“Far be it from to try to prove a negative,” said the Master jovially, and then took a spoonful of soup.
Lumina, rather than being distressed at Brin’s attempt to start another argunt, just smiled knowingly to the side.
The soup course wasn’t as good as the appetizer, to be honest. Very thin and eggy, so Brin took three or four bites to be polite and then pushed it back.
“But you said, or rather you instructed Ian of Avion to tell us that ghosts aren’t real,” said Brin.
“Is that what he told you?” asked the Master.
“Well, no, he said you offered a prize to the first person who proves that the ghost on the fourteenth floor isn’t really a ghost,” said Brin.
“Correct,” said the Master.
Brin slumped. “You already know exactly what it is. You’re the Master of Magic, of course you do. So you do believe in ghosts.”
“I didn’t say that. You see, you’ve touched on an old hobby of mine. There was a span of twenty years where I investigated every single ghost sighting I caught wind of. I think I started in the reign of Briolanja and I stopped only shortly before her grandson Lancarote took the throne,” said Master.
“No, Master, you were still doing it when you accepted to the Tower. Rember when you took to the haunted belfry?” asked Lumina.
“Yes and… not a ghost, but a [Clown]! Nasty Class, that. I told young Lancarote’s late father to ban them from the capital entirely, you know.”
“And he did. And [King] Lancarote upheld the ban,” said Lumina.
“He did? Well, maybe he has more sense than I give it credit for,” said the Master.
“You were a ghost hunter?” asked Brin.
“Yes, and in the twenty, maybe forty years that I entertained the hobby, it consistently turned out to be sothing else. Pranks, unusual Skills, illusions most often. People trying to scare each other to gain advantage or just to make trouble. The really interesting ones… Lumina, did you ever visit the last good tea parlor in Steamshield? I call it the last good tea parlor because they haven’t made an acceptable one since.”
“That was before my ti,” said Lumina.
“It was on Crown and Rose, and back then you knew you were on Rose street because each of the storefronts kept roses in the display windows, each in their own way. Sewn into the mannequins dresses and etched into the designs of the furniture of the cafes…”
The Master’s story went on a little longer, and Brin kept waiting for it to wrap back around to ghosts but it never did.
The servants took the soup course and returned with salads. This was fine with Brin, but for Marksi, it was horrible. He’d been so excited to finally see the Tower that Brin had talked so much about, but all he’d seen was an elevator and this one little room, and now the food was gross soup and plants. It was too much for a dragonling to bear.
The Master noticed his distress and frowned. He summoned a tiny mote of Chaos, smaller even than the one that Brin had kept preserved in glass during the war. The magic was completely beyond anything Brin could understand, but he felt the energy in the mote draining away, as if the Master were shaving it down to size. Eventually, it was nothing more than a dim red ember.
“Try this, noble one,” said the Master.
It began to float towards him, but Marksi didn’t wait. He leapt over the table, bit it out of the air and landed smoothly on the other side.
The Master scooted his chair back and patted his lap. Marksi obliged and climbed up, laying his body on the Master’s thighs, with his tail trailing on the ground. He breathed out one purring breath, and then fell asleep.
“What was that? What did you just feed him?” asked Brin.
“Oh, just a spot of magic. Nothing too rich for the stomach of a youngling. We were talking about the ghost of Rose street. I was certain that I’d finally found a real ghost because it was always cracking saucers, but never cups or windows, just saucers, and the proprietor, Ms Sabina, told tale that the last ti she spoke to her mother they had an argunt about the color of the saucers for her levelling party. Level 50 [Steaming Chef]. The mother, I an. Sabina was a [Tea Somlier]. That’s why I was in the shop every day, the real reason at least. The investigation into the ghost was another excuse, but really I don’t think it’s what really kept drawing back. No, that was the white rosewater blend…”
The Master went on every tangent, consuming all of their ti and none of his salad. Brin found his a little too salty and a little too bitter, but ate it anyway just to have sothing to do while the Master got back around to his point. Why add salt to leafy greens? Honestly.
“...self-replicating alchemical concoction. It was spreading through the… well, I won’t say at dinner. Underground water. And as for why only the saucers were cracked? Because the servers polished the teacups regularly, but neglected the saucers. They were dirty.
“And it’s always like that. I have strict regulations on the disposal of waste from the Tower, but of course, no one follows them. There’s no end of enchantnts that gain so manner of autonomy, spell reagents that hang around years longer than they should, escaped lab rat–”
“Disposal of mutated rats in the… underground is nearly the entire commission of the Steamshield adventurer’s guild,” noted Lumina.
