"Are you, like, sleepy or sothing?"
The question made open a single eye and glance at the girl in the driver's seat. Honestly, this was one of those 'just how the hell did I get into this situation again?' kind of monts. As in, if my life was a movie, this would be the part when ti slowed to a freeze-fra, all the color drained from the environnt, and I would cheekily monologue sothing along the lines of 'I bet you wonder how I ended up in a sports car speeding down the highway, driven by a circa fourteen years old girl. Well, it's a long story, so let's start at the beginning.'
Except I won't do that, because I was already annoyed enough by the whole affair without gratuitous flashbacks thrown into the mix. Also, I had better things to do at the mont.
"No, I was doing a thing," I told the incognito arch-mage sitting next to before closing my eyes again and returning to my Far Sight, or at least I would've, if not for the continued protests coming from my left.
"You're totally standoffish today. And not in a cool way."
"Less complaining and more paying attention to the road so that we won't be stopped by the police. How the hell did you even get a license with that body anyway?"
Sahi let out a giggle as she turned at an intersection, and then she replied with, "I blew pixie dust into the face of the officer and, like, made them madly in love with so that they wouldn't ask any questions."
I gave my driver the skeptical look to end all skeptical looks, and capped it with the words, "That's not funny at all, it's a gross violation of soone's free will, and you should be ashad."
"Like, whatever. You have a Seducer for a little sister so, you know, people with glass houses shouldn't throw rocks and stuff." I didn't grace her with an answer, so she let out an indignant huff followed by a sulky, "You're no fun either."
I wanted to point out that after the recent incident, I doubted anyone would be in a humorous mood, but I refused to give her more attention and closed my eyes without another word. A short second (and one more indignant huff) later my point of view shifted, and I was once again looking at Josh and the class rep.
Due to my last second intervention, and so quick but aggressive negotiations afterward, I managed to get them out of hot water. They apparently weren't entirely satisfied with the results, despite the fact that they just barely avoided spending the night in custody. In fact, the two of them were currently heading ho on foot, with Josh sourly pushing his scooter by Ammy's side.
"Tonight was a ss," Josh broke the silence, and the class rep imdiately nodded in agreent. "If Leo didn't show up, we would be in sooo much trouble right now."
"I think we are either way," Ammy responded with her face twisted into a sour grimace. "Unless he can sohow convince her not to tell grandfather about what happened tonight, we're going to be lucky if we'll only have to go under house arrest."
There was a long pause in the conversation, but then Josh let out a thoughtful hum and muttered, "I wonder what Leo said to her. I an, she completely had us at her rcy, but then she just let us go and they stord off without as much as saying goodbye."
"Maybe we'll learn it tomorrow," Ammy responded with a shrug. "Though, with Leo's track record, I doubt it."
"Yeah, he really loves his secrets lately, doesn't he?" He paused here, and I figured this was the perfect segue to bring up Ammy's own secret, but instead my friend hung his head and whispered, "Sorry."
Ammy froze mid-stride, but then she quickly shook it off and continued her step while asking, "What are you apologizing about?"
"Just... for not being very useful, I suppose," Josh confessed with a downcast expression. "I an, I thought I could help, but I couldn't even stand up to Sahi, and—"
"To be fair, she is an arch-mage, even if... disguised?" Ammy cut in to console the guy, but then her words ended up pretty uncertain by the end of it.
"That doesn't change the facts. Not to ntion, I was the one who triggered the alarms in the first place, so all of this is mostly my fault."
"Wait, no. You only triggered the alarm because I slipped and you tried to catch ."
"Yes, but you wouldn't have slipped if not for —"
Whatever he tried to say, I couldn't catch the end of it, as I was jolted out of Far Sight by the car coming to a halt. I opened my eyes, and the first thing I saw was a fancy, multi-story hotel on our left, so I figured we successfully arrived at our destination.
"Let's go!" Sahi exclaid as she threw the door open and jumped out of the car in the middle of the driveway.
