Esoteric Reaction 3: The Crow and the Phantom Sorceress
17 Years before the tower fell
Mona's young mind was flailing. Before her eyes, a challenge appeared that she had not anticipated. Why, oh why, was a Magicist here on an off day? Why did she have to see Mona use Alchemy? Either way, she knew the issue required her full attention. She called Two back instantly, her soul becoming one again.
"Ah, okay name, name."
A fake name. Obvious, right? That's what she needed, and fast. It needed to be something easy to remember and unrelated. Something she could remember to answer to as naturally to her own name.
"Then again.. it's not like Mona is a really special name. I'm not known for anything at all. Maybe it'll be better to..."
"Um... Hello?"
The blonde girl, Maggie stared quizzically at Mona with a patient if confused smile. "I'm really sorry if I startled you, but you've been frozen there for like a few minutes and I'm a little worried. Can I get you some Juice?"
"My name's MONA!", she yelled out in a panic, realizing she had been standing there thinking.
"My name's MAGGIE!", said the other girl, copying her tone. "Hiya!"
She held out her hand once again, still smiling, this time with eyes wide and shaking with excitement. Mona stared down at the outstretched limb and looked at it as if it were a creature from another world. Cautiosly, she grabbed it.
"Uh...hiya?"
That was all it took. Maggie grabbed Mona's hand like a vice and pulled her towrds her, wrapping both arms around her while jumping and yelling.
"Oh Wow, Oh Geez, Oh Man! You're soooooooo amazing Mona, You gotta teach me, What class are you in? I'm in Magistra Jano's class, Can we study together? I really need to learn how to do that, You've gotta tell me your secret, that magic was.."
"AAH!", yelled Mona, breaking free from Maggie's vicelike hug and breathing heavily. This was officially scarier than fighting a mechanical dragon.
"Oh, Ah, sorry!", said Mona nervously as she backed off.
"It seems like she thought I was using magic. That's a relief. Unfortunately, it also seems like she thought I was really good. If she realizes I can't cast a single spell then that will just complicate things a lot more. "
Mona regained her composure. She finally realized what kind of situation she was in, and what she had to do. She was actually ashamed it took her so long to realize it. She shook her head, steeling and calming her nerves, and looked back at the other girl with a confident glare.
"Maggie... I see you noticed my spells, eh? What do you think? I've been practicing really hard. Pretty cool, right?"
Maggie walked back up to Mona more slowly, and titled her head slightly to the side, giving a slight smile. She then looked down forlornly, making Mona wonder if she had somehow insulted her.
"..."
"Huh?", said Mona. Maggie had said something under her breath, but she couldn't hear what it was.
"..."
She was slightly louder this time, but Mona still couldn't hear what Maggie was saying. She was already planning an escape route. Mona could also swear that Maggie was...shaking?
"You..."
"Listen... I'm sorry if..."
"You're...so..."
"I just..."
"YOU'RE SO AWESOME!" Maggie screamed louder than Mona imagined, knocking her backwards into the stands out of shock.
"I mean... WOW! You just come out of nowhere and BOOM! BAM! That thing didn't know what hit it! You were like, flying around all ZOOOM!" Maggie was busy acting out the sound effects and motions while Mona regained her composure.
"This girl is absoltuely insane.", thought Mona. "Heh, yeah, I guess I kinda, sorta can do some pretty cool things."
"KINDA SORTA!?", screamed Maggie in disbelief. "Ooh you're WAY too modest!" In a blink, Maggie appeared directly in front of Mona, and dropped to her knees.
"Please... Oh please teach me, Phantom Sorceress Mona!", she said with her hands clasped and eyes closed.
"Wha...? Phantom What? As for teaching you..I don't..."
"AH! Do you like it? You appeared out of nowhere and fought through the billowing smoke, like a phantom!" Maggie grabbed the edge of her uniform's cape and draped it over her mouth and the front of her body mysteriously. "And you beat that thing up GOOD! Like a true Sorceress hero from the stories!"
Mona did her best to grin while screaming internally out of panic and the increasingly inscrutable girl in front of her.
"Eh, um.. really?"
"Absolutely!", she yelled back. "So...um.. can you help me?" Her smile seemed to practically take up the entire lower half of her face.
"I'd love to...if only to get out of this. But I really don't know anything at all about magic! I suppose I can try though. She might think I helped her just because she sees me as some kind of hero, even if I can't really do anything."
It was clear that any kind of answer in the negative would pretty much wreck her day, and that she seemed harmless enough anyway. Pulling the haughtiest pose she could, Mona tried her dearest to exude fake confidence.
"You know, Maggie, I'll totally help you! Yeah! It's just... I'm kinda not a student here...exactly."
Maggie's look turned to one of concern. "Huh.. really? But you're so talanted!" She looked at Mona with a mournful expression as they got to the doorway leading into the lower halls of the school.
"Was it... that there weren't enoucgh spots open?"
Maggie's expression and body language had completely changed. The poor girl was trembling, and not out of excitement. She started to grab her own arm to steady it.
"Maggie... are you okay? I'll help.."
"Was it that you applied, but there weren't enough spots.. so you couldn't get in?"
"For once, it seems the truth might be useful here."
"Maggie.. No, no I never even applied at all! What's wrong?"
"Ah, PHEW! That's great! I mean... It will be great. Will be for sure!"
Instantly, the girl's tension melted away as she reverted back to her exuberant self. She grabbed Mona by the hand and rushed her into the school's lower hall. These hallways were surrounded by intricately carved wooden archways and doors on either side, likely leading to classrooms or supply rooms. Still, Mona couldn't help but marvel at the detail and care taken for a building that wasn't really meant to be looked at.
"Where are we going? What will be great?" said Mona as Maggie's grip on her hand held tight as she rushed through the building.
"We're going to my dorm room! You said you'd help me, right? That's where my books are." The two girls went up several flights of stairs as the sunlight of the early morning began to shine through. The artisinal carvings gave way to more utilitarian and practical looking structures as Mona and Maggie wound their way through the mazelike hallyways. Along the way, Mona started to notice other apprentice magicists in the same light blue robes with a gold trim. They leaned against walls, sat at desks, or walked around, but all of them had their heads buried in different books.
"It looks like Magicists get to read all the time."
After what seemed like an hour, the two finally arrived at the Girls' dormitory, located on the far eastern side of the building. (Or at least, that is what Maggie told her. Mona actually had no idea where they were in relation to the rest of Pridemoor Village).
All around her, the hallways were dressed in simplisticly painted walls of an alternating white and light blue coloring, resembling a slightly cloudy sky. Small tables with vases filled with flowers stood between every other door, while a painting of some kind hung between the others. It was quite pretty. Maggie did not stop here, but instead dragged her to an even further set of stairs, leading her upwards. Mona made a mental note of the exit door, just in case.
"My room is really close now. Thanks for coming with me all this way!"
Mona's eyebrow raised. "Your room? Don't dorm students usually have roomates?" At least, that's how it was in all the stories she'd read about people in boarding schools. Perhaps this was one of the many ways reality differed from fiction.
Maggie giggled. "Oh yeah, um, mine isn't like that.", the girl smiled nervously as the two reached the top floor.
She may as well have walked into an entirely different world. The walls glistened white with marble colmuns spaced evenly along them, sashes of alternating blue and yellow hanging between them. From what Mona cold see, the floor's rug was made of some kind of animal fur so soft she felt she was walking on air, even through her shoes. The spaces between the doors to each room were lined with onyx tables holding baskets of baked sweetbreads whose smell permeated throughout the air in a scent that had even Mona's epicurean olfactory system surging with joy.
"This.. These breads! Look at the frosting! It's practically art!"
She couldn't believe her eyes. Crossaints drizzled with tiny streams of chocolate laced in a cross-stritch pattern, still warm and melting it ever so slightly, yet the colored frosting of blue with the slightest hint of yellow was neither melting nor overwhelming the pastry; Fluffly, crispy danishes with fruit and cheese nestled in the cener of their soft brown edges, woven like a shopkeeper's basket, and finally long eclairs crowned with gleaming chocolate with the smallest hint of..
"Mona...are you ok?"
Mona snapped out of her daze of artistic admiration long enough to acknowledge the girl beside her.
"Wha? Oh! Yeah! Maggie, did you cook these? They look better than the ones in the bakery near Pridemoor Keep!"
Maggie tried and failed to prevent herself from giggling as she answered. "Huh? No! These get brought over to our floor from the kitchen every morning. They must have just brought them over. Do you..cook?"
Mona couldn't help but beam with a confident smile. "Yeah, I guess I do. Heh heh! I think it's really fun! Just... don't ask me to clean up afterwards."
Maggie grabbed Mona by the hand once more and dragged her to a door with a bouquet filled with Blue Roses and the sign "7S" hanging from it. Without wasting a second, she yanked Mona through and slammed it shut.
"Oops! You probably wanted some breakfast. Sorry! Just wait a second and I'll bring some in for us!" Maggie left as quickly as she came, leaving Mona as bewildered as ever.
"This day's just gotten started and I've apparently earned the trust of a Magicist so much that she left me in her room alone! I can't pass up this chance..."
Mona's heart was racing. She had no idea how she did it, but if she played her cards right, she could use this girl to learn everything she could about the magicists. She had to if she wanted to..
"Ah! Gotta focus. Let's see what I can see here."
Mona ran to look around as quickly as she could. The room itself was as beautiful as the hallway, though it was immediately obvious what belonged to the guild and what belonged to the magicist. The bed had a light blue frame, but was covered with stuffed dragons and griffins, with the slightest bits of intricately woven bedsheets poking out from underneath the suffocating fluff.
"Moving on..."
The desk by the window was made of wood so polished and refined, Mona at first throught it was stained glass. It sat with piles of textbooks on either side, many of them with titles such as "The Practical applications of Internal Mana diffusion, Volume 1, Healing Magic and other Advanced Spellcraft, and the open volume, Magic for Beginners, An Introduction."
"Someone here might be putting the cart before the horse.", Thought Mona. She had no idea how she would pretend to help the magicist, but she realized that if she was in trouble so much as to ask a complete stranger and leave them alone in her room, it probably wouldn't make much of a difference. She made a note to thumb through the books later if she was permitted.
Casting her gaze elsewhere, she found a crudely drawn target attached to a polished metallic slab, suspended from the celing by ropes. The target and slab themselves were quite clean, but the wall around and behind it was filled with burn marks of all shapes and sizes. Next to one particular burn mark was a tall wardrobe, its doors flung open to reveal several copies of the uniform that the girl was wearing, as well as one with darker hues and more well-made fabric.
Curious, Mona took a closer look. It was actually a very good looking dress in her eyes. If it wasn't associated with magic, she would have wanted to try it on as long as she could still wear a hood somehow. There was a pattern of golden threads crossing back and forth along the sides of the dress and the cape in the back, complementing the lighter and darker blues of the front in a way that made Mona almost smile. She moved it to examine it closer, and something dark blue and shiny floated downwards from the folds of the dress.
"A Hair Ribbon..." Mona froze as the small piece of cloth fell into her hand and warmed it. Her mind raced as thoughts she didn't know she even had filled her mind to the point of bursting.
"What the.. what is this?! Help!" Mona reached out as her head felt like it had been hit with a hammer, backing off and stumbling around the room.
"I'm so sorry."
"Who said that!? Help!" Mona stumbled around the room as she vaguely heard the sound of a door opening. Now would probably be the worst possible time for that to happen.
"Just get away from here, please!" The thoughts were now cutting into her skin. She couldn't take it any more, she needed someone, anyone...Two!
"Help me please! From the one comes..."
"Mona! I brought you some Muffins!"
"AAAAAH!"
Mona turned in a flash, the last thing appearing before her eyes before she blacked out being a giant target.
"Are you ready?" A woman's voice, calm but warm, with a hint of youthful spark, rang out in the darkness.
Mona had no idea what was going on. All she could see and feel was darkness.
"Everything is set. Parameters for the fourth and fifth tower on the peninsula are giving us a spot of trouble, but we've managed to belay suspicion onto spies from the southern kingdom. Out of all the ones scouted, we've decided to use those two. The tower in the north is holding steady." A man's voice rang out this time, older with a hint of gruffness almost masked by scholarly pomp.
"Good! I guess you've learned more from me than just the basics of basics I see! Hee Hee hee hah!", The woman giggled confidently, the seriousness of her tone somehow unnaffected.
Mona's vision was starting to come to light. Shapes of greens, browns, blues, and blacks were slowly forming out of the darkness. Her mind was in no less of a panic, however, as she foudn she could not move a single limb, or even see her hands in front of her face.
"Milady, I owe you much more than that. I could never have completed the Caput Mortuum sigil without your input, much less the..."
"And Iiiii'm going to have to cut you off there. No titles or honors for me, Scruffs. Remember what I told you. It's the only reason you might not succeed."
Who are these people? Why can't I move?
Mona's vision became clearer once she was able to finally get a coherent thought. She could now see opjects and people around her, but as if she was looking at them through clear-running water. The man called Scruffs was not as old as she had first thought; he merely sounded like he was. He had a sharp beard, but it was quite black and neatly trimmed without a single gray hair. Upon his nose was a pair of small glasses that seemed to pinch it, causing Mona to wonder if it affected his breathing. He wore brown, hooded oversized robes with equally oversized gloves attaching to a mechanical apparatus on his arms, with tubes extending along the lengths of each arm into the palm of each hand.
The land around them was barren and nearly lifeless save for small weeds popping out of the cracked soil. Her vision beyond a few meters was still blurry, but all she could make out besides the clear day's sky was a green blob in the distance, likely a forested mountain.
Is that...are they... Argh! Why can't I move!?
At that moment, an ethereal hand appeared in front of Mona's face, extending from where her body should be. But it was not her hand, nor her body.
What!?
Mona tried to scream, but realized it was pointless. She needed to figure out what was going on, and if she was even currently alive.
The woman talking... am I.. inside her?
"Scruffs" walked towards "Mona" with concern and dissapointment in his eyes. "Mil... Pro.. " His mouth opened, but words refused to come out.
"Scruffs... I'm not her. You never knew her. We both know this. ", the woman's voice rang out. The man's eyes sharpened. His hands, shaking, looking as if they were fighting against his own will not to reach up and grab "Mona's".
"You are the survivor of Scoyari. One of the original four. You taught me ev..."
The ghostly hand that came from Mona's perspective reached out to the man, but passed through his, with Mona's own heart feeling an emotion that was not hers. The eyes of the man did not waver.
"No one survived Scoyari, Scruffs!", the woman's voice gave a slight tremble. Mona felt far more uncomfortable than she had just a moment before.
Is this me? Am I a ghost? But I have no idea who these people are! I'm not even controlling what's going on! What...?
The hand that had just passed through the man's was gripping itself tight as a vice at her side. "I'm not the one whose experience and memories I've shared with you. This personality you like to be around? It's not mine because I don't HAVE ONE. Those words that you find so captivating? They're not mine because I do not SPEAK FOR MYSELF. I'm just her last gift. I'm not a per.."
The man's eyes then gave a stare so cold that the person Mona was inside, as well as she herelf, stopped dead.
"You can be."
"Impossible. I taught you better than that.", the woman said coldly. Mona felt as if her heart had been pierced.
The man started to walk away, going in a long oval shaped path around the area Mona could now see filled with various toold and flasks she found all too familiar. "Alchemists! They're Alchemists! But why am I here and who..."
Mona's thoughts were interrupted by Scruffs, who began to speak as if he was reading from a text, yet none was in his hand.
"Three things if you three hours attend
Are chained together in the End.
