The Truth Seekers - Etrian Odyssey: Untold

Chapter 13

Author’s Note: This chapter took a little longer than expected, but I am semi-proud of it. As proud as any writer could be, I suppose. Thank you, dreadgar2 for reviewing. I’m happy that you are enjoying my story.

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“We did it. We found it!”

It took Jarrett a couple of seconds to fully realise what Galyn had just said. When it did, he tightened his hold on Galyn’s shoulders a fraction. “You found what Mira has been doing?” he asked.

“Yes!” Galyn said as she continued to smile beautifully. She pulled herself out of his hold and grabbed his right hand to pull him further into the mansion. However, her smile promptly disappeared as she looked down at his hand, turning it over to look at the back of his hand. Or more importantly, his damaged knuckles. She trailed her fingertips gently over the damaged skin.

Galyn’s brow furrowed for a moment before she looked back up at him, concern and confusion shimmering in her violet eyes. “Your hand?”

“It’s nothing,” Jarrett stated quickly, although making no attempt to remove his hand from hers. “What did you find out?”

Galyn didn’t look convinced, but thankfully decided not to push the subject. Instead she kept a hold of his hand and tugged him to follow her. “This way,” she said as she led toward the large table that was being used as a conference table.

As Jarrett stood at the ‘head’ of the table, Galyn kept a hold of his hand, once again gently trailing her fingers over the broken skin, where a warm healing glow began to silently heal the minor injury. But she continued to hold onto his hand, even after she healed his self-inflicted injury. Silently, Jarrett curled his fingers around Galyn’s hand, in a sign of appreciation and comfort.

“What have you got?” Jarrett asked, turning his attention back to the task at hand.

“It’s definitely the bronzite,” Simon answered, getting straight to the point. “Galyn had the idea that Mira was literally grinding up the stones and injecting it straight into the body.”

“A small amount at a time, in order to make them very sick, resulting in a prolong hospital stay,” Galyn added.

“Where she’ll administer the final, lethal dose,” Simon muttered, the two medics taking turns to explain their findings.

“We tested it if it was possible to make the particles small enough and we could,” Galyn explained as she pushed back orange strands of hair from her face with one hand, the other still holding onto Jarrett’s. “However, it was able to solidify quite quickly as well.”

Simon nodded his head rather grimly as he placed both his hands upon the table to look over the strewn documents. “So not only is the iron poisoning them, but the foreign particles are also causing damage.”

Sounded absolutely potent.

“Are you sure?” Jarrett asked.

“Yes,” Galyn answered as she reluctantly removed his hold on his hand to lean across the table to pick up a file, along with a small glass vial and moved them both toward Jarrett. “In the medical reports, they mentioned a reddish, dusty substance in IV lines and when the patient vomited.”

Galyn then indicated toward the glass vial, revealing a watery substance that seemed to have a thick layer of something solid on the bottom. “Just like this.”

Jarrett took the vial, held it up toward the light and stared at it critically. He frowned deeply. “Sediment,” he murmured. That was being injected into the patients? What kind of damage could it, or rather, couldn’t it do?