Prologue: Good Night Sweet Prince

Part 3

“You should check it.”

“Me? Why should I be the one to check it?”

“Because you’re being a baby. They cut the power, so the attacker’s probably still in the elevator.”

“Probably?!”

Tselatra fished an Aquam cartridge from her belt.

“Yeah. And if they’re not in the elevator, just shoot them or whatever.”

“...what if it’s like a maintenance worker or something, come to fix the plumbing?”

“You gone Native, dude?”

Tselatra bristled, despite herself, as the guard continued. “It’s like one in the morning. Why would it be a plumber? Remember that explosion we felt? You think a plumber did that?”

“Listen man, pipes back up sometimes.”

“Just go open the door and tell me what you see.”

Live around Snepards long enough, and you started picking up their common pheromones. What wafted to Tselatra’s nose through the door conveyed fear. Good. She could use that.

Footsteps approached the door. Fingers covered in white fur poked through the gap in the doors as the guard slid the doors apart. Reaching out, Tselatra activated the magnet in her glove, yanking the man’s rifle towards her. It tugged on his shoulder strap, pulling him towards the opening. His hands clamped down on the doors, and he let out a squeak of terror.

Tselatra leaned in just out of sight of the other guard and whispered, “If you want to live, tell your buddy to come here. Otherwise, I drop you down the shaft. Nod if you understand.”

The Snepard’s eyes went even wider and he nodded too quickly.

“What’d you find, Bryce?” the other guard called.

“Bryce” didn’t stop locking eyes with Tselatra. “I uh… it’s just so… You know how you can see something that just makes you forget how to make words into sentences? I don’t have words right now to describe what I’m seeing. You should definitely come take a look though. It’s crazy. You’ve never seen anything like it.”

There was a long pause. “You’re baiting me.”

“I’ve never baited you. This is not a bait. I just don’t know how to describe it…”

“Well, you better try.”

Bryce gulped then whispered the words, “please don’t kill me.” Out loud, he said, “So remember my plumber theory? I think it backed up into the elevator shaft.”

Another long pause. “Bryce, that may be the worst lie you’ve ever told. You realize we’re on the 30th floor, right?”

“I know that, and I realize how it sounds. But there is literally a crazy sewer monster, just dripping wet and gross and it’s climbing up the elevator shaft. And its eyes are glowing, like it’s on Fractal.”

Tselatra glared at him, and he wilted.

The other guard sighed and Tselatra heard him approach the doorway.

“Alright newbie, where’s this gross sewer monster that’s got you quaking like a Mewler?”

As the second guard peeked into the shaft, Tselatra shoved the first one back, releasing her magnetic grip on his gun. With practiced motion, she cracked the Aquam crystal between her fingers, then imposed her will on the energy released to spray the approaching guard with frigid water. Reactivating her glove, she grabbed his gun and pulled hard, yanking him into the shaft. Her electromagnets kept the gun from leaving her grip, and he dangled from it for a few moments. Then, despite her sore arm and hand, she swung him towards the elevator and killed power to the magnet in the glove. Both man and gun slipped from her grip and fell a full floor before slamming into the top of the elevator.

Deactivating her magnets entirely, Tselatra stepped up onto the thirtieth floor. The first guard stared past her at the open shaft, eyes wide as moons. His gun had slid off his shoulder, and laid beside him, so she kicked it down the shaft. Drawing her catalyst, she leveled it at him. “Bryce, was it?”

He nodded, eyes locked on the end of the bismuth barrel.

“How many more are up here?” She demanded.

“Two more, plus the boss.”

She looked down the hall which ended at a set of imposing metal double doors. “Just in there?”

He nodded again.

“Describe the room for me.”

“What?” His tail twitched behind him, claws extending from his fingertips and scraping the floor. “There’s, um, a big desk. The boss uses it. It’s the boss’s desk. Sits at the back of the room, by the window. There’s uh–there’s a minibar on the left, as you walk in. Past that, but also on the left is a pair of couches, and a table and stuff. The guests normally sit there and have a drink with him. I uh–there’s some chairs set against the right side of the room. And he uses them so people can sit on the other side of his desk sometimes, I guess. Oh, and the floor kind of dips down as you enter the room. Like a staircase sort of thing, but you have to step back up to get to the same level as the desk. And the guards are probably on the couches, and everyone inside has guns, even the boss.”