Maria the Light of dew, an Art has got
In three hours to tie three Knots.
Pluto's daughter, it is she
Who bindeth Love's confederacy
Joined with three seeds she does aspire
To be exalted in the Fire. "
Those, those are Alchemical terms.. I think.. at least! Wow!
The terror of Mona's situation was briefly replaced by scientific curiosity as her mind buzzed with the possibilities of what Scruffs was saying.
Three, Three, Three, let's see. They mentioned three towers specifically before... does that have to do with this or is it something else. What exactly is being created here? A fusion.. of a bunch of different things in three groups of three? I...
"Hee...hee.. hah hah HAH!", the woman burst out laughing, Mona herself still not quite getting used to feeling emotions that were not her own inside her head, as she tried to figure out why she felt so amused by the man's cryptic words. "Scruffs, oh man.. Did you tell that one to Theosebeia? She'd get a kick out of it I bet. Thaaaaat's a good one! Still, a fun thought experiment. If something like that were to exist, this, I dunno.. I gues I'd call it a Serum Supernus, the Alchemical power behind such a thing would be just...I wouldn't want to even hypothesize something so ludicrous! To stabilize that many at once... seriously, Scruffs, who do you think we are? Raw, unfocused essence, unlike yours truly, don't last long enough for such a process. That dosen't even get into the matter of obtaining them! But still, how would I build the equiment to even perform such a feat! Now THAT's a challenge worthy of Her. Ha Ha Hee!"
The woman laughed some more, nearly coughing from her apparently nonexistant lungs out of exhaustion, while the man's gaze was unmoving, his mouth now turned downward.
"I'm serious, Master. We'll discuss it later. Theosebeia is also with the others, awaiting my signal. You know it's just us here."
Mona suddenly felt a wave of exasperation. She was quite sure that the woman was rolling her eyes, if she had any physical ones.
"There you go again, Scruffs! I told you already. Please, if you have to call me something, just call me Essence! That's what I basically am, anyway, heh."
Essence? That's her name? Then who does Scruffs think she is? And.. why am I here?. Still... other Alchemists besides me and Plague? I've never seen any before, and these two look like they know their stuff. This is probably my best chance to learn Alchemy from a Master!
Mona's excited thoughts cleared her vision even further. The green mountain in the distance was now clearly not a mountain. It was far too thin, and the bottom half of it was black, the green segment at the top glowing brightly. If she squinted, she could see a mass at the bottom... moving,
"If that is what you wish.", said Scruffs, dissapointedly. "I know you are far more than that, though. At the very least, to me, if that matters for anything at all."
Mona felt Essence's nonexistant heart skip a beat, then drop down into the pit of her stomach. She made a mental note to try to consider the feelings of others when speaking from now on.
"Scruffs!"
"Forgive me, I spoke out of turn." The man gave a slight smile, and then turned again to look behind him. "Well, would you look at that.", he said matter-of-factly. "I do believe we have company. Your thoughts, M... Essence?"
Mona suddenly felt her heart race and her senses sharpen as the ground seemed to fall out below her in an instant. Scruffs was now a small figure on the ground as it seems Essence had leapt several stories in the air. Now fast above the ground, Essence's vision seemed to force her own into place, making clear the moving mass at the base of the tower far away was in fact an army of warrious clad in armors of various hues, the look of it completely alien.
The faces of the solders were completely masked by helmets with a backwards-facing crest and plated sections extending behind the neck. This motif of plates carried throughout their armor, appearing to be rather heavy, yet not hindering the movements of the warriors with their unusually curved swords Mona had never seen before. As she looked closer, she saw that they were not peopel at all, as instead of feet they bore masses of mottled mud that sloshed and splahed along rapidly as they moved. As one, they were marching, (more pantomime of humanity rather than true footfalls) forward away from the tower she now saw clearly, emanating a bright green beam of light from its highest point. Suddenly, she was rushed down to the ground as quickly as she was brought up, once again facing the man Essence called "Scruffs".
"Hee! The Enchantress apparently seeks to mock you, Scruffs. One Thousand."
A Thousand!? Were there that many people even in Pridemoor Keep? Enchantresses... they were long gone, for at least a thousand years.. but then I am I seeing... I can't be sure...
Mona's thoughts turned to panic. They had to get out of there immediately. She had no idea what state of being she was currently in, but she didn't want to know what would happen to her if those soldiers got to her... or Essence, in this state.
"Bwa! Bwahaaha!", yelled out Scruffs, barely containing his laughter as he unfurled the hooded robes he wore, revealing lightwieght armor emblazoned with the symbol of a black crow about to ensnare its prey.
"My word! She still thinks of us as spellscribes in the darkness. I do indeed feel quite insulted.", said Scruffs with an excited smile.
"And after all our hard work at the last tower, too. Well, I suppose reputations must be earned. Scruffs, if you so please?", said Essence, excitement dripping from every word.
"It would be my pleasure." The man turned around, and leapt into the air.
"From the one comes two."
The Axiom of Maria! Esoteric Alchemy! Is he going to...
The man's body seemed to explode with invisble energy as he propelled himself higher into the sky, stepping on the viscosity of the air currents as if they were stone platforms guiding him to his destination.
"From the two comes three."
Mona's mind ran wild with exciement. She begged and prayed to whatever higher power there was that this was not out of her imagination. Whoever Scruffs was, he was clearly an Alchemist at the peak of his power.
His body now began to glow, outlined with a reddish flame that for a moment outshone the sun. From the palms of his hands, dozens of Alchemical circles of light and fire came forth, sourrounding him in the shape of an outstretched hand. He now rose higher, and stretched his own hands outwards as if he were flying.
"And from the three..."
No way. No way. No way. No way. No way. No way. No way. No way. NO WAY.
"Comes the One as the Fourth."
Plague was sure that Mona must be doing something more exciting than walking through a disgusting sewer tunnel.
"What could be taking her so long?", he wondered out loud. He desperately hoepd that she hadn't been captured, but it would also be unusual for anyone to be out and about this early for the magicist guild. He had been with Gramps across the rooftops many times at this hour, Plague serving as lookout, as he always surveyred the Magicist's Guild with eyes that seemed to boil.
"That was before..."
Plague stopped as he turned another corner, seeing the shadows of people's feet pass above him through the light of a grate at the edge of a street. He didn't want to remember that day. He had to focus on Mona. She had said earlier that she would need to get back to cook for the rude people she lived with, and Plague didn't want her to be held responsible for something that might make her walk with a slight limp for a while again.
"I'll destroy all of them!", he had shouted.
"Ahh.. Plague! No, it's okay! Really!", Mona had exclaimed as she winced. Plague's face grew bright red as the young boy's eyebrows furrowed.
"It's not okay! They hurt you just because of something like that! You need to get revenge! I'll cook up one of Gramps' potions and.."
Mona leapt up, wincing in pain, to cover Plague's mouth. "Plague, Please!", she had said with tears forming in her eyes. "You can't beat grownups. They can only beat you. I've...tried in the past. A lot of things. It always backfires."
"Well, did you have Alchemy back then?", Plague said with a snort.
"No, I.."
"Well now you do!", Plague said with a wicked smile.
"I...it's too scary. I'd rather observe first..."
Plague remembered grabbing a large Alchemy volume off the shelf and opening it in front of Mona.
"Of course we observe, that's what Alchemists should always do first! But then we gotta make a plan! That's what Gramps told me! Hee hee hee!"
"Plague..."
"Mona, don't you want to study Alchemy with me?"
He remembered her leaping back, her green cheeks brielfy flashing a shade of red in Plague's small room.
"Of course I do! There's nothing better than Alchemy! It's the greatest!"
Plague could tell Mona was getting slighty angry. It was about time.
"Me too! Hee hee hee! Mona, without you, I'd barely be able to understand half of these!"
"Well, that's because you weren't really taught to read except little bits and Gibberish. It wasn't fair.."
"That dosen't matter.. it.."
"Yes it does! Plague, whenever I got stuck, you knew what the book was talking about right away. I'm sure you could've.."
"That's only because Gramps read these with me all the time and explained those!"
"But you still understood it!"
"But I."
Plague remembered the two of them getting closer and closer with each yell, until the two clonked their foreheards together in argument, sending both children falling flat on their bottoms.
"Ow..hee hee hee haaa!"
"Ow...Ow.. Heh, hahahaha!"
After that, Plague couldn't remember Mona's tears after she laid on her back laughing for several minutes. Even Plague couldn't remember a time he had laughed that hard. Mona had delved into the books more furiously than ever, smiling as she read along with him.
"Every day after that...", Plague reminisced aloud in the empty sewer. Almsot every day after that they had spent together, Mona had brought him a piece of food that she had prepared earlier in the day.
"So you don't have to steal as much, and so we have more time for Science!", she had told him as she rubbed the wound on the side of her neck.
It was often nothing more than a simple sandwich or fluffy pastry, but to Plague, it was something he looked forward to constantly. Not because of the taste, although that was a large part of it, but because when Mona saw him eat what she cooked, she smiled. And that was something it took quite a lot to do. Many people had cursed, screamed, yelled, and even laughed (unintentionally) because of Plague, but Mona was the only one who had ever smiled with him.
Plague bounded, leapt, and even burst back to the main room of the vast underground cavern, seeing Mona's supplies laid out, along with some books on alchemy as well as some parchment, still wet with ink.
"She was taking notes? Already?" Plague thought to himself. The book was titled in Gibberish, which Plague recalled Mona being completely dumbfounded at his ability to read even better than Common Pridemoor. It took quite a bit of "translation" from him for her to read many of the tomes in his hideaway.
"I guess I have Gramps to thank for that! Gramps..."
Translated, it read, Issues in Potion-Making, a First Study. It made sense why she had picked it up to start with. She always asked Plague for more information on how his potions were made, even though he had at first just memorized what Gramps had showed him and paid little attention to measures or even the names of the ingredients.
The book began rather dryly, restating the importance of Alchemical study and repeatability of results, something Gramps had drilled into him long ago. Turning to Mona's notes, he read,
"It says Issues in Potion-Making, but it's barely even about making potions? More about the history of potion making... who names these things?
Nothing on those Magicists I can see..."
She had written a little more, a basic synopsis of what she had surmised to be the contents of the first few chapters based on a quick glance, but Plague could easily see it was to make the absorbtion of the information in the book go much faster.
"Ahh.. I would have just read the book and remembered the important parts for what I needed.. how did she even get the idea to do this!?", Plague said out of desperation, putting the notepage back inside the text, slamming it a bit too hard against the desk and dislodging soemthing from the top of the bookcase.
*SLAM!*
A Book fell to the ground, one with no title, only the symbol of the skull of a Crow. Its pages were frayed, as if it had either been dropped in water or read many, many times. Plague felt in his hand that the cover was hard and heavy, with large, leathery scales everywhere except the symbol.
"Is this a notebook? There's no title."
He lifted the book back onto the surface of the desk to open it, and crakced open the cover. It made an odd sound, almost metallic in nature, as Plague saw the first page was blank.
As was the second.
And the third.
And so on as Plague began to furiously turn pages searching for something, anything at all.
"This book has clearly been used, but all the pages are blank? There's something I have to be missing..."
At that moment, a loud crash from above nearly made Plague jump out of his rags. Bottles and books alike shook slightly, which was impressive given how far down he was.
"Look what you've done, you idiot!", shouted a voice from far above.
"I'm so sorry, the gyroscopes were..", said another, far more childish one.
"What is going on up there!?", said Plague Knight as he hurried to the ladder. He hoped desperately that gramps' hideout hadn't been discovered. Not now when he and Mona had only just begun to explore it.
When he arrived at the surface, he quickly closed the trapdoor and saw that a bit of the ceiling was leaking water.
"What! But to do that..." Something major had to be going on outside for something to affect the city sewage system from the surface. Plague leapt and leapt again, barely containing the urge to use his burst until he scampered through the busy tavern and up the path to the surface of the large building in the village that covered the area.
When he arrived, all he could see was a crowd of people and a cloud of billowing smoke as a cluster of guards materialized, pushing everyone back into the building as yet anothe blast sounded, this one far more serious-sounding.
"Back Away! Back Away!", said one guard Plague could see as he approached closer, ducking through the legs of people as they tried to simultaneously get a good look at what was going on.
"That thing might explode at any second! Everyone, clear out now!", another guard shouted.
Plague managed to squeeze around the crowd and burst up to the edge of the roof of the building. The billowing smoke cloud was spreading high into the air, making it difficult to see, but a mass of silver metal and red cushioning with wheels unlike any he had ever seen before could barely be made out at the source.
He wondered what kind of device it was, and how exactly it had caused so much damage, until he spotted something even more unusual. Within the wreckage, the machine's gears clanking and clunking, struggling to move as they were intended, was a leather glove, even smaller than his own hands, with straps and fastners made of finely crafted metal.
"Is that..Silver? Hee hee hee! Nobody ever expects counterfeit silver! Outta my way!", Thought Plague Knight as he bounded forward into the smoke, ignoring the shouting of the guards, thinking only of the amount of food he could trade for.
Dodging springs and jets of steam, he yanked hard on the glove, feeling something solid within. Perhaps this time he could bring good food to Mona for once.
"Ahh! I really need this! Come on, you stupid thing!"
Struggling with all his might, he pulled and pulled and pulled until the glove, and all that was attached to it, came loose.
"What.", said Plague flatly, the machine clanking and billowing all around him. Before him was a small boy, even smaller than himself, with a slight pudge to his stomach and covered in extremely well-made protective gear from head to toe. He could barely tell what he was if it were not for the open faceplate.
"I Hope no one sees this! Hee hee!"
Hurriedly, he struggled to pull the gloves off of the boy, but he kept dragging his limp and unconscious body further and further to the side of the street.
"Come on, Come on!", he shouted. He exited the cloud of white smoke as the body in front of him scraped across the ground. Finally, he decided he had had enough, and took the boy's two arms around a lamppost. He had decided he would pry the gloves off even if the arms came with them.
Or at least, that is what he planned, until he heard the crowd behind the machine yelling as the strange contraption in front of him had just decided to completely break down and explode in all directions.
The while smoke that formerly was merely rising into the sky suddenly rushed out along ground level, finally clearing to reveal a hot, steam-burned pile of metal, still sizzling from the steam's searing temperatures.
"Young Master! Are you alright? Please be alright! Young Master!", a voice shouted out of nowhere. Plague jumped, quickly looking for an avenue of escape. However, as the smoke cleared, he found him and the young boy surrrounded by a sea of Red and Silver Uniforms. This...was not how he had expected his day to go.
"The Blacksmith's Guild? What are they.."
Suddenly, a weak voice cried out, barely more than a squeak.
"I'm..okay..he...saved me.."
Plague turned his head slowly and saw that the young boy he had tried to steal from just moments ago was in fact conscious, if just barely, and speaking.
A single voice yelled out from the crowd as a tall, broad-shouldered man pushed through the crowd. His unifrom had several badges, some of which stood out by virtue of their clashing green and gold.
"Stannum! My boy! Gods, are you alright?! Did this urchin..save you?"
His eyes, beady and lost in a fluff of thick eyebrows and full, graying beard, stared at Plague quizically.
"Father... yeah..he..did. I'm just a bit.. tired.."
The man immediately grabbed the small boy by the scuff of his collar yanking him up to his eye level.
"You Idiot."
The man spoke in a tone of disdain and annoyance, the boy's body struggling to get leverage on his arm so he could get enough wind down his throat to speak properly.
"Father..I.."
