The stories that eventually came out regarding the highly anticipated graduation ceremony were a hazy mix of details. Some claimed that Gwen, who’d officially become the youngest ninth level mage in history, was the clear frontrunner of the class, while others mixed the details regarding Kaitlyn Walsh’s discovery, to the hidden dark-horse who’d somehow concealed his abilities and then blackmailed Carter into marrying himself into the family fortune.
Like I said, they were a hazy mix of details.
Obviously Rafael’s outburst was being quoted all across the world, often becoming the header for any article related to the event. He’d only become a bit embarrassed once he saw the photograph they linked to the quote at a newsstand in his village, but in a way he was still glad he’d said it.
He was right, while perhaps filled with guilt, none of the others were willing to admit just how pivotal Victor had been to their growth. They felt that by saying it aloud, it would somehow trivialize their own part. Because if Victor had had a hand in it, well then of course it worked.
But Rafael was different, perhaps because his part in their exchange was so clear-cut, he would scream till the ends of the earth the importance of Victor’s contributions.
Every interview he accepted, every call he got, he never once neglected heralding Victor’s name.
Which made things slightly awkward for some of the other graduates, but in his opinion, they deserved it if they weren’t willing to do the same.
“The rumors of his involvement have been greatly exaggerated.” Gwen had been forced to answer during her first interview. “While Victor is certainly an incredible magician and one-of-a-kind Magikan engineer…”
“Right, your classmate Anastasia Kuznetsova spoke similarly regarding his engineering skills. Could you expand upon what exactly his specialization is or…”
*CLICK*
“You see what I mean?” Carter probed, returning his gaze to the young man who sat opposite him. “The faster we are able to move in revealing…”
“Mr. Walsh,” Victor interrupted raising two fingers in order to not hear the same sentence for the hundredth time. “I’ve said it a dozen times, until our relationship is legally binding I can’t say a single word about the portals.”
“And I heard you everytime,” Carter sighed, pulling open a lower drawer on his desk, “But these things take time.”
Dropping a tall stack of papers on the table, Carter pushed is smoothly over for Victor to see.
“My side is signed. You can have a lawyer look over it if you need.”
“No problem.” Victor nodded, lifting the stack and tucking it under his arm. “Well should I get started then? Or do you have other business?”
“Ex…” Carter began, curiously tilting his head before the question clicked in his head. “I have time, I suppose.”
“Alright, cool.” Victor said, pulling a small scrap of tubing from his jacket pocket. “Take a look.”
“This is…” Carter began to ask, before remembering with a jolt. “It’s been deactivated I assume?”
“Course,” Victor affirmed, “A couple things I should warn you of first though.”
“Go on,”
“Yep,” Victor bobbled carelessly, “So, making that prototype required me to break three taboos.”
“…” Carter didn’t speak for a while after the handful of simple words fell from Victor’s mouth. “You do realize what you’ve just admitted to, correct?”
“I do.” Victor agreed without too much visible concern. “I guess technically speaking it was two taboos and one big no-no. Anyways, that all aside, what’d you think of the design?”
“No… no, no.” Carter said, shaking his head as he set the ring back onto his desk, his expression slowly shifted to one he typically saved for his other work. “I am honor bound to pursue any crimes that have been confessed to me. If…”
“You won’t.” Victor denied, partially motioning to the stack of papers beneath his arm. “And not just because it’d destroy your business. Right now you don’t really give a shit about the taboos or law, you just wanna know how it works. Right now, you aren’t thinking about what type of punishment I’ll be receiving, you’re thinking about the crime, what I possibly did to create the impossible; To create a magic on the same level as Da-Vinci himself.”
Carter nearly spit-up blood as his face slowly morphed to a third shape that was used neither in business nor law.
A different laugh rang from across the mahogany, to match the different man that finally sat there.
The one who’d been waiting to get out the moment Carter had lowered his hand in the expo room.
“What did you do?” Carter asked with no more ego in his voice, in no way powerless, but only now speaking man to man.
“Well, to start, how much do you know about Void magic?” Victor queried, reaching a hand to the desk to retrieve the scrap of metal Carter had released.
