The Last Cauldron
Chapter three — Pay the piper
The moment the heavy latch clicked into place, Giana’s compliant smile vanished from her face, along with the faux-exhaustion, exposing the sharp focus underneath.
She was alone. Completely alone. So, she hatched her plan of escape. Flinging back the sterile hospital blanket, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her bare feet met the tiled floor. It was freezing, sending a sharp jolt of reality up her spine, but the physical sensation only hardened her resolve.
If there was one thing she was sure about now; she wasn’t a survivor of an accidental head injury incurred during a fall. She knew better. She had been running from her uncle — a powerful sorcerer — for years! He had clearly tracked her down, locking her in a makeshift cage disguised as a recovery ward. The man always did have a flair for the dramatics.
Once she reached the door she held up her right hand, turning her palm upward and tried emanating. To what end? Transmute the latch or blast the knob? Honestly, at this point, any spark of her magic making itself known would be a massive relief.
She needed to know how deep the trap ran. If they had spelled the room, bound her or drugged her with an elixir, her access to her magic might be completely severed.
Closing her eyes, Giana reached inward, searching for the familiar, roaring heat of her internal hearth — the spark that had pulled her through endless tight spots, cast complex spells with but a single thought and carve out her own private sanctuary away from the world. Her trusty bulwark. She needed it now. Where was it? She drew a slow, deliberate breath, visualizing a single, controlled ember igniting at the center of her palm. Just a spark, she pleaded silently. Just enough to know you’re still there.
For what seemed like a lifetime, there was nothing but a paralyzing silence and the blinding intensity of the overhead fluorescents. Then, deep within her chest, a dormant spark made itself known. It didn’t burn with its usual fierce intensity; instead, it felt sluggish, as if it were muffled by an oppressive, damp weight. A clear sign of whatever sedative Thorne had pumped into her system. But it certainly wasn’t gone. A delicate swirl of violet magelight curled upward from the center of her palm, dancing for a heartbeat before evaporating into thin air. A clinical smirk touched Giana’s lips. They had dampened her, but they hadn’t broken her.
She closed her fist tightly, steadied herself, and turned her attention toward the room’s single window. She had to move fast before Thorne finished with his “emergency” and came back to resume his interrogation. Before she could finish her thought, the door clicked open, and Dr. Thorne stepped back into the examination room. He let out a weary sigh, corrected his posture and quickly smoothed down his lab coat.
“I am so sorry about that,” He said, offering an apologetic, self-deprecating smile as he reclaimed his stool. “The ED goes into an absolute meltdown when the main server hiccups, but we are back online now. Thank you for your patience.”
He pulled the rolling stool closer to the examination table, opening the chart resting on his lap and poising his pen to make a notation.
“Now, where were we? Right, we were just getting into the baseline medical history. I want to make sure we dot every ‘i’ and cross every ‘t’ so I can get your medical clearance signed off today and get you out of here.”
With an attentive gaze toward the patient, he asked. “Have you had any past surgical procedures? Been put under anesthesia for any reason, even minor outpatient procedures?”
“No!” she snapped. “So, none of this is necessary. I would like to go home now. Can’t I check myself out against medical advice? I’m pretty sure you can’t legally keep me against my will” she added
“I would advise against — ” He broke off mid-sentence as she froze, her eyes locked on his face.
Dr. Thorne blinked, unsettled by the sudden shift in her expression. Then, he felt the warmth. A heavy, dark drop of red leaked from his left nostril, tracing a slow line down his upper lip. A faint drop followed immediately, escaping at the corner of his left eye before his mind could even register what was happening.
He paused, his fingers clutching the medical chart, staring back at her as the silence in the room suddenly grew heavy.
She made no move to grab a tissue or offer help. Instead, she simply leaned back against the propped-up pillows, crossing her arms as she watched him leak from his orifices.
Tilting her head, she let her eyes drift from the blood pooling on his white coat up to meet his gaze. The calculated look stripped away any remaining illusion of a helpless patient. In that single, freezing stare, it became entirely clear that she knew this environment was a cage. One manufactured by a predator to catch his unassuming prey.
“Problem… doctor?” she asked, her voice dripping with quiet, mocking amusement.
Dr. Thorne’s professional facade fractured. He reached up, slowly wiping the blood away with the back of his hand, only to smear it across his cheek. He stared at the red on his skin before looking back at her. Around them, the sterile hospital sounds outside the door suddenly felt hollow — synthesized, like a recording loop running out of time.
“This… this shouldn’t be happening” Thorne stammered, the facade completely fracturing. Looking around the room with the glamour already coming apart.
Unamused, Giana barked “Let’s skip the games. Shall we? Who the hell are you? Where are we and what do you want with me?”
“Now there she is! I was wondering where you were hiding…” He said, with the tension draining from his voice.
“Enough with the mind games uncle! Show yourself. What? Are you afraid of little old me?” snarled Giana
“Oh, so you think I’m your uncle? Gross! Definitely not Vincent. But trust me, I know all about him. That business with the arranged marriage, oof!” he quipped
Giana let out a heavy breath and just sat there, waiting for him to speak.
