Card Fifteen: The Moon

So there really was something leftover on his home planet after all. Something that could be scavenged for clues, a possible trail of breadcrumbs to finding the culprit behind the tragedy. Because Lavimo thought anyone who truly believed that reality’s cracks had happened randomly was absolutely stupid. He refused to believe that his planet’s corruption was random, to believe that his father and elder siblings had fought and died for something that just happened on reality’s whim. No, there had to be a concrete reason for it, and finally being allowed to do something about it felt like he’d finally been given permission to breathe. He’d been waiting for centuries for his aunt, Queen Nadia Aixon of Lilino, to send him on a mission somewhere to finally take action, to finally do something. It’s exactly what he’d been honing his strengths for all these years. 

Although, he’d honestly been expecting for himself to be the one appointed to lead the expedition. After all, he was the one Ruba had prophesied to eventually rule Viscendant once it was restored, so as a future King, it should be his job to lead expeditions that had to do with his home kingdom, no matter how tarnished the planet was. And yet the role had landed on someone who wasn’t even from Viscendant or Lilino, a man he’d never met before! Though, Lavimo had heard of him, at least. He was quite famous, even across worldlines. 

His name was Kallan Sanguin, but he often went by Kal. He had long, shaggy black hair that brushed in between his shoulder blades, and his eyes were a bright bloody red, which was a signature of the Sanguin family. And of course, Lavimo had done some digging into the people he was supposed to be working with, as he always hated feeling unprepared, so he knew that Kallan was someone seriously impressive. He wielded only one concept, but it was a concept only few in history had ever mastered, and he was captain of the planet Salaven’s royal guard as well as one of the king’s personal knights and master strategist and recruiter. He was in his early seven hundreds, being seven-hundred and thirty-three years old, making him Lavimo’s senior by far, who was only four-hundred and twenty-three in comparison. 

There were also Vivienne and Kimith, two people who were also much older and more experienced than him. Vivienne was an impressive woman who hailed from the same kingdom as Kal and who shared the same position as one of the king’s personal knights, although she’d held it for far longer. She controlled the concept of weather, and with it she could command the rains, skies, winds, and clouds. She was brilliant, he had to admit, although she only talked in sign language. And Kimith, well… he was something, he supposed. Lavimo wasn’t really sure how to think of him without sounding rude. 

Still, as they descended beyond the bone Cirrus had broken through prior, he was busy trying to remember what part of the palace this might have been before Viscendant had fallen, and if he’d ever been there. He'd only been fifteen years old when reality collapsed, so his memory of what his life used to be like was fragmented, but he was fairly certain this part of the palace had used to be restricted to a select few. 

“I’m pretty sure my brother would know what this place used to be before the corruption,” Lavimo spoke respectfully to his leader, Kallan leading the way through the black blood-filled corridor with calm poise. 

That was the thing with Kal. He was confident and good at commanding his troops, and he was a brilliant strategist who knew how to bring out the best in all of his subordinates no matter who they were. He was a master of uncovering hidden potential, and he could be very uplifting and charismatic when he wanted to be, and that was part of why he was so respected. But besides that, well… he didn’t really have the best personality, and he responded with sarcasm, his voice surprisingly light compared to their dark surroundings. “Oh, you mean the one that disappeared who no one can find? That brother?”

“...yes,” Lavimo nodded reluctantly, stiffening at the flippant and rude remark while he kept following. “But I’m sure Osiris would help if we could find him.”

“Well um, ah, you’re his little brother, so… um, do you know why he ran off?” Kimith fretted, holding tightly onto Vivienne’s arm as the taller woman let him do as he pleased, not seeming to mind the way his full brown eyes darted every which way like a scared animal. He had coarse, white-ish-blond hair tied into long dreadlocks that hung down to his waist, with smooth, dark brown skin that had dark red undertones and a chest and arms covered in black tattoos while golden piercings adorned his face. And while that was cool and all, his trembling left Lavimo wondering if he’d had to have been tied down before ever faced with a needle. 

But it wasn’t a worthless question, so he gave a stiff nod as they came across the remains of what looked to have been a fight. There was no monster left, but Cirrus’ pillar of ice was still clear in the center of a pool of black blood, which only added to their suspicions. “Osiris said that he left to try and find the cause of the corruption, and that he didn’t believe he could trust the prophecy. I admit he’s kind of eccentric, and he doesn’t believe in fate and thinks all the prophets are frauds, but… he’d at least have useful information, I’m sure.”

At that, Vivienne moved to tap his shoulder, hands moving in the dim light as Lavimo read what she was saying. She was a very tall woman, taller and sturdier than all three of the men with her. Maybe it was just because Lavimo was shorter than average height, with Kimith towering over him and then Kallan, who looked rather scrawny despite also being incredibly tall, but Vivienne looked like she was tough as nails, while also holding an extremely elegant aura. She had thin black hair that stopped neatly at her shoulders, and bright violet eyes that held the wisdom and clarity of centuries. 

