Toxic Recipes

[Brenton]

((Oh boy, imagine Brenton with a Stage 3 variant Cruxis Crystal. That might be fun but bad at the same time since he knows less about it than Reru))

Clarissa sighed and nodded as she pulled her cowl up to hide her face a bit more and her cloak around her shoulders just a bit tighter while her belt was tightened. She cast her gaze down and walked past Rerukusu without looking at him as she began thinking about what she would do about Castien. Did she really want to go to Ellesmera or was she just trying to leave Uru'baen for good so she didn't have to be there with Galbatorix? Or did she truly like Castien and wanted to spend time with him just to get to know him? Clarissa kept her gaze down and barely heard the sound of someone moving behind her before Clarissa felt the softest of touches on her shoulder.

"Stay with your brother, Lady Clarissa, for he is not someone that you will want to be with in the long run. Castien, even though he is my nephew, has no sense of commitment and therefore is not someone you should worry about being with. Even so, Rerukusu would probably kill me if he knew that I told you about Castien and how he breaks girls' hearts for fun. Now please, Clarissa daughter of Galbatorix, don't come near Castien and don't waste your time getting hurt when you can find someone else who will care for you.

Brenton slipped into the shadows away from Clarissa, barely showing a glint of a crystal in his palm where a Gedwey Ignasia used to be. She saw it and gasped slightly because it was a cruxis crystal but why did the king of the elves have a cruxis crystal when he was so good? Brenton wasn't questioning anything because already he was near Rerukusu, having to resort to using light from magic to get through the area.

This isn't a good idea, Brenton. Turn around and leave while you still can and while Castien is still waiting for you at the gates. Rerukusu will only turn against you if you show him the crystal and it can get bad if you don't control yourself. Vaentr spoke to Brenton, sounding a lot closer than he ever did before even when alive and right next to the rider who now walked right behind Rerukusu. Shut up, just shut up! I know what I'm doing and I can't think with you talking to me like that every time I do something. Brenton clutched his head and spoke in a pained voice as he stopped moving but he was fairly certain that Reru had heard him just now.

[Emiryal ♕]

(Oh dear, yes that would.)

Reru watched as Clarissa left and sighed and leaned against the desk in the room. He closed his eyes as he thought. Clarissa would need rest, he unfortunately didn't. He hadn't slept a single day since getting his crystal, he couldn't sleep now no matter how much he wanted to. He didn't want to wear Clarissa out though by starting the trip now. He was dying a the moment from the crystalization, however slow but he was. Yet he still cared too much for Clarissa to put himself before her now. He felt much more stable now emotionally than he had in a long time. Avendel had come to save him as had Clarissa and for the first time in decades he understood why Avendel was upset with him. Maybe now they could fix it, maybe now they could mend their differences and be a rider and dragon again. Though, he now felt grief for having killed Kami. Just what had he done. He'd been so blind but he couldn't undo it or turn back now, not really. Few knew the full extent of his horrible deeds, if the world knew, he'd be just as hated as his father...but perhaps he deserved such a thing after what he'd done.

A smile crept onto his face as he heard Brenton speak and he opened his eyes to see the Elven King standing there. "I was beginning to wonder when you'd come find me Brenton, though I'm not sure that was quite your immediate intention by the sound of it," he said. Eminent Pisyche, the citadel they were in had many spells weaved into it, the most obvious one to provide light in a realm of total darkness. One of the lesser known spells informed Reru of entries into it. The spell had been a security measure that had long been used and one he'd learned as a helpful precaution. While the spell let him know where someone entered and who he had not tried to track Brenton's movements at all. Here in the Nether, Reru was closer than ever to his source of power and he didn't think the Elf King a threat nor did he think him foolish enough to try anything. Besides Brenton had never come here before to Reru's knowledge, which meant he had come here for a reason and not just sight seeing. "Why did you come here?" he asked his steady gaze on Brenton as he awaited a reply.

[Brenton]

Brenton opened his eyes and hatred blazed within his very soul as he heard what the prince said to him about how he was expecting him this entire time. This single statement made the king so very angry and his mind continued to race before his vision grew red and black at the edges while his teeth sharpened and lengthened. Don't! You think you are so much better than everyone else just because you can whip out wings and fly through the air but they can't kill you without destroying a crystal! Rerukusu Galbatorixsson, that's all you'll ever be, the son of a tyrant king who doesn't plan on ever dying and therefore you will never feel the pain of losing both of your parents as well as your dragon just to be mocked by that fact with kingship and hearing the dragon every time you do something! You're nothing but a pawn to the Empire you scum and...ah!

