Chapter VI

Without any sort of warning, he suddenly awoke and sat up in his bed, sweat pouring down his body and his breathing heavy. He felt as if he had been struck by lightning and hurriedly looked around his bedroom but, when he saw as much as sensed that he was alone and knew that he wasn’t under threat of attack, Nigreos Noctis took a deep breath and put his head in his hands.

What was that? What just happened?

Clenching his teeth, the Master of Darkness threw off his velvet covers and placed his bare feet against the soft carpet of his room. The man got to his feet and looked around once more, wanting to be absolutely certain that he was alone and that nothing had gotten past his defenses. However, despite the rather large size of his room, aside from the king-size bed in the corner and his wardrobe across from him, it was empty. He wasn’t one to have unnecessary clutter in his living quarters and, because of this, there was nowhere for anybody to hide. Satisfied that his room was indeed empty, he turned and crossed to the door, pulling it open and moving out into the hallway. He still didn’t sense anything and, when he arrived in his living area, he didn’t see any intruders. Much like his bedroom, the room was relatively empty, with a dark red couch and a desk on opposite corners. There truly was nowhere for anybody to hide. He was certain that he was alone.

So what was that feeling then? he asked himself. Could it possibly be…?

A month prior, on the night of the attack on the Citadel and his subsequent battle against Rista Pine, Nigreos had been unable to prevent the Assassination Gem from getting away. He had never expected Rista to have Abi Reiner’s Realm Dagger on him and so, hadn't been prepared when he cut open a portal and rushed through it. His inability to prevent Rista from escaping came at the cost of his right hand. Nigreos grimaced, looking down at where his hand used to be to stare at the replacement. His prosthetic was constructed out of a slick back metal known as sensium which contained a strange matter that greatly resembled human nerve cells. It was found in the Mines of Crainin and was one of Ijiria’s main exports due to its properties. Due to the nerve matter’s compatibility with human nerves, sensium was often used for prosthetics since it both returned feeling to the limb and gave the user the ability to move it as if it were their own. However, despite being able to easily replace his lost limb, just staring at his sensium hand reminded him of his failures.

In his attempt to try and make up for losing the relic, Nigreos had enhanced his senses to alert him if the stone was activated. Since they couldn’t afford to let Rista run around with the gem while they were trying to locate it, he had urged Album to erase him and that was what she had done. Yet, that solution only caused new problems. While Rista had been dealt with, they didn’t know what world he had fled to. There were an infinite number of different realities and he could have gone to any one of them. The only way they could pinpoint where was if the gem was activated and, since it was one of the Ijirian Relics, it wouldn’t be hard for a mage of his power to find it, especially if Rista fled to a magical world and the gem was found by another mage. If he went to a magicless one, however, it wouldn't be as easy.

So...was that feeling just now an alert that the gem was used? he asked himself. But...that was so strong. If it was then...whoever found it is no mere commoner. That power...could only mean that the Assassination Gem was picked up by a magic user of high status.

Nigreos clenched his teeth, realizing that he couldn’t just leave the matter uninvestigated. Despite the late hour, he would need to be certain that the feeling rushing through him was related to the gem’s theft.

Wanting to get back to sleep as soon as possible, Nigreos rushed back into his room to grab his silk black robe from his wardrobe before throwing it on over his bare chest and dark-colored shorts. He didn’t feel the need to get completely dressed for such a quick errand. Once he had his sash tied around his waist, the Master headed for his front door and hurried out.

The silver and white hallways of the residential section of the Citadel were empty and silent. The torches were mostly extinguished with only a handful still containing the fading embers of fire magic, casting a dim red hue over the corridors. Most of the Citadel’s residents would most likely be asleep at such a late hour and thus, he knew there was no need to worry about running into anybody. If it was, in fact, a false alarm, he wanted to investigate quietly. When he reached the end of the hall, he came upon the air lift—a large shaft stretching from the bottom of the Citadel all the way to the top. The platform itself was not currently on the residential floor so Nigreos was forced to summon it.

He slowly stretched out his hand and whispered, “Ortumo.”

He was only forced to wait for a few seconds before the large, silver disk soundlessly rose up to his level. It was about 6 feet in diameter and could only fit a few people at the most. Normally, it’s small size was annoying given the large number of denizens in the Citadel but the larger something was, the harder it was to raise with wind magic. Since not everybody in the castle excelled in wind spells, the platform was forced to be small so that everyone could use it.

Nigreos stepped forward and onto the disk, once again whispering “Ortumo” to continue upwards. His control over air magic, while not terribly impressive, was still strong enough that he was able to ascend rather smoothly. The platform didn’t lurch like it did for many others and, before he knew it, he had arrived at the floor third to the top. He stepped out into the hallway, finding the torches on that floor to be all but extinguished already. However, the lack of light did nothing to him as, due to his control over the darkness, he could see so clearly it might as well have been daytime.

Nigreos proceeded forward down the hall, making his way down various halls and passing different rooms before arriving at his destination—large, obsidian doors with a golden sign on the left reading “MAP ROOM”.

