Hem had seen many locks since childhood. Not your everyday mystic locks—but puzzles. Intricate, maddening puzzles. Even as a uniquely gifted child, he was lured by the wonders of mystica—and who wouldn't be?
Every action they took was an enigma. Every flicker of their power, a mystery. Mystica operated a step beyond mortal comprehension, too advanced for even the most seasoned mystic specialists to fully grasp.
Everyone speculated. No one understood. Not their true purpose—never, not the source of their power, and certainly not their inexplicable bond with humanity.
Why does a king bother with his subjects?
To draw on their power, obviously. Otherwise, why keep conquering?
Why would the mighty ever stoop to care for the weak—unless they needed some menial task done?
But then, why would a god care for a mortal? Why would a mystica show compassion for a wanderer?
Even after everything we've done!?
These scattered truths were classified under the elusive field of the Ways of Mystica—a science that changed with their moods, as flimsy and fluid as their forms. Four whole eras had passed with Wanderers trying to observe, estimate, and eventually use their quirks. But no real theory could be held obsolete.
Of course, Hem eventually realized how absurd his goal was. Solving their mystery would mean solving everything. The entire structure of existence. The very fabric of their reality.
At the ripe age of twenty, Hem gave up on mystica. They were locks he wasn't meant to open. The revelation broke him, shattered what he thought was his identity and his life's purpose. But Hem was not one to linger in despair. He moved on to the next big mystery in Wanderlust: Wanderers.
Unlike Mystica, a Wanderer's choices stayed consistent. Their nature always led to a locked room, and Hem had the master key.
When passion leads you nowhere, you settle for hard work. And Hem, denied the mystica's secrets, fell back on what Aurochs had gifted him: The ability to unlock the secrets hidden within people.
With that key, he opened countless human vaults. Some are still wide open, others are buried under years of silence. And then...
He met a Pyxen.
To call a Pyxen "a cut above" is to undersell the truth. They avoided mystica entirely—yet they were the closest thing to mysticism on Wanderlust.
How do you find a vault if there is none? That was Hem's conclusion, again and again, when it came to the Pyxen race.
He met the Pyxen a few times, each encounter deliberate. Each time, he probed, analyzed, tried to chart their inner depths—but he never got close. Every trail led to disappointment, and eventually, to surrender. He gave up on their lock, too. The only other lock he ever gave up on, besides Mystica.
So when the most self-centered person on all Wanderlust—Orin—took an interest in another being, a Pyxen... That old desire Hem had buried stirred once more. The suppressed urge to understand, to unlock, to solve, resurfaced.
Upon arrival, the crowd was divided into groups based on their travel plans. Thanks to Hem's badge, their group was assigned a separate guide: a six-and-a-half-foot Pyxen who, unusually, wore pants.
Well, pants in the loosest sense of the word. The garment was a chaotic mesh of various mystica sheddings, woven together either in haste or with no reference in mind. The fabric wrapped around the guide's waist, flaring into thick brush-like tufts at the knees. Beneath these tufts, the guide's children clung to his legs, riding along quietly.
Hem assumed the added clothing was to shield his children from the harsh weather. Orin noticed it too, which made Hem immediately worry for the kids' future.
"Such cute children," Orin said, grinning.
Hem nearly choked on air. 'What an open book,' he cringed inwardly.
Later, while their towering guide was busy arranging something, Hem poked Orin. "How long did it take you to notice?" he whispered.
"Too long," Orin whispered back. "What are their names?"
The Pyxen, as expected, maintained a stoic facade—unbothered, unreadable.
Orin, of course, began his assault of curiosity, pestering the guide with a flood of questions aimed at cracking his secrets open like an egg. Hem braced himself for the Pyxen's silence to only deepen—bombarding questions usually did that.
But something strange happened.
Rather than retreating further, the Pyxen began... to soften.
Not because of Orin's skill, but because of his persistence, and the guide's deep affection for his children. Slowly, reluctantly, the barrier thinned.
Seeing an opening, Hem stepped in. If he could wedge his curiosity through the crack Orin had created, maybe he could learn something, too. Helping Orin along the way was just a necessary evil.
"Why don't you have names?" Hem asked, his tone even.
