Severa's Tale: Act II
Puppets Don't Cry
Section B
Part XVII
Author's note: I recommend listening to Planet Wisp - Act 1 from Sonic Colors when you see one * mark, Sand Canyon from Kirby: Planet Robobot when you see two ** marks, and Lunar Bass from Spark the Electric Jester when you see three *** marks.
A clear sky rested above Grima while he sat. He sat atop a ledge that gave way to a steep drop from a cliff, and below was a vast stretch of land. Even from his high perch, he could see the complex varieties of plants and other foliage. What caught his eye the most was the large sculpture of Duma made of hedge bushes. It stood amongst a valley of large, horizontal rocks of different elevations. The entire area was made of these white rocks, including the top that Grima sat on.
"Good to see you, old friend." He mumbled in the direction of the sculpture with a smile, then looked behind. A large forest rested behind him, and the trees began to move. Severa emerged from a clearing and locked eyes with him, stopping dead in her tracks. "Hello there." Grima waved. Severa continued to glare at him. "You can sit down if you want." His hand patted the grass next to him.
With a cautious gait, Severa approached and slowly seated herself next to Grima. "Are you alright?"
"Nice of you to try and play Mr. Nice Guy after you beat the crap out of me." Her throat still felt sore from when Grima had choked her. A long pause ensued. Grima looked at the land ahead before speaking.
"I'm sorry. What I said was both false and uncouth." He noticed that she was staring at the inactive volcano in the distance.
"Do you know how many times we've done this? I'm… sick of it. You do something horrible to me or my family, and then you apologize." She stood up and began mimicking his voice in a cartoonish manner. "'Oh, gods Severa I'm so sorry that I beat you within an inch of your life and berated you. Also, I stole your mother and made you think she was dead. Also, I'm going to kill your best friend's brother. But oops! I hope you'll forgive me!'"
"I get it." His tone seemed harsher than before and he certainly looked angry.
"Shut up." Severa interrupted him. "Oh, sorry. What I said was both false and uncouth. I hope you'll forgive me until I do the same thing tomorrow."
Grima's facial features were trembling and so were his hands. He looked furious. Severa was leaning over him. "Go on. Hit me. Show me the monster underneath my father's skin."
"I made a promise I would never incite violence on these grounds." His tone seemed rather calm, as though he had been practicing how to remain cool under pressure like this. Severa drew back and paced back and forth. With a deep breath, she finally spoke something she had been mulling over for a while.
"I… I… I hate you. With every bone in my body." Grima turned around and just stared at her with a blank look. "I hate everything you do. I hate everything you are. I hate everything that you represent. I am going to save my friends from you. I am going to save my mother from you. I am going to save my father from you."
A very awkward silence followed. Severa seated herself on the edge of the cliff, yet away from Grima. He still said nothing. "Where are we?"
"Father's Pride. It's a memorial to a friend of mine." He sounded rather okay for someone who had just been told their daughter hated their guts.
"Is that him over there?" Severa pointed to the sculpture of a large dragon in the distance.
"Yes. His remains are kept over there if you want to visit them." He then pointed to the large, inactive volcano in the distance. "Don't worry about the eruptions. My terraforming made sure it was safe to enter."
"Is Lucina in there?" Only now did Severa remember that Lucina was not with her when she woke up. "Where is she?"
"When you two were teleporting away, you somehow messed with the teleportation staff, and your blood reacted to it in different ways. She was teleported to the remains of Mother's Misery, and you wound up here."
"Why did my blood send me here? What the hell is Mother's Misery anyway?" Grima neglected to react to the first question; he would rather not speak about Marla.
"Have you heard of the Mila Tree? It's now a swamp."
"Is she alright?" Severa didn't like the sound of Lucina traipsing through a dangerous swamp by herself.
"I sent your mother to go find her and bring her to the Alchemical Foundry. I can take you there once Cordelia finds her if you want."
"Why not just take me now?"
"I figured you'd like to run around here or something. Lots of wide open space to roam free." Grima looked out at the vast expanse of land, mainly the large cliffs and slopes and the green grass over the ground.
Severa stared at the land as well. She had to admit it looked like a painting from a fantastical children's book, and a far cry from the dilapidated ruins of Rigel from before.
"Do you want me to call off the assassination on Inigo?" He asked with a calm voice.
"Yes! Do you even have to ask that? Why didn't you call it off sooner?" A gentle breeze rolled by. The exact opposite of what Severa was projecting.
"Cordelia told me you had a fight with him and hated him. I acted on your best interests."
