Norman had barely slept for an hour when a loud knock sounded on the door. He assumed that it was the kid from before - he pulled down his sweat-soaked tunic and unlatched the door. He had already acquired a sol shard from the reception, paying a ridiculous exchange fee.

No sooner had the door opened just a crack, a towering colossus of a man pushed through. A heavily muscled foot planted itself on Norman's chest. Caught off guard, Norman had no chance to react. The impact sent him reeling, his body crashing against the cold, unforgiving walls of the room. Stars burst before his eyes, and the world spun around him.

The man who walked was a veritable behemoth—a towering giant of muscle and power. His skin was so pale, it was almost white, and his hair matched the color too. Behind the albino, a lithe woman followed. She looked to be in her thirties and was immaculately dressed in a deep blue business suit. With an upright and unyielding posture, she radiated an air of authority and self-assurance.

At a different time, Norman may have admired her appearance. But now dazed and disoriented on the ground, Norman felt his anger rising - the lights in the room flickered.

"What a shit hole" The girl looked around, "You didn't expect it to be this easy to run away from us, did you?"

Norman had barely managed to push himself off the ground, when her heel connected with his chin and sent him tumbling back down yet again. The brute who accompanied her slammed the door shut.

"Who are you? What do you want?" Norman pushed down the rage building within him as best as he could.

"Are you really dumb? Or do you think we too are as easy to get rid of as that officer you bribed?"

As Norman focused on her, the resemblance slowly became more clear. The same hair, the same shape of nose - Remus's sister - Flavia Ortimus.

"I didn't bribe anyone." He finally managed to get up on his feet.

"I have a proposition for you." She sat down on the couch, with her brute companion taking the one next. The chair where Celine was curled up a moment ago.

"I am listening," Norman said with gritted teeth, sitting down opposite her.

"I want to know the location of the planet where Remus died. And yes, we know you three were there together, so no more stupid misdirections please. You tell me how to reach this planet, and in return I'd get you a new, clean identity." She leaned forward. "It will be untraceable."

The gears in Norman's brain were turning. That the Ortimus family had seen through the deception was a surprise, but that possibility had always been there. With the kind of wealth they had at their disposal, even the tiniest of mistakes on their part could blow the entire thing open. However, there was something else amiss here. "Why would I want a new identity?"

"Would you rather end up in a cell for the rest of your life?" She arched an eyebrow.

"A cell? For life?" Norman was still confused. "All I did was find an abandoned planet and venture in without notifying the Protectorate first. The maximum penalty for that is five thousand sol. The criminal record from covering up a murder, will likely ruin my chances at a job in the Protectorate, but I am confident I will be able to build back a career in the industry. I don't have to start from scratch." He would anyway never be able to rejoin the Academy with a fake identity. No matter how good Flavia's resources were, some fabricated records would not hold water under the Academy's scrutiny. So there went any chances of a respectable career in either the Protectorate or the Magisterium.

Flavia stared at him incredulously.

Norman continued, trying to sound as calm as possible, "We didn't kill Norman. And he had walked there of his own free will."

"You are supposed to be really smart, Mr. Norman. But I don't know why you are so intent on acting stupid. We know about your dealings with the Helicon rebels."

Norman sat up straight, "What rebels?"

"We are talking about your project for Zenith Fidaeus. We know you also supplied it to the rebel factions in Nasdaal. Do you think anybody in the industry would work with you once that becomes a part of your permanent record?"

Norman felt like his world was turned upside down. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Flavia's eyes widened as the realization hit: "You were not involved at all? It was all Kiri's doing?"

"Kiri?" Norman felt the situation was rapidly spiraling beyond his control. Could Kiri have really jeopardized both their careers by ingratiating herself with some random rebel group?

"Kiri has been involved with Helicon rebels for a long time, Mr. Norman. You may not have been involved, but unfortunately, the outcome is still going to be the same. Our offer still stands."

"My tablet," she held her hand out, and received the device. Her eyes were so focused on Norman that she didn't realize that the thing that handed her the tablet was not the brute who had accompanied her.

