The Consequences of Meeting a Dragon

Ariom found himself being woken up by freezing cold water for the second time that night. He spluttered and coughed, wiping the water off his face, then glared up at Namyis.

But he held back his complaints when he heard the urgent tone of her voice. "Ariom! Wake up! We're under attack!"

"Attack? What?" He tried to sit up, but he felt strangely dizzy and fell back onto one elbow. "What are you...? What's going on?"

"Iggy, where's the nasty magic coming from?" Namyis asked, looking down at the dragon she was holding.

"From there!" Iggy pointed at the lamp hanging over the bed with one of his tiny claws. "It's leaking out from that light! I woke up and smelled it, so I breathed out my magic to make it stay away from Ariom. But some of the nasty magic is still coming out!"

Ariom looked up at the healing lamp. It was surrounded by a hazy cloud of grey magic. That...should be Iggy's? He tried activating his magesight to look for the 'nasty magic,' but he still couldn't make it work properly.

Namyis simply took Iggy's word for it and flicked her hand at the lamp, coating it in a thick layer of magic ice.

"That should do for now." She produced a small bottle of dark amber liquid from her stasis pocket and held it out to Ariom. "Here, drink this."

He blinked at it, still feeling groggy and confused. "Why? What is that?"

"Tree blood. The magic Iggy sensed is probably what we call a 'poison lullaby'—sleep magic mixed with demon poison to make it more potent. You have low-level poisoning, and your magic exhaustion will make it hard to fight it off by yourself." Namyis put Iggy down on the bed and twisted the lid off the bottle. Then she held it close to Ariom's mouth. "Drink it. Hurry!"

Ariom's head was spinning, making it difficult to process what she was saying. He didn't entirely understand what was going on or what that stuff in the bottle was. But he could at least grasp that Namyis was trying to help him.

He took the bottle from her, but his hand was shaking, and she had to help him drink it.

The amber liquid had a strange taste—sweet but also somewhat metallic. Ariom could feel the effects almost as soon as it went down his throat. Magic power started seeping into his body. His head cleared, and he could finally sit up properly.

"What is that stuff...?" He'd never had any recovery medicine quite like it before. The feel of the magic power in it was as strange as the taste.

"Tree blood," Namyis repeated. "Anti-demon medicine." She picked Iggy back up, used some magic to dry Ariom off, and then pulled urgently on his arm. "Now come on! We need to go make sure that Thenio and Grandmaster Sephior are all right!"

After leaving the half-destroyed analysis room, Mideis had gone around to the neighboring room to pick up Amisi and collect the enchantment transcription papers. Then he went straight to the records room.

An assistant was already waiting there to help him make copies. Ariom had asked to get the original drawings back, since there might be traces of Thenio's dream magic on them, and he didn't want anyone besides Mideis and Garem to find out about it. But they needed to give him a copy to analyze anyway, so there was no problem with that. Mideis would also get a copy, and they would send one over to the Royal Guard's main archives for safekeeping, in addition to leaving one here for the research team.

"Are you sure you're all right, Inspector?" the assistant, Baslu, asked, looking at Mideis with concern.

"No. I'm not," Mideis said flatly. "I'm exhausted, and my head is aching. But I want to get this done before any more crazy things happen. Then I'll be able to sleep without worrying about it...."

He put Amisi down on the desk that stood at the entrance to the records area. He also took a yellow cushion out of his space pocket and set it down next to her.

"Go ahead and sleep if you want to," he told her, lightly rubbing her head and shoulders. "This will take a little while.... But we'll go home as soon as I'm done here, all right?"

Amisi nodded and climbed onto the cushion, where she tucked herself into a tight loaf shape.

Mideis patted her back. Then he took out the large stack of magic formation drawings that Thenio had made and carried them over to the work table in the middle of the room, where Baslu was waiting. There were two document copying devices sitting on the table in front of him.

Mideis split the stack of paper in two and handed half to Baslu. "We need three copies. The necromancers that were helping with the transcribing already sorted through these, so let's leave the pages in their current order."

"Understood," Baslu said, nodding and taking his half of the stack.

The two of them got to work, duplicating each page and stacking the copies into separate piles to keep them in order. Mideis was too tired to talk much, so the room was quiet apart from the shuffling of paper. Amisi closed her eyes and started dozing off, her head drooping down toward the cushion.

