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Adal sat down in a musky part of the lower decks of a ship, which reeked of a vile combination of both murky seaweed and fermenting sea water. He found a comfortable, snug place near the corner of the lower deck, past the labyrinthine walls of cargo boxes and dimly lit lanterns, where he sprawled out what paraphernalia he had. The Locos placed the lantern against the hook of his small hammock, which was haphazardly constructed by the cultists with two poles and a cloth full of holes.

Nevertheless, he lifted the owl's mask from in front of his eyes and sifted through his small bag of things. He had a stick of charcoal that was damp already from the humid ship air, and a small black book given to him by the Doctor as soon as he'd transformed into an adequate size. He took another look at the deck in front of him, sighed, and began to write with the dim hue of orange lighting his aching back.



The Furvus Elixir, its name derived from the Ardenian word furvus meaning 'dark and musky,' is by all means nothing short of the Doctor's collective of successes and year's worth of research. It is a dark liquid similar to the Taint seen in all Putesco Plagues shortly before their births as Excito, but how it is made is unknown to Georgie and me. All we really know is that it is based after the alcoholic extract many of doctors (for humans) make for their patients, flavored with liquor to hide the taste of medicine, called an elixir.

Why it is called the Furvus Elixir is a question left completely unanswered however, as its intents are not the same as a typically made elixir. Georgie is not allowed to drink the liquid nor the Doctor (as it is harmful for human beings to consume), so I have had the job of tasting the thing several times. The Doctor has also put me in place of eating a Putesco's taint in order to match the taste. Though the taint and the drink both look identical, it is hard to say if they taste the same. Perhaps it is a Putesco extract?

A reason to deject this statement is that in general, Putesco extracts vary widely in state. Some are liquid, others gaseous and others solid. Speculation aside, it is true that the Furvus Elixir has alcohol content as well as remedial herbs. The smell is that of Death, as is the taste, pleasant for Plagues like me though the same can not be said about humans; an obvious statement. At the smell Georgie has reacted negatively to the point of puking and choking more than once. However it is hard to add any amount of liquor or herbal extract to make the smell be less strongly of the Death. The other problem is that the liquid itself was not made by the Doctor.

To state from before, the liquid is still the total accumulation of the Doctor's successes and research. But it was not made by him. How or why this liquid was made in the first place is unknown, but there is a vile scent of dolor and unwieldy magic that I can only trace the smell of to one thing - the cultists in the House of Obscuvos. During the Obscuvos ceremony in Imisus there was a thick trace of the same scent on the Furvus Elixir's bottle, without question. The House's curiosity and respect for the Plagues are of no surprise, as the Doctor, Georgie and I have met with Cultist Grimms several times in the past, and there are more yet. To speculate and theorize that the Cultists of Obscuvos were the creators of the Furvus Elixir is no stretch of the truth.

Further accounting for such a theory is why the Furvus Elixir should exist. It heals Plagues. After the ceremony I received a vial of the Furvus Elixir from the Doctor. Three spoonfuls of the Elixir was enough to heal scars and envigorate me with energy. An oddity to mention whilst drinking the Furvus Elixir is its effects on my eyes. Physically all was beneficial, though the Furvus Elixir transformed my eyes to that matching a regular human's for several days. (I will continue to use the Furvus Elixir for this purpose; it is best for the crewmen to not know of my status as a Locos.)

The same day I was also given the task of seeing how humans might react to the elixir. I have mentioned before that Georgie and the Doctor are not allowed to drink it, and for good reason. The Cultist that was fed the Furvus Elixir was, to note, by no means of spectacular health. But the effects I believe would all be the same if he were healthy nonetheless. Having drinken half of the bottle he was given the Cultist died overnight. He experienced colorful bouts of skin coloration and all cheeks, fingertips, and toes, had started shedding skin as if given the Black Death itself, itched, burned, and lost a bed of hair, the last of his teeth and nails on his fingers. Coupled with the negative effects of this potion was also the Cultist's overwhelming paranoia and anxiety. He died shortly after figuring out whom gave him the potion, fortunately. Much like the Death it can be used as a lethal poison for humans, or as a healing medicine for Plagues.

It is unknown how many vials exist of the Furvus Elixir in Panymium. However I have since left Georgie and the Doctor's presence in order to track down a Cultist's ship (named Irma) whose primary trade source is indeed the Furvus Elixirs. They have dozens of carriages containing the substance, though none of the crewmen nor the Captain Lombardi know whom the original maker was. All Furvus Elixirs are said to have been bought from Black Markets controlled by the darker parts of the Council of Sciences, though the latter claim comes from the Cultists and have not been proven. Maps of Panymium were seen in the Captain's deck and the route will be taken from Imisus back to the more populous black markets in Mishkan. The boat bears a black flag and will be taken in though routes unknown to me. The Doctor has given me the task of tracking down such a source from a location as soon as possible, and notes will thereby be taken in this journal of the Furvus Elixir,

Adal Malt.



