The Dead King

Travis shook off the rest of his imaginations of Eisen, and refocused himself. He grabbed the pen, and started creating a rough sketch of the city.

Marin watched as he drew lines that separated the districts. The shapes were specific, as Travis showed off the intimate knowledge he had of the city.

“There are two entry points into their hideout. One is here, at King’s Row.” Travis made an X in a district.

“There’s also one in the trade district. Auctions of stolen wares are conducted in this building.” Travis continued drawing shapes and X’s as he described the operations of the Scarlet Eye.

“Based on the time your pendant was stolen, it will still be in processing, meaning it won’t be auctioned yet,” he explained.

“Where is it?” Marin demanded.

“It’s going to be in their stockpile at headquarters.” Travis removed his paper he had been drawing on, and rested it to the side. He began on a new piece.

“Now, we can enter at the trade district, but there’s a good chance we’ll be spotted early. Seeing as there is two of us, our best bet will be entering at King’s Row, despite the fact we will have more underground passage we need to travel, and they are notorious for their booby traps.”

Travis worked the pen, drawing passage ways, and marking potential spots for a trap. Marin couldn’t believe how well Travis knew their hideout. Seeing as he regularly stole from them though, that would be natural. This was his job, after all.

“Traps?” Marin repeated.

“I can do this alone, if you want,” Travis offered, hearing the anxiety in the King’s voice.

“No. I’m going to get payback. We’re doing this together.”

“Suit yourself. Well with you there to help me, my tactics will be changing. Can you guarantee your ice skills can consistently freeze any opponents?”

“I can indeed,” Marin assured him.

“Fine. So in that case, we take passage B to their front doors. There will be a guard installed. When we round the corner, you ice him. Freeze, coat, I don’t care. You just need to render him immobile.”

Marin nodded.

“From there, I’m going to pick the lock in three minutes or less. Due to the fact that the guard does not keep keys on him,” Travis continued.

“I can freeze the door.”

“Come again?”

“I can remove any door in my way,” Marin offered.

“I… This is not an ordinary door! This thing is reinforced steel, five inches thick, it comes with-”

“I can remove any door.”

Travis leaned back in the chair, dropping the pen in front of him. He rubbed his face with both hands as he tried to figure out what Marin truly was.

“That’s going to create too much noise, Marin!” He finally said. “I can appreciate the power you seem to have, but all that power won’t help you in this situation! Do you want the entire hive being alerted to our presence?!”

Marin didn’t respond.

“If you are confident in yourself enough to take on the entire crime organization on your own, by all means, I’ll bring you to the entrance, and you can run wild! If that’s not the case though, I need you to allow me to make the decisions here.”

“...Continue.” It was all Marin said.

“Alright. Now, where was I?” Travis picked his pen back up and continued to draw.

The two of them resumed the plans for the operation. Travis talked about who would be where, and what distractions needed to be made. Eventually he made it to the stockpile room. Travis had Marin describe what the cross pendant looked like, and give a rough estimate of its value.

The value of his item would determine if it was in a lock box or not. Travis explained several more actions that would need to be done. As he did so, he wrote down all the instructions he said. Marin asked a few more questions, and eventually the two of them had ironed out the plan they would stick to.

After all was done, Travis asked for his payment. It was his policy to always collect before the deed, since he had been burned several times before on bad deals. Marin nearly emptied his coin purse paying him the twenty gold coins. He had hardly any money left.

Travis nodded in satisfaction as he studied the coins. He opened his leather jacket and secured them into a pocket. When that action was done, he picked up the papers he had been drawing on.

“Do you want to hold on to these to study?” Travis asked as he folded the papers.

“Yes, I will be looking over them through the night.” Marin grabbed them, and placed the several folded plans into his pocket.

“Look, um, I’m not staying here overnight,” Travis stated as he got up. “I’m sure I don’t have to explain why.”

Marin nodded.

“I’ll be back here sometime at noon tomorrow. It will be best if we infiltrated tomorrow in the afternoon. Most of the order will be out doing their rounds, as that is peak foot traffic in the richer parts of the city.”

“I will be here waiting,” Marin responded.

Travis headed down the hallway and out to the living room. He said his farewells to Marin, and wished his friend who he knew was healing in the bedroom a speedy recovery. With that, Travis took off, and made his way back onto the streets of Tarenfall.

His head turned side to side, looking to see if he was being followed. He currently held a large amount of money, and needed to get back to his base before anyone became wise of it.

Marin grunted as he placed the door of Eisen’s house back on the door frame. With that done, it was time for him to meet the doctor in the basement as he had promised earlier.

He stepped down into the basement, where Eisen could be seen preparing a microscope, his back turned towards Marin.

“You’ll be happy to know that Travis didn’t have much a desire to be a house guest here,” Marin tried. “He just now left, and won’t return until tomorrow to pick me up.”

“Good,” Eisen responded with his back still turned. “I’m not much of a hospitable guy.”

“And you call yourself a doctor?” Marin asked.