They'd been working for a little over an hour and were about two thirds of the way through when the door opened, and a woman wearing a staff uniform walked in. Mideis didn't know her name, but he recognized her as one of the people who worked here in the records area.

"I heard you were in here copying the enchantment transcriptions. Can I do anything to help?" she asked, giving them a pleasant smile.

Mideis raised an eyebrow. "It's after midnight, isn't it? I thought all the records staff had left for the day."

"I was working on something over at the main archives. I just finished and came back over to pick up my things. But I don't mind staying a little longer if you want some help."

"Thank you. I'd appreciate that." Mideis gave her a tired smile. "Then would you.... Amisi? What's wrong?"

The taua had suddenly sat bolt upright and was staring blankly into space, eyes wide and pupils dilated. The fur along her back and tail was slowly puffing up.

Her clairvoyance had just activated.

Mideis stood up and started toward the desk. But he'd only taken a couple of steps when Amisi came out of her trance and launched herself at the records worker with an angry shriek.

The woman yelped as the taua's claws raked her face and neck. "What are you doing?! Get off me!"

"Baslu, protect the papers!" Mideis shouted behind him as he rushed forward, pulling an enchanted metal rod out of his space pocket.

He didn't know what Amisi had seen, but she had clearly decided that the woman was an enemy. And Mideis had complete trust in his familiar's judgment.

The woman apparently noticed he was holding a weapon and decided it was pointless to continue acting friendly. She grabbed onto Amisi, who was still clawing and biting ferociously at her face, and magic fire burst out of both her hands.

The taua howled with pain and loosened her grip, allowing the woman to pull her off and hurl her to the side.

"Amisi!"

Mideis altered his path, trying to get to the injured Amisi before the woman attacked her again. He was almost there when he saw the woman pull something out of a pocket on her uniform and throw it to the ground.

The entire records room erupted into flames.

The sound of an explosion echoed through the building as Ariom and Namyis hurried down the hallway.

"Don't stop!" Namyis warned as Ariom paused and looked in the direction of the noise. "I'll go see what's happening in the rest of the building after you're safe with Grandmaster Sephior and Thenio."

He couldn't help scowling a little at her words. He didn't really appreciate the implication that he couldn't take care of himself and needed protection. But he obediently followed along beside her without saying anything.

It was pretty hard to argue the point when he was still staggering a little due to the effects of the demon poison. And the 'tree blood' or whatever it was that Namyis made him drink had mostly relieved his magic exhaustion, but it had also given him a mild case of recovery sickness, which made him feel achy and a bit nauseated.

The two of them continued down the hall, ignoring the shouts in the distance and the medical staff members running past.

They had nearly reached Thenio's room when a huge wave of magic power suddenly surged out of it, making the building all around them shudder and screech as the walls twisted unnaturally.

Ariom and Namyis both immediately halted, and Namyis threw a protective ice shield up around them.

Iggy, who she was still carrying because of Ariom being so unsteady, let out a frightened whimper and flattened his ears, shrinking down into her arms.

"That's spatial magic, isn't it?" Namyis asked, staring wide-eyed at the last door in the hall.

"Yeah...it is...." Ariom blinked, trying to see more clearly. His magesight was working again, but it was still a little weaker than normal. "It's...probably a teleportation array...."

He was trying not to let the panic he was feeling come through in his voice.

What was this?! Was the Order of the Ravener trying to kidnap Focilo? But Thenio should be in there with him!

Or...was Thenio actually the target to begin with? What would they want with him? Did they know about his chaos magic? How had they found out about it?

And if they didn't know...if they hadn't done anything to protect him from that surge of magic just now....

If Thenio died because of a job that Ariom had allowed him to participate in, how was he supposed to face Ki'shiu and Eteon? Or Thenio's family? Or Iggy?

Or even himself...?

A thousand fears and questions rushed through Ariom's mind as he stood there, stunned, trying to figure out what to do.

But a moment later, it was over. The strange warping stopped, and there was something like a small explosion on the other side of the door.

The sound stirred Ariom out of his shock. "It had a self-destruct function! Hurry! We need to stop the formation from burning up!"

