The Elantra Pirates

Chapter 17

Jinlin lights a candle and places it gently on the coffee table near Hillanters resting body. He sits down next to him and places the back of his hand across his forehead.

"He's still heating up." He said. "That doesn't look good."

"How long did you say he had?" Shanta asked him.

"Two days."

"Hmmm." She looked down while she rested her chin on her hand.

"Doubting your friends?" He said.

"They're not my friends, just crewmates."

"Then why'd you agree to the plan?"

"I have nowhere else to go. It's either this or trucking it on my own. But, they're able to handle themselves, for the most part."

"You sure? They basically sent themselves to their death with the task they've set themselves on."

"Trust me, they're competent."

"Whatever you say."

"Hey, can I ask a quick question?" She walked up behind Jinlin.

"Sure." He turned around to face her.

She had her hand reached out, almost grasping his face. Her eyes glowed purple as she looked fiercely into his eyes.

"Tell me everything you know about the Vill stone." She commanded.

"Sorry that's not going to work." He grabbed her arm and pushed it out of his face.

"What!?" She looked surprised.

"Your little tricks aren't going to get the best of me. I can resist the truth spell."

"Dammit." She cursed under her breath.

"I've built up a resistance to mind controlling spells over the course of my life. My father used to teach me just in case some outsider tried to get information on our family secrets. I'm surprised really, why did you even try to do that? It's not like I wasn't going to tell you."

"I'm not telling you."

He looked suspiciously at her as flipped open a medical textbook. "Ok then. If you want to know so badly I'll tell you everything you need to know." He turned over some pages. "You already know the folklore behind it and it's insatiable power it holds. But that illness is something that Barbara made impossible to cure. She wasn't even the one that made the cure." He scrolled along some text in the book and read it closely. "Follow me." He motioned her over as he headed down the hallway.

"Was it some other god that made it?" Shanta asked.

"Yes. The God of Cruelty. Wipter." They passed by the main lobby and over near the kitchen. "He opposed Barbara's punishment for the use of the stone and came up with a cure that took him hundreds of years to come up with. A ritual that forcibly takes control of the user's body."

"Take control of the body? Like a possession right? I've heard of witches doing that to dead bodies and tormenting their loved ones with it as a prank."

"Exactly, though it's even more dangerous than just one old scraggly hag taking advantage of a deceased man. The person who the ritual is performed on will be used like a puppet for his pleasure."

"Wipter?"

"Yep." They walk past the kitchen that has many cooking utensils neatly sorted in a rack near a sink, oven, refrigerator, and a stove. There was a little corridor that connected the kitchen to another door. Leading her there, he opened the door and it opened to a laboratory.