The Locos stopped writing and closed the book. He threw the journal back into its bag, along with the stick of charcoal, then stood and took the lantern back into his hands. He cherished what light he could get down in the dark depths of the Irma.

Placing the owl's mask back over his eyes, he went back up into the upper decks of the boat, and expected a full day's work of labor in the sea. He bore the cultist's dagger mark of the House of Obscuvos upon his back, and the crewmen had taken him without question. He'd had the yellow eyes painted like a human's since his admittance into the House, and it was remarkable for him to even play the act of his Grimm's race.

He was, in this instance, without a Keeper, and this both bothered and enthralled him. What things would he have to tell Georgie and the Doctor by the end of his exploration?

The Malt boys did a lot of sitting in their lives if they weren't running or walking, and many times Adal and Georgie played a game while sitting. They counted the moving shadows of people that they could see at the corner of their eyes until the blink of dust reached dawn and gave those silhouettes of anonymity a story of their own, false though they might be, crafting tales of brave knights and duchesses and untimely peasants to their liking. Cheek rested on his hand, Adal glued himself to the corner of the mirror with his arms hugged around back of a chair, his eyes narrowed as he tried to wade away from the tire strewn around his body, playing this very same game but with himself, replacing normal folk's lives with the advent of the theater characters he'd seen performing on street corners.

He was quick to tire of the game, though, mind to bleary to process any more creativity while the rest of his beaten body was starting to catch up with him. Bandages were wrapped around his torso and carefully around his scratched and now calloused palms, and he tried to clench his fist with his broken wrist to no use. Winching, he stuffed his broken wrist back into his pant's pocket and motioned his head back to the rest of the worn Imisese study, the same place where Chauhn and Adal dove into as sanctuary from cultists only a few days earlier, whose corpses still lay strewn in front of the building, melting in the summer heat and smog. Adal was quick to refuse aid from Georgie's magics after their strenuous efforts to revive the Clemmings, after which Georgie's Magic was left decapitated and their last supply of Furvus Elixir completely gone, though the Locos did not know if he relished or wallowed in the calm that followed that fateful day.

Behind where he was, Georgie was sweeping the wooden floors of dust with a broom, humming softly to himself alongside the melody soft swishing hay and fluttering dust, the occasional clatter of metal clanging around the corners when the broom ran into leftover materials. The brunette patted down a rustled collection of cloth off to the side of their work table where Chauhn and Clurie were resting what seemed like moments before. Sighing, satisfied, Georgie swung the broom onto his shoulder and wiped his forehead, exchanging glances with Adal near the windowsill with a lopsided smile, and cracked his free wrist. The Locos nearly winced at the sound of clear crackling from Georgie's thin hand, as familiar as the sound of a dead and breaking tree against the wind. Adal tightened his grip around the chair and looked back toward the outside, swirled eyes looming around the frame of the window as he tried to count the corners of shadows once again. Georgie rolled his thin fingers and rested the broom against the bookshelf behind him and walked over to their work table, thumbing through used cups and emptied vials of elixir, then sat down on the same creaky wooden chair that the worried Clemmings boy had been sobbing on.

Upon examining his palms, body still, he noticed his fingers and hands were unable to stay still and were twitching ever so slightly without a given command. Georgie frowned. "My hands are acting up again, must be that blessed Magic," Georgie cracked his palms again and Adal replied with another wince, nose twitching, "I hope Chauhn and Clurie will be alright, though. Do you think Chauhn's ankle's alright, now? I hope it is... it's hard to come across healing magic around here-- what's to say they'll find us again once we're on the move, right?" The boy looked sullen after saying that, hazel eyes blinking up at the Locos not too far away, but the Plague gave a simple shrug of his shoulders with no reply to give, and the older Malt felt like he was talking to himself all along. Georgie scratched the back of his head and smiled wearily for himself, turning back around to the work table to sift through and organize their things, putting their instruments back into their respective cups and small boxes.

"...Are you feeling any better, Adal?" Georgie plunked a pair of pliers back into a cup and picked up an empty glass case, turning it to let it shine against the warm and musky sunlight. Black and glowing residue stuck to the inside like a thick oil. The blond backed away from the window, pushing his chair, shrugging again. Georgie looked back and blinked. "You're being awfully quiet."

