“This evening.”
“Good.” A sultry voice responded to Garrus. “How much does he know?”
“About as much as I do, but not everything. Not what’s in the cavern, specifically, and nothing you have shared with me. Only what was revealed to me by the rift.” Garrus Carbon replied to the origin of the sultry voice.
A pale woman with dark black hair sat across from him as they conversed in Garrus’ office. She wore a simple black dress, worn tight against her skinny frame, open from the side of her hip to her ankles. Her face was veiled by a light fabric draped from a circlet wrapped around her head.
Inside Garrus’ office sat his desk, which was clean and tidy, bereft of any incriminating evidence of his deeds done within the city. Apart from his desk, and the two chairs in front of it, there were a couple of lounge chairs canted slightly toward each other. The two, Garrus and the mysterious pale woman, occupied those lounge chairs. In front of them a small sofa table held not much more than a tea set on a silver platter.
“You didn’t think it wise to warn him of the danger?” The woman asked Garrus.
“I wasn’t a believer of fate before all this began, you know?” Garrus told her, waving a hand toward the tea set, implying an offer as the gracious host he was.
The woman raised a prim hand in refusal.
“This prophecy business has changed all that for me. It changed everything, maybe for the better, maybe not, but it changed me.” Garrus said, resting back into his lounge chair.
“Not a prophecy, Garrus, it was a prediction made by a deranged cult.”
“A prediction that turned out to be true. Either way, to see it birthed into reality is revelatory. He is here, in this city, and he’s going to the place I ventured to many years ago, to reveal his destiny and embrace it.” Garrus said as he raised his hand in front of him, grasping at nothing, mimicking the way Sen had crushed the Potent Essence in his hand.
“Garrus. The Order has no room for evangelical zealotry. If he is not properly prepared, things outside your purview, and maybe even my own, will turn this world upside-down.”
Garrus smiled.
“It is not faith in Senadin that provokes such strong presupposition. It is my faith in August, and August has never let me down. I have placed my trust with him.”
“The Khepri. I admit that he is of strong mind, body, and will, but will he be able to supplant his values within the boy?” The pale woman asked.
“That boy, despite his immaturity, seems to have wisdom beyond his years. It’s like he can see beyond the mortal coil. He judged August without even knowing him.”
“You believe him prepared, then? Without any external assistance?”
“I believe he is prepared, but I also believe there are other factors at play. I have seen people lie to other people, and I have seen people lie to themselves. I have seen people believe truths about themselves that are nonexistent, and I have seen people disbelieve truths that are right in front of them. Senadin is not a fool, no matter what he thinks about himself.”
The pale woman looked away from Garrus in thought.
“And what of the girl? Has she complicated things?”
“Actually, no.” Garrus replied. “She seems to keep him on track with our intentions. She will go where he goes, but he also lets her help him decide where he goes.”
“He respects her council? Someone he has only known for a few days?”
“Its like they’ve known each other for a very long time. Like siblings, or best friends.”
“…Or an agent specifically designed to gain his trust.”
“At first, I thought she might be an agent sent to stop him. That does not seem to be the case, at least for now. They share a connection. I can’t see it, but I have felt it.”
“You have felt their connection? In their auras?”
“Zulli barely has an aura, but no, the connection seems to be interlinked between something other than their auras. It is like nothing I’ve felt before.”
The pale woman nodded. “Can anyone feel it?”
“The Magic Society’s security system pinged it, but that has diamond-rank sensitivity. Even with my magic sense, combined with my silver rank perception, I can barely feel it, and it comes and goes, like it’s not always there.”
“So, the Magic Society already has a hint.” She said. “The Burning Violet has been investigating him since his arrival.”
“They know the Order has an interest in him, then?”
“No.” She replied. “They know someone does, they do not know it is the Order. That being said, I’ll be removing myself from the City of Flowers until Senadin’s task is completed. If he lives, the Order will owe you a debt. If he dies, our next meeting won’t be so genial.”
***
“I have to say, I’m very relieved to see you two sitting here again.”
Vance sat at the end of Zulli and Sen’s cafeteria table, where they sat across from each other, as they had during their first dinner together.
“I shouldn’t have let you go outside the walls, I don’t know what I was thinking. There could have been a horde after you, or a silver rank monster, or even just a rogue agent preying on the weak.”
“Vance, we’re fine.” Zulli said, taking a break from her breakfast to console him. “Everything worked out. No one died.”