He reached for the silver door handle and pushed one open before stepping inside. The large, circular room was nearly ten yards across with banners displaying the green flame and golden shield that was the royal crest hanging all around them. There were four large oval windows about the height of Nigreos at equal distances from each other, giving him a view of the city of Erika down below, the lights of the Night Market off to his right visible even from where he stood. Finally, in the very center of the room, there was a circular platform mounted on a golden pedestal.

The Master nodded to himself before walking across the room to stand before the pedestal. Once he was right in front of it, he could see the dozens of runes carved into its surface. He exhaled softly, both hoping his earlier feeling was a false alarm and praying that he finally had a lead, before placing his hand upon the platform.

“Permitte Vedere,” he whispered.

Instantly, the platform burst to life. The runes suddenly began glowing blue as swirls of mist-like mana began to rise and swirl around the pedestal. Gradually, the mist began to form little balls the size of his fist with letters appearing right under them. Each ball represented a world known by the Ijirian Empire. The ones that remained blue were controlled by Ijiria, the ones that turned red were independent magic worlds, and the ones that turned green were independent magicless worlds. There were only a few dozen known worlds since Ijiria only had a finite amount of time and resources to dedicate toward the exploration of other realities. Nigreos stared at the various balls for a moment, knowing that if something as mana-dense as the Assassination Gem were used then the QuaerBasim would have surely picked it up.

Due to the overwhelming power he felt when he woke up, Nigreos immediately began to search the magic worlds since it was highly unlikely that anybody with as much power as he sensed would be in a magicless world. When he found nothing out of the ordinary, he was about to consider the matter settled and leave, but then decided he might as well be thorough and search the other worlds. Because he was almost certain it wouldn’t amount to anything, he wasn’t searching terribly thoroughly and so, he almost missed it. However, just as he was about to turn away, he saw a small dot of orange light atop one of the green balls.

“W-What?” he breathed, blinking a few times to ensure that he was seeing correctly. “T-that’s not…”

There’s a magic user as powerful as the one I sensed in a world without magic? How? Shouldn’t Ijiria have already known about this? There’s no way someone as powerful as this broke the law and went to a magicless world without our knowledge. I mean...the only person who could have done that was…

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Just as the thought occurred to him, he frantically looked below the green orb to the name displayed below.

It can’t be…

It read “Omaruo”, a name he not only recognized, but was the name of a world he had visited once before.

“Abigail's...Haven?” he whispered.

“Quite a strange development, isn’t it?”

Nigreos spun around, immediately pulling all of his dark mana to the tips of his fingers, but the moment he saw who stood before him, he relaxed his body and released his hold on the power within him.

“What are you doing here?” he demanded.

Before him stood a man he was quite familiar with yet hadn’t expected to run into him at that time of night. He was an old friend of Nigreos and the Citadel’s Master of Wind, Ryokumo Caeli—the only man who’s distortion magic could actually conceal his presence from somebody with senses as finely tuned as the Master of Darkness.

Ryokumo grinned, reaching up to run his hands through his slicked back silver hair. The man was strange-looking to begin with due to his curled mustache, small pointed beard, and narrow brown eyes—common of the people of the eastern country of Sukon—but his choice to use magic to alter his hair color to silver was something that just made him look more like an eccentric fool than a Master of the Citadel.

“What am I doing here?” Ryokumo said softly, repeating Nigreos’s question as if thinking of it as a stupid thing to ask. “Well, the same as you, I would think. I mean, you are here to investigate the source of the rather alarming alert, correct?”

Nigreos struggled to keep his surprise from showing, not wanting to show any sort of weakness in front of the man. “You...felt it as well? In that case...you were searching for the stone, too?”

“Of course I was,” he said, chuckling. “No mage in their right mind wouldn’t be. The only difference is between those of us who are powerful enough to search every world as opposed to the ones close by.”

Nigreos grimaced inwardly. He should have expected somebody like him to have thought along the same lines. Very few Ijirians had the magical ability, or even the desire, to try and sense every known world due to the stress it took on the caster’s body. In fact, Nigreos had been feeling constantly lethargic ever since the attack on the Citadel because of how far he was trying to extend his senses. However, knowing Ryokumo for as long as he had, he found himself unsurprised that his old friend would have done so as well.

“I suppose you’re right,” Nigreos conceded. “But did you have to be hiding? God, I hate it when you sneak up on me like that.”

Ryokumo smirked. “Well, I wasn’t sure who was coming so I thought it would be best to hide. After all, once can never be sure who is friend and who is foe in this lovely Citadel of ours, now can you? When I saw it was you, I simply thought it would be fun to make a dramatic entrance.”

“Well don’t,” Nigreos grumbled.

The Sukonese man chuckled before turning his head in the direction of the still activated QuaerBasim. “I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, to be honest,” he said softly. “I was certain that the gem must’ve been activated in one of the magical worlds since the user felt so powerful but...to think that somebody like that not only exists in a magicless world but in that one. It seems fate is just as cruel as they say...though it’s not like we didn’t know that.”

Nigreos sighed, turning his own attention back to the glowing green orb that represented Omaruo.

“You don’t think...somebody else went there with her, do you?” Nigreos asked the man.

