Foxtails and Fairytales: Facades and Fables of the Phantom Prince

[Arc 9] Ch. 10 Seeing Doubles

Sebas

I had found the twins while I was in the dwarven mines. The Dwarven kingdoms had many deep tunnels that lead to many rich mineral veins. However, most of them had to be sealed off due to advent of the demon beasts. Adventurers are paid to go beyond the seals to get materials and it is how many humans in the Dwarven kingdoms make money. That said, the dwarves are a greedy race full of 'trade secrets' and ambition which means there are many nooks and crannies down there.

I stumbled on one during a quest to investigate missing children from the local orphanage. A lunatic and his buddies were researching body-modification magic. A highly risky and controversial magic but these guys were branching well beyond orthodox crests used to summon familiars or contracted beings. They were up to things like grafting people with other people, or people with monsters, people with minerals, magic, substances, and mixing said experiments with time, age, and a severe lack of pain-killers. Highly unethical stuff.

So I cleansed it.

I saved who I could, but there were many I couldn't do more than grant their pleading cries for death.

What surprised me most was not only how long it had been going on but deep Inside the dungeon-like mad scientist facility, I had found a smaller workshop hidden within the laboratory. Inside, two kids my age had long since escaped their bonds after being born there and experimented on. Not knowing much else outside the heinous laboratory they conducted their own research. More ethical, if not as disturbing, and controversial. Fueled by the desire to outdo their former masters out of spite they vowed they'd accomplish more without resorting to the barbaric measures of experimentation they'd witnessed and been subjected to.

It was odd to see such a jovial pair in the dank environment. When I told them what I was doing they eagerly helped and asked if I would take them with me. It was a strange set of circumstances and I ended up turning them over to the Adventurer's guild when all was said and done.

Two years later they still follow me like a bad penny, but they've proved their reliability and trustworthiness many times over since then. They have more than their fair share of eccentricities, but they've never once crossed any line I set and more than willingly took to any lessons I insisted they learned.

I think it's mostly thanks to Victor though. When we were escaping their "home" a tragedy struck. The whole facility had been rigged to explode like a bad action movie once the head loony died, his sister was a victim of the self-destructing lab.

It was the only time I saw legitimate fear on Victor's face. He fell to his knees when the cave-in stopped, and his sister had taken his place under the rubble. It had all happened so fast. I figured we could at least give her a proper burial. So I sent the survivors ahead, and then began digging. I told Victor to get his head out of his ass and help. That we were going back for her. Little did I know that when I found her, she'd still be alive and only half buried.

Don't get me wrong, she should have died. But whatever experimentation they'd been through had kept her alive. And jotting notes in the dust while she waited to die... morbidly effective notes where she had solved some of the hang ups she and her brother had hit in their research.

I only just managed to save her after another hour of digging, and then another hour of surgery in which Lilith, Liz, and I barely managed to stitch her back together. Her screams and crying echoed for miles until she passed out from the pain when she was stable.

Those cries led the rescue party to us.

They claimed the Banshee had led them to us. An old myth about family spirits who watched over their kin, mourned their deaths, and sang for their lives. It caught on. Originally, they called us the Banshee's Fellhounds considering we had gone done into the 'pit' and rescued those poor souls. Then...