Chapter 9
The Researchers
“A few days ago, it was like a sudden rush of memories filling in,” Torry said as the quartet entered the Academy campus. The school was just as lively as ever, full of the students going about, but something was a little different, nothing more obvious than the contraption in the middle of the Academy’s main pathway. Terrill stopped before it while Torry ran a hand through her blonde hair, still shoulder-length, and continued expositing on what had happened. “We experienced the same thing in Adversa, when we were Blessed, but this was different. It was like a fusion, or as I had speculated, an integration of both body and soul.”
“Yeah, it was weird, and filled Torry’s mind with all sorts of theories,” Floyd confirmed, throwing his hands behind his head and beginning to whistle gaily. Noticing what Terrill was staring at, the redhead threw an arm around Terrill, as he was wont to do. “Useless pile of junk now. Well, in Dimidia it’s cited to be more of a ‘prototype for the future’. Torry’s mother still designed it, though.”
“One of the weird conflicts in my head.” Torry began to pace back and forth, an action that garnered Lumen blinking after her, and some of the students to stop and stare. She was oblivious and uncaring, too lost in her world of theories that many here would not understand. “On the one hand, I’ve lived in Dimidia all my life, a world full of science, where I’ve studied the elements as they’ve pertained to nature. But on the other, there’s this world of magic that I feel defines me, something my mother put extreme stock in, but how can that be when the controlling world, Dimidia, doesn’t have magic at all?! How?!”
Torry had stopped before Lumen, her fellow blond looking shaken and clearing his throat. She was closer than Lumen had probably ever been to a girl before and he blushed, swallowing thickly. Floyd gave a laugh at that. “I…er…don’t know?”
“Well, I’m not asking you to know, Lumen. I just need a sounding board.”
“And now you see what I’ve been dealing with the last couple days,” Floyd said with a shrug and bemused sigh. “She’s come up with some theories based on that integration bit, but without any factual evidence, it’s hard to prove much, especially stuck here. We weren’t sure if you’d show, until…”
Whatever Floyd meant to say was drowned in the fog of Terrill’s own thoughts, tapping his foot on the cobblestone. The prototype of the transfer machine was still as impressive as ever, fueling the connections he’d long been ruminating over, and in turn led to him voicing his thoughts. “I have some theories of my own, courtesy of some Fiends. Returned from the grave, it seems.”
“Wait, you mean like, Warren and Blaise? Those freaks?”
“They tried to kidnap me and kill Terrill,” Lumen chimed in, eager to get away from Torry’s manic energy. She had stopped to listen, arms folded while her eyes stared away into nothing.
“Received a cracked rib for my troubles, but got something out of it. What they plan to do, and maybe a bit of how they plan to do it. We might even be close enough to figuring out just what the Fiends are, and maybe how they can come back. That’s why we came here, first.” Terrill returned Floyd’s arm-slinging, knuckling his head in good humor. “If anyone can help me put the pieces together, it’s you two.”
“Would if I could, but every theory or piece of information is mere conjecture.” Torry huffed, stomping on over to the false prototype and sitting on it. She almost jumped away from it, but as if remembering it was still a fake machine, she settled in. “There are no records in this world, and the Lifebloods are perhaps more hidden than even on Adversa.”
“The Lifebloods are what’s becoming the problem, I’m pretty sure. From all aspects.”
“Maybe. Krysta would know, if she had bothered to tell us before the battle against the Shadow…” Mentioning their erstwhile companion’s name was akin to opening a new wound, reminding them that she was not yet there with them, the last of their companions to have rejoined. It would have caused a hole in Terrill’s heart, but the more he heard, the more he was wondering if she had been deliberately avoiding them.
If she was, and if his own theories were correct, he could at least understand.
To confirm, Terrill addressed Floyd and Torry directly, the students perking up at his question. “Since you got your memories back, have either of you even seen Krysta? I thought I was hallucinating her, and Walter saw her, too. So, I wasn’t sure if you… What?”
