Chapter 39- Horrifying discoveries part 3: a disturbing record

Meanwhile

Back in Cair Paravel, the hope of many of the inhabitants had begun to diminish while some had kept the fires of hope alive. Some were praying to Aslan to help High King Peter to fight the poisoning and also watch over the quest-goers during their perilous journeys to gather the ingredients for the exclusive potion and only antidote to the High King's poisoning, but High King Peter's worsening condition was beginning to bring distress on the immediate inhabitants and workers of the castle. Those most affected were Queen Susan and King Edmund who kept the throne running, Hagrid and Alestomeria and High King Peter's carers and medics. The High King was now beginning to show worse symptoms of the poisoning from the cursed cake, such as imagining things that weren't there, being sick and occasionally, seizures but the frequency of the seizures will increase as his poisoning progressed. His appetite had also dropped so much that he was refusing to eat or drink anything, and any food forced down his throat was immediately sent back the same way. Due to this, Martian the Green Man had hooked up the poor High King to a special feeding bag containing nutritional liquid given via injection into the arm (sort of like a drip in our world's hospitals used to give patients liquids) in order to feed the High King the essential nutrition he will need to stay alive and strong as he continues to fight the poisoning until the quest-goers returned with the Nine-Realms Potion ingredients. Further, High King Peter had been strapped to a board to prevent trashing about during feeding time to stop damage to his arm when the feeding bag was administered. It was indeed a distressing time for everyone, especially the High King's brother and sister as they continued to run the throne and its tasks AND cope with the extreme worry for their older brother as he continued to deteriorate. Furthermore, worries for their younger sister Queen Lucy was boiling within the two and they hoped that she and her group were alright during their travels to and from the Garden of Youth with an apple.

Outside the care room where High King Peter was, several Talking Beasts had gathered. Among them were Milky Way, Rainbow Quartz's grandmother; Mrs Beaver who was still waiting for her husband's return, Betelgeuse and Rigel the Wolves and two of Nanu's granddaughters, some Flower Mandrakes, Candy Fairies and Song Flutterbirds, and a male Cù-Sìth (plural: Coin-Shith), a Canid creature with green grass-like fur and greyish-white paws and muzzle named Cilan. The group winced as they heard wails and cries from a familiar Human from within the medical room and calming voices from the medics as they tried to calm the poor sufferer down.

"Sounds like High King Peter is in serious pain or panic in there," whispered Mrs Beaver tearfully.

"Well, Martian did say that Jadis' Poisoning is a HIDEOUS condition that gets worse as it progresses," said Milky Way. The elderly Pegasus Mare was on the verge of tears and hearing High King Peter's cries of suffering as he either convulsed and/or hallucinated made her nerves and stomach jounce.

"Martian and his team and also Hagrid and Alestomeria are doing ALL they can to help our High King," said Cilan the Cù-Sìth who was one of the Monarchs' officials and also gardeners for Cù-Sìth were strongly associated with nature and had a keen connection to the Dryads. Cilan was also a caretaker of young Flower Mandrakes and was also dedicated to helping the Flower Mandrake population which had been badly affected by the White Witch's domination over the country of Narnia during the Eternal Winter.

"Yeah, but despite that, our High King's gonna get worse," said Betelgeuse sadly.

"Until the quest goers return and that potion is made, he's gonna continue to descend down that path," added Rigel. A sad sigh escaped Cilan's mouth and the Grass-Dog lowered his head sadly. Just then, Alcina walked in at the same time a Centaur medic emerged to tell the gathered group about High King Peter's condition, Milky Way going over to talk with him.

"How's High King Peter, folks?" asked the colourful but mostly red Three-Tailed Fox, "I've heard he's got worse."

"You have been asking about High King Peter and his deteriorating health TOO many times now," snapped one of the Song Flutterbirds, a Pink one angrily.

"Why can't you find something more useful to do instead of lounging around and nosing into our poor High King's suffering so often?" put in a Blue Flower Mandrake. Alcina blinked in indignation but then Milky Way came forward with the Centaur medic.