His companion had decided to take matters into its own hands. Tentacles? Norman chose not to object. He couldn't think of a better way to get out of this mess anymore.

She tapped through, and a holographic video of a translucent defensive aegis, deployed in a deep space warship, unfolded in front of them. Norman gritted his teeth as the system overlaid relevant statistics on top of the video. There was no doubt that this was his innovation, repurposed.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Where is Kiri?" Norman suddenly remembered that he hadn't spoken to her since their last meeting. He had called her once between but the call never went through. Among all the other things going on Norman had lost track.

"In Protectorate custody. There is nothing you can do about her."

Norman noticed the slight twitch in the corner of her eye. A slight change in her heartbeat. She was lying.

"No she isn't." Norman smiled, "If the Protectorate had her, their forces would already have surrounded this hotel and I would be facing an official inquisitor. It wouldn't have been you sitting here making me offers. I think I'm more inclined to take my chances with the Protectorate."

"You are too smart for your own good, Mr. Norman. Unfortunately that option is no longer available to you." The lights flickered again. Celine was getting exasperated by her tone of authority.

"Enough of this. Atticus, bring him." She got up and walked toward the door. The matter was apparently settled.

Atticus did not follow.

Frowning when she turned back, she looked at her bodyguard for the first time.

Atticus lay rigidly on the plush cushions. His eyes, wide and glassy, stared vacantly up towards the stained ceiling, their depths empty. His lips, cracked and tinged with blue, were parted in a silent scream. A thin, cold, sweat glistened on his brow, mingling with the beads of perspiration that clung to his upper lips. His hands, limp and lifeless, hung loose from the sides. Utter astonishment transformed Flavia's face completely. "Atticus?"

She was too shocked to see the darkness coalescing around her.

She tried to pull a gun from within her jacket, but it was as if her hands were wading through molten wax. Before she could even reach her pocket, the darkness materialized into a sold tendril around her hand and twisted it back. Flavia was slammed against a wall with a thundering force.

"Not until I get some answers, Ms. Flavia." Norman got up. One of the lights had dimmed down to barely a flicker, and the others were also struggling too. Flavia was now bathed in sweat and furiously struggling to free herself.

"The creature from that planet. You brought it out with you." Flavia's voice trembled. Her eyes, confident and bright a few moments ago, were now clouded with fear and anxiety. Her chest heaved with each labored breath, and her heart pounded in her chest like a wild drum.

"Necessary price, for survival," Norman muttered. "But let us not meander here. Where is Kiri?"

Before she could say anything, a soft thud sounded. Flavia had left the door open, and the young Katican boy had stepped into the room silently. With an utterly horrified expression, he looked at Flavia strapped against the wall and the huge, bloodied body of the albino on the sofa.

"I... I came ... to... bring ... your ... sword." he stammered.

"Thank you, Fortis, was it?" Norman looked into his eyes calmly. He took two steps back, "Yes... yes sir."

Norman took out his shard, "As promised, Fortis. Here is your sol for your troubles. You haven't forgotten what we discussed about discretion, yes?" Norman glanced at the albino, "Seems like these two have."

"No... No sir. Not at all."

"Good then, you have your reward, Fortis." He handed the shard to the child.

With shaky hands Fortis grabbed the shard, and stammered back, "Thank... thank you, sir. " Gulping he took another couple of steps, walking backward, and then broke into a run down the stairs.

"So now, we have a witness who will be able to place you here, should daddy get interested." Norman was increasingly sure that the Senator was not aware of this offer. Flavia was taking an independent initiative.

He picked up the demonclaw, and as he fed it more of his blood, its spine curled and its blades unfolded. "Let's discuss what you really want. I am pretty sure that it isn't revenge for Remus that you are after. The way I look at it, I might as well have done you a favor - aren't you the sole heir of Ortimus conglomerate now?"

"You will never be able to get away from this..." Flavia struggled through gasping breaths.