“But were you hurt?” Vance asked.
“Both of us, yes. We were hurt.” Sen said, looking down at his tray. “Zulli more than I.”
“And everything worked out.” Zulli deliberated to Sen. “And it set us on a path that will let us get stronger. That’s what we wanted, right?”
Sen nodded, lifting his eyes to look at Zulli responsibly.
“It won’t be the first time we get hurt, if we ever actually get out there to fight any monsters again.” Zulli said in an annoyed tone.
“We will.” Sen assured.
“Listen to me you two.” Vance said, leaning into the table, holding himself up on his elbows with his forearms crossed. “The pain of losing someone is almost a rite of passage for every adventurer. But I pray to Karma that either of you won’t lose each other. Losing a teammate, a close one, can change your life in ways you can’t imagine. It took me out of the adventuring life completely. It’s why I now sit here in the safety of the Magic Society, in one of the safest cities in the world. I don’t think I could bear to go through it again.”
“Arcturus… Grandstream.” Sen remembered, searching his headspace for the last name. “Was he involved in that?”
Vance looked down and sighed. “Yes. He was involved in that. We were on a team. It was our first team, since we took our Initial Adventure Society Exam. All of us. We fit together so well, until we didn’t.”
“One of you died.” Zulli surmised. “I’m sorry Vance.”
“It still hurts. I think it always will.”
Sen looked away. He had already lost the person closest to him before coming to this world. Not to mention his mother and his dog, all within a short time. Why didn’t he know better? Why didn’t he try to hang on to the things he had? Why didn’t he try to keep Zulli safe?
“It always will.” Sen said, his focus not shifting to look at either of them. “Vance, when you lose someone, what it creates is a void. It’s in our nature to try and fill that void with whatever we can, whether it be healthy or unhealthy. But that void is what you have left of the person. It’s okay to not fill it. It’s okay to have that void, knowing that someone was there before, that gave you…” Sen let out the tight breath he was holding in as he spoke. “…Whatever they gave you.”
Vance’s eyes narrowed at Sen, not expecting him to have a deep understanding of loss.
“You can fill it.” Sen said. “Sometimes you can. It can be replaced with a substantial amount of substitute substance. But sometimes the void is too great to fill. Sometimes feeding it is superfluous, and it will eat everything you give to it, until it ends up eating you. In that case you just have to live with it, and embrace the void, and move on a different person.”
Vance cleared his throat. “I’m sorry Sen, I didn’t mean to lecture you on something you have experience with.”
Sen blinked a couple times, checking the wetness of his eyes. “It was silly of us to go out there, Vance. You were right to lecture us. But back to Arcturus…” Sen said, changing the subject.
“…Did he find you?” Vance asked.
“He found my room. Left me a letter.”
Vance raised an eyebrow. “A letter?”
“Basically, it just said that he was looking for me to join his team, but after talking to you he decided against it, and maybe sometime in the future, if we’re still alive, we could team up.”
“The novelty of outworlders.” Zulli said, reminding them both of the conversation they had in this same spot. “He left me a letter as well. Pretty much said the same thing. It also said we needed someone to help train us up, and he was not that person.”
“Yeah.” Sen agreed, pointing a lazy finger at Zulli. “Pretty much the same letter. Seems like an alright guy, if that letter is anything to go by.”
Vance put on a somber smile.
“Arcturus is very ambitious. He was our team leader. He and Jalex became fast friends at the Initial Exam. Jalex liked him for his ambition and Arcturus couldn’t hold himself back from being friends with the only known Celestine Draconian in the world.”
“That’s where I remember that name, the Draconian.” Sen said, snapping his fingers. “He was on your team too?”
“Ah yes.” Vance said. “Just having Jalex on our team was enough to raise our morale so that even the dullest of contracts were fun. We really were a great team. Then we had Pao, and the one we lost, Maxine… Max.” Vance said her name slowly, reminiscing.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
“Was she special to you?” Zulli asked.
“Special, yes, but not romantically. They are all special people to me. Pao may have had a thing for her, but she kept her demeanor professional, especially on contracts. Pao kept us in line, sometimes Arcturus got ahead of himself and he had to be reeled back in.”
“What did you mean by Celestine Draconian?” Zulli asked.
“Ah, well, Draconians are native to this world but are quite rare as far as the races go. Jalex’s mother is an outworlder, and her world is predominantly Draconian.”
Sen was looking at Vance, but then looked to Zulli, wondering if that made any sense to her.
