Chapter 250: The Catastrophic Activation

Chapter 250: The Catastrophic Activation

The laboratory remained silent after the rune-transfer device discharged. Vrizzik was bent over the workbench, his head still pressed against the exposed component. The guard holding him loosened his grip and took a step back. Vrizzik did not straighten. His eyes were open, but he seemed unable to focus on anything in front of him.

Noah kept his attention on the scholar. Only moments earlier, the guards had been dragging Vrizzik away from the controls. Now none of them seemed willing to touch him. The transfer device had shut itself down, and a thin trail of smoke rose from its housing.

"What did you press?" the Black Coil representative demanded.

The guard beside the controls looked at his own hand. "I was trying to lock the panel. I must have hit the wrong control."

"You were told to secure it, not turn it on!"

"I didn’t mean to. He was fighting us."

"Get a medic in here," the representative snapped. "And somebody check that machine."

Vrizzik finally moved. He gripped the bench, pulled himself upright, and staggered into a chair. One guard took a step toward him, but Vrizzik raised his uninjured hand.

"Don’t touch me."

His voice was hoarse. He closed his eyes, then opened them again almost immediately. Noah saw him glance toward the dormant transfer component, then press his fingers against his forehead.

"What happened to you?" the representative asked.

Vrizzik swallowed. "The rune. I can still see it."

"It’s right there in the machine."

"No. When I close my eyes." Vrizzik tried again, his breathing growing uneven. "It’s the pattern we loaded into the device. I don’t understand how it’s there."

The representative looked at the apparatus. "Did it burn into your head?"

Vrizzik touched the side of his scalp. "There’s no marking. I can see the entire pattern, even with my eyes closed."

The medic had not arrived. A warning sounded from the measuring equipment, and Vrizzik turned toward the display. The device’s crystal supply was inactive, but the mana reading was rising. He reached for the terminal and tried to open the instrument record. His fingers missed the first control.

"Move away from me," he said.

The nearest guard hesitated. "What?"

"Just move back. Something’s wrong with the readings."

The representative came around the bench. "What’s happening now?"

"I don’t know. The apparatus is off." Vrizzik watched the numbers climb. "Shut down the other instruments. All of them."

The guard reached toward the power controls, but a second warning sounded before he touched them. The lights above the bench flickered. Vrizzik pressed both hands against his head and cried out.

Noah’s view remained fixed on the room. He could see the experiment’s recordings on the laboratory terminal, together with Vrizzik’s years of research files. He used his connection to Eldrath to preserve copies of the archive and the available footage. The final recording was still running. Noah included it as the instruments registered another sharp increase.

"Get out!" Vrizzik shouted.

The guard nearest the door turned. The representative grabbed his coat and pulled him back, demanding an explanation. Vrizzik tried to stand, but his knees struck the edge of the bench. Light appeared around his head, spreading outward in irregular flashes. The instruments emitted overlapping alarms. One of the guards threw an arm across his face.

An enormous blast erupted from Vrizzik’s position and swept across the men surrounding him. The representative and the guards disappeared in the expanding light. The workbenches broke apart, and the observation partition shattered. The force continued through the laboratory, tearing away the interior walls and collapsing the rooms behind them.

Noah’s view moved above the building as its roof burst apart. The explosion destroyed the structure from within, throwing fragments across the service yard and setting neighboring storage units on fire. The main laboratory, its equipment, and the adjoining rooms were gone. Dust and smoke rose above the residential district. Where Vrizzik had been standing, there was only burning wreckage.

Noah searched the ruined rooms through his connection. He could no longer distinguish the observation chamber or the area where the captives had been kept. There was no visible sign of the representative or the guards, and he could not locate Vrizzik beneath the collapsed structure. The people still inside when the blast occurred had been caught in the destruction.

His own recording ended with the roof collapsing. The copies he had preserved remained accessible, including the footage of the struggle, the accidental contact with the transfer component, and the readings captured immediately before the explosion.

Noah withdrew his attention from the wreckage and opened the preserved files in his quarters. Vrizzik’s research archive contained old institute documents, equipment diagrams, experiments on biological tissue, and the records of the trials conducted in the hidden laboratory. Several folders had been updated in the days before the accident. The newest held the modified transfer assembly and the measurements from the injured captive’s trial.

He opened the recording of the struggle. Vrizzik’s head struck the transfer component while a guard hit the activation control. The recording showed the device completing a transfer, followed by Vrizzik’s confused reaction. Noah replayed the next portion, listening as the scholar said he could still see the rune with his eyes closed.

The monitoring data showed an unusual rise in mana after the device had shut down. Noah brought that record alongside the footage and checked the sequence again. The laboratory’s instruments had not been designed to measure anything inside a goblin’s mind, and the experiment had ended before Vrizzik could examine himself.

Noah saved the files together. He also included the recordings showing the captive experiments and the Black Coil’s involvement. Then he prepared a divine mandate for Eldrath’s ruler, attaching the entire archive without removing any of Vrizzik’s findings.

The ruler was reviewing government business when the mandate reached him. He rose at its arrival and opened the accompanying materials. Noah’s message was brief.

"An incident has destroyed a laboratory where a scholar named Vrizzik was conducting rune-integration experiments. I have preserved his research and the recordings of his final trial. Deliver the materials to your scientific institutions for examination. The footage includes an accidental transfer involving his head and a subsequent mana explosion. The archive also contains evidence of experiments conducted on captive goblins."

The ruler watched the opening minutes of the recording. He stopped at the sight of the guards forcing Vrizzik against the apparatus and called for his senior officials. Before they arrived, he sent the archive to the central research institution and requested specialists in industrial runes, mana measurement, and biological studies. He ordered the relevant authorities to investigate the Black Coil’s involvement in the captive experiments and the explosion site.