"On Ouroboros, names are a distraction," the guide replied, his voice a deep, vibrating timbre.
Hem caught the flicker of something beneath the surface—an unintended emotional pulse. A tell. And suddenly, he felt it: the screwup. He'd chided Orin earlier, but now it was obvious. He didn't understand how to speak to people. He was great at recognizing patterns—unlocking others like vaults—but when it came to honest, human connection?
He was worse off than Orin.
Connection, Hem thought bitterly.
He tried to reach for something—anything—that might bridge the gap, his mind landing on Lyra Hert.
Her lock was one he'd never cracked either. But her way of speaking… of reaching others—it always worked. Hem couldn't understand her. But maybe… he could imitate her.
"Sometimes…" Hem said, softening his voice with a forced gentleness, "I wish I knew all of your names."
The guide turned slightly, his mouth moving before realising, "Why?" he asked, concern glimmering in his eyes.
'Yes!' Hem cheered inwardly.
"I don't fully understand this market," he admitted. "But that doesn't mean I can't return one day. A decade or two later… maybe just to visit a friend."
"That is a long time to go without speaking to a friend," the guide chuckled. "But I understand. I have a friend who comes every time Zee stops."
"How does that work?" Hem asked, genuinely intrigued.
"It was his idea. He's smart—in the simplest way."
"He waits at a place, and you come to find him?" Hem guessed.
The guide nodded. "Same tree. Every time."
Hem fell quiet. Not because he ran out of questions, but because, suddenly, something about that simplicity struck a little too deep.
"Impressive! You're smart as well," the guide clapped, and his children joined in, their tiny palms echoing with cheer. "You can do the same," he suggested.
"True… I never thought of it. It really is simply genius. Who is—"
"—What if your children get lost?" Orin interrupted, the pace too slow for his taste. "You meet them at…?"
"We can't cross our territory. Don't you know that?"
"No..!" Orin faked a gasp. "Tell me more."
'Don't be so damn obvious, kid!' Hem smacked Orin on the head, hoping his fist would deliver the lesson straight into the kid's neurons. "He has limited access to information. Forgive him."
"What's there to forgive?" The guide's tone was mellow. "Chief always says, Information can be true, yet false, at the same time. Having limited but true information is a blessing."
"We need to meet this chief because—oh!"
Hem smacked Orin again. This time with extra motivation, hoping pain would shut him up for longer.
Their guide halted at the edge of his territory, where they were handed over to a female Pyxen. Usually, the difference between male and female Pyxens was the extra garment covering the chest, but today, Hem noticed something else—a sinister red shimmer dusted across her forehead, precisely at the center of her hair parting.
'Come to think of it, I've never seen a child Pyxen before either,' Hem mused. Something's different going on here.
He waited, letting Orin hammer away at the Pyxen first before stepping in to steer the dialogue toward something useful.
"This sudden stop has messed with a lot of plans," Hem commented casually.
"It sure has," the Pyxen replied with a gentle smile.
A tougher customer, Hem reassessed. He tried a different route. "That red powder… does it signify birth?"
"Yes," she acknowledged. "How did you know?"
Throw enough stuff around and something's bound to hit, Hem thought, hiding his smug smile.
"Does that mean you gave birth recently—or are about to?" the twins asked in unison.
'Can't you see her slim physique?' Hem yelled internally, moving closer to the twins with a clenched fist.
"No," she chuckled. "It's a symbol of two Pyxens coming together."
"None of that relates to birth, though?" Orin asked, one brow cocked in suspicion.
"Think of what happens when a woman and a man become one."
"Ew." Orin shuddered. "Gross."
"What else could that possibly lead to?" Hem finally snapped.
"I was thinking… something along the lines of a phoenix."
The forbidden word hit like a thunderclap. The others froze—except Orin and the Pyxen, who continued without missing a beat.
"Keep up," she warned, her voice dipping into a lower register. "What happened there?" she asked, trying to glean insights from Orin's carefree stroll.
"All of them are scared stiff by that word for some reason," Orin smirked. "Feel free to use that—and the word 'Vinny'—to shut down any pesky Wanderer not from Ouroboros."
"Why would that stop them?" the Pyxen asked—and then quickly covered her mouth, stifling a laugh that threatened to unravel her facade.
