Serenity concentrated and tried to call on his new Multiform ability. He wanted his Sovereign form with the “eyes” of his chimera form, including the ability to take pictures and even record video. Some way to transfer it to Aide was important, too.
After a couple of minutes of trying one thing and another, Serenity felt things shift strangely. He was still where he had been, but he was also falling through the air - bouncing on the table - lying there still.
He could see with normal vision from the viewpoint on the table, but it didn’t float and move easily the way the rest of his form did. It took him a moment to realize that was because instead of changing his Sovereign form, he’d manifested a third form. One that could see but not move.
He looked down at it. It looked very much like a fake eyeball with a small crystalline lump on the back of the “eye”. He supposed it could look like a marble with a lump; it wasn’t like he could see if it actually had an iris and pupil. Since he knew what it was supposed to be, he knew it would always look like an eyeball to him.
Well, he could deal with that. At least it wasn’t squishy.
Serenity pulled together a relatively simple telekinesis spell based on the Space Affinity. Instead of messing with gravity, it changed the actual position of an object. It was relatively mana-intensive, since floating anything in place required repeatedly changing the position back to the one you wanted the object to hold.
Canceling its velocity was also an important part of keeping the cost down if you wanted to make something hover for any length of time, and not one that Vengeance had been taught; he’d had to figure that out on his own. Most people who wrote up telekinesis spells simply noted that they had an exponentially increasing mana cost; Vengeance’s was a little higher cost up front but with essentially no increase over time.
When the spell was ready, Serenity started floating the eye around the boxes, taking pictures of all of the sides. There were a number of different labels on them, but the one that caught his eye the most was a small note to one side written in blue ink.
It said “Solomon vases, #3 of 5”.
There were only three boxes. He searched the other two until be found the same note; it seemed that the three boxes were #2, #3, and #5.
A second search of the warehouse didn’t turn up either more signs of the same mana or anything else marked “Solomon vases”. Serenity wasn’t certain if he’d simply missed it or if it wasn’t there; there was so much stuff in the warehouse that it was entirely possible he simply hadn’t seen the missing boxes. The mana wasn’t that obvious on the outside, after all, and the note was only in one corner.
If they were here, at least whoever took the vases also didn’t find them.
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Serenity found Rissa sitting in the grass with her hand on a shard of pottery and her eyes closed. He knew what had to be going on.
She should have made sure someone was watching her. He didn’t expect anything to happen because of the demon once held by the vase; it was well and truly dead. The far more likely problem was if someone found her. Even someone who wanted to help and disturbed her could cause issues by breaking the connection she had to the pottery. There were reasons to do that, certainly, if something dangerous went wrong during the vision - but it was something to do only if there was no other choice. Interrupting any kind of spell had consequences, and Serenity didn’t know what they were for Rissa’s psychometry.
They were going to have words when Rissa came back to the outside world.
As far as Serenity could tell, there wasn’t anything wrong with Rissa; she’d clearly spent more time in her trance than he’d have expected, but he didn’t want to pull her out of it without need, and there didn’t seem to be a need.
Serenity concentrated and shifted; while he wanted to change his Sovereign form back to a sword, it wasn’t what he needed first. He’d dismissed the eye-recorder, since getting it out of the warehouse would require opening a door. Now he needed it back to transfer the pictures to his main system.
It wasn’t easy. If anything, it was harder than the first time he’d manifested it to get the same one back. He had to recover it; his memory was certainly good enough to remember the overview of the markings, but it wasn’t good enough to produce a series of lifelike photos. That was what the camera was for.
When the shift finished, it was simple to move his attention to his human body; it was certainly more comfortable than the eye-recorder. He went to check on Aide, but found that he was already downloading the data.
Once Aide finished, Serenity didn’t even check the pictures before shifting his second form to that of the sword-hilt. The eye-recorder wasn’t uncomfortable as a third form, but it felt like it wasn’t really sufficient as a second. Serenity didn’t understand why the sword would work and the eye wouldn’t, but it was clear: it wouldn’t.
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
His Skill description even backed it up. The sword was on it, but despite shifting into the form twice, the eye-recorder wasn’t. Apparently the Voice didn’t count it as a “known form” even though he’d managed to shift into it. Given the issues he’d had with it, that seemed fair.
It didn’t mean he wouldn’t use it again. He was pretty sure he could cast spells from its “perspective”, and a flying camera-eye with spellcasting capability was certainly an interesting addition to his skillset. Next time, he’d want to include wireless capability; it would have been much easier if, instead of recording the images locally, he’d sent them to his other body outside. He simply hadn’t thought of that until too late, but next time he wouldn’t make the same mistake.