“So of those are mistaken for ghosts as well. It’s always sothing else. Never a ghost,” said the Master. “There’s a spot in the lake where people swore that at a certain hour of the night they could hear the voices of their dearly departed. There was a whole ritual involved, you know how these things are. No children or animals, wear funeral clothes, no shouting, no flas or light… That one gave a fair bit of trouble. I had to invent an entirely new field of magic. Or reinvent, as the foundation was built on so texts left behind by Aharad himself! Astromagnetoturgy, I called it, and I’m still in a Circle of one for that particular branch of magic. It turned out that spot of the lake is simply where the stars are particularly audible.”
“The stars,” said Brin. “The stars in the sky are talking to people.”
“Whispering, let’s say. Lies, mostly. Now the most persuasive near ghost I ever caught was when a group of dust mites gained a sort of gestalt consciousness in the attic of old [Alchemist]. They could sort of mimic so of his speech and moved about in ways that followed the patterns they rembered when they were feeding on bits of dead skin still covering his body. Not a frequent bather, this man. It made a sort of hazy outline of the [Alchemist] going about his routines. It’s very easy to get set in your routines in your second century if you’re not careful. That’s why I make it a habit to never make habits. It’s what keeps young. Ha! So to speak.”
Brin took his chance to get the conversation back on track. “Ok, but I’ve seen corpses climb out of their graves, and talk about things they could only know if they rembered being alive. How can you say ghosts don’t exist?”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that you fought your way through an entire army of undead. Two armies. Ten, to hear it told! All that, and–”
“Who told you that? I barely participated,” said Brin.
“Don’t attempt false modesty with , young man. I know you don’t an it. Young [Mages] are never modest. It takes an older, wiser hand to pull them back down. I scarcely hear of you unless it’s outlandish bragging on your behalf.”
“I hardly think I deserve all that,” said Brin.
“No, no, that's for to say! You’re young and arrogant.”
“Well, I should be. I fought my way through ten armies!” said Brin.
“Says who? You barely participated. Still you observed a good deal of fighting against undead of one variety or another. All that, and yet, where were the ghosts? They should make trendous spies for Arcaena, and yet she relies instead on her own human [Illusionists] or her Lambent Phasmid breeding pits,” said the Master.
“Huh,” said Brin, surprised that it had never occurred to him. The only ghosts he’d really seen were the fallen [Knights] of the Order of the Long Sleep, but he was saving that for the coup de gras, and this conversation kept going in different directions than he’d expected. “Maybe the problem is that we don’t agree on the definition of ‘ghost’.”
The server’s brought out the next course, which was finally sothing with at–grilled serpent. Marksi would love this; he got no end of pleasure from showing his dominance of lesser pretend-dragons. But sadly for him, he was still asleep on the Master’s lap.
The Master hardly noticed it arrive and waved airily in a way that nearly clocked the woman placing his portion on the table. “I see no reason to be overly strict in the definition. A soul bound to earth by necromancy is preferred. The ability to walk through walls is important. I don't want to see ghosts that slip through keyholes; they should walk through doors! And anything that depends on animating its own corpse for locomotion must be counted out. But we don’t even need to stand on necromancy. Find any sort of human consciousness or personality that's been caused to persist after the subject's death. Souls need not even be involved!"
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
"That's an awfully liberal definition. And you really haven't found anything like that?" asked Brin.
The Master grinned and took a bite of snake.
Lumina said, "Oh, stop teasing him. You obviously believe in ghosts."
"What?" Brin dropped his fork loudly onto his plate, and then moved his hand away to pretend it had been on purpose.
The Master finished chewing and then pointed at Brin with his fork. "Ghosts are real. True, but unimportant. What's important is what follows from that statent. Ghosts are rare, otherwise you'd never need to assert that they're real. Ghosts are powerful. Ghosts... are valuable."
"Oh," Brin groaned. He held his hand up to his head to mi soothing a headache. "This isn't all just an elaborate sche to get people to give you any ghosts they find."
"It's not a sche! It's a practicality. Information security is the heart of public safety," said the Master.
"It's totally a sche. It's exactly the type of thing Hogg would do," said Brin. "Where is he anyway?"
"He's off... scheming," said Lumina.
The Master laughed. "Yes, a [Shadow Mage] does need a good sche now and then."
"Is that why you've given him so of yours?"
"My dear, I have no idea what you an."
The two of them obviously weren't going to let him in on their little secret, and he doubted the Master was going to tell him about any actual ghosts he possessed; he'd basically just admitted that their existence was classified. The Master was willing to allow Brin a little bit of impudence in service of giving him reasons to lecture him, but Brin didn't want to press his luck just yet. Even this alone was already a nice little tidbit for the cult, should he choose to share it.
