Chapter 37
Illegal batches of MyCast supplements are crafted by disreputable scientists known as Chem-Docs. These mad scientists are also the main suppliers of other illegal drugs like Ink and Pixie Piss. They are known for running experiments with illicit substances, chemicals, and Myst without telling their subjects. Some unwitting Orc who just wanted to get high might find himself bursting into flames or sprouting tentacles.
Day 373, Castesday
On this particular Castesday, Rose and I had already had two rounds of sparring. I won the first, she the second. But I made her work for it. We were resting. My shirt was slashed and punctuated with bloodstains around freshly healed scars. Rose had also left scorch marks on me from fire, lightning, and acid.
However, I had left my share of marks on her. When the match was called, Rose looked ragged. Even with sweat plastering her jacket to her, she refused to remove it. Gasping, she half-heartedly mentioned needing a break. Before Thallos could okay it, she staggered back to her bag.
I was breathing hard, but not as bad. It seemed as I was improving, Rose had been degrading. I wondered if she’d ever been as good as I thought.
The delusion theory didn’t explain why she’d been acting odd for weeks. She’d gone back to avoiding Nel and Ferris and barely spent time with me. She claimed it was a cold, but it had been over two weeks, and she was only getting worse. When I told her to see a healer, she snapped at me.
“Hey, Uncle, is it just me, or is she looking worse?” I asked.
“No, you’re right. I noticed her decline two months back,” he confirmed.
“Then why haven’t you told her to see a healer?”
“Normally, I push pupils to work through it. In her case, I was letting her find her breaking point. But I’m starting to think I need to tell her to stop before she hurts herself permanently.”
He waved Rose over. She stopped by her bag for a moment before jogging over, a bit more spring in her step. Odd.
“I’m calling it here,” Thallos said, pointing to Rose. “You’re about to put yourself in the ER. Go see a healer and take the next six days off.” He turned to me. “Escort her. Oh, and I’m putting you on half-course time to rest up for your combat final. I have something to talk about if you pass. Am I clear?”
We both nodded. We changed into non-bloody clothes and headed to the elevator. When the doors closed, Rose let out a sigh. “Ive, I have a serious favor to ask.”
I shot her a wary look. “What kind?”
“I need you to lie to your uncle about taking me to the Med Center.”
“Excuse me?”
“What? It’s not like I’m asking for murder,” she said, exasperated.
“I beg to differ! Rose, you’ve been getting worse. I think you need serious medical help.”
“It’s not that big a deal.” She leaned against the wall, eyes closed.
“I still think you need a healer.”
“Will you shut up about the damned healer! It’s just a headache and some trouble sleeping.”
I focused on her eyes. The whites were laced with thick red veins. Her shoulders sagged. Her hands twitched.
“I’m just saying let Tess check you out.”
“I’m not letting that creepy little Gnome anywhere near me,” she sneered.
“Creepy? Come on, Rose, she’s a friend.”
“Your friend.”
“I’m taking you to the Med Center, even if I have to drag you,” I proclaimed as the car slid to a stop.
“You’ll have to take my corpse, because I’m not going alive.” As she said this, she moved to step and toppled, her leg crumpling. She cursed as I knelt beside her.
I shouldered her bag and draped her arm across my shoulders, helping to bear her weight. Her face was turned away in shame. We didn’t talk as we passed through the halls. I caught the sound of clinking glass from her bag. Then she gave another ferocious yank, and seams burst. A gaping hole appeared, and something spilled out: a case of empty hypo-jection syringes. Eighteen vials scattered across the ground.
I looked at the vials, picked one up, and gave Rose a look of distrust before digging in the bag. Her face was a mask of horror. I pulled out two more cases. One was half-empty, but the other had full tubes of a swirling, opalescent fluid.
I checked to see if anyone had witnessed it. I stuffed everything back in her bag, clutched the open end, and wrapped my other hand around her wrist. I stormed away toward the woods, not caring if she could keep pace. I’d drag her if I had to. She lost her footing a couple of times, but I didn’t stop.
I was on a warpath. We passed the tree line, and I kept going. She lost her footing again, and I dragged her.
“Iver, stop! IVER!” she shouted. I stopped robotically, shifted, and hurled her in a shoulder throw. Her back cracked against an oak. I heard the wind rip from her lungs, but I let her get her ass under her before I verbally tore her apart.
A rush of anger, the first since I’d been medicated, scared me. It brought flashes of my father’s murder. I shook the images from my head. She had righted herself and pinned me with an enraged glare.
“M-Juice! Really?! I can’t believe you’re that stupid.” I shook the rattling bag. “You couldn’t naturally have magic, so what? You start taking liquid myst? For what? An hour of playing caster?” I threw the bag at her feet. “This stuff is regulated for a reason. It’s addictive. And I know you don’t have clearance. So where did you get it?”
She scooped up the bag. “It’s not dirty, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“That’s not what I’m asking, and you know it.”
Her only answer was to bare her teeth. It took only a few moments for me to puzzle it out.
“Neckar…” I muttered. “Master Mystagogue Neckar.” I locked eyes with Rose. Panic and shame. “The head magic instructor was prescribed MyCast. She normally used M-Juice but was forced to take Zip Pouches because someone stole her stock.” I snatched the bag back. “You’re the thief!”
She clawed forward, but I pulled it out of reach. “So what? I was aiming for Mastlok. That was going to be my proof.”
“I knew you were aiming for Sightless Eye, but this is out of hand. So you had the drug, and you decide to take it to fake your way into my uncle’s mentorship?”
