Even though it was a Saturday, Lord Grandpa was still holed up in his office inside the underground School complex. While I could certainly just Phase in on top of him and call it a day, the whole point of this excursion was to peacefully discuss things like reasonable adults, so I opted for the more traditional approach. Once I arrived at the designated neighborhood marked Placeholder's house, I hopped across a fence, circled around the fancy wall surrounding Blue Cherry High, and then entered through the wooden gate at the back of the campus. Unlike the main gates, through which we usually entered on school days, this one was always open, so whenever I wanted to visit Gowan to exchange so pleasantries and enchantnt work with him, I always used this route.
Speaking of the portly Scottish artificer, I seriously considered dropping by the Artificer's Lodge within the School to see if he had anything for , but my plans were torpedoed the mont the doors of the elevator opened at its destination.
"Dunning."
Armband Guy was standing right in front of the elevator, and he gave a flat greeting accompanied by a skeptical look directed at the sword hanging from my side. I pre-scouted the place before coming down, so I knew he was in the School, but I didn't expect to run into him the mont I arrived.
"Hello, Pascal."
When I stepped out of the cabin, there was a bit of a standoff between us. Critias's culture was strangely averse to handshakes, so I wasn't surprised by him not offering a hand after eting for the first ti in weeks, but the apprehensive look he was giving clearly expressed the fact he didn't welco my presence at the mont.
"What brings you here at this hour?"
"'This hour?' It's not that late, you know?" He remained completely stoic, so after shrugging, I added, "I ca to pay a visit to the old man."
"And you brought a sword with you," he pointed out, so I raised Cal to show that I wasn't trying to hide them.
"As a matter of fact, I did." A short beat later, I exhaled a shallow groan. "Oh, co on. Don't look at like that. I'm not here to pick a fight; quite the opposite, really."
"So you brought your sword specifically not to start a conflict."
"Yes. Precisely." He remained visibly unconvinced, so I shook my head and walked past him with the words, "Just think of it as an experint to keep calm and civil."
Pascal didn't say a word, and I expected that he would enter the elevator cabin, but he turned on his heel instead and followed after . When I glanced over my shoulder to give him a curious look, he blandly stated, "I just rembered that I also had so business in the office of the Lord. I hope you do not mind if I tag along."
"Why would I?"
With that, my suspicious tagalong and I made our way to the annoying old coot's study. The sturdy double-winged doors were imposing as usual, though the notion that I knew for a fact that the complex interlocking system of wards covering their surface was fragile enough to be broken on accident certainly detracted from their majesty. Though again, I was literally the only person on the island who could do that, so maybe my view on things was a little skewed in this regard.
Anyhow, once we arrived, Armband Guy didn't even let announce my own arrival and cut ahead of , just so that he could knock first.
"Lord Endymonion?"
"Did you not say that you were heading ho for the day?" the unmistakable voice of the arch-mage answered from the other side, sounding genuinely irritated.
"I did, but on the way, I t Leonard Dunning. He is here to pay you a visit."
"Is he?" There was so kind of commotion on the other side, but it only lasted for a short while. "I do not believe he made any appointnts."
"He is here all the sa."
This ti, there was no response, and this whole exchange was pretty annoying to begin with, so I forcefully cleared my throat.
"Please stop stalling. We don't have all day."
Another beat of silence followed, then a disgruntled grunt, and then, at last, the wings of the door began to move. Right away, my gaze landed on the old man sitting behind the uselessly large desk at the back of the room, and I could already feel the familiar yet just as irrational instinctive irritation wash all over . For now, I forcefully bottled it down and walked inside without a word.
The arch-mage's office was the sa as always. Discounting the missing liquor cabinet, everything else was at its usual place, and while it was most easily seen on the enchanted walls surrounding the chamber, the air itself was also brimming with the colorless, ethereal glow of magic. Maybe even more than usual, I surmised. Was the old badger doing so spellcasting before we ca in, I wondered?
In any case, I unabashedly walked right up to the desk and locked eyes with the owner of the room. Lord Amadeus Endymonion was even more haggard than the last ti I'd seen him, with the dark circles around his eyes turning into an unhealthy shade of purple, and his face looked like it gained a couple dozen new wrinkles in the past few weeks. This ti, he wasn't wearing his Panama hat, but his beige-suit-and-dark-wizard-robe combo was the sa as usual.
"Evening. Before we begin, can you say sothing infuriating," I addressed the man without any pretenses, and showed off Cal, to avoid any misunderstandings. "I'm doing sothing of an experint, and I need it for calibrations."
"… I have to say, your newfound leadership position did not improve your skills in the art of diplomacy one iota."
"Thank you, that's very accommodating of you," I responded with a grin before focusing on the sword in my hand. "Cal? Can you please do that circulation thing that Naoren taught us the other day?"
