Olivia emerged aggressively from the small storage room of her sanctuary, the wisps of magic from the portal still dissipating behind her. The cabin’s common room served as the main ritual space, and after Nymora’s last visit, Olivia had painstakingly restored it to meditative flow. The binding and nullifying wards had all been cleansed and the furniture was returned to their respective posts. Her work desk was tidy, and the ritual altar was draped in an enchanted shroud. When she slammed the storage room door closed, the charms on the ceiling all sang softly, trying to encourage calm while guarding against the disruption of outside influence.
At least until Olivia brought that outside influence inside with her.
“I can’t believe that wretched rake of a wraith escaped!” She snarled as she dropped her bag of spoils and her personal effects into the nearest Queen Lianne chair. The ignited a wave of agony up her right side as her muscles flexed against the bruised ribs beneath. “I had him! I had him and slipped free as if I had bound him in wet paper! Clever bastard.”
Although the comment may have been a term of endearment in other situations, it was spit from her lips like venom, and without missing a stride, Olivia went straight to the bar to get the taste of his name out of her mouth.
From a crystal decanter she poured a glass of an herb infused red wine and raised it immediately to her lips, drinking deeply without replacing the cork. The dryness that chased in the wake of the warm, tart spirits tightened her throat and acted like an unpleasant reminder of the poison that had accompanied the first trial. However, she was prepared for this and drowned the sensation with a second partial cup of wine before pouring a third and closing the bottle. With the glass clutched like a lifesaver between her hands, she paced the floor and pondered the tangled mass of emotions she was experiencing. Along with three crystalline orbs and a poisoned brass goblet, her anger and confusion were all she had to show for the entire excursion. An endeavor that had taken her a full month to execute, following months of entertaining the research. She felt empty and sick to think that the Chalice had been so close. If she had just been a little faster, it would have been in her hand instead of his. If she had just abandoned him when the Guardian was focused on him, she may have had a chance to snatch the prize before helping him destroy it. If she had left him behind…
Olivia’s wicked, wretched, traitor heart tensed at the very thought. She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. In the darkness the scene played out again. The man on his back, crying, unconscious and bleeding from a head wound. He was competition and a year ago, Olivia would have left him behind. She would have taken her head start and rushed for the end, for her prize. However, the weight of her soul, the youthful ideals still stitched into it demanded she stay back and help. She wanted to say it made them even, she watched over him during his vision after he had helped her recover from the poison in the first trial.
However, there was no scorecard when she traveled beneath the antechamber with him. When she accepted his help and talked a little of her life outside of the dark places where secrets were stored.
“Stupid!” She hissed aloud, opening her eyes and sipping her wine.
Olivia said so much. She felt so desperate to open up to her rival, it was almost as though there was still an emptiness within her. A void she was trying to fill with something she couldn’t even describe. Somehow, the answer lied with Dr. Krogen…
“That… cockalorum!” She growled through grinding teeth.
With a deep breath she glared at the bag he had thrown at her before he fully vanished. He was another slippery shadowwalker, and Olivia hadn’t known that when he got his hands on the Chalice first. Of course, he took it before she did something regrettable at the Chalice’s haunting call. However, no matter what she threw at him, he slipped free until he vanished entirely.
"Don't tease when you're already taken madame, it's bad form."
The doctor’s final words to her surfaced in an unwelcomed way. There was a haunting seriousness and sting to them. While she had been intent on leaving a lipstick reminder on his mask, it had mostly been a cruel distraction aimed for his cleanliness and not romance. With the meticulous way he had cleaned the goblets, she thought the smudge on his mask would disturb him long enough for her to snatch the bag and portal away.
His reaction was different, though.
“It doesn’t matter,” she hissed to herself, cutting off the curious train of thought while finishing her wine.
Transitioning from pacing to action once more, she went to her bag and retrieved the comm Quin and Alice had given her. She turned it over in her hand and gave one final thought to the plan that had been brewing since the duplicitous doctor stepped through shadows to evade her. With a firm nod she engaged the device and spoke, clear and calm, to her dear friends on the otherside.
“Alice, darling. Quin? Is there a chance we could meet for dinner tomorrow night? I made it out of the temple alive and unharmed, and I would like to discuss it with you. In person.”
[ Mentions: @carlkrogen @subjectragnar @alas-ward ]
