Private Tales Just a Little Help

[Amos]

Vel Zaphris - Kaiden and Amos' Lab

"Oh no." The words fell from his lips as he nearly crumpled to the ground in a mixture of panic and sheer dread. His eyes locked on the scene of destruction before him.

It looked as though a tornado had torn through the entire facility. Books, papers, and instruments of all sorts lay scattered upon the ground. Nothing had been purposefully smashed or destroyed, simply shifted and thrown about in a mad and clearly desperate search. One that Amos could almost instantly tell had yielded it's desired result.

How did he know?

He saw the cabinet, at the end of the room. It's heavy steel doors broken open, and the lock upon it unsealed.

Inside, one would usually find about a dozen or so of the crystals that he and Kaiden had created. Not the empty ones, which were next to useless to anyone but he and his partner. No. This cabinet held the ones they had charged, those which they would use in the testing of their experiments and new devices. Those who had enough latent magical energy to destroy an entire city block.

"No." Amos said as he hobbled forward. "No no no...."

It was a complete an utter disaster. Someone had broken in and stolen their property. Worse, someone had stolen something extremely dangerous. He had to report thi-no...he couldn't The Republic would shut down their work, they would seize everything and claim that what he and Kaiden were doing was simply too dangerous. They would stop it all, and they would blame him for the failure.

Amos' stomach dropped, remembering the conversation that he'd had with Professor Serris about the nature of such work. The danger inherit within it, but also the politics that surrounded it. There would be consequences if he went to the authorities, consequences that he couldn't abide by.

There was House Luana of course, but if he told them of this there might be...his head shook, no they were not an option either. Noel? She would care, she had helped him drive his work into further heights, but the last Amos heard she had joined the Black Guard and was deployed somewhere far away from the Capital. Much less Vel Zaphris.

Panic gripped him for a moment, and then a thought flickered through his mind.

Maybe? Would she? Kaiden was her brother, this was his work as much as it was Amos' and their family had invested heavily...Yes. Yes this would work. Quickly Amos headed over towards one of the tables, scribbling upon a note and grabbing one of the small strange metal birds sat upon a shelf. He wound it's back, and from his pocket plucked one of the gems that had not been stolen. Placing it into the bird, and immediately sending it to Niamh Banick.

 

[Niamh]

"Watch it, rat!" Niamh spat at the little grey-haired creature of a woman sprinting down the street, arms full of some useless shit. Beggars. Niamh glared at her as she bumped into other passersby, never once letting her useless, worthless peasant belongings fall to the ground. A final glare in the little one's direction was given before Niamh's attention was once again drawn to the little bird sent from her brother's shop.

With her ever-so-joyful entrance (slamming the door open so hard, it makes their projects suspended on the walls rattle) Niamh stomped in. "Kaeden! Amos! I got your stupid bird!" She shouted as she tip-toed over the piles of shit laid out everywhere. Gods. I knew they were messy, but this is just ridiculous. More irritated by the lack of immediate response, Niamh kept walking through the workshop, her mood worsening by the minute. Had their little...what did they call her...an intern? been present to greet Niamh and summon either one of the pains in her ass, she might have been a little less moody.

Her eyes narrowed, she could hear Amos. The panic in his head as he paced (hobbled?) around the mess. "Amos." She managed to trudge through the sea of broken experiments and find him somewhere in the back. "The bird... What do you want? Is my stupid brother injured again?"

 

[Amos]

"It's a disaster!" Amos declared loudly, pacing back and forth as he shifted his cane back and forth.

The panic within him was more than a little clear. He looked as though he had been sweating profusely, his clothes damp, and the handkerchief in his hand stained more than a little bit. His features haggard, and his lungs probably broken by the pervasive cough he'd always carried. "They stole it."

He told Niamh, rounding on the door with a comical flail.

"They stole it Niamh!" Amos declared in a panic. "This could mean the end of everything. Our research, our work, the university will have hour HEADS!"

It was the animated that Amos had ever been. Usually it was a struggle to get him to move chairs, much less flail his arms and stand on his good leg for more than a few seconds. The sickly scientist was in an utter panic. Head swimming. "You have to help me, Niamh, please, you have to."