"You let a filthy urchin touch you. You destroyed guild property. You allowed the Argen name to become associated with the one thing it absoltuely, postively, cannot. Failure. You don't get to speak."
All the while, the man spoke barely above a boiling whisper, his voice smooth as any noble, with a hint of roughness poking above the water, enough to make the flow of his speech unnerving to the ear.
"I..I'm.."
"Don't. You. Dare."
The boy's voice was barely more than a squeak, and for the first time, Plague could see sweatstains forming along the thick leather of his protective suit.
The man put the boy down on his feet, while he immesiately stumbled and sank to his knees, shaking. In a brief pang of empathy, Plague winced when he saw the man he hoped was not the boy's true father give him a swift kick, to which he immediately straghtened up, standing still as a board.
All the while, the line of guildsmen standing behind the man blocking the crowd's view.
"As for you...you deserve compensation." The man's gaze pierced Plague's eyes, but he stood unflinching. "Jameson!", the man yelled, and one of the guildsmen immedaitely stepped forward.
"Give this boy here something, would you?"
Jameson reached into his pocket, producing a small bag, carefully wrapped and emblazoned with the insignias of both the Blacksmith's Guild and the Machinist Guild. He tossed it to Plague, careful not to get too close.
The man then bent down carefully, and looked Plague in the eye once more. "Our business is ended. I never expect to see you in my sight again. If you ever lay a hand on a member of the Argen family again, well, I wouldn't want to be you in that situation. Do I make myself clear, rat?"
Plague took a breath, and swallowed, biting his tongue to avoid spilling out what was bubbling within his stomach.
"Yes sir.", he said, as meekyl as he could muster. "Crystal Clear."
The man turned back, gripping Stannum's shoulder like a vice. The guildsmen behind him immedaitely parted, allowing him to turn and face the crowd.
"The Guild is here! All is present and accounted for! All damages can be billed to the Machinist Guild. Approach any of my representatives for compensation immediately. That is all. We apologize for this disruption in your routine."
Stannum and his father left with several of the guildsmen, while several stayed behind to asses and clear the damaged machine. The crowd, now disinterested, was beginning to disperse, as Plague could barely hold it in anymore.
In a flash, the young Alchemist darted into an alleyway, and took a deep breath.
"Hee."
"Hee Hee."
"Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee Haa haa haa hahaahahahahaha!"
Plague could no longer contain his laughter.
"Oh..Clear..Hahaha! Absoltuely Clear!" The gearworks of Plague's mind were spinning, faster and faster. He loved this feeling. The feeling of inspiration and ideas springing forth.
"This is going to be fun!"
Time had come to a standstill as Scruffs had spoken the final and most enigmatic words of the Axiom. Mona found herself caught in a wave of suspense she had not before thought possible.
What's going on? Is my time here done or whatever? I...
Alchemist. Do you understand?
Ahh! Who said that!? Is it you? , Mona would have leapt back in fear if she currently occupied a physical form, as she felt a somewhat familair voice address her directly.
Essence?
AHH YES! Finally someone calls me by my name! The voice seemed to be both happy and relieved, putting Mona slightly at ease.
I like you already. Listen, I know what you were trying to do. Let me tell you, you're going about this in a really risky way. You're lucky I found you floundering about the Aether or else we could be in a whole big bugaboo.
Mona barely supressed a giggle as she listened. Whoever Essence was, she seemed to be relatively pleased with Mona, something few people who knew her were.
Hey! It looks like I got a good crowd today. People usually don't laugh that easily at my jokes, hee hee. Ahem... anyway, you took a lot of big risks, but you clearly came for something. Everybody who gets here does. So what is it?
Uhhh.. I.. kind of...
Mona stopped. She clearly had done something that was supposed to be impressive. If she told Essence the truth she would probably just send her on her way and maybe even give her a scolding. However, if she gave a poor lie, Essence would likely think even less of her. She decided to split the difference and do what she did best, lie and tell the truth at the same time.
I want to learn more about Esoteric Alchemy. I'm... not in a position to find more texts. That Alchemist, he looked really confident, and I...
Oooh, I see. Well then! A student after my own heart! (Literally, hee hee hee). Scruffs is the best o'da best if you wanna see it in action. I'm more into the Exo side, ya know, potion bombs and all, but The Axiom was designed to increase Logarithmically in understanding at each level. You'll see what I mean with Scruffs here. I can't really help you get to where he's at, it's something you gotta do for yourself. If I told you any more it would be absoltuely EsoTERRIBLE! Hee hee! You could say Maria was doing something quite PROPHETable for all Alchemists when she discovered it! Hee hee haa!
Mona said absolutely nothing.
Ah well. Guess they can't all be winners. You wanna see Scruffs, I'll let it go for you. Here. Watch a master in action.
A bright flash appeared before Mona's eyes as she struggled to keep herself focused on the current situation. What she was about to see was far too valuable an experience to miss any details.
When her vision had finally cleared, Mona had found that the sky had exploded.
On its blooded corpse stood hundreds upon thousands of Alchemical circles, raining down spherical containers of powders and liquids of all shapes, sizes, and grades.
The army had dissapeared.
In is place stood a disorganized mass of molten warriors, their swords and bows struggling to hold their shape amind the chaos as the structural intergrity of the contstructed army simply could not hold against the incredible onslaught. Some fused together into horrific amalgamations that sauntered forward still, others barely hanigng on as they were reduced to particles beyond their lower limit of form, never able to form the invincible liquid soldiers that had so easily brought the land to its knees when the Wound in the World was still fresh so long before.
The sky returned.
The remants of the army charged forwards, some more teal, some more magenta, some patchwork quits of both, sectiosn of sword and bow melded together in their hands. What was once a Thousand was now a few dozen.
This..this is what an Alchemist can do?
The man called Scruffs stood upon a great chemical vat that had appeared beneath him in the air. Leaping off with exacting prescision, he vaulted to the ground in the mindst of the disheveled soldeirs now beginning to line up in front of him, the Vat crashing to the ground, its smoke covering the man in shadow, leaving only the illumination of his glasses.
"Enchantress Dhisana. I do believe I handed in my resignation quite a while ago.",
Out of Nothingness, a woman in a horned headdress cloaked in black and silver appeared above and behind the army, with a confident smile.
"I gave you everything, and this is how you repay me?", she gestured to the ruined land around her, and the army below, looking as if she was holding back a laugh. He said nothing in return.
"My my, Court Alchemist. You seem to be most ungrateful. In the courts of every other of my kin, their alchemists have shown the utmost loyalty to the keepers of the Ancient Towers and rightful rulers of the land. Is there any particular reason you find me deserving of this... temper tantrum?"
With a gesture of her hand, a ball of shining darkness shot forth and stood in front of her and the Liquid Army, extending their shadows. From these, identical soldiers came forth, slowly filling the ranks of what he had destroyed.
"You speak of betrayl? Yet you are the one who has betrayed all under your thumb with the promise of magic for the good of all. I have no use for you at this point in time. Now if you will excuse me..." Scruffs began to turn and walk away.
Dhisana's expression turned from complacency to dissapointment and disgust. Her nostrils flared and her eyebrows furrowed deeply. "You have no use for me?! It seems someone needs to be reminded of their place!" The Enchantress's hands erupted with fire as she hovered above the battlefield, her regenerating army ready to strike once again.
"My thoughts exactly.", said Scruffs, just barely under his breath, with a slight smile just barely peeking from the corners of his mouth.
Thaaaat's all ya get, ya nosy!
The voice said jokingly, as time froze once more.
Anything else? I don't want the timeline to get all bugabooed by this little tete-a-tete, as if I'll remember anyway. You know, Aetherial trans-temporal communication rules and all.
Yeah! Those Aether rules that everybody knows. Pfft..Seriously, Who dosen't, eh? Losers, that's who.
Mona struggled to think of anything else to ask Essence. Clearly, whoever she was, she was a prodigy on the subject of Alchemy, likely a master, perhaps even close to the level of a Prophitessa, and had somehow felt it was her duty to help Mona. She had so many questions that if she knew she asked, she would likely be found out as just somone who got here by a fluke. The last thing she wanted was someone else who thought less of her.
I...I do have one more question. I 'm trying to figure it out, something you said..
Shoot.
It's about what you said.. Logarithmically. So I'm pretty sure it's not about Logs, that would be kind of silly, heh. But Rhythym, perhaps.. not in music, exactly but maybe as in a sequence or pattern of things? Anyway, we learned about math Algorithms in school, so that seems like a more likely connection.. but..
Wait...You're not asking me... what Logarithmically means.. are you?
Well, yeah, if you could tell me it would make it a lot easier, you see... eh, yeah.
How... old are you, Alchemist?
Ten. Why?
Mona felt something in her throat drop into the pit of her stomach.
And you found me in the Aether.. But then.. Then you're.. but how?!
Essence's voice seemed to grow soft and cold, as if she was struggling to swallow water.
Goodbye... goodbye!
Mona's vision flashed in front of her face once more as more questions raced through her mind. She had no idea what Essence had meant, but her mind began to flow with new ideas.
Back in the land of the living, her eyes sprung open as she sprang up from the young Magicist's bed.
"AAAAH!", Mona screamed.
"AAAAH!", Maggie screamed. "Are you okay? I was so worried if you were okay! Are you going to be okay?!", said the young blonde as she bounced around the room in poses Mona could only describe as exaggerated interpretive dances expressing worry and panic.
"Yeah.. I'm...fine."
Mona looked around the room, the nervous girl having already brought in dozens of baskets of pastries. She was even holding one as she held her latest pose, giving a sigh of relief.
"YAY!", she yelled, some croissants leaping out of her basket as she bounced. " It would have been really bad if I invoted such a great magicist up to help me only have her die out of complete randomness..."
"Yeah, heh, I guess that would have been bad.", said Mona as she got out of the extraordinarily comfortable bed, scratching the back of her head.
"Though if you knew who I was, you'd probably be rewarded for it."
Mona looked around once more, seeing the room of a girl who had everything she could ever possibly want.
"So... how can I help you?"
"Ugh... I hope this won't be too boring.", said Maggie, her face slumped into a pillow.
"Itsh naht dat bahd.",said Mona, sitting at Maggie's desk, head over a schoolbook, all the while stuffing her face with pastry after pastry. Whoever had baked them was an exceptional patissier.
The girl in the rags stood up from the ornate chair, chocolate croissant in her mouth, and took a stance with her left foot forward, her head pointed straight at the hanging target, and right arm raised.
"Feel the mana from within you. Imagine it gathering on the lifeline of your palm, and call upon the passion within you to ignite that energy. Then focus your mind's eye on the target, and ..."
At that moment, a small sphere of flame shot out of Mona's hand, suring forward and creating a singe mark on the formerly clean bullseye of the target.
Maggie immediately sprang up from the bed and leapt over to the target, poking the spot with her finger.
"Ouch!", she yelled, immediately putting it in her mouth as Mona supressed a giggle.
"Ugh.. you really are a great sorceress!", she said, now kneeling on the floor. "Please teach me how to do that consistently!"
"I...I just read the book.", said Mona, dumbfounded. "What part is hard for you?"
It had been nearly a half hour since Mona had awoken from her trance, and Maggie had apologized profusely for anything in her room that may have caused her to pass out. Mona had made up an excuse about staying up too late and getting dizzy, but all the while she made sure to stay as far away from the wardrobe as she possibly could.
In truth, that was only the second time Mona had ever summoned a fire spell, the first being years ago when she was practicing summoning her mana for Alchemical transmutation in a manner suggested by Zosimos's tome, and had thought of a different route to go about doing so, resulting in quite a surprise. The method Maggie's text suggested was far more straightforward, given the desired result, so finding out why the girl could be having trouble with something like this was a clear priority.
"Um... let's see.. the part with the fireball...?" Maggie cocked her head to the side, struggling to think. Mona stared blankly.
"Huh."
"I..I mean.. when you make it go forward. I can't do that.."
Mona stood up, taking a bite of an Eclair.
"So.. you can summon your mana?"
"Yeah, yeah! I can totally do that! I can summon a whole bunch. It's just, when I think about getting it out, I can't concentrate... and... I.."
Maggie didn't continue her sentance, but judging from the marks on the wall around the target, she could guess what she meant.
"Hmmm..." said Mona, swallowing her food. If summoning mana wasn't an issue, she probably had mana to spare. When Mona found that she couldn't perfrom some alchemical formulae, it was because she symbols were simply too large and/or ornate, and she had trouble filling them to their entirety with mana before she tapped herself out. They were a far cry from Transportation Circles, which were only a few lines and took a negligible amount of mana to fill and activate.
"Can you... demonstrate for me?"
Maggie looked at her feet, then to the corner of the room. "Ahh! Um.. okay, but.. get behind something. Or maybe stand in front of the target. I dunno. From past experience that's probably the safest place you can be when I'm trying to cast a spell.", she said with a dsheartened grin.
"Hey! Don't think like that!", said Mona. "Magic is really tied to your mental state. I'll go...over there. Now I need to see you try."
Mona did her best to give an encouraging smile to a member of the group she detested so much, while helping one of them do the thing she despised.
Maggie nodded, and took the stance she had observed Mona take moments ago. She closed her eyes, and her arm began to noticably shake as she grimaced and began to sweat. Suddenly, her arm shook even more, and a bright flash of light shone across the room as a fireball the size of a head of lettuce rocketed out towards one of the room's upper corners.
"Ahh! Oh no, not again!", she yelled.
Mona ducked under the bed, peeking out in curiosity as the ball ricoched all around the room, leaving small scorch marks wherever it went as it slowly fizzled to nothing.
"Well.. that's an issue in spellmaking alright.", said Mona as she started to dust off her rags while getting out from underneath the bed, then realizing there was none, and shrugging in disbelief.
"You see!?", said Maggie, bounding over to Mona once again. "I can't do it!"
"Wooow. Hold a bit. Just wait.", said Mona as she grabbed the despondent girl by the shoulders. "What do you mean you can't. You just did!"
"Yeah, but.."
"Okay, so you need to work on your aim. That's...an entirely separate issue from being able to conjure fire. Who told you otherwise?"
Maggie looked towards her books, wincing slightly.
"The Magistra... she said that if I can't even do something so simple, there's no point in teaching me anything more advanced. I've been trying, but she said I lack 'a foundation'. I still read through all the books though..."
Mona walked over to her texts, looking through the beginning spellbook, skipping around until she found a suitable spell.
"Close your eyes.", said Mona.
"Huh? Okay.." Maggie shut them tightly, even though Mona didn't really intend her to.
"Now open them."
When Maggie did, she saw a page from the text shoved in her face.
"Ah! Huh? What?"
"Read this spell. When you're done reading, close your eyes again."
"But.. I can't see the whole thing.. I don't even know what the spell is for!"
"Its okay! It's nothing even remotely dangerous.", said Mona, forcing a cheeky smile.
Maggie did as she was instructed, and when her eyes shut tightly once again, Mona took the book away.
"Now, I want you to try it."
"Oh.. okay..but.. I.."
"Hey! Who's the Phantom Sorceress here? Do you doubt me?"
Maggie bowed profusely in apology as she shook her head furiously, her braids almost coming undone.
"Then.. go ahead! You can close your eyes if it helps."
Mona saw as the girl did as she said once more, her hands clasped together in front of her stomach. As the young magicist began to whisper softly, small blue wisps each no larger than a firefly began to gather in front of her. Mona watched in awe as they danced about, slowly coming together in the shape of an upside-down letter "J", as a glowing string of green danced over the top of all the wisps, conecting them together in their lighting of the room.
It was quite beautiful.
"Maggie, open your eyes."
