Ivle's Arc

Chapter 5 of 5

Ivle spent the next two days searching his notes for materials that could replace the elven silver. He tested compounds that resisted heat, mixed powders that should have stayed stable, and watched each one fail under controlled exposure to the serum's energy. Nothing held. The transformation either consumed the material or left it unchanged, offering no middle ground. He needed something rare enough to contain power without surrendering to it, and his workshop held nothing that fit. He found the answer in a journal he'd bought from a desperate scholar months ago. The text described a crystalline compound extracted from deep mineral veins—something the Crown had been testing for weapon enhancement at their quarry site. The compound could absorb and redirect force without breaking down, exactly what the serum required. Ivle read the passage three times, then closed the journal. The quarry wasn't abandoned. It was an active experimentation site, heavily guarded and sealed against intrusion. Ivle approached the site at dusk, staying within the tree line. The fortress rose ahead, stone towers crowned with crenellations and narrow windows that watched the forest like eyes. Guard towers stood at each corner, torchlight spilling from their doors. He counted eight guards visible on the walls, and the main gate showed no weakness. The compound he needed was inside, locked behind forty soldiers and walls built to withstand siege. Going in meant dying, and hiring someone meant explaining what he was after—an impossible risk. He circled the perimeter until he found the waste drain on the eastern wall. Water trickled from an iron grate, carrying the smell of chemicals and rot. Inside the flow, something moved—dark shapes writhing in the runoff. Ivle knelt and caught one in a glass vial. The leech was engorged, its body swollen and red. He held it to the fading light and saw the color wasn't blood—it was something richer, older. The Crown was draining test subjects, and the leeches fed on what came out. Elven blood. The compound he needed wasn't locked in their vaults. It was in the leeches themselves, concentrated and purified by living filters the Crown had never meant to create. Ivle filled three more vials and left before the next patrol rounded the wall. He had what he needed, but now the Crown's site held proof of what he was willing to steal.