The couple had exchanged a glance of shared knowledge, and Torry pursed her lips. It was Floyd who took the answer, though. “We both thought we saw her just today. It was the reason we went into town.”
“So that’s what she’s up to…” Terrill had to bite back the laughter so as to not disturb his wound further. “She’s bringing us all together. Only question is for what.”
“Excuse me, Torry.” The voice made the blonde jump, and Terrill craned around to see another familiar face, albeit one that didn’t recognize him. Good old Specs, the boy Terrill had met in Adversa with a timid demeanor but a zeal for research, was standing right behind Torry, holding a sheaf of papers in his hand. “Despite our differences and grievances, here are those papers you requested regarding the biological constraints of monsters. It’s a bit dry but we-”
“Ah, thanks! You’re a gem!” Specs didn’t care either way, offering a bow to Torry, but not a glance to anyone else. Terrill was glad to see that some people hadn’t changed at all in the shift between worlds. Torry took the papers and began flicking through them with alarming speed and alacrity. She appeared to memorize it in seconds, tossing it behind her and into Lumen’s hands. He was less than enthused to read it, but opened it anyway, giving Terrill a quick perusal of its pages. “Largely a lot of waffle, with some interesting notes on the creation of monsters. Nothing that can help with our current issue.”
“Monsters, huh…” Terrill didn’t need a report to know where those came from. It did center his thoughts back on all that had transpired, though, and the differences between Dimidia and Adversa that were mounting up with disturbing frequency. “You know, Golbrucht tried to use me, Lumen and Charles to affect a change in Adversa that was separate from Dimidia. Whatever effects that caused, I think Dimidia is feeling it now, because of that imbalance. Something’s going wrong at the core of this world and the Fiends are to blame for that.”
“Well, of course. That’s why I’ve been trying to figure out how integration works, and the relationship between the two worlds, beyond one just being a realm of souls.” Torry was fed up, that much was clear, running into a brick wall and unable to come up with a single explanation for the entire mess they found themselves in.
“But that’s the thing. The Fiends have been accidentally playing their hands,” Terrill stressed, joining Torry on the prototype. Some faculty were walking by, eyeing them suspiciously, while Floyd offered an unnerving grin that caused them to go faster, towards the main building of the Academy. “The disruption in the cycle of souls was something Golbrucht tried to achieve by destroying Adversa with the Shadow. We know this much, but just not entirely how. Other than the war, until we showed up, nothing was different. But wouldn’t that mean, somewhere along the way, research into the Lifebloods would have had to be performed on this side?”
“This side… The magic-less side…” Torry was back to muttering, which earned another chuckle from Floyd and a scornful glare from his girlfriend in turn. “There had to be something to correct that discrepancy. Or has the discrepancy always been the issue…?”
“She’s gonna be a while,” Floyd said with a roll of his eyes. Between Torry’s renewed theorizing and Lumen now flicking through the report with interest, it left Terrill and Floyd with little to do but watch the Academy students as they went about their day. There was an easy silence there for a moment until, like usual, Floyd opened his mouth. “What about Alexander? He’s all Steward of the Flow and said he had his own plans to stop Golbrucht, right?”
Find Priscus.
The mention of Alexander brought Clay’s words into their urgent relief, and Terrill wondered what that ancient library had to do with all of this. He wondered if Alexander could even help at all. Things appeared to only be getting worse with his absence, in any case. “Even if he could help, we’ve no idea how to find him, and he hasn’t shown up since we crossed back, so who’s to say he’s even aware of what happened in Adversa. The Fiends sure are, though. I think I’ve encountered every one of them in the last few days.”
“Popular. What kind of stunt did you pull to warrant their attention?”
“Floyd, you and I both know you’re the only one to pull such an idiotic stunt.” Terrill elbowed him and received one in turn. “I did steal a ship, though. Wait till you see it.”
“Living wild, Terrill.” The drawl resulted in giggles that neither thought were possible, broken up by Lumen approaching, showcasing a page of the monster document. His finger was placed on a footnote with a name next to it.