"Look, Alcina, just leave High King Peter's health and wellbeing in the hands of Martian and his group," said the white Pegasus Mare, "There are tasks that need doing like cleaning, so do them."

"I've finished polishing the royal chairs of His High King and Queen Lucy," said Alcina.

"Good," said Mrs Beaver, some Green Song Flutterbirds looking on also indignantly at the Three-Tailed Fox at her constant and frequent nosing into the affairs of the High King and his health and also the search for the missing victims. Pteranodon, Tarzan the Oran-Utan and their group had become sick of the Fox's nosiness too and the former had told Alcina to NOT nose in again or there will be DIRE consequences and Alcina had obeyed. Betelgeuse, Cilan and Rigel also looked on indignantly but under that indignation was something else. Mrs Beaver continued. "Now maybe you can help wash the dishes or polish the royal tables."

"I would love to but I think I'll go home and rest," said Alcina. She flinched when she heard a cry of pain from within the medical room and shot a look in that direction before gazing at Mrs Beaver and company, "The sounds of His Majesty and his pain and fear are getting to me as well. Not to mention all these kidnappings going on and the search-and-destroy missions, so I could do with a break."

And with that, the Three-Tailed Fox turned and left. Some Candy Fairies looked on with understanding.

"It sure is a stressful time for all of us," said a lemon one.

"Especially with having to deal with His Majesty's worsening condition in there," said another. A sigh escaped Milky Way's mouth and she began to dismiss the little crowd at the Centaur medic's command.

"Let's just resume our tasks," the Pegasus Mare muttered, "I've got my own SERIOUS worries to deal with as well, such as my granddaughter Rainbow Quartz's absence."

"Tell us about it," said a Red Song Flutterbird as he left with the other Flutterbirds, "A lot of us are missing our kids and grandkids too."

"There's still no news of where they have been taken AND that unknown location being somehow connected to Jadis and her cronies, either," said Mrs Beaver, "Chrystós and his group have been interrogating that stubborn Elf REAL good but that Elf and his companions have been as STUBBORN as a deep-rooted tree. I heard the Rokurokubi had just been killed by General Biter the lead T-Rex soldier who is helping in the interrogation for refusing to co-operate and trying to threaten the life of Ovide the Platypus and crippling some of his platoon members..."

"It's like they've been beating a dead log," grumbled a White Flower Mandrake, "I sure hope they can get some information outa those hideous cronies soon and we'll have some idea of where the kidnapped victims have been taken."

The others murmured in agreement and with that the group dispersed to resume their tasks. However, three of them remained behind. Betelgeuse, Rigel and Cilan looked on after Alcina, exchanged looks, and began to follow her.

The two Wolves and the Cù-Sìth followed Alcina to her home. They left Cair Paravel and its grounds, walked through a forest and eventually, they came to what appeared to the entrance to Alcina's den. The trio kept at a distance to prevent rousing suspicion within Alcina and several times, they had to actually hide when she looked behind her. Thankfully, she did not suspect anyone to be following her. Then when Alcina pulled a key from her tails, inserted it into the wooden door of her den and entered it, Betelgeuse, Cilan and Rigel took in the location of the den and began to wait. After a few minutes, Alcina exited her den, locked its door and then left. The moment the Three-Tailed Kitsune had left, Betelgeuse, Rigel and Cilan seized the opportunity and crept towards the den. The trio knew it was wrong to intrude into someone else's home and property but they had something about Alcina boiling within them. Cilan tried opening the door but when the Cù-Sìth saw that it was locked, he slammed a paw on it in frustration. Suddenly, Rigel called his and her deep red furred sister's attention in her direction. She had found a loose wooden window cover and access. Immediately, Betelgeuse and Cilan rushed over to her and the three climbed in one by one. Once inside, the three began to look around Alcina's house. However, all they found was just a compartmented interior with just ordinary equipment and furniture one in Narnia would expect to find in the den of a Talking Fox or other Talking Beast that lived in dens. However, the boiling feeling spurred Rigel, Betelgeuse and Cilan to keep going and not let the ordinary interior turn them back, so they did.

