Chapter 86: The Flooded Depths

  They turned simultaneously to see a woman approaching them from the lush depths of the massive glass dome.

  She was an older Elvarian, her deeply lined face a profound testament to a lifetime of intense, highly focused academic and practical study. Her hair was completely silver, woven into complex, highly practical, tight braids that kept it entirely out of her face. Unlike the neat, pristine, condescending scribes at the front desk, her heavy white robes were deeply, permanently stained with dozens of different colors of thick plant sap, rich dark earth, and sharp chemical burns, clearly marking her as a Master who actively worked with her hands in the dirt.

  Her eyes, however, were her absolute most striking feature. They were a vivid, entirely unnatural shade of highly intelligent, piercing emerald green—exactly matching the precise color of Lyra's own eyes.

  "I am Master Elara," the woman introduced herself, completely ignoring the terrified scribe, her sharp gaze locked entirely, analytically onto Lyra’s left wrist. "Head Botanist and Chief Pathologist of the Grand Apothecary. And if what you just violently threatened is actually true, you are carrying an incredibly rare, highly lethal biological specimen in your veins."

  "It isn't an idle threat," Lyra said, her aggressive posture dropping slightly, entirely respecting the absolute, undeniable authority radiating from the older woman. "It is the terrifying reality. The spores have been entirely dormant for weeks, suppressed exclusively by highly localized, extreme heat treatments and my complete avoidance of magical exertion. But the suppression is entirely failing. I am losing the battle."

  Master Elara didn't hesitate or ask for payment. "Follow me immediately. To the botanical pressure chamber."

  She led them briskly away from the public reception area, entirely bypassing the massive, beautiful ornamental gardens and the busy laboratory tables. They walked down a long, incredibly clean white stone corridor until they reached a heavy, entirely reinforced glass and petrified-wood door marked with strict biological hazard runes.

  Elara unlocked the door, leading them into a starkly different environment. It wasn't a cold, sterile, metal hospital room. It was an advanced botanical isolation chamber.

  The room was built entirely from thick, magically reinforced glass, completely lined with incredibly dense patches of softly glowing, pale blue algae specifically engineered to aggressively scrub and purify the air of toxins. In the center of the room, there was no cold metal examination table; there was a massive, perfectly flat slab of ancient, petrified iron-wood, specifically chosen because its dense cellular structure naturally absorbed and neutralized excess magical radiation. The room was bathed in the warm, soothing, golden light of massive, suspended sun-crystals, rather than harsh chemical lamps.

  "Sit on the wood," Elara commanded Lyra gently but firmly.

  Lyra complied, unbuckling her heavy leather bracer and rolling up the sleeve of her tunic, exposing her pale left forearm.

  The faint, pink lines were clearly visible, entirely dormant but undeniably present, weaving a faint, toxic, complex web just beneath the surface of her skin, anchored directly over her veins.

  Master Elara leaned in incredibly closely, completely devoid of any personal fear. Her emerald eyes narrowed with absolute, intense scientific fascination. She didn't touch the skin directly. She pulled a highly complex, glowing crystal monocle from her stained robes, analyzing the magical frequency of the infection, and then leaned in to carefully smell the faint scent emanating from Lyra’s pores.

  Her eyes widened in sheer, absolute shock. She pulled back, looking at Lyra with profound disbelief.

  "There is a distinct, lingering trace of a highly potent, incredibly rare neurotoxin," Elara murmured, her brilliant mind connecting the impossible dots in a fraction of a second. "It smells exactly like... but that's utterly impossible. Did you actually ingest unrefined, raw Moon-Lily nectar?"

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Zeno, standing quietly in the corner of the glowing room, immediately nodded, highly impressed by the smart lady's nose.

  "Yes!" Zeno confirmed cheerfully, utilizing his own precise terminology. "She drank the shiny blue juice! The sleepy old professor in the jungle told me it was the only medicine that worked. I had to punch a very, very large, invisible lizard in the face to get it from the flower."

  Elara stared at the massive boy, entirely processing his casual description of fighting a Rank B Chameleon-Drake, and then looked back at Lyra, slowly shaking her head in absolute, stunned scientific awe.

