David stared at Rinka as she finished telling her story. A part of him was aghast at the idea that war could become so all-encompassing that an entire nation could be ground down to nothing by it.

  Another part of him had latched onto the two special troops that the Hummers had deployed. The beast masters, who could summon beasts. Much like he could with Leviathan. Could they have been materializing their mana? Unlike him?

  And, then there were their mana eaters. They were not Fel. Could they possibly drain enough of his mana to stave off his mana corruption?

  Were those people even still alive? If they were still around, then how could Amberfall even exist? There was no way his country's armed forces could withstand what Rinka had just described.

  For that matter, what of the Whispers? Had they simply retreated and decided not to venture out of their territory for the past several thousands of years? Had the two forces erased each other out of existence?

  And why were the Whispers troops so enraged by the existence of the mana eaters that they would sacrifice themselves to ensure their deaths?

  Although... Rinka had said that they tried capturing them whenever they could.

  He glanced at Niala, whose eyes hadn't left the woman for a second, the tip of her tail swishing furiously.

  The Magister stretched and reseated herself, leaning back into her chair. “Well, that's the story of the war that destroyed the Reign, or at least I think it is. My information is a little out of date.” She snorted.

  Niala's ears twitched. “Rinka, I'm... very sorry about what happened to your country and its people. It's a terrible tale that you told us.”

  The woman looked at the catkin with sad eyes, before smirking. “Thank you, but it's also an interesting one, isn't it? Don't lie, I know that look.”

  Niala's ears flopped down as she averted her gaze. “I'm sorry, it's insensitive of me.”

  Rinka waved a hand. “Don't worry! I mean, yes, it's a terrible tale, but from your point of view, it's just something that happened so long ago, it might as well be a legend. Light knows how much I enjoyed learning about nations from before the Reign and how they warred.”

  Niala's eyes snapped back up to the woman, her ears doing the same. “Really? Do you- does the archive still have those books? Do you think I could read them?”

  Rinka blinked before snorting. “So curious! You'd make a great Magister. Want the job? There's going to be an opening soon.”

  “Wait? What? Rinka! Don't tell me you're going to... is the stillness chamber lethal?” Niala asked with concern.

  “Huh? No, no! I'm not going to die! Well, I hope not, at least. Although... Can you imagine the dates on my tombstones? Will they even know how to date my birth and death? There's probably been a dozen different calendars since then!”

  “Then, why?”

  “Why? Oh, why a Magister position.” Rinka said, leaning forward and resting one elbow on the table. “I'm quitting. I think I put in enough time. I'll help you two figure out your things, and then I'm leaving.”

  She eyed the two of them. “Would either of you need a pretty girl with a filing cabinet for a brain and the social skills of one? Or know someone who does?”

  Niala spoke before David could begin forming a thought. “We'll find you a spot! You deserve a good life after what you went through! If you don't like it in Riverwall, my father can probably employ you, or even David's family, if you don't mind working for scheming nobles.”

  Rinka needed a second to find her words. “That... is more intense of an answer than I was hoping.” She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure? You barely know me. I might be a really bad person, abrasive personality, annoying habits, bad body odours.”

  Niala shook her head. “You don't smell bad. I'd know. I have a very good nose.” She said with a smile.

  The magister stared at Niala for a second before looking at David, who only shrugged.

  Rinka chuckle-snorted.

  Niala ended up needing three days to analyze the polymatter sample and extract from it a workable formula.

  Rinka had still nearly bent in half when the catkin claimed she'd succeeded.

  She obviously did not believe her and had asked for proof. In place of an answer, Niala had provided a long list of ingredients. Some of them could be found within the Archive's stores and were provided to her in exchange for the remainder of the polymatter cylinder. The rest of it, David and gang went out to forage, helped along by #21, assigned to them by Rinka as “support for a critical activity in service of the Radiant Archive.”

  Finding the ingredients took another two days.

  And then, it was time for Niala to prove she'd gotten a workable formula.

  As they waited for the catkin to do the impossible, Rinka thought once more that there was no way she'd be able to do it. Three days to figure out the secret to the reign's arguably greatest achievement?

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  Ridiculous.

  Granted, she was only an archivist and had limited theoretical knowledge of alchemy, but even then, not possible!

  Especially not considering these people's general level of magitechnology. She felt she had gotten a good grasp of what the world had become over the past few thousand years. Apart from the cargo cloth's enchantment, which might as well have been actual, impossible magic, the general level of development was far behind what the Reign had achieved.

  In fact, the tools and customs of these people were very similar to what the ancient history of the Reign had been. She estimated they were at least a thousand years away from reaching the height of the reign's magitech.

  Still, they seemed like good people, and while she doubted that the motives were entirely selfless, they were trying to find a way to help the Reign's descendants at the Living Vault.

  And a social outcast she might have been, but Rinka still believed in the righteousness of the Luminous Reign, if only to repay her debt toward the social stewards who had helped her find a path through life.

  She snorted.