As Carter began his answer, Victor was pulling on a piece of metal shoved deep inside the copper tube.
“Void magic is one of the most dangerous forms of magic in existence,” Carter said, while watching across the desk carefully.
“Alright, so far so good. It’s also a great tool for a thief’s repertoire. Evidence, mana traces, it’s rather good for clean-up.” Victor grinned, finally pulling a short blue band of metal from inside the copper shielding. “Did you know void magic is also one of the most stable ‘field’ magic’s?”
Carter surprised Victor by nodding to the question.
“We use a few void fields in the bureau for handling dangerous artifacts.” Carter explained, in reference to the large destructive field the Bureau had installed deep underneath their Philadelphia headquarters.
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“Oh, I actually didn’t know that. So, you all dabble in taboos too.” Victor shrugged with a clear bit of surprise on his face. “That makes things easier though since you understand, go ahead and try it.”
Returning the ring to the table without it’s copper shield, Carter finally got a clear look at the hidden structure powering the device.
“Mithril…” Carter muttered under his breath as he plucked the ring from off the table.
“Ah yeah…” Victor agreed awkwardly, “We’ll get to that later. For now, try casting a field spell, any type works doesn’t have to be void, just something centered on this, with the outer edge as it’s conductive field constraint.”
Carter heard the words, but he’d grown curious about a twin sets of arrays that were carefully imprinted on both the inside and outside of the small thumb-sized ring.
The outer array looked normal, but the inner one was clearly broken, as it was missing the hugely important root structure.
“Field…” Victor reiterated waving a finger in the direction of the artifact.
“Right, right…” Carter nodded, peeling his thoughts from the set of complex arrays and back to Victor’s explanation.
Pulling a simple wand from out a mug resting at his desk, Carter considered for a moment before finally deciding on a usable spell.
Tapping the wand in a few easy strokes, a variation of a water field began to swirl in the center of the small ring held between Carters fingers.
More than a half dozen thoughts flooded Carter’s mind as he watched the simple magic take hold in the ring.
The first thing that happened was the array’s inked onto the ring started glowing the moment Carter’s field made contact. It was as-if the inner array wasn’t actually incomplete, instead it was merely waiting for a field to act as its root-shape.
Carter hadn’t even thought it possible to interconnect an array with a field spell. He’d never needed to even consider it before, but as he clutched the ring filled with curiosity, another effect began to unveil as the churning field of magical water filled the array with sufficient power to begin displaying its purpose.
Watching the ring carefully, Carter noticed the strange flow the mana began taking and cocked his head as he tried to determine the reaction forming.
His jaw fell as small loose crumbs of mithril began dusting his desk beneath the ring. His concentration broke as the words appeared into his mind abruptly. The mana swirling inside the ring faltered and vanished with a light ‘pop’, but Carter had completely ignored the backlash, instead burning his eyes into the man seated across from him.
“What do you think happens if you use a clone spell on a lit candle?” Victor patiently asked, seemingly ignoring the questions in Carter’s head.
“…”
“Or better yet, what would happened if you cloned a stabilized Void field.” Victor corrected, looping his thumb and index fingers into a pair of circles. Aligning them and glancing through, like some sort of monocle. “Wouldn’t the two fields overlap? Afterall, we all know the void is an actual place, right? So, imagine if two fields were linked using the void as a middle-layer.”
“You’re serious?” Carter asked, finally with a clear picture of Victor’s explanation. In his head, it made sense but he had trouble believe that it was really that simple. “Tell me if I have this right?”
“…” Victor nodded patiently.
“So, you form a void field using the ring as the constraints,”
“Mhm…”
“The void field, activates the inner array which is…”
“Yep, the clone spell. Big bad taboo, number two.”
“However…” Carter continued, holding up a few of the mithril crumbs that’d been created during his exploration a moment earlier. “You’re saying the field will be cloned with it?”
“It does.” Victor nodded, reaching out to take the ring back for Carter to see. “Watch.”
Without even pulling a wand, Victor flicked his finger towards the ring and a pale grey storm began whirling in a flat disk inside the mithril. Widening slowly, the array lit-up as Victor’s mana filled it to its bursting point.
