§102 Avimore II (Patreon)

The morning post brought a card from Rasmusen, with a priory header and the embossed profile of their famous building. Ras had made contact with the palace clinic and delivered the circle into "competent hands." Even knowing how averse Taylor was to the palace, the priest invited him to tea with "a person of some importance." 

Taylor declined, citing a previous engagement, but asked for an evening meeting at the priory or another place of Ras's choosing, so long as it wasn't in the palace. He dashed down the street to catch the postal girl in her green uniform, so his reply would arrive on the next delivery.

His plan for the morning was to stake out the entrance to the factory compound. The sky had cleared somewhat overnight, and vendors parked their carts across the street from the gates, where sunlight warmed the pavement and the wall of the building behind them, and sold hot tea, box lunches, and other quick foods to the workers coming and going. They were packing up when he arrived: most workers arrived before the first post, and the last of the morning shift was parading in when he arrived.

The vendors looked at him oddly, in his magician's outfit and mask, but they were happy to take his coin for tea, a meat pie, and a sweet pastry. He sipped tea through a straw and tore off bits of pastry to tuck up under his mask while he chatted with them about their trade. How long had they worked this street? What did it cost to license a cart in Avimore? Were there seasonal tastes to consider?

"You doing a secret survey for the trade bureau?" grumbled one old vendor who had worked the streets for most of his life. 

"No, I used to be a legate, so I'm interested in these things."

"Used to? Boy, you're too young to be a legate now. Off with you! Nose around somewhere else!"

The tea seller, a young man, gave a friendly smile. "Don't take him too seriously. He hates everything and everyone. But he's right: you shouldn't tell tall tales to strangers. What's someone like you doing around here? Because you're no iron worker."

"I was hoping to get a look at whoever manages this place."

The pie seller grumped at him. "Then you can come back some other time. The foremen run things around here. The damned imperials only come every fortnight, or when something goes wrong. And what good is looking at them going to do you? You don't have an appointment with his high and mighty, or you wouldn't be standing out here."

"Did a lot of your customers fall ill lately, or stop coming to work?"

"There's nothing wrong with our food!" Shouted the pastry seller, her face reddened. "Whatever happened to those poor men and their families had nothing to do with us! Go tell your shitty bureaucrat bosses not to blame the poor street carters for everything bad that happens in the city!"

"Come on, you two," said the old pie seller, "or we'll miss the surge at Linty Park. And you," he snarled at Taylor, "stay away from us."

"Sorry to bother you." He gave them a slight bow and strode into the sky with Airwalk until he was hidden in the gathering clouds. 

His idea of staking out the gate had been lame. What would he have done if he found the responsible party? Drop down on him from the sky and demand answers? Whoever they were, it sounded like management had tried to shift responsibility onto locals in the lower city.

In the air, he skirted the boundaries of the compound to the rail line that brought raw material in and carted finished product away. They had their own depot, with several parallel tracks that merged into a single spur which went upriver to merge with the city's main depot.

That was another line of inquiry. If he could watch the loads come in, or better yet, find someone to watch for him, then he could catch the next load of corrupted ore and find out where the car was loaded.

Invisible in the clouds, Taylor used Slime Time! and zipped through the air, headed out of town. He was scheduled to be summoned in a few hours, which meant he had to be in Twilight by then or the summons would fail. He had plenty of time to find at least one gate to Twilight.

At the appointed time, Taylor was summoned to a tea party. Literally summoned, as Miss Wibbles, directly to the palace gardens near a white gazebo festooned with flowering vines. The buds were long and white with orange at the tips, promising a beautiful future.

Mariella sparkled in her imperial dress and welcoming smile. "Welcome to tea, Miss Wibbles! I'm so glad you could attend."

Taylor wobbled where he was on the ground, and would have followed her to the gazebo, but he was hauled up by strong arms and pressed close to a steel-lined bodice. Eterine had him in her clutches again. He chose not to make a scene but allowed himself to be placed in a chair, atop a sturdy stack of books. He swelled slightly to make it easier to reach the dozen or so varieties of tiny sandwiches, tea cakes, and pastries. He extruded an appendage toward the cup in front of him, but found it empty.