Ryokumo quickly shook his head. “No. Abi went alone. I’m certain of that. If there’s a mage as strong as we sensed in Omaruo then it has nothing to do with her. After all, in a world like that, the only one who would be able to sense the gemstone would be somebody with magic blood.”

“Magic...blood?”

Nigreos’s eyes went wide as Ryokumo’s words forced him to consider a possibility that seemed so preposterous that he almost felt like a fool for even thinking it. However, there was very little known about what Abi Reiner did during her time in Omaruo and so, they could only speculate.

“You don’t think…” Nigreos murmured, “...that Abi’s son could have found the gemstone?”

Ryokumo turned a dark expression his way, essentially confirming that even the Master of Wind had considered it.

“To be honest with you, I’m not certain,” he admitted. “But I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind. You said this supposed ‘Rista Pine’ fellow almost certainly acquired his Realm Dagger from Abi. If that’s the case then it’s not surprising that it was set to take him to her Haven. And if that’s where she wanted him to go...perhaps there was a reason for that?”

Nigreos clenched his teeth. “What, you think she was sending Pine to her son? What good would that do? The boy was hardly seven when she left. It’s not as if she could have trained him to be of aid.”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “But I do know that this isn't something we can simply ignore. An investigation needs to be conducted and the gem needs to be retrieved whether it’s the boy who has it or somebody else.”

The Master of Darkness scowled. “Maybe...we should have taken Eric Reiner into custody after all.”

“No, I disagree,” Ryokumo immediately replied.

Before Nigreos could ask him why, the Master of Wind turned and walked toward one of the windows. He folded his hands behind his back and stared out across the city, his back now to Nigreos.

“Abi may have broken the law but her son did not,” Ryokumo continued. “Keeping that boy a secret...was the right choice, Nigreos. Even if we come to regret it in the present.”

Nigreos looked down at his feet, knowing that his old friend was right even if he didn’t want to admit it. In truth, he didn’t think he would ever truly regret sparing the boy. It was a final request from a beloved friend and one that he would have wanted to fulfill no matter what.

After a moment, Ryokumo turned and glanced back over his shoulder, a look of longing in his eyes. “So? What’s the plan? Regardless of what’s going on, we still need to reclaim the gem.”

Nigreos nodded sternly. “Of course. I’ll fill Album in on the situation in the morning and then we’ll try to get an audience with the High Council and request permission to use a Realm Dagger to enter Omaruo. From there, we’ll simply have to see what we’re up against and plan accordingly. Until we know for certain who has possession of this stone, we can’t be sure of what’s the best course of action.”

“Understood,” the other man muttered. “In that case, I’ll speak with Thrim and ask him what he can do for you.”

Nigreos glanced back at the QuaerBasim and narrowed his eyes. “I don’t suppose you would accompany us. If we are in fact up against a powerful individual then Album and I may very well need your help.”

Ryokumo snorted. “Don’t sell yourself short, Nigreos. We both know you two are perfectly capable of handling the situation.” The man chuckled. “But even if I wanted to go with you, I can’t. Reigious has Nakoma and I in charge of dealing with the few attackers we caught in the Citadel raid…which you two haven’t exactly made easy for us. After all, there’s not much they can tell us about Rista Pine if they don’t remember the bastard.”

Nigreos shrugged. “We did what we thought was best at the moment. Hindsight’s clearer than a Liquet Crystal after all.”

Ryokumo chuckled. “Very true, my friend. Don’t worry about it though. We’ll deal with the situation. They may not know what Pine intended but that doesn’t mean they aren’t familiar with their plan. They’ll talk eventually. You just worry about reclaiming the gem.”

“Fair enough. In that case. I should get some sleep. It’s going to be a long few weeks,” he grumbled.

“Agreed,” the other man replied, extending his hand. “Luck to you, old friend.”

Nigreos grinned, firmly grasping Ryokumo’s hand. “And to you.”

***

Ryokumo watched silently as Nigreos Noctis turned and made his way through the double doors of the Map Room. The Master of Wind said nothing more, feeling that the conversation had contained everything worth talking about. When the door shut and he was left alone in the room once, he turned and stared back at the QuaerBasim, furrowing his brow in thought.

Abi Reiner’s son, huh?

He walked over to stand before the pedestal and reached his hand out to touch the glowing green ball that represented the world his old friend loved so much. Much of what she did there was still unknown to Ijiria, and her reasons for leaving were never revealed. All the country’s leaders knew was that she got her hands on a Realm Dagger and disappeared, only to be found many years later. When she returned, she wasn’t the same. In fact, as they found out shortly after, she started a rebellion against the High Council and the King of Ijiria and was the cause of the theft of the Assassination Gem that they now sought to reclaim. Despite knowing more about it all than he ever revealed to the council and the crown, so much of the woman was still a mystery to him and now, there was no longer any way to learn the answers he so strongly desired.

But if her son is, in fact, involved in this situation...perhaps more answers are about to come to light.

He grinned. The winds are changing. I can tell. Something big is about to happen and whatever it is is almost certainly going to change the multiverse. It’s all simply a matter of whether those changes are going to be for the better.