Once again the girl did as she was told, and immediately fell backwards, covering her mouth in awe, as tears formed in her eyes.
"No...no way..no way.."
"Yes way!" said Mona. "I knew it. Lucky my first hypothesis was correct."
Maggie's tears began to flow profusely now as she found she could not stop herself from smiling, nomatter how hard she tried.
"It's..it's a bluebell...", she finally remarked, looking at the flower of light she had just created in her room. "I don't get it.. I couldn't even aim a simple fireball! How did you..."
"Key word there being AIM.", interrupted Mona. "I noticed your fireball was a lot bigger than mine. Mana control and gathering was clearly no problem for you. I thought that if I made you try a non-projectile based spell, you'd probably be able to do it unless there was another unaccounted-for variable. Lucky for us, there wasn't."
Maggie managed to tear her eyes away from her work long enough to look at Mona. "You.. you really do deserve this room more than me.", she said.
"No I don't. I don't know that much about magic. I just know how to learn. At least, I think I do. And I want to learn Alchemy. Plague and me together."
"Heh.. what are you talking about?", said Mona, brushing her hair back and turning away. "I didn't do anything. That spell was all you."
Maggie ran up to Mona and grasped her hands, falling to her knees. "All the Magistra... just kept on telling me that if I couldn't even do that.. I had no place being here.. that I was lucky to even be here. So I kept on trying.. Over and over.. I though I just couldn't do any magic, no matter how much mana I could gather, no matter how many books I tried to read, I could never do it."
Maggie stood back up, continuing while looking Mona straight in the eye. "You see, I thought that I'd never be able to cast anything!"
Maggie sniffled, as the ethereal bluebell finally began to dissepate. Mona stood back, her mind wracked with warring emotions, her stomach queasy.
"She.. dosen't seem like a bad person. But.. she's a magicist.. she has to be. Is she lying to me? Hiding something? Is this whole personality a ruse, like mine? But what reason could... Ughaaah! I'll... keep my guard up."
"Maggie.", said Mona, trying to sort everything through her head. "Why... why do you want to be a magicist?"
The blonde-haired girl stood back, looking towards her desk once more.
"Well.. it's because.. I think magic is beautiful."
The bluebell finally faded back into nothingness, as Mona stood in further confusion.
"Beautiful?"
"Mhm!", said Maggie, nodding while drying her tears.
"I...see." That response was decidedly... interesting. "In any case... I gotta go toooooOOOH CRAP!", Mona's mind flared with panic. She just realized she would be in for a world of hurt.
"The food! THE FOOD! I forgot I had to get back and cook! Oh No, OH NO. NONONONONO."
Mona immediately started running in circles, it was far too late to get back and start cooking. Everyone would be waking up and waiting for breakfast soon. This was the one job she was assigned that she actually enjoyed doing, and she had blown it.
Maggie looked up in bewilderment. "Mona!? What do you mean?!"
"It was my job! It's my job to cook for everyone and there's no time!", she yelled, pacing about the room.
"But..you're a kid? Why would you have a job like that?", said a puzzled young Magicist.
"I have to cook! It's my job at the orphanage!", Mona said, her eyes bulging as she stared Maggie down.
"WHAT?! That's not fair!"
"It dosen't matter what's fair. I have to do it!"
Maggie got up in a huff, and immediately walked over to her room's door. With great confidence, and her nose high in the air, she pulled a gold-colored rope, sounding a bell just outside her room.
Mona stopped. "Did she find me out? Is she calling the Magistra or the Guards? I've gotta be ready. Maybe I can use that girl as a hostage...ugh..maybe."
The young Alchemist's eyes sharpened as she prepared to fight for her life, the adrenaline in her system peaking as there was a knock at the door before she even realized what was going on.
Maggie opened the door respectfully, and a young maid in an apron had answered.
"Yes, Miss Margaret?"
"Good Day to you! I would love it if you could gather...Mona.. how many do you need?"
"..."
"Mona, how many?"
It took a few seconds for her to fully process the current situation.
"Ah, um.. sorry. How many what?"
"Pastries of course! How many do you want delievered?"
"Uh...Thirty, I guess?" What is going on.
"Wonderful!", said Maggie, to the servant. "Thirty it is. Have thirty of our finest pastries delivered to..."
Maggie looked at Mona once more.
"Oh! Um. Yeah. The Orphanage. Put it in my name?", Mona gave Maggie the address, who passed it on to the young maid.
"Absolutely wonderful, Miss Margaret. I assume this will be billed to your father's account?"
"Absolutely!", she said. "A charitable gift to orphans! I'm sure he'd love to have that on his register!"
"Very well, miss.", said the servant, smiling. Maggie closed the door slowly, smiling at Mona, whose jaw had since dropped to the floor.
Plague had picked up the trail of the young Stannum Argen, heir apparent to the burgeoning Machinist guild that was becoming the talk of Pridemoor as of late, after making a brief stop to take care of some urgent business.
"The Machinists... this is as good a time as any to get more information about them. As Gramps used to say, time to gather some data! Hee Hee!"
Plague had made his way back up to the rooftops, bounding across them as he had seen Gramps do so many times before. It always thrilled him, even as much as Gramps always broke out into a cold sweat and gave a huge sigh each time he landed near the edge.
"That kid.. I'm sure he saw me. If I can get to him and... oh.. hee hee hee! I can't pass this up! "
Thoughts raced through Plague's mind even faster as he bounded and dashed from awning to awning, lamppost to lamppost, and occasionally a tall person's head to wherever he could see. The guards moved quickly with the young boy, and the people in their path were always wary to move to the side at least five meters ahead of them.
"I think they'd actually be easier to follow if they were travelling by carraige! Sheesh!"
Finally, the procession ahead of him had no choice but to take the long way around a large block. This was at last an opportunity to get ahead of the group.
"I need to make it. Everything I'm planning right now depends on me getting to the blacksmith's guild first!"
Ahead of Plague was a narrow alleyway between the two blocks. As if to mock the owners, windows with small awnings were spaced at odd locations between each, the edges of which nearly scraped againt the side of the other building. Anyone inside would have a view of nothing more than a dirty brick wall and an even dirtier alleyway below.
Plague studied the layout as he had been taught to so many years ago.
Your size is not a weakness. You can use it to go places and travel in ways others cannot. Now come on, boy. If you truly want to learn from me, show me what I know you can do!
Plague leapt onto a crate, charging the switch that had been built into his boot.
"I'm just going to keep trying."
The energy charged below him exploded, rocketing Plague forwards and upwards towards the first awning.
"If I fail, I just keep going. It's not failing if I keep going."
Plague caught the edge and used his momentum to vault himself on top, using the tautness of the cloth to vault himself forwards once more clicking the switch in his boot with his big toe once more.
"This is what I want to do, so I'll do it!"
As he was about to fall short into the mess below, another explosion from the soles of his boots rocketed him forward onto an awning directly in front of him, this time the cloth nearly breaking under his increased momentum.
"It's because... I want you to teach me, Gramps."
Plague faltered in the air but, steadied himself by throwing a rock as he reflexively began charging a new burst.
"Teach me how..."
The final burst flung the young boy forwards onto the final awning. Daylight was just ahead as he gave a final, normal leap to the sidewalk in front of him, at last taking a deep breath before observing the plain-looking visage of the Blacksmith's guild.
"Teach me how to be an Alchemist!"
Plague casually crossed the road, minding any carts that may have passed, and threw a bit of extra dust on his face and hood as he put it over his hair. If for anything, the Blacksmith's guild was known for its lack of care for appearances.
The building, or rather, complex of smaller buildings each with their own chimney, was mostly covered in a thick tarp that stretched over the open air field used to store materials and products, with holes only for air to come in and the smoke of the chimneys to leave and not settle back in the main area. The entrance was also itself hooded, with a simple guard checkpoint at one end, and a small tunnel leading into the main forge area.
Plague adusted his throat as much as he could, hunched over, and gave a sharp bite to his lip. Casually, he approached the gate from the right, huddled and shaking.
"Excoos me? Mishter gaad?"
The posted guard turned his head to see anyone approaching, and then subsequently had to look down to see the person talking. The sight unnerved him.
"Yes, my boy?", said the guard, kneeling and trying to look the boy, who from his view couldn't have been more than seven or eight years of age. "Why are you here at the guild? This is no place for children so young."
Plague didn't know whether to be upset or not at the guard's suppostion.
"I... My Daddy works here.. but.. *cough*, I weawy need to see him. He towd me to get him if I stawted to feew sick. " Plague followed up with a cough that seemed to reverberate in his lungs. It was quite real, as he had saved some dust to swallow for just this occasion.
The guard backed away as quickly as he could without seeming insulting.
"I..I'm sorry, but it's far too dangerous in here for children. Perhaps if you tell me your Daddy's name I can come and get him to take you to your home, very far away?" The guard spoke with a slight tremble in his voice as Plague had to bite his lip again to keep from smiling. He swallowed another bit of dust and combined it with the blood from his lip, letting out a huge hack that seemed to spray bits of blood and mucus across the dirty sidewalk in front of them. The guard recoiled in disgust as he returned to his post, Plague quickly scribbling with the phlegm and blood in the ground as the guard spoke from a position of safety.
"P..please. I think you should really return home...", he said from the comfort of his box.
"Oh..okay! I'll go back to the Witch Yawd! I'm Sowwy...", said Plague, as the guard heard a small blast.
Coming out to see what had happened, the guard saw a cloud of dust, and a small crater in the ground. "Child! Are you alright? Are you hurt? What was that? Did you say...the Lich Yard?"
When the dust cleared, the guard stood in utter disbelief as the scene behind him, save for the small depression in the ground, was completely empty.
Then, he felt a tap on his shoulder, and a breeze blow behind him from within the hooded pathway.
"Are you my Daddy?"
Behind him, a child with eyes as black as coal, ditry water oozing from their mouth, and hands covered in a thick black sludge float genty behind him.
His face quickly turned to terror, and he tried to scream, but the shock was so great that he could not, as the child opened their mouth wide and grimaced.
Needless to say, the guard fainted, Plague's float burst wore off as he dropped to the ground, and the young boy spat the soot out of his mouth in disgust while washing the coal off of his eyelids.
"Pleh! Pleh! Hee hee!", he said in equal measures of disgust and joy as he dashed in the opened gate, using his rags to camoflague himself as he burst up to one of the low rooftops of the large, open-air area where guildspeople were too busy going about their business to notice him.
"Ah, it may not taste very good, but that bit never gets old. I'll have to rememebr to laugh about it some more later. Now... Just gotta wait for that kid.", thought Plague as he scanned the complex for any sign of a medical area.
The Blacksmith's guild itself was overall more spread out than built high, as it was one of the oldest guilds in Pridemoor. From what he had gathered, they mostly had an attitude of keeping to themselves, working hard, and filling their quotas. The very definiton of an honest worker. Thus, it came as a suprise to everyone when it had only been so much as a decade ago that the Machinists sprang forth from a cabal of high-ranking members (Themselves mostly self-chosen, as the Blacksmiths themselves put very little value on guild rank other than who got which orders to perform and supervise), packing up what was once a fairly large section of the guild in Pridemoor, transporting themselves far to the east in an old, abandoned fort closer to the dreaded Tower of Fate, and quickly transforming it into what would be known as the Clockwork Tower, a symbol of the might of the new guild.
Plague had met several blacksmiths in his time in Pridemoor, and most were as he had been told; honest, unassuming, and hardworking. If he could help it, and if they didn't make it too easy, he tried not to steal from them. Most of the time. He had to eat after all.
"It really depends on that kid. Depending on his personality, I can work with this either way."
Now, it was time to wait. The people he was expecting should arrive soon. Plague was a boy of many interests. Alchemy, for one, was at the top of his list. But close to that was something he had learned long before. Before Gramps had even found him among the people that used to use him. Before those people had found him among the others that died. Before he even knew it had a name.
Mona had called it Retribution, saying it more accurately described what Gramps sought in relation to the Magicists.
Plague, however, was more attached to the word that Gramps used. He loved the way it sounded and made his mind race. The feeling he got when he thought of it and ways to execute it. No one but no one would talk to him or Mona like that and get away with it.
Vengeance.
Yes, that was it.
"Are you sure it's this way?", asked Mona, currently being dragged by her hand in a vice grip by a budding magicist.
"Yes, this is it absolutely! I'm sure that his office is this way. I've been there a lot.", said Maggie, unaware of the implications of her statement.
Despite Mona's insistence on the need to help Maggie with her aim, the young girl was so overcome with joy at her successful casting of an illusion spell that she insisted that Mona be taken to Magistrato Baleon, headmaster of the school and 3rd in rank at the Magicist's Guild. It had been about five minutes since Mona had snapped out of the shock of Maggie taking care of her responsibility to the orphanage, and since Mona had voiced no objections to her suggestion, the Magicist simply dragged the girl by the hand out through the guild halls for several minutes until she had realized she was being transported against her will.
"I don't know about this. Are you sure I'm qualified?", Mona knew well enough that the girl was completely in awe of Mona's supposed magical talent. She just had no idea it would be this easy and this fast. To gain the trust of someone new, she and Plague had agreed that at least two demonstrations of value were required. One unintentional (on the part of the target's observation), and another intentional at the request of the target to show magnanimity. In this particular case the first had been unintentional from the perspective of both parties, but it had worked nonetheless, though for future situations she would like a greater deal of control over circumstances.
"Are you kidding!? I saw all those spells you did! You beat the test dragon! The upperclassmen use that for combat magic exams! ", the girl shouted with a smile as she picked up speed in the hallways that had transformed from dormitories to classrooms and offices, decorated with notices and marks of achievement throughout.
"You'd get in easy. Not only that, you helped me cast my first real spell!"
"But.. um.. Maggie, all I did was tell you to cast it. I didn't really do anything at all. I just pushed the book in your face. Your issue is with aim, which by the way we'll need to find the root of that problem eventually as well, not with controlled mana expression, or, I guess spellcasting in layman's terms."
"Argh.. see, look at all the words you know too. You're really smart, and..."
"I am not smart. I just read and apply what I've read whenever I can, and try to understand as much as I can. Plague... he's...he's a genius! I wish.. I hope..."
"Hello! Earth to Mona? Whatchya thinkin' bout?"
Mona snapped out of her throughts to see Maggie staring at her with slightly puffed cheeks.
"Ahh! Nothing.."
"Your cheeks were red.. what were you thinking about?", she said with a precocious smile that gave a more piercing demeanor to the young Magicist than Mona had yet seen.
This was not the conversation she wanted to be having right now. "Huh? Oh, Nothing Let's g.."
"Was it a boy?"
"Stop."
"Oh no... no.. it was.. about your aim.. I was having a few ideas and.."
"Oooh it was! It was! I can tell by your face!", she said with a gleaming grin.
"I'm not the one who's supposed to be being read like a book here! And besides, he's my best friend and partner in Alchemy!"
"No! It really was!"
Maggie started to laugh.
"I mean.. it really was about your aim!", said Mona, her face becoming even more red, so much so that It was starting to look like the decorations for the Saturnalia holiday.
"Ooooooh!", said Maggie as she playfully bounced around Mona, who was trying desperately to hide her blushing as the two ran down the halls.
"Ahh. As... I...was.. *huff*... saying.." Mona desperately tried to catch her breath as she ran, appreciating the energy she had when Two was out all the more. "Your aim... can you tell me more how your arm feels when you do it?"
Maggie scooted to a stop in front of Mona in a heartbeat, showing no signs whatsoever of fatigue. She had to give her that, at least, the tiny magicist had boundless energy.
