The Research Wing of the Underloft felt like a butcher shop designed by a watchmaker. White tiles, vibrating containment fields, and the faint, ozone smell of experimental stabilizers.
Lissia Orne didn't look like a genius. She looked like a disaster. Her blonde hair was held up by two pencils, her lab coat was stained with coffee and something that glowed faint blue, and her thick-rimmed glasses were currently pushed up onto her forehead.
"Strip," she said, not looking up from her clipboard.
Vale raised an eyebrow. "At least the Director offered me a drink first."
Lissia finally looked at him. Her eyes were piercing, not with lust, but with a terrifying, clinical hunger. "I've spent six years studying why the Hollowed turn human brains into porridge. I've seen the smartest men in the world reduced to babbling infants by a Class 1 manifestation. And you... you supposedly petted a Class 3 like a stray dog."
She stepped into his space, her nose inches from his chest. She didn't smell like jasmine like Ottina, she smelled like old books and sharp chemicals. "I don't believe in miracles, Mr. Carro. I believe in biology. Now, clothes off. I need to see where the madness goes when it hits you."
Vale complied, his movements deliberate. As his shirt hit the floor, Lissia's breath hitched. It wasn't just the physique, it was the Violet Sigil on his chest. It pulsed in time with his heart, casting a predatory light across the room.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[TARGET: LISSIA ORNE (ELDRITCH SCHOLAR)]
[OBSERVATION: SHE IS AFRAID OF THE HOLLOWED, BUT OBSESSED WITH THEIR POWER.]
[CHANCE OF 'INVOLUNTARY PACT': 84%]
Lissia reached out a trembling hand, her fingers hovering just over the sigil. "It's beautiful," she whispered, her academic mask slipping. "It's... it's a localized anchor. You aren't just immune, Vale. You're a sinkhole. You're absorbing the Warp and grounding it."
"Touch it," Vale challenged, his voice a low vibration. "See what happens to all that 'research' when it meets the real thing."
Lissia couldn't resist. The moment her skin made contact with the sigil, her knees buckled.
It was a flood of data. For a split second, she didn't see the lab. She saw the Void. She saw the Gatekeeper. She felt the crushing weight of the universe and, for the first time in her life, she wasn't scared. Vale was her lightning rod.
She collapsed against him, her forehead resting against his collarbone, gasping for air. "I... I've been looking through a keyhole my whole life," she panted, her hands clutching his arms. "You... you just opened the door."
Vale tilted her chin up. Her glasses had fallen to the floor, leaving her gaze raw and vulnerable. "The door is open, Lissia. But once you walk through, there's no going back to your books."
"Do it," she hissed, her academic curiosity twisting into something much more primal. "Show me. I want to see everything."
Vale didn't hesitate. He lifted her onto the stainless steel examination table, the cold metal a sharp contrast to the rising heat in the room. Lissia was a woman of logic, but as Vale's hands moved over her, she realized that some truths couldn't be found in a beaker.
As they merged, the lab's equipment began to go haywire. The needles on the Geiger counters pegged into the red. The containment fields flickered. To Lissia, every sensation was magnified ten-fold. She was feeling the resonance of the entities he had conquered.
She screamed into the sterile silence of the wing, her mind expanding, her soul being branded by the same violet light that marked his chest.
[RELATIONSHIP BOND: LISSIA ORNE — LEVEL 1 [ESTABLISHED]
[REWARD: ANALYTICAL EYE]
[EFFECT: YOU CAN NOW SEE THE WEAK POINTS AND 'HEALTH BARS' OF ELDRITCH ENTITIES.]
***
Thirty minutes later, Vale walked out of the Research Wing. He looked identical to when he walked in, save for a slight smirk.
Lissia followed behind him, her lab coat buttoned wrong, her eyes shining with a new, dangerous clarity. She sat down at her main terminal and began typing at a blistering speed.
"The Iron Maiden," she said, her voice steady now. "It's not just a relic, Vale. It's a conductor. The Valdessans are using it to channel Ossivael's influence into the pass. If you destroy the Maiden, you break the ritual."
Ottina was waiting at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She looked at Lissia, then at Vale, and sighed, blowing a cloud of smoke toward the ceiling. "I see you've been 'calibrating' the equipment, Carro."
"Essential maintenance," Vale replied.
"Right. Well, keep your 'tools' ready," Ottina straightened up, her expression turning stone-cold. "The chopper is fueled. We're heading to the Geller Pass. It's time to show those Valdessan bastards that their god has a new competitor."