"A lady waits for her hostess before eating or drinking anything, and the hostess waits on her important guests. The exception is if you're truly thirsty. A good hostess does not want her guests to suffer, but you should excuse yourself if you act out of turn. We are waiting on one more guest."

Taylor chimed at her, with a little upturn at the end of the note. A question. 

"He's my older cousin, and a very kind man. Until he arrives," Mariella produced a crystal ball, the type used to measure magic attributes. They had many shortcomings, the chief ones being that they only detected a few narrow zones from the whole continuum, and they were extraordinarily expensive. He wondered why she was allowed to walk around the palace with one.  "I wish to ascertain the kinds of magic you can use. May I?"

Taylor chimed his happy agreement and focused his mana into life, light, and purification. He had already decided that, as Miss Wibbles, he would try to limit his magic to those attributes. He'd rather not show anyone what he could do there aside from what they had seen and a basic inventory. Many spirits had a little inventory space thanks to their classes, but mortals assumed they pulled the items from the spirit realm or conjured them.

Mariella placed the crystal ball in the center of the table, on its little stand, a clear orb of glass with faint colors lurking in its depths from mana-reactive minerals fired into the glass. He'd never broken one down to find out exactly what those minerals were, but it no longer mattered to him: Taylor had access to far better devices. Obediently, he extended an appendage toward the orb and touched it. Sparks of patina green, blue, and pure white glowed brightly inside the glass.

Mariella made notes in a little book she carried. "What light spells can you use?"

All. Between the definite bell tone and their bond, Mariella understood what Taylor meant. But that didn't mean she believed him.

"Do you know Burtswain's Glitter?"

Burtswain was a vain fellow who insisted on making everything around himself sparkle. His light spells were considered advanced, but Taylor didn't see why. They didn't require much power and weren't complex enough to need spells at all. The effects were easier to produce without long incantations with their weirdly specific phrasings. To demonstrate, he hopped down to the ground and raced around the gazebo, leaving behind multicolored glitter wherever he touched. He traced a spiral around the tea party and returned, allowing Eterine to lift him onto his stack of books.

"Do you know Spear of Light?"

All.

The princess started naming spells, most of them either familiar or obvious variations on the ones Taylor knew. When she came to "Dark Revelation," he almost had to admit he hadn't heard of it, and therefore didn't know it. But he was saved from that indignity by an unlikely source: Domine Rasmusen. He strode into their section of the garden, all smiles, as if he were expected.

"Cousin!" Mariella rose and took his hands. "I've missed you!"

"Am I late?" He looked at the prepared table, trays of miniature foods, the cups not yet wetted, and the crystal ball. Lastly, his eyes rested on the slime. He was equal parts astonished and confused. Taylor jiggled at him in an attempt to be friendly.

"Ras, please meet Miss Wibbles. She helped us in the clinic a few days ago. Miss Wibbles, please meet Cousin Rasmusen, or Ras to his friends. In a stroke of good fortune, he arrived yesterday with a purification circle. Which is why we can have tea this afternoon instead of working in the clinic."

"So this is the culprit." Ras stood close and studied the slime. "How very unusual. What attributes does it have?"

"She has light, life, and divine attributes, all in significant measure. And what do you mean by 'culprit'?

The cleric pulled out a seat for the princess and then seated himself. "I mean, the divine envoy gave me the circle because he knew of the situation here. When I asked how he knew, he said that the spirits knew, and he knew many spirits. He didn't know details — spirits have their bonds to consider and can't reveal their summoners' secrets — but he knew enough to take action."

Mariella looked at Miss Wibbles, impressed. "You know the divine envoy?"

Meh. Well enough. He's all right. Taylor's smugness likely reached her across the link, but she didn't remark on it.

