[Excerpt found in one of Aschenbach’s journals dated many months age]
I have been too lenient on Garavan. While his overly passive nature is to be blamed on the faulty of his creation, his morality has interfered with my work one too many times now. Before he sat on the sidelines and mildly protested on my methods, but this time he has gone and let a specimen loose.
Unlike Quinetra, who had escaped with the Blood-magic infused Elin known as Calamity, the loss of this particular specimen was too great on my research. Blood-magic infused being have their quirks, but none have come as close as this particular subject I had come across, whose gift in power seems to surpass even the Elin Princess Seers and the five children from the Stepstone Isle.
It is such a shame that Garavan let this subject escape before I could begin any initial tests. Lailafel reports on keeping an eye on the subject, but the subject is now too well-guarded for my Homunculi to try and recollect the lost specimen. Perhaps I should look into my connections to see if they are willing to give me enough firepower to recapture the subject. This may be tricky since if they found out about the specific powers the subject has, they may also want it for their own gains and thus, ruin the specimen before I can get to work on my experiments.
That being said, Garavan’s actions are very costly. Before I contact the organizations I must work on reprogramming Garavan. It will take some time as I will have to completely start from the beginning of his entire mind. Thankfully, my notes of the creation of Lailafel are at my other lab that is close by so Garavan will not need to be left alone. It truly is bothersome that it has to come to this, especially with the absence of Quinetra to carry out Lailafel’s general retrieval tasks, but Lailafel is currently keeping tabs on the subject.
Perhaps this time, I will be able to perfect Garavan like Lailafel. Quinetra has not interrupted my work as much thus, her programming is tolerable enough that I do not need to work on reprogramming her anytime soon. She is efficient enough like Lailafel when needed.
Garavan struggled against his bonds on the table. “Sir! Please reconsider!”
The Baraka didn’t look up from his desk while he made sure he had all the right surgical instruments there. Yellowed old notebooks were turned to the precise pages he was needed for this task while he had a blank notebook open to take current notes of this session.
It took him many years to create each homunculus from scratch. Thankfully, he did not need to recreate the body, all he needed to do was take it all apart and finally fix the faulty wires and reassemble them. Such a process may take many months, but it was needed.
“This particular specimen was very important to my research Garavan.” Aschenbach spoke in his monotone voice through his mask filter. “I had spent many resources to procure the secret documents about them. It was not an easy task. And then finally locating the subject down took quite some time too.”
The homunculus thrashed against the restraints harder. “Stop referring to them like objects! I’ve cowered by as you hurt innocent people, but she’s just a kid Sir!”
If the Baraka still had emotions, he would have chuckled at this point, but he didn’t, not in his current psychopathic state. “Even though Elins do age slower than humans, it is far older than even you.”
“She has a name! Her name is Erune!” The man’s usual terrified face suddenly scowled. “You have no morals about life do you? Everything is just a stupid experiment to you, isn’t it?!”
Suddenly, the Baraka loomed over Garavan’s body, his stone body giving off a menacing and deadly aura. A cold chill went through Garavan’s spine “Your rebellious behavior has gone on long enough Garavan. My work must be completed. And if your faulty programming of morality is getting in the way,” A stony hand slammed on the table, right by the man’s head. “Then I must remedy that first.”
With one hand to hold the homunculus’s head in place so it couldn’t struggle, he used his other hand to press the hidden button sequence of panels under the scalp.
Garavan let out one last scream of defiance before it was suddenly cut off as his circuits were severed.
[Recent entry in Aschenbach’s journals dated two days ago]
The reprogrammed homuculus named Garavan has shown great progress. At the unfortunate loss of his organic eyesight during the reprogramming, his bionic eyewear has proven useful in digitally recording all events around him. He has responded adequately to all commands and shows no hesitation when asked to do a task that the previous version would have questioned or refused to carry out.
I had tested his programmed loyalty by sending him on an errand. He successfully returned without incident.
I will next task him with locating Quinetra and her new companion Calamity. My next steps in recapturing the subject known as Erune Fae may require the Elin homunculi’s assistance. Lailafel has reported that one her older sisters, named Zyllian, has a very strong sense of smell and is easily set off by bloodmagic. Perhaps the blood-magic infused Elin known as Calamity would be willing to assist in serving as a distraction to the three sisters that are carefully guarding the one known as Erune.
Truly the Mysterium were fools in halting the tests of the Elin when she was a child, and even more foolish they were of attempting to destroy all records of research from the tests. Such a gifted specimen with hidden powers that rival, no, perhaps even surpass the current gods who remain in Arborea, must be looked further into.