The two unusual fur-coloured Wolves and the Cù-Sìth continued looking around Alcina's den, but all they found were ordinary furniture and other household objects typical of an ordinary Talking Beast den. Rigel is doubtful.

"I don't think Alcina has anything to hide, sis and Cilan," she told the other two, "I think we should leave before Alcina comes back. She will NOT appreciate us snooping around her den without her permission..."

As she spoke, Betelgeuse stepped back as she gazed at an ordinary-looking stone bookshelf when her back left paw landed on something. A 'click' sound startled the dark red Wolf and she shot a startled look at her back left paw to see what she had just stepped on. To her surprise, she had stepped onto one of the decorative rocks and it had been pressed into the ground. Then a rumbling noise began, startling the trio and they shot an alarmed look at the stone bookcase. That bookcase shuddered and began to move. Sand and dust dropped from the round book-holding piece of furniture as it moved. The eyes of the three Canids looked on as the bookcase continued to move and reveal some sort of hole in the wall. Eventually, the bookcase stopped and the large hole was fully revealed. The three began to cautiously approach it and as they did, Cilan shot Betelgeuse a look.

"What did you just do?" asked the Cù-Sìth.

"I just stepped on some sort of switch," replied Betelgeuse, "And I think it must operate that bookshelf... concealing that hole?" confusion swept through the reddish Wolf as she gazed at the gaping mouth in the wall that was behind the bookshelf. What was this supposed to be? Rigel gazed at it.

"Looks like some sort of secret room," the blue Wolf said. Cilan then cautiously walked towards the open mouth and stepped into it. The two Wolf sisters followed. Once all three were in the hole, they began to look around until Cilan's eyes found a rounded thing protruding from the lip of the floor near the wall. Rigel, curiosity taking hold, extended a paw to it and put her weight on it when suddenly; she felt the 'rock' press into the floor with a 'click'. Rigel flinched and withdrew her paw and the floor suddenly started to shudder. The tree looked around until they felt the floor under them begin to descend.

"Is this some sort of...?" began Cilan and before he and the Wolves knew it, they sank below the floor line and into the ground. It was clear that this 'cave' was some sort of lift or elevator but most Narnians called such machines by a different name such as 'vertical carrier' or 'transport pulley or platform'.

Betelgeuse, Rigel and Cilan soon found themselves in another room, the platform having taken them down here. This underground room was lit by white light from magical glowing 'stars' but the three felt their skins crawl and did not feel this place to be very welcoming at all. Nervously, the trio took their first steps into the underground chamber. However, as they did, the unease and nervousness within them suddenly multiplied several-fold. Cilan then looked ahead and noticed some objects set up in a series along the room's walls. Those objects were either cuboid or cylindrical and had shiny surfaces but as Cilan examined them more carefully, he realised that the surfaces were transparent. Through the transparent surfaces were some contents. Cilan, Betelgeuse and Rigel nervously paced through the display series of the transparent cylinders and cuboids, their eyes uneasily scanning the contents within. Betelgeuse took one look at one of the contents of one of the cuboids and saw a stack of blocks. These blocks were colourful, soft and squishy in texture, and were caked with a white powder. Rigel looked at another cuboid and saw a stack of discs. These discs were dark brown and smothered in a shiny brown paste. Some other containers contained similar stacks of circular discs but of different colours. The containers were open ended at the tops and as the three continued pacing through the display series, their noses were suddenly bathed in a pool of smells. These smells were sweet, inviting and the three Canids suddenly felt their mouths begin to salivate to their startle. Betelgeuse swallowed and gazed at a cylinder containing some rainbow-coloured lumps.

"Looks like a bakery display or something," the dark red Wolf whispered. Cilan then gazed at another cylinder and took in its contents. These contents were white-coloured, had a smooth, pasty texture and resembled a milk-originating human treat Cilan remembered King Edmund describing to him as being called 'yoghurt'. The Cù-Sìth then reared up and put his front paws onto the solid glass-like surface to take in the substance properly. The stuff clearly resembled creamy yoghurt alright but then the smooth, pasty substance began to move. Cilan flinched when an appendage rose from the surface and moved about. Uneasily, the Cù-Sìth dropped to the ground on all fours, his usual stance. A disturbed look came on his face as he gazed at the moving 'yoghurt'.