“Taa daa.” He announced after another ring fell from the air plainly a handful of seconds later.
Sure enough, at the center of the ring that landed on Carter’s desk, a mirror-like storm spiraled to match the one left between Victor’s fingers.
“Active effects can be cloned pretty easily.” Victor explained with a shrug. “And in the case of void fields, the cloning process causes their effect to change. Think of it like two overlapping doors the lead to the void.”
“Incre…” Carter began, reaching over to try to portal that’d fallen onto his desk so simply.
“Ah. Don’t put your finger in.” Victor quickly said leaning forward to block the man from a mistake he’d likely prefer not to make. “It’s good that’s all believable though.”
“Hmm.” Carter asked blankly glancing between the ring and Victor across from him. Before his question could be answered however, another small detail drew his attention back towards the narrow mithril ring.
Both sides had been painted with a thick layer of liquid vellum, but through the outer layer, Carter noticed a familiar, if not a bit skewed, imprint.
“Is that an Avalonian…” Carter began to ask with a narrowed brow as he looked at the easily recognizable royal filigree that showed through from under the dried white paste where the array was imprinted.
“Here…” Victor laughed, waving his palm above the circlet, and causing a sharp pop to ring out from each of them. Sliding it across the desk, Victor again encouraged him to inspect the handywork. “Wipe off the vellum. You’ll see where my budget went.”
He didn’t even need to at that point, but still he had to confirm it, just for his own sake. Touching the ring carefully at first, in fear it might be warm, Carter took a deep breath and rubbed the material and array from off the surface of the Magika substrate. His exact assumption was proven true. Directly under his thumb, sat a large portion of the Avalonian Kings imprinted face. He’d used his budget as a substrate and in doing so, “I think it’s considered more than a ‘big no-no’ to deface, or duplicate an Avalonian Royal Coin…”
“I had no choice, the value that has as mithril is more than its monetary worth.” Victor shrugged as if he’d been given no other option but break the most stringent law of the magical world. “Ended up being a great learning experience. You can ask Katie.”
“You’re pure evil.” Carter muttered, struggling to understand the thought process of the man but failing.
“That’s harsh,” Victor frowned, “Anyways, the coins aren’t needed for the final implementation we can build a better version if I’m able to source orichalcum or storm-silver.”
If Avalon knew that there were not one, but two people who knew of a way to disrupt the protective wards on their highest valued unit of currency, there would be no end to their searching.
And as Carter considered the relationship that seemed to exist between the strange new set of graduates, the realization that likely more than two were aware horrified him even further.
“Don’t look so down.” Victor gingerly said with no clue of the fears growing in his partners mind. “Or are you thinking of back down?”
“No!” Carter shouted unintentionally with a lowered fist. “This could change the face of the earth; we can’t allow ancient fears to stop us from creating something that betters the world. I’ll figure something out with the Bureau.”
“I like that attitude.” Victor nodded, pulling the stack of papers back from under his arm. “Now, you can take this back.”
Dropping the stack of outrageous demands back on the table, Victor felt like a huge relief had been finally taken from off his back.
“I… I don’t understand. Did I say something wrong or…?” Carter asked, unsure how to take the sudden reversal he hadn’t expected to come at what he’d thought was the last minute.
“No,” Victor said, shaking his head, “I just don’t want the stress of running half of all your stuff, and now we can start discussing the real agreement. See, I always prefer starting on equal ground.”
Carter was shocked but he couldn’t help feeling even more impressed by the man. Of course, he knew if they played their cards right, half of his current wealth would likely be a drop in the bucket compared to what could be generated with the proper monetization of the portals.
As the more typical deal was settled between the two with profits being based on investments initially until a break-even point was reached at which time it’d be split sixty-forty.
After the fairly painless agreement was made, Victor spoke one more warning before rising to leave.
“This won’t be easy, and we will probably become targets. If the truth of how the portals work is revealed, the world will never look the same.”
Carter shuttered at the warning, but he couldn’t understand why Victor felt it was so dangerous.
“I have backup plans; I hope you do too.”