The deep, angry red of the emergency lights pulsed in time with the frantic beeping of the heart monitor. Each pulse painted the scene in blood. One minute, fifty seconds.
"What is that stuff?" Sarah asked, her voice tight with disbelief, pointing at the crystalline web on the door. It pulsed with a faint, violet light, seeming to feed on their rising panic.
"A lock," Leo said, his mind a whirlwind. "[Scrub Clean] isn't strong enough. Not on its own."
The skill was meant for minor supernatural grime. This was a deep, malignant stain, woven by a Level 9 psychic predator at the height of its power. He needed a stronger cleaning agent. A spiritual solvent. Acid and slime wouldn't work here. This wasn't a physical problem.
The heart monitor beeped faster. The lights flickered again, threatening to die for good.
One minute, twenty seconds.
His thoughts raced through every encounter, every tool. The Night-Stalker's power was fear, despair, isolation. It corrupted and contaminated everything it touched. What was the opposite? What was the purest, most potent conceptual weapon he had?
His hand, almost of its own accord, went to the pocket of his torn uniform. His fingers brushed against the folded piece of paper.
The drawing.
The wobbly stick figure of his nephew. The smiling doctor with the crayon halo. It wasn't just paper. It was a symbol. A manifestation of innocence, of hope, of the very family he was fighting to protect. It was the absolute antithesis of the Night-Stalker's filth.
"Leo, what are you doing?" Sarah pleaded, her eyes darting between him and the dying lights. "We have to break it down!"
"I am," he said, pulling out the folded drawing.
He didn't have time to explain. He approached the door, the foul, sweet smell of the trap assaulting his senses. He held the drawing in one hand and raised his other, the palm open. This would be the most important improvisation of his life.
[Improvise Tool]!
He didn't envision a weapon of steel or chitin. He envisioned a tool of purification. He imagined a janitor's scrub-brush, but instead of bristles, it was made of pure, warm light. And for the cleaning agent, the System didn't need to look in his inventory; it looked into his heart, at the raw, protective power he felt for the drawing in his hand.
[Conceptual Material Detected: (1) Symbol of Hope/Innocence. Request: Create a tool for 'Spiritual Contaminant Removal'. High WIS check required... Success! Creating: 'Poultice of Purity'. Durability: One Use.]
A soft, golden light enveloped his hand, coalescing not into a physical object, but into an aura of warmth and order. The drawing in his other hand grew warm to the touch. He stepped forward and pressed his glowing hand flat against the crystalline web on the door. He then pressed the drawing against the door beside it.
The moment the two made contact, the Night-Stalker's trap reacted. A piercing psychic shriek ripped through the hallway. The violet webbing flared, resisting his touch. Shadows writhed within the crystal, forming horrible, fleeting images—Sarah's face contorted in pain, his own body broken and bleeding, the world falling to ruin.
The monster was fighting back, pouring its power into the seal, using his own fears against him.
"Leo!" Sarah cried out, stumbling back.
He ignored her, gritting his teeth, pouring all of his focus, all of his will, all of his desperate hope for his sister into the golden aura around his hand. "Get. Out. Of. My. Way," he growled, pushing harder.
The golden light flared, no longer gentle. It became a cleansing, righteous fire. The shadowy images in the web burned away. The violet light flickered and died. The crystalline structure didn't melt; it simply sublimated, turning from a solid curse into a puff of inert, gray dust that settled harmlessly on the floor.
He had done it.
The heart monitor let out one last, long, flat BEEEEEEEEEP—
And the lights went out.
Absolute darkness. Absolute silence.
He stood for a second in the black, the only sound the ragged gasp of his own breath. He had been too late.
Then, he heard the faint, metallic click of the now-unlocked door handle.
He lunged for it, yanked the door open, and blindly reached inside, his hands slapping against a wall until they found it—a large, lever-style handle. He threw all his weight into it. He felt it grind down, making a deep KA-CHUNK sound.
For a moment, nothing.
Then, from far below, a deep, resonant rumble vibrated through the floor. The sound of a massive diesel engine turning over, catching, and roaring back to life.
The hallway lights flickered once, twice, and then flooded the space with steady, clean, white light. The fire alarm stayed silent. The heart monitor beside them beeped back to life with a steady, rhythmic pulse.
He stumbled back from the closet, his legs weak. Sarah stared at him, then at the empty doorway, then at the child's drawing he still clutched in his hand. Her scientific, logical mind had no framework for what she had just seen, but she knew one thing for certain.
"You saved us," she whispered.
He looked at the open closet, but his Sense Contamination was still buzzing. There was something else in there. Something wrong. He cautiously aimed his flashlight into the small space.
It wasn't empty. Tucked in the back corner, behind a stack of air filters, was a cocoon. A pulsing, hideous cocoon woven from the same shadowy webbing as the curse, but this one was different. It had a small, fragile body inside.
And sticking out of the top was the muddy, worn-out shoe of a small child.