“Who’s this Iris? I’ve seen her mentioned multiple times positing theories on monsters. Even a reference to Golbrucht is in here.” The chill that emanated from Torry at that name shut even Floyd up, while Lumen clutched the papers carefully to his chest, worried that he’d crossed a line. Terrill wasn’t sure he had, but he recognized the name as that of Torry’s mother…and the memory of her leaving the little girl replayed in his head. Torry’s loop of regret. “D-did I say something wrong?”
“Mother speculated on monsters… Of course…” Torry stood, mussing her hair so fast, Terrill was sure it went from messy to straight in the course of five seconds. Her gaze traveled westward, towards the unchanging building that was the mayor’s office. “Monsters are born from magic. That can now be said as an incontrovertible fact. But then…how did mother speculate on that? Even studying science, she…”
Torry’s fist closed, her body shaking, and Floyd consoled her for all of a second, allowing her to speak her mind. “Even here in Dimidia, that memory never changed. How cold she was to me, the only difference being I thought I was talking about research but…what if she was always talking about magic? What if… What if she knew?”
Terrill’s brow furrowed, but Floyd was more stunned. He spun around Torry to grab her, though she didn’t react, fixated on the mayor. “Are you saying your mom knew about magic even in Dimidia? About the two worlds?”
“It’s…it’s possible. But I’ve never seen her notes or research. Dad keeps the room locked tight.” Torry’s shaking stopped, and a steely glint surfaced in her eyes. Her intention was made known without another word. Throwing herself off the prototype machine, she stomped across the grass, right for the mayor’s house. Many threw themselves out of the way of her march, but after a second of catching up, Terrill and Floyd chased after her, dragging Lumen along. He was confused, the papers of the report clutched tight to his chest.
“I don’t understand, what’s going on?” he asked, regaining his own balance to run with them. The quartet (or Torry and her pursuing trio, Terrill supposed) had crossed over the bigger buildings of the campus, finding less and less students as they approached the mayor’s office.
“My mother was the headmistress of this Academy in both worlds,” Torry put plain, never slowing in her gait. “That had to have given her knowledge on things beyond normal understanding. She was always cold towards me, critical of my magical capability, and as a result, she left. Yet something had to have caused that departure, right? In Adversa, she left because I was a mere soul, and here in Dimidia, I was incapable of magic.”
“Torry, you know that can’t be true. Your mother-”
Torry snorted, letting her conclusion speak for itself. It rang rather loud and clear. With all of them reaching the building, the double doors thrown wide to announce Torry’s arrival, Terrill began to think back on the office space that once belonged to Iris Rainert. In Adversa, it had been stacked with books upon books of different ideas, and in there had seemed to be speculation on the source of magic…or the Lifebloods as Torry now believed them to be. It made the need to see what else she knew about the unstable situation all the more imperative.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Torry never slowed, ignoring the guards that jumped at her appearance. Said guards prepared their spears at the others walking through, which led to Floyd saluting them.
“You boys working hard today?”
“Are you keeping out of trouble, Floyd?”
“Never!” Floyd’s cheeky remark garnered a chuckle or two. It was broken up by Torry reaching the familiar door to her father’s office and throwing them wide open, as well, heedless of who he was meeting with inside.
It appeared to be an important meeting, judging by the Serotin captain inside.
“I can gather a quick troop to investigate the giant bird that crashed outside, just in case it wishes to cause trouble, but we’re still waiting on news from Silicias. No clue what that last shake-up did, sir.” Sitting at his desk, Gerald Rainert nodded his head, soaking in the information carefully. He was as measured as Terrill remembered him, though not the same man, lacking a very particular experience behind them.
His wisdom superseded that. “For now, I want Serotin protected. There’s no telling if a quake could reach over here, but if it’s anything like what happened on the trip to Luster, I shudder to think about what it would do to our city. Though it is unusual…an earthquake all the way over here…”
“It is not the first, either. Those at Kirdon have reported that envoys of Valorda have experienced the same things, along with tempestuous winds.”
