As my vision returned, I was greeted by darkness. As I looked around, I found that I was still sitting on the floor in the basement of Viktor’s house. As far as I could tell, Dameria had finished with whatever project she’d been working on since the basement was now completely empty. My eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness around me. I hopped up and took a quick look around to make sure that I was actually alone now.

A smell caught my attention as I was looking around. I closed my eyes and focused on it, coming to realize that it was actually the smell of pancakes. It was coming from upstairs. On top of the smell, I could hear a conversation going on upstairs. I couldn’t really tell who was talking and I didn’t want to eavesdrop, so I instead decided to head over to the steps and make my way upstairs to get some breakfast.

When I reached the top of the steps, I almost bumped in to Misra as she walked past me. She seemed a little annoyed and didn’t even notice that I’d almost run in to her. I turned the corner and saw Viktor and Dameria sitting at a table in the kitchen eating pancakes in silence. If Viktor was up, that probably meant that it was getting close to time to leave. I headed over to the counter and grabbed a plate and fork. I placed two pancakes on to my plate and drizzled a bit of dressing on to it before making my way over to the table. I sat at the side of the table facing the table, Viktor on my left and Dameria on the right.

As I began to eat my pancakes, I noticed that neither of them were talking and were even occasionally exchanging some glances I couldn’t quite decipher.

“Good morning,” I said after swallowing some pancakes.

Viktor looked at me and smiled, his eyes a little dark. “Good morning, Avien… I see you got up early?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I usually don’t sleep too long, so I decided to roam about the house for a little bit. I didn’t want to wake you up.”

“Thanks… I didn’t sleep all that great, but I’m sure I’ll be fine once we get out and about.”

I smiled, scarfing down some more pancake. “I’m sure you will! We’ve gotta stay vigilant today. We’re going to be going in to some pretty dangerous territory tonight and we can’t get too tired before then.”

“Right… Maybe if we’re fast enough, we can take a nap around the middle of the day and then I’ll be a bit more rested for tonight.”

I thought for a moment before shrugging and eating the last of my pancakes. “We’ll see how things go, I suppose. I think you’ll be fine though.” I stood up and place my empty plate on to the counter before heading back over to the table.

I turned my brace on my left arm around and check underneath. The previous night, Dameria had placed clocks on both Viktor and I’s arms for today. They counted down to when we needed to leave, then to sunset, and finally to midnight. Right now, the timer had around a half an hour on it. The time wasn’t written how I was used to, but Viktor had explained it to me and it wasn’t all that hard to understand.

That was when Viktor finally realized my arms. He pointed at my braces, his mouth open, but no words coming out as he seemed to be trying to process his own thoughts.

I decided to just explain him and save the questions. “Your mother,” I gestured to my right to clarify which, “she saw my arms this morning while I was down in the workshop and she decided to make me some braces to help with protecting them. She also adjusted my jacket so that I could wear them comfortably at the same time.”

Viktor took a deep breath before finally speaking, having finally collected his thoughts through his tiredness. “Mystwood?” he asked.

“Bonded with vilicate to increase their toughness and regenerative properties,” Dameria added.

Viktor nodded. “Good plan. They’ll repair a lot quicker that way. Though they are still pretty susceptible to fire…”

Dameria shrugged. “Sadly, it’s very hard to bond fire resistant materials with mystwood since that’s not a naturally occurring trait in the wood.”

“Yeah. You would have to create a whole new type of wood for that and it may no longer exhibit the same regenerative properties anymore.”

I just sat there, watching as their conversation progressed and I progressively had less and less of a clue what they were talking about, so I decided to simply reserve myself to silently waiting and listening. I checked my arm once again, seeing we now had around twenty minutes.

“I hate to cut this short, but if we want her to inspect the box before we leave, we might want to get our things together now and head out,” I said, cutting in to their conversation.

Viktor checked his arm and sighed. “Yeah. You’re right. Head out back. I’ll get my stuff and meet you two there.”

I nodded and stood up, heading to the back door. After a few minutes of waiting outside, Viktor stepped out of the back door and hopped down to where we were. “Sorry for the wait, I had to say goodbye to everyone. Anyway, let’s get to the box.”

He walked over to the wooden box and placed his hand on it, releasing the protective seal briefly as he slid off the lid and removed the panel covering Damien. Dameria seemed a bit taken back at the sight.

“You really did capture him… I can’t believe it…” I could see her clenching her fists her entire body trembling. Damien had done a lot of bad in this world and effected a lot of people. It didn’t surprise me at all that he may have affected this family as well.

Once she calmed down, she kneeled down and got to work examining what Viktor had constructed. After around ten minutes of checking everything, she stood back up and turned to face us.

“Everything looks to be in good shape. The flowers are all perfectly alive and don’t seem like they’ll die within the next week. His essence seems to be entirely suppressed, as far as I can tell, so they’re extremely potent. Altogether, you seem to be in good shape for the rest of your journey to Malfuim, barring any crazy circumstances.”

Viktor smiled, yawning a little as he placed the panel and lid back on the box before replacing the protective seal. “Looks like we’re good to go. Thanks, momma.”

“Of course, Viktor. Now, you two be extremely safe and remember that, despite the lowered activity during night, you still have to be extremely cautious as you navigate around Camp IX. The window is very tight and you’ll only have a few ticks of wiggle room.”

Viktor nodded before stepping forward and wrapping his arms around Dameria. She seemed a bit taken back at first, but once she recovered, she returned the embrace, placing her hand on top of Viktor head and pulling him in tighter. Once they finished hugging, Viktor looked up at her. “Goodbye, momma. I love you.”

“I love you too, Viktor.”