Elias had come to one very important conclusion. Tamamo had absolutely no sense of direction.
The catacombs of the Forbidden Vault did not follow the laws of physics. They followed the laws of a fever dream.
Elias walked down a corridor that seemed to stretch into infinity, though he knew he had only been walking for a few minutes. To his left, the walls were lined with weeping obsidian; to his right, the hallway simply… ended in a sheer drop into a star-dusted abyss. He carefully navigated a section of floor that shifted like liquid mercury beneath his boots, his hands outstretched for balance.
"This place is insane," Elias muttered.
"Insane is a strong word. I prefer 'architecturally ambitious.' Now turn left."
Elias turned left and glared at the black, featureless wall directly in front of him.
"That is a solid piece of masonry, Tamamo. If I go 'left,' I will be walking directly into a wall."
"Actually, go back."
His eye twitched beneath the hood of his cloak.
"You said left."
"I changed my mind."
"You literally just said 'left at the next junction' when we passed a junction three corridors ago.We've walked past this floating hallway three times."
"That is because this place is stupid."
"You got us lost!"
"Details." She sighed.
"You either walk through the wall or turn back."
"You are the worst navigator I have ever met." Elias muttered, though he gingerly reached out a hand. As his fingers touched the stone, they slipped through as if the wall were made of cool, heavy water. He winced, forcing himself to step forward appearing in another corridor.
The deeper he went into the Forbidden Vault complex, the less reality seemed interested in behaving like reality. At first he had assumed the vault was simply an underground storage facility.
He had been very wrong. What he had entered wasn't the vault itself.
It was the infrastructure surrounding it.
Like entering a bank and discovering you were still standing in the lobby while the actual safe remained hidden behind twenty locked doors.
The place was enormous.
Entire sections existed within spatial distortions. Corridors folded into themselves. Staircases climbed sideways. Rooms occupied dimensions larger than the buildings containing them. Researchers and attendants moved through it all as if nothing was strange.
Which somehow made it stranger.
Elias stood behind a pillar and watched a group of scholars taking notes around a glass enclosure.
Inside floated a metallic cube that continuously unfolded into smaller cubes before reforming itself.
"FA-0078 is showing recursive growth again."
"Did it stop?"
"No."
"Good."
"Good?"
"If it stopped we'd be concerned. It has our souls in it after all."
"All for the sake of knowldege." Another researcher replied with a chuckle.
Elias blinked.
"Huh?"
Farther ahead he observed another laboratory where researchers studied corruption. Not corrupted individuals but corruption itself.
A black substance floated inside a containment chamber. It occasionally formed eyes.
One researcher waved.
The corruption waved back.
The researcher nodded thoughtfully and wrote something down.
"I don't like this place," Elias muttered.
Tamamo laughed.
"I do."
"Of course you do."
"Think of all the pranks I could pull." She chuckled.
Another corridor led into what appeared to be a miniature desert.
A real desert.
Sand stretched into the distance beneath an artificial sun. People wearing uniforms designed to negate the heat while they collected glowing cacti.
One of the plants bit a man's arm.
Nobody seemed alarmed.
Apparently that happened often.
Elias slowly backed away.
The deeper he went, the more peculiar things he saw and the more convinced he became that the actual Forbidden Vault was somewhere much farther inside.
This was merely the outer ring. And if the outer ring was this bizzare....He didn't want to finish the thought.
He passed by Research facilities.
Containment sectors.
Storage areas.
Observation chambers.
People studying artifacts.
People studying corruption.
People in observation chambers studying the consequences of studying artifacts and corruption.
And somehow...
He was still following Tamamo.
"You sure?"
"Absolutely."
"You said that twenty minutes ago."
"My confidence remains unchanged."
"That isn't reassuring."
Tamamo pouted.
Then immediately brightened.
"Straight ahead."
Elias sighed and continued walking.
Five minutes later he turned a corner and crashed directly into a researcher carrying a stack of artifacts.
"Sorry!" Elias whispered.
The researcher spun around, her eyes wide. "Who's there?!"
It was then that the artifacts she was holding began to rattle and shake.
"Oh."
"Oh no."
The woman froze.
Elias froze.
The artifacts activated simultaneously.
Reality exploded.
Tentacles made of distorted space erupted into existence from a doorway appeared in midair.
Gravity rotated ninety degrees. Several researchers screamed as the invisible tentacles reached out. One man started floating. Another became upside down. A third somehow turned sideways.
