"That is Thullium."

It looked like an egg. Not the kind your average space-faring chicken might lay, mind you. This wasn't the run-of-the-mill breakfast item. This was an event. An oval, graded, shiny sphere of the sort that made Cien question the sanity of the universe. Cien, bless his cotton socks and detective brain, narrowed his eyes, as if squinting harder would somehow unravel the egg sitting before him.

Cien perched on a raised platform, a semi-circular balcony overlooking the secure containment zone. Below, the air shimmered with an almost imperceptible energy field, isolating the chamber from the rest of the facility.
It was apparently the lab Paniz and people worked in. Illegal and immoral.

He was made to wear stuff; the gears, foot covers, gloves, headcap and a whole suit of protection. It took him more than five minutes to fix his right arm into the suit but everything eventually worked out.

However, what he saw now felt weird.

"You have Thullium."

"That's the only bit of sample we got. Need to find the lot."

Cein stared again. In the centre of the room, it was resting on a velvet pedestal.

"Is Thullium resting on a velvet pedestal?" Cien pondered out loud only to find Paniz nodding.

He wanted to ask why but passed on that thought. Obviously, because what else would cradle an object of such... ambiguity?

It was glimmering. Lustrous. Defying categorisation like a particularly stubborn government bureaucrat.

Cien looked at it, and his brain did a little internal reboot, desperately searching for something, anything, to file it under. Shiny rock? Nope. Underwater paperweight? Hardly.

Initially, the damn thing looked purple. Of course it did. The universe has a terrible sense of humour. It was this initial burst of royal hue that lured Cien closer, like a moth to an over-engineered, interdimensional flame. And then the fun started. As he edged nearer, the object started playing with its colours. Changing, evolving, right before his very eyes.

Paniz had apparently read every confusion ringing through Cien's mind. "Thullium is a bit of an empath. It is mirroring your emotions. Or at least, that's the pretentious way we found it."

Cien suspected it was just showing off. Right now, it was probably swirling with a dull, slightly panicky beige, perfectly reflecting Cien's current state of bewildered confusion.

Gravity did not apply to the egg-shaped object. As he edged closer to the pedestal it didn't just appear to be sitting on the velvet surface anymore; rather, it appeared to float, gracefully defying gravity. Its shape swung and flowed, a captivating blend of substance and fluidity that created rippling waves of bright colours.

But then came the kicker. The real reason Cien was currently sporting a look of slack-jawed idiocy. A powerful feeling, a deep-seated, almost primal desire, washed over him. It wasn't subtle. It wasn't a polite request. It was a demand from the very core of his being. He had to touch it.

This wasn't about scientific curiosity anymore. This was about possession. Pure, unadulterated lust for an inanimate object. Every second that ticked by, the pull intensified, a siren song of shiny, gravity-defying egg-ness. Images flashed through his mind: him, sprinting down corridors, Thullium tucked under his arm like a stolen loaf of bread. Him, in a secret underground lair, stroking its smooth, iridescent surface. Him, becoming the envy of everyone just to have it. The sheer ridiculousness of it all was lost on him.

He felt a sense of expectancy with every step approaching the pedestal, as if Hermes were slinking through the night's shadows. Time appeared to slow down as his hand extended, as though in accordance with his faltering conscience.

His hand crept into the subtly lit space, a dark blot against the vibrant colours of Thullium. Lowly greed and a frankly embarrassing level of hunger fuelled his will. He stretched, strained, his fingertips almost brushing the otherworldly surface... only to be met with an invisible force, a gentle but firm push that sent him stumbling back, his dreams of intergalactic egg-napping momentarily dashed.

The sudden interruption was jarring, like a record scratch in the symphony of his avarice. Reality, that persistent pest, came crashing back in the form of dark glasses being unceremoniously shoved onto his nose. His vision swam, the vibrant colours of Thullium now filtered through tinted lenses, the reverie of his potential theft shattered.

"Wear those!"

Cien looked up, startled by the voice, and saw Paniz staring back at him with a sly smile on his lips. His outstretched hand motioned him to rise from his position, offering support and a hint of warning.