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“You and I know each other. We knew each other pretty well once upon a time. Intimately…” he continued
“Damon…?” She waited. The moment he nodded, she snapped. “Why the hell did you kidnap me? Unbelievable! I almost killed you, you idiot!” with a flick of her wrist, her mystical hold dissolved, letting him breathe again
About that… I didn’t kidnap you.” He let out a soft chuckle. “Actually, it’s kind of the other way around. We’re inside your head right now. I honestly thought you’d appreciate the absolute brilliance of our little simulation here and figure out who made it by now.” he quipped.
“Ego’s still too big for the room, I see…” She purred
“”Not at all. It’s simply a fact. What we’re in is a multifaceted construct, far beyond a run-of-the-mill illusion. Its very architecture should have clued you into the kind of witch capable of such a feat. Raw power and imagination alone wouldn’t cut it. No, a masterpiece like this requires…”
Before Damon could finish singing his own praises, she rolled her eyes and interjected, “It would need a hybrid.”
Damon now beaming “Not just any hybrid.No.No. A construct this sophisticated demands a skinwalker-telepath hybrid — and let’s be honest, our kind isn’t exactly crawling out of the woodwork.”
[Damon always assumed that’s simply what he was — a skinwalker-telepath hybrid but that is a reduction of great magnitude. As he grew, his powers manifested as a mix between a somatic telepath, psionic chimera, a metamorphic eidolon and a psyche-inhabitor. A real thing of beauty, — and great danger.]
“Wait! Don’t you just need a telepath for that? An insanely powerful one, because I’m not exactly an easy prey, but still a mere telepath?” She mused
“This isn’t just glamour or projection Giana. I am in your mind right now. For you, right now, in here, this simulation is a lived experience. Not just something you were made to believe” Damon warned
“I don’t believe that” scoffed Giana
“Feeling sluggish…? It’s the drugs from the simulation. In it you took them. They’ll affect you until they are not supposed to anymore” he dared
“Well, that’s not creepy at all. Fine, so why the mental kidnapping? What is this about?” questioned Giana
He began explaining “The ‘mental kidnapping’ wasn’t a kidnapping at all. I sort of stumbled my way in here. See, my coven tasked me with tracking down a powerful ancient relic. You might have heard of it, the last cauldron — .”
“The last cauldron? Why?” she interrupted
“The entire magical framework of Omnia is collapsing. A side effect of the misalignment between each coven’s primal sources of power, be it the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth, the ocean, or what have you. The ancient relics holding our remaining reserves are draining fast and everyone is panicking. If all of magic is in trouble, Omnia is in trouble. So, we need access to the everlasting relic. The last cauldron.” he asserted, leaving absolutely no room for her to argue
“”Have you all lost your minds? The Last Cauldron isn’t even real. It’s a total fairy tale. The Quintessential Circle invented it just to secure their throne at the top. I used to be one of them, Damon. I think I’d know.” she said with her jaw tightened in sheer disbelief.
“Well legend has it that it really exists out there. My coven confirmed its existence. We pretty much used up the mana in our reserves to track it down. Last we heard it was protected by The Quintessential Circle” He let out a dark scoff. “Honestly? It’s more like it protected them. Generations of people died tracking that thing down. My coven was not going to take any chances. A direct hunt would have meant the complete slaughter of our forces. We had to be careful about how we approach its keepers. And this isn’t some handy little trinket you can slip into your pocket, it’s thee relic! Stealing it isn’t an option. We had to trick someone into stealing it for us. Naturally, this handsome devil traced its energy footprint straight to the person with the strongest connection to it. Though, how I actually ended up trapped in your head? Total accident, I swear.” he explained
“That easily could have been a suicide mission, you get that, right? I swear, I cannot believe what an absolute, posturing idiot you still are! And for what? To finally earn your grandfather’s approval? To make him actually respect you?” she scolded
Don’t…!” he whispered, the words catching in his throat. “It was a chance to prove myself. To prove that I actually belong. Don’t judge me, okay? Just help me figure out where I went wrong. But the coven cannot know any outsider is in on this. Especially not you.”
“Okay,” she murmured, her sharp edge melting into a quiet, concerned smile. “I’ll help you with your puzzle.”
“Thank you!” A cheeky grin flashed across his face. “I suppose we’ll have to meet face-to-face next time. I really didn’t enjoy the whole brain-melt routine. Seriously, was that some kind of mystical mental punch?”
“Yeah, more like a gentle poke. This is going to be just like old times, isn’t it? You whipping up some ancient, overly complicated spells that could easily kill us — and let’s face it, a few almost did — and me swooping in to rescue you…”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. I was always excellent. It’s really not my fault you just couldn’t grasp the complexity of advanced spells.” he chuckles “Fair warning, when you wake up you’ll still be a little out of it but you’ll be perfectly fine in no time. You ready? I’m gonna let you go now”
Now noticing the room dissolving around her, bleeding out into a vast, empty black void. His voice was already growing faint, slipping away like a dying echo. “Wait, you didn’t tell me where to find you!” she shouted into the dissolving space.
“It’s on the discharge papers you’re holding,” he said, his voice stretching thin across the dark. “Just let your magic handle it. I have no idea how it’s going to transmute into a tangible note when you wake up, so good luck with that.” he yelled back into the dark.
Moments later, Giana snapped awake in her own bed. Clutched tightly in her palm was a single leaf, with two hauntingly different sides — vibrant and rich green on one side, yet stiff, brittle, and completely dead on the other.
“The Cryptic Leaf, of course!” she exclaimed. “You really are a creature of habit, Damon.”
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