"{Under these circumstances?}" I only nodded, and after an exasperated sigh, they answered with a tired, "{I shall do as you ask, young knight.}"
They barely even finished speaking when I could already feel the flow of mana heading to my chest area. I let Cal do the regulation and the guiding, and once it entered the designated mana vessel, the stream quickly completed its first circulation. As it did, I could feel a sudden sense of ease spread through my whole body. I waited for a second or two, just to be sure, before I turned back to Lord Grandpa. The effect was… not perfect, as I could still feel an intangible sense of impatience claw at my thoughts just from being in his vicinity, but the calming waves of relaxation provided by the ditative circulation did help to alleviate it, if only a little.
Overall, I couldn't exactly call it a success, but it was better than nothing, and with so ntal discipline, I figured it would allow to maintain a more or less civil conversation with the arch-mage.
"Are you quite finished?"
"Yes. I didn't want to keep you waiting, but I had to give this one a try."
The old man eyed skeptically for a second or two, and then he theatrically took a small bottle of mineral water out of one of the desk's drawers and took a swig from it.
"If your goal was to demonstrate that you are indeed one of the mbers of the Brotherhood of the Most Heroic Bloodlines, you need not do it in person. I had no reason to doubt the news in the first place."
"No, this was for sothing else entirely," I corrected him, and he might've expected to actually explain myself, as he looked quite annoyed when I turned back and gestured at Armband Guy instead. "Are you staying?"
"Is the topic of your conversation in regards to sothing I must not hear?" he asked back, which made turn to Lord Grandpa again.
"Good question. Does he already know that the whole Assembly is coming to the island to say hello to us?" He nodded, in the company of an exasperated grunt. "In that case, I suppose you might as well stay. Make yourself comfortable or sothing."
That was supposed to be a stray comnt, but Pascal took seriously and brought a chair over. While he sat down at the side, roughly at the sa distance from both of us, Lord Grandpa put his bottle away and directed a displeased scowl at .
"In regards to the current situation, how much of it are you aware of?"
"Just that the Assembly is freaking out about the Draconic Federation, and they are coming to the island to posture and show everyone they are the biggest tomcat in this neighborhood."
"Your interpretation is both brash and only surface level deep, but not entirely inaccurate," the old Magi grumbled and linked his fingers on the table. "Allow to be frank as well and ask this: what are you intending to do about this?"
"Why would I do anything?" I blurted out, and it was easy to read the surprise off his face. "This is a political dispute between the Assembly and the Draconic Federation. It has nothing to do with personally."
"I am afraid you are quite mistaken in that regard," he told plainly, with a face sourer than distilled lemon juice. Then, before I could get a word in, he followed it up with a groan. "Leonard. You are certainly one of the… no, there is no need to mince my words; you are definitely the most outstanding mber of your generation. You have talent, influence, and power, and your station within this newfound organization of yours would likely make you sothing of a peer of mine, yet you are young. Too young. You simply do not understand the intricate ways of the world yet."
I was pretty sure he gave a speech similar to this one in the past, and I could even faintly recall that back then, I had a hard ti not rubbing his nose into the fact that I knew waaay more about the strings the world danced to than he could ever imagine. This ti, it was slightly easier to resist the urge, so I only waved at him to continue.
"Large, established organizations are, at their core, still made up of people. n and won who had to spend their entire lives working hard, currying favors, and often employing questionable and underhanded ans to reach the stations they occupy. I am no different, and that is why I can understand how my peers in the Assembly think. It was due to this reason that, for the past several months, I did my best to conceal your activities and… escapades, from all prying eyes. It was as much for your sake as it was for the safety and peace of Critias."
"Oh, co on now," I interrupted a touch indignantly, but after taking a deep breath, I quickly tempered my outburst into a more level-headed, "Don't act like you're so good Samaritan who was secretly looking after my best interest the whole ti. We both know that you did everything in your power to keep the Assembly off the island just to protect your own hide and cover your tracks." Taking another deep breath, I collected my thoughts a little, and after reminding myself that I was supposed to aim for so kind of collaboration with the old man, I further softened my point with a strategically absent-minded, "That said, I doubt my actions were that bad for your image. I an, it was out of your control, and who would bla soone for an earthquake or a tornado?"
"The fact that you had correctly identified yourself with a natural disaster gives a faint hope that you possess at least a modicum of the capability for self-reflection," the old man sniped at in response, but before I could return the favor, he unlinked his fingers and tapped on the table. "Listen to , Leonard. As the appointed arch-mage of Critias and a senior mber of the Assembly, I would, without a doubt, receive extensive scorn for my inability to foresee and prevent your unnatural rise to prominence in its early stages."