"What is it, Cilan?" asked Rigel while Betelgeuse continued towards the farthest wall, the end of the room. Cilan turned to her.

"My grandparents have seen that stuff before," the Cù-Sìth whispered darkly, "It was during the Eternal Winter. They have called it 'Toxo-Cream' and it comes from a certain area of the Narnian Desert near Ettinsmoor and according to them, it is HIGHLY sweet and addictive, but deadly. They had also seen a couple of Manananggal feed some of that Toxo-Cream stuff to some desperate and starving Rattlebacks and got them severely addicted. Over time, they ate more and more of the stuff and simply 'decayed away'," Cilan then gazed at the creamy stuff in the container, "But seeing that stuff in here with my OWN eyes, in a secret underground room in Alcina's den..."

Rigel gazed at the creamy stuff and winced as it moved some appendages as she allowed the Cù-Sìth's description about it sink in.

While the dark blue Wolf and the Grass Dog continued gazing at the cream-like substance in its container, Betelgeuse came to something else at the end of the room, her eyes landing on some sort of book and also a cylindrical case. The dark red Wolf took the case and opened it. The case appeared to be some sort of storage container as in it was a series of crystalline discs. These were magical discs and worked similarly to our world's DVDs. Curiosity at what information these discs contained within them boiling within her, Betelgeuse turned and saw a player which was shaped like a slab and was designed specifically to play these discs. Immediately, she reached her front paws and seized the crystal disc player. Then she took one of the discs and inserted it into its mouth. As she did that, Rigel and Cilan, after moving on from the cream-like substance in its container and examining the contents of the other containers which included more suspicious things like some live butterfly-like insects called Element-Flies (highly adaptable insects capable of taking on different imago forms depending on how they developed as larvae; they had a variety of forms such as Fire, Water, Metallic and so on) in one cylindrical container and some other substances they could not identify in some other containers, such as a pool of shining white liquid, came over. Then Rigel saw the booklet and took it when she saw her sister begin to play some sort of disc player.

Betelgeuse then sat back and watched a projected screen from the disc player while Rigel and Cilan began to look through the little booklet. However, what the dark red Wolf was about to see was sure to be nightmare fuel for her for several nights to come. The video opened up with the words 'Tasty Cream experiment log day 24' to which Betelgeuse blinked. 'Tasty Cream'? What was THAT supposed to mean? Putting that question aside, Betelgeuse resumed watching the video as it then changed to a scene of some sort of large rock. Behind the rock was a large rocky wall, implying the large rock to be in some sort of cave. Then some creatures appeared. However, these creatures were not nice creatures, but monsters. One was a black Dog-like creature with two tails, implying it to be a Kitsune between the years of 200 and 300 years but then Betelgeuse saw the glare on its face as two more hideous monsters walked in. These monsters resembled Hags for they were Humanoid and ugly but their appearance made Betelgeuse wince as though she had smelled something awful. And that was BECAUSE these two creatures were awful. One had green skin similar to a greened corpse and matted hair coloured brown. This hair cascaded down the sides and back of the creature's head like a mass of thin snakes though this creature was NOT a Gorgon. Its face resembled a green Goblin or Bookeyman, its nose crooked and deformed, its eyes bulging out of its sockets and its chin covered in wart-like lesions. The other Hag-like creature also had sickly green skin but had different features to the first creature. Instead of hands on the ends of its arms, tentacles emerged. On the head of the creature the hair, coloured a vile brown and appeared to be woven into braid-like structures, curved round and back like the horns of a Ram. Its face was more definitively Humanoid than the first creature, the green skin smoother without warts and lesions and clutched in its tentacles was something.