He begged.

"If we don't fix this, I'm done for." Amos said, his voice half breaking. "They might even arrest me."

 

[Niamh]

A red brow raised at the half-insane cripple. For a moment, she contemplated if whatever ailment Amos had was finally consuming his mind as she watched him behave like a man with a fatal infection, delirious with fever. A last burst of energy. But as he flailed, a sort of bemused look crossed Niamh's almost perpetually emotionless face.

"Rocks." She state bluntly, kicking one of the grey, partly broken crystals that lie on the floor in front of her. She fought back the urge to strangle the boy in front of her, although her face still only showed that slight bewilderment. "You sent an urgent message- you took me from my work because you lost some rocks."

Her voice was like silk- not at all matching the neutrality, nor the look on her face. Her index finger and thumb came up at her nose bridge and she shut her eyes for a moment. "And where, may I ask, is my dear brother? Can he not assist you in finding new rocks? Perhaps the ones outside that line the streets. Kress knows they all look the same." It had not occurred to Niamh that these crystals and the cobblestones were not both various shades of grey. It likely never would.

Another sigh accompanied the release of her nose. She loved her brother, and his unfortunate friend seemed little more than a growth on his side. But still, Kaeden would likely not forgive her if she allowed the man to rot in jail over a rock. "And what exactly happened to these rocks?" She questioned, nudging another with her foot and watching it crumble to bits. "Who is they?"

Amos

 

[Amos]

"I don't know!" Amos lamented. "That's why I called you!"

There was a quiet puppy like dog whimper to his tone. As though earlier that evening a speeder had struck him, and now he was hobbling around. The Disease had set him walking like a penguin long ago, but there was something pitiable about the whole thing. "I need help."

He told her.

"Kaeden is securing us funding since your lineage cut us off." The scientist explained. "And i've been working here on our..."

Holy heck did she even know? She had called them that, but she had no way of knowing. Her brother wouldn't have spoken about it in his letters, at least Amos doubted. What they had here was still too valuable. There was no keeping the secret, not for long. But they both tried to delay the inevitable. "What was stolen is like...like a bomb Niamh. Each one could destroy a whole city block with raw magical energy."

His voice quivered.

"Thousands could die." He chewed his bottom lip. "Maybe more."

 

[Niamh]

The irritated tapping of her toes on the cold floor echoed and reverberated off of the fractured crystals. She fought the urge to laugh in his face and suggest, ever so unkindly, to go tell an officer. Fought off telling him to tell someone who cares until he hit her with one tiny detail she had been unaware of.

"Father cut Kaeden off?" Kress, how the hell did she miss that? She scanned her collection of others' thoughts and...nothing. She had not spoken to either family members in months. "The hell did he do this time?" What did you two do? She should have asked, her and her father both considering the boys a package deal. Still, Niamh could not think of something that could make her father more disappointed in anyone else but Niamh. Fool had no clue Niamh hated him for using her, trading her for coin or resources so that the Academy could keep a leash on her.

But in turn, she had no one else to extend her most sincerest gratitude to, for allowing her the years to become such a dangerous weapon. And now, one whose leash had been broken. Perfectly sharpened and left to discover the walls beyond the Academy on her own. Her father would never know how her blood boiled as they sat- Kaeden, her father, and Niamh- and ate dinner all while she planned to kill him.

Sometimes she hated Kaeden too for not fighting to keep her. But she was not docile or soft. And the Academy paid a far higher price than anyone that would consider marrying her.

She paid attention to each word. "So why should I care?" Her question was genuine, her voice laced with venom and hatred for this damned city- mood shifting back to cold and uncaring when the initial shock of her brother's finances wore off. "What do I get out of this?"

 

[Amos]

"I don't know! He didn't really explain." Kaeden had never exactly been open on the relationship he held with his father. They had used the Banick's as a way to fund their experiments, and that had always been enough for Amos.

The two of them had been a friendship not of convenience, but like mind. Their families and those sorts of affairs had never mattered to either of them. Their trust was rooted in the work they did. Work that was now threatened beyond all measure.