"Are… Are you serious? You… put a bounty on my friend because I had a fight with him?" Her eyes were as wide as the sun above. Grima sighed and pressed a hand to his left ear.
"Excellus? Come in, Excellus." He spoke. Severa thought she heard muffled, screechy voice speak in Grima's ear. "Call off the mark on Inigo's head." A pause followed, along with him sighing. Severa tried to lean in close to hear what Excellus was saying. To her surprise, Grima just remained there as she seated herself next to him.
"Are you serious?" Excellus' voice was heard in Grima's ear.
"Yes. We have no reason to kill him. In fact, I want him alive." Grima replied.
"B-but sir I have him in custody right now! We could kill him right now and rid ourselves of an enemy to your reign!"
"He is not an enemy. He is a friend. I was wrong." Grima sounded as though he was disinterestedly speaking to his mother. "If I find that a single hair on his head is harmed, then I shall have no choice but to expel you from Ylisstol. Forcefully."
"...I understand. Will do, sir." Excellus replied and Grima removed his hand from his ear. He locked eyes with Severa and quickly stared somewhere else.
"You really think he'll stay true to his word?" She asked. Her leg dangled over the edge of the cliff. She looked down and immediately regretted looking at the steep drop. She almost forgot that mere moments ago she had told Grima she hated his guts.
"No." Grima got to his feet and put his hands in his coat pocket. "Which is why I'm going to rendezvous with your mother as soon as she has Lucina, and go back to Ylisstol with you three to make sure he doesn't kill your friend." He drew his hood up and walked away, leaving a confused Severa on the cliff.
"I can't pin you down. One minute you're beating me within an inch of my life and the next you're babysitting your commanders just to make me feel better." Severa got to her feet as well. "If you really want me to treat you like a father, why don't you just kidnap and hypnotize me as you did with my mom?"
"Who said I wasn't going to do that?" Grima asked as he glanced over his shoulder yet continued to walk. "I told you. I will not disturb these peaceful lands."
"So where are you going while we wait?" She outstretched her arms and yelled.
"I'm going to go check in on the volcano. You can join me if you wish." A dark portal appeared before him. Severa noticed he was holding a staff in his other hand.
"Aren't you going to take me there?" She asked.
"No," Grima replied. "You'll be fine. I thought you said you hated everything I am, anyway." Severa said nothing and folded her arms. Her face was as red as Grima's eyes. "Check your pocket, by the way." Grima was now half-inside the portal. Severa checked her pocket and felt what she assumed was a smooth, thin rock. "It's one of my scales."
The very instant Severa held the scale in her grasp, purple flakes not unlike the ones she used to strengthen herself poured from the surface. She felt a rush of power course through her veins. Grima noticed that her eyes were red, and more flakes erupted from the scale as she continued to squeeze it. It seemed it was an endless source of power for her. "Try not to damage the gardens." His voice hung on the wind as he and his portal disappeared.
*Severa turned around, examining the land around her. She stared at the ground again, and where she once felt a sense of dread, she felt a surge of boldness instead. With nary a second thought, she leaped through the air and sailed towards the ground head-first. She must have fallen at least fifty feet as the cliff face raced past her vision. With a quiet thud, she landed in a crouching position with her feet spread apart and her left hand on the ground. The grass around her reached up to her head as it swayed in the breeze.
She stood in place as she held one arm out perpendicular to her body and crossed her other arm over it, stretching her sore shoulders. Then, she bent her legs and made sure they felt limber enough to go at speeds the human body wasn't created to match.
A smirk formed on her face right as she drew back in a running position, then moments later rocketed forward towards the sculpture of the dragon in the distance. Winds lashed at her face, much like that night in Ylisstol she had spent with Lucina. Had it really only been a week since that day? She had felt so alive and free that night, and she felt rather similar right now. Birds chirped in the distance, and she could see various woodland creatures rush away from her.
She rushed past various gardens, arranged with all sorts of colorful flowers of varying sizes. The dragon was nearby now, and in the distance, she could still see the volcano looming over her. She approached a path made of cobblestone and slowed her speed to a light jog. Her hair was no longer whipping behind her like a flag, yet she still worried she would kick up stones behind her.
More flowers were ahead on a raised hill. Deep green leaves were arranged in the shape of a dragon. Roses grew in the head of the portrait to recreate what looked like a giant, red eye in its forehead. To the left of this dragon was more flowers, purple and arranged to resemble Grima.