"So what other interesting things did you find while you were hunting ghosts?" asked Brin.
The Master was more than happy to fill the rest of their evening with stories, and Brin let him at it, interrupting him only when he started on tangents or got too far off topic. Lumina also grew more relaxed as the evening went on and the two of them proved they could be in the sa room without arguing. When the Master briefly excused himself to use the restroom, she grabbed his hand and whispered "Thank you," which made Brin feel terrible, because he'd co into this night fully intending to spend the entire ti arguing about ghosts.
Marksi woke up just as they were finishing up dessert, which ant that the Master's magical treat really had been pretty small. Marksi's magical food comas could last for days. He even had enough of an appetite left to finish off the bit of serpent that Brin had saved for him.
"So he's really good to go in the Tower?" asked Brin.
"I won't have him following you into classes. Too much of a distraction," said the Master. "Reach out to the Life Circle to find soone to watch him while you're busy."
Marksi huffed in irritation. He did not need a minder.
"What about Language?" Brin asked.
"He doesn't need it. So unless he agrees to teach..?"
Marksi shook his head. No, that was entirely beneath him.
"Then there you have it," said the Master.
Tonin was waiting for him outside Lumina's apartnt, but the three of them didn't go back to the city house right away.
"Fourteenth floor," Brin said when they got to the elevator.
Tonin gave Brin a long look before turning the dial to the number 14. "Yes, my lord."
"Oh, don't look like that. We need to do this now when the place is empty. Ghosts never co out in crowds," said Brin.
"As you say, my lord."
"They never confird that it's dangerous. Plus we have Marksi here! He'll protect us," said Brin.
"I am most reassured, my lord," said Tonin.
Marksi wasn't reassured in the slightest. He wasn't sure about this ghost business, and looked up at Brin wondering if he really knew what he was doing. That alone spooked Brin, because nothing spooked Marksi. Not since he was young.
Before he could second guess, the doors opened and a perfectly normal and well-lit hallway greeted them.
The Tower was vast, but not all of it was cavernous. While the atrium and the auditorium on the first floor were impressively massive, he got the feeling that most of the Tower was more like this. Regular hallways with reasonably high ceilings. The floor here was carpeted, sothing mass-produced and sturdy, and the wallpaper was nothing fancy but also had no signs of peeling. Magical lights leaned from the walls, mimicking torches, except with glass orbs at the ends instead of flas.
It wasn't as empty as he'd thought, either. It was night, but not especially late, and he could hear the murmur of voices behind the walls and doors.
Brin stepped through, surprised and reassured at how normal everything felt. He felt kind of like Mark again, stepping off the elevator into an office building. Nothing here looked quite the sa, of course, but the feeling was the sa.
Marksi and Tonin walked to either side of him. Marksi was still nervous and Tonin probably was as well, though he wasn’t showing it.
"What do they do on this floor? Do you know?" Brin asked.
"I haven't had the opportunity to ask," said Tonin. "I thought it might wait until the second week that we sought out a dangerous entity that we were specifically warned away from."
"Sezorday is the first day of the week, right? So it's totally the second week," said Brin.
"As you say, my lord. I've worked mostly in the areas under the aegis of the Circle of Water. I believe this half of the fourteenth floor is controlled by Fire. You might note the torches. And Water prefers uncarpeted flooring."
"Interesting." Brin looked at Marksi. "Sll anything weird? Feel anything?"
Marksi hesitated, then shook his head.
Nothing to do but explore. Brin followed the hallway to its end. To the left, was an extrely long hallway that must've gone the length of the Tower. He started down it. Other hallways split off at random, and there were several doors lining the way. Out of curiosity, he tried a few. The first couple were locked, but on the third door it opened. It was a small office-space. Shelves, a potted plant, and a robed [Mage of Fla] behind a desk.
Brin gave an apology wave and started to shut the door, but the [Mage] shouted, "Hey! What are you doing?"
"Sorry, wrong door. Is this 26A?" Brin hadn't missed the room numbers outside of the doors, so he knew that was wrong.
"This is 26F! You're on the completely wrong side of the floor!"
"Oh. My apologies, master [Mage]." Brin closed the door to the sound of the man huffing about 'First years.'
