Juliabethal had just finished setting everything up in the meeting room when her sister and brothers entered the room. All of them sat down at the opulent white marble table. The table was a huge chunk of marble that was carved out of the ground. There were golden veins that were running all through the table. It was supposed to be rectangular in shape, but after so many years, the edges have been worn down, making them rounded. Once they were all seated, they began discussing the current issues occurring in the castle's main hub.  

# 

“Ok. Now that we are all here, the meeting can begin. Vivianetta, Juliabethal, which one of you would like to go first?” Luciansys asked them both. 

“If it’s alright with Juliabethal, I would like to start things off,” Vivianetta said.  

As they all agreed to let her go first, she swept her hand across the edge of the table that was right in front of her, making a screen appear that was the same length as the edge of the table. She pressed a few buttons and out popped four separate screens. Each screen had their own charts and graphs along with scientific pictures of petri dishes that had a substance in them. All the screens were full of lists that helped her organize her observations and keep track of her findings. With a few flicks of her hands, she made all the screens enlarge big enough for them to get a proper view and make it easier for them to read. Vivianetta pulled out a small remote from a compartment in the arm of her chair, and turned on the function that made it into a laser pointer. She grabbed the first screen and brought it to the middle of the table and zoomed in so everyone could read and look at it with ease. As the screen hovered above the table and slowly spun on its axis, Vivianetta drew their attention to the first of her findings 

“Can everyone see this part of the picture? Yes? Ok. Here let me zoom in on this spot right here. As you can see, these are cells taken from a mortal that has been stricken with an unknown virus. Up until recently, the mortals on Centuri, have never experienced any kind of illness. These cells once zoomed all the way to the highest magnification, you can see that even though they seem natural and not engineered, they are comprised from something that is foreign to Centuri and to us as well. This virus that we are looking at right now was very weak. It didn’t last exceedingly long and has already been eradicated. Which is good. That is what we want to see. Look at this next screen. This one here, was not viral but bacterial instead. It behaved like the virus we just looked at, but it attacked different parts of the body. This particular bacterium was slightly stronger than the virus. The incubation period was shorter and was more easily spread. I was not able to find out why that is. But whatever that key component is, that is what was responsible for how fast it spread. Looking at the components that make up this bacterium, again just like the virus, it is naturally made, but it was made from a foreign substance. It’s the same thing with the other illness on the last screens. This is what I have been investigating while holed up in the lab. I am worried about where these are coming from. The only thing that I can say for sure, is that none of them were manufactured.” 

All of them had serious looks of concern written all over their faces. They were all stunned and shocked by this news. None of them knew that this was even happening on Centuri. 

Luciansys turned to look at Juliabethal and said, “You’re up next Juliabethal. Please tell us what you found that has you concerned.” 

Juliabethal did the same as her sister, waved her hand to bring up the mini console from the table, pressed a few buttons, and one screen moved to hover in the middle of the table like the other ones did. 

“My concern may not be as pressing an issue as Vivianetta’s, but it is still a cause for alarm. A few days ago, one of the castle healers approached me and told me that there was an issue with one of our restoration pools. Naturally I didn’t believe them at first until and other healer came up to me with the same exact concern about the same exact pool. I went with them to check it out for myself and saw something that has never happened since the creation of the restoration pools. In the large pool, the water that normally sparkles like jewels, looked brackish. There was no foul odor, and we checked the flow of the underground spring and found that nothing had been tampered with. We checked all the systems responsible for filtration and temperature, and we couldn’t find any irregularities. None of the settings have been tampered with or modified. There is literally no reason for this to happen. Yesterday I noticed that the smaller pools that are in that same room were beginning to look just like the large pool.” 

# 

These two issues were extremely perplexing. None of them had any clues or ideas for these two seemily unrelated events. After so many eons of complete bliss, why is this occurring now? This was a question that was clearly on all their minds. They sat there in silence for several minutes mentally going over all the information presented to them. Suddenly, Claudeleous had a bad thought about all of this. 

# 

“Listen everyone. I just had an idea. Hear me out. I know that at first glance these two events seem to be totally unrelated to one another. But what if they are related? That would make things easier on us. We would need to find out the main source causing these problems. It also means that we won't have to go hunting down several answers to the problems, but instead just one.” 

“You know you might actually be onto something. Let’s compile everything together and look for anything that can help us figure out what is responsible for this mess. Maybe take note of when they started and when they were first discovered and compare the two. Also look into which locations were affected first. We are going to have to send a transmission to the demigods and ask them to send out scouts and to investigate those areas that were affected by the outbreak and create a report to send to us once completed,” Luciansys stated. 

“That sounds like a good plan Luciansys. I will go to the communication hub and notify the demigods at once of what is going on and what we need them to do,” Vivianetta said to the others. 

“I will go ahead and head back to the restoration rooms and check the other two rooms and see if the pools there are experiencing the same ailment. I suppose I will gather up statements from the healers and any others who might have been nearby or used the rooms around the time this happened. Once I’m done, I will compile it all together and then show you whatever I was able to gather,” Julaibethal told them. 

“It seems we know what our jobs are so let’s get started. I will go ahead with Vivianetta to speak with the demigods, and Claudeleous, you go with Juliabethal. You two should split the work. Why doesn’t one of you handle the two smaller rooms and the other works on the large room? Sound fair?” 

# 

As the meeting concluded and they were preparing to leave the meeting room, instantly they stopped dead in their tracks, eyes wide with terror. All of them sensed this dark and sinister presence that was emitting a strong malevolence out of its core. Somewhere in the vast reaches of the universe, this malevolent entity was fast approaching Centuri and their kingdom in the ethereal realm. Scared, they all bolted out of their seats, sending their chairs crashing to the floor. Frozen from this oppressive feeling all they could do was look from one another and see that each of them did in fact feel the same exact thing, and it was not just a figment of their imagination.