Rupert’s first conscious thought was a desperate attempt to remember the proper half-life equation for alcohol metabolism, but the numbers kept sliding away from him. The second thought was pure confusion at the unfamiliar ceiling—rough-hewn wooden planks that definitely weren't his Geneva apartment's pristine white panels.
"Awaken, honored barbarian loremaster!" A cheerful voice rang in his ears like a temple bell. "Morning grace us with boundless opportunity! As old proverb say, 'Early crane catch first fish in pond of fortune!'"
Rupert squinted at the bearded face hovering over him. The events of yesterday began trickling back—the road, the caravan, getting into Vranograd, meeting this strange magister who'd immediately insisted on sharing several bottles of something he called wine but that tasted like paint thinner mixed with licorice.
Hou was working at a massive wok over an open flame, the sizzling sounds and smells making Rupert's stomach perform quantum tunneling between nausea and hunger. "Drink this tea," Hou commanded, thrusting a steaming cup at him. "Good for hangover. Ancient Hou family recipe."
Rupert took the cup, his mind automatically noting the liquid's unusual viscosity and the way it seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. He took a cautious sip—and promptly emptied the contents of his stomach into a nearby wine jug.
"Good!" Hou nodded approvingly. "Now clean wine jug. Want to return it for deposit."
Rupert wiped his mouth, noting with surprise that his head felt clearer. "What was in that tea?"
"Ginseng." Hou stirred the contents of the wok. "Now, we must discuss your story. You are too old to be apprentice or assistant. Hou unwilling to take you as lover. Will say you are old friend from Imperial Magus Academy. Much simpler."
"But I don't know anything about—"
"Exactly! Many at Academy also know nothing. Haha!" Hou cackled, ladling egg fried rice into two bowls. "Eat. Food help mind absorb knowledge, and much knowledge to share."
The rice was laden with eggs, mysterious vegetables, and what Rupert's pattern recognition identified as probably pork. He took a cautious bite, and his stomach decided to provisionally accept the offering.
"Now," Hou continued, chopsticks moving from bowl to mouth with blinding speed, "you should know basic situation here in Vranikos. We are frontier province. Up in mountainous northwest. Very far from capital - capital named Hesperopolis. This good and bad. Good because Exarch Alexios too lazy to cause much trouble. Too busy squeezing province dry through taxation so he can get back home to capital and live fat. Bad because..." He made a broad gesture with his chopsticks. "Many problem, few resources."
"What kind of problems?" Rupert asked, his mind already organizing the information.
"Aiyaa! Where begin? First, bandits in hills. Getting worse as winter comes earlier and earlier now. Second, mutant beasts in forest – wolves size of horses now, very inconvenient for shepherds. Third, Ordu raiders from steppe. They take tribute but still raid anyway. Hmph! 'To reason with barbarian is to carry water with basket.'""
Rupert's mind began categorizing threats by probability and severity. "The mutations – are they following any sort of pattern?"
"Very good question! Your spectacles not for show. You think like magister." Hou grinned. "Animals getting bigger, yes, but also smarter. Deer fleeing hunters. Bears stealing children. Wolf pack tactics changing. Some say animal learn to avoid traps, pass knowledge to pups. But who can say? Not like old days of old empire when Imperial Limitanei kept proper records."
As they ate, Hou painted a grim picture: tax revenues declining as crops failed, garrison troops underpaid and undermanned, aqueducts collapsing without the knowledge to repair them, old paved roads falling into disrepair. The Empire's attention was focused on Hesperopolis, where the nobility and the merchant princes fought a proxy war through chariot racing and street gangs - the Blues and the Greens.
"And fellow Magi," Hou waggled his eyebrows meaningfully. "They squeeze every coin from licensed magic use, but provide less and less service. Some say their power waning, but I am just simple provincial magister, far from Hesperopolis and lovely wife. Not been home in long time. What do I know?"
“You’re married?”
“Happily these forty years,” Hou sighed nostalgically. “Even more happily these past ten I’ve been in Vranograd. She still in capital.”
Rupert’s headache was slowly receding.
"The Exarch," Rupert said, chasing a grain of rice around his bowl with his chopsticks, "you mentioned he's lazy. Surely he must have some competent administrators?"
