The Phantom Grian Arc

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Grian laid back lazily in the cage. Time flowed around him like a calm lake. He understood why he had to be kept in the cage, even though he hadn't gone feral like that when he transformed before the other night, but nobody wanted a repeat of what happened to Scar, or worse.

Speak of the devil, Scar came in, followed by a familiar Swede. Grian settled back in the corner of his prison, and listened to their conversation.

"My only question is, what do you need all that oak for? I thought you weren't really using it at your base." Iskall was interrogating Scar about something.

"Iskall, if you're staying here for Grian, you're going to have to stay out of our business."

"Actually," Grian spoke up, "I am interested too. After all, a certain... mystery of mine, they use a lot of oak."

"Okay, yes. I admit it. I got a sign on my pirate island asking for a lot of oak, signed by the Jangler. That's what I needed all that oak for."

Grian narrowed his eyes at the newfound suspect. "Ooooooookaaaaay..."

Scar rolled his eyes, grabbed the shulker box of blocks-from-Crete-by-ConCorp he had come for, and hurriedly left. Iskall cast an aside glance at his fellow Architech, before busying himself over the brewing stand. He'd been doing not much else since Scar had recovered. Pulling a fang out of his pocket and carefully crushing it in a bowl, he was surprised when a noxious green liquid mixed with the powder produced.

He was so startled, in fact, that he stumbled backwards, pouring the contents of the bowl all over himself, wrecking his shirt. The oddly familiar stench of... something or other... washed over Grian, and he felt something that was not entirely human stirring at the back of his mind. Looking around, he saw the dusk beginning to gather in the afternoon sky, but it was not yet so late that he would begin turning into a phantom. He pushed the thought aside however, and asked:

"Iskall... are you alright?"

"Yeah, just wrecked my shirt. I'm going to my base to change. I'll be right back." Iskall, however, could not leave. Cub was just walking away from putting the finishing touches on a Phantom Quarantine Zone, meaning some iron bars over the door. Iskall was trapped in a room with a man about to turn phantom any moment. And his shirt was covered in crushed phantom fang. Lovely.

As the moon broke over the Eastern horizon, the familiar pain coursed through Grian's veins. Last night he hadn't become purely phantom, but tonight was like a repeat of the night before that. The tide of ferocity waxed over him, and he realised what he was smelling. Iskall had the venom of one of Grian's own on him, he was marked as prey.

What's the opposite of a Time Skip? This is that.

Two days before, Scar had been fighting phantoms, their wings scratching him. He'd gone inside to recuperate, not noticing the small green lines near where he'd been hit. He stumbled upon Grian, who detected an odd scent in the air. His mind broke, and he blindly followed the scent of prey, simply trying to take Scar down to feed to the pack. The rest was history.

And now for something completely different. Not a man with two noses, but the here and now for Iskall. Which is just as weird.

Grian had gone rabid, and Iskall was in full on panic mode. His eye was glowing brighter from the intensity of his emotions, creating a lightshow in the room as the vibrant green of Grian's eyes mixed with the sky-blue of Iskall's mechanical one. Iskall figures that perhaps the stain on his shirt had something to do with this.

Listening to the dull thud of the phantom slamming himself against the bars of his cage, Iskall picked up the wooden bowl. Thankfully, he had another few fangs from his own hunting. Crushing another into the bowl, he poured the mixture of powder and venom into the brewing stand, adding a fermented spider eye to one potion, but not to the other two.

If Iskall's theory was correct, then one of the two should cure his friend. Iskall shook lightly, pouring a dash of gunpowder into the mix, as he felt that soon enough, things would be back to relative normalcy.

Disclaimer: Don't call me out. I know that the Jangler is Definitely not Scar, but in fact Etho. Iskall might just be onto something, you never know!

This came at a nice, round 710 words. I like when something neat like that happens.

This has been Pi, and I'll see you all at some point in the future!