Four days earlier, and minus one demented, murder-happy dragoness…

Josephine Pyromist is annoyed on this average Monday workday. She is more than annoyed, there’s a level of annoyance that starts to trigger her OCD in ways that her meditation doesn’t resolve, and this is past that. That annoyance stems from more than just the scrap metal sitting on her side of the lab. She spins in her rolling chair to confront the source of this irksome intrusion onto her laboratory floor. Her personal arcanist lab is filled with wonders, chemicals, inventions, and research projects, all at risk from carelessness.

"Kylancer Edwin Bertance," she calls out in a stern tone to her lab mate. A young man about the same age as her, 21 years old, pops into view from his mechanic bench after tinkering with yet another of his golem side projects. He's deceptively short, even with his spiky red hair, close-trimmed goatee and hazel eyes, and light skin complexion. He has a light frame and a sharp-shaped face, and she'd be forgiven for thinking he was athletically lacking. That misconception stops when he swings a forge hammer like it’s an unstoppable force, a process she's seen many times over the years.

"Josephine Mitsune Pyromist, to what do I owe the pleasure?" He replies cheerily while adjusting the magnification goggles he's just pulled off. His lab coat is smudged with grease again, and his ID badge is looped on a lanyard around his neck. From his perspective, he's getting the receiving end of a death glare from a five-foot-seven woman with wavy, bright, almost strawberry-red hair extending to shoulder length that she ties back in a ponytail. More notable are her piercing lavender-colored eyes, and smooth, light-tanned skin with just a few freckles. She's lithe, and also just a little curvy in all the right places, and giving him an evil eye. She taps her sneaker on the floor impatiently while she crosses her arms and taps a neatly trimmed, but plain nail on her wristwatch. Her lab coat is in a similar state, and sterile white.

"Kyle. What is it that I do here?" She asks like she would a four-year-old.

"Alchemy, Joey. Alchemy. Really good alchemy and Arcanist zoology, and a helping hand of Magitek inventing," he answers in a deadpan way.

"And what do you do?" She asks calmly. Just admit the mistake, and fix it, instead of trying to annoy me in that disarming charm sort of way, she thinks.

"Magitek science? Arcanist metallurgy and systems engineering? Building magical stuff to improve or save people's lives?" He again answers deadpan.

"Yes Kyle, but what is the difference between your side of the lab and mine?" She points to the neatly taped line on the polished tile floor. Maybe it’s a little obsessive, but she outlines all the major equipment on her side of the lab, to inform her when the space is violated.

"Yours is pristine? And mine is not?"

"Exactly! It is pristine because I work on precision of a different sort," she says with just a little bite to her words. "I work on alchemical reagents and lots of cool other magical concoctions that can fry adversaries, dissolve tough compounds, superpower people's magical skills, or save someone's life. And what do I need, at a minimum, to do all of this?"

"Okay, I'll move the scrap metal," he sighs when he finally owns up to the blunder. She can't help but get in a little sass.

"Yes Kyle, that would be great. Because we can't have contaminants in my lab. This is a precision operation, and I don't want to mix up a regen potion that inadvertently causes people to vomit blood, Kyle." He stares at her blankly for a second.

"That has never happened."

"But it could, Kyle. So let's not take a chance, shall we?" She smiles sweetly after this and hums a tune while working on her primer mixture. I'll make an Arcanist out of him someday. I couldn't date him, but I can at least make him a presentable Arcanist. She glances at him with interest while he's moving the scrap. Alright Kyle, let's see if you have learned your lesson.

She tunes out the sound around her, and reaches out with her thoughts while glancing at him. That white static noise she associates with her ability fades away, and she can hear his internal dialogue.

She groans audibly when she hears an all-too-familiar tune, and internally vows to cleanse that infectious tune from the world. With fire. And Kyle along with it.

Who lives in a pineapple, under the sea…

"Oh my fates Kyle, you're humming SpongeBob SquarePants in your head, like you didn't learn a thing!" She accuses him. "You know I hate that song!"

"It is very catchy, isn't it?" He smiles slyly. She relents and just throws up her arms in acceptance before letting out a soft chuckle.

"It's very meta, knowing you know that I know…that you know. Or something." She sits back in her chair and errantly spins it around a couple of times. It's definitely coffee time, and time to reacquire her focus. "You know I never use it. Like, ever. Well, almost never."

"I know. The research center is still standing, and the Conclave hasn't suffered from a massive political scandal," he teases. "How do you just not view that thought sense as some kind of tool to do massive good in the world, anyway? I feel like you’ve changed your answer a hundred times. Usually, it's 'because it makes life too easy' or some variant."

