Chapter 12 – Where They Overlap.

It was looking quite likely that Burt and his partner in crime had indeed gone to the tavern afterwards, both of them looking much worse for the wear when they emerged from their room in the morning. Squinting in the light, unshaven, clothes rough, like they had fallen asleep in them. Fraser ignored them completely, sparing them little more than a cursory glance as he got into the car, and then sat there waiting with Uriah and Julia for the rest of them to get themselves organised. They hadn’t talked any further about what had happened, there hadn’t really been any need. In the end all of them had been awake during it, Julia blushing at them as Fraser took Uriah’s hand, because dammit he wanted to, and so he was going to. And it was just Julia with them.

“It was good,” Julia stated once the car finally started moving, handing him the book that she’d been reading. “I really enjoyed it.”

Fraser gave her a smile. It was always nice when people enjoyed reading something that you also liked. “Do you want to read another?” It wasn’t like they had much else to do, the remainder of the journey still likely to take the rest of the day. They just had to make sure that they arrived at the anomaly by nightfall.

“Yes please,” Julia replied, a sparkle in her eye. “Though, umm...” she seemed hesitant about something. “Do you have any here that have a... female love interest.”

He couldn’t help it, laughing lightly as he gave her a grin. “Nothing to be ashamed about. They’re just as natural as any other relationship, and often really cute too!”

Julia went the most adorable shade of red, staring down at the car seat.

Fraser chuckled again, and pulled out another book, handing it over to her. As she had requested, it had a female love interest, and it was perhaps a little steamy in places. He’d packed that one on a whim, having already read it, but it was one of his favourites. It was also fantasy themed, with accompanying tropes. Their knowledge of magic was of course wrong, but that wasn’t their fault. You didn’t know what you didn’t know. Julia took it, gave it a quick look over, before pointedly ignoring him as she took back on her founders posture and started reading it.

It only took a couple of pages before she relaxed again, sinking into the seat of the car. “Thanks,” she mumbled, her eyes very much fixed on the pages. He liked her better when she was like that. It certainly felt more like the real her, compared to the whole founders air that she sometimes cloaked herself in.

For better or worse, the drive was largely uneventful. More of the countryside just flowed past as they read, or lightly dozed in Fraser’s case, as he just enjoyed the company and the pleasantness of it all, away from everything related to his parents. Well, apart from Julia being his fiancee, but right now that wasn’t a concern either. He already had a ring on his finger, as did the one that he cared the most about. A short stop at another cafe and a walk around a park when the day was at its warmest, their driver making sure to take them to a different stop than where Burt and his crew had gone, and then back on the road again, the two vehicles reaching Resinfalls by early evening. Another stop for food, as this would be their last chance, Fraser reluctantly settling for cafe style food again, as there wasn’t really any other option, and they were off again.

He was kind of excited, but also nervous at the same time. He hadn’t done this since he’d lost his magic, and it was also one of the furthest out anomaly’s that he’d been to, regardless of the state of his magic. Most of his life had been spent in the regions that the Guardians had influence over, no surprises there, his parents always trying to keep him close. That anomalies were more common to the point of the Source was no real surprise either. But here, now, it was a bit like how it had used to be, before everything had changed. Back in the field with Uriah, with the potential to find something interesting. He just hoped that they didn’t run into anything nasty. While he knew exactly how good Uriah was, there was only one of him, and he wasn’t expecting much help from Burt and the others.

The light was beginning to fade by the time they reached their destination, the vehicles turning off the main road onto an almost hidden gravel one, the trip suddenly rather uncomfortable as they bounced their way along it, towards the complex itself. It was both familiar and not, beautiful in an eerie way, and also haunting, the feel of its history somehow still managing to linger. All things considered, it wasn’t in too bad of a state, at least compared to the buildings beside the Guardians’ complex. Part of that was probably due to its location, too far away from the closest town for the local vandals to regularly visit. The surrounding forest had well and truly encroached here, the outlying buildings having been completely taken over, the green foliage bursting out from them.

