The fighting was calming down outside, but the aftermath of the incident was still unknown. Tani had spent her time glaring at her favorite Rat subject, testing out the strange combinations of food that Vin conjured up—like fried sweet bread with a spicy meat sauce to dip it in—and reviewing every piece of Blight Crystal data she could find, whether it was hers or others. At the moment, she was tapping on the rat cage and trying not to sound angry at the damn happy beast.
"Come on, Rat-livier. Do something not boring," Tani spoke to the rat she had implanted with both Olivier's new crystal and the Blight crystal. He was so normal it was shocking. No crazy black tendrils or bubbles of red and golden light fighting in his tiny, furry body. At least, not that she could tell. He ate, shat, and slept like the rest of them.
The terror of her dream had not left her. She waited to see what was to become of the poor creature, but it seemed all that happened was that he healed slightly more quickly than she had expected. Could be she got a little monster that naturally possessed strong healing. Could be the crystals. There was not enough variance from the norm for her to know.
She sighed and turned from the tiny creature, flopping into her cot and pulling her LightTab from the table next to it. She glanced again at Dom's response to her message.
We are not interested in information, so much as obtaining samples that we can use in our own projects. If you have a lead on this, please let us know.
The message included a shuffling encrypted algorithm for a LightTab address, just like Tani had used for her own LightTab when posting in the feeds for patients. Did she dare tell the Artificers she had a way to get them samples?
Would there be enough BloodSmiths left for her to even worry about breaking her alliance with them? Or enough Artificers to justify the forging of a new one?
Options are never bad to have. Just don't make commitments you may want out of if things change.
She responded, erasing the standard LightTab address and inserting the encrypted one:
I have a contact that can get you samples. But, the request has to go through me. They won't supply more than a few at a time, so make sure whatever you're planning, you account for a limited supply.
She pasted in a rolling encrypted contact address.
A few moments later, a response popped up.
It sounds like we could be very useful to each other. Conlan will want to meet you.