✖ twisted ;

capturedmaiden:

Fiona gave a nod then. They’d be traversing this hectic castle together then. And they knew where and how to hide. And if possible, they would supply the other with useful information. Good.

When they reached the Corridor again, she followed Ciel to the door she had talked about. She wondered if perhaps it was locked, as his hand lingered on the door knob.

“Is it…locked?” she asked, before applying a small amount of weight, the door gave way. It opened pretty easily, it’s hinges old and damaged. 

Looking inside, the place looked a mess. Cobwebs, and dust covered tables and book shelves… someone might have once done research here, as stray papers lined the one dresser next to the only two large book shelves in the room. But one other strange item was in the room.

It looked to be a type writer, before Fiona went to investigate further. 

“Well…it isn’t a computer…and it has alphabetic keys…”

Fiona crossed her arms. This was…odd to say the least. Instead of papers, there was a large indent, suitable for something…, but the only things beside the type writer were these strange stone plates.

Fiona lifted a dusted solid smooth plate, it fit in the palm of her hand, and was about the size of a house phone…or even a small note pad.

She could only guess that they go in there. And are engraved with the letters typed. But…what should they type? Well there was always that room right across…

Her foot steps echoed out the door as she turned the corner. There. The door blocked by a small rolling cabinet. With several books stacked on it’s shelves. She drew in a deep breath, before pushing with all her concentrated effort, and within several minutes, the cabinet is forced out of their path. 

Breathing in again, she turned and opened the door. So this was a new area too. But resisting her curiosity, she drew back to bring Ciel along. They would need to discuss this.

—-

When the two were gathered in the new room that had been opened up, they could fully explore and chat about it. Though not much was really interesting in this area. Nothing but a giant clay golem, standing facing the door and blocking their path. The only clue given? A sheet of documentation that was left on the dusty table, which was littered slightly with other pages, and books for research. Books Fiona couldn’t even place, the titles warped, and looked to be written in latin. How puzzling…

But the strange hole in the back side of the Golem, it looked like a similar size to those same plates in the room opposite…Oh! Do those…? 

“Do those plates in the opposite room…if we type something on them…will it make that thing move?” She asked, skimming through the document on the table. According to it, the thing behind them was named Emeth…would putting it’s name make it move? She wondered…reading on. 

Setting the sheet of paper down, she looked at Ciel. “Shall we go back and try a plate? If all else fails…perhaps we could find a way to break it?” She doubted that, but it was still a very plausible solution. 

Their footsteps would echo again into the next room…and there, the typing began. 

Fiona’s fingertips were a blaze on the keys, tacking out the appropriate word, and hitting the confirm key. She waited a few seconds, the plate retracted with each key pressed…and then, all at once, it popped back up, almost a kin to a toaster oven. Her heart rate again calming, she grabbed the now engraved key plate. The letters spelling METH perfectly written out…

Checking the document, Fiona noted that the term was wrong…well..they could still try. She silently headed back to the room with the Golem. She fitted the plate into it’s slot, watching it slide in all the way. 

…

A low rumbling could be heard. And for a second, Fiona thought the worse.

But soon, cracks formed all along the Golem…they had broken it. As it all came crashing down, making a racket. And yet as the dust settled, and the mansion with it, there was an item laying among the ruin.

An Obsidian choker, it’s gem dark as night, perfectly set in the middle, laying innocently on the rubble. Fiona’s pale fingers scooped the accessory into her hands, before passing it off to Ciel. She didn’t know why ever it could be in the Golem, but it was someone’s to keep. She was offering it to him.

“It may be of use to one of us. ” She mentioned, letting the choker fall into the young Earl’s palms. She carefully navigated through the rubble, and opened the door. Feeling the cool night air…!!

Wait…outside?  

Fiona stood still, letting the cool breeze chill her skin. It felt so good to her. A small taste of near freedom. A reminder to them both. This would be what awaited them. The cool night air. 

Ciel was rendered useless with the puzzle they had to complete. She was busy typing away at the typewriter, though it looked like she was poking in random combinations until she got it right. He took the time to search around the room, at the Golem, and at the books. He immediately recognized the language of the books, and thanked Sebastian for teaching it - probably not enough to get through the whole book - but enough to read some of the phrases. Ciel remembers well the punishments he received if he mixed up a single letter. Sebastian’s cruel way of teachings proved useful, since he probably wouldn’t have remembered all of the things he does now thanks to his harsh method. The books were very worn, so the already difficult language was hard to read. He flipped through tattered pages, saying random words that he recognized out loud. There was a lot of higher vocabulary in there, and one word especially stood out: alchemia.

It was mentioned in every book, usually alongside chemia. Thinking back to his many notes, he knew that the root ’al-’ meant ‘toward to’ or 'movement’, so the word chemia was left. Toward chemia… What could it mean? Thinking hard, the clicks of the typewriter in the background, he read through more of the book. ’Hic scientia…’ stood out to him. That meant “this science”. So the book was about a science of some sort? He looked back to chemia, stared at it for a while, until his eyes widened and a smirk graced his features. “Chemistry!” he said aloud, his smile fading after realizing the random outburst. It was like a game of logic, and he just won it. Well, not quite yet. But almost. Back to the word used most. If chemia was chemistry, and the root meant either 'toward to’ or 'movement’, Ciel put two and two together. 'Toward chemistry’ didn’t make much sense, though 'moving chemistry’ was interesting. 'Moving of chemicals’ was what was finally deducted, and Ciel thought about the concept. He doubted all these books were about lifting a test tube and putting it in a different place, so he tried to think out of the box. He’s heard something like it before, though it was brief and Sebastian said it was a lost science. Alchemy. “These books– they’re about alchemy. How to learn it,” he finally said, looking up at Fiona just in time to feel and hear the prominent rattling of the structure around them.

The book fell out of his hands and landed messily on the ground. Ciel stood next to Fiona, watching it crash along with some of the building like it was an old ruin. The dust made Ciel sneeze and cough, since he was always sensitive from allergies. He put his hand over his mouth and nose, still coughing into it with one eye slightly open to watch what was happening. As things began to quiet, he removed his hand from his mouth and took in small breaths. He wiped both of his eyes before he finally settled them on the item that was left on the floor. It wasn’t even a little scratched by the rocks cracking onto it. What could it be made of?

It was slipped off the ground from Fiona, and he found it in his hands. Ciel nodded, then put the choker around his neck. “All those books were about alchemy,” Ciel verified to Fiona. “Whoever lives here seems very knowledgeable with it. It’s my guess that they’re looking for power from it since it’s an old and powerful science."  

Old as in outdated. But the entire castle looks outdated.

The door that lead to the outside gave Ciel false hope. He ran in front of Fiona, into the open, and searched around. There was no sign of his butler. "Sebastian!” he called, his right eye beginning to glow as the Faustian contract is activated. “I order you to come get me!” Though the contract burned with response, his demon still failed to appear. Ciel bit his lip, and sighed at his defeat. He should have guessed it wouldn’t be that easy.