The Peculiar Alchemist

78 || Potentially Dangerous

Whenever Kellen walked into the room, the crow's eyes would be watching him as if it sensed that there was something not quite right about him. Something which forced it to pay attention, but it was just a crow. It might be somewhat intelligent, but it didn't know what it was looking at.

All it knew was that this was a strange being entering the room. One that looked like a human, but did not feel like one.

Interestingly, the crow did not feel intimidated as it watched him place a book on the table, it was just curious to see what Kellen would do next. It has been a while since it last died, so it knew that there was a chance it would get some nuts and berries to munch on but the human who provided them last time wasn't present at that moment.

The crow let out a tiny sad voice hoping to get Kellen's attention, but it failed.

However, it was successful in getting someone else's attention and its cage was rattled by something heavy thrown at it making it almost tip over. It cawed angrily, already used to this treatment, and angry loud steps followed until they stopped in front of its cage and a pair of blue eyes glared at him.

Defiantly, the crow cawed again knowing it would annoy her.

"This thing won't quiet down." Agnes grumbled pulling the cage so roughly from under the table making the crow flap its wings in surprise and move around as if it was losing its balance. To her ire, the crow quickly learns every time to not be scared or surprised anymore of her sudden loud movements, and it seems like it also learned quickly what to do in order to irritate her further. "Useless little thing. I keep forgetting why I even keep it."

"Because it saves you the trouble of finding other birds to kill." Kellen supplied helpfully, but he was distracted by the book on the table as he carefully opened it and let the stone slide its way down without touching it.

Agnes put the cage down, gently this time, and found the reason Kellen had given to be adequate enough. It was indeed really convenient to have so many things that refuse to die around her, perfect test subjects. "Maybe not so useless then."

"Speaking of useless, I found something." Kellen told her, gesturing at the stone he dropped on the table, wary of touching it. Agnes found his behavior strange and mirrored his caution as she approached it.

There was nothing special about it, just some precious red stone that resembled a ruby, but Agnes knew enough to see that it was a little bit less valuable than a real ruby stone. She looked at Kellen hoping for some clarification, but he was looking at what was inside the book he was holding.

Carefully, she reached for the stone and grabbed it.

Nothing happened.

"Are you wasting my time?"

Kellen looked up at her with a frown before he shook his head. He realized that he did not explain anything to her which made it seem as if he really just gave her a regular stone. "Your time is not wasted. My desire to help you brought me to this stone."

Doubting that, Agnes reached for the book, but she confirmed a suspicion when Kellen moved away from the hand that had the stone, avoiding it completely. It was almost as if he was afraid of it.

"Take it." She told him, bringing the stone resting in her palm closer to him, but he took a step back determined to stay away from it.

"I'd really rather not."

Somehow, she found herself liking this mysterious stone. "And why is that?"

"Because touching it hurts, and not in a pleasant way." He told her glaring at the stone with a little bit of vehemence before he showed her the ritual he was inspecting. Agnes could make no sense of it as she waited for an explanation. "That stone was made using this. Do you see anything familiar?"