“Cosmos Plague?”
“The very thing I mentioned I’m trying to find a cure for.” Arch Extent takes out his torn earpiece.
Seraphic will have to replace that much later...
There’s a trash can not too far from under one of the counters, which Arch Extent heads over to place his hand under the edge of the countertop. With it, he presses a button and one of the doors underneath opens with a trash can rolling out on bars. He disposes of the ear piece and turns to face the Winterlance.
“Right…” Her fuschia eyes glance over to the scientist, watching him pull out a few items out of his backpack along with the box of gems as promised. He brings it over next to her.
“Here. Feel free to open it. I just need to get my bag ready.”
Winter mulls over the box, her eyebrows furrowing slightly as she studies it. It’s a plain wooden box, most likely crafted by Blazerocks based on the simple design. The huntress opens it up, greeted with radiant golden gems that could easily buy her a rather expensive home in Divon. The light refracts from the gems, giving a diamond-like shimmering effect as she allows herself to stare at them. This would be plenty to cover her troubles. In fact, this is probably close enough to what the King’s Court would have paid her. She doesn’t have time to guestimate while knowing her big brother is still out there somewhere.
“I need to let my big brother know about this.” Winter closes the box upon her words.
“Is this brother of yours another Winterlance?” Arch Extent goes to assort the few small food rations for his bag. He calibrates the settings on his mask, along with packing a micro-medical kit for emergencies. It’s a few moments of silence from Winter, more or so who’s processing the amount just graciously handed to her.
“Neil’s a Treetop. He’s probably trying to find me since he saw me fall through a hole earlier. It’s actually how I found Princess Aress. Were the Prayers the ones who put her there or was it you?”
“Prayers. I saw her for the first time when you destroyed the door. King Uthar discussed she'd be delivered by someone else.”
Somehow, this makes Winter’s blood boil. A hand places itself on top of the box, fingers desperately wanting to curl out of frustration. This scientist wanted to utilize an innocent girl, a few years shy of adulthood, who could have been a candidate for the Cloaks tribe leader one day, in one of the most twisted ways possible. Winter didn’t see the horror that happened for her demise, but she doesn’t like that Aress was tossed around like an object to be handled so carelessly. Her father had disowned her, a fact that the huntress kept retorting inside her mind, for some mere ‘supplies’ for an upcoming war.
“You still…indirectly…got an innocent little girl killed. You’re so lucky I’m desperate for money right now. Or else I would have sliced your head off.” Winter meant every word of it. If she hadn’t been given some compensation she would have killed this man. She has far too many questions to even want to kill him, a bit disgusted that her curiosity was peaking more than how she felt this was morally wrong.
“I don’t take pleasure in her death. In fact, I’m trying to prevent more deaths. I can’t exactly afford to get my head sliced off when there’s too much work to be done.” He sighs, unclipping the black elastic band to wrap it around his head whilst a hat stays on his head. The injury of his neck had finally stopped bleeding, dried as it was only superficial. Arch Extent successfully places the mask over him, pressing a button or two to engage a user interface to appear on the cyan glass. Winter turns away from the box of golden gems and watches him as he puts on the device.
“Right. For this cure, yeah?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Well…since we’re uh–business partners n’ all that...Where the fuck are we?!” Winter finally allows herself to process her surroundings in what she thinks is a place of magic. There are glowing screens everywhere, weapons that shot beams of light at her previously, and a table that kept her wielded down by an unseen force. “What magic is being used here?! I have so many damn questions!”
Just for her own security, Winter picks up the box with one arm. She carries it over with her towards the man she’s now dubbing as ‘Fancy Hat', widening her eyes as she finally is able to investigate more details of the bizarre headpiece he put on. In fact, Fancy Hat’s outfit was quite foreign from anything she’s seen in Divon.
“Like that thing on your face. What is it?”
“It’s called a mask.” He could tell her the technical name of it, what it does, every aspect of how or why he uses it, but there’d be no need for it. She’s a primitive to the planet, uneducated and never exposed to Origin technology. He’s tried explaining Origin technology to natives in the past, and how it operates, to no avail. If anything, it’s annoyance that prevents him from wanting to continuously re-explain anything Earth-like from what he refers to as ‘primitives.’ Just like this Winterlance in front of him, all subjects of this planet are Seraphic’s test subjects.