She got to her knees. “It wasn’t that simple!” She dragged herself to her feet, a full three inches taller than me, but I didn’t back down.
“I don’t know if I can trust anything I know about you. You lied to Thallos. You lied to me. I worked my ass off, pleaded with him for you. Even after you lashed out, I told you how I felt.” The rage ebbed, and the wound ached. My vision blurred. Tears streamed down my face.
Rose stepped away, clutching her elbow. “I didn’t mean for this. It’s just…” She turned and pressed her head against the rough bark. “I was so upset Kiem picked you. Jealous. I had been trying to catch his eye since last year. But you start bleeding fire, and suddenly his nephew has the skill. He was playing favorites, and I was pissed. I decided I was going to catch his eye by stealing something from a Mystagogue.”
She slid down the tree. “Everyone knows Neckar is thirty pounds of crazy in a three-pound box. I faked sick, picked her lock, and found the cases of MyCast under her bed.”
“And you took them all.”
“As if,” she snapped. “I took one case. Then I got the idea that if all of it went missing, the instructors would go crazy. I’d present them to Kellar, and bam, I’m in Sightless Eye. But when no alarms were raised, I got worried. Then curious. The day I snapped at you was the first day I used it.”
“That was your first dose? I don’t believe it.”
“Oh, don’t give me that freak face!” she retaliated. “Yes, it was. I only used it occasionally. Then you talked him into taking me on. To keep the role, I needed to keep taking it.”
I looked at her in horror. “But each dose only lasts two or three hours. That means…”
“Three doses a day, twelve a week. My current count is two hundred sixteen,” she said with another sad smile.
Panic rose. I rushed to her, gripped her wrist, and used a blade from my gauntlet to split her sleeve. I had thought she was hiding scars. The truth was worse. The crook of her elbow was a series of injection scars and open wounds with glowing blue-green chemical burns, the color tracing her veins halfway down her arm. The crook was a mess, partly covered in lesions.
“Myst burns,” I whispered. I reached into the bag and pulled out a vial. I shot to my feet. “I need to tell Thallos.”
“Iver, no! Please! If you love me, you will not tell a soul.”
I swallowed, pocketing the vial as I took off my jacket. “I’ll get you to your room, but we need to trade jackets unless you want everyone to know.”
She looked up with genuine joy. I helped her into my jacket; it was two sizes too small but hid the damage. I supported her as I walked her to the dorms. She gave me her room number, and I helped her to her bed. I tried not to stare at the floor, carpeted in laundry and weapon supplies.
“I don’t want you leaving this room for six days,” I said sternly. “I’ll bring you food. Do you want me to stay?”
She gave a tired smile and shook her head. As I reached the door, she spoke. “Hey, Iver,” I turned. “I really do like you, too. I don’t know if it’s love, but I want to give it a shot.”
I masked my agonizing pain with a patient smile. “Get some rest.”
As soon as the door shut, I ran full-tilt to find Thallos. Rose might only have minutes or days before she died.
I found him in his office. He took one look at my face and shot to his feet. “What’s wrong?”
“Rose, myst burns, it’s bad,” I gasped, showing him the vial. He snatched it and pushed past me. I followed, hot on his heels.
“I’m messaging Tessa to meet us,” he said.
We met her at Rose’s door. He swiped his B.I.C. to open it and glided to the bed.
“Hey! What are you doing?” Rose demanded.
He spoke to me as he forcefully examined her eyes. “Do you know how bad it is?”
I told him the numbers. “Injection site?”
“Crook of the left elbow.”
He slit the sleeve of my jacket and inspected the damage before gesturing Tessa over. “Do you know how to heal myst burns and poisoning?”
“N-no,” she stammered.
He stepped beside her. “First, draw out and disperse the alien myst. Then flush the system like a standard class-one poison.”
Tessa just stared. He locked a hand under her jaw. “Don’t panic. Just think of this as a lesson.” He explained a process that went well over my head. He turned to Rose. “Be honest. Do you know who you are?”
“I’m Roserra Swiftpaw, in my room. My privacy clearly violated.” She shot me a murderous glare.
He flicked her between the eyes. “Focus. Have you seen anything strange?”
“What? No. Not unless you count backstabbing cheats.”
He locked his hand on her jaw. “Have you been moody? Depressed or angry?”
“Yes. Definitely,” I answered.
“Problems sleeping or headaches?”
“Yeah, both,” she answered.
He stood. “You’re suffering from class-two Myst Madness. The symptoms may stop if you quit. But with how frequently you’ve been dosing, the damage may be permanent.” He turned to Tessa. “Finish healing her and check on her for the next six days. If she starts experiencing withdrawal, find me.” He ushered me from the room, stopping to give one last command. “And Roserra, after the six days are up, find me. We need to talk.”
I walked beside him. “So what happens now? She can’t stay without magic.”
“She’s staying under me. I just have to change my methods.”
“What?! It’s okay she was illegally using MyCast?”
He stopped. “This is a lesson you need to learn. You get the job done by any means. If you need to steal, steal. If you need to kill, kill. What matters is the end result and the mission.”
“But theft isn’t right,” I said half-heartedly.
“Boy, the only thing black and white is Lumina and Umbra Myst. No one is all good or all bad. Think on this before class tomorrow.”
He was gone, vanished. I’d need to learn that trick. But at that moment, I needed to think about the black-and-white thing. I decided to meditate on it. Back in my room, I lay on my bed and thought long and hard. If there was no pure good or evil, then what shade of gray was I? And more importantly, what shade would I be after a few years with The Company?