“So because she’s an outworlder, her offspring is called Celestine?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, yes. When an outworlder has a child, the child is not an outworlder, they are Celestines, and are usually identified by oddly colored hair that matches their eyes.”
Sen’s eyes widened in revelation. “So is that why his spines are that bright red color?”
“Indeed, most draconian spines and eyes are a neutral coloration of their scales. As you may have seen, Jalex is a black-scaled draconian like his father, but has those vibrant red spines and eyes because his mother is an outworlder. He’s the only one of his kind that we know of.”
“Wow.” Sen said. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him. But I didn’t realize he was the rare version of a rare race. Double rare.”
“His father is the head of the Urbonticos empire of steel. It’s an unofficial name for his industry, but a fitting one. Many were lining up to offer him a spot on their team, but Arcturus has a charm about him that seems to attract people, and Jalex developed a liking to him.”
“Your team seemed very cool, Vance.” Zulli said.
Vance nodded, pausing a moment to reminisce.
“Vance.” Sen said. “I want to stress how appreciative I am for you being a friend to us. Whoever put you as the lead researcher for our cases made the best decision they ever could. Everything you ever did, brought you here, sitting at this table with us, and I am thankful for it. You will always have a friend in me, and I’m sure Zulli feels the same.”
“Yep.”
“When are you leaving?” Vance guessed and questioned.
“This evening.”
“Where and why?” Vance asked.
“We’re going to a place called Silverwind. Have you heard of it?”
“Yes, of course, to the northwest. A lower-magic area. That might be good for you. Harshly cold outside of Silverwind, though.”
“That’s what August said.” Zulli replied.
“August? The adventurer working with Varnus? Is he sending you there?”
“Not exactly.” Sen said. “August was working with the Adventure Society on a contract deliberated by Garrus Carbon. Garrus has his own adventure he wants us to go on.”
“Carbon?” Vance asked. “You spoke to him directly?”
“Yeah.” Zulli and Sen said at the same time.
“Is that rare?” Zulli asked.
“Carbon went into hiding a few years ago, after the last monster surge. His empty manor is the focal point for some of the children’s horror stories. Even before the monster surge, he was a bit of a recluse but his gates had opened during the monster surge, and people just walked right in to set up shop, the only permission that was given was some rumor that he was allowing teams to stay in his manor that were willing to protect Vitesse and its people. There are other rumors that he smuggles some restricted magic items around the city, but the Adventure Society either can’t prove it, or doesn’t care for the rumor.”
Sen and Zulli looked at each other, confused.
“August seems to be friendly with him.” Zulli posited.
“Best not to expand on the subject too much, Zulli.” Vance warned. “We know he still lives at the manor, but talking about him and knowing about him might land you in the hands of undesirable people.”
“I didn’t know it was that serious. He seemed kind of… goofy.” Zulli said.
“There was something off about him.” Sen agreed. “Not sinister, but like Zulli said, a little goofy.”
The three paused to mull over their musings. Sen and Zulli took the time to dig into their breakfast a little bit more.
“I just hope you two will be careful. Will you be coming back here to the City of Flowers, then?”
Sen pulled up his napkin to wipe his mouth and swallow his food.
“Maybe. Not sure.” Zulli responded with an invisible mouth full of food.
Sen smirked, lightly shaking his head as he swallowed. “Yeah, we’re not sure. Eventually, hopefully, we’ll come back. It might be smart for us to stay out there for a while though.”
“Of course.” Vance said. “Well, maybe before you leave, we could spend about an hour in an exam room, Sen. Could you humble me with couple of tests before you go?”
“We had some things to wrap up-”
“I can handle it. You’ve been avoiding him long enough, Sen.” Zulli interrupted him before he could finish.
Sen played a sheepishly disgruntled look across his face as he looked at Zulli. He could feel her smiling back at him.
“Alright. We should meet back up for lunch. All three of us. You got any good recommendations, Vance?”
“Of course, it’ll be my treat.”
***
Zulli’s first stop was Leith’s shawarma stall.
“Ah, my little raven!” Leith said as he saw Zulli walking up. “I had wondered where you’ve been.”
“No time to dally, Leith!” Zulli pointedly said. “I need the rest of the shawarma that you owe us, and I need it today.”
“Oh, but I’m not sure if I could-”
“Leith. I need it today.” Zulli said in a frustrated, imposing tone. She wasn’t going to take any chances that she would leave the city without her bounty.