The tainted moon was out now as well, the area around them bathed in its amber glow, tinged with the sharp tang of magic, one of the indications that its current state was anything but normal. The other being that it was currently full and with two shadows, even though it was mostly waned the previous day. It wouldn’t be noticed in most locations, though, as that was also part of its nature, and usually only lasted until midnight. The witching hour. The cycle was semi-regular, approximately every forty five days, when the flow of magic in the world aligned with the lunar cycle for the other realm, something that they had managed to learn from one of the discovered tomes. A lucky find, or perhaps more than a coincidence. That aspect had never been mentioned much, even if he had wondered that himself. But that they had learnt had made their observations make that much more sense, and allowed them to locate the anomalies more easily. Couple that with the spikes that seemed to emanate from anomalies before they started manifesting, and they started finding most of them before the creatures could start causing issues.

Fraser shivered as he grabbed his exploration bag and stepped out of the vehicle, looking over the buildings. Not from the cold, but from everything else. It was that much stronger when he was standing in front of it all. At the least there was enough space for the vehicles to park, the original entrance area still largely clear.

“Okay, this place is creepy,” Julia commented, zipping up that jacket that she had put over the top of her clothes. It was rather puffy, but looked quite warm as well.

“That, and off,” Uriah observed as he rolled his shoulders and stretched his arms, as Fraser tried not to watch. This was not the time to be distracted at all, and it was something that Uriah always did before a mission after all.

He agreed on that though. It didn’t have the overall feel that he had expected, especially for a just discovered anomaly. “Here,” he just simply said though, as he passed ear units to Julia and Uriah. These ones had their own channel so that they could talk if separated, but could also receive messages from the others if needed. Standard fare for this type of work, but again something that he hadn’t used since he’d lost the use of his magic. It felt odd, and not as comfortable as it used to. A little foreign.

[“Testing...”] Fraser couldn’t help smiling there. Uriah’s voice sounded just the way that it always did through them.

“Working fine,” he answered with a laugh, extracting a flood light out of his bag, and then slinging the bag over his shoulder. They wouldn’t need it outside, but as soon as they started investigating inside the buildings they would.

The spellswords and others had also exited their vehicle, Riddling looking around with the same disdain that he’d showed before while the rest of them opened up the trailer unit and started extracting gear. Armour that Fraser had always found to be impractical and that Uriah refused to wear, comms and weapons, and a bulky backpack that one of the spellswords shouldered. The guys from the archives had their own packs on like Fraser did, and were looking rather nervous. He couldn’t blame them, for numerous reasons, and he doubted that they’d been on many missions at all, from their demeanour.

Burt gave them a look, the hatred there, glinting in his eyes, but somewhat kept in check. He had a show of looking the rest of his team over, and then back at them again, a nasty grin on his face. “You lot are on your own. We’ve been instructed to look after Mr Fle here, so we will be doing just that. And only that. I’m sure you’ll be fine though. You were elites after all.” He laughed, as he turned, signalling his team to head in. “We’ll probably just end up clearing everything anyways. Don’t go accidentally dying now, like you almost did last time.”

Fraser stiffened, his scars aching at the memory, then relaxing again as Uriah threaded his hand through his. “He has no clue as to what we’re capable of,” Uriah stated, as he looked over towards the buildings.

“I guess at least we won’t have to worry about their stupidity,” Julia commented as she stood behind them, her hands in the pockets of her jacket. “Unless they destroy something useful?”

Fraser shook his head. “Doubt it. They have no clue what they’re looking for anyway. You’re not worried, that we’ve been left to fend for ourselves?” He then asked.

“Should I be?” Julia gave him an almost surprised look.

Fraser shook his head. “No. Not really.” He had plenty of faith in Uriah.

They waited until Burt and the others had well and truly disappeared into the complex before they also headed in, going into the opposite side, and hopefully they’d be able to avoid the others for as long as necessary.

From the information that had been dredged up, at one point the complex had been a hospital, an auxiliary one built when demand had been high due to the war. Constructed in a hurry and then used for years afterwards till its shoddy construction had started to show and it had been decommissioned, left sitting empty for years, and then finally sold off. To the founders of the commune, and what happened after that was now history, albeit still shrouded and mostly unknown. That was the problem with places like that. No one really knew what was going within, but then again, the same thing could be said for the Guardians.