I followed suit, though with slightly less vigor. The door on my side moved up at the press of a button, and while holding onto Cal made it a little difficult to get out, once I managed, I couldn't help but sneak another long glance at our ride. Sahi not only had a license, even though she looked younger than my sister, but she was driving a freaking Lamborghini of all things. I was afraid she would be one of those codically reckless drivers, but she was fairly careful, and with a beautiful car like this, she'd better be.
"{Horseless carriages have co a long way since I was last awake,}" Cal noted on the side, and I couldn't help but agree. Hell, they even ca a long way since I first woke up on the island!
"Co, Leonard. I'll show you to my room." When Sahi finally noticed where I was looking, a wide smile spread on her face and she added, "It's totally wicked, isn't it? Endy let borrow it while I'm on the island! He always had a good taste for the finer things in life."
"I'm aware," I noted, earning an even wider smile.
"The valet will take care of the car. Co on; let's not waste any more ti!"
She ca over and tried to grab link our arms, so I casually dodged her attempt (much to her annoyance) and headed towards the main entrance on my own, with the flat of Cal's blade resting against my shoulder. It was already pretty conspicuous, and I figured that trying to hide it would only draw more attention to , so I decided to wear it in the open instead and act like it was totally normal to walk around with a sword in public. Refuge in audacity and stuff.
In retrospect, I might've overthought things a little, as the placeholder hotel staff didn't even bat an eye at my appearance. Either that, or they were just professionals. In fact, the only person in the entire hotel who questioned the presence of Cal was the incognito arch-mage, and even she waited until we were inside the elevator to bring it up.
"So, like, I totally forgot to ask, but why do you have a sword?" the brown girl inquired while unsubtly eyeing the blade still resting against my shoulder.
"I was working on it at the ti, so I brought it along," I responded a tad curtly, but she didn't seem to mind.
"Ooooh? So you're working on weapon enchantnts too? That's totally wicked!"
I responded with an ambivalent grunt and then proceeded to ignore her until we reached the top floor. The elevator doors opened to a spacious, clean corridor that was considerably less extravagant than expected, though it might have been just my standards being set too high by the Dracis mansion. But putting the décor aside, my appearance finally got a reaction out of soone, as the two guys standing guard in front of the farthest door instinctively stiffened in alarm, only to stand back down when Sahi's presence also registered with them.
"Welco back, my Lord," the guard on the left, a tall man with a neatly cropped beard and a pair of tiny glasses greeted the girl at my side. Apparently, arch-mages were called 'Lord' regardless of gender. Who knew?
"I have a guest tonight," she stated off-handedly, and the man looked over from head to toe, his eyes only lingering on Cal for a second.
"Chira Slayer," he greeted with a nod, and his colleague did the sa.
"I see that my reputation precedes ," I grumbled under my breath, drawing a wide grin out of Sahi in response.
"{You've slain a Chiric Beast of the Abyss, young knight? Was it related to the little one living in your ho?}"
"It's a long story," I whispered softly under my breath, and based on the lack of reactions, everyone must've thought I was only grumbling to myself.
anwhile, Sahi and I entered the VIP suite, and it was about as big and fancy as I expected, though not that lavish. Or maybe my frequent visits at Dracis mansion really were skewing my perception, but that thought was soon popped like a bubble when the arch-mage practically slamd the door behind us in her hurry.
"I'll go get ready! Please take a seat! If you want sothing to, like, drink and such, the minibar's over there!"
After sputtering that out, she all but dashed into the room at the far end of the living area. Since I had nothing better to do, I figured I might as well sit down and collect my thoughts.
Let's start with the reason why I was here in the first place: after Josh and Ammy were caught, I offered a simple deal to her: She'd let them go and sweep the incident under the carpet, and in exchange I'd take a look at her body-switching research and give her so pointers, free of charge. I expected that she'd drive a hard bargain, but my performance at the symposium must've left a deep impression on her, as she was almost suspiciously eager to take my offer and all but kicked my burglar friends out in her hurry to get moving.