"Welllllllllllllllll.", she said, rolling her eyes upwards and placing her index finger on her cheek. "I guess it kinda feels... sharp? I guess that's it. "
"Sharp? It couldn't be that simple. But then again..."
"Nevermind that, we'll fix it later. Let's go and get you signed up!", Maggie beamed confidently.
"Signed up for what, Margaret?", said a smooth, calming voice.
Mona turned around to see a rather tall man in flowing Magicist robes. His face was cleanly shaven and held a concerned smile, while his eyes looked between the two girls, from what could be seen behind his large glasses with rather circular lenses. He was of medium build, and seemed to be in his late twenties or early thrities. Mona tried to make out his hair color, but it was cleanly tucked away underneath his cap, also light blue with yellow trim.
"Oh! Magistrato Baleon! I was just looking for you!"
Maggie grabbed Mona by the shoulders and hopped beside her, hands outstretched and head bowed.
"If it was about your exam, I said you could retake it on the condition that you prac.."
"Ahh! Nonono.. this isn't about me, it's about her!"
Baleon bent over to get a closer look at Mona, his eyes squinting through his glasses. He got back up, and gave an exasperated sigh.
"Margaret, where did you find this poor girl? Her family is probably worried sick! Young Miss, I'm sorry if my student here forced you to be a party to any spellcasting practice."
"Acutally...", Mona started.
"ACTUALLY, we just kind of bumped into each other when I snuck down to the practice arena really early this morning and she was just there and oh gosh it was UNBELIEVEABLE she just went BOOM and POW and KABLOOEY and she bust up the practice dragon real good and it broke and I told her 'Hey I'm Maggie!' And then she said 'Hey I'm Mona!', and we talked and she's really cool and totally an awesome magicist and she helped me cast a spell and look I can do this now!"
Undaunted, Maggie closed her eyes and concentrated, creating the illusory bluebell directly in front of Baleon's face.
Mona stood back, a slight smile of pride crossing her face, as Baleon's glasses nearly dropped to the floor in amazement.
"Margaret...you...she...this girl taught you that?!"
Maggie did nothing but give a wide grin and shake her head repeatedly.
"So.. so let me get this straight.. I wouldn't believe this if I didn't see the results with my own eyes. Let me try to go back a bit and decipher Margaret's little dissertation back there. You, miss...?"
"Mona.", she said, trying to have as innocent a look on her face as possible.
"Miss Mona, yes, you were able to defeat.."
"Destroy.", said Mona, flatly.
"Destroy the test dragon? As well as teach this student who cannot even cast a fireball properly an advanced illusion spell? And all at your age? Without any kind of formal instruction!?"
Baleon straightened his glasses and gave a bewildered glare. The two girls simply stared at him blankly, the one in rags with a slight amount of impatience while the one in uniform started to bounce in place. "Well, how about we take a look see, eh? Children, come along!"
He motioned for the two to follow as he walked toward his target with a brisk pace.
"Maggie, when we get there, I'll see if I can help you with your aiming. I have a few ideas, but if it's anything like last time, this'll probably work out."
"Mona, you mean I'll be able to aim my fireball spell where I want to!?"
"Uh, yeah, if it works.", said Mona, grinning sheepishly while making sure the Magistrato could see her and hear their conversation.
"I need to get this guy to talk some more. He seems like an okay teacher as far as I can tell, I'm sure anyone who has spent any amount of time with Maggie would speak to her that way, so I don't think I've misinterpreted her personality. However, she did help me out big time, but she's also a Magcist? Argh! Okay, Mona. Let's take it one step at a time. This guy is gonna need some evidence that I'm some kind of magical prodigy. I can't repeat the dragon thing. He'd immediately be able to see I was just throwing potion bombs. Plus, I can't discount the possibility that he's familiar with some Alchemy. What do I..."
Mona was shaken from her daze by large snapping fingers in front of her face.
"B..wha?!"
"Young Lady, I was trying to tell you that we have arrived.", said Baleon. It appeared that while she was lost in thought, they had made it back to the arena that she had emerged from hours ago.
"Oh, of course, sir.", said Mona while trying to remain as polite and proper as possible, giving a slight curtsy. Baleon and Maggie stepped further into the room, as Mona followed more slowly and sat down in one of the many audience seats. It was at this moment that Mona happened upon an idea.
"That's it, I can use Maggie! As long as I contrast myself with her I should be able to buy some time for him to at least consider someone as composed and analytical about magic as he seems to be with apparent skill and talent, should get him to think about it; not that I know any of the specifics yet. I'm gonna need to do something impressive for him to see here and now though. Gotta think.. come on, come on..."
Meanwhile, the soft "clink clink!" of the glasses of a relatively young Magistrato could be heard falling to the arena floor.
"Seeeeeeeeeeeeee? Toldya toldya toldya!", said Maggie as she bounded around Baleon, whose mouth was agape at the ruins of what was formerly a very expensive piece of testing equipment and gift from another guild.
"But...how?!"
That was all the 3rd ranked member of the Magicist's guild as well as school headmaster could get out of his mouth as thoughts raged in his head like a storm. His mind first went to the idea that this was an elaborate prank by someone trying to climb the guidl ranks, or perhaps an overzealous senior student, but surely they would have left some sort of residual mana, or the telltale sign of advanced spellcrafts use to elegantly attack and dismantle it. Surely a senior student would know the ramifications of such an act as well.
But the dragon he saw showed no signs of such a thing , as he saw the young unfortunately-hued child before him approach Margaret once more. Getting closer for a more detailed examination as the two girls looked to be discussing something, he saw that the dragon was rather inelegantly dismantled. The edges of the wooden parts were not cleanly cut, but instead broken at odd splinters and charred at the edges. The metal bindings and gears were melting. This was not the result of an advanced magicist showig their skill in the complexities of spellmaking. If anything, the means of destruction had to be extreme physical force caused by the extreme exertion of a great pool of mana into more basic spells. Such senseless destruction would not have earned very many marks or impressed any of the senior Magicists. Whoeever had done this was was someone who both posessed considerable magic potential and utter ignorance of what the Guild's Academy used for scoring and ranking. In other words, the work of a Child Prodigy. An asset to not only the school, but the future of the Magicist Guild.
At that moment, a fireball shot out from the young Margaret's hand, and went straight forward, hitting one of the many targets that had fallen off of the formerly great mechanical beast. The young student gave an ear piercing squal of delight as she leapt and hugged the poor green girl, whose arms were flailing as she nearly fell backwards struggling.
Some way, some how, she had just taught the unteachable young writeoff how to correctly aim her most basic spell. Baleon smiled. There was little doubt in his mind, but the proper protocols must be adhered to, of course. Casually, he walked up to the two girls, the one in uniform having finally let go of the one in rags. Smiling, he extended his hand to her.
"Young Lady.", he said, fighting to hold back his swelling anticipation. "How would you like to become a Magicist?"
"No sir! No no no! I'm quite sure I checked it! You don't really look like you know what the problem would be, anyway!"
The young inventor shouted, while ripping off his welding mask revealing a bird's nest of red hair dripping with sweat. His freckled face looked slightly less so as his cheeks were red with anger at the adult man he was currently infuriated with.
"Young Master, I'm dreadfully sorry for doubting you, but...", the older man in the Blacksmith Guild's version of formal attire bowed graciously as he winced in anticipation of his inevitable interruption.
"But nothing!", yelled the young boy as he grabbed at his collar, revealing a bright red mark. "I triple checked those plans! The steam engine is just like the ones grandma makes at the tower! It worked just fine until today!"
Undaunted, the young boy pulled out a pair of glasses from his heavy apron's pocket. They were square with thick metal frames that looked as if they had been welded and re-welded several times over. Stannum enjoyed wearing them as he felt they helped cover up his rather puffy cheeks and made him look even slightly older. With fury belying his form, he ripped a rolled schematic off of the desk in the unusually clean room in vast complex of the Blacksmiths' Guild, and pinned it to a board hanging on the wall with alarming speed.
"Look at this! This is exactly how I built it. Now, can you tell me anything that could possibly be wrong with it!?" The boy glared daggers at the older man as he could say nothing as he took out a magnifying glass to examine the intricate detail of the drawing that outlined every last bolt, screw, and piston of the small vehicle that the boy had designed and built himself. Indeed, not a single error could be seen in its design, or course, the older man did not spend nearly as much time with machines as the young boy did.
"Young Master, I am at a loss.", said the older man, eager to stop babysitting and get back to his actual work in the guild. He was not a Machinist himself, after all. "Perhaps if you take your father's advice..."
The boy's face swelled and got even redder as his freckles blended with his fury. "FINE. GO.", he said while rolling his eyes so viciously they nearly fell out of their sockets. That was all the older gentleman needed, and with a sigh of relief and resignation, left the young boy's tent.
Stannum Argen was a genius. He knew it. Granma knew it. Even people that didn't really care for him knew it. Casually, he placed an old wrench in his hand, and tapped it against his head lightly in a ritualistic effort that he told himself was to stimulate his brain.
"This isn't really something someone of my caliber would do.", he thought. " But it always seems to get the gears moving."
Cautiously, he moved over to the schematic, squinting his eyes to examine and compare every last detail of the design. It seemed like an obvious idea to him. Steam engines were already being used in their factories to create goods at a steady pace. Granma had already approved his prototype. If she couldn't see a problem with his steam-driven vehicle, why could there even be an issue in the first place?
"She just approved it so I would stop bothering her."
The thought made his heartbeat slow and had him break out into a cold sweat, dropping his wrench on the floor. She must have known he would test it. Maybe she had that much faith in his abilities?
"She didn't care either way."
The thought pounded at his chest like a hammer, making him take a few steps back. No. Granma was not the same person as his father. He knew that better than anyone.
"I'm the Tinkerer, right... Granma?"
It was at that moment that Stannum Argen sought to turn back to his design, when he felt a piece of hard metal at his foot a second too late, and fell flat on his face as he had tripped over his own lucky wrench.
"You were sabotaged, dummy.", said a voice from the celing.
Stannum leapt to his feet in a panic, surveying the room for anyone who could have come in while he was dazed.
"Who's there! Show yourself! I'm not a dummy!", he shouted, wielding the instrument of his recent embarassment like a deadly weapon. He looked all around, seeing nothing in his room out of order, until he felt a tap at his shoulder.
For one second, he froze. But in the next, he immediately turned around and threw his lucky wrench, which missed the figure directly behind him and went clear over his head. Panicking, he leapt back, getting a closer look at the somewhat familair figure chuckling in front of him.
"Hee Hee Hee! Oh wow. Sorry about that. But I just thought you'd like to know some information I'd come across."
The taller boy (in comparison) was clearly a street urchin. Dressed in little more than dirty rags, his messy black hair nearly exclipsed his somewhat protruding nose, which covered an otherwise unremarkable face. He would have called for help immediately had he not known who it was.
"You...you saved me.", said Stannum, getting to his feet. He frowned slightly and furrowed his brow at the surprise intruder. "My Father already repaid you, so what are you doing here, breaking into my room? You think I owe you? I have important work to do!"
The other boy closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath while seeming to be lost in thought. He then opened his eyes, his face contorting into a friendly smile.
"I'm sorry, sir!", he said, with a voice hovering between flatness and geniune apology. "I couldn't think of any other way to get to you secretly. Saving your life would be wasted if you were simply going to die later today. I had to come and tell you!"
Stannum's face grew less fierce and more pale as he sat on a nearby stool. "What do you mean die later? And sabotage? Why would someone want to kill me?" Then, it just dawned on him. "W..wait. Someone sabotaged my steam engine vehicle!? You mean it wasn't my fault?!", he said, his face beginning to beam, forgetting all about the rest of his situation.
"Yes, I figured the young genius of the Machinist.."
"Blacksmith's.", Stannum corrected, looking downward.
"Blacksmith's? But you.."
"My Father is the Guildmaster. He said that I'd be a great blacksmith."
The other boy in the room began to slowly circle him like a vulture, looking in particular at his arms and top of his head. He knew what he was thinking, and he was correct in that there was no way his physique could ever be used for Blacsmithing, let alone becoming a great one.
"But isn't...", he started.
Stannum motioned for the other boy to sit on the bed in his room, which he did with a curious bounce in his step.
"Never mind that for now.", he said. "Who wants to kill me. How? Why? I bet they're jealous, just like Granma says!"
"Hee hee... Ahem, I guess you could say that's part of it, I wouldn't know. But all I did was overhear some people talking. One was a man who said something like ' I'm gonna get that Machinist Kid! ' and the other was like ' See that you do. He cannot be allowed to ruin the plan.'. "
Stannum stared at him as if he had just some down in a beam of light from the fireplace. "That...sounds like something really made up."
"I did hear them say it! Hee! One guy was this grungy looking man with a scar on his eyebrow, while the other I really couldnt see that well. It was right after your father left you choking on dust."
Stannum couldn't believe the outrageous story that he had just been told. If the storyteller had told him something like that, he would not have paid him a single gold piece! Yet.. he couldn't deny that this was the boy who had saved his life. With no reason to help again, he had snuck into the guild and warned him that someone would try to put him in danger again. Worse still, this someone had ruined months of work on a machine that was supposed to show his father where he really belonged! Instead, he was broken and humiliated for something that wasn't even his fault. Stannum grabbed at the mark on his neck, furrowing his brow and staring daggers at the schematic on the wall.
"Yahh! It's all his fault!", he yelled out as he ripped the complex drawing off of its bindings and onto the floor, stomping on it. The boy now bouncing slightly on the bed seemed to be biting his lip fiercely as he got up, holding his hands out in a subtle attempt to calm the young inventor.
"Hey, it's okay . Hee hee! It's why I came to warn you. Now, we can..."
"I'm telling Father! He'll make that rotten snake dissapear! Just like.."
"WAIT.", shouted the other boy, grabbing Stannum as he was about to march out the door. " I don't know your father as well as you do, but he clearly values strength. How ideal would it be if you, with some aid from yours truly, of course, hee hee, captured him on your own?"
Stannum paused, for a moment insulted that he hadn't come up with the idea first. Just who was this mysterious boy, and why was he going so far to aid him? How much information did he have, exactly?
"Who are you, anyway?"
The boy Paused, giving a curious smile, and a slight bow. "Name's Crow T. Busybody. Freelance helper and hand in the shadows, at your service. Hee hee!"
"You.. laugh a lot, Crow.", said Stannum, about to go through the opening in his tent quite certain one of those things he had just stated was made up.
"Really? I guess I didn't notice. What can I say, I'm in high spirits when helping an innocent in need! Now, I just so happen to know where that man is going to be. What do you say we bring him in front of your father in chains, eh? I wonder what he'd say about failure then?"
"Let's go, Crow. You're with me." Stannum's face was embolded with a look of vengeful determinaiton as the smiling taller boy followed behind him. He cared little about what Crow said save for the fact he had been sabotaged, and led him out of the Blacksmith's guild with everyone in their path giving them a wide berth through the soot and gravel.
"Right this way, Mr. Argen!", said "Crow", as the two turned out of the guild entrance. The gate guard, currently being chewed out by his superior for fainting at his post, barely giving them a passing glance.
"Call me Tinker.", said the smaller boy, his gaze directly in the way of the taller boy's path.
"Really? Okay, if that's what you prefer. Any reason why?", said Crow, giving a slight look backwards as he stepped up his casual gait to maintain a few steps in front of the smaller boy.
"Because I fix things that are broken. Nomatter what they are! And especially if I'm the one who built it!"