It had that look and feel though, the way that it was constructed, and the way that it was laid out. The small buildings that had been built around it, some of them later additions, and then the clusters of larger buildings in the middle, the main wards that were all connected by hallways and inner courtyards, repurposed to whatever the commune had needed them for. The potential for other ghosts on top of any that perhaps remained from whatever happened with the commune. Not that he’d seen any other ghosts apart from Felicia.

Fraser kept his eyes peeled as they walked between the outer buildings, eyeing up every shadow as a possible source for the creatures. The glow of the tainted moon was strong, intense almost, the perfect birthing conditions. But the shadows here looked faint. Dead. Hollow. Nothing seemed to be, or was, lurking within. And that was odd, and made him feel nervous in a different way. But, they had a job to do, and he was rather keen to find something, anything, that might provide more hints about the other side. As long as it wasn’t another alchemy handbook.

Fraser systematically checked each building as they went past it, Julia going inside with him as he shone the flood light around, looking into every corner, trying to spot if anything was amiss or out of place. A hint of the weakness of the anomaly, a point of leakage. Uriah stood guard outside, while also keeping an eye on them, just in case. The creatures never spawned where the light of the tainted moon did not reach, but he’d already seen one exist outside of that, so what he’d once thought impossible, was no longer a certainty.

It was rather boring, all things considered. There was just nothing there apart from nature doing its best to reclaim what once was its. Trees, grass, moss and mold, all taking claim of some of the buildings and trying to wipe them from existence. A slow process. There was hints of foliage from the other side, Fraser recognising a couple of varieties, but they were ones that easily took root anywhere. Nothing else out of the ordinary.

“One of the bigger ones then?” Uriah asked as they emerged from the fifth building, Fraser’s annoyance probably quite obvious on his face. “It feels stronger there.”

Stronger, yes, but not that much more so. He could feel it as well. It was almost as if this place was at the end of its lifespan, not the beginning. Fraser stood, just staring, as the realisation hit him. It wasn’t as if. “This place is all but dead, Uri,” he muttered. He wasn’t mistaken about that. That was why it felt off. He’d been to enough anomalies to be able to tell the difference, even if now it seemed that much clearer.

“But I thought...” Julia started, before just looking at them.

“He’s right,” Uriah agreed. “That is indeed how it feels. It’s at the end of its lifespan. The connection will be gone permanently in a few hours.”

“Then why did they have us come here, and at the last minute?” Julia looked confused, still looking from him to Uriah and then back again. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“No, that it doesn’t, and that would be the pivotal question.” Fraser wouldn’t put anything past his parents, and now he was nervous for other reasons beyond the anomaly. “Let’s keep looking though. We might still find out why, or something.”

Something they did indeed find, one creature, a small one, creeping out of the shadows against the larger building that was now their destination as they approached it, at first appearing cautious, and then all but throwing itself at them, its howl piercing through the air as it did so. Uriah just dashed towards it, flame sword materialising as they met, the creature evaporating pitifully mid air. A clear demonstration of how good he was, even if that was just a simple kill.

“Hot and deadly,” Julia teased as they entered the large building, Fraser blushing in response. Yes, that he was. And his too. He felt the ring on his finger, and found himself smiling to himself. He hadn’t ever thought that he’d have this, the ring from Uriah, that their relationship would go in this direction. But it had, and he was more than happy about that. It was, after all, what he had desired, deep down.

The door to the building swung open by itself when Uriah pushed on it, the scent of decay and loss strong as they made their way inside, Fraser on edge. Some things shouldn’t be easily sensed, yet, here, it was. It was as if a part of its history was manifesting along with the quirks of the anomaly, and they hadn’t seen enough of the latter. Fraser swept the flood light around the entrance area, the light from the tainted moon no longer sufficient now that they were inside and moving away from the broken windows. The place was a mess, dirt and leaves covering parts of the floor, chairs and tables pushed off to the side. It looked like a classroom, but without a whiteboard or computer at the desk. A few plants had taken root in the corner of the room, and a mess of twigs in another suggested that some birds had made use of the shelter at one point, but other than that, it was empty. No flickering, no out of place aspects. Nor anything else of the people who had once been here.

