Eldritch Guidance

More than one and always two

Forever more beyond your view

Cometh summer to winters breath

Celebrate life to fear coming death

Blacken lands of soot and fire

Tell of ancient stories prior

Misty future, forgotten past

Eternity that never last

Cold chill to the warm embrace

What is life will one day lie

On that day one will cry

Chant of dancing liars bones

Deep beneath the dirt and stones

Corrupted words lead to sin

Change everything that has always been

Forbidden Secrets in the dark

Desire more two will embark

What is death cannot die

Hope or Doom is always nigh

Must be two like sun and moon

Less than two is to be out of tune

Sing they will of forgotten age

The story of the final page

Kindness of death and cruelty of life

Covered eyes to back with knife

Sadness come to carry on

One will now carry dawn

Always more than one

Now less than two

—Ancient Giants Poem “The Sisters”

Two weeks had passed since Jafar made the discovery of chemicals in people's blood. During the afternoon, In one of the study rooms in the library at Graheel university, was Alan and his two friends Jafar and Sere sitting around a table. Jafar was on the one available computer in this room while Sere was going through stacks of books.

Alan was looking off into space with a dead look in his eyes.

Alan: “I’m so fucked.”

Today was the final day of exams. Alan had just finished writing his exam a few hours ago and was in a complete state of dread over it. He felt that he bombed on that last written test he did.

Jafar: “Well, maybe you should have studied more,” he said while he was typing away at the computer.

Alan: “It was that damn class on giants. Like, really. When are we ever going to need to know weird ancient giant poems?”

Jafar: “Giants are a very old and powerful race. They still live on this continent too. So, I can see the importance of learning about them a little.”

Alan: “But why their poetry? Like that strange poem ‘The Sisters’, the one doesn't rhyme well.”

Jafar: “Actually, as I understand. It supposedly rhymes really well in the original language of the giants.”

Alan: “Whatever. I still hate that it came up on my test. Like, one of my questions was to describe the meaning of that poem, but I thought poetry was subjective. So, how am I supposed to know the meaning of it?”

Jafar: “That poem was about duality and impermanence. It’s kinda obvious.”

Alan: “Then why call it ‘The Sisters’”

Jafar: “Huh?”

Alan: “If it’s really about duality, wouldn't it make more sense to name the poem something like, ‘The Siblings’. A brother and a sister make more sense about duality than sisters. Also, there is nothing resembling anything like a sister in that poem.”

Jafar: “I don’t know, man. Giants are cryptic and weird. Also, that is something you should know, not me,” he said in an accusatory way directed at Alan. “I’m not the one that had to write an exam on giants.”

Sere: “Are you two going to help me? I know both of you have already written your last exam, but I haven't. I only have three more hours to study before I have to go write mine,” she said, slightly annoyed by her friend's banter.

Alan: “Sorry, Sere. You're right. Pass me one of those books and I'll grill you with some questions to help you prepare.”

Sere: “Are you going to help, Jafar?” she said, as she passed a book to Alan.

Jafar: “I’ll help after I finish what I'm doing,” he said while typing away on the computer mounted on the table.

Sere: “What could you possibly be looking up on that computer? You already wrote all your exams.”

Jafar “I'm going through the student registry.”

Sere: “Why?”

Jafar “I needed a computer that had direct access to the university network to access the registry.”

Sere: “No, I mean why are you looking through the student registry.”

Jafar “I'm trying to see if I can find that guy Alan suspects is murdering people. The registry has a picture of every student here at the university.”

Alan: “Huh? You were the most dismissive when I first brought that guy to your attention.”

Jafar: “That was before the formaldehyde situation, and everything else. I was wrong and you were right.”

Alan: “Come again?” he said In absolute shock.

Alan wasn't used to Jafar admitting he was wrong, but especially not him admitting that Alan was right over him. Alan knew Jafar was very intelligent and often deferred to his friend's opinion on most academic matters.

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Jafar: “I said I'm wrong and you were right. It didn’t stop at Edward or the Gilded Sun like you said. Since Edward's death, there have been four more ‘accidental’ deaths bringing the body count total to five. Of the four additional people to die, only one of them belonged to the Gilded Sun. The other three were a Grayscale student, a Lionheart student, and a Silverwing student that fell in front of Seres' friend.”

While Alan and his friends were studying for their exams, more deaths had occurred. The many mysterious deaths were starting to cause problems for the university. Worry was starting to develop amongst the students and some were even starting to wonder if all these deaths were accidents. Too many people were randomly dying.