"I...you would be helping me?" Amos squeaked out. "I may not be wealthy, but I have my ways of...helping...people."

He said with a smile. "Please, Niamh. I have no one else to turn to."

Amos said, looking at the Dreadlord as though a sad puppy might look at someone with food. His eyes the size of saucers, a pathetic sort of pleading holding to his gaze. Not to purposefully drive pity, but because he truly had no one else to turn to. "I'll do whatever you want."

He begged.

 

[Niamh]

She raised a brow, but a quick intrusion into his thoughts would reveal that he was telling Niamh the truth. "So you have no idea where Kaeden is. Are you sure that he didn't go insane after one of our father's latest antics and trash this place himself?" She was partly joking.

She waited another moment, feigning consideration of his deal as the poor man all but got onto his hands and knees to beg at her feet.

She knew she would agree the moment she set foot in the shop, but she quite liked the sight in front of her. "Make me an offer." The ball was in Amos court.

 

[Amos]

"I uhh..." He...had actually no real way of answering that. For all he knew Kaeden was laying in the bottom of a ditch somewhere. Amos would never think that his partner had lied to him, but the man did have a way of...getting lost sometimes.

Not that he would ever do it at a moment like this. No. Amos was sure Kaeden was doing everything he could to get them proper funding back. Definitely not laying on the bosom of some noble woman. "I didn't think I'd..."

He shook his head.

"I'll build you...something..." The Scientist offered meekly, not sure what else he could say. "And uh..."

Amos looked around the room, to Niamh. Sweat beaded down his brow. "I'll buy you dinner?"

 

[Niamh]

The edges of her mouth curled into what seemed like a smile on her otherwise emotionless face, growing ever so slightly as he scrambled for anything he could use to persuade Niamh into helping him. She knew she would already agree to help him, but the offer piqued her curiosity. "You can keep the dinner. You need it more than I," She remarked, noticing her brother's friend looked thinner than their last encounter. Perhaps she'd have to take over funneling money into their business, enough to make sure the two didn't starve to death before creating something useful enough.

"I have something I'd like- if you think you can make it." She crouched down and picked up one of the shattered crystals. "Something small, preferably." Understated. She continued pacing around the destroyed room, the twinkling and crunching of more crystals under her heels. "A ring...a necklace...earrings. Any one may be fine. I'll leave that to you. Though if you could create a set, I'll pay you double what my father would have for one month."

She paused and turned to look at him. "Could you create something to give me some sort of protection for my mind?" Something burned in the black pits of her irises as she stared at him. A memory. A painful memory from a mission that had gone so far south that Niamh had contemplated taking her own life to avoid that violated feeling which lingered after her own mind had been pilfered through and taken over by some bizarre hive-minded monster. While she learned a valuable skill, she had never quite shaken how easily it had been for something else to invade her psyche and use her body like a puppet.

Since that day she had trained to protect herself mentally- creating a near impenetrable fortress in her mind, but still the fear lingered. One weak spot and she could be gone again.

"And perhaps something for mental focus and clarity as well." She tossed in as an afterthought to avoid any questioning. “If you can, then you have yourself a deal.”

 

[Amos]

"Oh...no...I am...that's not..." Oh how the heck did he explain this. What Niamh was looking for, Amos could not provide. What he created what science driven by magic, not magic...doing whatever it was magic was known for doing. He could not craft items of enchantment, things that would effect her abilities or something of the sort.

But he needed her help. "I could..."

Fuck.

His chest ached, another cough threatening to wrack his chest before he took a deep breath. Fingers wrapped around his cane as he tapped it gently against his knees. Mind racing far faster than it ever had before as he tried to think of a solution.

"I can make something to protect your mind." It would work differently, but he knew of a principal. Magic was energy, of a sort, even that which attacked the mind. If he could design a system to take in that energy, yes...he could do it. Probably. "But more than that I don't....I don't know."

He admitted. "But I'll do my best."

Amos knew he would, because he had no other choice.