Serenity sat up and tied his sword-self onto his belt. Upside down again; it wouldn’t be easy to draw while wrapped in cloth anyway, and having it upside down as well as bladeless made it look entirely unlike a sword.
He watched Rissa for a few minutes before deciding that she wouldn’t be waking up immediately. That made the next step calling Russ; he was certain his future father-in-law would have some ideas.
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“Most are short, but a vision can take all day. If this is as old as it could be, that’s probably why,” Russ reassured Serenity. “It sounds like I need to talk to her about appropriate locations. At the minimum she should have called and asked Phoebe and me to come watch her. We can be there in half an hour to an hour, depending on how long it takes Phoebe to be ready.”
Serenity nodded to himself. “Before you head over, can you take a look at some pictures? I’m pretty sure one of the boxes is where the vase was last located. If we can trace it backwards, maybe we can find out why someone left the vase there. It also looks like the patterned wood box the vase was in didn’t come with the vase.”
“Phoebe tried to trace that box backwards earlier today. She didn’t have any luck; she said it was like the box wasn’t there to her Sight. Oh, there they are. I see your pictures now.” Russ paused; Serenity expected he was looking over the pictures of the paper boxes.
Russ spent several minutes looking over the pictures. When he finally spoke, it was with a worried tone of voice. “I take it you didn’t find the other two boxes of Solomon vases?”
“No; I looked, but they weren’t there. At least, they weren’t obvious; they weren’t on or under the table and I couldn’t find anything else labeled Solomon vase in the same size box or any sign of similar magic anywhere in the warehouse. They could just have been turned where I couldn’t see the label.” Serenity paused, then added a suspicion he wasn’t entirely confident in, but that might also explain it. “The magical traces were all similar, or at least they had similar elements, but I don’t think they were all the same Affinity. I’m pretty sure some of them felt a lot like that Decay creature back in the parking lot, either parking lot. They weren’t quite the same.”
The sound of moving air came from the phone, almost like Russ was letting out a long breath. “If this is connected to that problem, that would be both good and bad. Good that we’ve only got one thing hiding from us.”
Serenity smiled. He could finish that thought. “Bad that whatever it is has a plan and doesn’t seem to be bothered by anything we’ve done so far.”
“Yeah.” There was only a short pause before Russ continued. “There’s something about that 2-D barcode on the side of the boxes that looks familiar. It’s like I almost recognize it, I’d swear I’ve seen something like it before. Can I forward it to some people who might know what it is?”
2-D barcode? There were a couple of those on each box, each on its own sticker, along with a few standard barcodes. Serenity had assumed they were for an inventory system of some sort, but without knowing whose it didn’t help - and if he knew whose it was, he wouldn’t need to know about the inventory system. “Sure? If it’ll lead us somewhere, why not?”
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Rissa was still in her trance when Russ and Phoebe arrived. They parked in the parking lot next to where Rissa and Serenity waited,
Russ was the first out of the car. He took a long look at Rissa, then turned to Serenity. “I’m expecting Eric to call me back soon. He was teaching an evening class when I texted, but it should be over any time now.”
“Eric? One of the professors you mentioned?” Serenity could only guess.
“That’s right, you didn’t meet them, did you. Dr. Eric Rasmussen is the one that called me about the vase originally. We’d met before this, but only a couple of times. I try to keep a source at each of the universities with an archaeology department-” Russ stopped as his phone rang. He pulled it out, glanced at the name, and snorted. “Speak of the devil.”
One swipe on the phone’s screen later, Russ spoke into it. “Out of class now?”
Serenity couldn’t hear the reply, but whatever it was it made Russ pull the phone away from the side of his head and tap the speaker icon. “Can you repeat that?”
“I said that the boxes look like they came from the Met. I didn’t know you had access to their permanent collection.”
Russ’s eyes widened at Dr. Rasmussen’s answer. “I’ve been in the back areas a few times. Probably where I saw something like it, then. Thanks!”
“Wait, that’s not where you took that picture? Are you telling me-”
Russ interrupted Dr. Rasmussen. “I wouldn’t have needed to ask why the boxes were familiar if I took them where they belonged. You know I can’t say more than that.”
Movement caught Serenity’s attention and pulled it away from the phone conversation. Phoebe was hurrying towards Rissa. Was something wrong?
As he started to move towards Rissa, Phoebe put her hand on Rissa’s shoulder and shook her. Serenity saw a spark of magic dissipate in the air as Rissa’s hand left the shard.
He didn’t envy her the spell backlash she was about to have. Why had Phoebe broken the spell?