Sere: “Even if Alan is right, why are you searching for this guy? You said it yourself, we can’t do anything even if we know what's going on.”

Jafar: “When I said that, I thought it was possibly noble families infighting with each other. Maybe someone in those rich families paid to have some noble family son killed, or something like that. But, now I think it’s much more serious than that.”

Sere: “Would a noble family really do that? “

Jafar: “Oh yeah. There are stories of noble families in the past wiping out nations because they felt slighted.”

Sere: “That kind of stuff happened like a thousand years ago. I’m not sure how relevant that is nowadays.”

Jafar: “Regardless of what I thought it was then, it doesn't matter now. No one in charge is doing anything about what is going on. You have professors like Black and Patariki trying to cover things up from fear of scandal, instead of properly looking into this. Then you got the police and enforcers sitting around doing nothing. Don’t you want to do something about this, Alan?”

Alan: “I mean, yeah, but what are we supposed to do? “

Jafar: “We gotta find proof. That’s the only way. Then we gotta bring it to someone like Headmistress Jenna or the police. Maybe we even bring it to Edward’s brother Johannes at the Arcane Eye college.”

Sere: “Why Headmistress Jenna?”

Alan: “Also, who is that again? And why would we bring it to Edward's brother?”

Jafar: “She is the dean of the Gilded Sun college. The one who is in charge of that college faculty members and professors. She sits on the university board and holds the most authority at the university along with the six other headmasters. She seems to be the only one doing anything. She was the one that tried to get Professor Patariki to do an autopsy on Edwards body. Also Edwards' brother, Johannes Scefer, is a famous honor student in the Arcane Eye college and would have some pull, he could possibly do something with enough proof.”

Alan: “Huh, OK. I guess that makes sense.”

Sere: “Wait a minute, I thought that you didn’t like the Gilded Sun, and now you want to go to their headmaster for help.”

Jafar: “Whether I like them or not doesn't matter, as long as we can stop this murderer.”

Alan: “Ok... So, how’s that search through the registry going?” he said, trying to change the topic.

Jafar: “Not great. The guy I'm looking for had the uniform of the Shroom Pact student. I'm looking at the student registry of that college. Unfortunately, Shroom Pact has the largest number of students, so it’s difficult to find this guy in the registry when I don't know his name.”

Sere: “Oh, wow. How many students are in that college?”

Jafar: “I believe there are at least 55,000 active students.”

Sere: “Jafar, that's going to take you forever!”

Jafar: “I know, but I have to do it… for you,” he mumbled.

Sere: “Me? What are you talking about? I didn’t ask you to do this.”

Jafar: “No, I mean… let me explain.” he stopped typing away from the computer and turned to Sere. “I looked into the background of the people killed, trying to find if any of them were connected to each other. I didn’t find any clear connection between them, but I did find something else.”

Both Alan and Sere stopped what they were doing and focused their attention on what Jafar was about to say. The atmosphere around Jafar turning a little more serious.

Jafar: “Every person that has died had some sort of connection to a person of influence. The Gilded Sun students that died were obviously connected to powerful noble families. Then there was the Grayscale student they found dead, his father was a supreme court judge here in Golgotta, then the Lionheart student was someone sponsored by a famous military general, and finally the silverwing student that died was the niece of an Archbishop. These were all students that were all somehow related to powerful people.”

Sere: “Ok, but what does that have to do with—” she stopped mid sentence as she realized something with a shocked expression.

Jafar: “Yeah, your uncle is the chief of police here in Graheel.”

Sere Lockheart was the niece of Murdock Lockheart. He was the head chief of the police department, and a man of some fame around Graheel. Murdock had risen into his position as the police chief after the previous chief was murdered during the Bloody Days event. Once he took the position, he greatly de-escalated the situation and ended the Bloody Days almost single-handedly. This gave him a large degree of respect and authority in some circles around the city. He would definitely be considered as a person of influence like Jafar was saying.

Alan: “Wait, do you really think Sere will be the next target? All cause of her uncle.”

Jafar:“I don’t know. The only connection I could find between them all was the fact they all knew someone influential. That’s why I'm worried about Sere with her uncle. Sere, you're one of my best friends. I..I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Alan: “Don’t worry we’re not gonna let anything happen to her.”

Jafar: “Right, that’s why we need to do something. We need to find evidence and stop this guy.”

Sere: “Whoa whoa, calm down there boys. I’m not a helpless maiden. I can look after myself and don’t need protection.”

Alan: “I know you're not helpless. Just want to look out for you. Also, no one would ever mistake you for a maiden.”