She walked ahead to the sculpture of the green dragon. Its mighty wingspan shielded her from the sun; the green coloration of the hedges did not have to be altered to resemble the dragon. It stood on a raised, stone platform that had a plaque on the front.
"Duma. The War Father." The plaque read. Severa wondered if she had ever heard the name Duma before, but at least she knew the name of Grima's fallen friend.
To her left was a massive waterfall that crashed into a lake that looked to be double the size of the massive hedge sculpture. However, to her right was a dark purple building that both stuck out like a sore thumb from the nature around it, and stretched into the sky like the Grimaret.
"What's that doing here?" She asked to herself, noticing that the land around it seemed to match its color as well. Her eyes then turned to the volcano, but that mysterious building was too alluring. "Grima can wait. I wanna see what's going on in there."
She jogged away from the sculpture, only picking up speed once she was off the cobblestone path. Ahead of her was another flower garden, except this one was being sprayed by water shot out from a small machine in front of it. Severa stopped and stared at the machine, noticing that it was a small rod held up by metal firmware fixed into the ground.
The rod began to turn on its axis until it suddenly faced Severa, who was unable to dodge the blast of water and was pelted in the face by hundreds of small droplets. Quickly, she raised her hands to her face to block the freezing water. Her entire body shivered as she sprinted away.
She continued running along, past more valleys and raised patches of land until she dug her heels in and stopped at a large lake. Unfortunately, an object in motion tends to stay in motion, and because Severa came to a screeching halt, her wet hair wrapped around her head and slapped her in the face.
With her vision obscured by her white hair, Severa grumbled as she pulled her hair out of her face. Right next to her was a large lake, and her reflection stared back. She turned to the side and continued to stare.
"You look like trash." A nasty, yet familiar voice whispered in her ear as she focused on her hair.
"No, I don't." She spoke back, remembering what Gaius had taught her. She ran her hands through her hair until she felt her hair bands around her fingers. Removing them from her wet hair, she placed them in her pockets along with the scale from Grima. A cursory glance back to the lake confirmed that she did look like her mother now that her hair was down rather than in pigtails. She wasn't completely okay with borrowing her mother's look, but it would have to do to prevent her hair from being a hindrance.
Her reflection matched her smile as she turned back towards the purple building and continued on her way. Eventually, she noticed the clang of metal underneath her boots as she continued. The ground underneath her was now purple and metallic like the large building that she was nearing, and to her left, it seemed like this site was still under construction. Large machines whirred and moved on their own, some of which had large saw blades. Some of the machines had prongs that were used to apply large sheets of the same, purple metal to the ground, and then nearby machines would melt them in place with bursts of fire.
These were not the only machines expanding the reach of this metal building, as to her right was the same exact set-up. Only the machines had just finished applying and melting a fresh sheet, only for them to move on their own to the next square that needed to be applied.
Severa wondered if there was a natural stopping point for this expansion, and she also wondered why her feet felt like they were burning. With her foot lifted up while she standing on the other, she discovered that while she may be willing to go at ridiculously fast speeds, her armor sure wasn't.
A hole had been burned into her metal boot and was continuing to burn. She quickly removed said boot while her foot ached from the burn, only to put it down on the ground and discover that the ground was also burning. Because of the dark coloration of the ground, it had absorbed more heat from the sun and felt like scorching desert sands on Severa's bare foot.
She groaned as she raised her foot and began to hop towards the building, which hopefully had some shade and some spare boots. As she hopped closer to the building, she felt her armpits chafe along with her tights. This armor had served her well since she had bought it a year ago with her mother, but it was clearly not designed to fit her powers. Especially now that she had an unlimited source of these powers and didn't intend on giving it up.
The building was just within reach now. It stood between her and the sun, meaning the ground was now cast in shade and safe for her bare foot to walk on. She walked right up to the building, slightly waddling to prevent her legs from chafing, and noticed that a large door was built into the front. It had no handle or way to open it, and she even tried pushing it.
She waited for a bit, unsure of what to do. If she had looked up, she would've noticed a long box jutting out from the wall. A lens rested inside the box and focused on her. The door opened, much to her surprise. Severa looked around at the dark interior of the building. She could barely see inside it, let alone who opened the door for her.
Deciding she would rather explore this building instead of trudge through the hot sun to the even hotter volcano, Severa entered the large doorway. The flooring felt exactly like the same kind outside, only colder as she tried to discern her surroundings from the darkness.