Namyis ran to the door, cradling Iggy with one hand and coating her other hand with a layer of water. She used the water-gloved hand to open the door, took a look inside, and then made a quick gesture. A second later, the room was encased in a giant stasis crystal.

There was a brief silence.

"I really hope there was no one in there...." Ariom said weakly. Standing behind Namyis, he could only see a small portion of the room.

She glanced back at him. "See for yourself."

She stepped away from the doorway, allowing Ariom to look inside. The room was completely empty. Nevermind people, there wasn't even any furniture. The only thing left was the enchantment inscription covering the walls, floor, and ceiling. One of the walls had a large burned area, which was presumably where the self-destruct formation had been.

And most likely the teleportation coordinates....

Ariom put a hand over his face and took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down. Then he lowered his hand and looked at Namyis. "Can you take out the middle portion of the crystal so I can go in there and look around?"

Namyis nodded. "Give me a minute."

She handed Iggy over to him. Then she focused on the room again, slowly releasing the center of the crystal a piece at a time, until most of it had disappeared, leaving a large hollow in the middle.

"There you go. It's safe to walk on, but try not to touch it with your bare skin. It's hard for me to control that much surface area perfectly, so it might burn you."

Ariom nodded and slipped his fingers through Iggy's harness to be sure the little dragon wouldn't get away from him before he walked slowly into the room, looking around.

Teleportation arrays—at least the ones currently in use—were terribly inefficient, requiring a huge amount of power to move things any significant distance. Aside from a few specialized use cases, regular transportation methods were much more practical. Because of that, Ariom hadn't worked with teleportation magic very much, so he only had a basic understanding of it.

But that was fine. He didn't need to understand the entire array right now. He just needed to figure out where it had sent Thenio.

While he studied the lines of the inscription, Ariom felt a breeze move through the room, brushing lightly at his hair and clothing.

Wind magic. A very specific kind of wind magic.

He turned toward the door. "Kino?"

As he'd expected, the storm hound's mournful red face appeared in the doorway next to Namyis.

"Where's Garem? There was a teleportation array hidden in this room. Thenio and Focilo may have been kidnapped by the Order!"

Kino stared at Ariom for a moment, his pale yellow eyes unblinking. "Garem went to the records room," he said in a soft voice that didn't match his large size and intimidating appearance. "There was an attack there. He sent me to check on you."

"Was that the explosion we heard a few minutes ago?" Namyis asked. "How serious was it?"

"Just one attacker. But she had a magic firebomb. Lots of damage. Probably some injuries.... That's all I know right now. They're still sorting it out."

Ariom frowned. The records room? Wasn't Mideis going to take the enchantment transcriptions there to make copies...?

He closed his eyes and took another deep breath, then shook his head a little. Garem was dealing with that. He needed to focus on what was in front of him.

"What did you smell in here?" he asked, opening his eyes and looking at Kino again. "Can you tell who was in the room when the teleportation happened?"

"I'm not sure." Kino looked around the room. "The stasis magic makes it hard to smell. But the scents of the chaos boy and the doctors came down the hall and into this room."

"Doctors? More than one?"

The storm hound nodded. "The doctor that came to take care of the chaos boy. The one that smells like wood. And Rimeus, too."

"Rimeus Telven? The head of the medical team?" Ariom's brow furrowed. "Is it possible he's one of the Order's people?"

"I don't know. We've worked with him a long time. Garem was sure he was one of the people we could trust. But...." Kino hesitated, and his perpetually sorrowful expression turned even gloomier. "...he was the one who checked all the recovery rooms. He said he locked them so no one could tamper with them.... So I don't know...."

"Well, under the circumstances...I'm afraid we at least need to consider the possibility." Ariom sighed. "Not that it will really matter if we can't find them.... Would you check the hallway one more time, just to be sure none of them went into one of the other rooms? I need to study this enchantment a little more. It might be safe to take the stasis magic off so you can smell this room better."

Kino obligingly went back down the hall to check the scent trails more carefully. While he was doing that, Ariom examined what was left of the inscription around the self-destruct formation.

He didn't see anything that would make it reignite once the stasis was removed. But there was always the chance that there was a hidden inscription. Magesight didn't usually work through stasis magic, and his magesight wasn't in top form right now, anyway, so he could be missing something.

He looked down at Iggy. "What do you think, little guy? Is it safe for the ice mage to take her magic away?"

