Astral Odyssey: Dying Ember

World 5.23: Eva

Just as Eva thought, the mystery man did not die from the poison in her darts. She felt that it would be too good to hope for.

Around 3 months later, Eva fully recovered from her wounds only to be poisoned. She had just ingested a mouthful of food when BaoBao warned her that there were signs of poison in her body. 

Just as she found it weird that she would be the one poisoned when the target was Austin, an idea flashed in her mind and she immediately snatched the utensils from Austin's hand. However, he had already taken two more mouthfuls than her.

Later that night, everyone in the household fell sick like Eva expected. They started puking and itching so badly that they would have scratched their skin off in their delirium if they were not bounded up. Eva was the least affected, followed by Austin, Edwin, the doctor and his wife, and the other bodyguards. They had been at the table with Eva that night.

Since they were only lightly poisoned, their symptoms were bearable. Only the doctor's wife who was older and weaker could not bear with it so had to be restrained like the others. While the others were busy restraining the servants, Eva and the doctor worked fast together to develop the antidote.

It did not take too long for the antidote to be completed since Eva had already been working on it the moment BaoBao deconstructed the poison in her body, enabling her to come up with things that could neutralise the effects. Moreover, she was incredibly knowledgeable about the herbs and poisons of this world thanks to the constant studying and experimenting.

Feeling like this was a vengeful act for the poison she inflicted on him during their last exchange, she added yet another characteristic to their mystery man, hoping that it would round down their suspect list even more.

As time passed, Eva and Austin still had no luck with finding out who could be after Austin's life.

Austin had started by investigating the people closest to him, people who would gain the most from his death, and people who could have any sort of motive to kill him or Eva, yet came up with nothing. He then began to branch out his investigations into random people, got involved in the black market, and contacted information brokers. However there was no news of anyone interested in taking his life beyond those that he has already questioned and dealt with personally already.

Eva and BaoBao were also at a dead end. They could not get anymore clues from the subsequent attacks on them. It had no pattern, characteristic, or schedule. It did not reveal the personality of the culprit.

They could only understand the culprit as someone very careful and meticulous for having not been caught till this day. Either that, or he was simply very cowardly. He was so afraid of being caught to the extent that his attacks could now only be thought of as harassment ever since the security around Austin and the mansion was amped up significantly.

There were a few more attempted shootings that failed. Small bombs had been sent as parcels addressed to Austin but were detonated outside the mansion since they did not allow big parcels through the front gate. He continued to remain hidden despite trying to bait him out a few times by leaving Austin alone somewhere. Sometimes the bodyguards would be the ones attacked instead, as if to mock them for trying.

While the ones involved in the thick of all these remained relatively calm, the servants found it hard to relax. Edwin would receive daily questions about whether the culprit was caught already. Despite his constant reassurance that the household was now safe, some still chose to leave. They could not take the mental stress from seeing bodyguards come home injured every now and then, and hearing the occasional explosion near the front gate.

Before they knew it, yet another year passed and it was winter again.

After more than a year since Esmeralda's parents died, Esmeralda started to organise meet ups and small parties again. She also celebrated her 20th birthday. However, Austin had rejected all of her invites since he did not want to chance endangering his childhood friends' life or ruining a happy event.