Honestly speaking, I didn't know how (or even if) I could help her pet project, but even if I failed to do so, the worst she could do was to raise a fuss with Lord Grandpa, and I wasn't exactly afraid of the old coot. Not to ntion, I doubted he'd throw his own granddaughter into prison over sothing like this. Josh was a different matter, but I still had quite a bit of leverage on the old man, so if push ca to shove, I was confident I could get my friend out of the frying pan as well.
In other words, this was a situation where I already accomplished my main goal, and now I just had to play nice and coast along for a while. In the best-case scenario, I may even be able to put Saahira in my debt, which could pay so dividends later down the line. After all, I've been kind of planning to play her against Lord Grandpa anyway, so this really was a win-win situation for .
Anyhow, I was just about to grow impatient when the door in the back opened without a sound, and out walked an elderly woman draped in a thick, royal purple bathrobe. She was tall, yet thin to the point she was borderline emaciated. Her short white hair was damp, and her face had countless wrinkles framing a very prominent hook nose and a pair of intense green eyes. She had a dignified air about her that reminded of the first ti I t Lord Grandpa, and this impression lasted exactly until she walked over to and opened her mouth.
"I'm sorry I made you wait. I, like, totally tried to be quick, but the suspension fluid is like toootally grody and stuff, and getting it out of your hair is like, gosh, not in this life!"
I gave the outwardly grandmotherly woman a long, deliberate lookover, but since she showed no sign of joking, I exhaled a pent-up groan and uttered, "Is that seriously how you speak?"
"Like, what do you an?"
"I... It doesn't matter. Let's get this over with."
Saying so, I stood up at once, but I was stopped by the arch-mage after a single step.
"Calm down, Leonard. Chill. Let's, like, move over to my other body and discuss things first. Like, I don't want to spazz out or anything, but if you can do what I think you can do, then it would be the bomb. Like, seriously the bomb, so I'm totally stoked!"
Oh my god. Sohow returning to her normal body made her valley speak worse! How was that even possible? Not to ntion, talking like that with her raspy, aged voice cranked up the annoying dial right up to 'grating', and even a little creepy.
"What? Is there, like, a problem?"
Let's… Let's just check out what she wants, take a look at whatever enchantnt she needs to be fiddled with, and then go ho and make so tea and grilled cheese to wash off the bad aftertaste of this day.
With that in mind, I allowed Saahira to lead into the room where she ca from, and for a mont I felt as though I accidentally Phased into Labcoat Guy's workshop. By the looks of it, this one used to be a bedroom, but it was completely rearranged, with the bed on one side and most of the furniture on the other to make space for an enormous glass tube on a round tallic pedestal standing in the middle. It was hooked up to an even bigger tal tank and it had various control panels around it displaying all kinds of vital information. I ant that literally, as one of them was a heart monitor. The glass container was currently empty, though based on a Far Glance in the past I wish I could forget, I already knew Saahira used to be floating in that thing while remote-controlling the 'Sahi' body.
Speaking of which, said body was lying on the bed in the corner, seemingly asleep under a thin bed sheet, with only her head and bare feet in the open. I couldn't see the ubiquitous glowing thread extending from her head anymore, so maybe it was better to say she was 'offline' at the mont.
I took in each part of the scenery, and after a long beat, I turned to the old woman standing by my side and simply asked, "So, what exactly do you want to do?"
"First, let's sit and talk for a bit," she proposed and gestured towards the bed with her second body. There were exactly two chairs next to it, so she probably put them there in preparation. The mont I was seated, Saahira imdiately turned to and asked, "So, like, how much do you know about our research?"
I gave the smiling arch-mage a sideways look, but she remained genuinely expectant.
"As far as I understand, you're trying to move souls between cloned bodies in a bid to sell it to the other venerable geezers of the Assembly as bootleg immortality, but you hit a roadblock, and so far you only managed to create this proxy body that you remotely control while your real body is floating in that tube over there."