"What did you do?!" the researcher shrieked.
"I don't know!"
Elias didn't wait. He slapped a talisman on the wall containing the tentacles while the team gathered. Then he ran. Behind him alarms began ringing.
Tamamo laughed so hard she nearly fell over.
"Why are you laughing, this is your fault!"
He turned a corner.
Another.
Then another.
And finally, breathing heavily, and caught a glimpse of two figures walking on the ceiling—or what was currently the ceiling. Firdaus and Todd.
"How."
"See?"
Tamamo smirked.
"I told you I knew where I was going."
"You got us lost."
"But we arrived."
Elias followed carefully. They had stopped in a sterile, white-lit laboratory where other researchers in blue robes were huddled around a central terminal.
Several looked up when Todd entered.
"Todd!"
"Hello everyone." Todd greeted.
"I hear you've had your hands full with work."
"Yes I have, but I'm alive." she said with a smile.
One researcher laughed.
"Attending the Twelfth Prince can't be easy."
"But there are two attendants assigned to every royal child so it can't be that bad, right Todd?"
Todd's eye twitched. One of the researchers noticed her change in attitude.
"I something wrong?'' she asked.
"It's Chad. My partner. He's the most incompetent, infuriating man I have ever had the displeasure of working with. He tries to 'annoy' me as a personality trait. I'm amazed he hasn't been reassigned—or executed."
"Oh, Chad huh?" the researchers said in unison, with grins and exchanging mischievous looks.
Elias, still pressed against the wall, found himself fighting a smile.
'This is not what I expected to be doing tonight.'
"Whatever you're thinking, its not like that. I'd much rather commit ritual suicide."
"Sure." The researchers said with obvious disbelief and laughed.
"I mean it, he's insufferable. He leaves notes on my desk. Hideous notes. He once replaced all my quills with feathers from a chicken."
Firdaus smiled sympathetically. "I'm sure he's just trying to get your attention."
"He's trying to get me fired!"
"Enough about me." She said turning her attention to the researchers and causing them to flinch.
"Why do you all let my mother dress like that?"
The room fell silent.
Everyone looked at Firdaus. Then looked away.
One researcher coughed.
"She's Chief Researcher."
"So?"
"So we can't exactly tell her what to do."
"Be honest Todd, even if we said something, would your mother listen?"
Todd opened her mouth to argue, then closed it.
"No, I guess not." she said a moment later with a sigh.
"See?" Firdaus said with a smile.
"My daughter understands me."
Todd looked deeply unhappy about understanding her. The only person her mother would listen to without compromise would be her father and he was one of the Admirals of the Royal Fleet meaning he was constantly at the White Wall.
'How I was dad was here...' she thought and sighed.
"Can we please focus on why you called me here?" Todd said.
"Ah yes, bring out the fluffy thing."
One of the researchers disappeared into a back room and returned with a containment box setting it on the table.
Elias's heart stopped.
"Is that—"
Tamamo's voice was breathless. "My tail. After all these years."
Todd however panicked.
"Mom."
"Yes?"
"Why."
"What?"
"Why are you giving me a forbidden relic?"
Firdaus frowned.
"What did you just call it?"
"Huh? A Forbidden Relic?"
"No."
Todd blinked.
Firdaus pointed accusingly.
"I educated you better than that."
"OK, Forbidden Artifact. Geez, aren't the all the same thing?"
"A Forbidden Relic and a Forbidden Artifact are not the same thing. Now define the distinction, darling," Firdaus said, a wicked glint in her eye.
"And take your time. If you trip over the definitions, I'm confiscating that little stuffed cat you've grown so fond of—the one with the velvet collar."
Todd's face went scarlet, the heat rushing up to her hairline. She darted a panicked look at the researchers standing just a few feet away, all of whom were now suddenly, aggressively interested in their clipboards. "Mom, please," she hissed, her voice tight with mortification.
"Not in front of the staff!"
"I'm waiting." Firdaus said simply. Todd sighed again, regaining composure.
"Forbidden Relics are objects from the past saturated with powerful essence and corruption accumulated over time so strong they corrupt the surrounding area or reality itself. They've existed since ancient times. They're designated FR and given a number. The lower the number, the more potent."
Firdaus nodded approvingly. "And forbidden artifacts?"