"Because, Kyle," she sighs, "I worked too hard at London Academy and under Amaranth to ever want to risk being labeled a cheat or a thief. That isn't who I am, or something I ever want to be." He takes a moment to rub her shoulder after putting away the equipment, his warm smile faint, but still there. "And if you start waxing Peter Parker on me about great powers, I'm gonna melt your shoes when you're sleeping."

"Man, I didn't even think that thought yet. Are you clairvoyant too?" He asks casually, and she lets out a soft laugh.

"I think I have enough on my plate with my alchemical lab, and my magical creatures encyclopedia I carry around in my head." He leans back after a second, gazing at the hallway where there's some discussion from the other techs at Asqualia. She looks at her watch, it’s getting closer to the end of the day. “Wanna go to town later for a drink? I know we have Trivia tomorrow, buuut—it’s just feeling like one of those days! Let’s go grab Claire and Joel after work!"

"Tempting, but maybe later. I was gonna read up on something. Bitters and Snags just went on a break out of town, they said that there were like, a half-dozen Awakenings over the past week when they checked topside. Actually, I was wondering if you had any input. Half of them were drakensouls." Her attention is immediately captured.

"Half a dozen?" She echoes. "That makes no sense! There have only been about a few thousand cases of drakensouls emerging in the last hundred years. And there were three at once? Within this relatively tiny town?"

"I know, right? There's something funky going on. Maybe it's like some kind of cluster event. Like, the emergence of one caused the emergence of others?"

"That's a cascade effect, and no. That's not how it works at all, regular Awakening is just a biological clock, drakensouls are totally random, even if they happen around the same age span!" She counters forcefully. This is very interesting now. "What else do you know?"

"Not much. Bitters said he heard that SAF got involved when he was near their garrison by the promenade, one of his SAF buddies said they were in containment panic, presumably because it could have been a breach of veil protocol."

"Wow. Okay, I think that warrants a call to Amaranth. If only he ever picked up his phone, or was in an area that didn't have high interference!” she adds in an annoyed tone. Amaranth is the scholar, but he spends every moment that he isn’t in class in the field. In places very far from any easy means of communication. Pocket planes and mana-laden rock are a bit of a bear on even arcanist communications equipment.

"What about his buddy in SAF, Nick?" Kyle asks thoughtfully.

"Nick?" She echoes. She instantly thinks of that man with the fashionably out-of-date ponytail, hazel eyes, and unflinching professionalism she’d seen with his forays with Amaranth during some of her mage-zone excursions in the wilderness. "I thought he was on reserves at SAF somewhere, but I haven't heard much from him lately. I mean hey, he and Amaranth were good friends growing up, and he’s like…an associate? I'll try to reach Amaranth once I finish up here."

Kyle goes back to his task, and she cracks open her secure laptop and preps a connection to the Arcanist archives before typing at a rapid pace. That's a really weird coincidence. Amaranth mentioned about a year ago there was a spike of awakenings that happened around here. But nothing after that. It could have been a coincidence, just a lot of dragon families with kids close in age right when Awakening happens. But drakensouls? That’s a lot rarer. She'd need to look at the data as a function of date, and compare it to the population, but that might take a while to pull together.

She glances at her half-finished distillation. Better to work on that first, before she loses focus. ADHD, you are my best friend and worst enemy sometimes.

It's late afternoon when she finally wraps up her tasks and puts all the reagents back in their place, then follows up with wiping down the counter gently. She examines the area–her lab is now clean and presentable, and she picks up one errant cloth under a table. On the way out, she looks at the nameplate at the doorway, and allows herself a faint smile.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Kyle and Joey's Lair.

It's been there a year, but this lab and her research make her feel like a part of something special. It’s a home for her, in the mental, and even physical sense. She takes a deep breath and realizes she's overdone it on that cinnamon spice scent she loves. Ugh. Kyle didn't tell me I overdid it. On the plus side, it did blend out some of the off-putting scents from her work.

She locks up the lab before setting down the hallway. The massive crystalline windows in the hall paint a pretty picture–a sprawling underwater cavern adorned with all manner of vegetation, and above them, Flotsam Lake, suspended above their heads by powerful enchantments. It’s always surreal, seeing that much water suspended above them. There’s a glow of sunset from up above, the bleeding orange and reds of the approaching evening. Outside this building is an entire ecosphere and mage research center, hidden from the world. That sight will never get old to her, she thinks to herself. Kyle's already headed out, and she'll see him later in the dorm. She has another purpose today though, mostly to satisfy her curiosity. She spots the thin, tall mustached administrator talking to one of the other senior staff, with his medium-length salt and pepper hair, slightly wrinkled face, and puppy-brown eyes. It sounds like they're talking about material purchases.