She had to stay composed. The image of her tribal chief—Agora—loomed large in her mind, dragging her stale persona back into place.
She blamed the lapse on her hormones. Agora had warned her: during and after childbirth, emotions become harder to tame. But this was the time to bond, to help her newborns internalize their territory, their home within Ouroboros.
"Fear for one. Greed for another," Orin added, snapping her back into focus.
She tried to hold on to her cold, composed mask… but then she looked at the trio—Hem and the twins—still frozen in place, battling an enemy that existed only in their minds. Without realizing it, she asked:
"Why do they fear the Phoenix? It's our symbol of rebirth—their's too."
"For them, it has become a symbol of death," Orin said. "Hence the fear."
"And for you?" she asked.
"A being at the top," Orin shrugged, "that doesn't care if the lowly crawl and spit, or kneel and praise. Either way, they get what they want."
"I suppose…" she nodded, not ready to admit how much sense it made.
"Which means," Orin continued, "neither fear nor devotion will get us what we truly desire."
"One can still praise," she offered, "and receive a land like none other."
"To maintain balance," Orin countered, "something must be lost, for something to be gained."
She paused, then asked the question softly. "How old are you?"
"A forty-year-old stuck in a nine-year-old's body," Orin sighed. "Can't wait to look my age."
"I hope my children grow up slowly," the Pyxen said, casting a glance behind her.
"I wish that for them too," Orin replied, and moved ahead.
As the mist thickened, the Pyxen turned just in time to see Orin vanish into it. Without a word, she slapped the trio's shoulders—breaking their trance—and barked, "Stay here. Count backward from sixty."
Before they could voice a doubt, she vanished, dissolving into the fog.
When she returned, Orin was in her grasp. She reappeared just as the countdown hit ten.
"How long?" she asked Hem.
"Ten seconds," Hem confirmed, heart pounding against his ribs.
"Wow!" Orin exclaimed, holding her hand. He spun around, taking in their surroundings. "That was trippy."
"That…" she gripped Orin's hand tighter, then gestured for the others to huddle closer, "…is the Ouroboros Lure."
She looked into Orin's glowing orange eyes. "Do not go looking for it. After a minute and a half... even a Pyxen can't find you."
Orin kept smiling, the warning skimming past his ears like wind through leaves. "Did anyone come back?"
"No."
"Not even a Pyxen?"
"Can't say," she replied, with a sly smile. "A Pyxen's never been taken. Why aren't you scared of the unknown—of a god?"
"Because if my mere presence threatens them," Orin grinned, his voice dipped in mischief, "then I've already fulfilled my destiny… as their worst nightmare."
To this day, Hem couldn't explain what passed between the Pyxen woman and Orin. The memory of her teaching him the stepping method—a closely guarded Pyxen secret—overwhelmed all logic.
Orin vanished twice while practicing the method, right in front of the group. He wasn't escaping the Lure. He was playing with it. Improving on it, somehow having mastered the dance on his first try, now focused on improving the ancient technique.
When the group transferred to their third guide—an old Pyxen woman held together by stubbornness and string—the second guide simply nodded. A quiet gesture, but layered with depth.
Everything that needed to be said was said in that look.
Telepathy? A silent language? Absolute trust? Hem couldn't deduce. All he knew was that each of their next guides—complete strangers—accepted Orin. Taught him. Passed down what should've been sacred without resistance, as if… as if they'd seen something.
Later, in the hotel, Hem broke the silence.
"How long were we frozen?"
Orin dodged the question by asking another that satisfied his curiosity. "What did you see while petrified?"
Hem hesitated as they walked the long hall up to Jefferson's suite, then gave in. "A screech. Then—darkness."
"Phoe-- 'P' are full of fire, right? Why wasn't there light? Sunlight? Flame?"
"I don't know," Hem muttered, rubbing his cheeks. "I was slapped back to reality."
Orin took that answer with a knowing nod, deciding to keep his secret. The smug ache of not knowing how he'd made the Pyxen crack was soothed by the sight of Hem's frustrated face.
Hem buried his irritation. He'd save it. The horrors behind Jefferson's suite door would do the talking soon enough. That would teach the brat.
"Been inside any crime scenes?" Jorik asked, spoiling Hem's plan by raising caution.
