“Actually, I have one more-” The captain glanced down to the intricate spell circle around the bed. A strange weave of incantations. “No, I have two questions– What’s this thing on the floor?”

  “Oho, protection.” At that, the elder’s eyes gleamed faintly.

  “He needed protection?” The captain’s face contorted at Gerard’s words. “Are you alright? Trespasser?”

  “Nope.” Christofer gasped for air after pushing himself to talk. ”Hurts to breathe.”

  “On the contrary,” Gerard rose from his chair, approached the bed, lifted the bedsheet that hung over on one side with his cane and revealed burn marks on the floor.

  “It’s one of the first cases I’ve spotted of mana sickness caused not by a lack of arcane energy and simple bloodloss, but an overabundance of arcane energy. A little more and I’d be sure he would’ve positively ignited. It is a most fascinating case.”

  The captain rested his chin in his hand and thought. ‘This man… Who was he?’ A chill ran down his neck. Christofer looked visibly uncomfortable from the strange attention he was getting. In the background, Frank carefully sat down another wooden frame with a clirr of brand new potions and returned to the steamy room for the last batch.

  “Oh, It has done wonders for my research,” Gerard shuffled himself closer to the bed with his cane and grabbed Christofer’s hand. “See the cascading scars on the hand from here to here? As if hit by lightning! The volume of the arcane energy that was pushed out of the capillaries of his hand was vast enough that halfway through, the arcane energy spontaneously transformed into thermal energy.”

  “Mm, yes, Absolutely astounding.” Gerard confirmed to himself, “Oh and regarding the second specimen you brought in-”

  “Don’t refer to me as a specim-” Christofer tried to say but was interrupted.

  “It isn’t every day that you get to study a juvenile of a Troll. It has been incredibly difficult to procure them as of late-”

  “Juvenile?” The captain interrupted Gerard this time.

  Gerard shuffled behind the counter, towards a bookcase. Numerous books lined up on the shelf. An amalgamation of leather, paper and string, the wormed carcasses of all those books, stacked next without an apparent order caught his attention for a brief moment.

  “Oh yes, quite a young one” Gerard’s finger moved over the spines looking for a specific book “...Herbal, No, Alchem- No… Ah, here we are.” He said before pulling out a thick leather-bound book, flicked through the parchment pages and moved back to the oak table with the book under his arm and his index finger stuck in the book.

  He threw the book open on the oak table to a page featuring a macabre level of a detailed depictions of a progressively dissected Troll’s corpse. Next to every body part, save for the heart, meticulous descriptions were tightly packed in an obscure language. Gerard turned around to face the captain.

  “Now, look at this page. Look at the underdeveloped cranium: the stunted height, the underdeveloped torso. The defensive spines along its back have not even receded yet. Trolls regularly weed out the weak by exiling or outright eating them. As barbaric as it may be, no one has ever been able to pierce into its leader structure. The mere mention of the idea is shrouded in myths and legends. Now, note the numerous bruises across its entire body and most notably the empty chest cavity. As the old saying goes, the root of all power of any magic-wielding entity is its heart. Naturally, we know today that it’s the blood itself, not the organ that pumps it. Nevertheless, it is still ritually eaten by the killers in tribes, and by creatures alike. Such a waste.”

  The captain looked down on the page with an uneasy look. The mention of eating a heart made a memory flash in Christofer’s mind. ‘Eating the heart…?‘ A dark memory painted in shades of red and brown flickered in his mind briefly, like a spark ignited briefly from metal striking against flint.

  “I-I’ll take your word for it.” The captain replied to Gerard.

  Noting the lack of interest in the captain’s voice. The old man closed the book, made his way to the bookcase and pushed the book in about the same place where he took it from. The captain blew out a breath of relief.

  “What was your second question?” Gerard asked as he came to a stop, shifting his weight to his cane and rested his other hand over the one grabbing the cane.

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  “Ah. Right,” The captain cleared his throat. “My lord was wondering if the Norseman was stable enough to be moved yet.”

  Christofer tuned out from their discussion as something spoke from within. Words spilled out in a smoothly liquid manner.

  “Even now, the evil seed of what you've done, germinates within you.” The gecko’s eyes focused on him; No one else seemed to be able to hear it.

  “Really?” He looked at the gecko.

  “No, not really,” the Gecko's round eyes glimmered at him in earnest, “It was a question of kill or be killed. You tapped into something deeper. Then you and I both consumed the cores of our aggressor. You, the physical. I, the spiritual. Now the runes have been laid in your flesh as the victor.”