"Um...I think it's safe?" Iggy turned his head in all directions, looking at the magic formations. "I don't see any pictures that feel not-safe."

"Good." Ariom patted him and then left the room. "Go ahead and try removing the stasis," he told Namyis. "It looks like the self-destruct was a one-time function, so it should be deactivated now. But be careful, just in case...."

Namyis nodded and covered most of the doorway with a wall of ice as a precaution before finally releasing the rest of the stasis crystal.

Then they both waited, watching the room for any sign of magic activity.

Nothing happened.

Ariom let out a small sigh of relief and went back into the room. Looking around with his magesight active, he didn't see any hidden inscriptions anywhere. Whoever had made this array must not have been expecting anyone to come into the room before the rest of it burned up.

And they wouldn't have gotten there in time if it hadn't been for Iggy's unusual ability to sense the sleeping magic and stop it from diffusing out of the lamp like it was supposed to.

In fact, considering the timing...the sleeping magic in his recovery room and the attack on the records room may very well have been deliberate distractions....

Ariom frowned at that thought before pushing it away. Later. They'd worry about the enemy's intentions later. Right now he needed to gather all the information he could from this room.

He heard the clicking of claws on the floorboards and turned to see Kino entering the room, his nose close to the ground. The fur on his face stirred lightly as he used his wind magic to collect scents and bring them to him.

He circled around the room a couple of times and then stopped and looked up at Ariom. "The chaos boy and the two doctors should have been in here when the teleportation went off. The smells of other people are older, and there aren't any trails from those three going anywhere else. Garem will come as soon as he can. He's contacting Captain Lysien and General Obarin. He wants you to stay here and keep looking for clues. Namyis and I will stay to protect you."

"I understand." Ariom reached over and patted the dog's shaggy head. "Thanks, Kino."

He resumed his inspection of the teleportation array. As he'd feared, the destination coordinates had been completely destroyed, so it was impossible to determine exactly where Thenio and the others had been sent. But if he could figure out the amount of power the array had used and the efficiency level, he should at least be able to calculate the approximate distance and narrow their search radius.

It was better than nothing....

As it turned out, the man who showed up ten minutes later with several uniformed guards following behind him wasn't Garem Ranior.

It was Captain Janton Lysien, the head of the Royal Guard.

He was a tall man with iron grey hair and an imposing stare. Like many of the people in high-ranking government positions in Kafron, he was from a noble family—the son of a duke and the grandson of a former king. But apart from being rather fastidious in his appearance and manners, he was surprisingly down-to-earth for someone with such an impressive pedigree.

According to Garem, that was because his father hadn't allowed him to be appointed directly to an administrative position but had insisted that he work his way up through the ranks of the Royal Guard like an ordinary person would. That experience seemed to make him much more aware of the world outside the aristocratic sphere.

Ariom liked and respected him. That and his connection with Mideis were the reasons he was willing to accept occasional jobs for the Royal Guard.

Though he was starting to regret taking on this particular one....

Captain Lysien listened quietly while Namyis explained everything that had happened, from Iggy noticing the poison lullaby and waking them up, to arriving just in time to see the teleportation magic activating, to Kino's conclusions about who had been in the room at the time.

Then he surveyed the empty room and its elaborate inscriptions with a deep sigh. "What a mess...." He turned to Ariom. "Do you need more time to examine the teleportation array?"

Ariom shook his head. "Not now. There's more I could learn from it, of course, but as far as information that might help us find the people that were teleported...I think I've gotten everything I can."

"All right. Then we'll secure the area for now." Captain Lysien looked at the guards he'd brought with him. "Seal off this entire room. No one enters without my express permission."

"Yes, sir." The guards saluted and then began setting up a protective barrier in front of the door.

"Then, the three of you...sorry, four of you..." Captain Lysien corrected himself with a nod at Iggy, who was perched on Ariom's shoulder. "The four of you, come with me. An officer from the Magic Corps just arrived, and he and Vice-Captain Ranior should be waiting in my office. We need to review the information we currently have and decide on a course of action." A dangerous glint entered his eyes as he turned to head back down the corridor. "This attack and kidnapping are a direct affront to both the Royal Guard and the Magic Corps. We'll show these Ravener fools what happens when you mess with our people...."