“Bianca, please.” The grandmaster pleads calmness as I stand there fuming. I know something happened to Reagan and it’s obvious it was a more senior member of the tower. I don’t believe for a second that an apprentice could have gotten the jump on him. It narrows it down for sure, but I’m no closer to knowing who is behind his abduction.
The grandmaster is an old white haired man with a long beard. It seems to be a requirement to take the position. He is trying to calm me down, which means we are losing time. It frustrates me that he isn’t taking this more seriously.
“I’m telling you I found evidence of a struggle in his room. Plus, he was supposed to meet with me. What more do you need?” I almost yell at him. He heaves a heavy sigh before he speaks again.
“Very well, let me call on the seniors of the tower at least, if only to assuage your suspicions.” He tells me in his calm and deliberate voice.
“Thank you, grandmaster.” I say as I sit down and fidget. I just hope they will hurry. He sits there and I can see him weaving message spells. Is he contacting everyone individually? I thought he would send out a group message.
“What are you telling them, if I may ask?” I say in between two castings of the spell. I don’t want to disturb him while he is midcast.
“If you are right, wouldn’t it be better to ask them to come see me at their earliest convenience?” He raises his brow at me. I ponder his words for a moment. But then they might refuse if they are b-. Ah, it would narrow it down further, as it is clear they can refuse to come now and the culprit is sure to be busy and push it to later or even tomorrow.
I’m still not that happy about it as it feels slow. But fine. It doesn’t take long for the first ones to arrive, see me and raise an eyebrow, clearly not expecting me to be there, or anyone else as the room gets more and more crowded. Soon, almost every senior mage is in the room except a few. The grandmaster sneaks a look in my direction and I can see his teaching gaze scrutinising me, checking if I understood the wisdom of his ways. Yes old geezer, it was pretty smart I admit to myself, knowing full well I will never admit it out loud.
“Grandmaster, you have to tell us why you have asked us to be here, surely?” One of the more confident ones dare speak up. The others look hopefully at him as we all turn to see how the old geezer will respond. I have to admit I’m curious, plus I don’t know what pretext he used to call them here in the first place.
“I will explain once everyone is here, you do know I hate to repeat myself.” He tells him and they all grumble like little kids before a parent. But the one who spoke up is emboldened by the hopeful looks of his friends and colleagues.
“Surely we are enough that you can explain, I will repeat your words myself if that is too much to ask of you.” Careful, the old man is petty and full of tricks, I think to myself.
“Oh you will? I am overcome with joy at your enthusiasm dear Olmad, but I fear that to properly convey my message in my stead, you have to fully comprehend it first. I think we all remember that… sludge incident.” The old man still got it. In one fell swoop he shut him up and turned the room against him. Some snicker as they remember while others start to talk about it in earnest like it was a fascinating moment worth studying. He just played with things he didn’t understand and made a mess. The only special thing about that sludge was that the smell went through walls. Gods save me from the memory. It took weeks to get the smell out of the tower.
They have been placated for now, but I fear almost everyone is here and I’m not sure he will be able to make them wait around for much longer. Maybe he doesn’t actually have to. We wait around for a bit longer but I can’t stop myself from fidgeting. We are losing so much time right now, I just want to go looking for him. I’m almost at the door when the grandmaster stops me gently, a hand on my shoulder. Others notice and he turns to adresse the room. It's fascinating how everyone quiets down and turns to listen to him so easily.
“Time has come for me to tell you why we are all here. Some are clearly too busy, but I will talk to them myself about this.” He starts, then takes a break to make sure no one is distracted before continuing.
“I am old, as you all know, and I have not decided on a successor as grandmaster in my stead. Some of you know why, but others do not.” Now he clearly has their attention.
“We will hold a magical contest in a month's time. Any questions?” He asks and several people start talking over each other. In the end, he makes them raise their hands like kids at school. I would find it rather funny if I didn’t want to go look for Reagan. He points to one of the mages.
“You haven’t really told us what you want to see in this magical contest or how it will be judged?” He says.
“I alone will judge it. I just want you to show me your understanding of magic, prove it, how, is up to you.” The old geezer tells him before pointing to another one. It goes on for a bit and I tune it out. I’m never going to aim to become the grandmaster of the tower.
It doesn’t take long for everyone to be on their way afterwards, some excited, while others like me probably won’t even compete. He asks for certain mages to stay and we are soon a smaller group of about seven. He looks at me meaningfully.
“Alright dear, it seems we only have a few rooms to check then.” He tells me and we set off with his trusted circle of mages who look curiously between the two of us, some amused by this mystery, others resigned.
We go to each of the missing mages workshops or rooms. The first three yell at us to leave as they are all in the middle of either experiments, complex studies or in the case of the last one, simply stuck on the pot…
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But for the fourth, we hit a snag as we cannot seem to find him either in his lab or room. However an apprentice is lingering in his lab and the grandmaster carefully asks some questions. I’m not sure how he does it, but the apprentice soon fumbles over his words, unsure of what to say and it is clear to everyone present that he is lying about the location of his master. It doesn’t take long from there for him to admit it and show them a hidden tunnel that goes deep underground.
I look at the grandmaster as we walk along this tunnel. It’s old, and he is the only one that doesn’t seem surprised by this development. Did he actually know about the tunnel? Possible. I put it out of mind as I feel my heart accelerating. We are close now, I just know it.
