My Bad Boy Werewolf Quadrillionaire Space Lord

Reunited

They had tread upon a subject Alcuard was reluctant to speak of.

In fact, even for the astonishing gift of their friendship, Alcuard would not have allowed the secrets of Atlantis' technology to be spoken of. The power of the unobtanium stones is incomprehensible and incredibly dangerous; capable of defying gravity, thermodynamics, and even lawyers.

It was by the power of those stones that Atlantis rose from the ground, lifted its people to near godhood over the Earth, and lead them to the secrets of long un-life. And it is by the power of those stones that Alcuard had destroyed his people.

Even knowledge of those stones could lead to madness. Alcuard could only share the secret with someone proven to be responsible with such power. And unless they had used such power before, how could he know if they could be trusted with it.

The unobtanium was a secret Alcuard had intended to never speak of. But he had never expected someone to have a comparable power.

Luca Cardego had learned how to create wormholes. And refused to use them to kill, even when enemies threatened his riches and his allies.

And so, Alcuard Cominetti Von Dracul gave up a secret he had intended to keep until the end of everything.

"The unobtanium stones are devices of incomprehensible power," Alcuard said slowly. "Some claimed they are fragments of a universe that existed before this one. Others insisted they were keys made to unlock the secrets of reality. BIRD would call them lazy writing."

"So, what are they?" Isabella asked.

"I honestly don't know," Alcuard admitted. "All I know is what they can make impossible things happen. They have created endless power, allowed scientists to divine the secret of vampirism, enabled us to travel faster than light, unchained us from gravity, and even cured the common cold."

"So you can do anything with it?" Isabella pressed her question with a rapid rise in her tone of voice. "Like literally anything?"

"If we found a limit to the stone, it was only in how much it could do. The stone was limited to a single task, and could only do so much alone. But the only limit to what it could accomplish seemed to be the imagination of its weirder," Alcuard said. "Oh, and we couldn't make portals. We never understood why."

"Wait, you only had one stone?" Luca interjected. Alcuard was surprised, and impressed, by how quickly the wealthy werewolf cut to that conclusion. "You keep calling them stones, though. As if you know there's more."

"In the early days of our discovery, we tried to use the unobtanium stone's power to discover the others. Our sages were convinced there were more. The control apparatus that makes Atlantis fly is designed to use the power of six. But we never could learn the secret. Some of us, myself included, believed they didn't exist yet."

"Yet?" Luca asked.

"Yes. One of our greatest sages, who built the control device for Atlantis, had delved the only clue we have ever found about the other stones," Alcuard said, as he tilted his head back and closed his eyes, searching his millennium of memory.

He coughed, rolled his shoulders, and recited an old mystery:

One to lift the suckers above their betters

Another at the heart of brass and steam

Three in a nest of pixie's fetters

Four to illuminate a mermaid's dream

More are hidden in the inkwell

Locked behind the empty page

Birthed with each tale to tell