A change in status quo

Ch 1: Unexpected results

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It was 9 at night.

Espresso cookie had been working hard on his newest experiment for the past week, and of course that came with the additional restrictions, such as not sleeping or eating or leaving his house, for that matter.

however, Espresso was used to this ordeal, he liked the peace and quiet in his house, and the fresh smell of coffee. He has been doing this for a while, after all.

He was preparing his magic as usual, making things go smoothly, his hands moving swiftly and delicately when he spots the temperature of the mixture at the corner of his eye, It was much too hot for the coffee beans to handle, he hurried to turn the heat down, but to his dismay, the moment he put his hand on the dial, he felt his fingertips burn, with a quick yelp, he shot away his hand from the equipment,

with understandable confusion and alarmed, he went to grab a towel to cover his hand to turn the temperature down, he was angrily muttering under his breath how this has ruined his whole experiment.

as soon as he grabbed the towel that was in the kitchen and ran back into the lab room he quickly turned down the dial, but for some odd reason, the temperature didn't seem to go down.

Now panicking, Espresso was more concerned about his safety than the experiment, since he knew that it was already a lost cause. He quickly tried to shove himself behind the equipment to unplug it, but while he was trying to move his way behind the equipment, his side touched the burning glass. Espresso let out a string of curses in pain, and quickly retreated to in front of the equipment.

Luckily, it didn't seem that any of the other lab equipment was acting strange, only the most dangerous one was..
..which didn't make him feel any better when he thought of it.

Espresso now was pacing back and forth wondering what to do and panicking, Espresso never was the type to panic over anything, but who wouldn't stress over this?

The temperature was still rising from inside the glass cage where the melted coffee beans once were. Espresso was still thinking what to do in order to stop it from heating up anymore, the pressure and heat was becoming too much for the glass container, any second it could all explode.

But before Espresso had any time to process what was happening, that's when he heard the glass beginning to shatter.
With a panicked scream, he tried rushing out of the door to safety, but he was too late.

The glass had shattered and from that heat and pressure, and with a sound that imitated the sound of thunder it launched Espresso back into the wall, he hit his head pretty badly and landed face first onto the wood flooring, dark crimson oozing out of his head, causing him to black out.

~~~~

Madeleine was walking back to his house, it was a long day of protecting the kingdom and helping others with their needs. He was walking with Latte, discussing important matters from the nearby cake tower they heard Pastry talk about in the past.

That's when they saw a bright white light followed by a loud crash from their left. Latte and Madeleine both winced at the unexpected.
Latte turned her head than with a pained gasp she grabbed Madeleine's arm, and spun him towards Espresso's house (which was around 3 houses down) It had black smoke coming out of it. Madeleine and Latte, both with fright, ran to Espresso's house.

Once they reached his house, Madeleine knocked on his door, but to no avail.
He then knocked again, and again.
He quickly turned his head towards frantic Latte.

"Latte, do you have a key to get in?"

"If I had a key, we would already be in by now!" Latte sobbed

With a sharp inhale, Madeleine backed up from the door and retrieved the sword from the holder on his left. He then swung it towards the door breaking it from it's hinges and knocking it down.

They were greeted with a blast of hot air and the sent of over-burnt coffee. Latte shoves past Madeleine and runs straight into Espresso's lab room. That's when she saw him, covered in blood. She let out a pained screech, the whole kingdom could hear her, when she saw her friend lying lifelessly on the ground. Madeline heard her screams and that's when he saw Espresso as well. He covered his mouth in shock, and stood there for a few moments.

Latte looked up at Madeleine hot tears streaming down her face
"P-please..h-h-h-help. Him" Latte cried, sharply inhaling while she was talking.

Without a second to loose, Madeleine scooped up the half-dead espresso and ran outside his house. He winced at the immediate cold air that hit him, and which caused a bit of a headache. But he still pressed on

"WE NEED A HEALER" Madeleine cried, with latte following him behind,
They ran to the kingdom square where most of the citizens would hang out if they weren't already home at that hour.
The ones who were still outside turned their heads to see the knight commander with the unconscious mage in his arms. They quickly run over for closer examination.