30 A Fantasy Harvest Moon (1/2)

While a good part of him was still feeling uneasy, his mood was gradually improving. Part of it was forced, but he did his best to fill his mind with positive thoughts. In the end, the best way to move forward was to act like he always did, it was time to bring forth Joshua Lockman, crazy inventor. An entire laboratory left behind by a lost civilization full of unknown technology? Who wouldn't get excited about that? Joshua changed his outfit to look like a scientist you see in movies, wearing a large white lab coat. His legs were trembling, he had the sudden envy to start running all over the place and seeing all the wonderful things this place was guarding. He remained calm though, even with Delila gone, there might be some danger. It wasn't out of question there was some bizarre high tech laser system hidden somewhere. Well, even if there was he could most likely avoid it by discarding his body but he had caused enough trouble lately. He was, therefore, just calmly marching along the hallway after exiting the lab. The room was lighted by occasional lanterns, powered by a simple rune creating light. Their mere presence was motivating, if runes were used for an elementary task like lighting a room, it could only mean much more advanced ones were waiting to be discovered.

Before he forgot, he sent a message to Catherine.

”Sweetie, can you dump that woman's body in one of the vats?”

”... Why do you want to do that?” she asked somewhat confused.

”Well, obviously I'm going to preserve her as a trophy! She'll be the symbol of 'Mess with Joshua Lockman and this is how you'll end up!' ” he answered although it wasn't as cheerful as usual.

”Drop the act with me, ok? You don't have to force yourself.” Catherine told him with a hint of worry in her voice.

”Very well. Truth is, I think this woman might have runes in her body and I'd like to examine them. If we let her body out there, her body might start to rot and the runes might get damaged.”

”I see. You don't have to do it alone though. I'll be by your side when you do it.” she replied.

Catherine understood what he was talking about and while it made sense, considering the state she had put Joshua in, he would probably be uncomfortable examining her body.

”Our first autopsy together! Now that's an event to look forward to! I didn't know you were such a romantic!”

Catherine just laughed in reply and asked Boris to take care of Delila's body.

The map of the area had partially been revealed thanks to Catherine. Every floor beside this basement was in ruins so he didn't expect much from most of the building apart from archeological findings. He would still examine it all, of course, but the priority lied on the current floor. Catherine had spotted a few machines along the way, he soon reached the first one.

The machine was hanging on the upper part of the wall. It was some sort of tube with a glass lens at the end. Furthermore, as soon as Joshua got into its view, it started to move and point in his direction. Seeing this, he stopped moving. He carefully waved at it, no reaction. He then slowly moved around a bit, the machine slowly turned to keep an eye on him.