"Some get pretty gruesome," Jorek added.
'Common sense never found them,' Hem muttered. 'Yet somehow, they always find a way to ruin my fun.'
Orin, unbeknownst to others, wasn't listening. His ego had swollen to match his string of recent wins.
"These hands, these eyes—they've delivered monopods. Nothing can faze me," he declared, marching into the crime scene like a royal inspector.
At first glance, Orin shut his eyes and screamed, "Restroom. Now!"
The scent—alive, pungent, and mind-numbing—was enough to sear the scene into memory forever.
Right behind him, the twins barged in, their reaction identical.
"Restroom...!" they yelled, stumbling over each other in a mad dash. They vanished into a room piled high with 'Eleant Grass,' their cries trailing behind.
Orin kicked the door shut with his heel, his entire upper body sprawled across the towering strands.
"Occupied…" he groaned, before retching into the fragrant jungle.
Hem walked in after them, a smug grin curling his lips. The look on his face gave the other Sentinels in the suite the wrong idea about Hem's preferred choice of buzz, but Hem never cared about trifling people's opinions. Guess he was more like Orin in such cases.
A single sweep of the room told Hem what others had failed to uncover in a week and a half.
Misplaced and broken furniture hinted at a struggle—until he saw that the debris formed a near-perfect circle.
That wasn't chaos. It was choreography. A premeditated dance of violence. No happy accident. Not for an Oracle.
He padded across the suite, feeling out the cushioning beneath the carpet. It matched Jefferson's medical requests for softened flooring—but now, Hem saw it for what it was.
A muffler. To silence footsteps. To muffle murder.
A hefty man lay dead near the exit, bloodied footprints trailing from the bedroom. Inside, Mrs. Hope was slumped beside the bed, her skull caved in.
Her lingering presence—faint but pristine—told Hem she hadn't been in the throes of passion. No bruised memories of pleasure. Only an unfinished anticipation.
They were interrupted.
A lover's quarrel gone deadly? No. Not with that clean psychic residue. That meant the violence came after the interruption.
Staged.
Hem crouched beside the bruises. Not defensive wounds. Not emotional frenzy. Purposeful. Inserted after the fact.
'Clever,' he noted silently. 'But not clever enough.'
He scanned the layout. Two rooms. One clear exit.
If it was the husband… this wasn't the original plan. Something made him change. So why? Why pivot in the moment if you had it all prepped in advance?
He turned to question the Sentinels—only to find them distracted.
They were staring at Orin, who emerged from the restroom with his head fully wrapped in 'Eleant Grass,' like some forest-dwelling oracle.
"Don't be shocked," Orin said through the muffled mesh of reeds, his voice echoing bizarrely. "I used the tip."
Eleant Grass: a towering, ribbon-bladed flora that sways like a green ocean across Wanderlust—majestic, sentient, and terrifyingly efficient. Once known to devour anything that touched its base—scraps, bone, or rocks—it now nourishes the land itself, digesting waste and returning essence to the soil.
Its roots grow deep and wild, carving through stone and skeleton alike. Beneath the surface, they form a labyrinth. Some claim the roots whisper if you lie still long enough.
Though once untamable, the sacred intervention of a Mystica—whose name none dare speak—allowed Wanderers to regulate its growth. Now, most settlements use patches as public lavatories. The rich, naturally, pay to tame the mythical grass.
But on Ouroboros—the mountain that shifts, forgets, and lures—Eleant Grass is essential. It anchors memory, home, and even thought. Without it, the mountain might steal your dwelling, erase your name, or seduce your mind away with a whisper.
"How can you even breathe through that?" a baffled Sentinel asks Orin.
"Boy! You aren't smart—are you, Hem?" Orin shoots back.
"Wasn't me who asked," Hem says with a grunt. "Also, not what the other Sentinel meant."
"I can hold my breath for four minutes," Orin proclaims, waddling into the room like a wrapped-up mystic burrito. "After that, I'll be gone for a few more. Then I shall return. And before you ask—I will solve this case with my sense of self." He says and walks straight into a wall with a dull thunk. "Wall detected. Caution, everyone."
"Out," Hem snaps. "And stop contaminating my crime scene."
