Chapter 7: The Alchemist's Gambit

Chapter 7: The Alchemist's Gambit

The journey back from the Rust Belt was a descent into a maelstrom of thought. The sterile, controlled quiet of Elara’s mag-lev pod was a stark contrast to the chaos Rhys’s ultimatum had unleashed in her mind. His words echoed, a desperate bargain wrapped in a city-shattering threat. Find a cure, or prepare to sanitize a war. It wasn’t a choice between right and wrong, but between two different kinds of catastrophe: the cold, calculated extermination promised by Valerius, or the uncontrolled, starving chaos of the Hollows.

Her job was to restore order, to scrub the scene clean and file a report. Rhys was offering her a chance to clean the source of the problem itself. It was an unprecedented, unsanctioned, and utterly insane proposition. It was a Janitor’s gambit, and it was the only option that didn't feel like a complete surrender.

The vial of crystalline dust in her shielded pocket felt heavier now, no longer a piece of evidence but a seed of terrible potential.

When she stepped back into the violet-lit corridors of the Guild, the oppressive order felt different—fragile. She saw the other Janitors moving with their quiet efficiency and saw them not as colleagues, but as potential obstacles. Every rule she had once upheld as a shield now felt like a cage.

“Vance.” Silas’s gruff voice cut through her thoughts like a file on stone. The quartermaster stood by the main archives, his wrinkled face set in a permanent scowl of suspicion. “Took you long enough. Lord Valerius has been… inquiring. Sent three communiques in the last hour. He’s getting impatient for your final report on the Eclipse Tower incident.”

The pressure was already mounting. Valerius wasn't going to let this go. “The scene was complex,” Elara said, her tone meticulously neutral. “Anomalous energy signatures required a broader sweep of the surrounding district for potential contaminants.” It was a perfect piece of Guild jargon, technically true and revealing nothing.

Silas grunted, his eyes narrowing. “Just see that your report doesn’t take so long the Covenant decides to file one on us. The brass is already on edge.” He knew she was holding something back; his instincts were as sharp as any alchemical scalpel. But without proof, all he had was suspicion.

Elara gave a curt nod and continued to her personal analysis alcove, the quartermaster's distrustful gaze a physical weight on her back.

Inside her sanctuary, she locked the reinforced door. The half-finished antique clock on her workbench seemed to mock her. Its intricate, predictable mechanics were a world away from the alien biology she was now entangled with. She ignored it, focusing on the real challenge.

She placed the vial back into the Chronomantic Resonance Spectrometer, but this was no longer a simple analysis. This was a dissection. Rhys’s words had given her a crucial piece of the puzzle: the dust was a byproduct of their feeding, of the forced, violent transfer of life energy. A metabolic waste. But as she had seen in her lab, it was a waste product that reacted to stimulus. It was hungry, just like its creators.

She initiated a new series of tests, bypassing the standard identification protocols. This was pure alchemy, the art of transmutation and potential. One by one, she introduced small, controlled bursts of different energy types into the spectrometer's containment field.

First, a micro-charge of raw electricity. The dust flared, the cobalt-blue light pulsing brightly, absorbing the charge completely. The console showed a brief, intense spike in energy before it zeroed out. The dust had eaten the lightning.

Next, a kinetic pulse. The result was the same. The dust shimmered, stabilized, and absorbed the force.

Finally, she unsealed a canister containing a trace amount of psychic resonance—the captured emotional echo of a violent poltergeist manifestation she’d cleaned last year. She fed the intangible energy into the field. The effect was immediate and startling. The dust didn't just glow; it seemed to awaken. The cobalt light swirled like a miniature galaxy, the crystals themselves vibrating at a high frequency, emitting a low, harmonic hum. It was the "song of terrible thirst" the Ghoul Matron had described, but now it sounded different. Not just hungry, but… responsive.

A theory began to crystallize in her mind, as sharp and brilliant as the dust itself. The Hollows were null-entropic, a biological black hole that drained energy. Their bodies couldn't produce their own vital essence. But what if this byproduct, this crystalline dust, was the key? Not just waste, but a catalyst. A battery that had been violently discharged.