Brin couldn't get his Invisible Eyes through most of the doors, and the ones he could get through were just simple offices like the ones he'd just intruded on. He sent an eye down the hall, and realized he'd wildly misjudged the size of the tower. The hallway turned to get around a tree growing up from the floor below, and then went on just as far again afterwards. Right, the bottom of the Atrium, the classrooms connected to it, and the kitchens only made up a part of the first floor. The Tower tapered a bit as it went up, but not that much. This single floor was bound to be huge. More than they'd be able to explore right now.
As much as the day's talk about ghosts had gotten him excited, it was unlikely that he'd crack this nut open tonight, especially not when so many other [Mages] were also working on it.
Unless... unless he could. Why was he so comfortable accepting his limitations lately? Being human ant understanding that there were so things you just couldn't do. Being a [Mage] ant trying anyway.
Brin split his mind and sent out a fleet of Invisible Eyes, making sure he identified every single hallway. It helped him paint a ntal picture and give himself a floor plan. That made him realize where he really should've started, and after consulting his new ntal map, he made his way to the nearest stairwell.
The hallway here wasn't any different from the rest of this floor, and the door to the stairway had a sign reading "EXIT" but was otherwise unremarkable. The only thing that stood out was the blank signboard, a copy for the one the Master had shown them all on their first day.
Brin tapped it, and a white circle appeared. He placed his hand on the circle, and the glass display imdiately filled with a map of the entire floor.
He'd done a pretty good job scouting it out with his Invisible Eyes. He'd missed four small corridors, so he corrected that with four more Invisible Eyes. Now he had eyes on the entire floor.
The spacing was a bit unusual. So hallways were closer together, and so were farther apart. The closer ones made sense for the size of the office he'd seen, so the big ones must be sothing else. Workshops, or laboratories, maybe.
Even with eyes on the entire floor, he didn't see any signs of a ghost. So what? Finding things that were invisible was one of the first tricks he’d learned, and he’d co a long way from the [Glassbound Illusionist] hunting an archer in a city under siege by goblins.
Main: All minds prepare your
Each of the Split Minds would add another copy of the directed threads they were overseeing, on orders to send a laser beam where the first one was looking. It would take a bit to set up since each of them were using [Multithreading] and slowing down their own ti rather than splitting his mind to a dangerous degree, but Brin wasn't in a hurry.
The hallways weren't completely empty. Here and there, [Mages] or other workers walked back and forth. Brin ordered his minds to exclude those hallways. Hopefully the rest would be enough.
Eventually, the reports began to trickle in.
Brin 2: Ready
Brin 3: Ready
Brin 4: Good to go.
And then finally the last.
Brin 5: All threads ready.
Main: Fire
There was no explosion of fla or Mana; that would've been a disaster. Each of the lasers had less power than the average laser pointer from Earth. Just enough to cross the space and force any magic it found into conflict with Brin's magic in the Wyrd.
The minds knew to start waving the lasers around a little if they didn't find anything at first, but it was unnecessary. Brin felt sothing right away. Sothing soft, but sharp. Sothing aimless, but with a strong presence in the Wyrd. Sothing... a bit familiar, like the way that eating too much candy always gave him the sa stomach ache.
It disappeared as soon as he sensed it, and no amount of waving lasers around made it co back. What was special about the hallway there? Nothing he could see imdiately, but he noted the room numbers nearby. Brin dismissed most of his minds and eyes, giving himself his full consciousness back so he could decipher what he'd just felt. Familiar, but how? When had he felt this way before?
Marksi hissed. Tonin tensed.
Brin took a half mont before he realized what was wrong. The sound. The quiet sussation of murmurs and sounds of life, they were gone. It was silent.
The torches at the far ends of the hallway on both sides went out. Then the pairs close, and the ones closer, one after another.
Brin felt the door handle to the stairway behind him. It was unlocked. He could leave. He should, especially since he'd dragged Tonin into this.
He didn't want to, though. He summoned an orb of glass, and quickly assigned it a fake status.
Orb of Illumination
Enchanted to Pierce the shroud of Mystery with Truth-finding Light
Increases efficacy of [Inspect].
He shone his light magic from within, making it bright and white as possible, and using [Say What's True] to reinforce the idea that it was a truth-seeing light, specifically.
He felt it connect with the entity yet again, and felt that sa confusing and nostalgic clash of Wyrd. His insistence that his light would help him understand the entity bore fruit, because he argued that it would and the entity didn’t have the wherewithal to disagree. It wasn’t intelligent in the usual way. It didn’t have a strategy, a plan, or a goal. It existed, but it didn’t know why. There were no mories to reference.
It didn’t like the light.
And then it was gone again. The lights of the torches returned, and nothing could be heard but a normal kind of quiet, replacing the utter silence.
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