Soren walked slowly through the vast chamber, his eyes gleaming with intrigue as he scanned the glowing items around him, some pulsing, others whispering with unnatural energy.
The Collector followed a few steps behind, growing increasingly uneasy.
"Taneleer Tivan." Soren said at last, his tone casual but laced with amusement,
"You certainly have a... colorful collection."
The Collector forced a laugh, though his eye twitched.
"Yes, well… I am the Collector, after all. I've spent millennia acquiring the rare, the forbidden, and the forgotten."
Soren's gaze lingered on a shelf holding a preserved infant Celestial heart and a levitating ring made from a neutron star fragment.
"Must be hard to keep track of it all."
Why is he looking at everything like that? the Collector thought, a drop of sweat forming. Don't tell me he's planning to rob me blind…?
Despite his vast empire, the Collector had shifted most of his prized possessions to this location in Knowhere, and he hadn't left in years, personally overseeing extraction from the skull of a fallen Celestial.
But now, standing beside a man wielding two Infinity Stones, his confidence was faltering.
The Collector gestured toward a large sealed cabinet lined with complex metal glyphs.
"This." He said with visible reluctance.
"Is the result of decades of work. Carefully extracted organic matter from the Celestial's spinal core."
He pressed a sequence on a glowing panel, and the cabinet hissed open, revealing layer upon layer of containment. Shields, stasis fields, molecular stabilizers, all to protect what lay within.
Soren raised an eyebrow.
"That's a lot of protection for spinal goo."
"It's not goo," the Collector snapped before catching himself. He softened his voice. "This organic matter is… volatile. Powerful."
"Its energy signature is unmatched. A single drop can alter DNA, enhance strength, or if mishandled detonate a starship."
Soren smirked.
"Now you have my attention."
The Collector sighed and retrieved a small vial, no larger than a travel-size cologne bottle, filled with a faintly glowing, translucent green liquid.
It shimmered in the light.
"This." Offering the vial with visible pain, "Is all that remains. The purification rate is… less than one part per million. I've spent decades refining just this."
Soren stared at it, blinking.
"…Are you kidding me?" He laughed in disbelief.
"That entire god-sized skull, mined for decades and this is all you've got?"
The Collector winced as Soren's aura flared, the air vibrating with raw power.
"Soren, please." He said quickly, raising his hands in a calming gesture. "You must understand."
"The spinal core is unstable, many teams died just trying to transport the raw material. Refining it is like taming a living storm."
Soren held the vial up to the light. The energy inside swirled like a captured nebula. As he studied it, his expression slowly shifted from amusement to fascination.
"Huh…"
"The energy density is incredible. No wonder you're paranoid about losing it."
He glanced over at the Collector, whose expression was a desperate mix of pride and grief.
"Fine," Soren said, lowering the vial. "I won't destroy your entire operation today."
The Collector smiled awkwardly, unsure if that was a joke.
Then Soren casually pocketed the vial.
"I'll take this."
"W-wait~that's everything!" the Collector started, then stopped himself. He looked down at the now-empty cabinet, decades of work gone in a blink.
Don't provoke him, he reminded himself. Just… survive.
Soren gave him a pat on the shoulder.
"Relax. I'll put it to good use."
The Collector nodded numbly, trying not to weep.
No drop left, he thought miserably. Years of work, and this damn cosmic maniac walks off with all of it like it's candy.
"Don't look so frustrated." Soren said with a casual glance, though his tone held weight. He didn't need telepathy to guess what was going through the Collector's mind.
That tight-lipped smile, the glimmer of loss in his eyes, Soren had seen it a thousand times before. The green liquid clearly meant more than the Collector dared admit.
"I won't take your treasures without offering something in return." He added, turning the vial of glowing organic matter over in his hand.
"Yes, yes, of course," the Collector said quickly, nodding like a broken toy.
At this point, he wasn't hoping for fairness, just an exit.
"You don't believe me?"
"Believe! Absolutely!" The Collector forced a shaky laugh. "A powerful being like you would never lie to a humble merchant such as myself."
Lies, he screamed internally. This monster just robbed me blind and now he wants me to thank him for it?!
Soren said nothing, letting silence do the talking. Then.
"Prepare a quiet room for me. I need time to work."
The Collector seized the opportunity to move him along. "Of course, of course! Follow me, this way, please!"
He led Soren briskly through the winding corridors of Knowhere, wanting nothing more than to get the cosmic juggernaut as far from his collection chamber as possible.
At a sealed doorway framed with shimmering isolation runes, the Collector halted and opened it with a wave of his hand. "This room is soundproof, shielded, and isolated."
"No one will disturb you unless I say otherwise."
Soren stepped inside and glanced around approvingly. "Perfect."
Then, turning back to the Collector, he added with a calm certainty. "I'll offer a bargaining chip worthy of your collection."
"Just wait."
The door sealed with a hiss.
Outside, the Collector exhaled a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. His shoulders slumped.
What could he possibly offer? he wondered bitterly. I've collected things older than light itself. What could this... this wild card give me that I haven't seen before?
But deep down, something about Soren unsettled him more than any warlord or god. And that uncertainty was enough to keep him quiet.
Inside the quiet room, Soren wasted no time.
With a flick of his fingers, dozens of odd-looking herbs and minerals materialized in front of him, twisting vines with glowing veins, black blossoms that pulsed like heartbeats, and crystals that hummed when exposed to air.
These weren't from any world the Collector had touched.
They were cultivated in the Herb Garden Base, a pocket-dimension farm that Soren had nurtured with the patience of a god and the precision of a scientist.
"Let's see if you're as potent as the lab simulations promised."
He wasn't crafting a healing potion. Not something to boost strength or mend bones.
What he was making now was something far stranger.
He called it "Fantasy Secret Medicine."
A concoction born from alchemical madness, forbidden pharmacology, and more than a few near-fatal trial runs.
He'd poisoned himself twice just testing theoretical doses.
"Honestly." Soren muttered, grinding a twisted blue stalk into powder.
"This stuff is basically a hyper-charged hallucination drug. If I didn't know better, I'd say it's poison with extra flair."
The final mixture shimmered in the flask like liquid dreamlight, iridescent and shifting, never the same color twice.
Its purpose was specific and strange, when consumed, it triggered an overwhelming surge of memory and emotion.
The drinker would be plunged into their most cherished experiences, their most formative moments, replaying the greatest joys and deepest truths of their life with staggering clarity.
It lasted exactly fifteen minutes.
"A quarter hour of paradise." Soren said, staring at the liquid.
"...or torment, depending on the soul."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream