by J M Bannon
“Of course, Master Alchemist Traube,” replied the High Elector.
“The Emerald Tablet, has been misinterpreted and we are playing with fire. Preston can you please explain further,” Lorelei said turning to Preston.
Maxwell could see Lorelei was emotional, but who wouldn’t after being kidnapped.
“Gentleman, Hermes Trismegistus and the Hermetic Brotherhood were ancient practitioners of the mystic arts, but the stone was not a gift for us to tap into those powers, it is a curse. They were entrusted with protecting the world from a dark force, and they failed when they let the stone leave their control. The Emerald Stone is a multidimensional prison encompassing strong magic to hold an ancient evil, known in archaic languages as the Outcast.”
Preston read their faces, and continued, “Lorelei believes the Crucible process applies forces that could release the prisoner. I suspect that you assumed the stone is acting as a catalyst for your process, but what you are actually doing is drafting off the metaphysical energy attached to the stone. As it is stripped away it transmutes the material it is put in contact with. The result being as Doctor Traube posits, you are at this moment ripping the eldritch bindings of the stone and the sooner you stop, the better chance we have of repairing the damage,” Preston concluded.
Baron Traube interjected, “Well, my darling child, if it makes you feel better, let us proceed to witness your great achievement and you will see with your own eyes the process producing many tons of eldritch elements, in total harmony with the metaphysical balance of the universe… while making us piles of Marks, I might add. I will stay here with Klaus and make sure that these fine soldiers know of my gratitude,” with that comment Lorelei let go of her father’s hand and ran towards the carriage.
“Come, Preston this has to be stopped,” whispered Lorelei.
* * *
12:00 p.m. The Crucible Building Königsberg Prussia
Boredom had already set in for Dieter, the supervising technician. What was exciting and extraordinary, only a few hours ago was no longer. The Crucible was tuned in and optimized; initial tests showed eighty-eight percent pure seureleum mestificatos with increasing purity in following tests, the latest ninety-seven percent.
The four technicians perched at their stations, observing gauges and dials, writing readings every 15 minutes. At the top of each hour, another operator would come up and report the results of the purity test.
It was the strangest sound, a muffled pop almost imperceptible, but it caught all of the technician’s attention, because it came from within the Crucible. Dieter went to observe the steel orb positioned outside their window, but nothing had visibly changed.
All the men were brought out of their stupor when the alarm bell rang noting an unexpected pressure release. “We are below 250 bar and dropping fast, there is a leak somewhere,” called out the technician at control station one.
Dieter ran to production control to isolate the vessels. “Tank capacity is isolated, begin the shutdown process,” he cried out above the deafening alarm bell. The three other men scurried around throwing valves, turning knobs and actioning switches. All labored desperately to bring the process back into control.
The manager watched the Crucible pressure and temperatures lower down to a safe level. He knew he must determine went occurred in the chamber, so he unlocked the safeties to open the Crucible starting the release of the piston.
Before the piston came to a rest, the door to the control room flew open, the four men ran down the stairs to assess the damage. As it unsealed, the men were shocked as chunks of green stone of all different sizes fell out of the Crucible. The Emerald Tablet had shattered; if the rocks and gravel had not been the same translucent green as the tablet, Dieter wouldn't have believed it had happened.
Dieter approached the pedestal, in the midst of the broken rock was a pinkish - blue blob the size of a rabbit. At first it looked like something had melted, but then it moved. Dieter stepped in to get a closer look, this time he was sure he saw it move. He pulled out a pencil from his pocket and poked the glob, “What did you find, Dieter?” asked one technician.
“It looks like tar or molten material,” Dieter replied as he turned to reply.
The three men that accompanied him all went pale, each face flashed terror for a moment, then took on blank, distant stare of daydreaming. His head snapped back to his hand; he felt the sensation of pinpricks and intense heat. What he saw was wormy tendrils slithering up the pencil to wrap around his hand. In a trance, he gazed closer, the tendrils comprised thousands of tiny hands crawling over each other.
“Please, someone … help,” Dieter screamed, but no sound could be heard. His vision tunneled as if focusing a microscope, he could see into the spaces between the thousands of tiny hands gaping chasms of space, infinite and filled with worlds burning in raging fires.
His mind detached from all physical sensation and he was engulfed in a flood of powerlessness and awe in the presence of another inside him, around him, yet nowhere.
The technician’s physical form was being absorbed and adapted by the blob, while tears flowed down his face his thoughts filled with innumerable gifts and pleasures; and one thousand lies that he believed, but knew were untrue all at once, in an instant but it lasted forever.
Dieter’s eternal essence, his oneness consumed to replenish Pruflas. What had been Dieter was gone. His physical form dropped to the floor and was pulled into the bubbling glob, expanding, evolving.
The three men fought each other to the death while the visceral form of Pruflas converted Dieter into its horrific, ever-shifting presence of formlessness.
* * *
12:50 p.m. The Crucible Building Königsberg, Prussia
Preston, Rose, Lorelei, and Maxwell entered the control center. Lorelei was first to enter as she ran frantically to the control room the others paced themselves and arrived behind her.
The room was empty, bells were clanging, lights were blinking and every control console was abandoned. Lorelei was reviewing the control panel to review the status of the Crucible. “I’m not sure what happened here, but it looks like the process has been taken off-line,” Lorelei pronounced.
Maxwell proceeded to the observation window and looked out, Rose watched as he stared into the vast chamber, he suddenly fell to the ground.
Lorelei ran to Maxwell’s collapsed body.
Preston pushed past Rose yelling “Do not look out the window. No matter what, avert your eyes and do not look into that chamber.”
Preston turned to Rose “If the stone has already been sundered and the Outcast released we are all in danger. The human mind is too fragile to comprehend him in his true form,” said Preston.
Preston crawled across the floor making sure to not look at the glass and get closer to Lorelei and Maxwell.
“He is in a stupor, damn we’re too late,” offered Preston.
“Will he be all right?” asked Lorelei.
“I don’t know, Lorelei. He might come out of it or he may remain in a vegetable state. I can’t say,”
“How do we conduct a ritual if we can’t even see him?” Rose asked from her position by the entrance.
Preston sat with his back to the wall looking at Rose shaking his head no.
“Let me welcome you to join me in exaltation.”
Rose turned to see a bloodied and beaten man in a lab coat standing at the door that led to the Crucible chamber.
Rose drew the Rod of Raziel from its sheath and invoked a defensive spell. She put both hands on the Rod and thrust forward a golden shield of energy, rolled towards the door slamming into the man, knocking him off his feet and down the stairs. Rose ran toward the chamber and pulled the heavy metal door closed, throwing the latch to lock it.
“
Azul says it is free, and that man is one of his agents. As his strength grows so will his ability to influence the thoughts and actions of others,” Preston reported still sitting on the floor with a disturbed look.
“How can we fight or conduct the ritual without seeing?” Rose asked as she walked back and forth.
"Rose, we need to get out of here it’s influence is spreading," implored Preston.
“Let me just take one look,” Lorelei pleaded.
“No!” Rose and Preston yelled in unison.
As Rose placed the Rod back in its sheath, she glanced at the tincture vials on her belt. She reached to the top of her head and felt her goggles on her head. “Lorelei, I have an idea. If I provided you a recipe would you be able to fumigate that chamber with it?” Rose asked.
“It depends on what we need, but we are next to the world’s largest chemical facility. It might take time but it's likely we could rig it up,” she replied.
“You two drag Maxwell out we need to get away and keep out of this building until we have everything in place,” stated Rose.
The trio dragged Maxwell’s limp body out and tried to get him to his feet, he was catatonic. The group worked back through the hallways to the lobby of the building where the Electors and the Prussian troops had collected.
“Lorelei was correct, the stone has been breached and we have to get everyone away from this building before we have a catastrophe that affects the whole city,” announced Rose to the group of officials.
30
Tuesday the 12th of June 1860
3:40 p.m. The Crucible Building Königsberg, Prussia
The plan started with Rose and Preston standing outside the Crucible building. The Prussian troopers helped to evacuate the area and cordon off a buffer zone. What was worrisome to Rose was that Azul told Preston he could sense the growing power of the Outcast.
Lorelei’s quick wits and sense of urgency was now an asset. Rose only had to show her once the formula for her spectral sensing fumes and the diminutive chemist replicated the formula, ordering the workers to cut into an overhead water quenching system. It proved an excellent solution to use water dousing nozzles and pipework for the emergency quench of the Crucible to flood the room with Rose’s gas recipe.
Rose watched Doctor Traube standing on the back of a wagon in the production area directing workers to adjust tank pressures keeping a constant flow of the Eldritch fog permeating the room.
Rose wore her full kit including her soul warding necklace and overcoat. Added to her usual get up was an air tank and breather apparatus that Lorelei rigged up. She was concerned the oxygen level would be low with the volume of gas they were flooding the chamber.
Preston donned coveralls and a breathing tank on his back. Where Rose had only a mask that covered her mouth and nose, Preston’s was similar to the Prussian Troopers gas mask covering his entire head. The glass lenses had been blacked out to keep him from seeing the menacing presence once they entered the room.
Lorelei approached them giving Preston a hug, “You be strong in there. We are all counting on your success to lock that Tablet right back up.” she confirmed with conviction.
It was a good attempt to bolster Preston’s courage but from the look on his face he may not have heard a word of the encouragement.
Rose turned to Lorelei. “If we fail, it means you have to figure out how to destroy this site. I don’t know how exactly, but…”
Preston interrupted while fiddling with the straps on his gas mask. “If we don’t make it out. Leave. There is nothing you can do if we can’t seal up the stone, the Outcast is beyond our understanding and cannot be mortally wounded. You must deprive him of human souls to consume and control.”
Rose could read the worry on his face not his usual high-strung anxiety from the lights being too bright or exposed to an open space, but concern as to what fate had in store. “We had better just get in there and fix this,” Rose blurted with impatience.
* * *
3:50 p.m. Control Room Crucible Building
Outside the control room door Rose fitted her mask and Preston followed suit.
“Well, I thought I was terrified before, but not being able to see pretty much does it,” moaned Preston his arms flailing in front of him.
“Relax and take deep slow breaths,” Rose took his hands and moved one to her shoulder and the other to the rope tied to their waists, “We will move slowly, I will call out directions.”
Preston’s hand left the rope and went to his shoulder bag where the journal of Azul resided.
Before entering, she placed her goggles on and adjusted the lens to see astrally. Her stomach fluttered as she moved into the room, having no concrete evidence her idea of visioning the room through spectral filters and the refractory gases would protect her. “Preston, I really have no idea if this will work, if I go mad you will have to pull me out,” Rose warned her friend.
Preston stopped and ripped his mask off. "Rose, for fuck sake don’t say shit like that. Please, if anyone is going mad it’s me, I am so scared that I am about shit myself, I can’t see anything, all I hear is my breathing in this god damn thing, oh except for this pushy fucking Arab who is literally in my head. Yes, you. No, I didn’t miss you, It was like a vacation not having your chirping in my head," Preston ranted.
"Preston settle down," Rose admonished.
"Wait," Preston was listening to his inner dialogue. "Azul added that my heightened hysteria could be a symptom of the outcast sowing discord between us; thank you, that is helpful," Preston rolled his eyes.
“We are here for a reason, let’s figure out what that reason is. The answer is down there. Now put your mask back on and Let's get to the other side of this,” offered Rose.
Rose stepped into the control room and looked out the observation window and could see the fog pouring from the sprinklers down into the chamber. “Well, she isn’t messing around, with producing gas in that room.”
“Rose, for what it’s worth, thank you for all you’ve done.”
* * *
3:54 p.m. Control Room Crucible Building
“Quiet, I am going to open the door to the chamber,” Preston heard Rose say. He grasped the shoulder of her jacket in his left hand and the journal in his right. He consciously thought about his breathing trying to slow it down but that made him think about how much air they had. Shit, he should have asked Lorelei.
“Then what is my concern?” asked Peston.
He heard Rose throw the lever that locked the heavy door.
“We are going out on the walkway” said Rose guiding Preston in his blind state. Preston tenuously stepped and felt the change in the floor from concrete to a metal grate.
“Preston the railing is on your right, the stairs curve along the wall in a wide sweep just use the railing to guide you,” Rose whispered. He removed his hand from the book in his shoulder bag and groped for the rail. Rose took his hand and placed it on the railing.
"The floor is thick with vapor but I can see a shimmer, an intense glow like a rift in the warp and woof of the aether."
“Is it a rift?” Preston parroted.
“Wait, keep moving down, I need to get closer,” answered Rose.
He squeezed the railing and Rose while creeping his foot out to find where one stair stopped and then to find the flat of the next. It was becoming easier as he was getting a feel for the distance.
“The flash, this glimmer, it’s a ball of energy but I can’t describe the color because my goggles make it monochrome. There is the fellow from earlier, the fall must have killed him,” relayed Rose.
“At least you have monochro
me.” he muttered.
“Enough. The glimmer is anchored to a rotating circle of pure white glyphs surrounding it. Hmmm, strange that the glyphs have a color,” pondered Rose.
“Dear Sister, this is a warding circle. The anchor to this dimension. It is the Outcast’s ball and chain,” said Preston in an Arabic accent. Oh god he is slipping past me. Azul speaking through Preston was a sign of the cleric taking control, out of his impatience.
“Then what shall I call you?” answered Azul.
“Pruflas, as in the flame at the tower of Babel, the Duke of Hell and leader of the twenty-six legions of demons,” said Preston.
“Rose are you hearing this?” asked Preston. He had no way to gauge Rose’s awareness of Pruflas.
“I don’t hear anything. Preston, I am on the main floor you have a few more steps. I can see that the Tablet is destroyed, all that is left is rubble,” shared Rose.
“Rose, is there anything of substance left, we need the vessel to anchor the spell?” asked Preston.
Rose moved closer, nearly into the glyph circle. It was difficult to see with the monochromatic view and the billowing clouds of haze from the gas, but everywhere she looked it was just gravel and small stone.
“I can’t see a piece that would make even a decent paper weight.”
* * *
4:00 PM, The Crucible Chamber
Rose watched what appeared to be a pinkish-grey tentacle reach out from the glowing ball of energy and touch her hand. A long smooth boneless arm ending in a spade shaped end with hundreds of tiny tendrils on its underside. It slithered up toward her wrist and tugged to pull her into the glyph circle. Again, Rose felt the sensation, she was rooted to the ground like a great oak. Looking down at her arm she saw the slithering form reach her wrist where Pāora’s bracelet rested and it detracted from the bracelet’s blue glow.