**The doors slammed shut behind her, just as lights above flickered to life. The room was bathed in a white glow, revealing that Severa's surroundings were also pure white. Floors, walls, and the dividers that partitioned out rooms in the hallway she was in were all white. Even the windows had a white tint to them. The only object in this room that wasn't white was the strips of purple light on the corners, guiding her vision to a door at the end of the hall.
Severa walked along, clanking her metal boots down the hall until she stood before the next door. It opened on its own, revealing a large, circular room. In the center was a see-through model of Duma hovering above the ground. Severa walked up to it and curiously poked it with her finger, only for her hand to phase right through it as though it wasn't there.
To her immediate right was a small door, similar to the elevators in the Grimaret. She walked up and pressed a button next to it. which lit up as she pulled her finger back. The doors slid open and confirmed this was an elevator, with a small room inside.
More importantly, there was a gift-wrapped box on the floor. A tag dangled from the top lid of the box and had her name on its front. She lifted it up, feeling its heft and then turned the tag around.
"To my lovely daughter who means the world to me. Love - Grima." A smiley face was drawn on the tag. Severa wondered why Grima left the box here, and why he was giving her gifts.
She didn't mind the gesture, because free stuff was free stuff, but she still felt… off in accepting gifts from him. Her hands unwrapped the box and revealed a folded-up purple suit with a red Grimleal logo on the back. The material felt like nothing she had ever felt before; it felt smoother than her clothing yet sturdier than her boots. The box dropped to the floor as she lifted the suit up, holding it as it unfurled and revealed that it covered her full body except for her head. It even had built-in areas for her feet that had individual areas for her toes. She held the suit against her body, noticing that it fit her like a glove.
A note dropped out of the suit's leg and to the floor. Using one hand to hold the suit up and the other to pick the note off the ground, she read the small piece of parchment. "Let's go to the thirty-fourth floor and try it out." This note had the same handwriting as the tag on the box and had another smiley face on it.
Severa turned around and noticed that almost all the buttons on the elevator had no light in them, save for the ground floor and the thirty-fourth-floor buttons.
Although she did wonder why the other buttons didn't work, as tested by her dragging her hand along all of them, she eventually did as Grima's note said and hit the button for the thirty-fourth floor. A ding was heard as the door closed and the elevator began to rise, leaving her to wait.
She could put the suit on now. The walls were closed off and nobody was around, but on the other hand, she was not inclined to trust a gift from Grima. However, her broken boot was getting more irritating by the second and her chest felt like it was on fire
With a sigh, she undid her belt and began to remove her shirt, only to notice that one of the white walls was now a window to the outside.
"Ah!" She yelped in panic as she quickly put her shirt back on. Severa looked out the window to see that the elevator she was in continued to rise. The ground grew farther away with every second; from her view, the volcano that once towered over her now looked like an anthill. Even the mountains of white rock now looked like simple sugar cubes.
The window disappeared, replaced by another white wall. Severa sighed and tried to steel her sense of unease from the height, then resumed in putting the suit on.
On the thirty-fourth floor, a ding was heard as the elevator doors slid open. Severa walked out of the elevator and onto the stable floor, wearing her new purple suit and carrying her old clothing in a pile. Red stripes went down from the sides of her shoulders to her wrists, then returned back to her torso and down her side. They stopped at her ankles and finished the symmetrical pattern.
Around her was a large room with three walls and a window to the outside. She freely wiggled her toes in her new shoes as she walked towards the window. For some reason, she no longer felt a rash in her arm or leg joints. She didn't know why, but she suspected it might have something to do with how clean her new garments were.
The last time she washed her old clothing was… "Gods, I can't even remember…"
As she looked out across Father's Pride, to the various canyons and mountains, she could see a bit of her own reflection staring back at her. She would be lying if she said the new suit looked bad on her; it stuck to her figure just as nicely as her old clothing, yet the design of the suit was more… exotic. She was sure to stand out in a crowd with how advanced it looked.
One thing she noticed, however, was that her eyes were no longer red. The red lines on the suit were dimmed as well. Severa looked to her left and found a white desk for her to put her old clothing on. She set her garments on the desk and pulled the scale from Grima out of her pant pocket.
Her gaze turned to the underside of her arm, where a faded outline in the shape of a scale was imprinted on the suit. She held the scale over it, noticing that it fit right over the outline perfectly, then was shocked when the scale jumped from her hand and into the outline. Again, she felt a surge of power rush to her veins as her eyes grew red. The scale stuck to her underarm and continued to stay there as she shook her arm. Now the red lines on her suit were glowing, and a voice spoke from her wrist.
