The young Tuatha sat at a black, marble desk, tapping rhythmically on it, as if he was trying to charm a solution through beats. Each tap, though, had a hollow ring and left the Lord dwelling in his collection of taught rules and mandatory history for what the resolution should be, but he couldn’t find a similar case before.

Was there a precedent where a mighty Tuatha had embarrassed himself so much in front of a group of…well, they could no longer be called a mishmash group of mercenaries and low-level warriors. It was clear to him, the Union was an organization, with respect and admiration from the local authorities and, if the others were anywhere close to that tower of a man who stopped his strike, a considerable amount of power. 

Ecne- “ Apologize, not apologize… Keeping them on our side is the right outcome…but if the king ever finds out I showed weakness…”. The tapping continued for a longer time, long enough for his eyes to dry out and his ears to dull out the noise, muffling all the sounds. A blue alarm then colored the mineral walls from blue to black, and the screeching bellow snapped Ecne to the arrival of a visitor. He checked the security monitor to see the Union’s Head librarian…alone.

Feth- “ Thank you for allowing me to board your ship, Tuatha lord. It’s quite a spectacular vessel.” The mist firbolg hovered in the middle of a glass cage, more like pure quartz, but enhanced to cut off any prisoner from the outer world. The librarian kept his jade eyes peeled on the temperamental pacing of his warden.

Ecne- “ I was willing to discuss, even apologize to the Union for my behavior…but this? Harboring a Dubnos creature among their ranks?” The Lord of Mask paced at a faster and faster rate, unsure of what to even say next. Which the mist firbolg caught on.

Feth- “ Incredible. The ship is capable of recognizing elements from Dubnos, I take it? Quick to even spring up a trap. Poof, and just like that, I’m in this…jar. Hmm, just as I hoped.”

Ecne, a bit surprised by the remark, staggered closer to the cage. “ Explain yourself. Now!”

The librarian waited a few moments, steady in his posture as a floating statue or a petrified balloon. He then lifted his right hand and cut off a finger. The piece of mist distanced from the main body, and slowly it coagulated in a teal liquid. The further away it got, the darker the color became, becoming pitch black when it dropped on the floor. 

The Tuatha stared in disbelief, his eyes widened and fear slowly creeping on him. “ I…I, I need to report this. I…this. “ He could hardly get a word-wise in, his mind staggered from the conflicting information he got. 

Feth- “ Would you believe me if I say that this could be an infection?” His tone was calm and straight forward, but barely convincing. But maybe the shock of his action was persuasive? Feth, shrugging inside his head, observed the Tuatha’s face, grasping for any reaction he could use. A confused, unblinking stare was all he needed to make the mist firbolg smirk on the inside. “ Yes, my Lord. An incident, a while ago - we stopped a rampaging beast to open a gate…but that’s also when the dark water entered inside the Platinum Union.”

Ecne, sure that he caught him lying, regained some sense of composure and replied- “ That can’t be possible because that is not how the dark water works. It’s a savage, deadly substance, bent on covering all the domains under. It doesn’t infect-”

Feth- “ How sure can you be? Firbolgs, in death, return to the primordial chaos domain and are reborn from its ooze. We crack the shells that rebuild us, but in the end, we all return to a basic, liquid form. The dark water has shown to be capable of transforming basic water in-”

The Tuatha then huffed, and to Feth surprise, somehow gathered enough will to put on a poker face. Ecne leaned on a nearby wall and signaled the prisoner to “continue your fairy tale”. Which irked the librarian a bit. 

Feth- “ Right, so what I am saying is that dark water has found a way to access those remains to infect the domain firbolgs.” The Lord of Mask went silent and huffed in relief. Finally, something easy for him to overcome. 

Ecne- “... You know, your show earlier actually scared me a bit. And maybe your theory might have convinced anyone else…but not the Tuatha."

The librarian formed a set of mist eyebrows so he could properly react in kind. “ How so?”

Ecne- “ Documentation and testing. Dubnos and Domain firbolgs - tested and experimented on both with dark water. And you know what we found?”

Feth- “ Enlighten me.”

Ecne- “ Incompatibility. Parasite. Dark water is merely a power source that feeds on its surroundings to power its host and spread out. So”, he paused and pushed a crystalline button, which started off a series of contraptions and moving parts; Feth perked his hearing and turned around, following what sounded like boulders and rocks scraping on each other, pushing to activate other contraptions all around the ship. 

