So, yeah, new chapter….you must be thinking "Artsy what is this? A new chapter already?!GASP" and you aren't wrong, the time it takes for me to write and publish new chapters is usually really long but, Christmas break changed that.
New story cover! The old one was my sketch of Marco's mewberty, this one is a little something I did in a little writer's block I had recently, it's not my best work, but im proud of it.
Eclipsa is entering the story in this chapter, im not sure if ill keep her in the story after this, but I personaly hope ill get her more involved in this.
Anyways, enjoy this chapter and happy late stump day\Christmas!
Eclipsa was used to strange things, they were her life and she got extremely bored if she didn't interact with one for long periods of time,
But this was beyond strange, this was amazing and mysterious
"well this is new, in my many years of studying magic I've never seen something like this"
She said, observing the blue human playing with a slice of parchment, queen Moon and Star butterfly had come to her dragging the boy by a foot in her study and had asked for her help, not having found themselves an answer to their many questions about the human.
"Same here, this is unheard of" replied Moon, casting a glance at her before looking again at those twitching folded blue wings, admiring the markings on them.
Star was silent; she looked thoughtful
"well,he does look a bit off, the wings don't have a lot of markings and have a definite shape, not to mention the antennas, but the weirdest thing is that it's not chasing girls, not that I'm complaining….. " Eclipsa was talking while pacing around the blue human
"Yeah but it still doesn't tell us why a HUMAN is going through mewberty!" Star suddenly shouted, causing both or the women to turn to her quickly in surprise
"Well Star, I think I have the answer to that…." said Eclipsa, suddenly looking ashamed "During my reign I allowed many things to happen inside the walls of the castle, things that would make my poor mother turn in the grave in disappointment…."
"My royal research team didn't really care for the residents of minor or non-magical dimensions, they conducted researches and experiments far beyond what at the time were the limits, and trust me, the limits went really far at the time."
"the head researcher was the one that pitched the ideas for said experiments, he didn't care about the consequences of his actions, no matter how immoral; I was suspicious of him, but his theories and experiments gave amazing results and our knowledge deepened, he was especially fascinated by the Earth dimension"
"I cant tell you the details what he did, but ill just give you the idea by telling that he got an eternal crystallization for his crimes, his journals and lab were placed under lock and key and his colleagues were given 20 years of being crystallized; I have placed a magic lock on his journals myself, only I can access them."
"Are you telling us those journals might have the answer?" Star asked after a tense silence between the three
"That's what I hope, and if we don't find anything in the journals, we always have the key to the laboratory, although that's only if we get desperate " Eclipsa said, standing up from the chair she had been sitting on for the entire conversation
Moon was silent, just nodding at Eclipsa as an approval
"Well let's go then! The sooner we find out, the sooner we can solve this mess" Star said firmly
"I agree, hold on, I know a shortcut to the library"
Eclipsa walked to a painting of a grassland and whistled a dog call, the warnicorn that was painted on it immediately raised it's head from the grass and stomped it's hoof powerfully;
The painting fell from the wall and revealed a tunnel, Eclipsa crawled in it and went ahed, Moon and Star following her lead, Moon mumbling something about missing maps.
(yes Marco was left in the study, alone, oh boy)
LINE BREAK-KAERB ENIL
The two spades painted on the steel door glowed as Eclipsa used her magic signature to open it, the two doors slid apart as a tick cloud of dust rose from the other side.
The three royals entered the small room cautiously, Moon fanning the air around her to blow away the dust while Star used her wand to shine some light in the dark room, Eclipsa looked around herself before finding what she was looking for
A small table, situated in the center of the room, a small metal chest was placed on it, closed shut with an heavy padlock, it had no keyhole and a spade was painted where it should have been
"is that it?" asked Star, shining her wand in its direction
Eclipsa nodded and approached the chest, placing her gloved hand on it, her cheeks shined and the padlock snapped open with an heavy click, falling on the wood table, the ex queen moved to open the now unlocked chest but stopped in mid act, as if suddenly remembering something,
"Stay vigilant and don't touch anything unless you want a fiery death" She said suddenly, then slowly opened the chest with caution, she slid her hand in and grabbed something, just as a red light started filtering through the cracks of the checkered pavement
"RUN AND DON'T LOOK BELOW!" mother and daughter didn't hesitate and booked it, darting out of the room, just as they were out they looked back,
Eclipsa was just stepping out of the room while the pavement crumbled behind her, she approached Star while the doors slid closed behind, an old and gently tattered leather bound book in her hands, she was holding it delicately, as if it was made of glass.
Eclipsa placed the book on a nearby table and was about to open it, when a loud crash echoed from above
"Oh no, we left him alone didn't we?" Moon said in an annoyed yet concerned tone, Star sighed and nodded
"Eclipsa, can you start looking for answers while we round up the troublemaker?" Star asked,
"Sure…go ahead" Eclipsa answered, a bit unsure,
she knew the boy had not harmed them, but still, when under the effect of mewberty you become very irrational and hard headed, so much that if someone tries to stop your doings, there's a high chance you'll snap and end up hurting them, that's why when a metamorphosis starts the person is usually locked up in the dungeons until it passes.