"Protective field activated."
"Cool." She mumbled to herself, thankful that she didn't need to keep reaching into her pocket. Checking to see if anything had changed, she wrapped her knuckles against the top of her chest. To her surprise, a metal-like plate sprung from the suit and met her fist. The plate felt stronger than the hardest steel she could imagine as she drew her hand away, and the plate sunk back into her suit and was indistinguishable from the rest of the fabric.
Her gaze turned from her suit to her right, where a door to the next room stood and toyed with her curiosity. She entered the door to the next room and found it had no window, instead lit by lights in the ceiling. A glass wall to her right divided the room into two sections, and on the other side were two mannequins standing with their arms outstretched. One mannequin was wearing an exact copy of her old outfit, and the other was wearing a replica of her new one.
On the side of the window that she was in, Severa saw a large, red button on a raised stand. There were no other doors, and this room looked too clean to have a deathtrap in it, meaning that this was probably the last place on this floor she could check. She was curious why one of the mannequins had a copy of her outfit. "Please don't be a trap please don't be a trap…" Severa closed her eyes and pressed the button with a nervous gulp.
A few seconds passed and she was still alive. Severa opened her eyes and watched as the mannequins moved apart, thanks to the poles connecting them to the floor. Mechanical arms like the ones outside protruded from the walls and hovered over the two mannequins, ending with small nozzles instead of hands.
"Test one: flames." A voice spoke from somewhere, Severa wasn't sure where. It sounded like a message that had been recorded earlier.
She would have to wonder that later, as the mechanical arms began to expel a great deal of flame onto the mannequins. There was such a large amount of flame that Severa couldn't see if their clothes had burned off or not until the flames were gone.
After a few seconds of watching flames expel from the mechanical arms, the arms drew back and revealed what they had done to the mannequins. The one wearing her old suit had been burned to a pile of ash, and the one wearing the new suit looked just fine.
The pile of ash was carried away into the wall by the trackpad on the floor; another mannequin wearing her old uniform took its place.
"Test two: combat." The voice returned, and with it so did the mechanical arms. Now they brandished swords, lances, and axes in their tiny grips. Severa almost found it adorable, at least until they started to viciously slash at the mannequins like a gang of bandits.
Her duplicated old outfit was cut to ribbons by the furious slashes and stabs from the weapons. The mannequin wearing her old suit was decapitated, and more and more of its body was cut to pieces from the torrent of steel. Meanwhile, the one wearing her new suit survived the assault. Thanks to the plates that protruded from the suit and blocked the blows, the mannequin was intact. Even its head was safe, as the plates seemed to sense blows to its head and rise to deflect them.
The arms drew back again, and so did the remnants of the mannequin. Another replacement appeared. Severa already pondered what insane test was next.
"Final test: wear and tear." The robotic voice was back, but the arms were not. Instead, the poles grounding the mannequins began to move, and so too did the mannequins. They ran in place, matching each other's speed. But, the speed began to increase. Now they were running faster than what Severa considered a normal run, and even faster still.
A rip formed in the duplicate of her old outfit, running across its entire length as the mannequin sped up. The rip grew until the replica of her out suit was torn in two, and smoke was rising out of the soles of the boots. Severa winced as the chest of the mannequin was exposed, thankful that this had never occurred to her. Especially in the streets of New Ylisstol, with everyone and Lucina watching.
"Test complete." The voice concluded, and the lights in the mannequin room dimmed until Severa could only see her reflection in the pitch-black darkness.
"I'm practically invincible now…" A grin formed on her face. "I can be Lucina's indestructible shield." As she began to idly swing her arms, she noticed that her clenched fists had an extra layer of metal plates from the suit wrapped around them. Her arms felt heavier, but still able to throw a hefty punch. But as she relaxed her arms, the plates sunk back into the suit. "I can even knock Grima out with one punch! Probably…"
She turned back around and to the original room, only giving a passing glance to her old suit on the table. How she could even be bothered to wear something so primitive was beyond her, but that was the past now.
Returning to the elevator, she pressed the button for the ground floor and spent the ride wondering why the rest of the buttons were greyed out. There were multiple floors below the ground floor, but for some reason, they were greyed out as well. The ground-most floor even had the initials D.R.P. instead of the standard numbers. "What the hell does DRP stand for? Dying Rural Program? Distinguished Red Place?"