“Yeah. A weird one.” Winter pokes the mask with her index finger. It makes a faint sound over and over as she continues to tap the mask. Arch Extent pulls away, watching her child-like wonder get in the way of his mission.
“I’m not exactly at liberty to discuss much here in Division 5 with you. You just need to take my word for now.” Arch Extent adjusts the backpack on him.
“Division 5…?” Winter looks at him like he’s speaking a foreign language. He might as well be using other words like ‘gun.’ The scientist is quickly realizing that he’ll have to regrettably try to teach her common language for the two of them to communicate effectively. He sighs behind the mask, turning towards Winter again to translate what he’s saying.
“Divon. That’s what the tribes use to refer to this planet.”
“Alright so…are you an actual Demi-God? With all the magic around us and–”
“It’s called technology. And no…I’m not a Demi-God.” He’s quite tired of being referred to as a Demi-God.
“I was just hoping for some answers since you decided to kidnap me and strap me down to a table. Divon doesn’t have all this uh…technology. I’m just trying my best to understand it.”
Kidnapped?! She broke an entire security door down to get in here!
The scientist feels his own thoughts begging to yell at her. He didn’t kidnap her; she’s the one who caused contamination with a subject who had Cosmos Plague. If he didn’t rush to tranquilize the Winterlance, he and his employees surely would have been exposed to the most frightening disease mankind has ever witnessed. Just when the scientist wants to let out a word, Winter flocks with no hesitation to the microscope on the countertop. Her index finger pokes at it, studying every intricate detail and what would be foreign text to her on the device.
“LIke this thing! What’s it called?” Her fingers play with the dials of the scientific device, even pulling one of the glass slides out. Normally, since it was Seraphic property, Arch Extent would tell her that she couldn’t, but considering the circumstances–he’s got to let her indulge a bit.
How could he tell a manslaughtering apex predator like herself to respect company policy?
“It’s called a microscope.”
“What does it do?” Winter finds the power button and watches as the lights turn on, a beam from shining under. She puts her face to what she believes is where you look through and notices small blobby circle-like organisms. She has no idea what she’s looking at, but Winter finds it beyond fascinating.
“It allows you to see small things that you can’t see with the naked eye.”
She keeps pressing her face to the ocular, trying to watch whatever the purple blobs were that moved in the vision.
“Woah! What?! How is it able to do that?!” She couldn’t believe she was witnessing what she believed to be tiny creatures!
“Enough questions, please. I’m ready to go once you’re done being infatuated with that device.”
He’s on a time limit but he can’t tell the Winterlance that. He has to keep his information limited to what the Winterlance is allowed to know, for now. Technically, no test subjects of Division 5 should even know about Cosmos Plague, what Seraphic is, who he is, none of it.
“We need to find my big bro first. I need to make sure he’s okay.” Her expression flips from passion to deep concern. She didn’t know if Neil was in danger, if he decided to drop down the hole, or venture further into the cave. She’ll have to inform him of Princess Aress’s fate.
“We will. I just need to make sure I have everything else.” He pats his sides, making sure his plasma-based pistols were secured to his holsters. He knows he packed a few rations as well as his water bottle in the backpack this time, rather than have it on the outside. There’s a micro-medical kit and–oh, right. He needs to apply that to his cut. “The cut you gave me. I just need to clean it and we can leave.”
“Right. Sorry about that. But I’m also not sorry.” Winter turns her head away with the box of gems at a door. Her eyes glance down at the mess of the lab she’s made, deceased bodies of the individuals who shot at her with guns, and another who had planned to hold her down. She shouldn’t feel remorse for killing people who had the intention of taking her life. It was self-defense. After all, Winter is under the facade she was kidnapped, she was being used just like how Princess Aress would be used.
She should be more angry at Fancy Hat for what he did, what he’s involved in, but she’s far too curious for answers. She’s far too drawn to him and whatever cause he was talking about.
The sound of footsteps approaching behind her led her to turn away from the door, noticing Fancy Hat had finished cleaning up the superficial cut.
“Took you long enough. You ready, Fancy Hat?” Winter sneers impatience at him.
“I’m ready.”
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