“This place is creepy,” Julia declared, shivering a bit. “What exactly are we looking for?”

“You’ll know it when you see it,” Uriah stated as he moved across the room and to the next door, waiting and listening before he carefully opened it. There would be nothing here, he didn’t need to be that cautious, but it was something that he’d always done. More so after the incident. Nor was knowing as easy as Uriah had made it sound; experience was also key.

They slowly made their way along the corridor that led from the room, systematically checking each new room as they passed them. Usually with just a quick glance, and sometimes more if something didn’t feel quite right. The building had probably been a collection of wards when it was first built, its uniform nature not doing anything to help with Fraser’s current impression of the mission. The feel of the anomaly was stronger here, yet nothing was out of place. There was no impression of the other side. Just what he’d expect of a place like this that had been abandoned for a decade. Each room had its assortment of furniture, a collection of debris, dirt and leaf matter from the surrounding trees outside, and maybe a board or two on the wall, and that was it. Nothing to give them personality, to say that anyone had really lived here. Perhaps no one really had.

Fraser noticed it at the same time that Uriah did, a subtle shift in the feel of the place, both of them looking down a branching corridor towards a door part way down.

“There?” he questioned, Uriah nodding in response.

“There.”

Signalling to Julia, they made their way quickly down to it, and then stopped outside. Behind that door it felt different. More alive. Like there had been purpose there, that there had been meaning. That someone, ones, or things, had lived there.

Uriah waited for Fraser’s signal, and then opened the door, the smell of gas wafting past them. The room was definitely at odds with what they had seen thus far. While it still had desks and chairs, they were laid out in an organised fashion, with the smaller ones at the front and the larger ones at the back, a single chair for each desk, and all of them in straight, neat, rows. Someone had spent far too much time doing that. The floor was clean, swept, and there wasn’t any hint of mold or decay anywhere in it. Not even in the corners where it could easily be missed. A dozen mostly burnt candles sat on the front row of tables, sitting in the exact middle, and three cardboard boxes sat closed up against one wall.

“Someone has been here, and recently,” Uriah stated as they all moved into the room, Fraser pulling out another light and placing it on one of the tables. A lantern style one, designed to illuminate the whole room. Not brightly, but enough to be able to properly look around.

Uriah was completely right. While there was some dust on some of the surfaces, the desks with the candles, and the cardboard boxes, were all dust free. And very much dry. The boxes though were empty, and unmarked, no indication left of what purpose they had served, nor why they had been left.

It hadn’t been just one person though. There were traces in the air, tinges of magic, that seemed to hint that there had been a lot more people, or things, here. He couldn’t eliminate that possibility, he senses not quite that sharp. Sweeping the floodlight around the room to take things in in more detail, he stopped, confused and surprised, as it passed over the whiteboard in the room. It was filled with writing and diagrams, no writing and an array, and not in English either. It was in the tongue of the other realm.

“What’s that?” Julia asked, staring at it intently.

“It’s an array. For forming a connection between two people... creatures...” that bit he wasn’t a hundred percent sure on. It seemed to imply that it didn’t matter who the participants were, as long as there was something between them in the first place? The handwriting was a bit messy and had been smudged in some places. It also seemed like there may have been a line or two missing, near the end. “It allows the sharing of resources, and grants a form,” Fraser then finished.

“That’s rather precise,” Julia said, staring at him. “You can read that? I know that it’s the language of the other side, but I can barely make any sense of it.”

“Umm, yeah...” Fraser berated himself for having just read out loud what was there. He’d been trying to keep that a secret. But, Julia wasn’t his parents, and he’d already let the cat out of the bag. “I’ve had a lot of practice, alright.” That, and other things, but he wasn’t going to elaborate any further.

He also wasn’t going to let it go to waste either. Pulling out his phone, he took a photo, grimacing as the flash lit up the room. It was serviceable, but something was telling him that the photo wasn’t going to be good enough. This magic, arrays, he had seen mentioned a few times, in texts that he hadn’t admitted to being able to translate, most examples incomplete. This one though, was complete, and recent. Whiteboard marker ink wasn’t known for sticking around in variable weather conditions, and this had been penned recently. The most worrying thing though was why, and by whom. And perhaps also, whom for. He had his guesses, but there was no way that he was going to mention them though. That would just open a can of worms. He did not know Julia that well at all to be going there. Not about Vampire, or the others who had been present there, twenty years ago.

