He pulled his head out and said, “Wow. Thank you.”
Eric slung the bag over his shoulder and he didn’t need his grendel strength to do so. In addition to encumbrance dampening, the bag also minimized the weight of the items it carried. The trio left the shop to the sounds of Sonic giggling madly over his new materials.
“Please tell me the next person the list is not that creepy,” Emily asked.
“You’re in luck; the list says ‘elven tech,’” Eric replied. “Nunnal seems like a well-adjusted and sweet-tempered woman.”
“She is,” Kallen said, “but in her lab, she can be as scary as Hasina.”
Eric shuddered. Even as an enlightened mage and a grendel demon, that mad scientist still gave him chills.
“I’ve already been cut open once today. I don’t want to be vivisected.”
“Don’t worry, she’d wouldn’t want to vivisect you,” Kallen assured. “She’d rather alter your genetics so you pee lemon juice.”
“Ew,” Emily said. “I think Norej would prefer a Chocolatier’s Stone. Do you think we can afford one?”
“What’s a Chocolatier’s Stone?” Eric asked.
Kallen nudged Emily. “Good idea, but Honey doesn’t sell them and Nunnal promised not to reverse-engineer them. But it would be a good place for a snack. All we need is mud.”
The trio spent the next ten minutes harvesting. They brushed away snow, dug into the frozen ground, and chopped away at it to gather dirt into their hands. Eric kept his in his grendel hands so as to carry more, but the girls had bags for just this sort of thing. It was part of their profession as field agents.
The village’s epicenter of sugar, spice, and all things sweet was Honey Ouran’s dessert cafe. Appropriately, it was a cacao tree and the inside smelt of chocolate, pastries, and smoothies. The layout resembled a tavern; tables, chairs at a bar, and people fooling around on them. It reminded Eric of Full Mug except the people were hyped up instead of hung over. There were no decorations, just bark. The many waitresses were more than lovely enough for any patron.
Brilliant hair and flawless skin compounded with adorable blue and white maid outfits made the staff irresistible. They rushed back and forth delivering cakes and refilling hot chocolate, and always with a beautiful smile. Eric couldn’t take his eyes off them, not even when Emily jabbed him in the ribs and gestured frantically at Kallen. The chimera shrank in the light of the elven beauties. Finally, Emily grabbed his ear, pulled him outside, and shoved his head into a snow bank.
“What was that for?”
“Just because you’re a grendel doesn’t excuse you for ignoring other people’s feelings!”
“Emily, it’s all right,” Kallen said.
“No, it’s not! You’re wasting your time; there’s no getting around his elf fetish.”
“I don’t have a fetish.”
Emily sent a dry and incredulous look. “Annala. Zaticana. Honey. Need I go on?”
“I’ve never met Honey. Wait...do you mean all of them are Honey?”
“Yes, they are,” Kallen said. “She cloned herself and linked them in a hive mind so she could run her cafe all by herself. That’s her Eternal Hobby. Now about the chocolate...”
She turned around, but Eric grabbed her shoulder. His look was earnest. Hers was nervous. Emily observed them like a monster watches for threats.
“Were you jealous?”
“Why would I be jealous?”
“You’re avoiding the question.”
“You’re avoiding the mission.” She removed his hand. “I don’t do pointless things like get jealous over a guy who has a girlfriend who happens to be my little sister!”
“Uh…Boss?”
“What?” Kallen demanded through fangs.
“Your tail is showing.”
The black and white snake of her true form poked out of the collar of her jacket. Its tongue slid in and out. Its eyes were knowing and maternal.
“Tengo muy amor demo Eric hoshi des—”
Kallen clamped her hand over its mouth. She breathed deeply in and out and the snake retracted down her back and disappeared. Smiling awkwardly, she walked back into the bar. Emily followed her, muttering, “Why did I ever date him?”