Brenton collapsed to his knees while holding his head until the pain subsided and his teeth were normal again but his vision was still slightly red. His breathing was labored and shallow while he stood up and had to clench his fists tight to hide the cruxis crystal that was corrupting his mind. It hadn't ever been that bad before, his rage building, but what had made it happen? With a sigh, the king finally calmed down and looked at Rerukusu pleadingly, fear in his gaze and defeat in the way his shoulders slumped.

How do I change or control it? The anger fills me and it only started after I was forced to create the crystal. I can't continue on being so out of control in my own life if I'm going to lead a people who look to me in times of war for guidance and strength. Please Reru, help me with this one thing for it is necessary to the whole of Alagaesia.

[Emiryal ♕]

Reru's eyes narrowed in anger as Brenton's word of hate and he clenched his hands into fists. This was exactly what he hated so much, the loathing and discrimination simply because of the connection to his father. This was what was wrong with the world, this was why he had to take the thrown one day and why he obeyed his father. One day he would see to the end of this discrimination, he wanted to draw on all of Ender's power and kill Brenton right here and now for saying that, but he didn't, not today. It wasn't time yet and he wasn't going to act before it was time and ruin everything. "Don't you ever dare make such accusations of me again Brenton! You have no idea what I've been through and you are wrong!" he said his tone venomous but yet controlled. He wouldn't loose control, he refused to let his emotions get the better of him and ruin it. His time would come. Brenton's words had struck a sore spot. He had lost his mother, nearly a 100 years ago now but she'd been kind and cared about him in a way Galbatorix never had. She'd never thought ill of him for being a half-elf or for being Galbatorix's son.  And later he had lost his dragon, granted he'd managed to bring back Avendel but at such a high price he knew their relationship would never be the same even now that they were finally on speaking terms again.

"Necessary to the whole of Alagaesia? You're not that important Brenton," he said in an undertone his voice barely audible. How could someone with so much hate and anger to accuse him of such things and lash out so uncontrolled be that important to the entire continent. Even Galbatorix wasn't that important in Reru's eyes. He pulled his own cruxis crystal from where it lay embedded just below his neck, the red gem reflecting the light in the room as he knelt near the elven king. "Resonate and analyze," he said in the ancient language casting a spell which caused his crystal to glow a bright red which triggered Brenton's to glow as well. "Cruxis crystals are dark forbidden magic, it's cursed magic," he said. "Such magic often attacks the weaker willed and drives them to insanity. Hence why shades using similar magic come from weak willed sorcerers." The crystals stopped glowing and Reru reached for Brenton's hand to take the crystal from him and look at it for himself.

He glanced at the color of it and smiled seeming amused. "Forced to indeed, but you held back didn't you. Where you trying to avoid killing the host? You know they die no matter what you do," he said standing back up holding both of the crystals in his left hand knowing full well he held Brenton's very life force in his hand now. Lucky for Brenton he wasn't going to do anything to harm him. "As cursed as the magic is to make these, they don't bring insanity like you are describing, perhaps guilt and remorse for some that could make them insane, but I don't think that is the case. What in the Nether did you do to it? Your crystal has traces of something, another...consciousness? The host's consciousness is absorbed it can't be host you killed. Hm who did you decide to kill anyways. I think it probably best if you tell me everything first. What happened Brenton," he asked. "What senses have you lost so far?" He wasn't sure how long Brenton had the crystal but the effects sometimes took a while to take hold. After making his own it had been a few months before he'd lost everything.

[Brenton]

Brenton forced himself to breathe carefully as Reru spoke to him in spite and low but what surprised him was when the crystal began to glow and then the prince took it from him. He was asking how the crystal was made and such but the truth was he was also mentioning hosts that made Brenton nearly vomit. There...there was no host. It started back when I lost Vaentr and the eldunari was actually my last line to him even though he was still my dragon. I spent months researching and found out that there is a way to take a dragon's essence and a willing person and fuse them together but it is normally done with a dragon that is killed who has not removed their eldunari. The blood normally soaks the person and they take part of that dragon into them. I tried desperately to convince a dragon spirit mage to help me but couldn't so I turned to three dragon spirits and they helped me fuse my soul with Vaentr's. It was painful at first.

