Most people have a point they can be pushed to, upon which they will cross every line and break every moral code—the exception to this are those who had neither a code nor lines they wouldn’t cross to begin with.


    In the eyes of history, Edmund Adianoeta was the latter. Though he was never known for atrocities, scruples were not something anyone would willing associate with his name when offering commentary. He’d been an alchemist above all, and experimentation was the lifeblood of his craft.


    Indeed, he had proof of how he acquired consent from every single person he ever tested his creations on, be the outcome for good or ill.


    But how genuine could such consent be when granted by the destitute who saw his compensation plan as a payday?


    “That which ailed my Ursula was not something even the most advanced of human medicine could cure—that much, I knew from the moment I saw her,” Edmund’s voice had regained its airy quality—it might have even grown more prominent. “She was born with teeth, and twigs for limbs. I feared for her as early on as her birth. Oh, she was beautiful. And oh, so smart. Raising her felt like… like I was raising someone who would someday surpass me. But no matter what was done for her sake, by myself or experts, there was nothing I could do. Yet I could not stand for it—for a daughter of mine to suffer like this.”


    Nikola was torn between continuing to listen to the ghost without interruptions, and asking just what he was on about. None of the details he’d mentioned so far clarified what Ursula’s problem had been, and something told Nikola things would only be getting vaguer.


    “So I did what I had to do. What any father would do,” Edmund met Nikola’s gaze. “I can see you doubt that last part. But you would know it to be true, if you had children. There is nothing you wouldn’t do to keep a child alive.”


    That stance, at least, fit what Nikola had learned of the man in there short time together. He clearly put his family above all, to the detriment of anything else. He had no qualms about ending others for their sake, even.


    “I called in every favor owed to me, sought to test every formula I knew of or could barter for. Every cure under the sun and the stars. You haven’t the faintest clue as to how many tomes and recipe books sit abandoned, rotting away, within anywhere from the ancient monasteries to elderly people’s basements. And I gather what I could from all of them. Everywhere, everywhere, I went, I never wasted an opportunity to obtain more knowledge. Anything for a chance at fixing her.”


    “Forgive me if it’s a sensible topic, but what, exactly, was wrong with this child of yours?”


    “Everything!” Edmund scoffed. “As I said, she was born wrong. A child who would neither cry nor speak for most of childhood, who would not look me in the eye and could not hold a conversation with an ounce of the dexterity with which she would hold a quill.”


    After everything the dead man had admitted he considered acceptable, Nikola had not considered it may yet be possible for him to be appalled by Edmund’s words. To him, it sounded as though nothing had been actually wrong with Ursula Adianoeta. His own difficult childhood had him sympathizing with the late Adianoeta firstborn, yet seeking to argue with the ghost now might hinder him—he had a feeling he was still long ways off from getting anything that resembled an actual answer.


    “In any case, the time came when I had to face I would never find a solution, no. I would have to make a solution, and so the trials begun.”


    “History remembers you for those. An alchemist of dubious fame,” Nikola noted. He hoped his memory served him well in the future, if he did get to publish any of what he was hearing. “Though I confess I never heard of a reason being attributed to why you did all you did. You’ve been painted a mad scientist.”


    “Perhaps I was just that,” Edmund shook his head, a hand going through his ethereal hair. “Not without reason. But I had to test everything I made. I know society loves to decide everything that was acceptable years ago is now the greatest sin, but many disliked my choices even then. It was not without pushback. In the end, I crafted far too many worthy elixirs, mixing and matching from the ingredients of dozens of those ancient recipes. I shan’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say, no one wants to be the one condemning the man who concocted cures for previously incurable illnesses. Yet nothing I did was enough to fix Ursula. I lost her, in the end. I lost her because I couldn’t fix her.”Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Nikola remained pensive. Did she even need fixing?


    “I… in my time in the deserts, I saw much. Nothing too fantastical, mind you. I’m more than familiar with the tales of lost civilizations in the sand, but I’ve seen none of it. There are better tales out there, waiting to be told through the misfortune that may befall those who venture into the wrong ruins. I didn’t think much of it, then, when I was but an acolyte. But years later, desperate, I could not keep myself from thinking back at it. What if I returned, not as a student listening to lectures in the desert heat, but as explorer myself? I did not know what I was looking for—perhaps something that could have fixed Ursula, to beat myself up over it now that she was gone.”


    Not even bothering to pretend he knew anything about the uninhabited deserts on the south continent, Nikola chose to take the ghost’s word for it. Certainly, he knew there was much unexplored territory there, riddled with ruins, but he wasn’t an expert in everything. He might as well have been uneducated as far as the subject went, with how superficial his knowledge was.


    “I joined an expedition that sought to unearth a castle carved into a cave. Supposedly, it was once underwater—I never knew whatever brought the first people to explore it upon that conclusion.”


    That did stir up a sense of familiarity within Nikola, reminding him of an unrelated topic he’d encountered when writing about a local museum’s new exhibit. “Bones of sea creatures, maybe. They would not be difficult to identify by those who knew what to look for. Back home, we’ve a valley that’s said to have been submerged long ago because of such discovery.”


    “Perhaps,” Edmund Adianoeta said noncommittally, seemingly uneager to ponder it much more. “Anyhow—to answer your question…”


    “At last,” Nikola failed to hold that whisper back, and it was not anywhere near as quiet as it should have been for his purposes. It didn’t help that he hadn’t intended to speak—it sort of just happened, as if for a second, his tongue had been spurned on by mere flow of thought.


    “…listen here, you— Oh, I shan’t waste my breath like this,” the ghost started then backtracked, returning to his original sentence a bit too swiftly. “To answer your question, it was there that I found it. We’d thought those to be spires, part of a greater whole carved in the rock, but calling this a castle was foolish. It was closer to a temple, each of those towers dedicated to a different entity. If it’s true that our ancestors once lived there, many will likely be displeased to learn at least some of them were demon-worshipers. Though some would be thrilled.”


    Edmund drew in a deep breath as if he needed to. “I digress. My companions were of the former opinion. They were horrified, and went as far as to suggest we destroy the place, knowledge and treasure be damned. Naturally, I took offense to that—if any occultist tells you they wouldn’t jump at the chance to meet a demon, they are liars. Not to mention, while I might have hoped to loot the castle for its ancient potions and recipes, this was set to serve me just as well. I gave them a chance to back off—they did not.”


    “You slew them?”


    “Not then—I’m not foolish enough to approach such a being without something to give,” the ghost continued. “I chose to send them into a deep sleep from which they would never have awoken, even if I had not done as I did. When I met the demon, it was… cold. An artist, or so it called itself. An artist crafted from the purest ice, which stood in the center of the tower. It wanted recognition for me, to have the work it touched and contributed be known far and wide, but it would take blood just as willingly. It was also unbound—it lingered in that tower of its own free will.”


    “How?” Nikola asked. That made little sense to him. Their destructive potential was precisely why all authorities had long since seen to it that any publicly known demons were either bound or watched, fed either appropriately or not at all. “Why would it have stayed?”


    “Because apparently, it wanted not for sustenance. It said it had, long ago, contributed to the art that once adorned many of the temple walls—shared with other structures from the time, which later became ruins. Yet known, nonetheless. In praising those ruins, all who investigated there served, providing adoration to it, no matter how indirect.”


    “Then, if it was fed, why would it bargain with you?”


    “I made some promises,” Edmund Adianoeta averted his gaze. “I might have lied.”