Gerald folded his hands, oblivious to the presence of his daughter in the room. Before long, he had started to drum them atop his skin. “And Sayn?”
“No report. Usually, they would open their ports up for wider trade, but those at Lentaris report some kind of internal strife. I believe there’s a request for some wanted men? The message was not very-”
“Father!” Torry could stand by no longer, her sharp voice interrupting the meeting and jerking her father away from his contemplations. He looked wildly around until he saw his daughter, and frowned immediately.
“Torry, I’m in the middle of an important meeting right now. You should have knocked.”
“Yes, I’m well aware,” Torry said, waving her father off with little sense of decorum. In fact, decorum went right out the window when she pushed him away from his desk as far as she could and began ferreting through his draws in frantic search. She didn’t find it, looking up with a twisted scowl. “I have a feeling if I look through mom’s things, I might be able to figure something out.”
“Your mother…?” Gerald was disturbed by the notion, glancing up to see Floyd. The redhead nodded at him, receiving an ambivalent expression in return. Terrill wasn’t sure if he still hated the troublemaker or had grown to accept him. His words made it no easier to discern. “Did you put her up to this, Floyd?”
“Hey, she’s the smart one. I’m just along for the ride.”
“It would do for you to be more than that. You’re half the reason she gets in trouble in the first place.”
“Aw, come on, Mr. Mayor, I’m not all that bad. I can take responsibility,” Floyd said, thumbing his chest to reassure the man. At the very least, it led to him quirking his eyebrow with curiosity. Lumen shook his head, bored from the exchange, and returned to reading.
“Please, prove it to me, Floyd.”
“All right. How about we solve a couple situations for you?”
“Stop stalling, father. Mother’s key. Now.” There was no wiggle room left in her demand, her hand splayed out and ready to accept the tiny object.
He didn’t give it, and didn’t even reach for wherever it was hidden. The soldier in the room looked uncertain, head swiveling back and forth to figure out what was behind this charged confrontation between father and daughter. His movements drew the attention of the mayor, and Gerald looked back at Floyd, and then Lumen, a puzzled expression taking over all of his features. Eventually, they settled on Terrill, and he felt the ground shift.
“You… You look…familiar…” Gerald muttered. Like Godfrey before, it gave a strange feeling to the man he had encountered in Adversa, like a memory trying to escape a bottle by expanding and expanding until either it got free…or the bottle broke.
The latter was what happened first.
It was a small tremor, at first, just like the ones Terrill had been feeling from time to time, but no one else registered it. He looked away, eyes drawn like a magnet through the walls towards what he could only presume was the Lifeblood of Earth, crying out, trying hard to maintain a balance between Dimidia and Adversa. None of it stopped there, and soon, it felt like the very ground was flashing.
“What was that?” the captain in the room asked, hand going for a sword, but finding no enemy to fight. Floyd grew tighter, and Torry began to sense it, too, her hand closing into a loose fist. Her eyes found Terrill’s.
“They’re hurting, aren’t they?”
“I think…” Terrill swallowed, gaze traveling down to his feet and feeling the pulsing beneath them. “I think they’re cracking.”
“Torry, what are you talking about?”
Her father may have gotten an answer, were it not for the sudden quake. Books tumbled off of their shelves and a crash outside indicated a clock that had fallen over. Screams from within the city echoed, and Floyd jumped over the mayor’s desk with more speed than a Dimidian had ever shown to get him out of the way of a falling lamp. Worse yet, the floorboards of the building split a little, splinters and sawdust joining the air. Things were rupturing, and fast.
“Mr. Mayor, you have a room for safety? ‘Cause it’s not safe here.”
“Well, yes, but…” The mayor stood, a glint manifesting itself around his neck as the key to his wife’s old office was revealed to be resting there. Torry hesitated not at all, lunging for her father and snapping the necklace with the key. “Torry!”
“I’ll return it as soon as possible! Terrill, with me, now! Floyd-”
“I got it. I’ll meet you there. Sorry, Mr. Mayor, but you’re in my care right now.” Floyd’s grin didn’t reassure him, but Terrill could see the grim responsibility it held.