The process couldn't be finished though right away because the eldunari still anchored Vaentr and I was half dead from the limbo of it. So I told them to make a crystal out of the eldunari that turned into a cruxis crystal but I didn't know that yet. It wasn't until I stopped feeling the urge to eat that I suspected something. Next was my loss of all pain sensors and then I stopped crying. I hear that there are other things to happen but I can turn into Vaentr and when I do it is like my own consciousness is pushed to the back and into the cruxis crystal. It is painful when that happens, or it was the first time it happened, but it feels great to be with him again. Yet there is the fact that when my mind is like this, I get very aggressive and things are destroyed easily, leaving paths of destruction behind me that I feel no remorse for. I can't have that without knowing more about it if I'm king.

[Emiryal ♕]

Reru listened patiently and seemed even interested as Brenton explained. Desperation had driven him as well to take an extreme measure, and now Brenton had done so as well but he didn't seem to realize the full price of that yet. "What you described, I haven't ever read about something like that. There are more secrets about cruxis crystals then there is known about them. I'm pretty sure there was a host for yours though, that host being Vaentr. Making the cruxis crystal out of the eldunari would've made Vaentr the host for it, being separated from you and what the crystal does I'm sure it cause him some suffering, you were lucky he suffered had he not the Eldunari might have shattered. You took a big risk you could've lost him by doing that. He didn't suffer as much as he could have or the crystal wouldn't be this color. If I had to guess creating the crystal did kill Vaentr, but since he had already died killing simply killing his Eldunari, his body so to speak, allowed his spirit be free to be merge with yours. Though this is only speculation from what I know of the crystals," he said.

He held up Brenton's cruxis crystal between his thumb and index finger. "Cruxis crystals are only supposed to contain one soul, I believe yours has two which is why my analyzing spell picked up something else in it. Again speculating, you've become something similar to a shade, two souls but one body...er crystal since your body is no longer relevant. The strain of that probably is the cause of the aggression and destruction," he said. It was an interesting situation but he'd really never heard of anything like it, all he had to go off of to explain it was guess work and the answers to it probably would never be found out.

"Unable to eat, no pain and no tears are only the very beginning. You are going to loose far more, it will purge your blood from you as well. You won't be an elf any more. As for Vaentr, I really don't know. Short of trying to extract one of you from the crystal which could kill you both, I don't know anything that can be done," he said truthfully. Extracting one of them from the crystal would be sure to kill the one pulled out, but even doing so would risk them both and he wasn't sure it could be done.

"I haven--ah!" Reru started to say until pain shot from his crystallized wrist up his left arm. He nearly dropped both cruxis crystals when this had happened but had managed to clench his fist around them instead as his right hand flew to his wrist as though it could stop the pain. He'd leaned back against the desk that was behind him for support. Crystallization meant he was turning to crystal, the process slowly turned his cells in his arm into crystal rupturing them before solidifying into crystal. Normally he was immune to pain because of his crystal but this was different than normal pain, it was his crystal turning on him, the only thing in the world that could cause him pain. His sleeve covered his arm so he knew Brenton hadn't seen his arm, but he knew the crystal had grown to encompass more of his arm than just his wrist. "I'll be fine, give me a minute," he said through gritted teeth, knowing Brenton would wonder what was going on. His breathing was fast as he waited for the pain to subside, this was how it worked, bursts of crystal growth than nothing for a while, but it would continue until cured or until he died. He hating showing weakness like this but it wasn't like he could do anything about it at the moment. He ran his right hand up his left arm, it was clear by the feel of it that the crystal had grown another inch. It would be a while now before it happened again.

[Brenton]

Brenton was startled as he heard Reru say he would be an elf no longer but that just gave his people another reason to assume he was not one of them. At least before he had been half elf but now he was going to be purged of blood and would have no race because of that. Brenton would have wept for what he knew was to come but it was impossible now, being as he was unable to cry anymore. With a sad smile he watched Reru grimace in pain, wondering what was wrong but knowing the Empire prince would probably not tell, at something that was happening to his body. That was strange since cruxis crystals took the pain away from the person.