A ding was heard as the elevator door opened, returning her to the ground floor. An idea formed in her mind as she pressed the button for the thirty-fourth floor again, only to hold the doors of the elevator open with her god-like strength, pushing against the force trying to slide them together. She noticed that there was two sets of doors: one as part of the elevator and another to prevent anyone from falling down the shaft.
She shifted her grasp to the other set of doors and stood just outside of the elevator's doors as they closed shut, and moved up the shaft. With her arms apart and keeping the outside set of doors at bay, she looked down the dark pit of the elevator shaft. "Here goes…" She mumbled to herself as she quickly jumped down the shaft, hearing the doors slam shut behind her before she fell.
As she continued to fall down the shaft with wind lashing at her hair, she bent her knees and aimed her feet down as she braced for impact. Eventually, the pitch-black darkness gave way to a steel floor. The floor wobbled under her weight as she landed with a loud thud, similar to when she fell down the height of the Grimaret. Ahead of her was another set of sliding doors like the ones she had exploited to get here.
***Pushing them open and stepping inside while they closed behind her, Severa stepped into a large room with windows to her left and right. But whereas the windows above showed an idyllic land barely touched by Grima's influence, these windows showcased something else.
All around her was obsidian-colored cliffs and valleys, illuminated by flows of bright lava. Some of the lava flows were even right next to the window, bathing the room in an orange light. She stepped forward through the empty room into what looked like the main lobby. The color scheme of the rooms was now purple, much like Grima's skin, and a thin layer of dust was on the floor.
"How long has it been since someone was down here?" Severa asked herself.
In the circular lobby of this floor was a massive statue of Duma that loomed over her. Behind him and hanging over an entrance to a hallway was a large sign that read "Duma Resurrection Project."
"So that's what D.R.P. means…" Severa folded her arms, only now thinking about what that really meant. Especially as she stared at the rows and rows of fangs in the mouth of the Duma statue. "Oh."
Her curiosity continued to exploit her as she walked down the hallway, nervously glancing at the rivers of lava outside the windows. Her mother told her once about the Demon's Ingle, a volcano made from the remnants of the Mad God, Duma. Was this what the Demon's Ingle was like before Grima arrived?
At the end of the hallway was another room, similar in design to the ones on the thirty-fourth floor. A window replaced the back wall and showed off more of this underground hellscape. Set against the purple obsidian was a crisscrossing network of pipes, far too many to count, and all of them protruded the same spot above the ground. But while some of them led to this building, others went off in a different direction, unknown to Severa.
At her left was another sliding door. She stepped inside and found herself in a long, vertical room with a large screen to her left instead of a wall. The screen stretched the entire duration of the room, and at the end she stood at was a button. Much like the button in the mannequin room. She pressed the button, pondering what it could do as the screen flickered to life.
"Duma Resurrection Project" was imprinted on the screen in big, flashing letters. An arrow pointed her to the next section of the screen, which she walked over to. This section showed two scenes, both of which were animated like a moving picture. One was the mountain from outside, bathed in sunlight and again called Father's Pride, and the other a massive toppled tree in a dead forest called Mother's Misery. Beneath both of these landmarks was a network of pipes that lead to the next screen.
On the next section was a single building that the pipes led to. A square of steel that jutted out from the landscape like that one building Severa had escaped in the desert. Judging by the title at the top, this place was called "The Chemical Refinery." The other half of this section had a magnifying glass over the building in the top left, and it showed two large glass canisters. One on the left held lava, and the other held what looked like sap. The two fluids were mixed into one larger container. Severa wondered why they needed sap from two sources if this had something to do with only reviving Duma.
But she kept her questions to herself as she moved to the next section, ignoring that one of the red eyes on her back was flickering on and off like a beacon. This next section showed that the fluid was taken from the Chemical Refinery and put on the Specter Express, which carried it across the sea dividing Ylisstol and Valm.
If Severa wasn't so glued to the screens, she would've heard footsteps approaching from the rooms near her.
This fluid was then emptied off of the train into the Ylissean Royal Castle, which Severa could recognize even without the name in the top. Then, according to the next screen, this fluid was enveloped over a skeleton and grew in size until it apparently made a new Duma.
The very last section showed both Duma and Grima's dragon looming over the Ylissean Castle and smiling. At the gate of the castle were small, pixelated figures smiling as well.
Grima, her mother, Morgan, and herself.
Severa felt a chill run down her spine and backed up, only to bump into something that she was sure was not a wall. Her heart began to beat out of her chest as she turned around and saw Grima looming over her, with his red eyes accentuated by the low light level.
"You're not supposed to be down here."