Betelgeuse had NEVER seen a Manananggal of either type in the flesh, either in person or on a recorded magical disc, but these two were JUST that type of Hag. The first variant was in its daytime Humanoid form but when it was night, the Manananggal would undergo a HIDEOUS transformation in which it would grow wings and send its upper body into flight, something Nanu, Betelgeuse and Rigel's grandfather, had mentioned when talking about his time with Jadis before he joined the Aslan believers' side, and his description of the Manananggal and their traits and variants had made Betelgeuse nauseous. Now seeing BOTH variants in the flesh was EVEN worse and Betelgeuse felt her stomach lurch. Nonetheless, she continued watching. The next creatures appeared, one being a bright pink bipedal Elephant called a Pink Elephant (a creature that resembled bipedal Talking Elephants with fuchsia pink skin and black pupil-less eyes and had the abilities similar to Nogitsune such as telekinesis and casting illusions, but one of their more unique abilities was inducing a drunk-like state into their foes to confuse and weaken them. The Pink Elephants were fiercely loyal to Jadis and were part of her battlers and torturing experimenters and interrogators in which their drunk-like state inducement ability was useful in making the interrogated temporarily lose their rational thought and spill information without thinking. They were a DANGEROUS form of monster indeed), and a tall Horror creature with bone-white skin, featureless face and a black three-piece suit and long arms and legs (a Slender-Man) come in. Then the Tentacle Manananggal hauled a creature in its tentacles, a long thin, red creature with membranes down either side of its body and beady eyes, onto the large rock. Betelgeuse flinched as she recognised the creature. It was a Red Flying Rod and it was writhing like a fish in the Tentacle Manananggal's tentacles and forcibly restrained. Then another creature appeared, appearing between the two-tailed Nogitsune and the Regular Manananggal.

To Betelgeuse's surprise, this newcomer resembled a woman. This woman wore what appeared to be some type of clothing Betelgeuse remembered was called a kimono. The robes of this kimono were coloured red, violet, magenta, and gold and silver, the latter two colours shining beautifully like the metallic crowns worn by the Monarchs. The sleeves extended over the hands and widened, their ends rimmed with silver and gold. The woman had hair, very long and shining silver, cascading from her head right down to her feet which were hidden under the kimono's silver and gold-rimmed edge. The woman wore a mask which complemented the silver hair with a shining sunny gold. The mask was simple with two eyeholes, two holes where the nose would be and another hole for the mouth. Her real face was concealed under this golden mask but the way the two eyeholes gazed at the writhing Red Flying Rod on the rock, Betelgeuse felt her skin crawl. But there was another question to ask. This woman resembled a Daughter of Eve dressed in a mask and kimono, mingling with some of Jadis' cronies. 'I thought the White Witch DESPISED humans,' Betelgeuse thought, 'what was a Daughter of Eve doing working with some of her cronies?'

Furthermore, what was this video doing in the secret room under Alcina's den? It clearly made no sense but what happened next in the video disturbed the dark red Wolf to the bone.

The mask-wearing woman turned to another creature, a large one that was too big for its face to be seen but Betelgeuse could tell from the icy skin on its leg that it was an Ice Giant, and gesture to it for something. Then a large bowl-shaped rock appeared, clasped in a pair of icy hands and in the rock bowl was white stuff similar to snow but smoother. Betelgeuse gazed at the white 'snow' and flashed a look at one of the containers containing some white cream-like stuff before resuming the video. Then the Pink Elephant, its trunk holding some type of spoon in its trunk, dipped the wedge end of the tool into the white stuff and scooped a spoonful of it from the container before turning to the Flying Rod as it was kept fiercely still by the Tentacle Manananggal and the Slender-Man. Then to Betelgeuse's horror, the spoon was forcibly shoved into the Flying Rod's mouth against its will but then the Flying Rod's simple face lit up. Betelgeuse winced, having seen this kind of reaction before when a sweet taste landed on the tongue. Then a few minutes later, the Flying Rod's behaviour changed and it began to beg for more of the stuff. The kimono-wearing woman had the Ice Giant lower the container and the Flying Rod buried its head into the cream stuff and gorged itself on it. Betelgeuse then felt it was too much to cope further so she shut it off. She took some time to regain her composure before resuming. She then took out the disc, returned it to the container, took the next disc and inserted it into the player to watch to find out more.

