Journey | Albedo's Descent Book 3

Chapter 20: Accidents Happen

"You're seriously going to act like this is okay?" Rosaria asked.
Kaeya didn't say anything as he tidied up the camp.
"Look around you, Kaeya." She gestured around the small cave, emphasizing the cork board, "does any of this look sane to you?!"
Again, Kaeya said nothing. He silently gazed over at the messy board with several drawings, texts, and bits of string strewn across it in unintelligible lines.
"Do you not see anything wrong with this?!"
"Rosaria..." Kaeya said with a sigh, "what am I supposed to do..."
"Uh, how about you start by knocking some sense into his thick skull?!"
Kaeya shook his head, "I-"
"That thing isn't real! He's delusional, Kaeya! No one else has seen it or heard it!" Rosaria held her arms out in exasperation.
"Rosaria... I saw the carving, and all these books..."
"It means nothing! Cant you see?!" Rosaria walked up to him, "every word in those books are vague, it could be about anything! And that carving could also mean anything! So what if it has to do with Khaenri'ah? That doesn't mean it has anything to do with you or Albedo!"
Kaeya stared at her with a calm sort of melancholy.
Rosaria spoke with more bite than she meant to, "You're really just going to sit here and watch him loose his mind?!"
Kaeya looked away...
The nun found herself breathless, "... why won't you say anything?..."
"I trust Albedo," Kaeya said quietly, pushing a book in between two others on the shelf.
"Do you really believe that? Are you hearing yourself right now?" Rosaria shook her head, "you can't possibly just-"
"You should have seen him, Rosaria... How he smiled when we started figuring it all out..."
"Kaeya, you-" she didn't even know what she wanted to say anymore. "You're... you plan on just letting this happen?..."
"No," he lowered his head slightly, still looking at the shelf, "if anything bad happens, I'll take him back to Mond... But because this is all... not real... then I don't see any harm in letting him think it is..."
"Kaeya... you realize how crazy you sound, right? You're just feeding his imagination... I've watched people kill themselves over things like this..."
He, again, made no response. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't have gotten the chance.
She turned, "I have to go back... For your sake, I hope Albedo doesn't descend any farther..."