“Floyd…?” Terrill didn’t stick around to see whether he would accept the help or not. He followed Torry over the collapsed obstacle course that led back to the lawn of the Academy, a place filled with a different kind of chaos altogether.
“What’s going on here…?” Lumen gasped, his knees locking and almost giving out. “This is even worse than Rotarin… Why?”
“It could have something to do with the Lifebloods, but we won’t know for certain. It could just be that things are getting worse.” Terrill wanted to believe Torry’s words desperately, but even she looked uncertain. This was punctuated by a fissure at her feet suddenly shooting up with flame. Unlike Blaise’s attacks, it was just a moment, but enough to show just the kind of breakdown this newest aberration was causing.
The closest Academy building was broken up and flooding, a stream of water submerging a staircase that some girls and a boy were hanging off of. The ground was split, leading towards the courtyard. Some of the ground was scorched. Worse yet, overhead there were storm clouds brewing, crackling with a lightning that threatened to rain down, and the galeforce winds to boot. The longer they stayed here, the worse the situation would get, and it wasn’t just going to end as quickly as the events at Rotarin. The people of Serotin weren’t as equipped for that.
“Lumen, I know I said I didn’t want you out of my sight, but get back to Walter and Charles. They need to get here now. I’ll get some answers.” Lumen offered no challenge, but tossed the report over to him.
“You might want to glance over that. It has some theories about monsters that could link to all of this with Golbrucht.” That was the only advice he gave before spinning on his heels and running back for town. Terrill hoped he’d be okay and the Fiends wouldn’t intervene at such a perilous time. Turning back, however, he knew he still had to contend with Torry’s burning curiosities, the girl running ahead across the lawn. Terrill sprinted after her, just as the ground rumbled again, sending a student tripping towards the open fissure.
With a mere tap of his foot, the fissure was bridged, preventing the boy’s fall, but not understanding how the earth had manifested. Terrill didn’t stop to explain it, skidding into the corridor and running after Torry to the big building at the heart of the Academy. It, too, had not come out undamaged. Bricks had fallen off, the look of the heat’s intensity melting some of the glass panes. It hadn’t been taken apart entirely, necessitating the duo to run into the main hall before darting to the side, but the madness it had sparked amongst the students and faculty was enough to prove physical damage hadn’t been the only toll.
A turn down what Terrill believed to be the faculty wing made for a sparser population, but the sounds of panic were obvious when the next rumble was heard, this time not from the earth, but from the sky above. Torry stopped quickly at the oaken door, left untouched for some time. Unlike Adversa, it was not sealed with magic, allowing Torry to slide the key she had stolen inside and opening the door to the mess contained within.
“This’ll be a challenge…” Terrill groaned. All of Iris’s documents had fallen to the floor from the quaking and vibrations. Some pages had come undone from their bindings, scattered on the winds coming through the shattered glass on the window. Terrill clutched Lumen’s papers tighter. It did nothing to sort out the avalanche of books that threatened to consume the desk belonging to the wayward headmistress, but Terrill knew they’d have to go through it nevertheless. If the storm brewing outside was going to give them any opportunity to…
With a click of her tongue, Torry dived straight into the pile, wading through the tomes with a discerning eye. Some, she would pick up and toss aside, deeming them worthless within seconds, while others caught her interest for at least a perusal. Terrill took some of those she skipped over and glanced at their spines. Many of them were terms he was not familiar with, and a bolt of lightning striking the grass outside, with the winds rattling the panes, didn’t help his mind to grasp them. His only hope was to rely on Torry.
“Junk and more junk… I don’t need the principles of forgery. I need something more substantial! Why did you have to be such a private woman?” Torry’s whispered rambles grew louder in volume the more she searched, and Terrill was beginning to feel useless, allowing his eyes to trail the bookcases that still remained standing.
