The Restored: Chapter Eight

I didn’t sleep especially well that night, having needed to share the main bedroom with Rhys. 

I felt like I should be well past the emotions that welled up from having to share a bed with someone I found attractive, but it had been a long time, and I’d annoyingly found that emotions didn’t vanish with age, at least for me. 

As a result, I was up early, in the kitchen, staring at the enchanted icebox that Rhys kept slices of meat in, and then at the eggs on the counter. I pulled out what I thought was probably pork belly out and picked up one of the knives, dicing it the best I could. Annoyingly, skill with the sword had never translated to knife skills in the kitchen, so the mine was rough. 

I threw it in the hot pan and it started to hiss and smoke angrily, bits of it nearly instantly turning brown, and in desperation I started shaking the pan, jiggling the pork belly around to try and cook it evenly. It was getting really hot and burnt, while still raw on the inside, so I lifted it off the hob and turned the flame down. 

I’d thought putting it at eight out of ten marks would be good for bacon – even I knew better than to assume that higher heat was always better – but I was apparently overestimating it. Either that, or I’d left the pan on the fire too long, but you were supposed to preheat your pans, weren’t you?

Once the pan had cooled some, I put it back on the lower fire and cooked the pork belly until the cubes I’d made didn’t look raw in the center, then cracked ten of the eggs in the pan, slapped some diced up cubes of cheese in, and scrambled it all together with my fork. 

It was around this time that Jin, who had been asleep on the couch, still wrapped in her metal-lined coat despite the fresh blankets that Rhys had fetched down for her, sat up. She looked around, blinking and shoving her dark hair out of her eyes. 

“Morning,” I said, shoving the eggs around in the pan until they stopped sticking to the bottom. 

Jin looked around for a few more moments, and I pulled out a plate and started dividing the eggs out into four portions. I took one and sat at the table, then gestured to them. 

“Go eat.” 

“How did you know how much dosage to use?”

“Dosage of what?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. 

“The old Deepwater died due to a poison in the air,” Jin said, as if it was obvious. I knew that they had, but then it clicked. 

“The Arenamaster was building up poison immunity in your food?” I asked in disbelief. “That’s so…” 

“Yeah, a lot of them at least. Nightshade, arsenic, and some other things. We would increase the dosage every week or two. I thought you’d be doing the same thing, since it killed Deepwater. The old deepwater.” 

“These eggs aren’t poisoned,” I said, shaking my head. “I’m not immune to them either. I can probably extract or nullify some metallic poisons, like lead, but you could too.” 

“Mm. Yeah,” Jin agreed, taking one of the beaten copper plates and forks and sitting down next to me. 

A few moments later, Kelly stepped out from the guest room that I’d been using, blinking the sleep from his eyes. 

“I smelled food,” he said. “Is…” 

He trailed off when he saw Jin eating next to me, then shook his head. 

“Right. Hello Jin.” 

“Hello, Kelly.”

I glanced between them, squinting, then took another bite of eggs. Kelly took his plate and sat down across from Mist. A few minutes later, Rhys emerged from his room. 

The room we’d shared last night – no, stop it brain, that’s not helpful. 

“You cooked?” he asked, looking at me. “I thought you didn’t know how.” 

“I burnt the pork a little bit, but I tried,” I said. “It should at least be palatable.” 

“It’s fine,” Kelly said, though with the mouthful of eggs, it sounded more like ‘shh fuf’.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Rhys and I said in unison. 

Kelly rolled his eyes at us, and I just sighed, rubbed the bridge of my nose, and went back to eating. 

We ate our breakfast in relative silence, until Kelly, who must have been fed up with the awkwardness, struck up conversation. It didn’t surprise me in the least that it was about arch-stars – despite how hard I’d tried to beat the misconception out of his head, he still seemed insistent on the idea that a mage with more arch-stars was inherently better than one without. 

“So, Jin, how many arch-stars do you have? I have two, the aura transfer and mind sense, which lets me directly reach people’s minds.” 

I tensed, worried that Jin would ask him to clarify that he meant he didn’t need a mind sensing spell, but would still need a bridge. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for Kelly to learn about his prodigious ability to freecast his spells, but I didn’t want to put a mental block in his way by telling him that was how most mages targeted their mental spells. 

“Why should I tell you?” Jin asked, and the look on her face reminded me of a feral cat being offered food from a stranger, not entirely trusting that it wasn’t a trap. 

“I have two as well,” Rhys offered, clearly trying to appease her. “The standard ritual one, since it’s hard to scrape enough magic by in the city for fast spellcasting, and every bit of increased draw helps. And then also the rune compression, since it’s so useful. I do a lot of ritual work with archeology, and being able to fit the spells on a casting slate is needed.” 