Inside, Kallen gave her mud to the Honey standing behind the counter. This one too was dressed like a maid, but she wore a jeweled headband instead of a ruffled headdress. Accepting the mud, she placed it into a machine. Other than being orange, it didn’t look like the fantastic machine Eric imagined. It was a glass cylinder with two chambers; nothing more. He thought it would involve big loops and exotic contraptions.
Honey placed her hands on either side of the device and worked her magic. The cylinder glimmered as the mud transitioned from the first chapter to the second. It was now a different brown substance. Kallen stuffed her face and ordered ice cream to go with it.
“So that’s why it’s called ‘The Chocolatier’s Stone,’” Eric muttered as he chewed on his own sample. It left him feeling substantially better, but a bad feeling regarding Kallen remained. It was a strange feeling, like hurting himself.
A memory stirred as Honey poured him vanilla coffee. Shortly after his rebirth, when Kallen asked him what she meant to him at the ICDMM, she had more than a scholarly interest. His reply was confused; she was not family nor friend, nor food no enemy, nor obstacle nor neutral. He could only reply that she was like himself.
This will be the subject of my next meditation session. I’m positive there’s something in Grey Dengel’s part of my memory that can help me with this. In the meantime, a machine that can turn mud into chocolate serves my purposes.
“Do you have another one of those?”
“A couple in the back. Why?”
“No reason. Just curious.”
Emily and Kallen both sent him a look; Kallen approving and Emily annoyed. Honey herself was suspicious and sent out a message to her clones. She saw what they saw and heard what they heard. Centuries of practice enabled her to keep up with and process all the information coming from all of them simultaneously. She was also plugged into the cafe’s surveillance and security system. Nunnal promised not to reverse-engineer her technology, but she also promised not to share her own with a human, so she had to be careful. Nothing could happen in this shop without her knowing about it.
Eric ate the rest of his chocolate, then excused himself to the restroom. He took in everything on his way and determined that there were no threats but plenty of obstacles. The magic here was advanced for a cafe. Even Dengel’s Lair was antiquated compared to a modern elven village. In any case, it was unfamiliar. Finding all of them and disabling them would not be practical. Then it hit him—They’re looking for threats.
No matter what action he took, if he appeared to be a threat, then they would take action against him. So many attacking at once would be a challenge and it would be pointless. Thus, he couldn’t appear as a threat. If that was the case, why appear at all?
“Hide in night, no sight,” he muttered. “Hide in night, no sight.”
Between his hands, he formed and molded a dark bolt. He clasped them together to hide this from Honey’s gaze. Not even a Mana Concentration Detection device would pick it up because it was his spiritual power that was creating the bolt, not mana. This was not magecraft, but spiritcraft. He drew the shadows of the room into himself. He nurtured and compressed them until they were a seed of darkness. For the final addition, he pulled out his crystal and added a touch of necrotic power to it.
“No one sees death coming, and that goes double for immortal elves.”
Tossing back his head, he swallowed the seed whole.
He called up all the times he wished to become invisible. All of his desire to stay hidden and unnoticed came forth. Without meaning to, he spent years cultivating a darkness mindset. Now that his mind was settled, his spirit focused, and his monstrous nature recognized the need, he could slip back into that mindset. Passive, unresisting, flowing in reaction
to the movements of the proactive, but with a strong and devout purpose. With this purpose, he directed the seed’s power. Just as he hoped, it jump-started the Shadow Cloak he scarcely remembered.
It settled around him like a comfortable old jacket. No one could see or sense him. Holding it close around himself, he left the restroom.
He slipped past customers and waitresses alike on his way to the “Employees Only” sign at the back of the room. He had plenty of practice moving unnoticed through crowds, and that was before he acquired divine invisibility. He moved in, grabbed the spare machine from the back room, and moved out without anyone the wiser.
Kallen and Emily were waiting for him outside. He decloaked and said, “Worst case scenario, I blame The Trickster.”
“Yes, that’s who I’m going to blame,” Emily said while scowling at Eric.
“As will I,” said a tiny voice.
A tiny creature jumped out of the folds of Eric’s clothing. When its feet touched the ground, it grew into an elven woman wearing a stylish maid outfit. However, this one was far from smiling.