There was a painful pause in the air after Alan said that. Sere, with a smile that hid her anger, slowly picked up one of the thicker books in front of her. In one quick motion, so fast that one might miss it if they blink, she threw the book square at Alan's forehead with a loud smack.

Alan: “Ahhg!” He yelled out while grabbing his forehead as the book bounced off it. “T-this is what I'm talking about! A maiden wouldn’t be so violent!”

Sere: “CAN IT!” she said sternly, with a death stare that could scare a ghost. “Or, I can beat your ass like I did when we were kids.” she said angrily.

When they were younger, Sere would do practice fights with Alan and he would get pummeled by her. It was way worse and more brutal for Alan back then, even compared to Cris’s sparring matches he currently did.

Despite Sere’s petite stature and seemingly welcoming nature to those who didn’t know her, she could become quite violent and brutish when she was mad. She was also a competent fighter due to the training she received from her family. Many members of the Lockheart family go into law enforcement or military, so children of this family are trained in combat magic, regardless if they actually do decide to go into law enforcement and become white mages.

Even though Sere went into a college that wasn't combat oriented, she was still far stronger than Alan in a fight, and had the greatest aether control out the people here. She was able to reinforce her physical abilities with aether in less than a second, and then throw that book accurately at Alan's forehead with enough force to leave a clear book shaped dent on him.

If Sere wanted to, she would have made an excellent white mage.

Alan: “S-sorry,” he said, while looking away from Sere, frightened.

Sere took a deep breath. She reeled back her fury, before turning her attention back to Jafar.

Sere: “Is that really the only connection you could find? What about that formaldehyde thing?”

Jafar: “We only know about the two people that had formaldehyde in them when they were found dead. I couldn’t gain access to blood samples of any of the other people that died recently. And, even if I knew for sure they all had formaldehyde in them, I wouldn't even know what to do with that information.” he said as went back to the computer he was working on.

Sere: “Could there be some sort of creature that can mimic people's appearance and has formaldehyde in its blood?”

Jafar: “That… seems unlikely. I don’t think a creature like that exists, and if it did, it would be in the Wildlands far away from here,” he said while typing away.

Sere: “But finding embalming chemicals in people like that isn’t normal. It has to mean something.”

Jafar: “I agree with you, but I don't know what it could mean. Those people were walking around with no sign of that chemical in their blood. If that guy Alan saw was poisoning people with formaldehyde to kill them, then why go out your way to murder them with a planned accident.”

Sere: “Also, not to burst your bubble. But, do we really know that this guy is in the Shroom Pact college? He might not even be a student here and is just disguised as one.”

Jafar: “I…had not considered that,” he said, briefly pausing in thought before going back to typing on the computer.

Sere: “Then you might really be wasting your time right now.”

Alan: “I think there is also something else you guys are missing. What were these people like when they were alive? As we all know, Edward was an ass. The Lionheart student that died, I knew him, and he was also an asshole. He would pick fights with first years and bullied some of the Shroom Pact students until some of the seniors put a stop to it.”

Sere: “Now that you mention it. The Silverwing student that died was also kind of a bitch. I had one interaction with her and she was so stuck up.”

Jafar: “Why does that matter?”

Alan: “I’m just guessing that it could be a motivation.”

Sere: “You think someone is taking these people out because they’re mean?”

Alan: “I don’t know, maybe?”

Jafar: “Hmm, it feels too simple to me. I think a better motivation is—” Jafar cut himself off and immediately stopped typing on the computer, backing away from it in surprise. “Holy shit! That’s him!” he said while pointing at the computer monitor.

Upon hearing that both Alan and Sere moved beside Jafar, to see what he was talking about. Sure enough, on the monitor was the picture of the person Alan had pointed out in the newspaper awhile ago. The person that Alan thinks is the one who was murdering people.

Alan: “Oh, yeah! That's definitely him!”

Sere: “Well I'll be, he really was a student here.”

Jafar: “He’s a senior student of the Shroom Pact college here at the university. It says here, he has residence at the Shroom Pact dorms.”

Alan: “Whoa, really. Does it say which dorm he’s in?”

Jafar: “No, but that still makes it easier to find him. We can ask around the Shroom Pact dorms to figure out where he’s staying and learn a bit more about him. We just gotta figure out how he’s doing these murders and we might be able to stop him.”

Alan looked intensely at the picture of the person he saw before the state almost fell on Edward. His eyes then wandered to the name of the person in the picture.

“Cid Cook, so that’s the name of the person I saw that day.” Alan thought to himself.

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