Norman had been exploring essence harvesting with a renewed vigor over the last few weeks. He found that as he familiarized himself with the topic, he gained a few rather strange abilities.

Kaiyaathians were the only known practitioners of essence-harvesting in the present-day universe - and the backward race had crudely labeled the practice as blood-sorcery.

Norman had always dismissed that as a misunderstanding, but over the last couple weeks, he did find that essence flow and blood circulation were closely intertwined.

As his control had improved, he had found himself able to alter the circulation of blood in his own body. And for the first time, today he tried it on someone else. There was more resistance, more opposition as he tried to re-purpose the life-essence of a sentient being. But eventually he did manage to wrestle his way in.

So now, as he saw Flavia struggling to rein in her oxygen-deprived heart, for the first time he witnessed how effective weaponized hypoxia could be as a torture device. Her heartbeat accelerated, and as her brain reacted with increased confusion and restlessness, an intense trepidation and anxiety set in.

Her limbs were now instruments of frenzied motion, as she fought to free herself from her invisible bindings. The tailored fabric that had once accentuated her figure now dug cruelly into her flesh, leaving raw, angry marks that only added to her sense of urgency.

"Wrong answer." The demonclaw felt as if it were part of his own body. He twitched the blade that was now inches away from Flavia's throat and the sharp blade tore open the button of her collar.

"Do you really want to do this all-day, Flavia? I would rather not have further bloodshed, but if need be, I won't shy away from it." The metallic button struck the floor with a sharp, resonant clang. Bouncing twice it eventually came to rest and the room was silent again.

"The purgatory ... is important." Flavia, at last, decided to force the words out through rasping breaths.

"The what?" This was the first time Norman had come across this term.

"What you found... My father doesn't know it yet, but it is a purgatory. Please..."

The bonds around her throat relaxed. Norman relinquished his tampering with her blood flow.

"Purgatories are not common knowledge. But elder civilizations used them to trap beings that could not be easily killed - in the conventional sense of the word. A being trapped inside purgatory experiences the laws of physics differently - time, distance etc. are all re-mapped through a complex system of rules."

This was fascinating, but Norman still felt like he wasn't seeing the full picture. "Alright, that still doesn't answer my question. What do you really want?"

"We do not have the knowledge to build purgatories, but if we find one, they would be immensely profitable."

And there it was. Norman had been sure that somehow this would connect to money. He had never met Flavia in person before, but her reputation as a ruthless businesswoman was well known.

This was a whole new dimension that Norman had never thought about before. "So if a fabrication process is expensive because it takes too much time, if we could perform it inside a purgatory where time is dilated, it would not stay expensive anymore."

"Yes. That is just one instance. There are many ways to adapt industrial processes to be massively profitable when the usual constraints of physics are malleable."

"What about the residents of the purgatory?" Norman was sure the Nightwyrm wouldn't be too happy about someone setting up a processing plant in their prison. He also chose to omit the fact that this particular purgatory seemed to be breaking down.

"We would obviously need to arrive at a mutually beneficial arrangement, but we are getting ahead of ourselves here..." Flavia's posture had relaxed somewhat, and now a tone of annoyance was seeping back in.

Norman still had one lingering question, "Interesting. And I have a feeling your father doesn't share your enthusiasm about commercializing purgatories?"

"The God King's mandate is to seal and block all purgatories. My father will never risk getting on his bad side."

"Fair enough. " The bonds dissipated away completely, "My companion and I have a vested interest in ensuring that this purgatory does not get destroyed. How about we partner to make use of this purgatory constructively?"

"That can work... My father will never stop looking for you though."

"Let me think about your father. I appreciate your heads-up about the rebel group, though."

"So will you tell me where the purgatory is?"

Norman laughed at that. "Of course not; the moment you know the location, my utility is redundant. With the resources you have, Flavia, I am sure you will find some or other way to get rid of me. How about you tell me where I can learn more about purgatories?"

"My father has a Yaskh archive. He also engineered a solution to read their storage slabs." Ok, that would solve two of Norman's biggest issues.

"Alright, why don't we go meet your father."