Betelgeuse watched several more of the discs but all of them disturbed her. One video was of a few Flying Rods being mercilessly beaten and eventually killed and Betelgeuse looked on in horror as their torturers carried away their bodies, nonchalant looks on their faces and the same kimono woman looking on. Other victims included some Talking Beasts and they were treated the same way, some of them having stuff Betelgeuse couldn't identify forced down their throats and some of them convulsing, writhing in AGONY and acting like wild beasts infected with a mind-controlling parasite to, even worse, the delight of their experimenters including the kimono woman. Some of these cruel experiments and how the poor victims were treated made tears well within Betelgeuse's eyes and trickle down her cheeks and twice; she cut the videos short for they were just too much to bear. Also, she discovered the name of the kimono woman, Dimitrescu Dokuringu. Then Betelgeuse was struck by confusion. How come Thundersparx, Ahhuayo, Grandpa Nanu, Dionaea and the others who had either been part of Jadis' cronies but against her or spied on her in general NOT know about this person or tell us about her? Maybe there had been areas of the White Witch's grounds they had not visited either due to prohibition or too much security measures? However, Betelgeuse soon remembered Nanu telling her and Rigel of such areas that he, when he was young, had been strictly forbidden from accessing these areas and that Jadis had a different 'career' in mind for him until he rebelled, those areas, Nanu described as being 'top secret'. Betelgeuse then stared off into space as she replayed this memory in her mind. It was clear that Jadis' evils ran even deeper than just the Massacre Events, labour zones, the spy forces and the search-and-destroy Secret Police groups. Then Betelgeuse immediately stopped the video and packed away the crystalline discs, not wanting to see any more of these horrible experiments. But then she drew some conclusions from these findings... NOT very nice ones.

Seeing those videos in a secret room under Alcina's den has made Betelgeuse immediately distrusting of Alcina as she believed that she had been working with this group of hideous creatures, Jadis' CRONIES in performing these HORRIBLE experiments, among them this person named Dimitrescu. The stuff being used on the poor victims included cursed treats, among them Alcina has apparently named 'Tasty Cream', the white cream-like substance Cilan the Cù-Sìth was most familiar with. The white cream-like substance was in fact a parasitic organism that disguised itself as cream and uses its sweet taste to its advantage in getting consumers severely addicted to it. The consumer would eat more and more of the cream, their mind degenerating and becoming more and more feral until finally, they are overwhelmed by the parasite and killed. It had been one of Jadis and her army's weapons of oppression against the Narnians alongside magically conjured cursed treats like King Edmund's Turkish delight. However, there were other treat-like parasites that functioned in a similar way but the use of parasitic and magically conjured 'treats' weren't the only things this Dimitrescu person had been experimenting with. Betelgeuse had also concluded that Dimitrescu had also been experimenting with other substances to see if they would make great psychological torture weapons for brutal interrogation and torture purposes. Then Betelgeuse returned to examining the crystalline containers containing the samples of the cursed treats and other substances until her eyes landed on a white cake-like stack in a cylinder container. The dark red Wolf flinched as she gazed at the white cake, remembering the cake Voltasu the Yatagasaru had brought and the one that had poisoned High King Peter and VERY nearly his siblings if it hadn't been for Kushanku's intervention. Then Betelgeuse remembered Rosa the Magenta Flying Rod being a surviving victim of those horrid experiments. After seeing one of the videos of a Magenta Flying Rod get force-fed a potion made from crushed Element-flies and made the consumer see things that weren't there (called hallucinogenic) on one of the videos, Betelgeuse assumed that Flying Rod to have been Rosa. She had been sent on an EXTREMELY traumatic psychological torture trip from the potion and behaved like a rabid animal and the consequences included throwing up and throwing herself violently around but what disturbed Betelgeuse most was the delightful looks on the faces of her torturers, many of them Nogitsune, and Dimitrescu's nonchalant behaviour. That could explain her reaction to Alcina when she saw the three-tailed Fox and her nervousness around Kitsune including Hagrid and Alestomeria, but her reaction had been FAR worse with Alcina than all the other Kitsune, implying that Alcina had indeed been working for Jadis and was thus a spy among the camp. Now whether Alcina had been an assistant of Dimitrescu or not, one thing was clear. Martian and the others MUST know about this and SOON.