By the ti I finished, Saahira's smile turned quite stiff, as if she had to spend inordinate effort to keep it up, but it soon morphed into a lancholic expression, followed by a similarly forlorn sigh.
"So you know that much, huh? Bogus. But then again, I guess it's totally obvious in retrospect. Like, you weren't even the slightest bit surprised when I showed up like this." She paused here as she tried to force the smile back onto her face, and once she more or less succeeded, she stated, "You're mostly correct, except for, like, a single point. Our… my research is totally not just a bargaining chip in Assembly politics."
"Is it not?" I inquired with a single brow raised high. "Please don't tell it's for the benefit of all mankind."
"Well, no, not really," she responded in the company of a soft chuckle that, after a mont, turned into a rattling cough, startling . "As a matter of fact, my research is a little selfish. You see, Leonard… I'm dying." After dropping that bombshell, she was looking at quite intently, but when I didn't give her the reaction she was looking for, she stressed, "Like, I'm literally dying. Totally. Like, even as we speak."
"Yeah, I got it. So?"
"So?" she raised her voice like my reaction was absurd. "I don't want to die, so this is very important to , for sure!"
"I think most people would agree with the sentint," I pointed out, only for the old lady in front of to literally puff out her cheeks and start sulking, prompting to raise my hands in surrender and yell out, "Okay, okay! I get it. It's very important and I'm going to try to help, okay?"
"You better," the currently not at all dignified arch-mage grumbled before she pulled out the drawer of the nearby nightstand, took out a bunch of haphazardly piled up papers, and handed them over to . When I gave her a quizzical frown, she simply told , "It's the docuntation for, like, eeeverything in this room."
"Oh. I see."
After saying so, I tried to skim the wad of pages in my hands, but even a cursory glance told it was way over my head. As in, aside from a few snippets here and there, I couldn't make heads or tails of any of this. I've already run into this problem once with enchantnts, where it turned out that I interacted with enchantnts in a completely different way than your average artificer, but even so, there was at least so common ground. This? This might as well have been written in Mandarin. By a duck.
That said, I couldn't exactly tell that to my expectant host, so while I pretended to study the papers, I did my best to distract her with so small talk.
"So, why are you dying?"
…
Okay, in my defense, I know I'm terrible at small talk, but at least I was trying. Isn't that the most important part? Not to ntion, while she gave a peculiar look, she didn't seem offended.
"Oh, you know? It's terminal stage lung cancer. From, like, cigarettes and stuff," Saahira answered without the slightest hint of reservation. She probably mistook my surprise at her honest answer for ridicule, as she imdiately raised her voice in an indignant tirade. "What? Like, cigarettes used to be way wicked back in my day! You kids today just totally don't get it! All the choice gals did it, and nobody wanted to be a Joanie, so of course I totally did it too! So what if it's, like, totally killing now? Everyone can make so small mistakes, so I don't need you to judge ! Ugh, gag with a spoon!"
"… Okay, I didn't understand half of that, but maybe for the better," I mused as I put the pages aside. "Let get to the point then: is there an actual enchantnt I can look at? Because to be honest with you, if you want to fix your machinery or discuss theoretical nuances, I'm not your guy."
"Like, um… there's the array on the artificial body, but—"
"Marvelous. Give a mont."
Saying so, I proceeded to escape my failed attempt at small talk and the annoyingly anachronistic old lady by focusing my attention on the motionless body lying on the bed. I wanted to get away from here as soon as possible, so I unceremoniously jamd my Phantom Limb into the only slightly glowing bit I could see on her body, which was a spot around her sternum, visible even through the thin fabric.
What followed was the usual experience of flying backwards through a river made of irrational numbers before I reached a familiar non-Euclidian space. It was, without a shadow of a doubt, the inside of an enchantnt, and a fairly complex one at that. I've spent roughly ten billion years analyzing it (okay, maybe it wasn't quite that long), and once I had a proper grasp on it, I exited back into the alleged 'real world' and let out a pent-up breath.