"Unnatural?" I echoed him with one brow raised high, and he sharply exhaled through his nostrils, as if my reaction was amusing.
"Is it not? As I have just explained, rising to the pinnacle of a vast and influential organization requires years, nay, decades of relentless pursuit, using personal favors as ledges and contending peers as stepping stones. It is a cruel, arduous process every single senior mber of the Assembly had experienced. Now imagine that you are one of these senior Magi, who sacrificed so much to achieve their current esteem, and you see a youth only a fraction of your age rise to et you in but the span of a few short months. Would you not consider that unnatural?"
"Maybe," I granted him, and before I could add anything else, he all but slapped the table.
"Do you see now, Leonard Dunning, King of Dragons and Knights? Do you see now how everyone would view your achievents with deep-seated suspicion and would search for any and all explanations that could rationalize the impossible situation in front of their eyes? You cannot stay blind to this truth: the Assembly is not mobilizing its forces because they wish to keep this Draconic Federation of yours in check, but because they had already concluded that your rise is abnormal. Since it is abnormal, it must be the result of a plot by so prominent power, and if so, they are convinced the only reason for such a design to exist is to undermine their own power and authority they worked so hard to achieve. In other words, whether such a grand conspiracy exists against the Assembly or not, and whether you are the centerpiece of it or just a victim of circumstances, it matters little; so long as the other arch-mages believe so, you will remain the center of this storm, whether you think it concerns you or not."
In the wake of the old man's monologue, there were several seconds of silence, during which all I could do was blink and wonder exactly how I was supposed to react to all this.
"I… kind of tuned out and need to rearrange my thoughts a little, but while I do that… please tell people don't seriously call 'King of Dragons and Knights'…"
My response sent the arch-mage on a loop for a while, but in the end he told , "I have heard that moniker on several occasions."
"Goddamit. Why do you people keep attaching more titles onto !? I already have a hard enough ti keeping them all under control!"
Lord Grandpa's brows slowly descended into a disapproving scowl, and hissed, "I am afraid you really were not paying attention to my words if that was the only thing you are concerned about."
"No, I paid attention, I just tend to address the things that really annoy first," I shot back and inhaled deeply to center myself. "So, just to summarize your point, the Assembly is made up of power-hungry paranoid schers, and since they view the world through that lens, they are now freaking out because they think I'm part of so kind of supernatural super-conspiracy." After a montary beat, he nodded, so I continued with, "However, I couldn't help but notice a few curious word choices here and there. It almost sounded like you know better than them."
"I could hardly not do so, when I have experienced all of your exploits first hand, and know for a fact that your personality would not suffer being a pawn in the ga of soone else."
I really, really wanted to ask about his impression of , but it was best to stay on topic, so after getting my thoughts in order, I did just that.
"All right, so I think we're now clear on the Assembly's agenda. Co to the island to discover my connection to this conspiracy and how the Draconic Federation relates to it. Then, they are going to be disappointed when they discover that there's no such thing. What do we do after that?"
"We?" Lord Grandpa asked back, and this ti it was my turn to frown at him.
"I ca here with the express purpose to discuss how to treat the Assembly's mobilization and prevent the situation from deteriorating. Wasn't I clear on that?"
"You never outright said that," Armband Guy noted on the side, earning himself a scoff.
"Even so, it was very heavily implied." Turning back to the old man, I leveled the question at him again. "So? What do we do?"
"Are you asking to cooperate with you?"
"Why would I need to ask anything? Aren't you all about keeping Critias safe and peaceful? It's also what I've been doing since the very beginning, so we should be on the sa page already."
"If so, your track record is appalling."
"Says the kettle to the pot," I responded with a cheeky grin. "That ans we have even more in common. All the more reason we should cooperate on this to prevent the island from becoming a supernatural battleground."
The arch-mage remained tensely silent for a long ti, but I didn't mind. It just gave more opportunity to do the whole ditation-circulation-thing. It was kind of working.
"You appear awfully flippant about the prospects of all-out war," he noted dourly.
"To be fair, I'm kind of used to this sort of thing. For the past couple of months, I've been going from one deadly dangerous conflict to another, so you can't really bla for getting desensitized."
"I am not blaming you, but I do think you are not fully aware of what you are dealing with." When I didn't respond right away, Lord Grandpa's face beca pensive, and before long he turned to Armband Guy. "Pascal. Please go ahead and prepare the Nexus Chamber."
"The Nexus Chamber? Are you sure, my Lord?"
"Yes."
Before I could get a word in, Pascal all but jumped to his feet, and by the ti he got there, the doors were already wide open to allow him to pass through.
"What was that about?"
I didn't even try to hide my misgivings, but the arch-mage didn't seem to care as he stood up and stepped over to .
"I wish to show you sothing. Co, walk with ."