  It sure had been a weird path, and now she was probably the last living Lumiran with a memory of what the Reign had been

  Oh, she'd made herself sad, now.

  Quick, think of something happy- like the catkin's cooking! Oh, yes, now that had been a revelation. So, maybe these people had two great achievements over the Reign: the cargo cloths and their cooking techniques.

  She thought the reign food had been the apex; carefully curated recipes, maximized for taste and nourishment, painstakingly controlled for consistency. Every boxed meals perfectly balanced, as they should be.

  Now, she recognized it for what it had been: a lie. True culinary bliss existed in the hands of a small catkin who claimed she could do the-

  The door slid open, and Niala stepped through, holding a beaker of greenish, goopy fluid, with a huge smile on her face and her tail swishing. “It's done!”

  Rinka blinked as everyone turned their head toward the girl. “Impossible.”

  “What? Yes it is. It's not the same composition, but it'll do the same thing.” Niala retorted.

  “No, there's no way.”

  With a pout on her face, Niala walked up to Rinka and shoved the beaker in her hand. “Don't believe me, then, believe the result,” She said and stared her down.

  The lumiran looked down at the beaker in her hand. The substance looked nothing like the polymatter she was used to. Except, well, the consistency was about right... No, impossible. She looked back up and saw that the catkin wasn't going to accept defeat without proof.

  Fine.

  She pivoted and headed to one of the recombinators, disengaging its stillness field and letting it power up. She emptied the beaker into the direct feed hopper and waited for the sensors to test the content. As soon as it barfed back an error message at her, she'd be able to-

  Huh.

  Ready to recombine. Were the sensors broken? She furtively glanced back at the catkin, who was still staring at her. Returning her attention to the machine, she figured that when she tried to tell it to recombine something, and it jammed up or burnt out, that would be proof as well, even if a bit wasteful.

  How about an apple, then? Those were pretty basic. She made the selection and pressed the start button, stepping away from the splash zone when the recombining failed.

  She watched as the printing heads actuated, modulated mana coursing through the polymatter, realigning the molecules into the proper chains to form every constituent part required. The machine completed its task, chimed, and went on standby.

  On its tray lay... an apple. Green and red, with a lustrous skin, a promise of juicy crunchiness just looking at it.

  Rinka frowned. Surely not...

  She stepped up to the machine, grabbed the apple with an uncertain hand, felt its weight and texture; everything seemed proper.

  Slowly, she brought it to her mouth, taking a tentative bite out of it.

  It was every bit as delicious as it had looked.

  She turned her head toward the catkin, lips thinned, her gaze falling on the girl's annoyingly victorious face.

  She took another bite of the apple.

  It was a pretty good apple.

  The central consciousness approved of Niala's version of polymatter, meaning they had their path forward.

  Over the next few days, the group collected more ingredients, and Niala brewed the biggest batches of polymatter that she could, refining the recipe as she did.

  Rinka eventually worked over her bitterness at having been proven wrong and asked Niala how she'd done it. How had she figured out the exact recipe from just a sample?

  And then the catkin said she hadn't. Not the exact recipe, but something that had the same active compounds.

  Rinka asked what in the sun-touched holes was an active compound, and she received the compound alchemy course as an explanation.

  Instantly, she understood. And didn't, because it made no sense.

  The girl was talking about molecular chemistry. The process through which the basic elements could be combined to make anything. Molecular chemistry was the basis of the recombinators. It was in the names; polymatter was a primordial ooze of all basic elements, or at least the most common ones, which was then used to create the molecular chains of just about anything.

  Compound alchemy was recombinating magitech.

  Something which required state-of-the-art machines, calibrated to tolerances tighter than a fly's butt hair's width, replaced with boiling and mixing liquids.

  It was... she decided not to think about it, and felt better instantly. The central consciousness would refill its stores of polymatter, and with enough resources, this girl would be able to keep it stocked.

  While she didn't have any intention of staying here, it didn't mean she wanted to abandon the Archive. The three golems that had survived thus far still had plenty of years in them, and, worst comes to pass, the Archive had golem schematics in its deeper levels.

  From what she had gathered, those two came from influential families. They could probably pull together the material necessary to craft a few new golems. Maybe not blood metal ones, but just basic models would still last several hundred years.

  And, maybe the “natives” could resettle the Reign lands... maybe rekindle a small flame of what her country had been. To keep alive the idea of a country which would go to war and die on that pedestal to protect its citizens.

  Huh. Was that a tear forming? Oops, better think of something else.

  Like... oh! What did she want to do once she left? A Librarian's job would probably be boring; she doubted any existing library could compare to the Radian Archive.

  Maybe... Niala's cooking assistant? That would be a delicious occupation, but it also meant she'd have to cook. Maybe taste assistant?

  No, wait... If they could build new golems, maybe she could make cooking golems? Then she could open a restaurant, with Niala's recipes! And then she could fund it by selling the cooking to people, and she could eat as much as she wanted!

  Rinka! You're a genius!

  She snorted at the thought.