Plague was about to tell him that Tinkering did not necessarily mean to fix something, but he decided to leave it be. He wouldn't want to be late for their appointment.
"I'm not going to be late!"
Mona's last words to the Magistrato echoed throught the Guild's Academy as the young girl bolted with greater speed than she had thought capable back to Maggie's room.
"No time, no time, no time!", she whispered to herself as she flung open the door, causing a loud crash as the door collided with the innocent wall on the other side, making a lasting impression.
"Mona? Are you okay?", asked Maggie, peeping cautiously around the corner to her own luxurious abode, as she could see books and parchment fly as Mona's head became buried in a flood of open books and notes. What exactly had she unleashed when she gave her new friend permission to use her room to take some notes and look at the textbooks she never had access to before?
"Okay, Okay, let's see. If I was testing someone for free tuition to a prestigious institution, what exactly would I want from them... besides gold, which Ironically I wouldn't have a problem giving him if he were a completely gullible idiot. Argh! Okay, okay. Specific knowledge. Let's see, what do they value here..."
Mona thought about what little she knew and had heard about the Magicist Guild Academy. She had feigned interest before at the Orphanage when she was feeling particularly bold to keep up appearances, so she knew it was quite old. Indeed she had seen here that historical records and murals were placed everywhere, and even the newer parts of the building seemed intentionally designed to evoke a feeling of worn-in nobility and presence. Clearly, a familiarity with important Magicist Alumni and events in the school's history would put her in at the very least immediate good graces with any examiners who took pride in the school.
"One. School history. Just replace 'Magicist' with 'Alchemist' in your mind every time you say something out loud. That should be enough to sound convincing. Admiration and detail will be key! This'll be just like school. Just give a few details and some kind of hint at a deeper understanding(Even if I don't really) and they'll think I'm a frogging genius, or well, at least knowledgeable. Can't get too confident. Backup plans. Use Alchemic association to remember more Magicist-related details than I would understand otherwise. Make longer inferences than they would expect. Use big words, and act like you understand perfectly."
Okay. Okay. There it was. Her plan of attack for appearances. She still knew little about magic itself, and needed to do the actual legwork. Mona began fumbling through Maggie's stacks of books, reading introductions and taking minor notes as fast as she could. The rush was palpable as she stuffed croissant after croissant down her gullet, writing as fast as she could with her free right hand.
"Two. Practical Applications. Spells. Just flippin' perfect. That fireball was the only real spell I actually know! Gathering mana at least isn't a problem, but I'm fairly certain the Magicist over here knows more about that than me. I'm far from one to recognize it, but that Bluebell illusion seemed fairly complex. If her Magistra weren't so stubborn she'd probably be doing just fine. Then again, I wouldn't even be in this position if that was the case. Ahh! Anyway, Spellcasting. I'm gonna have to fake it."
Mona gave a slight "Heh." as she sported a small crooked smile while wiping sweat off of her brow, deeming the latest book she'd skimmed far too specific. She at least was able to glean that the current Guild was put in place as a compromise hundreds of years ago between the the ruling royal family and a noble family that had forsaken their noble titles to pursue magical knowledge independantly. Of course, with this being an amicable split, everyone knew presently the Magicist Guild had extremely close ties to the Nobility. Many would say they were commoners in name only.
"Faking that's gonna be fun if I can figure out how. I'll see their smug faces look in awe and wonder, having no idea what they are witnessing is the power of Alchemy!"
Mona sat up, grinning even wider, not noticing Maggie holding a long piece of measuring tape alongside her arm. "Heh.. Yeah! I can't wait!", she said out loud in a fit of joy as she leapt up from her seat, startling the young magicist who was quick to hide her tool behind her back.
"Yeah yeah yeah!", said Mona, now running around the room, something she rarely got to ever do.
"Um... Mona, are you feeling okay?", said Maggie with some concern.
"Never better!", said the Alchemist. "This really gets my brain working overtime!" Mona took a small but graceful leap as she pondered the last notes she took, connecting them in her head as she placed her foot against the wall, vaulting herself into a flip.
"Wow! You're pretty good at that!", said Maggie, trying to make conversation with the formerly reserved girl who was now a cyclone of activity. "Do you take dance classes?"
"Dance?", said Mona, while trying to tie the amount of magical trivia she had absorbed to Alchemical symboloy she had long memorized. "I don't really take anything. Orphan, remember?"
"Oh, right. Sorry..", said the young magicist, looking down and away at her own forgetfulness. . Maggie watched her move around the room with such a natural grace that that fact had slipped her mind for that moment. "It's just that... the way you move.. it'd seem like you would enjoy it. Maybe... I can show you sometime? You've helped me so much after all!", she said with a slightly embarassed smile.
Mona had known some dances from school, when she was very young, but they seemed more about teaching numbers and letters than anything else. If she refused outright, Maggie might think she had no interest in her friendship. That was the truth, but it was not what she wanted her to believe.
"I...guess.", said Mona, finally running herself out of breath as she slumped back to Maggie's desk to read and take more notes. "Maybe after all the tests."
Maggie smiled brightly, as Mona ever so slightly rolled her eyes straight back into her book. She was sure nothing would ever come of it, anyway.
The gold coins, expertly carved and minted by the royal treasury, rolled and bounced between Plague's fingers before falling back into a small brown satchel as he leisurely jaunted forward with a bounce in his step. The red-headed boy behind him had his gaze firmly placed on Plague's back, determined to follow him to wherever his target was. However, they could not help but wander to the trick show being put on display by his hand and the objects dancing upon it.
"That money my Father gave you... how much was it?"
Plague paused, turning his head slightly to the left so his eye made slight contact with Tinker's. "Ten Pieces. Ten big ol' G's. I wish I had a dad who thought my life was worth that much. Hee Hee Hee."
The red-headed boy's gaze lost its sharpness, still focusing forward, but on the Raven-haired boy's ratty clothes. "Three and a half Fariths."
Plague paused, the smaller boy nearly bumping into him as a result." Excuse me?", he said with a slight upward inflection.
"That's the conversion to Imperial Money. ", he said with a dull monotone.
"Why on Earth would that matter?"
"My Granma told me, in the Empire, there's a price for most everything. Books, houses, land, noble titles, you name it."
"Wow. Sounds like a pretty fair place. If you don't think too much about it. Hee..."
"Loyalty.", he said, just barely under his breath.
"Excuse me one more time? You're going to have to speak up.", said Plague, now fully turned around mroe engaged as the two boys stood in front of an alleyway, the setting sun slowly lengthening their shadows jsut enough to barely touch the tips of the buildings on the other side of the road.
"There's an old Imperial fable that Granma told me."
"You... know a lot about the Empire. But you don't seem to have an accent. Relatives from there?"
"Granma's husband, my... Grandfather I guess, was an Imperial. But I never knew him. She tells the coolest stories about how much we learned about Engineering from the Empire. They have machines that FLY! Can you believe that?! Can you even imagine building something that amazing? How many problems that fixes? They learned so much from studying the Tower of Song. It's so tall it's supposed to stretch into the clouds! That's where the Empress lives, and.."
"I hate to interrupt, and it's not like I'm not interested in the rest of your story, but we're right here. I'd hate to tip him off.", Plague stated, while holding his hand in front of Tinker's mouth. He did want to know more, and why a citizen of Pridemoor, infamous for its stance against Mediterra, would be so excited about this, but it was neither the time nor place.
"Oh, yeah.. right.", he said, his cheeks turning a slightly lighter shade of red than his hair. "You have a plan?"
Plague smiled. "Indeedy I do! Crow T. Busybody is nobody's fool, I can assure you of that." With that, Plague winced slightly as the two started into the alleyway.
"We're kind of alone in here... maybe I should have brought a guard along?", said Tinker, nervously looking over his shoulder as their surroundings got dirtier and muskier in the growing shadows. Plague could see he was already thinking of heading back towards the street, until a shadow emerged from behind the two boys, and cleanly knocked the smaller one out with a single hit.
"And now we get to this..", said Plague as a shadow came down upon him in the next instant.
...
Stannum Argen, the Tinkerer of the Blacksmiths, awoke with his head throbbing and his vision blurred. His welding mask had been removed, lying casually on the dusty wooden floor next to him. Even with his glasses, which were somehow still on his face, the dizziness of the sudden blow made up more than its fair share of the difference for detrement to his vision.
"C..row..", he spat out slowly, having now sustained another serious injury on the very same day his vehicle had crashed.
"That Guy!", he thought, snapping himself back into reality. "He sabotaged my vehicle and now he's kidnapped me?! Ooohh! And some help that Crow kid was! 'Nobody's fool' indeed."
As his vision returned, so did some of his strength. The red-headed boy found that his legs were unbound, and hopped to his feet, wobbling ever so slightly as his hands had been unfortunately bound behind his back.
"Whoever it was, he wasn't even smart enough to gag me. Now let's see what we've got here..."
Looking around the room, he saw rakes, shovels, and spades of all shapes and sizes, along with bags of seed and hay. Based on what he had been told by his father, the Agricultural Guilds usually kept their equipment in large storehouses, and the room he was trapped in, with only a small window to let in the ever-darkening light, seemed fairly well kept and free of dust, and a thick, newish-looking wooden door that was clearly locked. If this was a guild storehouse, it probably was not a disused one, and thusly one where he would be found shortly if not moved quickly.
"Clearly, whoever this loser is, he's not very bright. I'd put me in some kind of abandoned storehoue behind several sets of doors in an area near where animals are kept to drown out any yells for help, and for the odor to both gradually break down the prisoner's will and dissuade anyone else from getting near. I'd also chain their feet, and..."
He then realized that thinking of ways the kidnapper could have done better was probably not very productive, and set his eyes on a nearby door, grabbing a small shovel off of the wall after wriggling out of his poorly-done bindings. To his surprise, however, the shovel and the equipment near it had apparently borne the weight of some horsecollars behind them, sending them crashing to the ground with an echoing Thud.
"Oh scrap.", he thought. It was at that moment, howver, that he heard a familiar voice through the door.
"You never said there was going to be a person inside the thing! Of course I saved him!", the unmistakably shrill voice of Crow T. Busybody echoed.
"I don't know what you're saying. You were completely clear that I get the money, why do you care now?", said another voice, low and slow sounding, but very annoyed. It was very likely the man that had taken the two boys.
"I take money for a lot, but never someone's life. I'm calling this off! Hee!", spat out Crow, now seeming even more enraged.
"Did Crow...was he?"
"You're really stupid, you know that, boy? First the bloody man tells me to work with you, and just because you missed a little detail, you wanna go back? There ain't no going back on thigns like this, ya twit! Now I say we follow the final instructions and gut the little pig like we were told!"
Stannum then heard a large fist slamming down upon a table, scattering what were likely more gold coins onto the floor.
"No. I signed up to break a machine. Never to kill anyone! You may be too drunk to remember the job right, but that's all you told me!"
"I've just about 'ad it with you. You know something, you fancy yourself a little smart alec yourself I bet, just like 'im? But you're no smarter than me. Now tell me, what's stoppin' me from taking all the money right now, and gutting ya both?"
Silence.
"That's what I..."
The sound of a loud explosion was heard as screams filled the air. From beneath the door, smoke and the sound of expletives Stannum may have heard his father yell several times in the past seeped in, as he heard the lock undoing.
Wasting no time, the young Engineer leapt at the ready through the thick smoke, shovel in hand. However, he then saw the gaunt form of Crow T. Busybody throwing something at what seemed to him to be a man made of muscle. The object made a tremendous sound, and the man's form careened to a halt as it hit the floor, his eyes barely open, as the red-haired boy now stood over him. With a swift whack, the shovel hit his forehead cleanly, and he was out cold.
As the smoke cleared, he stood at the ready, seeing Crow standing near the table.
"So... how much did you hear...hee hee?", said Crow, his face looking downward and sullen at the floor now scattered with black dust.
"You...you're the one who sabotaged my Steam Vehicle! That's how you knew!" Stannum wanted to be angrier, but given what had just happened, he couldn't bring himself to be. Before today, the worst thing he could possibly think someone could do to him was to break one of his machines.
"Yeah... I'm sorry. I got in the same way I got in to talk to you. But I didn't know you'd be in it! I'd never want to hurt someone! Well, someone that didn't deserve it. Hee..."
"Yeah... I kinda gathered that from what I heard. But why did you bother coming back to me? Why would you lead me back to that guy? You didn't want me to get hurt, right?", said the engineer as he planted the shovel into a small hole in the floorboards.
"I... I hate being tricked. I know I tricked you, but I thought it was the only way you could learn the truth."
Stannum's heart sank slightly. "What do you mean, the truth?"
"I had to come back to him... to get this." Crow slowly took a piece of parchment from the folds in his clothing, and handed it to the Tinkerer of the Blacksmith's Guild.
He read:
To whatever ruffian this may fall into the hands of, it is your lucky day. This contract with the enclosed sum will ensure the stable future of The Guild. Your task is to ensure the testing of the newly built machine in the Garage belonging to the small boy does not go as planned. You are to follow the the enclosed schematic exactly, and destroy it upon completion of this task. Failure to do so will result in this contract becoming null and void.
I expect the machine and all components within it to completely break down. Permanently. If not, we are not unreasonable, and some parts may prove more resilient than others. Regardless, upon completion of this task, you will be rewarded with Loyalty, with the conditon that this missive in and of itself is destroyed.
A Concerned Patron
Stannum's hand began to shover, and tears tarted to form in his ever-widening eyes as he gripped the parchment ever harder.
"When I went to break your machine, he promised me half the gold. He was also really drunk at the time, but they don't call him Hangover Jack for nothing. He said all I had to do was follow the schematic, then destroy it. I just guess I followed instructions better than he did. I didn't even know about the full note until after everything. When we were going to split the money, he told me he'd just take all of it unless I brought you back so he could finish things. That's when I knew I had to let you know, for your own future safety, and also prove it to you so you wouldn't think I just made it up. I'm.."
Stannum could not stop shaking as his mind tried to rationalize something terrible. "Rewarded with... Loyalty." The old imperial fable, which if Gramma had told him, then she must have also told his father. The one about how Empress Maelle the Crosswind, later known as Maelle the 1st, subsumed the Black Isle into the Empire over 700 years ago.
"Clink, clink, clang, went the two and a half Fariths as they fell to the floor.", the words echoed in his mind. "From the chief's head no sound at all, his mouth moving nevermore."
"Such is the price of loyalty. Two and a half, but never three."
It was one of his favorite stories. Maelle the Crosswind was a genius ahead of her time, just like he knew himself to be.
"Two and a Half, but never three. I...can't..", he said out loud, noticing a small satchel with the symbols of the Machinist and Blacksmith guilds pressed onto it attached to Hangover Jack's belt.
"Listen, I'm sorry that I tricked you, but I thought you.."
"NO!", shouted Stannum." I don't think I would have believed this any other way, actually. You're.. smart for someone so poor."
The young Tinkerer thought he saw Crow's eye twitch slightly, but the taller boy's mouth contorted into a sympathetic smile.
"I'm glad I could help you, but from your expression, I'm guessing that we can't just take this thing to the town guard."
Stannum wiped away a tear as he gave a stuttered chuckle. "H..ha! Clearly my F.. whoever in the guild sent this was pretty high up. They'd make it dissapear, just like the others."
"I've got a bit of an idea. Hee hee hee!"
Stannum paused, looking downwards and smiling slightly as the waning sunlight streaming through the window turned his glasses an opaque white. He had an idea of what he was about to hear.