"Joey, good afternoon, how are you?" Drylasha Zameren asks politely after she waves to him, and he finishes up with his colleague. He turns back to her, a warm smile still present. "I heard good news about your patent for your alchemical dispenser system. It went through!" This news is a bit of a shock, she didn't think it even had a shot at approval!

"Oh my goodness! Kyle's going to love to hear that! It was a half-and-half job, and it wasn't that super complicated–" he disarms her long explanation with a soft laugh.

"Ah, sometimes the best ideas stem from something simple and easily overlooked. So, what can I do for you today?" He asks with interest.

"I needed to find some information about drakensouls. I was going to reach out to my old mentor, but I also wanted to see if we had any research journals not digitized from the initial events," she asks politely.

"Well, I–ah, well I have no idea, we must have something here, it's strange that no one even asks about it these days," he adds while stroking his mustache. "Is this a new research project?"

"There might be. Kyle mentioned that there were a bunch of Awakenings in a short timespan around here. And while I know draconic biology like the back of my hand, the drakensouls are not something I'm as familiar with," she relays. He nods thoughtfully. It’s so easy to get him to sign off on things, by emphasizing an academic curiosity.

"Talk to Jack, he'll give you full access to our archive department. What about the rest of your work?"

"The new primer gel formula works nicely, I reduced the reagent usage by fifteen percent. It's a nice slice of cost savings with the exact same performance," she beams coyly. He sighs contentedly. “So, I do have some time to spare.”

"Oh Joey, you never disappoint. Never say something is impossible because you always find a way. And tell Kyle that the new alloy project is overdue. And he's been cranking that infernal furnace of his nonstop for a week!"

The unexister engine. That infernally large, loud, and hotter-than-hell furnace of his has been running and making the lab a little too warm for her liking. She’d been using her exogel to cool the room slowly, and wasting her supply of a few reagents, much to her annoyance. But, he’s been obsessing about a new alloy for months that he says could change history. She has a theory on what it is, but–getting that formula right should be impossible. Even for him. She decides to keep it light.

"Oh, he's close to a breakthrough. He's experimenting with the grain structure of an adamantine crystal and some additives for a new steel alloy. A bit of a mission creep, but he's onto something interesting.” She also doesn't tell him that Kyle had put a hole in the floor from a misplaced drop of molten slag metal. But, Kyle’s produced some very weird metal alloys out of it, and they’re closer to stability than ever. "The archives are closed now, but–could I just start today?"

"Hmm. Do you ever stop working?" He asks with hesitation. She shakes her head enthusiastically. It doesn't help that she grins and beams at him with her lavender eyes. "Oh okay, just make sure to log any materials you take out, scouts' honor or all that jazz." He’s still wearing a contented smile, likely at her assertive interest in the unknown.

"Awesome, thank you so much!" She practically skips down the hall. Kyle said she had manic energy for days, but she needs to be more assertive. Well, today is a first for that second part!

She wonders where this inquiry could go. After a quick trip to the archives and jotting down all the entries she gathered, she heads back to her dorm and opens the door with a soft click of the key, she pulls her bookbag off her shoulder and places the research journals neatly on her oversized desk.

Home at last. She unties the clasp on her hair, and her wavy red curls fall and bounce at the lightest sway behind her. Ugh, Kyle, you had to mention Nick. Now I want one of his field-cooked meals because even in the wilderness, he cooks like a dream. She's annoyed that while her alchemical skills are divine, her cooking is only average. Cooking for one is kind of tricky, and she doesn’t like making a bulk meal and eating the same thing for several days.

She takes a sniff again, her trained nose tells her that she should shower first after work, before attending to the wind down in the evening. I don't get it. I still get musty, even when I'm like this all the time. How does that even track, there's no physical part of my fur present! Even as an Arcanist, I still get to call out magic as weird! You’re weird, magic gods! Or whatever powers this aetherial substance in our universe. Seriously, the arcane physicists are slacking on explanations.

She sighs and realizes that her mild OCD is kicking in. She takes a deep breath and forces herself into a zen-like mind state. Sometimes, she just needs to take a minute to slow down, and she lets go of her form.

It only takes a handful of seconds, and the discomfort of the transition is something she got used to a long time ago. The itchy skin, the subtle shift of bones, and the shape of her body changing are minor irritants. Maybe it's not as extreme as a dragon's transformation, but it is mildly jarring for the few who observe it.

She flops down on the beaten-up couch a minute later, her one furniture holdover from the Academy. It has seen better days, and she could easily replace it, considering she has a huge chunk of cash tucked away. But it's cozy, and it's a bit of nostalgia for her. She pulls out her phone to tap away and jot a few notes. It's annoying to her, how many times she's scratched the glass with her small claws inadvertently.