“I never gave myself that title. It’s what others call me. I believe myself to be a number of other things, though. A scientist, biologist, chemist, list goes on.” Eisen turned to face Marin, he had a scalpel and tweezers in his hand. “But I never cared for doctor.”

Marin eyed the surgical tools in his hand. “I suppose you’re ready for my samples?”

“Indeed.”

“I hope you’re not taking too much off of me.” Marin sat in a chair close to the doctor’s workstation.

“A negligible amount. You won’t even notice anything different,” Eisen promised.

Eisen sat besides Marin, and rolled his sleeve up. He adjusted his wire framed glasses, and with skilled, precise fingers, made a small incision onto his decayed arm. As expected, there was no bleeding whatsoever. Marin had dried up years ago.

Using the tweezers, Eisen extracted the smallest sliver of muscle fiber. He placed it onto a sterile dish. He then removed a top layer of skin from his arm, and placed that into another.

“That’s all I need,” Eisen said.

Marin was relieved. It was far more minor than he thought. He rolled his sleeve down, and Eisen wheeled the samples over to his desk, which was lit by a bright overhead lamp. He placed the samples underneath the microscope.

“What are you looking for?” Marin inquired.

“I want to study your cells. You see, Sullivan. Despite the fact that your body is ‘switched off’ in the biological sense, you’re still in operation. A major contradiction, as you could imagine. And I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

Eisen dialed in the knob of the scope, and he removed his glasses. He peered into the scope, and fell silent as he adjusted the settings.

Marin waited in anticipation.

“Annnnd, just as I thought… your skin cells are dead. Yup, they’re absolutely dead. Completely useless.”

“Then how am I-”

“Well, hold up now. Now we move to the muscle cells. This is what gives you your movement. This is what will be the deciding factor.”

Edward Eisen switched the dishes, and he readjusted the lens. A minute passed as he got the focus just right.

He fell silent once again.

Marin waited.

More time passed. Eisen gasped quietly.

“What is it?” Marin demanded.

“Hold on!”

Eisen slid the dish ever so slightly, in the eyes of the microscope, the tiny sliver of muscle fiber was a massive kingdom of cellular activity. Marin’s interest was piqued more than ever. Eisen was his only chance of ever solving the mystery of what had happened to his body.

“...They’re alive,” Eisen muttered.

“What?” Marin asked.

“They’re ALIVE!” Eisen pulled away from the microscope, and threw his hands up. He grabbed his glasses, and put them back on.

“Your cells are ALIVE, Marin! Somehow, some way! I-I don’t know how it’s possible!”

“What does this mean?” Marin stammered.

“It means… it means… it means I need to do more research! I don’t have a conclusive explanation! I have some theories, of course, but I don’t want to ramble on with ‘maybe this’ or ‘maybe that’. I need time, I need to study your cells.”

This was the most excited Eisen had been so far. Marin had pushed the boundary of what was considered possible, and it wasn’t until some two hundred years later that his effects were finally being studied.

“Turns out you’re not so ‘switched off’ as we thought!”

Marin was satisfied that progress was being made on his condition. If his cells were still living, there was a good chance he may be able to reverse his state, and become a normal person once again.

“What else do you need from me?” Marin asked, fully ready to help in any way he could.

“Nothing, right now. I need to run some experiments on your cells. I’ll take good care of ‘em, I promise. At the moment, we don’t understand if you have any regenerative capacity, so I’d hate to slowly pick you apart, heh heh.”

Eisen wheeled back in front of his table. “Just do whatever you need to do right now, I need time.”

Marin nodded, and left him to it. He walked back up the stairs from the basement and to the kitchen. The place was still a mess from the monstrous creation, if you considered the previous state to be in clean condition, which it wasn’t.

Eisen had never found the time to clean. Based on how his house looked, he never had. The doctor could really make use of a maid. They would keep the place clean, but Marin guessed how long it would be before he tried experimenting on them.

Once again, it was night, and Marin had nothing to do but wait for the morning. Wait for Travis to return so they could recover his cross pendant.

With all the time on his hands, he had to keep himself occupied doing something.

“Doctor Eisen,” Marin yelled from above.

“Huh?” He didn’t sound thrilled to be disturbed.

“Would you mind it if I took some time to clean the house?”

“You what? You wanna -” Eisen chuckled a bit. “...If that’s really something you’re interested in. Clean, but don’t move my stuff around too much. I still want to know where everything is!”

“Understood!”

Well, Marin now had something to keep his mind off of his worries. He took no time to explore what the mad doctor had throughout his house, with a goal of finding some sort of cleaning supplies. He was determined to get this done without bothering Eisen again.

In some way, it felt like Castle Nocturne all over again. During the early days of him being alive once again, he spent quite a bit of the night hours doing cleaning himself. He wondered how everyone was doing. At some point, he needed to check the post office in Taren Heights to see if his return letter had arrived yet with an update on everyone.

Marin eventually located rags and soap in one of Eisen’s packed kitchen cabinets. He was determined to see this place in orderly condition. As determined as he was to get his necklace back.

This house will be cleaned, and I will have back my cross.