"Okay, so here's what I gathered: this system of yours works taking an original soul, which I presu is yours, and then mirroring it into this body by using the enchantnt on it as scaffolding, where the mirror-soul kind of slots into. Did I get that right?"
"That's… the jist of it," Saahira confird, if tentatively.
"Excellent. So, I have so good news and so bad news. Let's start with the good one: your work is pretty clean and it's working as intended, at least if your intent was perfect remote control. In fact, so long as you plug any soul into it, it should work like a charm. However, here's the bad news: I don't see any ways you can actually put a soul in there. As in, this frawork of yours has no chanism to either accept or contain a genuine soul. Am I missing sothing, or did you really have no plan for how to transfer the soul between the original body and the new host?"
"You are… totally right," Saahira admitted with only mild reluctance. "It's actually where our research stalled. Like, we focused so much on perfecting the base arrays that control the body, we never managed to figure out how to move a soul from one body to another."
"Honestly, your body control system is not too different from the one Lord Grandpa uses, and that one could house a soul once I moved one over. It only needed minor changes to serve as a crutch until the soul properly settled in, so I think if I apply the sa changes here, we could get it working, and why are you looking at like that?"
The old arch-mage kept blinking at in confusion, but then she gathered her wits and uttered, "So, like, you can move souls?"
"I've only done it once, and I kind of had to cheat, so to speak, but yeah," I told her, and the mont I did, her eyes lit up with a mixture of hope and greed.
"Can you, like, do it again?"
"Well, I should be able to, but it wouldn't really help your research. I an, my technique is unique and, as far as I know, it can't be replicated."
"Who cares about that?!" the old lady burst out as she balled her fingers into fists. "Are you telling you could move over to this body? Like, permanently?!"
"Erm… Yeah, I think I can," I answered even though I was feeling a little off-balance at the mont. "I can work around the issues with the frawork, so it should be possible."
"Can you do it, like, right now?" ca the next question, and for a mont I could only blink in confusion.
"I… guess I could, but I can't exactly guarantee it would be successful on the first try, and if sothing goes wrong, you could literally die," I pointed out, only to get scoffed at for my trouble.
"Leonard, I'm like, literally dying already!"
"I get it, but I think I should at least practice a bit before doing it live, especially since—"
"What do you want?" The sudden question from the arch-mage shoved my warning back down my throat, and before I could properly react, she pressed on. "Like, is it money? Land? Titles? Political favors? I can get you all of those and more!"
I wanted to point out that we were already in the middle of making a deal, and that this was really reckless, not to ntion quite sudden, but her expression told she wouldn't take no for an answer.
"Would you just hold your horses for five damn seconds!?" I finally burst out once my patience reached its boiling point, and the overly excited arch-mage imdiately shut her half-open mouth with an audible clicking of teeth. After the room returned to silence, I took a deep breath to collect myself, and once I felt composed, I explained, "Listen, this isn't a magical appendectomy. We're talking about moving your entire consciousness, permanently, into another body without any safety protocols, controls, or precedents. If anything goes wrong, I'll have a dead arch-mage on my hands, and I'm not in the mood to explain that to the authorities."
"So... you're not doing it? Like, no matter what?"
The way the old woman in front of was giving the desperate puppy eyes was frankly disturbing, but it was also at least sowhat effective, and after a few seconds I softened my stance into, "Not without a written contract absolving of any potential responsibilities, signed in triplicate."
The mont I proposed that, Saahira's eyes lit up with childish excitent and she imdiately jumped to her feet. Well, okay, 'jumped' might be a bit too strong of a word there, as she was still a frail old woman, but the vigor with which she rose from her seat was still impressive.
"Wicked! I'll go and get the papers! Don't go anywhere!" After saying so, she rushed out the door, at least as much as she could, and even after she closed it behind her, I could hear her ordering her subordinates.