Orin fumbles for the exit, sliding his palms along the walls. "Contaminate? Do you wear a cone on your head, too?"
"This is what happens when you leave a scene active for too long," mutters another Sentinel.
"For your sake," Hem says without turning, "I hope no one's touched a hair out of place in my scene. If I find one—just one—I'll have your badge before you can say Znox."
"I can't see," Orin calls from the hallway, "but I'd like to thank the brave soul who finally put Hem in his place."
"That would be me," Hem replies, already back in his thoughts.
Just then, the twins emerge from the restroom—each wearing their own ridiculous Eleant Grass headdress.
Hem raises a brow, jabs two fingers through their makeshift masks to poke them in the eyes, and points to the door. "Out. Take that walking weed-ball with you."
While the Twins were occupied by Hem's lecture, Orin's hand brushes against the wall and sinks into a soft, sludgy patch—warm, spongy, and oddly comforting, like cloud-wool spun around a fan. He rubs it between his palms, then scoops a glob and turns to the twins.
"Is that sweet by any chance?" he asks, casually offering it to Jorik.
Jorik blinks. "What 'is' it?"
"A new blend. Secret recipe. I can't get into the details," Orin says, gesturing to the Eleant Grass still wrapped around his head. "Since I can't eat through this... and I need feedback right now... I'm offering it to you. Be a lad."
Jorek, who did see Orin peel it off the wall, stays quiet. Smirking. "It's better on the way down," he adds, egging his brother on.
Jorik squishes the sludge between his fingers, shrugs, and takes a bite. His chewing noises escalate like a performance art piece—gagging, groaning, then humming, lost in flavor.
Hem freezes mid-analysis. His eye twitches. "Why are you still? Move. Out!"
"I've never seen Hem like this," a nearby Sentinel murmurs. "Is it the kid? Is he... his?"
"Wait for it…" Orin raises a finger, holding Hem's fury at bay.
"Disgusting. Yet sweet," Jorik admits, licking sludge from his fingers.
"That's Sparkle residue," Orin says, making a fist. "Too much Luminoth lure smeared on a Zephyra playtoy. Somebody went overboard trying to bait the wrong crowd. Check if the Luminoths are in a sugar-crash coma, and prep for wind. A Zephyra's on the warpath. This?" He gestures grandly at the trashed suite. "This is her tantrum. You don't want to be near here when she returns."
"And you know that how?" an Enforcer asks, all suspicion and puffed-up chest.
"It's not a mess," Orin says, already halfway down the hall. "It's performance. Zephyra rage leaves circular destruction, air-snatched patterns, and guess what? No Zephyra in sight. That means she left angry. Dumb feeder's gonna get hunted. And once the Luminoths wake up? Oh, they'll back him. But getting them to wake up after a dose this strong? Ever tried babysitting drugged-up air-sprites? Nightmare."
Hem, meanwhile, had honed in on the real issue. "Who opened the damn window?" he asks, pointing to a sealed pane.
"This is an open-and-shut case, Lock," a senior Sentinel chimes in lazily.
"Not what I asked." Hem's voice goes cold.
"The window was like that when we arrived," an Enforcer offers.
Hem turns, a thunderhead forming. "Lie again," he says, "and I'll book you for obstruction."
"Who's chewing out who?" Orin whispers, sticking his head back in.
"I think Hem's chewing them," Jorek whispers back.
"You can see," Hem snaps. "Why are you confused?"
"Is there more candy?" Jorik asks, peeking past his grass hood.
"OUT!" Hem stomps, hard enough to rattle the floor. Yet nothing happened, so he yelled louder. "All three of you!"
"These are A-grade gator scales," Orin muttered as he was escorted through the hall. His fingers trailed along the polished wall, tapping with glee. "I could go all out with my experiments in here, and no one would be the wiser."
The officers guiding him exchanged glances—lit up like schoolkids stumbling into a spell-circle—euphoric at the thought.
Hem caught it instantly. Their expressions. Their naivety.
He scowled. 'No... Orin is the oddity. Not them.'
Still, his voice carried disappointment when he addressed the squad. "Leave every piece of crime scene art you've made before you follow them out. If I find out anyone held back, I'll charge you as accessories to murder. Do I make myself clear?"
The room went stiff.
Once they were safely out of Hem's earshot, Orin leaned toward the twins. "Why didn't anyone call Hem out for showing up late?"
The twins looked shocked. "Hem's a legend," said Jorik reverently. "No one questions his process. No matter how unorthodox."
Orin squinted. "Whose dialogue is that?"
"Uhhh…" Jorek hesitated. "Our chief. His wife. Pretty sure our precinct chaplain quoted it last Solstice."
"Bu... how did you!?" The twins looked at each other, puzzled.
"Big words. No 'sir.' And you called him 'Hem' instead of 'Sentinel Lock.' Not your words."
The twins gasped like he'd pulled a Luminoth from his sleeve. "That's brilliant."
"With you—no. For you? Of course." Orin rolled his eyes and moved on. "For an Oracle, Jefferson was dumb. He could afford a suite fitted with Eleant grass, but didn't think to use it to dispose of the bodies?"
The twins started offering theories—bad ones.
Orin waved them off, thinking aloud as he scratched at the building's walls. His nails carved into every imperfection, collecting specks of chilled, compacted soil. "...Lavatory grass running through the building... If so, we should have body parts across the walls."
He stopped. Checked the patterns, theories he had made up during his free time, in his mind—in his Whiskeep—and confirmed the hypothesis.
To his surprise, the twins blinked in sync and nodded. "Hem solved a case just like this—'The Horror House.' A serial killer built walls out of his victims. Skipped the basics. No Aurabark. No Driftsilt Clay. No Skyhusk. Just... layered flesh."
"That's the kind of stupid that takes effort." Orin shook his head.
"Normal people tremble at his mention." Said the twins, shocked by Orin's nonchalant banter. "In the least, don't badmouth him!" They looked around, terrified, as if the walls would relay their insolence to the infamous killer.
Orin brushed past the twins' blatant warnings, focusing on the wrong point. "Pst! normal folk." He said the word like a curse. "Why would I waste perfectly good guesses on them?"
The twins knew it was pointless to get Orin back on track, yet they tried, because this particular information had the potential to grab Orin Mystiq's attention.
The infamous serial killer, who goes by the name 'Ossuary: The Grimhollow Mortarchitect,' was never caught. His twisted form of art, now a memorial for his victims' loved ones, who go to that house, instead of the regular 'Bloomgrave.'
They almost attained Orin's undivided attention, or so they thought, before he declared Wanderers to be stupider than he thought, and the 'Ossuary' an evil they deserved.
"They somehow manage to stoop lower, the cooler they try to sound," Orin said, half distracted.
A faint metallic chime echoed through the air, a rhythmic whisper against the silence of the crime scene. Orin's ears caught the delicate sound, all thoughts of collecting information about Hem from the Sentinels marching out a distant memory, his focus narrowing on the approaching figure.
Top of the staircase, a Quenara emerged—a mystica of ethereal elegance. Its head, crowned by three tiny feathers in the shape of a half-moon, swayed with each step. Its tail, long and sleek, remained tucked behind it, trailing like a silken ribbon as it ascended the final steps.
The moment it crossed the threshold, the 'Chromist' (artist) froze, breath held in reverence. The trio—Orin and the twins—peered inside, eager to witness the Quenara's artistry unfold. The Chromist, moving in quiet synchrony, placed a hollow wooden Veskan—an Ornyx designed to hold and project painted scenes—beside them, settling onto small stools. With a low, melodic chant, they beckoned the Quenara to observe its surroundings.
The Quenara's tail unfurled—slow at first, then with a graceful sweep, expanding into a magnificent arc. Its circular feathers shimmered, each one pulsing with vibrant hues as it absorbed the details of the space. The Chromist wasted no time. From the Veskan, they pulled tiny sticks, dipping them into the creature's plumage. As they traced the surface of the Ornyx, colors lifted into the air, floating like specters, forming a three-dimensional recreation of the scene. Their hands moved with practiced speed, capturing the moment in mere minutes.
But Orin wasn't watching the painting—he was watching the Quenara. His gaze locked onto the four golden, spike-like eyes embedded at the base of its tail. With slow precision, he stepped forward, pressing his fingers against the three half-moon feathers atop its head. He felt for the subtle click beneath his fingertips and chanted a spell.
