Getting any time alone with Tholm proved to be surprisingly difficult. The man always seemed distracted, either by his apprentices needing his help with their projects, by other mages passing by his floor to commission work or request help restoring ancient artifacts, or even by messages he appeared to receive nearly every hour updating him on someone's health condition.
It was an open secret that one of his old apprentices had nearly been killed a short while ago, and because Tholm was showing interest in the matter, Nick was fairly sure he was at least partly responsible for it, but getting confirmation proved impossible.
Eventually, Nick had to give up on trying to discreetly get the man’s attention and openly asked if he planned to attend the auction once he finished the day’s lecture on the importance of magical sterilization before enchanting.
It was an interesting concept, one that Nick himself was familiar with thanks to his knowledge of ritualism, but at that moment, he couldn’t have cared less, as it had been almost two days without getting any time alone with the man.
“I do not believe, so, no,” Tholm said with a raised brow at the impromptu question, folding another paper message that had fluttered up the elevator shaft to give him an update of some kind into his sleeve. “I usually get told in advance if some great enchanting material is to be sold, and this year, the Duke made it clear that the focus of the auction would be more on already crafted objects. If I wanted something like that, I’d just make it for myself.”
The others seemed curious too, but didn’t press him further, so Nick was once again forced to speak up. “I heard they were selling orichalcum. Are you not interested in that?”
Tholm hummed, a light of understanding shining in his eyes now. “Orichalcum is very rare, even among Archmages, and some would say there can never be enough, but no, this time, I’ll pass. I have enough for my purposes, and being too greedy is never a good idea. It’s time I let someone else play with it. Perhaps they might even come up with something new!”
It was difficult to grasp the true amount of wealth Tholm had amassed over his many years of service in the Tower. As the leading Artificer of the Tower, he was likely among the wealthiest, and even the heaps of gold currently in Nick’s ring would be little more than a pittance for him.
If he wanted to, he could have dominated the auction and taken everything for himself without hurting his reserves, but he had been in the game for a very long time. While Orichalcum was something unique to Nick, an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, for Tholm, it was probably just a bit surprising that it would be sold this year.
With his questions answered, Nick sat back down, nodding to himself. At least now I know I won’t have to compete with him for it. That would have been a death sentence.
Tholm slowly pulled out the message again, still watching him with curiosity, when a gong-like sound echoed through the room, startling everyone. It was a sound Nick’d never heard before but had read about as the call for the Tower’s Archmages to assemble.
No, not the room. Not even the floor. The entire Tower!
Nick didn’t know how sound could be created through spatial magic, but he could tell it wasn’t made from any ordinary source, nor did it move like normal sound. It stayed perfectly clear, never losing a single decibel, throughout the massive building.
“He’s back!” someone said, and Nick swallowed his questions. There was only one person who could refer to, only one person with the authority to summon an assembly of the Archmages.
The Tower Master was back.
Tholm immediately stopped what he was doing, leaving the papers he had been examining on his desk and turning to face them. “I shall take my leave, then. Do not engage in overly reckless experiments while I’m gone, children.”
And with that, he vanished, swept away by the currents of spatial magic the gong had unleashed.
Nick tried to follow him with his mystical senses, but the movement was too fast, almost instantaneous, leaving him feeling dizzy from the attempt.
The other apprentices soon filed out, whispering among themselves about what the Tower Master might have been doing for the Royal Court and what he might think about the changes the Tower had gone through in his absence.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Nick was very curious about both things, but he doubted anyone here had an actual answer, and until Tholm himself chose to tell them, if he ever did, he had something more interesting to keep his time occupied.
Once everyone was gone and he was sure he was alone, Nick slinked off his chair and wandered over to Tholm’s desk.
There was nothing remarkable about it. It was just another solid piece, enchanted for durability like all the other furniture the man owned, and its contents weren’t groundbreaking either, since the Archmage knew better than to leave forbidden knowledge lying around where his apprentices could find it.
But that wasn’t what Nick was interested in this time. No, he really wanted to read the messages Tholm had been receiving for the past couple of days, almost nonstop. While he wouldn’t be able to read them all, since he kept most on his person, the last three he received that morning sat innocently on the desk. Once Nick was sure he wouldn’t trigger any hidden wards by snooping, he swiped them off the table.
Surprisingly, they weren’t in code, nor were they especially obscure. Instead, the messages provided a health report about someone named Osmod, explaining how the procedures were progressing as well as could be expected, and that the critical soul loss had been successfully stopped, but that they wouldn’t know the overall damage until the man woke up. It was all signed by one T.Q., whom Nick easily recognized as Torrentia Quill, the Mistress of the Healing Arts who had served as proctor during the practical exam.