Do you think he would know anything about these manufactured monsters? she signed, pointing at what was leftover from Cirrus’ skirmish while Kallan rested his palm against the ice. 

And Lavimo had to hesitate at that. He wasn’t really sure what his brother had discovered, all he knew was that Osiris would always secretly come to visit him when he wasn’t at the palace, never wanting to be discovered. He was aware his older brother had secret meetings with Nadia, as well, always handing over all the information he had discovered to their aunt. But besides that, Lavimo honestly scarcely saw him anymore…

“Um, I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully, Kallan snorting at him while he bottled up some of the black blood he could find on the ground, as well as chunks of Cirrus’ ice that had been touched by it. 

“Of course you don’t. Osiris isn’t some trustworthy guy,” he responded crudely, not bothering to try and empathize with Lavimo in the slightest as he opened his shadow space using his concept, putting away the evidence into a safe location that no one except him could open or reach. “Look, I’m not trying to attack your brother or anything, and I understand that you probably think of him as the only family you have left. But the fact is that he ditched you. If he’d really cared about you, he wouldn’t have done that… or he would’ve brought you along with him,” he grumbled bitterly, and Lavimo lowered his head in silence while following along. 

He’d known from his research that Kal could be a very grumpy person. Apparently, he’d always had a tendency to spiral and fall into depressive episodes ever since he was a teenager, and there’d been a time he had to step away from Salaven’s military completely for nearly a century so that he could focus on himself, and there'd even been rumors of maids and servants having to prevent a few suicide attempts. That had been directly after his twin sister’s death, he’d heard… but even before that, Kal had been a very moody person, so he’d heard some people saying that it had only been a matter of time before something made him spiral like that. 

Apparently, he hadn’t been the most talented person in his youth, and couldn’t even master his family’s blood concept arts, unlike his prodigious twin sister… so when she’d died, his family also stopped paying any attention to him, and he was left abandoned. Yet eventually, he’d picked himself back up, mastered the concept of darkness by embracing what it felt like to truly let your mind fall into the deepest darkest pits of despair, and came back to be one of the strongest people on Salaven who was quickly appointed as King Cadence’s personal knight, and eventually general, commander, and strategist of the entire army of his planet as well. He was much more level-headed now, and not so quick to anger or misery, but Kal’s mood swings had never stopped in their entirety, so Lavimo chose not to say another word until they finally reached the end of the corridor. 

“Ahh… what if there’s monsters in there…” Kimith trembled, clinging tighter onto Vivienne as she wrapped an arm behind his back, patting him reassuringly, almost like a mother. He supposed she was over two hundred years older than the guy, but still… if it weren’t for the nature of Kimith’s powers, Lavimo doubted this cowardly man would be standing here. “What if we open the doors and are attacked like the crown prince… we could all die!”

“Your scared babbling is exactly why you’re not popular with the ladies, my dear friend,” Kallan responded with a grin, carefully taking a peek inside as Lavimo saw his shadows already beginning to crawl off his skin to form shaded black daggers around him. He seemed tense, and even when they saw that all the cages were now open and empty, Kallan was still very careful about opening the door, before the four of them slipped inside without another word. 

It looks like someone came and took everything out of this place, Vivienne signed, Kallan nodding in his agreement as he eyed all of the empty cages. 

“All that’s left are cages and a bunch of blood. Makes me wonder how useful it’ll actually be to examine all this if the enemy so willingly left it behind,” Kallan remarked, slowly taking hold of one of the thick bars of the nearest cage door before opening it, the metal grinding loudly against its hinges as he took a look inside. “Hm. It might help us to find where these cages were made. Lavimo, please lift them up and start looking for any craftsman seals.”

“Do you really think they’d use cages that had traceable seals on them?” Lavimo squinted, but Kal didn’t even turn to look at him before he walked deeper into the room. 

“Just follow your orders.”

“...yes sir,” the younger man reluctantly obeyed, carefully using his concept of telekinesis to lift up the cages so that he could easily check them all. And as he did that, he watched out of the corner of his eye as Vivienne pointed to the table at the far end of the wall. From Cirrus’ report, there had been many different diagrams and papers all scattered and pinned above the wide desk, as well as dozens of books all stacked in many piles, but now all that remained was a single book placed neatly in the center, as if it had been waiting for someone to find it. 

“Hm. Now that certaintly looks like trouble,” Kallan scoffed as he stared at the book, reading its title as his relaxed expression started turning a bit more tense. Vivienne sensed it as well and went to join him, and when Lavimo’s curiosity began to get the better of his sense of duty, he tried to abandon his pointless task, only for the tall woman to turn around and shake her head. 

Focus on what you've been assigned, she instructed him with her hands, Lavimo immediately wrinkling his nose before he begrudgingly turned away. 