When Reru finally was able to talk again, Brenton nodded ever so slightly and spoke in a more friendly tone that he normally reserved for friends or people he respected. So this cruxis crystal is unlike yours but I know you are unable to feel pain so why did you just have pain written all over your face? Your crystal is acting up in some way isn't it? There was mention of a crystal that killed someone doing something strange but when it got to the part where it described it, the pages of the tome were burned in that spot. Is that why Clarissa is here and I had to tell her to stay with you instead of going with my spoiled nephew who likes to break hearts?

[Emiryal ♕]

"What?!" Reru said for the moment ignoring Brenton's other words as the last part caught his attention sharply. "So that's what Castien is up to, he'll pay dearly if he breaks her heart," he promised. He wasn't going to let Clarissa feel that hurt and if she went to Ellesmera the king probably wouldn't let her back so easily once Castien had left her broken hearted. Maybe Brenton wasn't so bad after all if he'd warned Clarissa and now him of that, but maybe an ignorant fool for accusing him earlier of not knowing what it was like.

"Thank you for telling me," he said after a moment of thought. "Your crystal is enough like mine to have the same effects on you, otherwise it wouldn't have resonated with mine, here," he added handing Brenton back the cruxis crystal and replacing his own where it usually resided. "Reru, he was kind enough to warn you of Castien. Besides he should know about it, with his crystal being like it is who knows what might happen to him, and the knowledge may help," Avendel said. Reru was slightly caught off guard when Avendel spoke. He hadn't realized she'd been listening, it had been decades since any dragon shared his thoughts. He sighed, "You know I defer to your judgement."

"That story may have been referring to my condition. It's true I can't feel pain, if you blasted me with fire or ran me through with a sword just now I wouldn't feel it. Neither of us can feel pain now, but if the crystal is destroyed for an instant you would feel the pain from it before dying. I can feel pain because I am...dying. That is why Clarissa is here," he said pushing up his sleeve to reveal the crystal on his wrist and now about four inches wide. The crystal was the same red color of his cruxis crystal. "Occasionally, the body will reject the cruxis crystal. When that happens the body slowly is turned to crystal, because it is caused by the cruxis crystal and is fatal it's possible to feel pain from it...the pain is rather excruciating. Death comes only after one is completely turned into crystal."

[Brenton]

Brenton nodded as he listened to Reru talk about the cruxis crystal attacking his body in such a way that it was killing him slowly and painfully. He had heard very little about cruxis crystals, having opted for lighter avenues of magic in his studies, but he knew that bodies were not supposed to be red crystal up an arm where flesh should have been. It made some sense now why he had been hiding his wrist the entire time the king had been talking to him but why would Reru confide in Brenton now unless he was being advised to. Suddenly it dawned on him what was going on, or it dawned on Vaentr because Brenton was beyond reasoning that far into the situation. Avendel was the reason that Brenton was learning about all of this when he may or may not have need of the knowledge in the first place.

Thank you, Avendel, for convincing Rerukusu to tell me about his crystallization when it is none of my business to know about it. I am deeply honored that a dragon such as yourself would care about making sure I knew what was going on with something. As for you, Reru, this crystallization looks dangerous. Are you sure that Clarissa, even as the most adept alchemist of the land, can create a cure for you ailment now that it is creeping up your arm? Not to belittle her skills but I wouldn't trust many people with something as important as this so I just am curious as to why you assume she can handle it.

[Emiryal ♕]

Avendel reached out with her mind to touch Brenton's and Reru's allowing them both to here. Her voice was smooth and gentle, and her mind tranquil and peaceful. "You are perceptive Brenton. No, Reru was not going to tell you about it. This kind of magic is dark and dangerous and knowledge may help you avoid making some mistakes," she said.

Reru said nothing for a moment after Avendel spoke. "Avendel is worried about you having done this...she is similar to how I used to be before she died," he said. He hadn't always been this bitter and going to extreme measures, his dragon's death had changed everything. "It is very dangerous," he said pulling his sleeve back down over his arm and wrist. "I'm not sure Clarissa can do it. The cure is extremely difficult to make and time isn't on my side. However, even so she's the only one I trust to do it and she has more reason than anyone else would to make sure it's done right. Aside from the potion, the only other cure I can think of would be asking for help from the Earth Branch. Their guardian's healing powers are said to rival Ender's energy. But I doubt they'd help me, and I don't even know if they would be able to help me," he said.