Hou burst out laughing. "Aiyaa, you are optimist! No, no. Alexios sends all competent men away – they might make him look bad or report back to emperor. Keeps only yes-men and fools. This is why..." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "This is why he like me so much. He thinks Magister Hou harmless drunk who tell him what he want to hear."
The morning sun streaming through the window cast a pink pall over everything. Rupert found himself staring at its disc. It was dim enough to observe without being blinded.
"Don't stare too long," Hou advised, following his gaze. "Bad for eyes, worse for mind. More rice?"
Rupert declined politely, and Hou clapped his hands together. "Good! Now to business. We meet Exarch at noon – very important man, very busy, can't waste his time." His eyes twinkled. "But first, we do morning inventory."
The magister disappeared into a back room and returned dragging a large burlap sack that clinked and rattled. He upended it onto a cleared section of table, creating an avalanche of tarnished metal, rotted wood, and potsherds.
"Junk from market. I buy in bulk. Save money that way. Sort through. Find anything special." Hou made a gesture that conveyed 'valuable' and 'plausibly fake' simultaneously. "Anything with..." he waggled his fingers, "magical resonance. You have good eye for such thing, I can tell."
Rupert adjusted his glasses and began methodically organizing the debris into categories. His fingers traced over a bronze rectangular disc, heavily oxidized but showing traces of an intricate geometric pattern. Part of his mind began automatically calculating the rate of corrosion based on apparent copper content and environmental factors, while another part noted the painstaking work put into the underlying design.
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"That one?" Hou peered over his shoulder. "Ah, very special. Ancient road map - itinerarium, probably. Or maybe sewer pipe cover. Hard to tell with things from old empire. If road map, useless now. All those cities long gone."
A handful of glass beads was next – their refractive index seemed high for their composition. He held one up to the sunlight, watching how it split the rays.
"You got a classification system for all this?" Rupert asked.
"Three piles," Hou replied, pointing to two boxes, "Good enough to show Exarch, good enough to sell to merchants, and..." he made a dismissive gesture toward a waste bin, "scrap."
As Rupert sorted, Hou provided running commentary on their upcoming meeting. Exarch Alexios fancied himself a collector of magical antiquities. He was particularly interested in artifacts that might improve crop yields or predict weather patterns – practical concerns for a provincial governor, even if his approach to acquiring such tools consisted mainly of throwing money at whatever Hou declared "promising."
"Looky here," Rupert held up what appeared to be a small mechanical device, its brass components seized with age. The design was unlike anything he'd seen before, suggesting a technological base that didn't match the level of the surrounding society.
"Very good eye! That one definitely for Exarch. Has proper feeling of importance. Powerful feng shui aura. Clearly thing that does something, even if we not sure what."
As Rupert turned the device over in his hands, he remembered the strange visual effect he'd experienced the night before – how the world had seemed to blur and shift, revealing patterns of vibrating color that somehow corresponded to atomic structure. Keeping his movements casual, he tried to recreate that unfocused state while examining the brass component.
At first, nothing happened. Then, like adjusting a microscope, his vision began to shift. The outline of the device blurred, replaced by a symphony of colored lines. He forced himself to remain calm, fighting down the instinct to blink away the strange perspective. Gradually, he began to identify patterns: a particular golden line that must correspond to copper, a slightly streaky silver that suggested zinc – yes, this was definitely brass, alloyed with a bit of flat gray lead. There were trace elements that matched what he'd expect from pre-industrial metallurgy: iridescent bismuth, sickly yellow sulfur, snowy white phosphorus, and sea-blue cobalt.
Interesting, but not magical.
Moving methodically through the pile, Rupert began cataloging the various atomic signatures. The glass beads revealed themselves to be common silica with traces of shiny gray manganese – their strange optical properties must be purely structural. A ‘silver’ ring was actually nickel-plated white brass. The ‘ancient’ pottery shards contained clay compositions consistent with local river sediments.
He developed a mental notation system: this frequency means iron, that one aluminum, another copper. Each element had its own characteristic "note" in what was becoming a periodic table of colors. The more he practiced, the easier it became to maintain the altered vision state, though he still had to concentrate to prevent snapping back to normal perspective.
"You have very thorough method," Hou commented after the first hour, refreshing their tea. "Most people just guess, but you... you see things others miss."
