"Silvie, do not stand on any part of the canvas that depicts any furniture or apparatus, you'll end up merging with it," Daishi suddenly warned, it was delivered in a deadpan tone.
"Sir! You should've told me that way earlier—!" the servant yelled.
But the warning came too late. The ink was already dripping from the brush, hissing and glowing violently as it fell through the dusty air.
Silvie looked down at her feet in terror.
She double-checked her footing, then exhaled in relief. The servant was overreacting; she hadn't moved from the stairs at all! She was at no risk all this time!
It was just another of Sir Daishi's jesting, as he had already stepped onto the blank surface of the canvas.
Then, the violet ink touched the canvas, and for a brief moment, nothing noteworthy happened.
They watched in silence. The servant waited for some kind of phenomenon, only to be met with an awkward stillness as the two of them stared blankly at the violet ink splatter upon the canvas.
"Give it a moment; we're waiting for your mistress's permission," the store owner remarked, and Silvie gave a small nod in reply.
"I see... we can't just use this ink; we have to wait for Lady Evelyn to activate it," she murmured, committing the realization to memory before—
Somewhere beyond the pastry shop's basement, a woman with violet hair rode in a carriage. With a faint smile, she flicked her fingers.
At that very instant, the ink upon the canvas stirred. It spreads across the ground, threading through the painted floor of furniture and apparatuses like splintered cobwebs brought to real life.
The canvas was shrouded in mist, and soon, Violet silhouettes of the painted furniture and apparatuses began to form within the basement as ink flew ethereally through the air, and as the light set, laboratory objects materialized.
More tables, flasks, alembics, mortars and pestles, crucibles, retorts, tongs, and bellows appeared one after another. In the process, the canvas was emptied, and the once-empty space was now a laboratory.
The servant stood in marvel. "Such a thing shouldn't even be possible, as it makes no sense, yet here I am, witnessing this... magic."
"Lady Evelyn... what else can you do?"
"Magnificent, isn't it? Such a convenient way to hide from the authorities. It makes you understand why she doesn't share the secrets of her script."
"This power is far too convenient... And admittedly, too good to be true. Silvie, you're witnessing the backbone of the Malefactors; the very reason that makes us so elusive," Sir Daishi said, inspecting each piece of equipment for its condition.
Silvie stepped forward and lightly touched the shelves with a sliding motion. She then looked at the tip of her finger; there was no dust. An ability capable of containing items with such cleanliness.
"Sir Daishi, if Lady Evelyn paints an object, is she always able to materialize it? Is that how it works?" Silvie wondered aloud, her eyes playfully inspecting all the apparatuses and furniture within this newly summoned laboratory.
She imagined the things she would hide and store if she possessed such a remarkable ability.
"Not quite. To my understanding, she cannot simply paint something and bring it into reality. The objects preserved within these paintings must have pre-existed. As far as I'm concerned, Lady Evelyn is merely storing them in canvases."
"But who am I to say? I would not be surprised if she were capable of greater miracles. For now, it remains mere speculation," Daishi explained, his words drawn from careful observation over the years of knowing the mistress personally.
Silvie's curious eyes continued to wander, examining every glass object she could lay her gaze upon. Since she was not being told what to do, she simply walked to every corner, inspecting anything that caught her attention.
"Lady Evelyn is pretty amazing."
"Sir Daishi, by any chance, are you a scripter too?" she asked, while the store owner prepared a set of equipment on one of the tables, placed against the wall facing the stairs.
The man continued with his preparation, though he walked up to the same cabinet where he had taken the steel box containing Lady Evelyn's ink and carefully put it back, making sure it was tightly sealed.
Silvie's eyes followed every movement as it unfolded...
"I am..."
"But my abilities aren't that eye-catching compared to your mistress..." he said, returning to the table he had been working on.
"I see, that's still impressive, Sir Daishi..." the servant complimented. She was naturally curious about his script, but remembering Lady Evelyn's words regarding a scripter's secrecy, she respected that practice and refrained from asking further.
The man took her kind words with a nod. "I appreciate the compliment." Though the servant moved closer, expressing a wish to assist, the store owner simply instructed her to relax and take a seat in one of the chairs near the stairs, and simply observe while Daishi prepared everything else.
The store owner didn't seem to mind small talk, and now, as the servant sat with her hands neatly placed on her lap, she asked, "What are the limits of a scripter, Sir Daishi?" She wished to probe for more information.
"Good question." Sir Daishi cleared his throat as he arranged the requisite apparatus for the alchemical process.
Daishi lectured the servant, explaining that a scripter's abilities are highly dependent on the ink within their bodies. Should they deplete their reserves, they would be unable to manifest their scripts. It was a concept simple enough to understand.
The servant then inquired how a scripter replenished this ink. "Is it something naturally produced within the body?" she asked softly.
Daishi confirmed her assumption. "You are correct. We scripters produce ink internally, and its creation is tied to the health of our blood, as the ink resides within it."
"Our heart serves as the vessel that circulates it throughout our bodies..."
The servant took careful note. She understood that upon becoming a scripter, one's body gains the ability to naturally generate ink through the pumping of the heart, a fact she found intriguing, as evident in her expression.
"Sir Daishi, is there any other method? I presume that if a scripter expends too much ink, it requires time for the body to replenish it. Is there, perhaps, a more immediate alternative?" she inquired, fully aware that such knowledge would prove invaluable in the future.
Daishi didn't deny that the natural process of producing ink required quite some time. "There is another way, a means by which a scripter may obtain ink, but it is used only in dire circumstances..."
Silvie observed closely as Sir Daishi retrieved an object from one of the cabinets hung along the walls. He then revealed a flask containing a grotesque substance.
The servant was both astonished and horrified with wide eyes, for the ink writhed within the glass, sprouting countless tiny black tendrils that pressed and curled against the surface. Daishi then confirmed one disturbing truth.
"The Black Sea Ink... it is alive, Silvie."
Chapter End...