  "The sheer, overwhelming raw toxicity of the unrefined nectar completely paralyzed the highly aggressive reproductive cycle of the spores," Elara deduced flawlessly. "It forced them entirely into a deeply dormant, defensive survival state just to weather the catastrophic chemical storm you introduced into your own blood. You didn't cure the infection; you accidentally poisoned yourself just perfectly enough to entirely terrify the parasite into hiding."

  "Can you finally fix it?" Lyra asked, her voice completely tight, the harsh, clinical reality of her exhausting situation crashing heavily down on her shoulders.

  Elara stood up straight, removing the glowing crystal monocle. She looked incredibly serious.

  "Standard alchemical purges are entirely useless," Elara stated bluntly, offering absolutely no false hope. "The spores have deeply, intrinsically intertwined themselves directly with your elemental Tena pathways. If I attempt to violently flush them out with heavy chemicals, I will completely destroy your ability to channel wind magic forever. You would survive, but you would be entirely, permanently crippled as a Vanguard."

  Lyra’s breath hitched painfully. Losing her magic meant completely losing her speed, her entire identity, and her fighting style. It meant becoming entirely useless to Zeno. It was a completely unacceptable outcome.

  "Is there another way?" Zeno asked, stepping completely out of the shadows, his massive frame entirely filling the botanical room, his amber eyes locked entirely on the Master Botanist. His voice was incredibly quiet, completely devoid of its usual cheer, vibrating with a deep, highly dangerous intensity. "There is always another way to fix a broken pot. You just have to find the right clay."

  Elara looked at the massive, intensely loyal boy, completely understanding the terrifying lengths he would absolutely go to in order to protect his friend.

  "There is exactly one highly theoretical, incredibly dangerous procedure," Elara admitted slowly, walking over to a large, locked cabinet made of dark wood. "It requires an incredibly precise, highly specialized alchemical catalyst to actively untangle the spores from her magical pathways without damaging the host tissue."

  She unlocked the cabinet, pulling out a heavy, incredibly thick, ancient leather-bound tome. She placed it heavily on the petrified wood table next to Lyra.

  "The required catalyst is a highly volatile, completely unrefined extract," Elara explained, opening the heavy tome to a very specific, highly detailed botanical illustration. "It must be harvested directly, within minutes of extraction, from the central, highly protected blooming core of a massive, fully mature Abyssal Lotus."

  Lyra stared at the terrifying, jagged drawing of the dark, corrupted, violet-veined flower in the book.

  "Where exactly do we find an Abyssal Lotus?" Lyra asked, her heart sinking completely. "They require completely dark, magically stagnant environments saturated with corrupted energy. Are you telling me we have to go all the way back up to the ruins of the Obsidian Throne?"

  Elara shook her head, closing the heavy book with a loud, entirely final thud.

  "No. They used to grow exclusively in the deep mountain caves," Elara stated grimly, her emerald eyes meeting Lyra’s with absolute, terrifying clarity. "But two weeks ago, the Riverbend city guard intercepted and confiscated a massive, highly illegal shipment of raw, corrupted violet crystals being smuggled out of the eastern peaks. The Black Lotus Syndicate's supply line."

  Zeno and Lyra exchanged a rapid, highly alarmed glance. Their actions at the Obsidian Throne were already rippling into the valley.

  "To contain the lethal, anti-magic radiation emitting from the confiscated crystals, the Guild sealed the entire shipment deep within The Flooded Depths—the ancient, completely submerged First Era containment vaults located directly beneath this floating city," Elara explained, her voice dropping into a tense whisper.

  "But we severely miscalculated the biological reaction. The intense, corrupted radiation caused a massive, localized mutation in the subterranean flora. An Abyssal Lotus has actively bloomed in the submerged vaults, feeding entirely on the smuggled crystals."

  Elara looked directly at Zeno's massive gauntlets.

  "We had to completely seal the massive iron hatches to the lower levels," Elara revealed, the sheer danger of the situation completely evident in her tone. "The radiation warped the local plant life down there. The vines and the aquatic flora mutated. They became highly aggressive, incredibly lethal, and entirely carnivorous. If you want that Abyssal Lotus to save her life... you are going to have to go down into the dark water, beneath the city, and rip it out by its roots."