"Ah! You're back!" Kaeya threw his arms around Albedo, crushing him.
Albedo blinked slowly, "where's Rosaria?... isn't it still storming?..."
"You're so cold!" Kaeya started pulling him towards the fire, "she had to go back to Mondstadt... I have the feeling she will be back, though..."
Albedo nodded, "yeah..."
"Are you alright? How did your talk go?"
Albedo nodded absently again, "I got some information... Durin can't see that thing, it's hiding itself from him somehow..." Albedo's brows came together and he put his hand on his chin, "which is no simple task, considering he is the mountain..."
Kaeya put his arms around Albedo again, "I'm glad you're back..."
"Did Rosaria leave right after I did?"
Kaeya shook his head, "no, why?"
"Oh, I thought that maybe you had gotten lonely..."
Kaeya chuckled, "I'm just happy you're safe."
Albedo stood up, "anyways, I thought of another experiment for the, uh, the weird substance."
Kaeya stood, following him across the room, "do you need help?"
Albedo shrugged, "probably not... but you never know..."
Kaeya agreed as he watched Albedo work. Although he had no idea what Albedo was doing, he could still appreciate Albedo's... pursuit of knowledge?
What even was this thing? If the dream specter Albedo's been seeing wasn't real, why did Albedo say it came from the monster? Did he hallucinate that, too? Was this really just simply tar or something similar?
Albedo had a good amount of the mystery goop in a bowl on his desk, along with several open books and his microscope.
Albedo pulled off his glasses as he looked into his microscope and started fiddling with the settings.
Kaeya sat on his knees, laying his arms and chin on the edge of the table, "what are you trying to do now?..."
Albedo shrugged, "anything really... I kept this small bit secluded from the rest and stuck it in a jar outside overnight... It doesn't seem much different... but it's definitely more docile..."
"What? You mean that stuff is-"
"No, it's not alive. Er, at least not on its own. But I meant it's molecules are less active. Sucrose is a lot better at explaining these sorts of things, I won't bore you with it." Albedo stood back up and flipped through a book while putting his glasses back on.
Kaeya pursed his lips, "soooo you're just observing?..."
Albedo nodded, "you can tell a lot about something by just watching it..."
"Really?"
He smiled a little bit, "it's just like how you can tell when someone is lying."
Kaeya tilted his head from side to side, "I guess..."
Albedo sighed as he closed his eyes for a moment, "though, right now I'm not learning anything new..."
Kaeya stood up, "I don't think we missed anything. I mean, there's only so much we can do to it, right?"
Albedo nodded, "unfortunately... I need to find the other Seelie. That- that will help. Maybe I'll get more books, or-or an explanation. What if there's some other mechanism? Or another carving? Ah, but it could just be one room of many, there might be more than one of these secret caves-"
"Albedo, calm down, you're getting ahead of yourself," Kaeya reached over the table and put his hand on the alchemist's head.
Albedo sighed, "there are just so many unknowns..."
"Albedo, I think you need to take a break from this."
He shook his head, taking Kaeya's hand in both of his, "what if this is time sensitive?"
"What if it isn't? Then you have forever to figure this out," Kaeya smiled warmly.
The alchemist closed his eyes, "not yet... I'm close, I can feel it."
"What you're feeling is called 'sleepy'," Kaeya chuckled as he pulled his hand back.
Albedo sighed heavily, "okay... just give me a minute..."
Kaeya rolled his eyes, "should I be prepared to wait a few hours, then?"
Albedo chuckled as he stowed away the secluded bit of sludge. Then, he turned to start putting his books away.
Unfortunately for Albedo, his hand knocked into the bowl, tilting it over.
Both Kaeya and Albedo reached for the bowl, holding it down so it wouldn't spill. They both loosed a breath of relief.
"Well, that was close," Kaeya said as he let go.
Albedo nodded, "very." He let go as well, picking up the book he had previously been trying to grab.
Once again, Albedo's hands had failed him. But this time, no one was fast enough to stop it.
Albedo's cold fingers didn't have a good grip on the spine of the book and it slipped from his hand, falling onto the edge of the bowl. Because of lovely physics, the bowl flipped in Albedo's direction, it's contents flinging out.
Thankfully, Albedo had managed not to get smacked in the face by the bowl, but most of the mystery goop was now on his clothes.
Albedo seethed as he resisted the urge to blink and held his left eye open with his fingers. "Kaeya, ice please."
Kaeya hurried to procure some for him, surprised by how calm he was. Though, Albedo couldn't see what Kaeya could.
Coating Albedo's pupil and much of the rest of his eye, was the odd substance.
As Kaeya quickly handed over a handful of ice he asked, "Uh- why ice?"
"Because it would rather stick to ice than to something organic," he said, still seething as he pressed the ice directly onto his eyeball. It made a disgusting sizzling and popping sound.
Kaeya couldn't stand to watch that, so he stared at the table, "do accidents like this happen often?..."
Albedo took a deep breath, "sometimes... normally I'm more careful, but today has been a bit hectic to begin with..."
Albedo lowered his hands from his face, blinking repeatedly. His eye was definitely irritated, but other than that there wasn't anything wrong.
Albedo heaved a sigh as he put the now goop-ed ice in his jar of other cold goop.
"Now it's really time to take a break," Kaeya came around the table and took Albedo's shoulders from behind.
Albedo nodded slightly, speaking softly, "alright..."
"Does it still hurt?..." Kaeya asked, helping Albedo out of his dirtied coat.
Albedo shook his head, "not as badly as it did before. But I'm glad that worked."
"... are you saying that you weren't sure it would?"
Albedo hesitated, "uh... no..."
Kaeya sighed, "Albedo..."
"Well, it worked, so we don't have to worry about it anymore..."
Kaeya shook his head, "what am I going to do with you...?" He took the coat outside and started using the snow to clean it off.
Albedo quickly finished putting his supplies away. Then, he noticed that the substance hadn't gotten on the floor... The bowl had landed right side up.
Of course it did. Albedo sighed.
It was also weird that it hadn't gotten on the shelf behind him, either...
He resisted the urge to rub his eye. It stung, but Albedo didn't want an infection or any vision problems. Not now. He couldn't afford it.
Kaeya came back in, folding the coat and laying it on the floor, "I think it's best you wear a different one until we can get this one actually washed."
Albedo nodded, "yeah, probably..."
"Does it still hurt?" Kaeya went up to Albedo and put a hand on his shoulder and the other on the side of his face.
Albedo looked to the side, "it still stings, but that's typically what happens after you get something in your eyes."
Kaeya hugged Albedo, "how are you so calm about this... I'd be freaking out... We have no idea what it is, what if you go blind?..."
"Then we'd be each other's missing half," Albedo giggled.
"Huh, I guess we would," Kaeya chuckled and gave him a squeeze.
"Okay," Albedo moved around the table, "nap time..."
He didn't necessarily want to go to sleep, but he knew that's what Kaeya wanted and sacrifices must be made for the people you love. Even if it means going to sleep in the middle of the day...
Albedo sighed.