 

[Niamh]

Niamh savored the panic plastered on Amos‘ face, the way she could see his pulse speed up on his too-thin neck as she crept closer. Too close. She knew little of their work, save for a few mentions of the powerless pieces Kaeden had gifted her for birthdays and holidays. Science, not magic. Her brother had no such gifts. Not like the ones that plagued her. She wanted something more than magic.

“Then we have a deal.” She extended a hand. Perfectly manicured without any sign of the calluses that other Dreadlords typically bore. For some, it was a reminder that her mind was more sharp, more dangerous than any weapon they trained with.

She backed down soon after and took a seat nearby, lazily throwing her legs sideways over the arm of the chair. ”Tell me everything you know about this attack.“ She demanded, eyes scanning the room for a sign of . . . Anything, really.

 

[Amos]

Amos could feel the sweat bead on his brow as Niamh let him linger in silence.

Relief only coming as she accepted their deal and offered her hand to seal the pact. He knew that it wasn't over yet, far from it, but at the very least he had someone in his corner who could actually help. Someone who would, hopefully, also have his own best interest at heart.

Or at least, care enough about her own brother not to completely fuck them both over. "I don't know much."

He said, quickly using his cane to hobble towards another side of the lab.

"The entire place was completely ransacked. I know they took the gems, but left every invention Kaeden and I have designed. Meaning they likely knew of the gems, but did not understand what else existed here." Amos said, almost analyzing the crime. "The only clue I found was this."

Amos said as he reached another one of the workbenches, pulling out a knife that he had found on the ground. "I believe it must have been dropped."

Even the best thieves made mistakes every now and again.

"Perhaps you can recognize it." He said, slowly hobbling back over towards where Niamh had perched herself.

 

[Niamh]

Shit. He really knew so little of what happened. Her brother wasn't there and would probably be just as little help as Amos was. "What is more important: the gems or the inventions?" She truly did not know. She never asked. She didn't even know what half the stuff in the little room did or did not do. "And how do these gems work? How could they be used to blow up the city?"

She looked at the little knife, studying the intricate design on it. Unfortunately for the both of them, Niamh had never seen it. Still, she held it up to the light for a moment more before pocketing it. He'd find it no use to keep lying around and she could potentially search for the owner or at least the hands that made the delicate thing.

"Have you two had any employees? A disgruntled worker that knew of your gems' power? Do you have any enemies?"

 

[Amos]

"I...I suppose it depends on what you're trying to do." He answered quickly, eager to give Niamh anything that she needed in order to get to the bottom of this. It was obvious, even from his tone of voice, that every nerve in his body was still actively fraying.

"The Gems act as..." Amos said, trying to find the right words through his anxiety. "Storage, for magic."

He did remember explaining this to Niamh before, perhaps she had forgotten? Being a Dreadlord was a tiring affair, and he realized she must obviously have been stressed about this situation too. Otherwise she simply would have remembered! Or so Amos naively thought. "Utilizing this machine."

Amos pointed to a comically small golden like plate upon one of the workstations.

"The Crystals collect ambient magic, holding it in extremely elaborate...circuits within the gem itself." The Scientist continued. "This may not sound dangerous in it of itself, but the all the Gems that were stolen had been fully charged for my experiments tomorrow. The power within one of them if released is strong enough to destroy a building."

Meaning, if they used all of the crystals at once it was possible to take out a whole city block, or perhaps a small town. "Enemies? I'm a scientist Niamh! I don't have any enemies ju-"

For a brief moment, his face paled as if a realization struck him.

"There was a...there was a man here a few weeks ago." He said with a frown. "He wore a Dreadlord's coat, but he seemed in shambles...He asked for some of our crystals, and when we denied him began to shout and scream that we were denying him...Kaeden had to call for security."

 

[Niamh]

"Hmm." Niamh twisted a ring on her finger, one made of whichever of the crystals her brother had deemed to be imperfect for their purpose, but perfect enough as a gift for her birthday. She glanced over at the golden plate while he explained it all- the same way Kaeden had last time she asked him about it. "And how would one release this power?" She mused, still looking painfully bored as she moved to inspect her nails.