"I've sadly worked with swillheads like Hangover Jack in the past, but never with someone as respected and admired as you. I can be your eyes on the street! Anything I can dig up for you on whoever set you up for this, I'll get straight to you, no charge!"
The Tinkerer smiled. "My own ally in the shadows, now that's something every strong hero in the stories has! You've got a deal, um...friend. But I think you might need a bit of help."
The red-headed boy reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a ring of keys on a chain. He saw Crow's eyes widen.
"A...are you sure?"
"We're in this together. You got tricked too, and to really help you'll need access to our facilities. These keys open anywhere my Father can go, and he can go just about everywhere in both of the only guilds that count!"
Carefully, he placed them in Crow's hand, as the other boy took them into his pocket.
"I'll guard these with my life, I swear it, Tinker! You can count on me 100%! Hee hee, yeah!", said Crow as his eyes seemed to beam with pride and joy. Tinker could only guess that poor people were easily amused by gifts, but Crow did genuinely seem like one of the good ones.
"The Tinkerer and the Crow... pretty cool sound to it I admit." Stannum did truly like how it sounded, though he knew that however this turned out, the poor boy's name and deeds would probably be lost to history without him.
As Stannum turned to leave, he felt Crow grab at his shoulder one last time. "Before you go.. I just wanted you to know... Your dad is jealous of you. I can see it. In terms of intelligence, I could see, you're way stronger than him. I think we just gotta prove it to him. We'll get whoever sent this, and really show him!"
Stannum Argen, Tinkerer of the Blacksmiths and heir to the only two guilds that mattered, gently shrugged his hand off, and continued to walk out the door. "We'll show him. I know it.", he said, walking out the door.
Plague made sure to see him out the door, well on his way back home to surely plot some kind of way to stand against the Father so subtly hinted in the note he wrote as the sender of the message.
He saw the magicists employed by the city start coming up the streets and filling the lamps with the light from their wells of mana that would last until the early morning. They were easily recognizable by their light blue robes and jugs of mana-infused liquid they had to constantly drink while working to keep pace and light the entire city. As he looked upon the familiar, comforting sight from a rooftop he did not particularly favor over any other, his thoughts turned back to the person that he knew would be there.
"I hope Mona is okay. She's a better Alchemist than me, and knows more words than me, so she'll probably be fine. If I can pull one over on that self-styled genius, she could probably have the magicists eating out of her hand if she ran into one! Hee hee hee!"
With a quick, stealthy leap and a short burst to ensure he didn't break any bones, he found himself back at street level, and walking back towards Gramps's hideout.
"I don't think I could have sealed the deal if I didn't know 'Loyalty of the Crosswind', and add that bit to the end of the note before he saw it. She told me that story. It's like she knows everything! One day, I'll catch up to her. One day. Just you wait, Mona! Hee hee!"
"I don't know anything! Anything at all! Argh!", screamed Mona inside her head as she raced along the city streets, the novella's worth of notes in her backpack shuffeling around, now illuminated with magical light.
"Anything about Magic! I mean.. anything that anyone who hasn't looked up the basics woulnd't know. I wrote down a lot more that I don't fully understand... but if I try to say any of it or use it in a conversation and end up being wrong in my assumption I'll look like a complete fake! Argh! Nevermind the Practical Evaluation.."
The young girl looked forward and down at her path to the place she had come into earlier that morning, the large covered town square. Curiously, it looked as if one of the building's support struts had been paritally burnt, and someone may have been selling some scrap metal right below it. Bits and pieces remained of what was probably a much larger pile. Mona shook her head to clear it, and continued into the structure, down the ladder to the lower level where several underground pubs were beginnging to fill with Guildsmen who had completed their day's work. Musicians were beginning to set up on a stage, while, bartenders lined up their bottles on well-worn shelves and tables.
In some ways, Mona much preferred a filling crowd of adults to a sparse one, as they were less likely to notice someone of her particular tone and not drunk enough to become as uninhibited as other children, nevertheless with much more power behind any potential blows. She gradually made her way to the back corner dodgning the odd stares she was at the mathematical unbreachable limit of getting used to. Finally, she made her way back to the place she had gone into what had seemed like days ago, closed the door, put the barricades back up, and saw someone familiar waiting for her sitting at an old wooden desk gathering dust in the room's corner.
"Plague!", she yelled, her heart filled with relief, embarassment, and the ever present desire to apologize.
"Mona, I'm glad you made it back in one piece! Hee hee hee!", he yelled back, a smile across his face as well.
"I'm really sorry for running off like that. I really shouldn't have done it. But oh man do I have a tale or two to tell you!", she said, bowing her head slightly in apology before running over and opening the trapdoor.
"Wow! That's amazing, but I bet it'll pale in comparison to what happened to me! Heh!" Plague's eyes lit with the fire and excitement that had encouraged her so many times when it had felt like her life would never be able to move forward, that she would die before learning all she could about Alchemy and the world. His mouth had become a winning smile, inviting her to the newest challenge, one she would gladly accept. Always.
"Oh really?", she said, grinning from ear to ear. Well then let's just get down and see. Come on, I can't wait to get back to..." Mona paused while going down the ladder to the newly lit room, Plague following quickly. " hmmm...we should really think of a name for this place."
The two children hopped down to the main area, lamps now lit all around. There, they shared their stories of deception and danger, fright and fallacious friendships. Plague listened in awe as Mona told him of Maggie, and Baleon, and the upcoming Practical Examination in two days time. Mona gasped while Plague told of his tale of co-opting the ever-sloshed Hangover Jack into thinking that he had sent Plague on a job to sabotage the Tinkerer's Machine.
"So you used some of the gold that we made two days ago and just gave it to him, implying it was from the Machinists?!", said Mona, her face practially beaming with unrestrained joy and anticipation as the candelights flickered and danced, the two sharing all kinds of baked treats Mona had brought back from the dormitory.
"Hee! That's not all! You know, on the way there, I was worried that he might catch on, or not buy it. But then he mentioned something by sheer luck! The tne gold pieces his Father gave me? You'll never guess how much it is in Imperial Fariths...", Plague said, walking about the large chamber haughtily with his nose in the air.
"Wait.. that's ten pieces.. so.. Around two and a half, right? Heh, that's funny. Just like in the.."
"Story, yes!", interrupted Plague, caught off guard that she was privy to that information as well. "Get this, from what I can see, he's pretty impressed with the Empire's machines, and apparently knows the story really well. Before I could even connect it, he saw the amount of gold as a sign. He even whispered 'Loyalty'. I couldn't believe it!"
Mona got up and helt her hand to her forehead tryign to stop from shaking in anticipation and awe. "So you added that reference to the letter, further confirming the connection in his mind! My gods Plague, I wish I was even half as smart as you. Seriously, I..." tears of amazement and pride rolled down her cheeks, telling the world the rush of emotion that was boiling within her mind. "I sometimes just can't believe it.", she said softly.
Plague stopped prancing about and looked at her face, immedaitely coming to her side. "Are... you okay?", he said, unable to look her directly in the eye.
"Yeah.", she said, sniffling, still with her eyes wide, seemingly unable to stop smiling. "Plague... you really don't realize how amazing you are."
The girl stood up, walking over closer to the small fireplace they had set. She was unaware of the shocked expression her words moulded onto the face of the young boy. "You followed what your Gramps said, what he wrote, and you were just able to act on it like it was second nature! You applied it to a new and current situation you just stumbled upon and perfectly excecuted a plan you had concocted out of thin air within what was apparently seconds! When you saw an opportunity, you went for it with everything you had. I...I'd give anything if you could teach me how to do that." Mona's voice echoed with a combination of pride and sorrow that was rarely heard in the world.
Plague saw his best friend look at him with a look he absolutely hated to see on her face, and hated even more that he had been the apparent cause. "I.. I told you everything Gramps told me. I don't really..."
"I know what Gramps told you.", said Mona, wiping the tears of joy from her eyes. "I want to learn from you."
The smile on her face, and the look in her eyes, was one of absolute sincerity. For someone like Mona for whom survival meant a constant string of lies and deception, this was one of the most terrifying things she could ever imagine doing.
Plague's cheeks turned a bright red, and then the young boy squinted his eyes, looking down and away. "M...Mona.", he said, his lips trembling,his feet shaking. The girl looked at him curiously, then worryingly. She saw the slight shaking in his hands and grew ever more concerned.
"Listen... if it's too private..", she said, holding out her hand with a small smile.
"N...No!", he shouted back. "I...It's not that at all! I... I just want you to see... to see..."
"To see what? Is there a book you wanted to show me?"
"To see youself the way I see you.", were words he could never, ever hope to say. " To see that what you did today was really incredible too! Hee hee..."
"Heh... thanks.", she said, coming closer, feeling the side of her neck slightly with her hand. "But you.."
"But me nothing!", he praised back. "Mona, you know so much, you understand so much! Do you think I could ever fake being a Magicist and have the patience to read and try to understand something I really couldn't care about at all? Do you think I would be able to summarize these big books into the notes you have stuffed into that pack so we can actually use and learn from them? Mona, you're.. you're..."
The young girl went over to Plague, pointing her finger at his mouth, smiling. "I'm what, Plague?"
"You're... really smart! Maybe even a genius!", he said, looking downward as his cheek turned a slight shade of red.
"You couldn't be further off.", she thought, but did not have the strength to say. "A genius is someone who forges a new path for others to follow. Someone like Maria. Someone Like Zosimos. Someone like you, Plague."
She wanted Plague to be happy. At that moment, she could see he likely felt bad about her own outburst, one that had come out of nowhere and killed the joyous mood the evening should have had, the evening she had told the orphanage she was spending at the Magicists to study. They couldn't have been more happy to be rid of her for one day. She didn't blame them.
"I just read. I read and try to understand, and sometimes don't. What I do, I write down. I remember. I use it where and when I can. And I just hope that I've learned enough to maybe touch what it's like to be as amazing as that. I know you'll see that one day.", more words left unsaid rolled through her head like rocks down a mountainside. She hoped selfishly that the day he did see that would be far, far away as she touched the side of her neck once more, not noticing Plague's gaze pierce the air like daggers at her motion.
"Hah! I guess so, Plague!", she said with the widest grin she could muster. "I am pretty good, aren't I?", she said while haughtily holding her hand to the side of her mouth. She saw Plague instantly perk up up again.
"Well, hee hee hee! Now that that's settled, lets work on our plan for the test! They won't believe what they're going to see!" Plague leapt to the left and held out his hands, eager to work on one of the Alchemic devices they had found earlier, one that Gramps had left behind for him.
"Oh... you bet they won't. Let's show them the power of two Alchemic Masterminds!", Mona held out her hand to the side for a high five, to which Plague reciprocated with eager abundance.
"That's the spirit! Hee hee hee! Now let's get to work!"
With that, the young boy hurried off to get another close look at the device Mona and Plague had wondered over before, scheming and planning their actions for the coming day, and beginning to draw alchemic symbols on blank parchment. Mona followed, though more slowly, sparing time for one last thought on something other than the next day.
"Plague, one last thing.", she said, flipping through her notes as she simultaneously used them to brush away dust.
"Yeah?"
"You told Stannum Argen your name was Crow, right?"
"Hee hee, yep!", the smaller Alchemist said.
"If I ever meet him, tell him my name is Raven.", she said with a smile.
"A Matched set! Pretty cool!", he said, smiling as the two lifted a large wheel into place, turning it to see how to fit various symboloigcal notations on each section, and how each would work in synchronicity with another.
"There is one thing I know I can do quite well, Plague. One thing I just might be better at than even you."
She stopped briefly, pointing to a page in one of her notes before sharing a smile with Plague.
"I'm a very good liar. I know it, because if I wasn't I'd be dead."
The air outside was positively electric, as the news had spread in no small part to a small magicist with a big mouth, that a mysterious prodigy dubbed "The Phantom Sorceress" had come in early in the morning over the weekend and destroyed the practice dragon normally reserved for Guild uperclassmen with a volley of powerful blasts.
The Guild's own outdoor Amphitheatre was set to hold perhaps two hundred people, but today it seemed like the crowds were going to burst down the aisles.
"My, I heard that she's only six years old, but knows three languages and hundreds of spells!", said one man, walking down the stairs to an open seat, pushing his way through the busy crowd.
"Nah, you're wrong.", said his friend, right behind him. " I heard it was actually a 13 year old that knew how to break a house in two with a single blast!"
"There's no way that's true!", said the woman next to him. "I heard that she's actually quid timid and well read, and actually thought the dragon was real and tried to attack her! She then summoned her strength from within, likely from a noble bloodline, and just blew it up with the snap of her fingers!"
The first man sighed, and looked at her with a dissapointed glare as opportunistic shopkeepers and Gastronomers began to line the edges of the Amphitheatre with stalls carrying all kinds of Magic-realted souvineers and delicious treats. "Maybe.. but I think that the shock was so great, that must have been what caused that poor child to crash in front of the town square!"
"Oh yeah, the Machinist kid. But The Phantom Sorceress or whatever they're calling her was supposed to be powerful beyond their age, and a giant! She'll be an amazing asset to our Millitary! She'll show that Empire!", said the 2nd man.
"What? She'll definitely get into guild politics. That's what Arga did, isn't it? The ones with real talent always do."
"Don't get your hopes up for that.", said another woman, not helping but to listen in while trying to concentrate on reading a pamphlet she had taken concerning the Magicist Guild Academy. " I heard she was a toadskin."
The three people that had been talking suddenly froze, and stared at the new woman with a look that one would give a person who just poured manure on their new shoes. "Wow, what did she ever do to you?"
'That's... not something to call someone in polite company. I'm sure she looks like any other girl her age."
"Yeah, don't compare her to those cursed people... that's just rude."
"Sorry?", the new woman said, still looking forward. "It's just what I heard. I don't think it's true either. Those people don't usually live that long anyway."
Going back to their positions, they saw that all kinds of magicist aides had begun to prepare the stage. Targets stationary, moving and flying were slowly being placed around various pillars and platforms. Those which responded better to specific spells were color coded by elemental property, as the grounds were being painted and rapidly dried to reflect boundaries and starting positions.
Behind it all, however was a great archway where a curtain had been hung, not red as in theatre tradition, but light blue with yellow tasseling, as per guild tradition and regulation. Between the two great sheets, barely visible, was the face of a well-kept woman just beginning her middle tears, poking out with a subtle frown and a deeply furrowed brow. In a huff, she backed off, dissapearing into the stage's preparation area, looking for one man in particular.
"Baleon!", she yelled, the various magicists and workers stepping ever so slightly out of the way until as if by magic, a path was cleared directly towards her intended target. "You had best stay right where you are.", she said as she marched over, the bespectacled man flinching ever so slightly in rhythym with the click of her boots and bounce of her bound and netted red hair poking from underneath her hat.
"Now now, Gemma, I assure you..", he started, but was then cut off as she spat into a tirade, her arms flailing.
"Assure me of what, Baleon? A carnival? A performance? I certainly was not assured of either of these things, but it is apparently what we have right here in place of an Examination for Academic Excellence!"
Baleon stuttered, fixing his glasses as the 2nd in command of the guild and former headmistress continued to pace about the room, slowly but surely creating a divot in the floor. " This wasn't my doing! All of these people, these vendors, they just showed up like it was some sort of godsforsaken holiday!"
"It's just a test, an examination for a new student, one with not a single piece of gold to her name, mind you, nor any proper name at all really being an orphan. Yet here we have half of bloody Pridemoor at our doorstep expecting some kind of theatre."
Baleon took a deep breath as he came towards the Magistrallia and smiled. "If this girl is even half the magicist I think she is I assure you the scholarship will be worth it."