With the arch-mage gone, a strange and slightly uncomfortable silence settled upon the room. It lasted exactly until I exhaled a drawn-out, exasperated sigh. When I got up this morning, I definitely didn't expect that I would be dragged into a situation like this, and Saahira was straight out creeping out. A small part of my brain couldn't help but wonder: maybe she was never supposed to 'appear' in her original body, and that's why she had the whole 'overly excited 80's valley girl' chic going on for 'Sahi'? Or maybe she was just stuck in that decade and nobody dared to question her because of her authority? Either way, all of those verbal ticks and mannerisms were still kind of okay when they were coming out of a young girl's mouth, but when Saahira did them, it was just plain damn weird. But then again, the two were literally the sa person, so I didn't know what I was expecting.
"{Are you truly going to render help to this woman?}" Cal suddenly reminded that they were still in my lap, and after a mont, I responded with a not particularly steadfast nod.
"She's pretty desperate, so now that the cat's out of the bag, I doubt she'd take no for an answer. Not to ntion, having an arch-mage indebted to is never a bad thing."
"{I don't understand what putting cats into bags has anything to do with the situation, but... wait... Did you just say arch-mage?!}"
"Yep," I confird it, and now that I thought about it, I never actually told Cal about whom we were dealing with.
"{She's an arch-mage?! That woman?!}" They sounded about as upset as when they learned about having an Abyssal for a little sister, and a loud groan later they added, "{It seems that even the Magi have fallen on dark tis since the last ti I was awake.}"
"You don't know the half of it," I told them off-handedly. "She's one thing, but the local arch-mage of the island we're on is an old, conniving, alcoholic bastard who's addicted to convoluted conspiracies and putting surveillance spells on everything and everyone."
"{... That actually sounds like the average arch-mage back in my ti, young knight,}" Cal pointed out, and I couldn't help but let out a thoughtful 'Huh.' in response.
"In that case, maybe she's the only weird one."
Cal silently agreed, and since the well of conversation dried up, and I had nothing better to do, I decided to take a second look at the enchantnt I'd be working on. Just to be on the safe side. As such, I extended my phantom limb and dived into the crest on the occupantless body next to .
I spent quite so ti analyzing the arrays this ti around, and while doing so, bits and pieces of the papers Saahira had skim through suddenly started making a modicum of sense. Let try to give a footnotes version of how it currently worked. It was actually pretty simple, all things considered: first, there was a connection leading to a separate enchantnt, probably the one in the big machine on my other side, which would scan the 'original' soul in real-ti. Then the results would be sent over to this array, which would then 'emulate' a soul inside it. I called this a 'mirror soul', though they called it sothing else in the docuntation. I liked my terminology better.
More importantly, once the connection was established, the body of the 'original' would be put into stasis by a separate chanism, while the mirror soul would act as a proxy to control the new body. Now, if the goal was only to serve as a way to remotely pilot an 'empty' body, then this system was way too robust and overcomplicated, as just transferring the bits responsible for motor functions, or even just emulating brain signals would've been much, much simpler. However, as far as a proper system for soul transfer was concerned, I'd easily consider it a successful… pre-beta built. Sothing like v0.3.4. And now I had to take it to v1.0 in one sitting.
But back to the actual enchantnt in question. The 'crest' on the Sahi body's chest could be divided into three parts: the one responsible for creating and maintaining the mirror soul, the one responsible for synchronizing it with the original, and finally the control system which allowed the mirror soul to actually inhabit and operate the body. There were a couple of other sub-systems, such as the ones responsible for keeping the body alive in a vegetative state when it wasn't controlled, or so mandatory anti-tampering arrays, but at the end of the day, those three main parts were my primary concern.
Now, let's start with the obvious: if I were to Phase Saahira's soul over the way I did with Ichiko's, then there's no need for the first two parts, as there would be no mirror soul, and there was nothing to synchronize either. As for the control module, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was eerily similar to the enchantnt used to control the dead Chira. Either the idiom 'great minds think alike' was more true than I expected, or there might've been so magindustrial espionage at work. Either way, it was really helpful, as the familiarity ant I wouldn't have too much trouble adapting it the sa way as I did with the tiny miko.