“That’s impressive,” Julia said, sounding as such too. “I’d heard that, even for those in the archives, translating a few sentences takes some time.”

“That’s not wrong,” Fraser absently agreed as pulled out the chair of the closest desk, sitting down and then pulling out the notebook and pencil that he had in there for occasions such as this. Making sure that he had the flood light angled properly, so that he could actually look at it without the glare of the reflection, he started to copy down the array. The lines and the details seemed to just flow naturally as he drew, the meaning teasing at the edge of his mind. It didn’t take him long at all, and when he held up his drawing and compared it to the original, he was surprised to see that it was in fact an exact duplicate. Almost like it had wanted to be copied.

Fraser deposited them back in his bag, and then stumbled as the entire complex, and all of reality, seemed to shudder and stretch, pain searing through him as everything went wrong. And then snapping back to normal an instant later, the pain going just as quickly.

“Burt, what the hell’s going on?” Uriah all but shouted into the earpiece, his hand on one of the desks to steady himself. Fraser had managed to prevent himself falling by grabbing onto a desk as well, Julia’s hand having smudged the whiteboard as she’d reached out to steady herself.

“Any reply?” Fraser asked, straightening up. He hadn’t felt anything like that before, and it had felt wrong. No, worse than wrong. Like someone had been trying to tear at reality.

“No,” Uriah grumbled, as he repeated his message, albeit more quietly this time.

Fraser made to move towards the door, and then stopped, pulling out his phone to look at the time as the realisation hit him. It was only just after ten. “Uri, the anomaly’s gone...” He couldn’t sense it at all, nor any of the other sensations that had been there. Everything felt plain and normal. Dead. Whatever had just happened, it had severed the connection between the realms.

Uriah nodded, his face a mask of seriousness. “We need to go find them. They’ve either felt it too, or were responsible.”

“Riddling?”

Uriah nodded again. “Whatever that was, it wasn’t normal.”

Well, magic wasn’t normal in the first place, but Fraser agreed with him completely. The memory of the pain still lingered, almost phantom like, and only slowly fading. “Hey, you alright?” he then asked as he went over to Julia, offering her his hand. She looked pale, the whiteboard still supporting.

“I have a splitting headache,” she managed with a grimace, but taking his hand anyway. She felt hot, and her magic hadn’t properly settled back down.

“Take a deep breath, focus on your magic. See if you can settle it down.” Sound advice he was sure, but completely useless for him. But Julia had decent control and talent, and perhaps, right now, it might work for her.

Julia took the advice though, breathing in and out slowly, her eyes closed, and it seemed to help, her hand cooling a little, her magic calming down. Why he could sense it now, and had never been able to before, he had no clue. But that was the least of their concerns. Collecting their gear, they headed out of the building, and back towards the vehicle. If the others hadn’t returned there, then they’d head in the direction that they’d gone and see if they could find them. They hadn’t replied to Uriah on the comms, so either something was wrong, or they were just being petty.

The latter it turned out, all of the other group at the vehicles, packing their equipment back into the trailer.

“What the hell is going on?” Uriah asked, a dark edge to his voice.

Burt just looked at him and shrugged, a smug look on his face that he was failing to hide. “No idea. But the anomaly is gone, so there is no point being here any longer. You can continue to tiptoe around the area if you want.”

He was lying, that much Fraser was sure. But there was no way that they were going to be able to get anything out of him.

“No, we’re done,” Uriah growled, before he walked back to the car, sitting down with a scowl.

Fraser sat down beside Uriah, dumped his bag on the seat, and wrapped his arms around him. It was rare for him to see Uriah annoyed in this way. “Hey, are you okay Uri?” he asked.

Uriah waited till Julia had also gotten into the car and closed the door behind her before he answered. “I felt it, for but the briefest of moments. The other realm, Fraser. They were trying to open a rift.”