Rupert grunted noncommittally, focused on analyzing a silver-plated lead amulet. He was beginning to appreciate the task – it was an excellent way to practice fine control over his new ability while also doing useful work.
Two hours passed in what felt like minutes. By the end, Rupert had three neat piles arranged in their respective bins: items whose composition might actually be interesting to a collector (if not necessarily magical), stuff that could still be sold to less discerning merchants, and genuine garbage only good for its material value. He'd also developed a preliminary spectral catalog of common elements and was reasonably confident he could identify most basic materials on sight.
His head pounded from the sustained concentration, and his normal vision felt temporarily oversensitive, but the systematic experimentation had been worth it. He now had a baseline for "normal" material composition – which meant he'd be able to identify anything abnormal. Or maybe even work with the materials himself. Like a chemist…
A thought struck him as he stared at the brass components, watching the electron shells shimmer like diamonds. "Hey Hou," he ventured, "ever do any alchemy?"
Hou paused in his own work, one eyebrow rising slightly. "Why you ask?"
"It's a hobby of mine," Rupert said, internally wincing at the half-truth. His actual experience consisted of a middle school obsession with Full Metal Alchemist followed by a wiki-dive into medieval transmutation theories. But his newfound atomic vision suggested fascinating possibilities. If he could see molecular structures in real-time, the sky was the limit.
"Ah!" Hou's face lit up. "Alchemy is carefully regulated profession here. Not like magic – no special talent needed, just careful measurement, good notes, and willingness to die in fiery explosion from accident. Very rigid rules." He waggled a finger. "Strict division between alchemists and magi. Guild rules, very serious. Magi say magic and alchemy do not mix. ‘The river and the flame cannot share the same path.’"
Rupert frowned. "Why not?"
"Magic warps local natural law. Reactions go wrong, proportions change." Hou mimed an explosion with his hands. "Many problems in early days. Alchemical fire burn down half of Hesperopolis back in days of old empire. Now, complete separation between disciplines. Alchemists have guild, like goldsmith or baker. Very organized, very strict. But you say alchemist as hobby,” Hou turned, studying Rupert with sharp eyes. "Strange hobby for loremaster. Magi and learned men here think alchemy beneath them. Profession for shysters." He pulled up a stool. "But you northern barbarian. What you know of our practices here in Acharion?"
"Not much, I'd be curious to hear your perspective," Rupert deflected, genuinely interested in how this world's understanding compared to what he had read on Wikipedia.
"Aiyaa! Let old wise master Hou explain to ignorant northern barbarian friend." Hou's accent thickened. "All matter composed of four prime elements – earth, air, fire, water – plus fifth essence, quintessence, that binds all together. Like mortar between bricks, yes?" He began drawing diagrams in spilled tea with his finger. "Each element has properties. Hot, cold, wet, dry. Combinations make all materials we see."
Rupert nodded, recognizing the classical (and thoroughly outdated) Aristotelian model.
"But!" Hou raised a finger. "Most important principles are two laws. First: matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. Second: energy flow from higher to lower state, like water down mountain." He grinned at Rupert's surprised expression. "You think we know nothing of conservation laws here?"
"No, I just... that's very precise terminology."
"Alchemists may not have magi's power, but they observe. They measure. They repeat experiments." Hou cleared his throat. "Everything has essential nature that can be extracted, purified, recombined. Through careful process, even lead can become gold – though emperor has many rules about such transmutation. Bad for economy. Inflation already too high." He winked. “Death penalty.”
Rupert's mind was already racing ahead. If he could actually see electron shells and atomic bonds, combined with his knowledge of nuclear physics..."And these processes," he asked carefully, "they're reliable? Reproducible?"
"When done properly, yes. Not like unpredictable magic." Hou scratched his chin. "Problem is, as I say, magic disrupts alchemical process. Makes reaction unstable, unpredictable. Is why most practitioners work far from thaumaturges." He eyed Rupert speculatively. "You truly interested in this? Most lore-seekers chase flashier arts."
"Very interested," Rupert said truthfully. "Would you have any basic texts I could study? For comparison with my... previous experience?"
"Perhaps, perhaps." Hou shuffled over to a bookshelf, examined it for a moment, then turned away and glanced at the sun. "But first, we prepare for Exarch. Cannot keep his excellence waiting, even for fascinating discussion of philosophical mercury."