Lowell

Chapter 22

The pain stops and the new teeth sit awkwardly in his mouth. Yuri peeks around the room and cringes when he sees Rita lying on her bed asleep.

He fumbles for the sharp knife in his bag and starts sawing away. He offs one horn sloppily and shifts his hand to the other. He nips his hand and hisses at the quick pain. The horn falls with a small clang. Yuri stops when he sees her stir but the girl returns to sleep. Yuri spits in his hand as he rubs over the blood in his hair. He glares at the horns and stuffs them in the bag and pulls out the sand paper to smooth over the stubs.

Are they getting bigger? Or is it just him? He looks at his hair and groans. It's not often but sometimes his hair just grows rapidly. Yuri's hand drifts to the tips that are brushing at his knees. He cups a chunk of large hair and crops it off. He stuffs that away too and stands up with a groan from stiff muscles. Yuri stretches and heads down the ladder to see a sleeping Karol and Estelle. Repede stretches from his spot with a yawn.

"Finally. Do you know how hard it's been distracting these idiots all night?" The dog huffs bitterly.

He shrugs. "Sorry."

"They're very suspicious about you. And, it looks like they've both been digging through your stuff."

Yuri clenches his jaw. "Great." He needs to get rid of these quickly. He opens the door quietly and walks over the ravine and tosses them down. Nobody will find them now. That guy from before… maybe he was around.

He walks around the cold stone and keeps his eyes out again. He follows a high staircase to a domed building listening to that strange hum of blastia. His footsteps fall hard on the hard on the stone and it seems to echo everywhere. There's a locked door with a blastia lock and Yuri presses his ear in curiosity. He listens to the hum and as he listens he notes something odd in the noise. It's a scream like he heard in Shizontania and Yuri winces at the sound. He pulls back and hides around the corner when he notes the sound of someone approaching the door.

The weedy man from before comes out holding a large tome in his hands muttering to himself. "The cores are still wrong. Still not stable enough..." Yuri watches him type in a code still upset. "Halfer in this city. What are they thinking?" He grumbles a bit more before walking off. Cores? Garista was working on something like that too. Yuri waits some time before going up to the door and typing in the code.

The door opens with a click and he walks through halls spying labs and blastia prototypes till he walks into a room and immediately notes the giant blastia in the center humming while small crystals float around in tanks with red liquid. The blastia looks like a small-scale version of the one in Shizontania. The aer being pumped in small amounts into the containers. Yuri notes the boards scribbled with notes and the large tables covered in vials and experiments.

Then there are the shelves lined with books. Yuri's eyes widen at the title. These books… were on Krytian culture… blastia... and ancient Geraios civilization… and… Entele… Entelexeia? Whatever that means. He looks over the other titles understanding what he's looking at. These are controversial topics that have probably been banned. His feet drift over to a desk and Yuri's eyes widen as he notes a single phrase.

"Lowell Project?" His gray eyes drift to door and to the paper.

Due to our interaction with subject Lowell… We've come to the conclusion that construction of apatheia… Compression of aer over period of times… currently all prototypes have problems with aer degradation… Recent findings have lead us to believe that a greater catalyst is needed to form… Head scientist Garista has found a notable catalyst in subject Y… Due to these findings… Boring words… Entelexeia samples rarity… Boring words… Use of Krytian subjects recommended… that Entelexeia word again… And nothing but boring stupid shit.