Would there even be anything on these cages? He didn’t think there would. Whoever had come here after Cirrus had obviously removed anything that would give them any clues, so these cages should just be leftovers that didn’t matter. And yet, as he flipped the smallest cage over on its head, he saw a circular seal of what looked like a stylized ram skull engraved into the bottom of it, causing him to frown. And the next cage had the very same symbol on it. As did the next. All fifteen cages that were in this room shared the very same seal on the bottom of them, and Lavimo quickly pulled out his sketchbook from his satchel as he started to trace it. 

“Ahh! You’re using black blood to paint!!” came the sudden terrified scream, and Lavimo hesitated to give Kimith an incredulous look, not believing what he was hearing. 

“This is ink.”

“...”

“You know? Just plain black ink? The normal kind everyone uses?”

“I… oh… sorry…” Kimith deflated, tugging on his long dreadlocks with anxious movements as Kallan started snickering at them, flipping through the book with ease. 

Lavimo really wanted to get a look at what the book had to say as well, as it was clearly going to be a message from the enemy, with there being no other reason for it to have been left here. And Kallan looked so grim reading it, so what if it was a letter that depicted some kind of threat? He couldn’t help but be curious, yet regardless of that, he took his time drawing the seal so that they could perfectly reference it later, just in case it really did end up being important and not some kind of trap. 

Though, suddenly, before he could properly think, he heard Kimith let out another scream as a small explosion suddenly shook the inside of the laboratory, his floating cages rattling against each other thanks to the impact as Lavimo barely managed to keep them lifted, Kallan and Vivienne carefully turning around with their guard up to see what exactly had happened.

And right in front of Kimith was a black smudge on the ground, looking like some sort of inky black roach with more dark blood dripping from its insides that had been exploded open. “Ahhh… it… it tried to… it was trying to eat me!!” Kimith cried, barely stumbling backwards to hold tightly onto Kallan, who only shoved him off as his blood red eyes immediately scanned for more of those bugs… and on the dark inky ground, he saw similar black leeches crawling towards them as he looked to a small crack in the wall that had been earlier overlooked. 

“Kimith, right there! There’s the source!” he announced sternly, pushing Kimith towards the many crawling leeches with hair-thin fangs trying to attach themselves to whatever flesh they could find, and Kimith let out another high-pitched scream as he was forced to stumble closer. 

“Ahh, I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die, they’re gonna kill me and eat me and I’m gonna die…” he flushed out all in one breath, his hands stretched forward as they began to buzz with more raw power, the explosion from earlier being mimicked as all the slimy black leeches exploded with black blood going everywhere, splattering against Kimith’s dark face as he screeched, his explosives becoming more potent the more he scared he was, before the entire wall erupted and exploded as thousands of black leeches all spilled over, popping and combusting as tears poured out of Kimith’s terrified eyes. 

“Lavimo! Get me some of those leeches!” Kallan ordered fiercely, hand on Kimith’s shoulder as he stopped the man from running away, forcing him to keep standing in front of the black leeches to explode them the moment they reached his sights, the wall they’d been hiding behind cracking and crumbling to reveal another hidden, empty storage room. 

And Lavimo acted fast, quickly plucking ten or so leeches that tried crawling away with his telekinesis while Vivienne opened a container for him, and together, with his concept of telekinesis and her aspect of wind under the concept of weather, they forced the leeches into the tubes without letting them take hold of their flesh, ignoring Kimith’s scared wailing before suddenly, the entire wall collapsed and exploded, debris flying everywhere with not a single leech left alive. 

“Good job, Kimith. That was a good showing,” Kal praised as he finally let the man collapse and crawl behind Vivienne’s legs, the woman not minding as she let their leader put the capsules of leeches into that shadow space of his while he held the book under his arm, Lavimo still holding on to his small sketchpad tight to his chest to prevent the explosion and flying blood from hitting it and ruining all of his work. 

If you were to ask him, Lavimo thought it would be much better if Kimith could do all of that exploding and harness all of that raw power without screaming bloody murder and collapsing afterwards. It was just dramatic, in his opinion. But the concept Kimith controlled was one known as the concept that turned fear into explosive power… so the more afraid he was, the stronger he would be, and the more powerful his heated explosions would become. So Lavimo supposed it worked out either way, even if it was kind of pathetic to watch. And Kallan obviously knew how to handle him and how to use his abilities to their fullest, which made a lot of sense, since they’d gone to school together when they were younger and had known each other for more than five centuries.

But now there was a whole new room in front of them, one that looked far more menacing than the one they’d walked into to start with. There were black pods hanging from the ceiling, thousands of small pockets connected to each one where the leeches grew and harvested. There were dozens of thick tubes connected to the wall that were pierced into the pod’s flesh, black blood being fed into the leech's systems through it, although it looked like that feature had been turned off, which was why the leeches had come to attack them with their main source of food having disappeared. But all of the leeches were dead now, and the pods were mangled and destroyed after having been exploded from the inside by Kimith. Though Lavimo was still amazed by what he saw, though not in a good way. Just what kind of laboratory was this really? And if there were more hidden rooms, what other secrets could he find? If he went deeper, what kind of answers would he be given?