"It's a little-appreciated fact that spirits talk to each other. The envoy knows more spirits than anyone alive. And he knows more about them than he says. It wouldn't surprise me if they had friends in common."

Taylor chimed happily because it was true.

While Ras and Mariella caught up with each other, mostly by discussing her plans to enter the church, Taylor was finally able to try the tea and pastries. He ate food by taking it into his body, where it gradually dissolved into metabolised energy. For courtesy's sake, he ensured he was opaque while ingesting. The process wasn't sightly in the least, and he wanted to be invited back. To his heightened slime sense of taste, the flavors felt explosive, lighting up whatever his body used as neurons. He tried some of everything and took a second cup of tea.

After tea, they walked across the gardens to a training yard. Mariella wanted to see his magic, and Taylor wanted to see hers. Several young people were already there, flinging weak spells at dummies made of hardened stone. He was comfortably in Eterine's arms when he declined to attack one of the dummies.

"Is there a problem, Miss Wibbles?"

You first.

His intent got across well enough, so she agreed to go first by firing Rock Shot at the dummy. The words slipped through her lips with ease and produced a shot hard enough to make the target rock back and forth.

In reply, Taylor used Flare on it. He withheld the thunderous noise, so it was only flashes of light, but afterimages glowed in every eye in the yard. The other students complained, but tamped down their indignation because it was the princess's summons that did it.

They traded spells for a few minutes. She conjured blocks of stone, and he created butterflies made of light. She created a cage of iron, and he created bands of light that moved like snakes and wrapped around it, as if restraining someone on the battlefield. The princess raised a wall thick enough to provide cover, and Taylor made himself nearly invisible. She had some skill, and it was clear she could consciously sense and control mana. However limited her accomplishments might be today, that pair of skills was promising.

"It's like you aren't even using spells," complained the princess, "the magic just happens. I can feel your mana working, but it isn't typical."

I see you understand me properly, he thought down their bond.

"It's unbecoming to be too proud at another's expense," she chided him.

Ras laughed at them both. "Spirits have innate gifts of their own. Don't feel bad if you can't keep up with her in her area of expertise."

Taylor did not agree and did not want to see a promising young magician make the mistake of believing Ras.

Watch, he insisted. He formed a simple mote of light, something anyone could do, without using a spell. He did it slowly, deliberately, so she could follow. The light hovered in the air for a second, and then he untangled the threads of intent that held it together.

Try.

"It's not possible to learn innate magic. It's innate."

Try.

"So it's true!" A new and unwelcome voice intruded on their conversation. Taylor found himself facing a pair of small feet in red silken shoes. "Mariella, how did you bond with it?"

It was Rebecca, the princess of pointless fire, in her red hair, dress, and shoes.

"We negotiated. She's unsure about the arrangement, but she's curious enough to try it."

"Is that why you convinced me to abandon my own ideas? So you could steal them from me? That's twice now."

"You didn't want Miss Wibbles, nor could you have convinced her after your first encounter; I am not at fault for that. As for the other affair – I only convinced you not to meddle in the crown's plans. Father won't forgive you for interfering."

"That's sound advice," added the priest.

The fiery princess glared at Miss Wibbles. "Aren't you embarrassed to walk around with a blob for a follower? It's disgusting. I never imagined you would covet another's castoffs."

"Miss Wibbles happens to be an excellent magician. She has nothing to be ashamed of."

Rebecca laughed like she was auditioning for Evil Villainess, and Taylor felt a wave of shame wash over him. It was definitely a skill granted to Rebecca by her Noble class. Given its immediacy and power, she deployed frequently against anyone she could get away with humiliating. Taylor siezed the system-created construct and shredded it, startling the girl. He had half a mind to dig around in her class and find a way to plug it up, and make her feel every ounce of humiliation she dished out to others so liberally.

Instead, Taylor rang dsultory tones at his summoner. I'd like to go now.

"Thank you, Miss Wibbles. Propose a time, and I will consult my calendar."

He wobbled twice and disbanded himself, before he did something to the imperial family he might regret.