Interlude - The Lost Way (Bonus Post!)
With the team off doing research and continuing the dig, something strange happens in the lab.
Chapters only drop on Mondays right? Well… This isn’t a chapter. It’s an interlude. But hopefully it’ll peak your interest. Chapter 3 will still drop Monday as planned.
Interlude
Inside the empty room, two previously invisible entities phased into shape. One was dim and hazy, only barely projecting his presence into the mortal plane. What appeared was a towering, purple humanoid, translucent and glitching slightly as if a hologram. The second was smaller and physically formed in the room. He wore modern street clothes, jeans and a Rage Against the Machine t-shirt, his thick brown hair, the only unruly thing about him. He leaned casually against a lab table.
“Your hand-picked team put the relic in a refuse drawer, Dolos,” said the translucent figure, phasing through a lab table to look into the drawer without opening it.
“Yes, yes, but only so no one would find it. In my view, that’s a win. And did you see the woman, Ani? She struck it. She’s felt it now. Deep in her bones. She knows it isn’t a hoax,” The second presence said as he stood and walked around the table and opened the drawer.
The purple light glitched as the two beings shared the same physical space momentarily. “I really wish you wouldn’t do that. As for the woman, she may feel it, but she does not yet understand what they have. What hangs in the balance must not be trivialized.”
“They are not trivializing it—” Dolos began, leaning in, scrunching his face and using his hands as if to mold his words so that the other being would understand.
“The physicist is already considering putting it back. At this juncture, that may be for the best.”
“She wouldn’t succeed,” Dolos countered. “Adam would notice, and Nikolas would never allow it.”
“You have much faith in these four.”
“They have it. Can’t you see?”
“What? The artifact? Yes. I am not an idiot.”
“You of all must know. They have ‘It’,” he said using his fingers as quotation marks.
A third presence coalesced in the lab, also transparent, but of a light blue hue. “He is correct. They harmonize. They connect. The resonance is undeniable. I have known Adam. I can still feel him… He has the will, and he will find the path.”
“Exactly!” Dolos beamed.
The now dark violet being cut in, “You knew him. Past tense.”
Reaching his hands out, the light blue figure gestured as if to calm the angering purple giant. For his part, the giant paused, collecting himself and suppressing his annoyance. He continued, “Either way, We tire of your ideas, Dolos. Maybe one of the other plans will work. This one is off to a poor start. Do you have an actual plan for these four or is this another of your games?”
The purple giant’s cold emphasis on the word ‘We’ sent a momentary shiver down Dolos’s spine. He straightened before speaking again. “Of course I have a plan! It’s a great plan.”
“He doesn’t have a plan,” he said looking toward the blue figure, color returning to a deep purple. Then, he turned to Dolos. “You gamble our design on a theatrical whim?”
“I do too have a plan! Look!” Dolos gestured to the metal objects in the drawer. “They’ll notice that for sure. Adam will figure it out.”
“Pray, let Us see if your little party trick yields results,” the large figure ventured as he phased out of the room.
Dolos looked at the light blue presence. “Interesting for you to drop in. You can’t stay away from him, can you? What’s so special about him?”
The blue figure didn’t respond, but focused intently on Dolos before intensifying and then fading away, leaving Dolos alone.
Dolos looked at the objects in the drawer before gently closing it and walking out of the room.
“It’ll work,” he said to himself. “Of course it will.”