With a mixture of curiosity and wariness, Cien rose from his dazed state, cautiously accepting Paniz's hand and taking the chair closest to him.

"It can manipulate too."

"Thullium, that egg-like object," Paniz spoke, his voice a low hum that reverberated through the room, "is a force beyond understanding. It has the power to bestow great blessings but also to unleash unspeakable horrors. A piece of this metal can bend the fabric of reality itself. Imagine what wonders await those who dare to seek them."

In front of him, Paniz had taken a seat, his gaze fixed on Cien, as if peering straight into his existence. Cien too sat across the table.

As he leaned back in his chair, the room around him darkened, save for a soft blue glow that seemed to emanate from the small box he held in his hand. With a click, he opened the box and the very air around him seemed to shift and ripple.

Before Cien's eyes, a holographic blueprint materialised. One half of it was depicting dense, uncharted terrain unlike anything he had ever seen.

"This is Eblis, an unexplored territory in the sea of Magellan, an abundant reserve of Thullium."

Cien stood there, his eyes stuck to the hologram. Intricate geometric patterns formed in the air, forming a three-dimensional map of the infamous region known for its mysterious disappearances.

With a deep breath, Paniz activated the virtual simulation of the underwater reserve, immersing himself in the digital world that lay beneath the surface. The holographic environment came to life.

The holographic projection shifted and morphed, revealing hidden corridors and pulsating energy fields. The metallic veins of the sea glowed like liquid fire, casting a warm and inviting light that illuminated the dark depths of the ocean. Schools of shimmering fish darted through the crystalline structures, their iridescent scales reflecting the vibrant colours of the underwater world.

"While historians say it is much deeper than it looks, a realm of untold wonders or a kingdom hidden from the prying eyes of the world, guarded by secrets as old as time itself and what not, I believe it to be the key to Thullium, Señor."

Then his gaze snapped to the other half. Coiled, impossibly long, was a serpent of dark indigo scales, each catching the holographic light with an oily sheen. But it wasn't the creature's sheer size that stole the air from Cien's lungs. It was the heads. Five of them, each distinct, each ending in a cruel, beaked snout. And adorning the middle head, embedded like a diadem in the thick scales, pulsed a shard of Thullium.

"By the Void," Cien whispered, his voice thick with disbelief. He reached a trembling hand towards the image, his fingers passing through the spectral display. "What... what is this, Paniz?"

Paniz's gaze was sharp, his expression a tightrope between triumph and terror. "This is everything they told us was impossible. Everything they buried. Historians say this snake has endless number of heads, guarding Thullium fiercely while his existence still remains a question."

"Where was this creature found?" Cien demanded, his voice urgent. "Was it in the vicinity of the Eblis?"

Paniz hesitated, his eyes flickering with uncertainty. "No. The probe detected the creature on a desolate lost kingdom buried in the sea. But this is what makes me doubt stuff. This same snake could be the roof cause behind the disappearance or maybe Thullium manipulates them. I don't know."

The air in the lab seemed to thicken, heavy with unspoken possibilities. A connection. An impossible, terrifying connection between a lost civilization and a monstrous creature separated by unimaginable distances, linked by a metal that defied the very laws of physics.

"Proof?" Cien nudged, his mind already racing, trying to reconcile the impossible with the tangible data sprawled across their consoles. He was a detective, a man of logic. Myths were for bedtime stories, not for serious research.

Paniz deflated slightly. "None. Not yet. But I want you to know everything. No secrets at all." He pushed a tab on his console, sending a scroll of data to Cien's personal display. It was a list of hypothetical creatures, culled from ancient texts and mythology: the Lion-headed man, a man-eating fish, thousand-headed snakes, gargantuan turtles with islands on their backs, shadowy krakens that dragged entire ships to their doom. All myths, relegated to the realm of fantasy.

"This snake," Paniz continued, "it isn't real. Its biology... the energy required to sustain such a massive entity, let alone multiple heads... it's astronomical."

Paniz's voice brought a wave of reality. "What now?" Cien nudged.

"Right now, you need to meet the one I believe to be the prime suspect, Aaeila King."

________