Secret Lab

"Terry?" Rolas asked.

"You named it?" Zeeth was more surprised, "Also, I forgot about it! Is it still there??"

"Crap, we better go back!" Page began running back in the direction of the Trickling Tree and the other two followed. Rolas noticed all her students running away from her and was shocked. She at first didn't want them but now that they were running from her first lesson, like no other has, she was infuriated and shocked. The annoyance bubbled up and she charged after them.

They all arrived at the old warehouse, the doors were still locked up and guarded with melted greystone, no one seemed to have tampered with that. They busted in after melting those off and noticed a thick cloud of purple haze near the floor.

"What is that?" Zeeth asked over his hands which were covering his face.

"Black magic residue," Rolas answered. "But where is it coming from? I didn't notice any coming from the sky… wait, there's a crack in the floor! It's rushing out from there."

"Should we cover it up?"

"No, it's not that harmful to us in such small densities." Page explained. "It's also helping out Terry over there."

They all looked at where he was looking and finally saw the glimmering Trickling tree standing in the middle of a bunch of glowing Lumos gems being kept alive by the constant splashing of water. Its eyes were closed and all the leaves seemed to have been spread out as far out as possible, creating something of a sphere around it. The leaves were now a bright yellow color, the trunk seemed like a properly aged, strong tree. The bark was black and dark, but the roots were no better than yesterday, still pearly white. It looked like it was doing some kind of meditation as the purple haze was rapidly pulled into the leaves.

All the water it had been sitting in had been turned from light blue to clear once again.

"Such an old tree...it must be about 100 years old, where did you find one?" Solas walked closer to the tree, not noticing the roots and reaching out to touch a leaf before stopping herself and pulling back.

"We...found it here." Page said. Gror and Zeeth looked at him but he just shook his head, letting them know they shouldn't tell her that they grew it yesterday. He silently communicated that it would be a bad idea and the other two understood.

"Wait, what happened to the roots?" she finally looked down and saw how white they were.

"We're not sure either."

"It looks like there's something wrong with the connection between the trunk and the roots, something isn't going through. Did you cut that other root off?"

"No, it just kinda fell off on its own."

"No wonder. It's not running away which is a good sign."

Page seemed to have figured out what was going on a little and said, "why don't we just leave it here for a bit and let it grow. I think the roots will change eventually. I mean, what else are you gonna do with it?"

"But doesn't some other company want to demolish this place?" Zeeth suddenly remembered.

"Well, depending on who it is and what they want it for, I think we can buy it from them for maybe 2000 styrs. It's a lot for now but I think it's worth the money, we can hide the kids here as well."

"I don't know, we're gonna be leaving soon after learning black magic, right?" Zeeth said, "then I just don't see a point in buying it, what if the kids are found out after we leave? How will they feed and protect themselves? Are we going to take care of all their bosses and help the kids?"

"Then we can sell the place."

"What about the kids."

"We'll figure it out later but they've lived their whole lives stealing, they can get around. Besides, we have until the end of the month to destroy it so we'll talk about it then."

"More importantly, where is this black magic residue coming from?" Rolas interrupted, "it's coming from so far down that I can't even sense the source, some serious black magic must've been used to create this much thick residue so far away."

"Let's go find it." Zeeth charged up a fist and hit the ground. A few gems sprouted out from the crack to push it open.

"No, that could be dangerous," Rolas said just as he did that.

"Then what do you suggest."

"I don't know. I guess this is the most direct way there but you have no clue what's down there."

"Then we'll dig this way." Zeeth kept digging down again, widening the hole by continuously growing and breaking gems.

"Wait, none of you guys even know black magic, are you sure you'll be alright?"

"We're strong enough, don't worry." Page began digging at the hole with his own earth magic too. "Besides, I know it. It's just these guys don't and they need to learn it from you, I suck at teaching."

They kept digging until about 50 feet deep until Rolas stopped them by saying, "wait, I can begin to feel the source more clearly. It's from a small room, it seems to have mixed with some liquids and muddled the mana, I can't tell who made this from here. I can create a long slide from here, stand back."

The three of them moved away from the hole as she placed her hand on the crack that they had been digging at. The residue near her hands turned a moldy brownish green that clung onto the dirt leading down. Steam began coming out of the dirt as the hole widened. The dirt was being eaten away at, slowly digging away into a smooth, large slide. She stopped when it was enough for one person to go down at a time.

"I'll go first, follow along if I don't sound like I'm dying." and with that, she jumped down the slide. They stood, waiting for a few seconds, staring down the black hole. The sound of her sliding slowly dimmed out. Page created a large bubble of mana, dense enough for them to sit on. "Why didn't she just wait? I could've created a pillow to bring us down…"

"Oooh, how did you do that?"

"It's a complicated process I learned myself, you shouldn't try right now. If you mess up it could create a massive mana explosion, very difficult to stabilize."

"From the past?" Zeeth said, mysteriously, referring to the future that he had come from.

"Yup." Page responded, understanding what he meant. "The past. Now hop on."

The three of them jumped on their own respective bubbles, it felt like their feet were stepping on a soft blanket being held up by air beneath it, sinking straight in, it gave the illusion of falling straight through but the magic pillows stood strong. Page had them get in first and in followed after. They seemed to be dropping for ten minutes before getting out, popping out in a small room filled with a hazy purple fog. Spilled liquids, a half bitten heart, sliced up bodies and broken glass and computers strung the entire area.

Bloody footsteps walked around the room, the only light sources were the glowing liquids in a few of the broken and intact jars and containers, also spilled on the floor. Rolas noticed a sizzling foot that was slowly being eaten away at. She picked it up and sliced off the smoking part which dropped to the floor and exploded in a mini-explosion.

Page walked around, feeling the walls, "I don't see any kind of entrance, not even a teleporter or doorway. Wait," he stopped in front of a wall that looks no different from any other. He held there, pushing his hands against the wall. After a few minutes of standing, a small oval the height of an average person was pushed in. "this is a very complex lock for a secret entrance, someone very good worked on this."

"It's a government facility, I've heard about these." Rolas stared at the bitten heart connected to a few computers, "these are top secret almost no one knows about them. I almost believed them to be myths themselves, but I wouldn't put these past our higher-ups. It looks to me like they are trying to create some kind of artificial life, making a living thing out of dead parts." she picked up a notebook that had been fortunately spared from the destruction (unlike many others), reading it, "And it seems they got very far, they predict in a few more years they will be able to create a mutant rat."

Gror shuddered, "This is so creepy."

"What should we do?"

"Some people might be here soon to check on them, we should either leave and act like we have nothing to do with this or try and report it to them."