I still wasn't one hundred percent sure what was going on, but I figured I might as well indulge the old man. I was also a little curious, as while I had observed the School complex through Far Sight nurous tis, this was the first ti I'd ever heard of this 'Nexus Chamber' place. It sounded like so kind of well-kept secret, and I was always a sucker for those, so I grudgingly followed after him.
After leaving his office behind, we headed deeper into the institute. Since it was a weekend, there were only a few placeholder Magi idling around, and they gave us a wide berth when they saw us coming. I had no idea how far we were walking, but since the previous conversation was on hold, I figured I might as well bring up sothing else to pass the ti.
"I'd like to ask sothing." Turning his face at , the look in the arch-mage's eyes said he didn't expect to speak up, but he soon gave the go anyway. "I was planning to hire Peabody. Are you okay with that?"
"You wish to hire him?" he asked back, sounding downright flabbergasted.
"That's the plan. You know that I have my own research division, right?" He looked at like I just stated the obvious. "Friedrich told Peabody used to do research about homunculi, and he thinks we have the tools to let him complete it, but since he was obviously working with you on sothing similar, I figured I'd first ask if it's fine with you if I poached him."
"What makes you think he was doing any kind of work with ?"
He played dumb, so I flatly told him, "The two homunculi around you? Well, the two that I know of, but I think that's already enough evidence to figure out what happened."
At first, he only frowned at , but then when we reached a stairwell and headed down, he finally blurted out, "Archibald can make his own decisions. If what you can offer him might grant him even a sliver of a hope to complete his magnum opus, I dare not stand in his way."
"Great. You're unusually obliging today, aren't you?"
"And you are only mildly infuriating," he shot back.
"As opposed to?"
"Mind-bogglingly infuriating," he spat out, and I couldn't help but chuckle at him, at least until I rembered another tangentially related topic.
"But speaking of homunculi, while I realize this is really not the right ti for it, but after this whole thing with the Assembly cools down a bit, I'm planning to do sothing about the classification of homunculi. If I wanted to petition sothing like that, where should I start?"
Instead of answering my actual question, Lord Grandpa looked at uncomprehendingly.
"I'm talking about the fact that they are un-people'd."
That finally jogged the gear in his head, but it then resulted in yet another frown occupying his face.
"I fail to see how doing so would do more than cause heated argunts, and it would not resolve any of the consequences arising from their lack of true souls."
"Let worry about that part, will you?"
He grunted in sothing that resembled approval, but before I could ask about where to start with the paperwork again, we arrived at a narrow corridor with a single tal door at its end, with Armband Guy waiting right next to it.
"The room has been prepared for use," he told us the mont we arrived, and opened the way for us to enter.
I was curious what this was all about and peeked inside, but at first glance, the whole place was empty, save for the thick ambient mana suffused in the air. That was both disappointing and kind of confusing. I was expecting so kind of secret project, or maybe a magical doomsday weapon, but by the looks of it, all we had was an absurdly spacious square chamber with a bunch of lights embedded in the concrete walls.
While I was looking around, Lord Grandpa passed by and gestured to follow after him, and with so hesitation, I complied. For a mont, I wondered if maybe the insides of the room were magically concealed in order to hide them from prying eyes, but I instantly realized that I would've most likely just seen through that with my magic-o-vision. Sure, there was a haze of magic in the air, yet it felt more natural than the one in the study, and didn't seem to conceal anything. But if not that, then what was the arch-mage trying to show .
"This is the deepest chamber of our School," he told out of the blue, drawing his attention back to . "By consequence, it is also naturally closest to the Ley Line Nexus upon which our School was constructed."
Just as he said that, I heard a scraping noise, and realized that Armband Guy just shut the door on us. Suddenly beset by a sense of foreboding, I tentatively asked, "So… What exactly do you want to show ? There's nothing here?"
"Am I not in front of you?" he answered back with a borderline cocky smile, and before I knew it, the whole place flashed in inverted colors before it settled into a familiar hue of purple.
"… You can't be serious."
"I most certainly am," Lord Grandpa answered with his arms behind his back, and then after uttering a few syllables that sounded like butchered Latin, his feet left the ground and he gradually rose into the air until he was looking down on . "As I have told you, while you have certainly faced many hardships in the recent past, you are woefully unaware of the power the arch-mages of the Assembly wield, and the potential destruction you may face when faced with one. As such, I consider it a necessity to provide you with the opportunity to experience it first-hand, and hope that the understanding would serve to temper you."
"{… Correct if I'm wrong, but I believe this is one of those, 'I told you so' situations, young knight.}"
Prompted thusly, I glanced down at the sword on my waist, and with an equal amount of trepidation and exasperation, I pulled it free of its scabbard with the words, "Shut it, Cal. Not a word."
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