“Mr. Watley, you are good, I will admit that,” she said sternly, "but you’re not good enough. You tripped one silent alarm when you generated your Shadow Cloak, a second when you entered the employee only room, and a third when you touched my device.”
“Uh...Three strikes and you’re out?”
“Precisely.”
The word's chilly tone set off threat alarms within Eric’s mind. Unlike Honey’s, these did not provide him with enough time to act. Without words or gestures, Honey cast Brilliant Lance and a spear of light gored him. Such a spell would be annoying to most creatures, but it was terrible to those of darkness like Eric. If Kallen hadn’t steadied him, he would’ve collapsed.
“You’re one hundred years away from fooling me,” Honey continued. “I’ve met Dakol and, compared to him, you’re nothing but a shadow. I’ve also met reapers, and you’re as obvious as a knife in the back.”
She took her device back from him with two arms and pointed at him with a third.
“No chocolate for you!”
Apron twirling, she returned to her tree. Then Tasio popped into existence in front of it. He made an L with his right hand and placed it over his forehead.
“Shut up.”
“Have fun at Hariana Inquires.”
At their destination was a yew tree. Its roots burrowed far and deep like anchors and its branches spread out in curved and crooked patterns. Striking into the earth, hovering above the ground and stretching into the sky, they made the tree seem bigger than it was. Some of them supported smaller buildings from their limbs like fruit. Its bark was dark as if something exploded around it, several times, and the bark was simply too tough to burn.
Basilard was teaching me an exploding spell....
"There's lots of cool stuff here," Kallen said as she led her friends to the front door. "Exploring, discovering, experimenting, and blowing stuff up! My foster mom has a terrific job...It’s no wonder she and my real mom got along so well...”
The trio entered a wooden tunnel brightly lit by elemental stones. Doors extended off into the distance beyond the horizon and hallways branched off in seven directions. Fortunately, there was a directory encased behind glass near the entrance. Some of the listings read: Accelerator Avenue...Barrier Ballistics... Cosmic Construction… Distance Defibrillators...Expanded Exoskeletons... It went all the way to “Zerofinite Zoning” and “ZZZZZ.” What caught Eric's eye was “Medical Mana Mutation.”
“Why not this one? If this deal goes through, then humans will be ‘borrowing’ that stuff anyways. Ow.”
Emily lowered her hand. “Didn’t you hear what I said at the candy store?”
“Emily, stop that,” Kallen ordered. “Eric makes a good point.”
“But, Boss...”
“No ‘buts.’ I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
“If you say so.”
Emily pulled the lever and the floor vanished beneath them. The trio fell on a trampoline that bounced them straight back up and through a short-range portal. They now stood in a ceramic reinforced hallway, where a sign proclaimed “Medical Mana Mutation -->”
After throwing up in his mouth, Eric asked, “Why is there a trampoline there?”
“This is a clubhouse for elven mad scientists,” Emily said. “Why do you think?”
A roar greeted her words.
Following the arrows led the trio to the outer rim of a deep pit. The room was painted black and metallic grey machinery hung ad hoc along its walls. The pit itself was a startling white. Above the pit, four lasers were poised. Their main bodies extended to the upper four corners of the room, descended to the four lower corners, and treaded along the floor to connect with the pit's boundary. All of them were streamlined, sleek, and pointing at the thing trapped within. It was a...Eric couldn't tell what it was.
It was big, furry, feathery, and had scales. It had tentacles; some dripped liquid that stained the pit and others that gave off gas. It had limbs growing from limbs, far too many mouths, eyes in places it shouldn't, and not a few horns. It was the most bizarre thing Eric had ever seen.
"What is that?"
"The result of our experiment; we call it an HPLC."