“I see. You’ll be gone for some time then?”
“An adventure outside the city.”
Leith smiled a warm smile.
“I will have them ready for you. Stop by after the lunch rush.”
***
“Alright Sen, just lay down there.”
Sen lay back on the exam table, the same table where he had first awoken. It hadn’t even been a week, and he was already feeling nostalgic. He had put on his Magic Society issued clothes. As it turned, out they were engineered specifically to not interfere with any of the Magic Society’s testing equipment.
Several crystals floated around him, the majority of them a clear coloration, but others were blue, with one red and one purple.
“Got your hands on another Essence, already?” Vance asked Sen without looking up from his tablet.
“Yeah, Garrus gave it to me.” Sen replied, watching the crystals twirl and spin around him, taking different positions, before glowing and fading to move to a different position around him. “He wanted to see what abilities I got from it.”
“It’s signature resembles the Potent essence, but it contains artifacts that are unknown in the records. You have two abilities allocated to it, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Even that is hard to recognize. If there were three, the data may be too complex for me to read.”
“Can I see what you’re looking at?” Sen asked.
Vance walked up to the exam table, flipping around the tablet to show Sen, who looked over at the tablet from his supine position on the exam table. The tablet showed two runes unknown to him at the top of the tablet's glowstone screen, but beneath it, taking up most of the screen, was a coalescence of lines and circles. The data itself was unreadable to Sen, but he could see that some of the lines were pulsing like an electrocardiogram, and the circles may have resembled some kind of magical radar.
“Is that just me?” Sen asked, unable to make anything out of it.
“Yes, one of the crystals is filtering out the ambient magic around you to give a reading of the weave of your matrix. Another pinpoints your essences, then focuses on one at a time.”
“My magical matrix?”
“Indeed.”
“What do those two runes mean?” Sen asked.
Vance flipped around the tablet to get back to studying the data. “Those are just the crystals I have targeted for inspection. They aren’t your abilities or essences. Those take much more translation for the tablet to recognize, but I can manually understand things like that by way of my own magical perception co-referenced to the data of your matrix.”
“So, this Potent Essence is different from other essences, just like my Void Essence?”
“That seems to be the case. With this data we can theorize that your Void Essence is not necessarily a special essence. It seems your matrix may be affecting them, creating new version of their already established magical blueprints.”
“How far can you get with this data?” Sen asked looking back up at the ceiling, watching the crystals revolve around him in his periphery.
“I’m recording it all, so going back and looking through it, I may have weeks or months of more research to do with it. I’m still not done sifting through the initial scans we collected when you first woke up.”
“Are you happy with it?” Sen asked. “The data I’ve given you.” His voice was soft, giving the impression of timidity.
Vance looked up from his tablet to set his eyes on Sen’s face, wondering what changed in Sen’s demeanor.
“We can stop anytime you want, Sen.”
Sen looked over at Vance to look into his eyes, and then set his focus on the ceiling once more. His eyes darted around, reflecting his mind searching for the right things to say, or perhaps the courage to say it.
“I just don't like it when people pry too deep.” Sen said, almost in a whisper.
Vance pressed his finger to the tablet and brought it to his side in one hand. The crystals stopped moving, then floated into a line behind the exam table.
“Would you like to tell me why?”
“I’m afraid of what they might find.” Sen responded. “Or maybe I’m afraid of what I might realize. The fact that the Magic Society will have these records do not help, either.”
Vance walked closer to the exam table, bringing his free hand up to his jaw, a finger crossing his lips to stroke his mustache.
“Ah, Sen.” Vance said, flipping around the tablet once more to show Sen the data on it. The lines constantly shifted and pulsed, while some of the circles glowed or even became hollow, where other lines came to fill that empty space. It seemed to always be in flux, never presenting a static image. “This data is not who you are.”
“But you said it’s most likely me that’s changing the essences. You don't think, maybe who I am is what's changing them?”
Vance nodded, seeing the relation Sen was trying to make. He wasn’t sure how to comfort Sen in this moment, but tried anyways.
“Sen, when we put this data into the records, it will not have your name tied to it. I’ve already done my best to scrub your name from the initial data. But more than that, this data cannot reflect the person your soul has decided you are, and your soul can shift what it wants to be, whenever it wants to do it. Zulli and I, we…” Vance looked down, searching for the right words to say. “We are your friends, and we’re not afraid of the secrets you hide in there.” He said, taking his hand from his face and pressing his finger down into Sen’s chest. “And if you have mysteries within, we can help you find them. Whatever the case, you have at least two friends who are here for you. It seems this August Niles may have become another, as estranged as that may be from your first encounter with him.”