By the time the scientists assembled, the ruler had moved the final recording to a large display. A senior rune researcher arrived with two colleagues from the arcane-industrial institute. A biological researcher joined them, followed by the director of the institution responsible for measuring mana.

"His Divinity preserved these files before the laboratory was destroyed," the ruler told them. "Watch what happened, then examine the research. Tell me what you can establish from it."

The group watched Vrizzik struggle against the guards. At the moment his head struck the device, one researcher asked for the recording to be stopped.

"That’s a transfer component," she said. "Why is it exposed while the equipment is active?"

"It wasn’t supposed to be," the rune specialist replied. He pointed at the panel. "The guard hit the control during the struggle. Look at the indicator. The procedure started."

"Against his head?" the biological researcher asked.

"That’s what the footage shows. I don’t know what the procedure transferred."

The ruler resumed playback. Vrizzik pulled away from the apparatus and spoke about seeing a rune when he closed his eyes. The researchers exchanged looks. One requested that the volume be increased, and the ruler replayed the sentence.

"He says the pattern is still there," the rune specialist said. "Was there any physical marking on his head?"

"None visible," the biological researcher answered. "He checks his scalp, but the recording doesn’t show a proper examination."

"Continue," the director said.

They watched the warning lights change, then the display went white with the discharge. The final camera image showed the workbench breaking apart. Someone in the room cursed under his breath. The ruler stopped the footage before opening the surviving measurements.

"Those readings are from the same laboratory?" the director asked.

"Yes," the ruler said. "The records came with the footage."

The director examined the timestamps. "The crystal supply had shut down before the final increase. I need the original instrument logs. These numbers alone won’t tell us where the mana came from."

A technician opened the corresponding folder. The director checked the log against the recording, then called the rune specialist to his side.

"Here. The transfer was completed, the apparatus stopped, and the reading continued to rise. See whether any other instrument was running."

The rune specialist searched the equipment files. "There were monitors and the medical station. The main crystal supply was inactive. I can’t account for that increase from what we’ve looked at."

"Then let’s check the other recordings," the biological researcher said. "We need to know what happened to Vrizzik before we decide where the energy came from."

They spent the next hour moving between Vrizzik’s files and the footage. The first parts of the archive concerned industrial rune structures and earlier attempts to attach them to biological tissue. Some records were familiar to the older scholars. Vrizzik’s name appeared in the references of several legitimate research papers, though none had seen his later work after his authorization was revoked.

"I remember his proposal," the senior rune researcher said. "He claimed he could make a rune function without the usual external mounting. The institute suspended the trials after people were injured."

"And he carried on with captives," the biological researcher said, opening the medical records. "Look at these reports. Some don’t even identify the subjects properly."

The ruler ordered the records preserved for the investigators. He also asked for a report on the damaged district and any survivors found there. The scientists continued their examination while government officials began contacting the local authorities.

When they returned to the final recording, the senior rune researcher enlarged the frame showing Vrizzik’s head against the transfer component.

"Suppose the device transferred the pattern," she said. "There’s nothing on the surface of his head. Where did it go?"

One of her colleagues shook his head. "We can’t tell from that image. The machine may have malfunctioned, and the discharge might have been caused by damaged equipment."

"Then why did he say he could still see the pattern after the device shut down?"

"I don’t know. But we can’t conclude that a rune was imprinted in his mind based on that statement alone."

"Then we need to investigate it."

The ruler watched them bring up the diagrams for Vrizzik’s modified apparatus. The engineers recognized the component arrangements, although the device had been adapted for biological experiments. One researcher opened the original design and began comparing it with Vrizzik’s changes. Another searched the archive for records of previous accidental transfers.

Noah observed the meeting through his planetary connection. On the shared display, requests from other laboratories were accumulating. Researchers joining remotely asked for the apparatus diagrams, the original instrument logs, and the medical records. The senior rune researcher assigned several documents for independent examination while her colleagues continued working through the footage.

The director of the arcane-industrial institute asked to speak. "Your Majesty, I’d like the complete archive distributed to our rune laboratories and the relevant biological research institutions. We need independent reviews of the measurements, the transfer device, and the medical records. We’ll also need the investigators’ findings from the site."

"You’ll have access," the ruler replied. "Coordinate with the other institutions. And make sure nobody repeats the procedure on a living subject while you’re still examining what happened."

"We’ll start with the surviving equipment designs and records," the director said. "There are enough unanswered questions without putting anyone in that chair."

Across Eldrath’s scientific networks, the files began reaching other institutions. Researchers familiar with the original Arcane-Industrial Integration Package recognized several rune structures in Vrizzik’s work, but the modified transfer component was unfamiliar to many of them. Laboratories requested copies of the final recording, and specialists began discussing the unusual measurements in their research channels.

At the central institute, the senior rune researcher played the final footage once more. She paused it just after the transfer device shut down. Vrizzik was sitting in front of the apparatus, pressing a hand to his forehead.

"He knows the pattern," she said to her colleagues. "He designed the transfer. If he was only confused by the injury, why describe that particular rune?"

The biological researcher leaned toward the screen. "We need more than his words. But the recording is real, and the readings are there. Start by examining exactly what the transfer component did when the guard hit the control."

The two researchers opened the component diagram beside the recording. Others pulled their chairs closer, and another set of questions appeared on the shared display. Noah watched them continue their examination as more specialists joined the discussion, each bringing records from Eldrath’s established rune and mana laboratories.

By the end of the session, the scientists had organized a coordinated investigation. The central research institution retained the original archive, while participating laboratories received copies for independent study. At the top of the shared record was the footage of Vrizzik’s final experiment, paused at the instant the rune-transfer device activated against his head.