Augusto gasped in awe, tears of pure joy streaming down his wrinkled cheeks. He reached into the box and gently picked up the dirty rock with both hands, holding it up as if it were the most precious object in the entire universe.
"It is magnificent," Augusto whispered, his voice trembling with sheer, overwhelming emotion. "It is even more beautiful than the ancient texts described. Can you feel it, O'Brian? Can you feel the absolute purity of the magic radiating from it? It is glorious!"
O'Brian took a slow step backward. His heart was completely breaking. He looked at the dirty piece of cave rock in Augusto's hands, and then he looked at the tears of joy on his boss's face.
"Sir," O'Brian said carefully, raising his hands in a calming gesture. "Dr. Augusto, please. Look at it closely. That... that is not a magical core. It is not glowing. It is just a rock. It is a literal piece of dirt from the cave floor."
Augusto’s joyful smile instantly vanished. He slowly lowered the rock, turning his head to glare at O'Brian. His manic eyes flashed with sudden, explosive anger.
"A rock?!" Augusto shouted, his voice echoing fiercely across the quiet laboratory. "Are you completely blind, O'Brian?! Are you out of your mind?! The light coming off this artifact is practically blinding me! You must shield your eyes, you fool, or the holy energy will overwhelm your senses!"
The sick, dying researchers looked at each other in total, terrified silence.
Martha, the frail woman with the gray, peeling skin, let out a painful, rattling cough. She leaned heavily against the steel pedestal, pointing a shaking finger at the object in Augusto's hands.
"Doctor... please," Martha begged, her voice cracking with misery. Tears spilled out of her tired eyes, cutting clean tracks through the gray ash on her cheeks. "O'Brian is telling the truth. It is not glowing. It is just a rock. We are not feeling any healing energy. The burning in our veins... it is not stopping. We are still dying."
Augusto completely ignored their concerns. The illusion was so absolute, so flawlessly woven into his subconscious by Ken’s magic, that Augusto’s brain simply refused to accept reality. To accept that it was a rock would mean accepting that his plan had failed, and that his people were going to die. The illusion provided him the perfect escape from his own failure.
"You lack vision!" Augusto screamed at his staff, stepping away from them and clutching the dirty rock tightly to his chest. "All of you! You have spent too many years hiding in the dark, breathing in the toxic fumes! Your minds are weak! The Solurius poison has clouded your judgment!"
He turned his back on them, marching over to the large glass containment unit. He carefully, gently placed the piece of gray gravel inside the glass case and locked the heavy door shut. He pressed his hands against the glass, staring lovingly at the dirty rock.
"You simply cannot comprehend the brilliance of what I have accomplished here," Augusto raved like a madman, his voice bouncing erratically between loud shouting and quiet, manic whispering. "The Core of Luminus is right here! It is currently flooding the room with absolute, holy light! It is cleansing the air! In just a few minutes, the healing process will begin. Our bodies will be completely restored, and we will walk out of this bunker as gods! The Empire will bow to our genius!"
O'Brian stood frozen in the middle of the room. He felt a cold, terrifying shiver run all the way down his spine.
He looked at the brilliant, genius scientist who had mentored him for over ten years. He looked at the man who had promised to change the world. And then he looked at the piece of muddy gravel sitting inside the high-tech, multi-million-dollar glass containment case.
The heartbreaking, tragic truth finally hit O'Brian with the force of a physical blow.
Augusto was gone. The stress, the guilt of poisoning his own staff, and the overwhelming desperation to save them had finally broken his mind completely. O'Brian didn't know about Ken's illusion magic; he just thought his beloved boss had completely lost his grip on reality.
"He has gone insane," O'Brian whispered to himself, a single tear slipping down his cheek. "He has completely lost his mind."
The dying researchers began to quietly weep in despair. They sank back down onto the metal benches, coughing painfully, realizing that there was no miracle cure coming to save them. Their brilliant leader was currently giving a triumphant, victorious speech to a piece of dirty cave rock.
It was a scene of absolute, profound tragedy. The great mastermind who had terrified the Upper Council, the man who had ordered highly trained assassins to attack the Royal families, was completely defeated not by a sword or a fiery explosion, but by a simple, lazy prank pulled by a boy who just wanted to take a nap.
----
The corridor was completely unforgiving. There was no comfortable place to step, and the loud, echoing sounds of their boots hitting the metal floor grids made sneaking around incredibly difficult.
Ken Eliot was walking at the very back of the infiltration squad, trying his absolute hardest to keep his brand-new, expensive navy blue suit from touching the rusty walls. He had his hands shoved deep into his pockets, and his untucked shirt was flapping loosely behind him.
"I am just saying," Ken complained loudly, his voice echoing down the dark hallway. "If this is a highly advanced, super-secret science laboratory, they should really invest in a better cleaning crew. There is a puddle of oily water back there that almost ruined my left shoe. Do you know how hard it is to get oil out of nice leather? It is a total tragedy."
Naomi, who was walking just a few steps ahead of him, let out a soft, tired sigh. She didn't turn around to glare at him with absolute disgust like she used to. Instead, she just shook her head, treating him like an incredibly naughty, loud friend who had absolutely no volume control.
"Ken, please," Naomi whispered, keeping her hands resting near the hilts of her twin daggers. "We are in the middle of enemy territory. The stealth portion of this mission only works if you actually stop talking."
"I am being stealthy!" Ken argued in a loud whisper, randomly deciding to walk on his tiptoes in a highly exaggerated, cartoonish sneaking motion. "I am basically a ninja. A very sharply dressed ninja."
Elma, the arrogant blonde servant from the 16th Unit, spun around. Her spotless white and gold uniform practically glowed in the dim, flickering light of the corridor. She glared at Ken with pure, unfiltered hatred.
"You are a complete and absolute idiot," Elma hissed, her voice dripping with venom. "Why Princess Hestia agreed to let me walk through a dirty basement with a useless slacker is entirely beyond me. If you make one more stupid joke, I am going to leave you tied up in a closet."
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