More thunder shuddered the area, sending a vibration through the building that sent Torry to the side. Terrill held on, but was too slow in catching one of the bookcases falling right for Torry. He opened his mouth to warn her, but she continued to prove her own skill in the realm they were attempting to research. With a thrown hand, the bookcases were encased in a glacier, locking them in position and freeing her from harm.
Not from notice, though, as a short, girlish scream came from the doorway. It was Specs.
“T-Torry, what are you…? What the…? What was that?!” Specs was babbling, his body shaking without the influence of the external forces. The sight of magic had shaken him, splitting his mind between interrogation or running as far away as he could. Terrill wasn’t sure which one he would make when Floyd had decided for him, appearing with all swiftness and steam from his body to knock the boy on the neck. He crumpled, passed out on the floor and moved out of harm’s way.
“Wouldn’t want him distracting. Your dad’s fine, Torry. Any luck?”
Torry snarled in his direction, sending the message loud and clear, but when she turned back, she stopped, head tilted to the side. A snap of her fingers later and the books were parting, some of them tossed outside into the rain that was beginning to fall. The air was colder, too, causing Floyd to shiver when the boys caught sight of what had fascinated her. Her glacier was glinting, a fragment of light shining from within, as if a small crack had reflected something. Pursuing this interest, Floyd touched to the ice and began to melt it enough for Torry to reach her hand in, and then her body, until she touched something.
“Metal… Is this a hidden chamber?” Floyd turned up the heat, melting most of the ice but keeping the bookcases intact. Finally, the three were able to approach close enough to see what the bookcases had concealed: a metal safe in the wall, barely visible to the human eye. Terrill remedied that, clenching his fist and causing the wall to break apart.
What should have been solid stone revealed a space beyond, as the metal cracked. Outside, the rain was turning to hail, the chunks of ice striking through the window and raining glass upon them. Torry was undeterred, reaching in to grab at what lay in those hidden vaults, coming out with great stack of papers and a smile on her face. So giddy was Torry that she opened the first of the valuable tomes without checking the title.
“This is it… The Font of Magic…the Lifebloods… Mom finished her research!”
“Wait, are you saying our research project was pointless?” Torry was too busy looking through the words and illustrations belonging to her mother to hear him. Terrill crept around, glancing over Torry’s shoulder to see just what Iris Rainert had discovered that led her to hide it in both worlds. They looked confusing to him, but Torry began to talk, tracing her fingers over one of the diagrams.
“Lines. These are called Lifeblood Lines,” Torry said, tracing what seemed to be thick veins coming from the illustrated crystalline structures. “They must be what we would travel through, keeping balance. It’s how the Lifebloods can act as pillars.”
She turned a page, shocked to find that it was almost illegible, smeared and washed out. Whether by the unearthly interference of the Lifebloods or by Iris’s own efforts, Terrill wasn’t sure, but it held nothing at Floyd and Torry’s dropped jaws with the turn of the next page.
It didn’t start that way, with the only diagrams on the page being various familiar structures, and something that was designed and labeled as a soul. Here were words that Terrill could begin to grasp, keeping concentrations steady with the hail stopping and the winds reaching cyclonic speeds.
“‘A soul attached to a vessel, the Lifeblood is a special container, woven of one of six elements’,” he read, crouching to Torry’s level to get a better look. “‘Human souls were placed inside and act as pillars, supporting the lines between both worlds for when the time comes. Should one of the two Primordial Elements be removed, or all four of the Secondary Elements be removed, this delicate balance will collapse. Perhaps the only safeguard against this would be to place the soul of a Lifeblood in another vessel. That vessel will take the shape of the soul inside, allowing for protection. But what vessel can contain the element that has become a part of it?’”
“She researched it heavily,” Floyd said. His voice gave off a disturbed edge, scanning Torry’s finger as it moved across the page and to a label of a tall structure, one put on the scale of comparison as a tower. Underneath it was the descriptor of “Lifeblood of Light”…
…and next to it was the picture of a young woman with the label “Suspected Soul Form”.
And this was when Floyd and Torry gasped.
It was Krysta.