  “Well, that’s fair. I think? Wait, didn’t you say that you and I were one in the past?” He leaned back and sank back into the bed. The gecko nodded.

  “Correct. But we are aware that the distinction of ‘You’ and ‘I’ helps the mind calm itself. Through our combined efforts, the aggressor is but a fragmented carcass in the deepest recesses of your mind.” The gecko’s tongue once again darted out and licked its eyes one by one to retain moisture. Christofer closed his eyes.

  “You have a point there,” He replied back as he furrowed his brows because he wasn’t quite sure how to feel about the whole thing. “But technically speaking, I am agreeing with myself.”

  He blew out a deep breath. Gerard pondered the captain’s question for a little while before his cane struck the wooden floor as he shifted his weight back onto the side with his good hand. Slowly turning around, he moved over in the direction of the counter, grunted as he passed it and stopped in front of a desk drawer with a candlelit lamp on top of it. Muttering, he reached into the top center desk drawer, pulled out a stack of parchments and plucked a handful of sheets from the top that were loosely tied together with string.

  “Please read this,” Gerard spoke and motioned for the captain to get closer. “It’ll be enlightening.”

  The wooden floor creaked under the captain’s footsteps. Gerard placed the rest of the parchments back into the drawer. The two lowered their volume to hushed voices. Christofer couldn’t quite make out what they said. He noted them glancing in his direction and then down to the parchments they were holding. Then back at him a few times. They both nodded to each other and the captain reluctantly retrieved a pouch from his pocket. He weighed it in his hand before handing it over to Gerard. From beneath a shelf of peeling grimoires, scratchy squeaky sounds could be heard.

  “This should be enough-- Can you help me by opening the lowest desk drawer for me?” Gerard motioned for the captain by waving with his arm. “My back isn’t quite what it used to be.“

  The captain made a tired nod, crouched down, pulled out the lowest desk drawer and observed its contents. Inside was a gambeson, a padded long-sleeve black coat that would cover the torso from the neck, down over the hips on the front and back. The gambeson would be donned like a jacket and closed on the front with five troll leather straps and brass buckles to customize the fit’s tightness.

  “A gambeson?” the captain said and raised an eyebrow.

  “Constructed with heavy layers of linen spun together with troll hair into a fluffy mass sandwiched between layers of heavy linen canvas.”

  He looked down at the gambeson. All of those layers were stitched together in vertical lines, keeping the padding in place. At the end of each sleeve a thick band with runes.

  “It's essentially a portable version of that spell circle around the bed. It’s a band-aid, but it should keep him stable enough to be transported for trial and back here, assuming, of course, you don’t come across too many obstacles. The seamstress completed it the day before yesterday. Jack finished the runes this morning.”

  “I’m not an expert at this, quite the opposite, but it looks like it’s utilizing a similar arrangement of runes as cheaper mage shackles? Siphoning off the excess? Oh-” the Captain almost bit his tongue as a scurry of grey tiny shapes crossed the floor and disappeared beneath one of the two bookshelves into a mouse hole in the wall.

  “Indeed. Curious minds often converge on the same idea. A seal would’ve been dangerous.” Gerard said. The captain grunted. It did make sense.

  “Oh, and Ignore the rats,” Gerard continued. “So bothersome. I try to keep them away from the books, but they over-run the place. Their overabundance has been useful for potion creation, though.” Gerard said, which made the captain uneasy; he never did like rats.

  There was a lot of ruckus heard from the room where the potions were made. The door swung open, blowing warm air in their direction. Frank stumbled out of the room as he carried a heavy and slightly larger wood frame with large round flasks with an oily yellowish-green liquid inside of them. He made a few more unsteady steps as a grey tiny shape flew past his legs. Frank placed down the large frame with a thud on the counter.

  “By god and his aunt, Gerard! The rats have even made their way in there now.” Frank pointed in the direction where he came from. “We really need to get rid of them now. We can’t really put it off anymore!”

  The captain resisted a frown, leaving only a muscle twitch in his face. Gerard, however, froze up for a moment at Frank’s comment. He moved, at first, by stroking a frail hand through his white fluff of hair, staring out into thin air for a brief moment before he collected himself and pulled himself away from his thoughts.

  “Well,” Gerard scratched his cheek, “The druid will come by at-- Hm?”

  His words trailed off once more as his eyes locked on to a large rat skittering towards their direction. The captain flinched and hurriedly took a few steps backward to avoid the little creature, which alerted it and made it make a steep turn to avoid him. Sensing it running in a dangerous direction, Frank positioned himself in the way to close off the path.