But if they were so sure, then that was noneofherbuisness™
What indeed was her business was the book before her; that cover bound in leather and those rips, stitched closed with care, the writing on the first page, an elegant combination of deep gold ink and a sinuous calligraphy, making those initials L.X. seem as royal as a tiara encrusted with gemstones
Entire pages of observations and annotations, sketches of bones and muscle and features of otherworldly creatures, schemes of elements and cycles and experiment instructions, the gently painted faces and bodies of creatures that could only come from feverish dreams and the imagination of a small child, as no normal brain could make them up.
That book was her damnation, she had lied when she said she locked it up so one could find it, she had hid under lock and magic those pages from herself, from her own mind and soul, that tough made her stomach tie into a knot, a part of herself was feeling terrible for her own contribution in the experiments, but another part of her had no regrets, and that made her sick.
"I'M BACK!" Eclipsa almost fell backwards from the surprise; Star was running to her, Moon nowhere in sight
"Where is Moon?" the ex queen's voice had a bit of hesitation in it,
"Oh she decided to stay with Marco, keep an eye on him and stuff, turns out he had flipped a table for some reason….did you start with the book already?"
"Oh that, no, I was checking if there were any protection spells I had overlooked, but it's ready to be examined now"
"Well let's get to it then"
LINE BREAK-KAEBR ENIL
Star sat directly on the table, while Eclipsa took the chair and slid the book towards her, without a word, she opened it to the first page
"What does L.X stand for?"
"It's the name of the main scientist, Lexius Xonobell"
Next page, only writing
"This is going to take a long time, let's take a shortcut" Eclipsa said nervously, she waved her hand and the pages gracefully flipped like a gust of wind had blown over them, it stopped to a page and they both started to read
(WARNING, this section may take the blame for the T rating, but it's not that bloody or violent, but im paranoid and I don't want this story to be flagged so yeah)
Magic and how it affects other entities
Today, we took subject 26, 41 and a volunteer from our staff, the experiment was simple, generate magic radiations and observe how the subjects react to such radiation, first was the volunteer, a mewman, eager to end their role as soon as possible, here listed are their symptoms and reactions
-First wave or radiation, heartbeat is normal, feels nothing out of the ordinary as they said themselves
-Second wave, heartbeat is still normal, feels a little seasick but mostly fine
-Third wave, heartbeat is slightly faster, feels nauseous and dizzy but only for the first half of the wave, then they announce they are back to the slights seasickness
After the experiment we gave them some sleeping drops and they woke up after a while announcing they felt fine
Time for subject 41, a slimefolk from the slime sea in the slime dimension
-First wave, plasm pressure is normal; they announce that they feel dizzy and lightheaded
-Second wave, plasm pressure slowed, their limbs are starting to melt, they do not respond or acknowledge their surroundings
-Third wave, plasm pressure is really slow, just a puddle remains but apparently it's still alive
We scooped up the remains and put them in a cold cell unit, I'll report their progress as time goes on
Time for subject 26, a human from the hearth dimension
-First wave, heartbeat is normal, they announce to feel a slight headache
-Second wave, heartbeat is speeding up, they announce to feel a strong headache
-Third wave, heartbeat is fast, they fall to the floor clenching their head and screaming
They were transported to a normal cell unit and gave some anaesthetic, I'll observe their development
….
Day 1
The human has woken up, they ate what was given to them and acted normally, however the checkup revealed otherwise, their heart rate is slowed down by 2 beats and their body temperature is 3 degrees higher than normal, we moved them to a cell 1 or 2 degrees colder than their current one in attempt to stabilize them
P.S. the slimefolk is dead
Day 2
They ate more than their usual, and they acted a bit aloof, they seem to find everything around them….boring
I gave them a quill and some ink to see what they'd do, they started drawing on the wall of the cell, they drew other subjects and some tools they saw me use on them,
They drew until their checkup, in which we discovered their heart rate was back to normal, their temperature was still warmer than normal, they drew all night and didn't sleep.
Day 3
I gave them one of the wand replicas we are experimenting to make, they casted a spell with it, they successfully summoned a slime bunny to keep them company, during the casting keyhole markings appeared on their cheeks
The wand broke after the spell, it was just a prototype so it was normal
The human had nothing on their cheeks after the spell, and they spent most of the day playing with the slime bunny, it dissolved when the day ended
The checkup revealed nothing new
Day 4
Mewberty
I have no idea how it happened but it did, I checked up on them only to find a black keyhole shaped cocoon in their cell, after half an hour the cocoon ripped open revealing them
They were in full mewberty, but their form had something different, their features resembled an hearth dragonfly more than a mewnie butterfly like normal mewberties
They just continued drawing like if nothing had happened and napped wherever they could, we were cautios and didn't approach them for a checkup this time
Day 5
They shed their skin today, and turned back to their normal form, they now have white keyhole cheek markings and small black dragonfly wings
They continued on with their doings and when we checked on them we discovered they had changed from being fully human to being 90% mewman and 10% human, they didn't seem to notice
I am concluding this experiment now, we have all that we need, sorry Leila, but finished experiments are only written down, it's a rule im not proud of
*under the last log date there's a small sketch of a small girl drawing on the wall, keyhole markings on her cheeks and long messy hair, a shadow is looming over her*
And there you have chapter 4, I put more dedication into it and it turned out great in my opinion, but I wanna know yours! Leila and Lexius aren't Oc's, maybe Leila will be turned into one since I like how her design and story turned out, anyways don't expect new chapters for a while, I really poured myself into this and I need a break, as always, thank you for supporting this story, I never tough this story would be so popular, but I guess I was wrong
Artsy signing out