Sen closed his eyes. He knew what he had inside him. He had seen it. Or at least, he had not seen it, because there was nothing to see. It was cold there, and he literally drowned in it. He felt his connection to the void, being voidtouched, made him unworthy of any sort of kindness bestowed to him. He felt no matter what, he had to atone for having it.
“You haven’t said much about it, but you feel a void, don’t you? You think that’s why you woke up with that essence. You theorize that the darkness and emptiness inside you has somehow maybe manifested itself?”
Sen opened his eyes, glancing at Vance but quickly looking away. He nodded. “That’s pretty close, yeah.”
“If that is true, it is not something to hide. Even if you think it’s horrible, and it’s something that you hate about yourself, I know that it’s not true, and I will never hate you because of it. I have seen the fullness of your spirit firsthand, Sen. Zulli has as well. I suspect Carbon and August have also seen it. I believe you are not special because of these incredible essences, I believe you are special because of what you will do with them.”
Vance snapped his fingers, coming to realization in that moment.
“And look at it this way. If you do have a void, a huge oxymoronic mass of emptiness, that means you have that much space to fill with things of substance. Some people are overflowing with their own baggage and it’s tearing them apart. I’d say being in your position is a great place to be.”
Sen played an unamused smirk. Vance was right, and even if he wasn’t, Sen was thankful to have a friend that was willing to be so supportive. His emptiness, however, the emptiness deep inside him that he did everything in his power to hide and to stifle, consumed him. It seemed to rise up into the liminal space just to make sure he wouldn’t be empowered by Vance’s effort to support Sen’s waning psyche. Sen was well versed in this feeling. He felt it often, and already practiced techniques to both hide it and fight against it.
“Thank you, Vance.” Sen said, his voice a whisper still. “It helps a lot, really, to hear that.”
“How about this, Sen? You can refuse, if you want, and I won’t be offended, but how about I open a channel with you in the Magic Society’s network. While you’re gone, you will have a direct channel to reach me, and you can write to me with the tablet I gave you. These channels aren’t cheap to operate, and we will have a budget of messages over certain periods of time, but you can talk to me about your troubles whenever you want, and I’ll always listen.”
“Like an e-mail? Or a text messaging system?” Sen asked.
“E-mail?” Vance repeated. “Energy-mail, I’m assuming? Is that something native to your world?”
“Ehh, close enough, yeah.” Sen replied.
“That description fits its use-case, I suppose. It’s called the Ambient Resonance Network. It sends out a message into the world, that message bounces off the ambient magic circulating around and through our world until it finds the targeted user, then delivers the message. The Magic Society uses it to transfer records between campuses, and when the target is known and static, like they are at each Magic Society location, it is fairly cheap and affordable to send and receive the messages or records. When targeting a single user’s tablet however, and their location is unknown, it costs much more materials and mana to send and receive them, and in some cases the message may take days to reach the target.”
“And the Magic Society will be okay with us using those resources just for conversation?”
“I’m almost positive they will. The Magic Society has very large coffers allocated to outworlder investigation. You’ll have to compromise something for its use, though.”
“What’s that?”
“One of your abilities prevents us from tracking you, but when you send and receive a message, your location will be pinged in the Magic Society’s records. It’s mostly used for data collection to improve the network, but it will give anyone with the proper clearance the ability to see where and when you sent and received messages.”
Sen lay on the exam table, still looking at the ceiling. Vance was the first person he met when he came to this world, and became his first real friend here. It made Sen’s heart feel fuller to know he could always talk to him when he wanted, but was hesitant to surrender to the Magic Society more than they needed. Despite this reluctance, he was willing to take a leap of faith, with that faith hinging on Vance, specifically.
“I’d like that, Vance.” Sen said, his voice becoming fuller than his previous timorous intonation.
“Awesome, Sen. I’ll get it set up after you leave today. I’ll send you a message to let you know the channel is open when it gets worked out.”
A real smile crossed Sen’s lips.
“Sounds good, Vance. Thank you again. I really am glad you’re my friend.”
“I thank you for the data you have given me today, and doubly thank you as well, for being my friend.” Vance replied. “How about we meet up with Zulli then, and get some lunch?”