He finished breathless, then blinked in surprise as she patted him on the head. “Good lad. Now stand up, you’re going to help me.”

“But I already told you all that I know!” he sputtered. At a gesture with her catalyst, he stood up.

Placing a hand on his shoulder, she put the catalyst’s barrel to his back. “I know. Now lead the way.”

His ears drooped, but he nodded like a disciplined child. Together they walked towards the big double doors.

“You’re the Alchemancer, right? Tselatra? The Lightning’s Strike? The one who’s been killing important people around Ciphus?”

Thunder clapped outside, punctuating his point.

Tselatra raised an eyebrow he couldn’t see. “A Snepard that actually knows some Mnull? That’s rare.”

“So you are?”

She poked him in the back, “Keep moving, kit.”

The Snepard guard’s tail drooped to match his ears. He laid both hands on the doors, whimpering, “I’m so dead…”

“Not if you cooperate,” Tselatra sighed, nudging the kit again. He pushed the doors and together they entered Lortran’s room.

Bryce’s description had been spot on. Lortran sat in an oversized executive chair, ears barely peeking over the back. He faced a large window, watching the storm. In the near distance, lightning struck the Bulb’s Central Spire.

On the left, one guard was helping himself to something at the mini-bar while the other reclined on a couch. They both tensed as she led Bryce into the room.

“Hey, boss?” the one on the couch asked. “They’re here.”

The Snepard in the chair sighed, chin and face resting in his hand, elbow resting on a plush leather arm. “Well, shoot them then. Do I need to tell everyone around here how to do their job?”

The guard at the minibar responded this time, hand reaching for a holstered pistol. “But they’ve got the new hire, sir.”

“Oh, you should have opened with that. That obviously changes things.”

Tselatra felt a bit of the tension in her hostage’s shoulder release.

“It does, sir?” the guard at the couch slowly drew a pistol of his own, drawing a bead on Tselatra. She pulled Bryce a bit closer.

Lortran turned his head to the side, looking at his guard. “Of course it doesn’t, you idiot!” The boss’s shoulders slumped in a sigh. Spinning his chair, he reached under his desk, detaching something underneath with a loud click. Then he brought it up to rest on the desk. It was a shotgun, which he pointed right at her.

Tselatra bit down hard on both emergency Aurum cartridges tucked into her cheeks, turning her head to the side to release the energy. She jumped towards the minibar with her hostage in tow, and the expulsion of magic wind helped her close the distance. Every hostile in the room opened fire, but they hadn’t anticipated her movement and their shots went wide.

“They–they tried to shoot me!” Bryce stammered, seeming genuinely shocked by this as Tselatra dragged him behind cover. Did he not understand who he worked for? He flinched as across the room his boss audibly re-racked the shotgun.

Leaning around the inside of the minibar, Tselatra saw that it extended to the wall. Hand planted on her former hostage’s back, she gave him a shove in that direction.

“You work for one of the Thirteen, what did you expect? Now keep your head down and stay behind cover if you want to live through this.”

Raising her catalyst, Tselatra peeked out the other way, activating it and directing the Electrum burst towards the armed guard closest to the bar. Unfortunately, the burst didn’t have enough energy to reach him. Instead, it arced into one of the bar stools, happy for an object to ground itself with.

Well, that was a waste of both Prism and Electrum…

The guard raised his handgun, firing at her and forcing her back behind cover. Another shotgun blast tore through the corner of the minibar a second later.

Bryce whimpered nearby, pulling almost into the fetal position. Tselatra dumped the expended cartridge from her catalyst, reloading with another Electrum cartridge. She was down to her last two. They needed to count. Another volley of shots forced her to scoot further behind the bar.

Lortran’s laugh broke the silence that followed.

“We’ve got you pinned, Alchemancer. I knew you were a Native, but I didn’t think you were this sloppy. I expected someone who’s taken out five of the Thirteen to be…well, a lot more than you. Turns out, you’re just a Fractal junkie with fancy toys and a death wish.”

Tselatra growled under her breath. Maybe she wouldn’t feel quite so guilty about killing this guy. No–that wasn’t true. She would feel it, but she couldn’t focus on that. Especially not now. She’d already committed.

Reaching out with a booted foot, she gave Bryce a kick. He yelped, sparing her a glance as he drew in tighter on himself. He did his best to avoid looking her in the eyes. She gestured upwards with her nose. “Grab me that bottle of whiskey.”

