Chapter 41: What Foul Magic

"I don't understand, this where I feel her presence most strongly, but there's nothing here," Aymeri says when they arrive at the spot he said Sage would be located. On the long drive to the remote location, Aymeri had explained to Joffrey that only one of the four children he had with his human wife Allyriane inherited his dragon blood. The rest, he said, were like their mother, more human than fae, and no trace of dragon at all. But Tearney was a true dragon, and all of her children and grandchildren had at least little dragon in them, enough for him to sense their presence at any distance.

"I know where we are," Joffrey says, recognizing the place. How could he forget it, when it was the first  view he ever had of the outside world?

The stairs leading down to the underground facility were well hidden, but Joffrey new where to look for them.

Before he descends, Aymeri has a quick conversation with a moth hovering nearby. "Make sure he's here before dawn."

Inside was just as Joffrey remembered, gray and lifeless.

"That's the security office," he says, "The locks are controlled by the computer inside."

As a MorcuCorp executive, Joffrey knows the security codes, and has the main entrance unlocked easily.

"I mislike this place," Aymeri says, his voice low and growling, "Terrible things have happened here."

"This is where MorcuCorp creates the clones," Joffrey tells him. "Why did they bring Sage here?"

"You know your brethren better than I," Aymeri answers, "What do you think they'd want with a dragon-blooded woman?"

Joffrey can think of any number of experiments the MorcuCorp scientists would like to try. "Let's find her, fast," he says gritting his teeth.

They searched all the rooms, but found nothing. Aymeri insists he still feels Sage's presence here, so Joffrey begins to look for secret doors the way Sage did when exploring tombs.

Joffrey may have been created and raised in this underground lab, but he had not been privy to all its secrets. After much probing and tapping in walls, he found a door to a level below that he never knew existed.

Even this deep into the facility, there are more doors that require security codes to unlock.

Every passage is riddled with mazes and traps.

And more creepy laboratories where MorcuCorp could run its secret experiments.

Joffrey feels around the in the cubby hole, looking for a trigger to open the locked doors around them.

But the trigger he finds releases something else entirely when pulled. Aymeri springs into action.

"Foul, undead creature," Aymeri says, "You are an abomination!" Defeated, the mummy dissolves into dust and rags.

"It has been a long time since I've done battle," Aymeri tells Joffrey, satisfaction in his voice, "I forgot how exhilarating it could be. But what was that undead thing doing here? Shouldn't it be lurking about in a tomb?"

"MorcuCorp did some research on mummies some decades ago," Joffrey explains while he tries another cubby hole, "They wanted to use them as shock troops or something. The documentation we have on the project ends abruptly, though. Even with my clearance, I could never find out what came of that research."

Joffrey finally finds the trigger to open the doors. The next chamber holds something even more foul than a mummy.

"Vile pollution!" Aymeri exclaims, "It's a dead end." The only other door leading out is securely locked.

"I'm afraid not," Joffrey sighs, "That's a dive well. The way out of here is through there."

This is for Sage, Joffrey tells himself as he prepares to dive into the foul brown pool of what may or may not be water.

He swims through the tunnel and comes out in another room. The computer there unlocks the door in the chamber where Aymeri waits for him.

"You must love my great-granddaugter very much," Aymeri remarks when Joffrey surfaces again.

Finally, thy come to an ornate door, completely out of place in this sterile lab. Very Landgraab, Joffrey thinks, it must belong to someone very important.

Everything about this room is unexpected. The dull grays are turned to rich crimsons, the plain laboratory furniture is replaced with fine antiques. And the woman waiting inside has been dead for generations.

"Cecilia Landgraab?" Joffrey breathes. Her portraits fill the Landgraab mansion in Brooklyn Heights, the family seat. Born a Tricou, Cecilia had been Harris Landgraab's wife, and had died not long after her husband. or so Joffrey has believed.

Cecilia barely spares Joffrey a glance, instead focusing her attention on Aymeri, "You!" she says, "You're dead! I attended your wake, I saw your body for myself, though I scarce believed one such as you could die."

"You saw a glamour," Aymeri says, "Summerdream cast it for me so my children might have some closure, and believe I had followed their mother into death. I would have thought one such as you, even though you are but a halfling, would have seen through it. And how is it that you are still alive so long after your death?"

"My husband sought immortality through his clones," Cecilia answers, "But they are only crude copies, and most of them aren't even worthy of the Landgraab name." She looks pointedly at Joffrey as she says this. "But unlike my beloved Harris, I'm fae blooded, and true immortality was always in my grasp."

"What foul magic did you discover to make this possible?" Aymeri asks.

"Not magic," Cecilia says, "Science. When I married Harris Landgraab, I gain access to MorcuCorp's wealth of knowledge. They experimented with my DNA, isolating the fae elements, enhancing it, to make me as immortal as Tania Summerdram herself."

"You've gained immortality for yourself, but at what cost to your kind?" Aymeri growls, "You've given your essence to these...scientists...these twisted, evil mortals to experiment with. And now you've taken another, one of the last of the dragon-blooded, my kin..."

"You dare speak to me of 'my' kind? The true fae claim kinship to us only when you need something, or wish to cow us. The rest of the time you look down on us as halflings," Cecilia yells, and strikes Aymeri across the cheek.

"Joffrey, go, and see to Sage. Get her out of here. I'll deal with this traitor," Aymeri says in a low growl.

Joffrey hesitates, but his need to find Sage presses him onwards.

The first time she came to in this hospital bed, she was fooled again for a moment by the clone. But his cold smile quickly gave him away.

"What have you done with my Joffrey?" she asks.

"He's not worth our time," the clone laughs, getting up to give her another injection, "Worry about what we're going to do to you," he adds as she's falling back into the narcotic sleep.

"How did you get in here?"

They may be identical, but the clones could always distinguish each other.

Joffrey doesn't bother giving him an answer, and attacks.

Sage begins to awaken at the noise.

Hazy from the drugs, she's not sure if she's dreaming at first.

The martial arts training was worth it.

This time, Sage is sure he's real, her Joffrey, and not some clone.

"I'm getting you out of here," Joffrey promises, shaking with relief has he takes her in his arms.

From the hospital room they found a stairwell leading up to the surface. Outside, dawn is breaking, and a masked man stands waiting for them.

"Uncle Rory?" Sage identifies him.

"Sage," Rory nods at his niece, "I'd begun to worry you'd never get out of there. You two need to clear out of here fast, I've got this placed wired. Remote as this place is, the sun is coming up and the blast will bring a lot of attention."

"Blast?" Joffrey asks, "What about Aymeri? Is he still in there?"

"He hasn't come out," Rory says, "But his orders were clear, demo the place as soon as Sage got out. Even if he wasn't with her."

"But...."

"Get my niece out of here, now," Rory barks. Rory took over Patricia Bedlington's position as the head of Appaloosa Plains' crime syndicate, and had lost patience for any kind questioning of his orders.

With a push of a button, Rory destroys MorcuCorps secret lab.

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Challenge Notes:
This whole chapter is an alternate save.
The secret lab is The Mummy Research Facility by Hackster Manic at MTS. I changed it up a bit, using objects from Hekate99's Hospital Set at MTS.
Sage's actual hospital room was in another building altogether.

Back when I was playing in Brooklyn Heights, shortly after Harris Landgraab got himself cloned, SP married him to Cecilia Tricou. But it just never made it in to the story, I think I only ever mentioned Cecilia in chapter notes. Like Harris, she has the Evil trait.