"Nethervey."
A shudder ran through the Quenara. Its feathers darkened, swallowing color until they became a void—an abyss of pure black.
"Duskmire."
The golden eyes at its tail spun, shifting through hues in rapid succession. The room itself bled into its feathers, as if being devoured by the living canvas. Shadows melted into strokes, details poured into the curling expanse of its plumage, and within seconds, the entire space was etched onto its tail—a painting born in an instant.
Hem was shocked by Orin's single-minded zeal when it came to Mystica. The kid overrode his physical weakness by concentrating all his senses purely on the Quenara. Hem was sure Orin wouldn't feel a baton to the head in this state. Nor would the slight, sinister glow in his eyes dim would dim.
Orin took a final step forward, placing a steady hand against the Quenara's tail. He measured and adjusted the Veskan to fit its dimensions before completing the chant.
"Chromirra."
Like ink drawn from a well, the painting surged out of the Quenara and onto the Ornyx, sealing itself within. In mere moments, the crime scene had been captured, preserved, and stored—not by human hands, but by the artistry of a Mystica, turning paint into an illusion so lifelike that even Hem's discerning eye struggled to tell the difference.
"How did…" stuttered a Chromist.
"A little gift from our great, great—great ancestors," said Orin. "For some reason, we kept getting dumber—"
"—Okay, that's enough." Hem picked up Orin, who was about to hurl all over the portrait.
"But my way is much faster," argued Orin.
"There are many reasons we do things the new way. Also, you were about to contaminate my crime scene."
Orin scans the destroyed room and pulls his eyebrows together. "No one can outdo this..."
Hem dropped Orin onto the twins. "Figure it out—out here. Go and find the Ray driver. I hear he's in Ouroboros since the incident." He ordered the twins. "This troublemaker is tagging along," he finished, slamming the door shut.
"There is something wrong with the portrait!" Orin didn't lie; his spell must have gone wrong, or he had hurried the process.
He banged at the door, demanding one tiny peek. Yet Hem assumed he was lying and never opened the door.
Intrigued and somewhat intimidated by Hem's speed, the other Sentinels waited to ambush the twins outside the hotel. All their requests and demands were declined—until Orin convinced the twins to hand over their personal notes instead, since they were "super personal."
This way, they didn't have to betray Hem's trust and got to walk away with their badges.
"Thanks, kid," said the oldest Sentinel among them. "And please, call me Terrance. Don't be threatened by my rank—we're friends from now on." He expected Orin to be impressed by the number of stars on his badge, but swore the kid had dozed off somewhere during the rant. "Anywho... all of us owe you a favor. No one wants to be a part of these misfits."
"Great." Orin smiled, focused only on the words that mattered. "All of you get to pay off your favors right now, Sentinels."
"Please, call me Terrance."
"I'm not going to remember that, old man." Orin waved him off. "I need every little piece of dirt on Hem—now!"
"We can pull some records and send—"
"—Which part of 'now' was so hard to understand, old-timer?"
"—But…"
"No buts. Record everything that's in your flimsy little memory. And maybe get me those files tomorrow." Orin bossed them around.
They gathered around, muttering amongst themselves, and created a file full of Whisper Leaves—each leaf packed with rants about Hem Lock, signed individually at the bottom.
"Pleasure doing business with you." Orin tossed the file for Jorik to catch, using the motion as a distraction to swipe the one already in his grasp. "I'll be eagerly waiting for the second half," he added, tossing their case files back over to Terrance. "These are half. Get me the rest for the remaining."
"Who are you, kid?" asked a baffled Sentinel.
"That'll cost extra." Orin frowned. "And for now, I don't see anything of equal value I can get from you."
The Sentinel pulled out his badge, proudly pointing at the stars. "I outrank Hem Lock."
"They keep pointing that thing…" Orin whispered to the twins—loud enough for everyone to hear. "…Is that supposed to mean something?"
"Fourth time's the charm," the twins laughed, still hopeful Orin would eventually understand the value of a badge—or the impact of stars in their society.
"He already forgot." They concluded with a shrug, disappearing into the mist, leaving behind a dozen puzzled officers—officers who now assumed Orin was an ally, Hem a bygone relic, and the twins… geniuses.
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