Misplaced Experiments

A tapping sound echoed through the otherwise quiet chamber, the sound radiating from thin, pale skinned fingers drumming on the arm of a wooden chair. Each sound wave bounced off bare stone walls, seeming to become drastically louder upon their return. The space was dark and still. Only a single torch, residing far from the source of the ceaseless noise, was lit. The fact that her eyes had adjusted to the point that she could see clearly that space in the distance was the only hint the Sin’dorei acknowledged to how long she had sat, silent and unblinking, staring at that empty, dimly lit corner. A cold, sharp pain was radiating up from her abused fingertips. Something brought this to the front of her mind, making her keenly aware of it. The tapping stopped for a moment; the delicate hand with its bruised fingertips and long, elven digits came to rest on the arm of the chair. The wood, worn from years of regular use, felt smooth and oddly comforting beneath her palm. She took a sip from the glass she held in her other hand, green, glowing eyes continuing to stare over the rim at that corner. The cage was still empty. She had gazed at it for hours, but that had not changed the fact that it was empty. Pursing her lips, she pressed one finger against the soft flesh of her mouth in a thoughtful gesture. A deep inhale filled her lungs. She let the breath out slowly, almost cautiously. The tapping resumed.

Where could they be? The red haired elf had not the slightest clue. No one, to her knowledge, had ever found a way into the lab without permission. Once, but only once, an intruder had gotten in the front door to the reception area, but never into the actual lab. It was even more unthinkable that a test subject might actually get out. It was not as if these two were exceptional subjects. They were virtually mindless. If they had really run away then they had less thought than she had imagined. Only the utmost care and constant upkeep kept them alive. Stupid creatures would never survive without aid. The elf lifted all but one finger off the arm chair, tapping only the single fingernail against the surface for a moment.

But they had seemed almost devoid of thought. They could not have planned such an escape, surely they were stolen. She took another sip of her wine. Yet, no one knew they were there, barring the two House members who had fetched them in the first place and she. Really, it was only her that knew they were still alive. No sign of forced entry was visible. The locks were all intact. Her research notes, sparse and nearly unreadable as they might be, had not been disturbed. They could not have been stolen, could they? She set her wine glass down and crossed her legs. No, of course not, but people did not simply disappear either.

The light fabric of her robe smoothed itself in her lap without assistance. She liked this robe for that. It was low maintenance. At times like this, such things often went unnoticed, only to be appreciated later when the crisis had passed. Oddly, this time she noticed and was thankful. Small comforts were what made terrible things bearable, and this was a terrible thing. Of a score of test subjects, it was only this pair that she had managed to keep alive, much less get promising results from.

If she were to be truly honest with herself, they were the only pair she had really gotten any results from. It had been weeks of experimentation to find the right balance and, beyond that, it seemed that the two souls had to be kindred spirits in some sense to get anything other than instant rejection by the host and death to both bodies. If she had learned nothing else, she had come to understand that the flesh can not truly live if the soul is not intact. She was many things, but a necromancer she was not, and a corpse was useless to her at this point. Her hand moved to her face, the fingers drumming lightly on her cheek.

The truth of the matter was simple, how they had ended up missing was irrelevant, or, at least, not of immediate consequence. The far more important thing was to find them and get them back, preferably alive, but, if all else failed, corpses only spoke on rare occasions. Her notes would be all but useless to anyone else, the Sin’dorei’s paranoia regarding the writing down of such incriminating evidence coming in handy for once, and without them, should the subjects fall into less than desirable hands, they would not last long. Still, it was already bad enough that they were missing. She should keep all related notes and material on her person from now on. A good researcher in the dark arts could possibly figure out a good deal of what she now knew with a bit of experimentation. She would not increase that risk by leaving the bits she had scribbled down out for the taking.

That would simply have to be the next step. They had to be recovered. Everything else would have to be dealt with in time, and it would most certainly be necessary to discover how such a thing could have happened, but, for now, they simply had to be brought back. The elf closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Her legs unfolded and she rose gracefully from the chair, reaching for the leather bound book on the shelf beside her that held all of her charts and snippets of information in the same motion. Above it she found the small journal in which the original notes of the case she had been seeking to emulate where held. She tucked both neatly into her pack, slinging it over her shoulder in one fluid motion. Those two had to be recovered. Quiet contemplation was not what was called for now. Now was the time to act.