Note to self. Need to come up with a new glass-like resin that is scratch-proof, and still allows the touch display to pick up finger texture. I'll put it on the back burner for now. At least the display picks up my fingers identically. Her eyes scan the news–some local place called Delta Tech had caught fire, and the report is just coming out now.

Mages might have been involved in a decidedly unusual event–some group called the Talons? She wraps her tail around her torso like a blanket, adorned with bright red fur that matches her hair color–it's ridiculously poofy, like usual. This is one of the few places she can relax like this, one of the few places she feels comfortable letting her true form out. A place she can feel safe.

Only Kyle knows. And no one else here does–not that she could tell, when she occasionally eavesdropped with her thought sense. She uses it a little more than she admits out of pure curiosity. Kyle is a bright beacon of light in a world that has not been kind to her people, and she hopes, someday, that she won't have to worry nonstop about being found out.

I shouldn't have to hide, she thinks with a solemn expression, because she has so much to offer the world. But the world isn't cruel. People are cruel, sometimes through overt means, other times by subtle nudges of passive aggression or codewords. Or slow trickles of legislation that make it perfectly fine to bias hiring towards humans and dragons, or call people repulsive names, or refuse service.

And the Conclave is filled with lots of those people.

Her ear twitches, and she glances down at her phone, trying not to think what it takes to fix an entire mage government to be decent to all Kin as a whole. She's reading the local news again–the non-magical variety. She looks at the roster of kids hiding as mages in the local high school graduation year on her notepad by her side table, thinking that some of them might be interns this coming summer.

It's months away, of course, but Zameren has asked her to start looking into appraising them. They'd need security clearance, and some training to take an internship at such a high-end facility. But it’s a nice thought, going from being an apprentice to teaching others.

The class photo is also there–nothing special, really–and she notices a few kids standing out in the back row. One is a toned girl with long black hair and a smile for days. Another girl goofily hugs her with long, wavy brown hair, and a tall, thin kid with short brown hair makes a disgusted expression right next to them, with similar hair color and facial features. They look like siblings.

Next to the raven-haired girl, there's a medium-height teen with messy dark brown hair, and bright green eyes joining in the embrace with a smirk. She doesn't know why he catches her attention. She checks the name, and compares it to the candidate list.

Drenar Rashalda. He isn’t on it.

Well, shame he's not on the list of known mage families. Kids these days would give an arm and a leg if it allowed them to see how magical our world is, she thinks with a smile. Then, she frowns. She looks closer at the photo–then she zooms in, to the maximum resolution. His eyes aren't just green, they're super green. Almost as if–

She looks at everyone else in the photo and then checks the date. It was taken in late September, a few weeks into what she presumes is a standard school year. She's seen this before, in dragons. Sometimes they have super intense eye coloring that they have to hide with contacts. Red eyes, amber eyes, and orange eyes tend to attract a lot of unwanted attention to the mage world, and Conclave policy is to have dragons mask it through contacts or magical glamors. But his aren't. And he isn't the only one. The two girls next to him have intense gray-blue and deep azure-colored eyes, respectively. The brother looks ordinary. But as she looks through the rows of kids, her focus deepens. The number of intense eye colors is unsettlingly high.

Ten.

Twenty?

Thirty-five?!

She’s got better eyesight than most, and the first thing she thinks is, this can’t be possible. They can’t all be dragons. Can they? What would that mean if that were the case? How could that be possible?

She examines the list of candidates. She knows there is a huge mage and Kin community out here in this town, but then her eyes widen and she rubs anxiously at the base of one of her elongated ears. The list of known mage families with school-age kids is about a few dozen. Assuming one kid per family, and every single one of them came from a draconic family, and not say, a Wargen or a pixie, or even an elven, or just an ordinary human mage, this makes no sense at all.

She's staring at something unprecedented.

They are all about to, or have Awakened. The age bracket matches, but the names don't. She stares at the names crossed off. The group of four in the top right fit none of the declared mage families. Not that some mages don’t attempt to live a normal vanilla life, but magic has a way of making a mundane life a fleeting dream for most. She flips to her contacts and calls Kyle. He picks up after the second ring.

"Hey Mitsune, I thought you were coming out with us later–"

"Kyle, we've got a new project. And I have no idea how big it is because I've never seen anything like this." She cuts to the point. "Meet me at the lab, tomorrow morning, early. I've got to do some research tonight." He stammers a few indecipherable words, and she sighs while his brain catches up to her gut instinct.

"Joey, what did you find?"

She takes a breath as the words come from the heart. "Someone might have broken Awakening."