Considering the rumors that Tholm sent an old, disgraced apprentice to his death, Nick didn’t need much to connect the dots.
So it was quite a bit worse than was said. Everyone agreed he was critically injured, but that’s less of a concern when magic of this level is involved. With the soul, though… Yeah, that could be really bad.
By this point, Nick really should have put the messages back on the desk and walked away. He still had a mountain of work to do, especially with the auction finally happening tomorrow and the fact that he still didn’t know if the matter with the Circle of Pure Souls was truly over. But he wouldn’t be Nicholas Crowley if his curiosity didn’t sometimes override his common sense. So, while he did put the papers back in order, he also decisively ignored what he should focus on and went snooping.
The others didn’t pay him much attention as he cut through the floor and took the elevator, having grown used to his uniqueness and being more interested in speculating about the Tower Master’s intentions.
The Tower didn’t have a dedicated medical floor, just as it lacked an artificing one, but it had enough experts in both fields to fill several floors, and some of these were informally known as belonging to specific magical arts.
For the kind of healing this mysterious apprentice was getting, Nick had to go to the top medical floor, where only the best were.
Typically, he would need authorization to access it, since anyone wandering in could risk disrupting careful medical procedures. However, because he was coming from Tholm’s private floor, he could bypass much of the security measures and was allowed onto the fifty-sixth floor with little fuss, where a long corridor lit by fluorescent crystals greeted him.
Compared to the hospitals from his first life, the floor was more luxurious, akin to a very expensive private clinic rather than any public building, yet it still carried a chemical, disinfectant smell that felt oddly nostalgic.
Nick ghosted past the first few doors, which he could sense were empty, until he reached the other end.
There, Mistress Quill’s voice could be heard going through a checklist as several students took notes.
Nick didn’t bother hiding his presence. Too much magical disturbance filled the air for anyone but the best sensors to detect him, and he only wanted to take a quick look anyway.
“As you can see, the boundary between his body’s mana channels and soul has been forcibly ruptured from the inside. Although such cases are very rare, we still have some material to base a diagnosis on. Can anyone tell me what I am referencing?” Quill asked, and several older apprentices scribbled down her words before raising their hands.
“Yes, Ephitba?”
“I believe Master Yultear's work might have something like that. I remember reading a paper by him on the consequences of improper elemental spirit summoning that was very similar to this.”
Quill hummed, neither displeased nor particularly impressed. She pointed to another apprentice, who lazily scratched his chin. “Ah, I guess I would look into the history of Irvinic magical backlashes for something like this.”
Nick straightened up, suddenly much more interested, and even the teacher seemed intrigued. “Elaborate,” she commanded, and the guy sighed.
“Soul damage, though obscure and difficult to identify, is not actually all that uncommon, but with our casting style, we mostly deal with external problems. This situation is different because the mage actually caused it himself. I noticed on the chart that some of his limbs were affected as well, but I believe that was due to his opponent’s attack, not to what he did to defeat them. He actually ignited his soul, which is a problem Irvinic mages faced when they pushed too far into the ether and returned with too much power for their bodies to handle. They must have developed some methods to manage that, or at least acquired some knowledge about how it develops.”
“Very good,” Mistress Quill murmured, making a note, before moving on down the chart to discuss treatment for the physical wounds, now that the soul had been stabilized, but Nick had heard enough and slinked off.
Irvinic again, and the ignition of a soul… I don’t know enough to conclude yet, but this doesn’t seem like the result of a simple mage duel gone wrong. The guy must have been sure he would have died a horrible death to go that far.
It was tempting to connect the dots and claim that Tholm had sent another apprentice on a similar mission as he did, but that felt too hasty.
One thing was certain: the situation in Alluria had only appeared calm on the surface. People were walking around without fear in their hearts after the Duke completed his sweeping sting operation, but this clearly confirmed that something still was happening.
By the time he got back to his room on the seventy-seventh floor, Nick was already considering all his options. Tomorrow would be the auction, and with the whole city focused on it, it would be the perfect chance for someone to act unnoticed elsewhere.
And then there's the Tower Master’s return to consider. I doubt even the Circle of Pure Souls would be foolish enough to attack the Tower, regardless of how they make things seem at first. No, this situation is much more complicated than I initially thought when I first encountered Changer, and I won’t understand the full story until it’s over.
That just meant he had to be ready for the worst. If nothing came of it, he’d still be glad he hadn’t gone in blind, but if something happened, and Nick was pretty sure it would, then he’d curse himself if he didn’t.