"If the thirst is a constant negative," she murmured to herself, her fingers flying across the console, pulling up molecular models and arcane energy matrices, "then you don't need to fill the void. You just need to introduce a stable, positive charge."

It was a daring, alchemical gambit. She couldn’t cure them, not without understanding the fundamental disaster that created them. But she might be able to feed them. She could theoretically use the dust as a base, bonding it with a nutrient-rich, magically charged solution. A synthetic sustenance. A magical saline drip that would satisfy the thirst without requiring a living victim. It would be a temporary fix, a leash on their curse, but it would be enough to honor Rhys’s bargain. It would stop the killing.

Excitement warred with dread. The theory was sound, but the components required were another matter entirely. She pulled up the Guild’s restricted materia medica archives, her clearance codes granting her access to the most dangerous and controlled substances known to the supernatural world.

She began to build her list.

• Quiescent Spirit Essence: To provide a stable, "soul-empty" life-force mimic.
• Lyrium-stabilized Silver: To act as a magical bonding agent.
• Petrified Fae Bloom: For its unparalleled ability to hold and slowly release arcane energy.

Each item was more heavily regulated than the last. Acquiring them would require requisitions signed by the Guildmaster himself, with justifications that would invite impossible questions. She keyed in a preliminary search query for Fae Bloom, her heart pounding a heavy rhythm against her ribs.

An instant later, a crimson warning flashed across her screen. ACCESS DENIED. UNUSUAL ARCHIVAL INQUIRY FLAGGED. PLEASE AWAIT SUPERVISOR.

The door to her alcove chimed. A calm, authoritative voice cut through the speaker. "Vance. Open this door."

It was Guildmaster Thorne.

Elara’s blood ran cold. She hastily wiped the query, but it was too late. The system had already logged it. Taking a steadying breath, she deactivated the lock.

Guildmaster Thorne was a tall, severe man whose grey jumpsuit was as immaculate as his trimmed beard. His eyes, the colour of a winter sky, missed nothing. He stepped into her lab, his gaze sweeping over the active spectrometer, the complex equations on her console, and the faint, residual cobalt glow emanating from the test chamber.

"Your official report on the Eclipse Tower incident is three hours late," he began, his voice dangerously quiet. "Lord Valerius is threatening to lodge a formal complaint of obstruction against the Guild. And my system alerts me that you are attempting to access materials related to soul-transference and high-level energy binding. Explain yourself, Janitor."

The moment had come. The lie had to be perfect.

"My apologies, Guildmaster," she said, her voice a pinnacle of professional calm. "My investigation of the scene revealed a novel energy signature. My theory is that the perpetrator is using a catalytic agent to… dissolve its victims. I was cross-referencing materials that could produce such an effect to better identify our threat."

It was a brilliant half-truth. She was framing her unsanctioned research as part of the official investigation.

Thorne stared at her for a long, silent moment, his expression unreadable. He walked over to her console, his eyes scanning the lingering traces of her work. He was no fool; he was one of the sharpest minds in the Guild.

"A catalytic agent," he repeated slowly. "An interesting, if highly speculative, theory. And one that puts you at odds with the Covenant's preliminary assessment of a 'new breed of feeder'." He turned to face her fully. "You are walking a very fine line, Vance. I will allow you to continue your… research. For now. But your priority is the official report. Give Valerius something to placate him. And know that your work is now under formal review."

He paused at the door. "Remember your oath. We do not choose sides. We do not pass judgment. We sanitize. The Guild's neutrality is our shield. Do not mistake it for a sword."

The door slid shut, leaving Elara alone in the sudden, deafening silence. She had bought herself time, but at the cost of being placed under a microscope. Her official channels were closed. Thorne would be watching her every move.

She looked at the partial list of components still visible on a secondary screen. There was no way to acquire them through the Guild now. Her gambit, her promise to Rhys, seemed impossible.

But the Guild was not the only source for rare and dangerous things in Umbra City.

Her decision was made. If she couldn't get the components legally, she would have to turn to the one place where neutrality was a commodity and everything had a price. She would have to venture into the city’s black market.