"She'd better be Double!", said the Magistrallia, her eyes nearly bugging out of her head in frustration.
"What I don't understand is how so many people knew on such short notice! It's barely been two days and already... well, you saw. I mean the only people that knew about any kind of details were myself, the girl, and...Margaret."
The two Magicists dropped their heads between their shoulders and sighed simultaneously.
"Ohhhhhh Margaret.", said Magistrallia Gemma, wiping her hand vertically along her face in frustration, being just careful enough not to smudge her makeup. "There isn't enough patience in all the lands before the Wound to deal with that girl.", she said dejectedly.
"There, there.", said Baleon. "Just think of how good for the school her presence here is. I mean, besides the obvious, she brought this new student to our attention!"
"Prospective student, Baleon. Let's not just open the gates for her based on hearsay and some wreckage. She still has this exam, and the written exam after. Let us also not forget she has to go through Arga's personal interview as well."
The two magicists shuddered simultaneously, then shared a quick laugh as old friends, the tension between the two finally diffusing. "Hah! Now that is something I'd expect a crowd for. "
Gemma's smile turned back to her concerned, focused face that students had learned to be wary of as she began to leave to take her seat. "Remember what I said, Baleon. Double."
With that, she turned around, finally ready to leave and take her own seat amongst the growing crowd.
"Well, that's that I suppose!", said Baleon, eager to get the whole proceeding over with. "Now. Where is the woman of the hour?"
"Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan. Stick to the plan like a man from Dran in a pan with the Flan. Yep. Nothing makes more sense than that. Stick. To. The. Plan."
This rather silly and nonsensical mantra repeated in the head of a poor ten year old girl with neither a mother nor a father nor a penny to her name. Well, a legal one anyway. She paced about uncomfortably around the stage, in her usual set of clothes (Washed recently, it must be said) as uniformed people of all kinds looked around nervously in a flurry of yellow and light blue. Cautiously, she peeked out from the curtains, hood held over her head, and saw more people than she'd ever seen together in one place before. Worse yet, they were there to see her.
This was not part of the plan like a man from Dran with Flan.
"Hey Mona!", said a voice bursting with exuberance.
She would have jumped in surprise, but her nerves were so on edge that they had gone well past the point of being easily disturbed, around to being completely unshakeable.
"Hi Maggie.", she said with a slight gulp. "Is... this normal?"
"Is what normal?", asked Maggie. Mona was about to turn around to answer, but as the girl came into view Mona noticed something extremely peculiar. Emblazoned on her conical cap was a banner with the words "The Phantom Sorceress Strikes!" in a dramatic font.
"What...is that?!", said Mona in a newer state of shock than she would have thought possible at this point.
"Ooooh! Do you like it? I designed it two nights ago after you left, among other things, and my Father sold them for quite a profit since we couldn't make that many on such short notice! Oh man, the vendors just gobbled them up! Not...literally of course. Well, except for the Phantom Sorceress colored pastries! Those were quite tasty."
Mona could barely keep up with what had just happened, as if she needed any more surprises. She was feeling more emotions at a single time than she had thought possible.
"Oh, would you look! Everyone outside is wearing your name to cheer you on! Isn't it great?!" Maggie took Mona by the shoulder and pointed to the crowd. Mona had not been looking for it in particular, but sure enough, dotted all around the crowd were people wearing what was apparently a line of Phantom Sorceress Apparel and Memorobilia. Hats with banners, some vests and shirts, and some signs with a hooded woman in darkened magicist robes and a large explosion in the background!
"What!? So this is why so many people are here? But they have no idea who I even am! Why would they be so interested?" Mona's mouth grew into a frustrated grimace as her eyes began to bug and she held the sides of her head. At the very least, this whirling dervish of a magicist had some sense of propriety in not showing her face. She could only guess it helped fit with the theme of a "Phantom Sorceress".
Maggie sighed, taking her friend by the shoulder and pulling her close, raising her right hand to the sky. "Mona, Mona, Mona. Once they heard the story of how you slew the test dragon in a single decisivle blow blindfolded with one hand behind your back, and saw that I could actually use magic because of you, they couldn't believe their eyes! This is Pridemoor, Mona. Not Eifelle or Pequena. A magical prodigy like you hasn't been seen here since the days of Arga! Or.. so I've heard. Hieee!"
"I swear I am going to transmute you into something completely unrecognizeable the first chance I get!", half-joked Mona in her head as her panic found newer and newer limits to break through.
"So that's what's been going on!", said an older male voice, boots clicking against the ground as he walked towards the two girls. "Margareeeeet!", he shouted, the blonde girl turning with her friend instantly to face him.
"Yeeees Magistrato Baleon? Our new star pupil is here, ready and raring to go!", she patted Mona on the back, causing her to stumble forward into the Magistrato. In a slight panic, she backed away, tripping and falling on her bottom, her head instantly turning upwards to meet his piercing downwards gaze.
"Yes... I see.", he said cautiously. With a soft hand, he helped Mona up, her hood falling from her head. He saw the worry on her face, and gave a kind smile. "Listen to me, little miss. I can see from the look on your face you weren't expecting a crowd. Honestly... neither was I. Heh, I can see young miss Margaret got the better of both of us, eh? But don't let that bother you. I hate crowds too. I like it with just me and my spells. Magistralia Gemma's the same way. Sometimes, though, you just have to work with what life gives you. Don't even look at the crowd. Just concentrate on the test, and you'll do just fine. You've survived this long, eh?"
Baleon looked into the eyes of the young girl, eyes that looked as blue as the night sea, and the face around them. A face that had clearly seen a great deal of hardship, but had somehow come out on the other side. "Yes... I think keeping your hood up is just fine for now, if you'd like. I've studied curses, and there are none that I know that result in your predicament... but I think you know if you've lived as long as you have, what the best course of action is for your own survival. I won't push my own ideals upon you."
Mona's eyes grew especially wide with the last statement. Certaintly, it was far from what she would expect a magicist to say. "T.. Yes, Magistrato.", she said, flatly. "I will do what is expected of me."
Baleon gave a slight giggle, having personally seen what the girl was capable of. "Of that, I have little doubt."
Plague struggled amongst the crowd, pushing and shoving his way to the front. All around him, people were looking at the curtains impatiently, shuffling and eating baked goods from the vendors that had taken advantage of the crowds.
"This crowd makes no sense! Wasn't this supposed to just be a test for a school? Why so many people? Ugh.. I don't like this at all."
Plague continued to push through, sometimes leaping up to the tops of vendor stalls, hurrying about as he always did. Finally, a uniformed Magicist emerged from the curtains, and the crowd went silent.
"Welcome, one and all, apparently, to this practical examination. ", the bespectacled man said, looking carefully around the amphitheatre."Normally, I would eschew the preamble, but because of the current circumstance, and... our community outreach being what it is, I, Baleon Alcrest, Magistrato and Academy Headmaster, will explain what you are about to see."
"We came to see the Phantom Sorceress!", shouted a man from the far right of the theatre.
"Yeah, let's see some magic!", shouted a woman from the left.
After a brief pause, Baleon continued, his gaze focused on the panel of Magicists in the center of the audience, within a booth with an ideal view of the area. " The prospective student to be tested will be given a series of tasks to determine her competency in the magical arts. Based on my own previous estimations, she will be given tasks expected of a fourth-year student. All are welcome to observe, but I would please ask for silence to ensure a smooth run-through and fair judgement. Thank you all, and long live Pridemoor."
With that, the man stepped to the far end of the field, and the crowd watched with baited breath as his hands began to glow, and circles of colorful light enveloped sections of the ground. In an instant, the circles turned to columns that shot into the sky, gradually dissepating to reveal five golems crafted of colorful light, each sporting large round glasses similar to Baleon's.
"Mona, if you would?"
With little drama, the hooded girl stepped out from behind the curtain and faced Baleon while the eyes of everyone in the audience were glued to her.
"Now then, young lady. These light golems will approach you. Your goal is to avoid being caught. Use whatever spells you deem necessary to get away and avoid contact. Do you understand?"
There was a brief pause as the hooded girl took a step forward. "Can I destroy them?", she asked. Some in the crowd gasped.
"Well, there's no rule against it, but these are far sturdier than any combination of wood or metal. Your strategy is entirely up to you.", said Baleon, ready to give the signal to start.
"Understood."
Somewhere in the audience, a small boy jumped up and down in excitement as the starting signal was given.
In a flash, the young girl moved like lightning, leaping up to a nearby platform. Suddenly, an explosion of mist surged around her, cloaking the girl in a thick fog. The audience murmurred and whispered in confusion.
"What is she doing?"
"They can still see where she is!"
With little else to go on, four of the golems approached Mona with a deliberate pace, their 'eye-glasses' unblinking and unmoving. In the audience, a very soft "Hee hee hee." was just barely audible amongst the mumurs. For the briefest instant, a smile darted across the shadowed face of the Phantom Sorceress.
CRACK!
BOOM!
CRASH!
Flashed of light and sounds of thunder seemed to come out of nowhere as furious blasts engulfed each of the golems, covering them in colored clouds of smoke and fog similar to that of the Phantom Sorceress.
As the original cloud cleared, the audience gasped as the young girl was nowhere to be seen, and the Golems appeared to be in a state of confusion as the clouds around them seemed to grow as they started to try to move faster and bat it away.
Suddenly, another deafening explosion ran out as the yellow golem was engulfed in a series of pink clouds, the third of which exploded in such a catastrophic manner that the entire amphitheatre shook, and some audience members screamed in surprise.
None, however were more surprised than Baleon to see that a yellow golem had begun to break. A crack slowly formed in its left eye. With a sharp snap, it ran through the rest of the construct like a lightning bolt, and in the next instant, the construct had become dust.
The crowd gasped. Then, three more loud booms filled the air as the other golems were summarily surrounded in their own clouds of smoke, and underwent the same process.
For what seemed like an eternity, there was silence.
Baleon did not know what to believe: His eyes or his head, as the young hooded girl stepped out from behind a column.
"Did I perform to your satisfaction?", she said, her expression unmoving and face seemingly permanently obsessed with looking at the ground in front of her.
Gemma, 2nd in rank of all the Magicists in Pridemoor, had trouble closing her mouth and staring at what had just transpired, forgetting to write in a score in the evaluation sheet.
Finally, a loud, piercing voice broke the silence.
"Hee hee hee! YEAH! Let's hear it for the Phantom Sorceress!" The owner of this voice knew what she had done, what she was still to do, and still could not believe his eyes. The machine worked. The transportation circles worked. The fall loader and switching system had been a complete success.
The crowd erupted. Cheers and yells rang out everywhere as the citizens of Pridemoor were utterly convinced they had bore witness to the birth of a legend.
"Hail Pridemoor!", one man Shouted.
"Long live the Phantom Sorceress!", shouted a woman from the right.
"Phantom Sorceress! Phantom Sorceress!" they yelled. It seemed the crowd had indeed been given the show that they had been implicitly promised.
As Gemma slowly snapped back to reality, the Magistralia shook her head and immediately cast a spell into the air to magnify the volume of her voice.
"Just a reminder to all audience members that silence is to be maintained throughout the evaluation! We will be unable to proceed unless there is decorum befitting..." The Magistralia struggled to enhance her volume over the continued roar of the crowd, enhancing the power of the spell. "Befitting the respect our guild and country deserve!"
Her announcement seemed to have some effect, as the crowd finally began to dial down its enthusiasm. Baleon, looking over to Gemma for a signal, saw her eyebrows furrow and shoulders shrug, as he decided to continue on with the evaluation.
"Yes.. well... yes I'd say you did quite well. Extraordinary, even. Now, let us move on to the next phase. Here you will see..."
Baleon's voice continued on, explaining the goal of the next test, precision aiming, as he summoned multicolored floating targets.
Plague watched on as his closest and only friend passed section after section, belying expectations of both the Guild members and the townspeople present. He could not help but share in the pride he felt as he saw her cause the masses to cheer and yell in favor of the power of Alchemy, the power that Mona had realized how to harness without their knowledge.
You see Plague, This machine was built to rapidly fill potion bombs with ingredients, sending them along into these satchels as someone turns the crank.
BOOM! The targets exploded, one after another, as the crowd roared and smoke filled the air every time the Phantom Sorceress cast a spell.
I think that we can use this and combine it with transportation circles to call upon any alchemic potion I need in a pinch!
CRASH! Two more targets fell to the ground as they exploded with bursts of fire and ice.
We'll empty the big jars and seal the bottom with a plug carrying a transportation circle. We'll then fill the jars with some of the potion bombs that your Gramps left here. I wish we could make more of our own, but there isn't enough time. I'll put the corresponding symbol inside a small card on the inside of my glove, facing outwards. The glove'll be cut so the potion can get through.
Baleon announced the next test, and the next, and the next.
All I'll have to do is activate the right circle, and I can use any of the potion bombs stored up here at any time I want. Of course, there's still the problem of making it look like a spell...
Far away, underneath a town square, large bottles were slowly being emptied as brief flashes of light from seals as their bases flashed and transported the potion bomb contacting them hundreds of meters away to the cleverest Alchemist Plague had ever seen since his Gramps had left.
Black Powder, sawdust, sugar, and sulfur. You taught me that one! Smoke Bombs in a similar setup for my left hand! They'll never see me summon or throw a single one as long as the fuses are short and I light them using mana!
Mona passed the next test, and the next, and the next, The crowd roaring the name a certain magicist had given her after each blast of Alchemic energy focused through the ingenuity of a young girl.
It's okay, Plague. It's a test. I've taken a lot. I'll be good. We already got the hard part figured out. There's always more than one way through. Sometimes, you have to get a good read on the teacher. See what they like and dislike, steer them away from topics you mght have trouble in in the class so they don't test you on them, and get them to talk abot things they like. Other times you see patterns in their questions, in their way of speaking that lets you know exactly how to word your answers to get a better score, even if you might be wrong.
Baleon was smiling, giving the signal for the final test, as Gemma looked at him, then forward at the future of the Magicist Guild. More golems were summoned, this time with makeshift weapons. Some with swords, some with axes, and some with bows.
When you can't do that you read all you can, see all you can, but don't panic and try to remember it all. Take notes on what's important. Use your mind to fill the gaps and connect the dots.I don't waste any more time than I need to working on something you don't want to do with my life. Trust me, there's no one better at faking being smart than me. You fell for it too, after all!
Smoke, crashes and flashes of light filled the air as the crowd cheered her on and on as blows were struck, blows were dodged, and magical constructs began to burst into thousands of beautiful sparks.
Hey! Wow! Take it easy, Plaguey. I was only kidding, yeah? But just trust me on this. I bet at the end of the day, an Alchemist will be cheered on by the very people that put them to death. I guess that's already a kind of vengance, right?
The final smoke cloud cleared, and standing there was a girl Plague knew he would never stop being impressed and amazed by, and never ever stop learning from and learning with. Mona, the Alchemist.
I don't really have that much reason to worry. If anything goes wrong, I can count on you, right?
The bespectacled magicist and the magicist with her long hair bound in a net, among several others, ran out onto the field to congradulate the young girl and shake her hand as banners bearing her moniker fluttered in the sky.
You may not now or ever be an official knight, that's true. But you can be one to me, if you'd like.
Plague gave a sigh of both happiness and relief as he saw Mona, still with her ever-present poker face be lead back behind the curtain by the two magicists. The crowd began to file out with smiles on their faces, wondering out loud just who exactly the Phantom Sorceress was. But Plague knew.
"You're someone I'll never stop learning from. Maybe one day I can catch up, Mona."