He looked at it, looked at her, and looked at the loaded catalyst in her lap. With a whimper, he crawled over to the back wall and reached up towards a bottle. Someone fired when his hand appeared, and one of the bottles near him exploded. He yelped, using his arm to shield his face from the shower of glass and alcohol. Smelled like brandy.

He looked at her again, but she just gestured more fervently. With a gulp, he clenched and unclenched his fingers. He spared a glance up at the bottles. Then, closing his eyes, he grabbed the first bottle his hand found. Both guards squeezed shots off this time, shattering more bottles.

Crawling over to her, he handed her the bottle he’d grabbed. Tselatra took it from him, rolling it over in her hands. The label read as Yorla Red Wine.

She sighed.

This wouldn’t burn the way the whiskey would, but she could still work with this. Sparing a glance around the counter just earned more shots in her direction. The guard at the counter had retreated to stand by his buddy at the couch. Having seen her Electrum burst, he wasn’t likely to get close enough to allow her a second shot. Fine. She could improvise. Good alchemy required improvisation.

Unloading the Electrum cartridge, she swapped it for a Necrum cartridge. The deep violet crystal rattled in the chamber as she snapped the catalyst closed. Void magic was incredibly potent, and it didn’t take much reactant to create a lot of energy. She’d learned the hard way to never stick that much Necrum in her mouth.

Placing the barrel over the bottle’s cork, she fired. Sickly wisps of purple and black swirled around the catalyst’s barrel, but she didn’t let it dissipate. Instead, she willed it into the wine, giving it a home and a purpose. Traces of it leaked back through the cork, giving the air a pungent scent Tselatra had deliberately forsworn.

Leaning back, she tossed the bottle over the counter. She grabbed Bryce’s shoulder, forcing the terrified guard to make eye contact. “As soon as you smell something like a corpse, hold your breath until I vent the room.”

“A corpse?!”

 The bottle shattered somewhere in the room. The guards cursed, then started coughing. Yes, this would incapacitate them, but they’d be coughing up blood in seconds. If she didn’t hurry, it might kill them.

She reloaded her catalyst, this time with an Aurum shot. The paper cartridge was like an ordinary Aurum crystal, but with a metal pellet fitted at the tip. It lacked the raw stopping power of a Firum bullet, but it was completely silent. The magic was also subtle enough that you’d only notice it if you watched someone pull the trigger.

Tselatra raised the catalyst as she peeked back around cover. The toxic gas she’d created hovered like a malevolent purple cloud, diffusing into the room. Both guards laid on the floor, hands to their throats, gasping for breath. Doing that would only take more of the stuff into their system.

Behind his desk, Lortran wrinkled his nose. Then he started to cough. He tried to raise the shotgun, but a coughing fit ruined his aim and his shot went wide. Tselatra kept the catalyst trained on him anyway. Her instructions had been clear. No conventional means. Lortran must be killed by alchemy.

Tselatra held her breath as she approached the guards. With a snap of her wrist, the magnet in her glove activated and she used it to snag one of the discarded handguns. It jammed one of her fingers as it snapped to the magnet, and her grunt of pain cost her a bit of breath. Shutting off the flow of Electrum, she awkwardly shifted the gun into a more comfortable grip. Then she raised it beside her catalyst and fired.

The bullet flew past Lortran, striking the window beyond. Tselatra continued to fire, until the gun was empty. Four bullets in total, all into the window. Thousands of little cracks spiderwebbed across the glass.

Lortran flinched with each shot, continuing to cough into his arm. Tselatra kept the catalyst trained on him, but fished into her pouch for an Aurum crystal. She grabbed the larger of the two she had left.

Approaching the desk, she slammed the crystal against the underside.

Crack.

Lortran raised the shotgun, so she shot him in the shoulder. She slammed the crystal again.

Crack.

Now she felt the reaction start. She could feel it seeking release and gave it shape. A burst of high pressure lifted the desk off the ground, flinging it towards the window and sliding her backwards. The desk’s trajectory slammed it into Lortran. The already compromised glass shattered as they hit, and Lortran was carried out into the rain.

Lightning struck the Bulb’s lightning rod, and its thunderclap rolled over Tselatra. That made six people she’d killed for this.

"We have them, Tselatra. If you ever want to see them again, follow these instructions exactly. Fail us, and they die."

A familiar numbness settled into Tselatra’s bones, but she was too far down this path to slow down or turn back.