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“I’ll have another talk with him,” said Hector, making for the tree. He was wearing his darker armor with the standard gray iron coating that allowed him to still fly in it, but as he neared the entrance, he let the coating melt away with dematerialization. One of the other reasons for his semi-frequent visits to this place was to get Abbas to examine this strange new material. Thus far, results had been largely inconclusive with Abbas telling him to come back in a few days.

Haqq Najir, of course, had not stopped pressuring him to buy new, incredibly expensive scientific equipment in order to supposedly make that examination process easier. At first, Hector had thought the man was simply spouting lies in order to get some cool new toys to play with--and in fact, he still thought that--but given how much trouble even the Lord Abbas Saqqaf was apparently having with determining what this stuff was made of... well, maybe Haqq wasn’t completely full of shit.

He still wasn’t planning on blowing that much money on it, though.

He pushed on the door to open it, but it hardly budged.

Huh.

Strange.

Abbas had installed a modern doorknob and locking mechanism shortly after their discovery of the place, but this was the first time Hector had noticed Abbas actually bothering to use it, probably because he was always here, anyway.

He tried turning the knob, only to realize it actually wasn’t locked. It turned just fine, and yet the door still barely moved.

Raheem was approaching from behind. “Apologies. I forgot to mention that he seems to have barricaded himself in this time. We didn’t want to break into your property without your permission, lord.”

What the hell? Why would Abbas barricade the door?

This didn’t seem right. There must’ve been something else going on here.

Hector concentrated on what the Scarf could tell about what was going on behind this door.

Whoa.

“...He didn’t barricade the door,” said Hector. “At least, not with furniture.”

“Lord? What do you mean?”

“The room is overgrown with plants,” said Hector. “They’re everywhere.” He was trying to sense Abbas’ shape, but the chamber was such a tangled mess of branches and vines and leaves that he was having trouble.

Then he realized the other reason why it was so difficult.

Abbas was on the floor, not moving.

“Shit!” Hector took a quick step backward, gently pushing Raheem out of the way as he revved up a bladed disc into orbit around himself. He added heat to it, wanting it almost molten, and then he loosed it on the door.