The freckled boy waited but to no avail and frowned. He turned around and looked at the table, still in shambles and instruments despite his moment's worth of reorganizing. There was a porcelain mask deep within the bowels of books, glimmering with white just enough to catch the boy's vision. Thumbing through the books he carefully picked up the porcelain mask, a veil of an owl's face scratched with wear. Brows pinched, Georgie carefully nudged it back into the pile of books.

"You did what you could, Adal. Awfully big of you to save the Clemmings brothers than to--" he paused, palms rested nervously on his lap, "...You didn't let innocent people die like they were nothing. Thank you."

Adal let go of the back of his chair and straightened his back, the best he could with aching bones, and felt the crease of his broken wrist. "I could've done better, though. I don't think that was the wisest idea, thinking back... all of those Plagues are buried in the sea, now, lost and gone and I can't go back to them."

"You did the best you could, Adal... you shouldn't think like that." Worried at first, cast upon his thin trust in Adal's blatant opinions, the brunette waited until Adal's features softened and he went back to observing the window. "Instead of worrying about that some-such, why don't you help me clean the study?" Georgie cracked his hands again and slowly rose from his seat, walking back over to the broom to idly sweep the floors again. It was a remedial sound.

"Nonsense," the Locos murmured, "No, I can do better than that. I just need to know how to do all those things, things that real soldiers and real mercenaries can do. Even those mages can do better things than me."

"S'just as much nonsense for you to say something like that." The brunette inched up the stairs, still sifting the broom past collecting piles of dust, and let a subtle smile creep onto his features. The Malt brother inched up next to Adal and knelt next to him, staring out into the light of the window, too, eyes searching from side to side to catch the passing shadows while they lingered in their vision. "You're a boy, Adal, not a soldier or a mercenary or a mage. You have time to learn."

"Then why don't we start as soon as we can, while we're still boys? We have to be strong, for the Doctor. Let's start now, even."

Georgie cast his attention back to Adal, whose tire was fading quickly away without the help of sleep or much food at all. He ruffled the Locos' hair and chuckled, shaking his head all the while, and took the sleeve of his jacket and quickly rubbed it against the window, where signs of age were shown by thin strings of cobwebs and a finite collection of white specks. When dust flew into the air Georgie sniffed his nose and sneezed into his other sleeve, sniffling lethargically.

Adal shook his hair out of his swirled eyes and playfully nudged the sneezing boy next to him on the arm, who stumbled and regained his balance only with the help of his broom. He held in a startle from the pang of pain shot through his wrist after doing so, and retired back to his usual soured and furrowed glance. "I'm being quite serious, Georgie, and you're not taking me as such at all."

"You're bring brash again, Adal... but it would be nice to be stronger, wouldn't it? Maybe along the way I can make my hands stronger, make 'em stop being so sore all the time."

Adal nodded. He felt around the frame of the window and clicked a small knob open near the corner, and with a small creak the window was tilted slightly ajar. The Malt Plague poked a glowing eye into the outdoors and felt a small whisper of wind blow into his hair, and Georgie slumped and closed his eyes, relishing at the wave of fresh air filling the dust-ridden study, the sound of wisping breeze as familiar as the sweep of the cleaning broom in his hands.

The Locos turned around and leaned back against the chair and turned his head to the side, eyes astrew offhandedly at Georgie. He reached for the broom slung over Georgie's shoulders with his working wrist, swinging it over his own shoulder while he leapt to a stand. "I'll clean out the rest. Imisus has always been awfully boring."

Georgie arched his legs and plopped himself onto the perch of Adal's oaken chair, shaky hands pressed into his cheeks as Adal hopped down toward the book shelves, where he made to resweep the floors that were already cleaned twice. The freckled Malt swept back and hugged the back of the chair, as his Plague did, staring out into the window with a curious smile, a thought-ridden one as he thought of adventures and misadventures. Two small shadows crept onto the horizon onto the buildings in front of theirs, and he reckoned they were the familiar shapes of urchins that usually crawled about the Panymese alleyways. Quietly, eyes narrowed, Adal covered his mouth with one hand and let out a soft yawn, blinking away beads of tired tears from his eyes. "Thank you, Adal. I agree, Imisus can be awful boring."

While Adal hummed and relished at the idea of becoming stronger, Georgie sighed in relief at the thought of having an ache in his sore hands no longer, and on that dimming Imisus day they were both satisfied. Starting now became less and less of an impossible thought than Georgie thought it to be, and he started to long leaving their corner on the street at the study.

They were both boys, though, and both thought they were already stronger than they really were.