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Author's Note: Write at 2:30 in the morning and see what comes out of YOUR head. Edit: Rewrote the entire prologue to fit the style of the rest of the chapters. A thank you to all the people who reviewed the first prologue Spice! Unfortunately, the original was somehow deleted when I overwrote the prologue, so all your reviews have been lost. D:
Spice of Life
By Hyperlitotes
Prologue
The wizard's room was white and obscenely clean, rather the opposite of what the creator thought a wizard's room should look like. A yellow-beige bookshelf was propped against the wall, proudly displaying a shining array of books with titles he squinted to make out – The Book of Chars, Development of Magic, and The History Book of Morroc. A glass work table stood in the middle of the white-washed room, reflecting shards of light from the glowing orbs decorating the ceiling. Several scrolls rested half-open against translucent bottles filled with vibrant red and yellow liquid.
Pressed uneasily between the yellowing bookshelf and corner wall was what the Creator had been searching for – a cabinet. It was the same dull yellow of the bookshelf, with three drawers and three brass key-knobs. He swiftly manoeuvred around the glass desk to stoop down before the cabinet. Reaching into his coat pocket, the creator pulled out a thin gold key and inserted it into the first drawer.
The drawer opened to reveal nothing but notebooks. The creator brushed impatiently past the notebooks, feeling for cracks in the wooden sides. Finding none, he snapped the drawer shut. The peeping of his homunculus distracted him as he reached for the second drawer. "Shut up," he hissed to it. The homunculus quieted, but he could hear its feet pattering against the stone floor in the silence of the room.
The second drawer held nothing except dust, but as the creator ran his gloved hand over the bottom of the drawer, he felt a small niche in the wood. He dug his finger and pulled to reveal a tiny compartment with a tiny red vial tucked in the corner. The creator smiled.
Perhaps it was odd for a creator to be thieving in a wizard's workroom like he was, but the world had turned out stranger circumstances than his, so he didn't pay much mind. He was a creator by profession, yes, but he was no glorious scientist searching for the next elixir of immortality, nor was he a fearsome monster slayer with an awesome homunculus by his side. Rather, the science he created was put to smaller – and ultimately more illegal – uses than his fellow guild creators. Even the homunculus he had created was no awesome familiar. It was smaller than most others he had seen, less than twenty-five centimetres high and no more fearsome than a chicken. It insisted on following him, peeping and chirping, wherever he went.
He shook himself out of his reverie and pushed the homunculus, which had apparently decided to follow him after getting bored of wandering in circles around the glass worktable, out of his way and carefully plucked the red vial from the compartment.
It was when the homunculus peeped suddenly that he sensed something behind him and whirled around.
The woman next to the worktable stood arrogantly, one hand propped against a dainty waist, the other pointing a gleaming staff at his head. Her bold strawberry-blonde hair curled around her face and contrasted against the gold of her robes and the white of the room. A professor, judging by the staff.
The creator glanced at the door, certain he had bolted and melted the hinges shut. He found the door missing. Apparently, the professor had decided to simply melt the door down.
"Hello," the professor greeted pleasantly, cocking the staff at him. "I'm surprised to see a creator in a wizard's room. I thought all of you abhorred magic."
The creator said nothing. The professor's gaze shifted to the open cabinet behind him and she smirked. "Not all of you, then." Her eyes narrowed maliciously and the hand on the staff tightened. "Where is it?"
He said nothing, but rose from his crouch slowly. The professor snarled, pretty face darkening. "Where is the potion?!"
In a portion of his mind which was not panicking or frantically running through battle strategies, the creator sighed and wondered why it was just his luck that the hazard pay of his contract was about to activated. The red vial remained firmly tucked in one hand. The other hand inched toward a potion in his coat.
The professor saw the movement and twitched her staff upward with a shouted word.
Fire raced through the air, lancing in bolts toward him, and the creator unhooked the potion bottle from his coat and threw it into the path of the bolts – fire met grenade and the air exploded in a rush of glass and blistering eat. He was thrown back against the glass worktable and heard it shatter against him and felt something blazing hot splash against his neck – in instinct his hand slapped to the wound to stem the pain and the vial in his hand splintered against his neck –
Fierce, billowing pain erupted from his neck and back and he saw the homunculus frantically peeping as it stared into his face, and felt the strangest sensation of going numb and going out—
He woke to voices.
He couldn't open his eyes, and his arms felt heavy and his body ached in places he didn't know he had. He wondered briefly of the fate of the professor – had she survived the explosion? – before the voices distracted him.
"—you, stop!—"
"—firewall!—"
"—shit, get Thompson!—"
"—frost diver!—"
Commotion. He made out a dozen flashes of red and yellow and blue light that burned through his eyelids – the sound of running feet and a body – two – dropping to the ground.
Long silence, then heavy feet slamming against the floor.
"—shit, what the hell happened in here?"
"Intruders, sir. The professor killed Greenberg and Douglas. We haven't identified the body by the table – but we believe it might be a second intruder."
"Two of them? Shit. What the hell were they – what the fuck is that?"
"A homunculus, sir. We originally thought it to be the dead intruder's, but un-mastered homunculi are said to decompose. This one hasn't."
"A third intruder, then?"
"We believe so, sir."
"What the hell were they after?"
"Unknown, sir. The owner of the workroom – high wizard Verne – is away at a seminar in Prontera."
"Good timing, the bastards."
A poignant pause. The creator felt hands grab at his chest, his legs. He struggled weakly, but the hands were too large and too strong. What's… what's happening? he thought blurrily.
"What shall I do with it, sir?"
A snort. "Nothing. Bastard's already abandoned his homunculus here, and I doubt it can tell us anything. Besides, it's about to kick the bucket. Throw it out in the bins."
"Yes, sir, right away."
Hands gripped against him – he felt himself moving through the air, and suddenly his eyes were swamped by painful, blinding light and – sudden darkness. With a chocked cry, he felt himself being tossed through the air and hitting something metallic—
He woke to a voice.
"Huh, nothin' much here…. Ew, rotten bananas… blank scrolls… bunch of garlets – oh, what's this?"
Hands pulled at his head and he wanted to shriek in pain but couldn't – "Oh hell yeah, a chicken! I'm gonna eat good tonight!"