But before she had the answer she sought, one that Kaeden had yet to explain to her, she looked up to see Amos. Standing there, he looked like he had seen a ghost. She scanned his memory as he mentioned a man. Not a man, a dreadlord. His memory yielded little more than his mouth. Indeed, the man wore a coat with the Dreadlord symbol plastered on it. His face was blurred, Niamh realized as she watched him through Amos' eyes.

God if Kaeden had been here...One of them had to have gotten a better look at his face. Hearing his voice was no better. "Explain more to me what he looked like. Hair color, eye color...did he have any unique features?" And why the fuck would someone with magic need manufactured power?

 

[Amos]

Amos’ face twisted slightly, though only out of embarrassment. Though he did not want to admit it, this exact scenario was what his detractors at the Academy had screamed about. This technology getting out Into the world was extremely dangerous. That had always been true, but he'd naively thought that he could keep it safe, that this wouldn't be an issue.

Now here he was, faced with the truth. ”There are a number of ways.”

Amos admitted.

”Magic, percussion, even cutting off a piece of the gem could be disastrous.” The young scientist cursed himself as he stifled yet another cough. Wishing that he'd installed a proper vault to keep the gems inside. This was his fault, he knew, but confronting that fact made a pit form in his stomach. ”The results would differ, but even throwing one of the crystal against the ground would create an explosion enough to take out a city block.”

The scientist said, cringing at the thought as he shook his head and considered the conjuring Niamh was bringing forth. His eyes squeezing shut as he tried to remember some of the errant Dreadlord's features.

It was a dim memory, barely a wisp and only recalled because of the odd trauma it had struck. He could not remember the man's face, but…

”His hair was dark. Eyes were…green, no, blue…” Amos could remember the stabbing intensity within them. ”He…he had a scar on his neck. A vicious looking thing. It reminded me of…of…”

He swallowed, another unpleasant memory flickering to mind. ”A gutter smile.”

Amos said, recalling the marr which was common within his home of the Anirian Slums. A scar created by raking the edge of a knife over someone's throat, slowly cutting and folding the skin along the knifes edge to create a brutal mark upon the flesh.

 

[Niamh]

Niamh sighed again. Each word that left Amos' mouth making things so, so much more complicated than even she could have predicted. She pulled her hand to her face, rubbing the bridge of her nose in frustration. "I would like to say I am surprised to know that neither of you has taken any precaution in making sure that these crystals remain where they are safe..." She shook her head and laughed. A cold, unamused laugh. "But I know my idiot of a brother would never have planned for this." Amos, however...She was disappointed that he hadn't suggested to prepare for thievery.

She gestured around at the destroyed shop.

His description of the man was of little use to Niamh. She couldn't make out his features in Amos' memory. It was as if Amos forgot them in a panic...or the man had covered his tracks. As if the man knew the sister of one of his victims. Knew she could read minds, see memories, see who this piece of shit was that decided to turn her life into hell.

"Who knows about these crystals? Guards? The Academy?" Niamh seemed to pick up her pace, sensing urgency as she realized just how quickly this could all go to shit if they sat on their asses. "Unless you have any idea of this man's target, I'd suggest you get people evacuating before you end up with their blood on your hands." She paused, thinking for a moment about that scar. "Is there anything that can shield against the power in these crystals?"

 

[Amos]

Amos flinched, but he shook his head in dismay.

Niamh was perfectly right of course, the two literal geniuses should have realized that someone would come after what they had made. It was foolish, but the truth was they had been blinded by ambition and optimism. Believing so much in their project that they thought they couldn't be stopped. A truth, of course, that now seemed little less than imaginary.

"Ah...that's...the problem." Amos said with a slight frown.

"The Guard knows now, the nobility...a dozen more." News was spreading fast, and there was little doubt that it would spread even more as Kaeden and Amos peddled their inventions. The locomotive alone would explode their business ten fold, and beyond that demand would surge. "The inventions have become quite famous."

He explained to Niamh. "News spread quickly, and now..."

Now there was trouble.

"If I can get the crystals, they can be made inert." He said quickly, reaching out and grabbing a device from a nearby table. "But...I need to get to them first."

Which was why he had called her.