Feth- “ Interesting”, quipped sarcastically the mist firbolg, until he felt the temperature change inside his cage. An oven was started underneath him. “ Very…interesting.”

Ecne- “ Lockdown. The ship is now scanning for any foreign objects, so whatever you’re stalling for, I will find out. Becoming infected, what a joke.”

Feth started to laugh as small parts of his body started to turn liquid, lingering down to the ground, like sweat in a sauna. “ Hilarious indeed. Your lack of knowledge, that is. The Tuatha ego truly is easy to manipulate… It never came to mind that, since the substance from Dubnoss seems to have a mind of its own, it could trick your…tests? For example, why-”

Ecne- “ No more stalling. Easy answer - Because the king received the information from Dia and the Divine Beast. It wasn’t just poultry testing, it was a divine inquiry-”

Felt now left out a truly heinous laugh, no more smirking and giggling, just a good, natural laugh. 

-“Oh my, the Fabricator left out of me so much information, but if there’s one thing it's etched into us, it is his pure, unbridled hatred at those…traitors. Yes, yes, you got me now young Tuatha” he screamed frantically, clapping his hands while a second pair spawned out of his back that banged on the cage.” I lied, I am Dubnoss-”

Instead of exciting him, Ecne felt more paranoid now about this encounter than he was before. His arm started to glow once more, followed soon by all of his other limbs. He turned his head to the empty left, then empty right, up, down, but there was nothing there. Why, why then was this being so eager to admit defeat so easily? And when he turned to check the cage, also empty. 

Slowly, one forward step at the time, Ecne approached the cage while keeping his other eye on his surroundings. He tapped once, thrice, no response. The air was clear of any mist and there was no condensed liquid anywhere to be seen. The prisoner escaped somehow.

A cold, freezing feeling activated the senses in his right arm, which made him jump backward and shine a line on the spot. He could see it now, a smoky substance gathering around the spot where his arm was. The mass reformed, but instead of the teal-white coloring he had before, Feth’s mist was of dark purple, closer to of a squashed plum and thicker, more poisonous in nature now. 

Ecne's mind jolted with reactions, and he quickly jumped from thought to another, spanning from how he escaped to how he could vanquish him. He swung both of his arms in front, sending two waves of yellow energy blasts; Feth let the first one hit and, without deliberation, avoided the second like the plague. The heat emanating from a single strike was intense enough to condense bits of his mist away. 

The Tuatha also noticed the effect and thought of an action plan - from the back of his cape he pulled out half of an orange object which looked similar to Temitayo’s patches, and slotted it in an empty socket on his obsidian face. The orange started to extend alongside his body, using Ecne as a canvas for the tattoo it was designing - the outline of a thin creature with long arms, stubby legs and a fiery look in their eyes. 

Ecne- “ Former being of heat, serve your lord and burn away my foes.” The young warrior murmured his prayer, and a moment later covered the space in front of him with a line of intense heat. Feth’s body avoided the direct attacks, but the increased temperature in the room was an issue for him. And since the Tuatha locked down the ship, both were trapped there.

Ecne- “ I’m guessing you’re regretting undermining even a young Tuatha now, right creature?”

Silence. All the noise Feth made was from the rapid turns and slides he did to avoid being evaporated alive; he flew all around the room, turning sharp corners and even taking sacrificial hits to protect the rest of the body. Ecne smirked, though, as he guessed the librarian's plan and let him in on a secret- “ The Tuatha don’t need air, you parasite, we can survive even in the void.”

-”Huh…actually interesting. ” Feth then took a sudden stop, taking the full blast of a fire attack which went on for a few seconds, with the intense orange of the flames reflecting in the victorious eyes of the Tuatha. Nothing stood in the place where the former fog monster stood, only a puddle on the ground. 

He won. A victory at long last. But that also meant that the Union collaboration was a failure. “We might even have to wipe them out”, he said out loud, realizing the other implications of Feth’s presence among their ranks. 

A cruel, cold voice then spoke from behind his ears- “ No…I called dibs on them to become blood and meat for the Fabricator and Dubnoss.” 

Before Ecne could turn around to see the simple, globe form of the Index, the fog wrapped around the Tuatha, turning the poison on him and infecting his body with it. A mere moment later, Ecne was on the ground, his mind blank but his body twitching and turning from pain. 

Feth- “ Now, my aperitif, let’s play around with that head of yours for a bit. You are still needed, little Tuatha lord…”