In fact, I went so far as to lay so groundwork by disconnecting the unnecessary parts and tweaking the control arrays for a better fit. I just finished my prep work and exited from the enchantnt-scape to rest a bit when Saahira returned with a bundle of faintly glowing contract papers in her hands. She walked over without a word and simply handed them over to , her eyes saying she was eager to get started.
"Give a mont. I want to read this, just in case you put in a clause about an engagent into the fine print."
"Oh, like, please! That was totally just a joke!" the elderly lady protested with yet another unnervingly girlish pout, so I swiftly ignored her and focused on the contracts in front of . By the looks of it, they were written with a fountain pen, and as for the contents, they were perfectly fine, maybe with the exception of one single sentence.
"Are you sure you want to promise 'unconditional support'? Isn't that a little too broad?"
"Like, don't worry about it," the arch-mage dismissed with a wave of her hand and sat down on the chair next to mine. After making sure that all three contracts said the sa thing and there were no hidden clauses and fine print at the bottom, I let out a defeated sigh.
"Are you entirely sure you want to go through with this?"
"Like, doy?"
It took an embarrassingly long mont to figure out that her word ant agreent, so I stopped procrastinating. After my contract with Fred, I was well aware of the procedure, so I used the tip of Cal to prick my right thumb (much to their protests), and after spreading the blood a little, I used it to stamp all three of the contracts with my fingerprint. I confird that the contract took effect by observing the way the glow around the papers intensified for a second, and then I handed one page back to her and pocketed the remaining two.
"Wicked! So, do you, like, need any tools? Materials? Sothing to drink?"
Now that she brought it up, I was actually feeling a little parched, but I shook my head and told her, "No, I don't."
"Aweso! So, should I, like, get back into the life support tank?"
"If you an that glass tube over there, then no. It would only hinder the process."
"Really?" She sounded skeptical, but when I glanced at her, she hastily added, "I an, like, I don't doubt you or anything. You're the genius artificer, so if you say so, it must be totally true!"
"I'm not a genius," I pointed out a tad wearily. "I just have access to so tools you don't and... why am I even making excuses to you?"
"I don't know," she told one hundred percent sincerely. "So, do I have to, like, get undressed?"
"No, but it would probably help if you were unconscious. It would make the transfer process more—"
"Okay!" Saahira exclaid with almost childlike glee, and before I could even finish my sentence, she muttered a short chant and then slapped her own forehead.
A blink of an eye later her whole body went limp, like a puppet with its strings cut, and as her arm fell down, she almost tumbled out of her chair as well. I put my hand on her shoulder to steady her, and after the first shock died down, I couldn't help but let out a baffled, "Huh. So that just happened."
"{Did... did an arch-mage of the Magi just knock herself out in front of you?}" Cal spoke up, their voice more than just tinted by denial.
"By the sound of her breathing, it's more like she put herself to sleep, but in practical terms... yes."
"{... Young knight, please be honest with . Are we in a fever dream? Am I still sleeping in my stone?}"
"Unless we are both sharing one, I'm about ninety percent sure you're not," I told the sword before putting it aside so that I could straighten the unconscious body of the old lady, and once I was sure she wouldn't slip down her chair, I picked Cal back up and added, "Can swords even have fever dreams?"
"{I don't know! Can I? I really wish that was the case, because then nothing making sense would make sense!}"
"Oh, sweet sumr child... sword... whatever. You've yet to scratch the tip of the iceberg."
"{... Is it too late to go back into my stone?}"
"Waaaay too late," I answered with a thin-lipped smile, and once our conversation was over, I stretched my fingers and took a deep breath in preparation for the magical equivalent of a brain surgery only using my bare hands.
"Oh well, here goes nothing…"
User Comments
0 comments from readers