" Rosamund asked.
"What for?" she asked, cutting off a bit of hair. "Is this enough?"
"Yes, thank you." Lilac accepted it and placed it in the middle of the circle, pinning it down with another small rock. He started to rummage through his bag again.

Well, he supposed that there was hardly a way for her to look anything less than lovely. He liked how unruly and fluffy her short hair was. It added a bit of a special charm, really, especially with attempts to put it under control with the gold beads. She seemed a bit nervous again, so he gave her an encouraging smile. It was going to be alright.

"There we go!" Lilac triumphantly raised a little pouch.
Rosamund shielded his eyes from it. Even through the fabric, the intense and vibrant shine of magic was nearly blinding.

It was not going to be alright.

"Please be careful."
"What is this?" Adanita asked.
"Well, last time this little experiment truly blew me away," Lilac said. "So instead of me activating this, I have some dust from mana stones that I had left over from making the teleport circle. It should work all the same if I sprinkle it on. Unfortunately, the tinier the particles, the larger the reaction area, so this might just be a bigger explosion than the last time. Everybody should be several meters away."
"How do you plan to get several meters away?" she asked.
"Oh, I will run. Is everyone ready?" he asked with a wide smile.

He had to be joking- oh gods, he wasn't. Rosamund was about to intervene, but Lilac took only a pinch of the dust between his fingers instead of just tossing the whole pouch at the circle. Adanita got farther away from the circle, and so did he. He couldn't really go too far, though. He needed to see what was happening.

"Rose, just to be sure, there is nothing off about her hair, right?" Lilac asked.
"No, it looks normal," he said. Lovely bixbite color, but nothing strange about it.
"And the circle?"
"The circle is fine." Perfectly drawn.
"Very good. Stand back everybody." He sprinkled the gleaming dust on the circle from high above and started to sprint away immediately. It slowly fell to the ground, fluttering in the wind. The light breeze carried quite a bit of it out of the margins, which he assumed was Lilac's intention.

Like snow, some of the overly bright particles landed on the grass.
And then, they touched the circle.

The powerful detonation deafened him instantly, before he could even react. It knocked the air out of his lungs and he barely managed to keep himself standing, trying to recover. He wrapped his arms around Lilac to protect him as he watched the darkness consume the hair and the paper as if it was a fire. The heat that was frying his skin and drying his eyes also felt like a fire. The disgusting, overwhelming stench of sulfur spread through the clearing like smoke.

But it wasn't a fire.

The glowing darkness swirled three meters up into the air, draining the light out of its surroundings and shrouding the clearing into the deepest shadows. For a moment he feared that it would grow even taller and be seen by the people, but then it stopped. The shimmering black dust came back down like a waterfall and engulfed the clearing. He felt his lungs burn and his eyes tear up, he could barely keep them open as he started to cough. Lilac tried to push him away to go and try to put an end to this, but he refused to let him go. There was nothing he could do.

He could hear Teodolit choking and gasping for air, and he turned around to see where the others were.

And then he saw Adanita.

For the first time in his lives, Rosamund finally understood the meaning of negative space.

The shadows that whirled all around the clearing, draining the grass of all color and turning it to dust, seemed to leave her completely unaffected. She stood there untouched by acid, heat, and smoke. Her face was completely blank from shock and she looked as if she had just died again.

She wore the most terrifying expression he could ever have seen on someone.


Lilac almost got out of his grasp, but he caught him before he did anything stupid.

"Let me go!"
"Stop it!" It was almost out of magic, he could see that even the dust that fell outside the circle had been almost completely drained by this. He couldn't let Lilac go there before it put itself out. He was barely holding onto him while forcing himself to observe the fading not-flames. The darkness slowly waned, but everything else was still there. He coughed out in pain and realized there was blood on his hand.

Teodolit held onto Adanita's hand before reaching for the sky. He could see a brilliant string forming, leading far up into the air as he prepared to bring down the wind. The dark particles touched it and the string dissipated, leaving the man quite confused. He tried again. This time, the string glowed stronger, and he pulled onto it like a rope.

The wind crashed on the clearing almost vertically, once again knocking the air out of his lungs. This time, Rosamund couldn't keep standing. Lilac held him from hitting the ground and gently helped him sit as the wind slowly subsided.

He could hear the men shouting and he rubbed his eyes. Somehow it was still darker than normal... Ah. "I apologize. I think I am partially blinded." Either that, or the infernal magic was more persistent than he expected.

Lilac and Teodolit sat down next to him. Lilac was deeply frowning at the circle, while the miniature pirate was trembling in fear. They were waiting for him to speak, weren't they? Adanita was still standing where she was before. He should calm everyone down before something bad happens.

"In order," he said as the ringing in his ears grew quieter. His voice was hoarse from the sustained damage and coughing, and Lilac took out a flask of tea for him. "Is everyone alright?" he asked, drinking some. Teodolit's tea, surely. He could taste the magic in it. He passed it on. They responded in a vaguely affirmative way, but Adanita stayed silent.

"Infernal magic, no doubt about it," he said. "It just looks like a fire. It's not fire. Excuse me-" He was interrupted by another fit of coughing. "It negatively affects people and living things around, and from what I can tell, sulfur and acid are real, not magic facsimiles. It drains mana faster than I thought it would, and it seems that it negatively affects other kinds of magic." No wonder that the ventilation in Lilac's lab refused to work as intended. This thing snapped Teodolit's magic. He had no idea something like that was even possible! "And, hm. It appears to leave Captain Vervain completely unaffected. In fact, it didn't reach her at all, as if she wasn't there at all, or... oh. Or as if the magic was there all along. Hm." He was rambling again, wasn't he? He needed to slow down and think about this properly. He took a few deep breaths, fully clearing out his lungs from the disgusting miasma.

Glowing darkness...

"Captain Vervain, do you remember- Captain?"
"Nita!" Teodolit desperately called out to her.

Rosamund turned around, following his gaze. Adanita was stumbling towards the trees, clearly unwell. He could recognize what was happening with ease, and he got up at the same time as Teodolit. The man tried to limp after her, but Rosamund grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Officer, I have some experience with this. Please leave it to me."
"You must be mad if you think I'd just-"

"Teodolit," he said. "Do you think you can walk as fast as her?" He looked deeply offended and his face turned darker, so Rosamund softened his voice. "I know what I am doing. I will bring her back. Stay here with Lily and clean up."

He had to go quickly, before she starts to run. He needed a way to stop her, to bring her out of this state of mind. Disturb her train of thoughts before she gets hurt. He left the two behind as he marched after her. She was already quite a distance away, so he sped up to a sprint.

Her downward spiral seemed to be intensifying. She didn't hear him calling out to her. She didn't react in any way and he could tell she was about to run. Unfortunately for her, he wasn't planning to get lost in the woods. Distraction, distraction, quickly, he can't just run up to her and grab her... aha!

He slowed down to pick up a few larch pinecones, before coming to a complete halt.

"Adanita!" he shouted. "Catch!"