The tunnel finally gives way to a room and I stop in shock at the sight before me. The others all gasp as well as we see the body of the spokesperson of the tower, laying in a pool of his own blood. I’m the only one that doesn’t seem to care that much about it and jump over his body to go into the room behind it. I spot a large wooden X with a human clearly attached to the other side and accelerate. Reagan. It has to be.
As I come to the other side I see him, eyes closed as his hands and feet are attached. Except one hand. I even notice him actually trying to sneak a look at who is in front of him. Understanding dawns on me and I actually lock his last hand securely where it originally was. I spot an imperceptible nod and he relaxes just a bit more as he fakes unconsciousness.
Hard to tell if the others are going to fall for it as there doesn’t seem to be that many possibilities of who killed Drail but if they think he was unconscious the whole time, who knows. The others finally join me as I fuss over him. It’s not even that feigned as I really am worried about him. One of them turn their head in disgust at his naked body. What? I’ve seen it before and he is rather handsome in my opinion, if grimy right now.
“It seems we will have to find a new spokesperson for the tower.” The grandmaster informs us dispassionately as he looks at me. I fear that he sees right through us and knows what happened but I can’t be sure. The other mages just stand there shocked and waiting for his next words.
“Well, my job here is done Bianca. You were right, someone did kidnap him and it seems the gods have seen fit to punish the person responsible already.” He tells me as he turns his head to Drail’s corpse.
Some of the other mages protest in outrage that he isn’t going to investigate what happened here while another one helps me get the bindings off. I slap Reagan and he jolts awake, fake confusion on his face. His act isn’t the best but it’ll have to do. When his eyes meet mine, I can see the complicity and understanding reflected in his eyes, a silent thank you. I silently look at him with a look that I hope conveys what I feel back, and I’m fairly sure he understands.
I find a cloak and give it to him as he uses me as a crutch when we walk out. He discreetly hands me a bag with papers in it and I frown but keep quiet. We keep silent as we walk away. The others stay back, some still arguing with the grandmaster while others clearly thinking this is a net positive in their eyes, willing to let it slide. I realise I do hate some parts of this tower, well, everything except the magic I guess, but it is well worth it in the end. Especially if I can trust the grandmaster to handle the politics of it all.
We stay silent the whole way back and end up in my clean room. He croaks a thank you as he goes into the shower and I sit on the bed. Gods above I almost lost him there. Relief floods me as I hear the water rush in the shower. I haven’t seen him in about five or six years and I do see that he has changed, but at the same time he hasn’t. It’s strange to explain. He is the same man that saved my life countless times in our years as adventurers, but also something more now. He has grown and even if he has a demon inside of him, I believe he will come out on top. There probably isn’t anyone more stubborn than him. I smile at the thought.
He comes out of the shower with a towel around his waist and I admire his clean body. He barely has more scars than he had before. Fought safely behind his soldiers much? I grin at the thought and he looks at me.
“What?” He says as he looks down at his body.
“Just reminiscing.” I tell him as I look into his eyes.
“Oh yeah? Enlighten me.” He says with a smile as he sits down beside me on the bed.
“Remember that one time where you tried to block a greataxe with your body?” I grin at the memory. I know he thought it would hit me at the time and he almost died for it. The worst was that I had already dodged out of the way. I remember how embarrassed he was afterwards. It wasn’t that funny then, but as he recovered and we talked about it, I remember the whole team laughing to tears about it as he became beet red.
“Oh, are you sure you want to play that game?” He smirks at me. Oh no. I know that look and lunge at him, trying to put my hand on his mouth. He expertly blocks my feeble attempts but I wrestle my hand free and try again, keeping him too busy to start recounting that story.
He tries to start speaking and I just make loud noises to distract him, soon laughing despite myself. He joins me and for a moment we are young and stupid again. The moment suddenly ends and I’m on my back on the bed, him above me holding my two wrists firmly. He bends down and I let him kiss me, leaning into it like I have in the distant past.
We stay in my room the rest of the day, reminiscing and relaxing in each other's presence, mostly naked and under the sheets. I can feel during the conversations that he isn’t going to stay. Not after what happened. He won’t feel safe in the tower and I can’t blame him. There is an undertone of melancholy we both try to hide, probably because we both know how this all ends. With him leaving and me staying, so I try to simply enjoy the moment before it passes.
Morning comes too soon and I wake up in my bed. I turn to look at where Reagan fell asleep only to see that he is gone. I grumble despite knowing it would happen and stay in bed a while longer.
When I finally emerge from my comfortable bed, I feel more relaxed than I have in a while. Yesterday’s activities were really nice. I smile at the memory and feel that some old tensions I had are finally gone. I step into the shower, wash my hair then brush my teeth before I finally head out. I can’t help but walk by his room, only to find the door slightly ajar. I open it and see that all of his things are gone. I sigh as I make my way down the stairs.
He really came like a whirlwind and left just as abruptly. He really hasn’t changed that much, I smile at the thought. Even left a corpse of an entitled and abusive mage, so not much has changed in the end. I quickly eat my breakfast alone and head to the library on a hunch.
I have to check. I walk past the reception and go straight to where a book should be. Ah, it’s still there. I take it down and rifle through the pages. Where is it… ah, there. I stop at where the page of the divine tear should be and see a ripped out page.
He really couldn’t ask anyone to make a copy for him? I smirk at the thought, close the book and put it back where it was. Well, I’m not going to tell on him. I never do.