From behind a crystal panel at the other end of the room came the matriarch of the Enaz family. Instead of the lab coat Eric had met her in, she was wearing a new one, and this one was stained with mysterious fluids. Some of them were moving as if they were alive. She smacked one with a spoon and put it back behind her ear. Her hair was tied back into a bun that left two tails to either side, and the tips were bloody like stingers. The light of her eyes was bright and manic and her grin was not in the least maternal. His grendel instincts were clear: threat!
"We started with a normal monster and use the Lance of Ciaphas," she pointed to one of the four rays poised above the pit, "to induce mana mutation. Then we watch the poor thing transform in wild and horrific ways. Eventually, they turn into these things.” She gestured to the creature oozing to the far end of the pit. “This one is variety number 2960518.”
"You can create your own mana mutations?" Eric asked.
“How else can we research it and come to understand the process? We see it happen, we measure the results, and then we cut it open to see what it makes it tick. It’s much more efficient than what the temps do. Why, we chuck sapients in there to study the mental effects too!”
Eric and Emily’s eyes widened. Nunnal’s hands flew to her mouth.
“Oops. I meant to say we chucked, past tense. We don’t do that anymore. The others were all volunteers and because of their noble sacrifice, we now have technology to return them to normal. So...what’s that thing humans say? ‘No harm, no foul’?”
Is this what she’s like when Annala isn’t around?!
"Has it really cured anyone?" he asked.
“Yes, but not nearly as many as it should have,” Nunnal said. “That stupid Council and everyone else in this village—present company excluded, naturally—is too afraid it will be stolen and used against us. If elves would meet a human or two, then they’d learn that most of them are nice. Officially, it’s only cured one person since I made it.”
"Who?"
"Me," Kallen said.
Since she entered the room, she had been rigid and alert. She avoided looking at the pit yet didn’t want it out of her sight, so she settled for staring at the wall and looking from the corner of her eye. Emily stood in her blind spot, as if she were in battle.
“This is where I regained my sense of self.” Kallen made a nostalgic spin to look around the rom. “This is where Nunnal became my second mother.”
Nunnal put her hands on her hips. “You only call me ‘Mom’ when you want something.”
Kallen coyly replied, “Well, now that you mention it….”
The HPLC roared a second time and rammed the opening of the pit with five of its horns. They clashed against a screen of wh
ite that held steady no matter how many times it was gored. After a few clashes, the thing sloshed along the bottom of the pit, inflating and deflating in exhaustion.
"What's powering this field?" Eric asked.
"It is,” Kallen answered. “The material of the pit drains the occupant's energy and uses it to create a force field. No matter how it struggles, it’s impossible to escape."
The HPLC spat acid at the opening, which was deflected by the barrier and slid down the slides to sting the HPLC itself. Kallen shivered and hugged herself. Emily put an arm around her and directed her towards the exit.
“Boss, let’s leave.”
“Not until we get something.”
“You need something?” Nunnal asked.
“Ah...yes...I was hoping to get upgrades for my ship.”
“Ship,” Nunnal mused in a thinking position. Then bloody hair tails elevated. “Ship! I have just the thing!” She grabbed a random aid and said, “Get the thing for my daughter.”
“Yes, Director.”
He ran off without asking for more information. Eric assumed he was used to it.
“While we wait, I’d like to see your true form. I’ve never seen a grendel up close before and it could make for fascinating research.”
“No tests! I got enough of that from the humans.”
“Fair enough.” She said it easily and gently enough, but Eric could tell she was disappointed. “How about you revert until the gift is ready?”
Eric nodded and reached for his grendel identity. He grew taller and bulkier, encased in metal-like skin and a few other changes. Nunnal grinned like a certain captain and ordered every form of photographic and image-recording technology brought to her immediately. Several aides then followed her as she toured the lab with him.
The adjacent room had wall-to-wall monster cages: all of them constructed with exotic materials and reinforced with magnificent runes. Emily identified each one of them and rattled off facts like their monster rank classification and how many people had mutated into each one. Kallen joined in with how she used parts of them in her life as a field agent. Eric was more conscious about the threat they presented.
Mana Mutation Menace (Journey to Chaos Book 3) Page 47