"Forbidden artifacts are not as old as relics and have effects that are actively harmful—to the user, to the environment. They're designated similarly designated like Relics using FA in their ranking. The Grading System doesn't apply to either because they're too volatile to categorize by that metric."
The researchers applauded. Todd covered her face in embarrassment.
"I'm a grown woman, mom. Stop treating me like I'm a little girl. " she muttered.
"I'm a grown woman," she muttered. "I shouldn't be getting applause for basic knowledge."
Firdaus laughed. "You will always be my daughter, Todd. No matter how old you get."
Elias, who had been waiting for the appearance of the 'fluffy thing,' found himself genuinely interested. "The difference between FR and FA is fascinating. I'd love to learn more about their classification system."
Tamamo tilted her head.
"The man who taught you artificing never explained that?"
"Not really."
"What did he teach you?"
"The basics."
"And?"
"He told us to stay the fuck away from the Forbidden Vault and that's about it."
Tamamo burst out laughing.
"Yet here you are, not listening to your master's dying wish"
"It wasn't a dying wish. He just said—"
"He's dead, Elias. That makes every unfulfilled request a dying wish."
"..."
Todd carefully opened the box.
"Oh. What is it?"
She blinked.
"It was recovered from a recent Enforcer operation," Firdaus said taking out her pipe again and loading it with herbs.
Todd leaned in, her eyes widening. "Wait. Division Seven brought this back from the Verdian mission?"
"Oh, how did you know?" Firdaus asked lighting the pipe and taking a puff."
"I work in the palace mom, I have my ways of getting information."
Todd reached out and picked the object up. It was a ball of white fur, a tail that looked remarkably like a feather duster. Elias felt a surge of adrenaline. I
Todd reached out and picked the object up. It was a ball of white fur, a tail that looked remarkably like a feather duster. Elias felt a surge of adrenaline. It was his.
"It looks cute," Todd admitted, turning it over in her hands. "But… it's twitching."
"It's an artifact," Firdaus shrugged. "It has residual life force."
"No," Todd said, her voice dropping. "It's twitching in a that direction."
Elias's blood ran cold.
She looked up, her gaze sweeping across the room. For a moment, her eyes seemed to land on exactly where Elias was hiding.
His heart stopped. But then she shrugged and looked away.
"Probably just a reaction to the ambient Flow in here."
Elias let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. Todd handed the artifact back to her mother.
"It's nice, but I don't want it. It gives me a weird vibe."
Firdaus's face fell. "But darling—"
"I'm sorry, Mom. It's soft, but I can't take it."
The older woman dramatically placed a hand over her heart.
"I raised a daughter incapable of appreciating things."
"Mom."
"My disappointment is immeasurable."
"Mom..."
"And my day is ruined."
Todd groaned.
Elias, seeing that Todd wouldn't accept the artifact, decided to wait for his chance. He'd hide, wait for the right opportunity to swipe it and leave.
Then shouting erupted outside. Everyone looked toward the doorway. Voices shouted from the corridor outside.
"What happened?"
"Stop them!"
"Seal the door!"
Then something crashed into a wall causing the room to tremble. The researchers jumped to their feet. There was a brief moment of silence, then—
Hollows burst into the laboratory. Elias swore, his heart hammering in his chest. The creatures immediately ignored everyone else and lunged straight toward him.
"What in the hell?" Firdaus shouted, pushing Todd behind her.
"The Hollows are responding to something!" One researcher observed.
The first Hollow slammed into him.
Elias dodged.
The second caught his cloak.
RIP.
The hood vanished. His concealment disappeared.
Elias stood, visible, exposed.
For a moment, everyone in the room stared at the young man who had materialized out of thin air. Luckily he was already putting on the Kitsune mask. He reached into his storage bead and pulled out a smoke bomb—a last-resort emergency measure. He threw it to the ground.
It exploded with a burst of thick, grey smoke.
In the chaos, Elias lunged forward, snatched the artifact from Todd's hands, and sprinted toward the door. Behind him chaos erupted.
"What happened?!"
"Who was that?!"
"The relic!"
"The relic!"
Elias sprinted through the smoke.
"Told you this would go wrong."
"Yeah, yeah. Just run faster."
"I'm running!"
"Faster!"
As the Hollows had given chase.
Meanwhile...
Todd stared after him. The smoke was clearing, and her mind was still processing what she'd just seen.
"Wasn't that... Elias"