“You probably already know my four,” I said, and Jin jerked her head in a nod, then looked at Rhys. 

“What’s archeology? Is it the study of arch-stars? If it is, only having two seems kind of bad. I have three.” 

Rhys coughed, and covered his mouth with his napkin to hide the smile trying to form. 

“It’s the study of history, with an emphasis on physical remains of past cultures. We often do archeology digs in the south, since as far as we can tell, the first settlements were somewhere there, but there’s also some evidence that some precursors to the modern day Favura were settled in undersea settlements in the north at least a millennia before humans began creating cities. And that’s to say nothing of Giants or Mellith, who each have their own histories as well, though some believe they’re divergent humans, much like the Aster or Elves.” 

He tailed off, coughing again.

“Apologies, I got… carried away

“Huh,” Jin said. “So you use the slate to dig out the stuff?” 

“Sometimes, or to suspend it in the air without touching it, or to use psychometric spells on the artifact to see if I’m able to gather any sort of impressions from it.” 

“Oh. Okay. Surprised you don’t have perfect memory, then. It seems way better.” 

“Sometimes I’ve considered redoing for it, but it’s ultimately not worth it,” Rhys admitted. “Do you have an interest in history, Jin?” 

“I guess,” she said. “Markus, the guy who taught us history in the arena back in Saxum was pretty cool. I guess you’d call him an archeologist. He kept bringing old stuff for the Arenamaster.” 

“Oh, like treasure?” Kelly asked. “Or powerful ancient secrets and artifacts of the ancient world? Like a crown that can rewrite the entire existence of a person near them.” 

“That’s not how most magic works,” Rhys interjected. “Magic continues to improve as we do. While there are some ancient works of truly terrifying power, their construction is usually worse than what we could do now. The Diadem of the Vault, for example. It’s powerful, but it can be matched by a single wartime airship.”

“Boring!” Kelly cried. “That’s boring and you know it. So, does the Arenamaster take a bunch of artifacts from the ancient world? Is she going to turn into one of those ancient queens who tried to merge their consciousness with stone to live forever, only to die because of her hubris?” 

“No,” Jin said flatly. She took a bite of her eggs and let her rebuttal hang in the air for a bit before she started talking again. 

“Markus only brought her stuff related to demonology. A lot of the time, it was about the Thrones, and sometimes it was only to Alyphize. Most of the stuff wound up being resold by Zone – she was the one allowed to visit the Sunbaked Regions regularly. But there were a few things that she needed.” 

She squinted into the distance, taking another bite and chewing her food as she thought. 

“There were a few times she met with some really rich people–” 

“Wait!” Kelly said, raising his hand and gathering power around them, shaping it into a spell. A moment later, the floating head of Abraham Tahmid appeared as he projected an illusion into all of our minds. 

“Yes, that’s one of the rich people she would meet with, how did you know?” 

“Hah! I knew it. How about him, or him, or him?” 

He quickly flicked through the images of other Nexus members that Rhys had been able to get photographs of, but to my disappointment, Jin shook her head.

“No, none of them. Only the first one. How did you know?” 

We shared a look, and then I began explaining about Nexus, and the other half of the adventures that we’d been caught up in. I left out the offer that Devi had made me to help overthrow Nexus, but even with keeping Egress’ parts minimal, it took longer than I’d expected. When we finished, Jin shook her head. 

“I don’t believe she was meeting with Nexus. Or at least, she was only meeting up with Abraham. The rest were different. Ritual magic experts and druids. Rich people from the city and other countries.” 

“Why is it that she’s doing all of this, though?” Kelly asked. “Surely you have some idea?” 

“She was very vague with her plans, so I don’t know for sure. But I think it has something to do with demonology?” 

A moment later, Jin snapped. 

“Something about blood?” 

“And blood is a powerful magic component. It’s a symbol of a lot of things, and that has meaning. Even some demons can accept it as a method of accessing soulstuff through our connection to it,” Rhys said. 

“And it’s not the first time it’s come up, either,” I said. “My sister’s demon said she was after blood, and Alyphize had a knife that drank my blood, as well as Zone’s.” 

“Is that it, then?” Kelly asked. “She’s just killing people en-masse to use blood as a connection to draw out soulstuff? She’s also takin’ aura sparks, or something like it.” 

“Maybe, but if all this is about empowering Alyphize, then that seems… Well, she could have managed the same thing with her Arena, while also appealing to the nature of humans' love for gambling, and empowering her with the Throne. She’s an Heir, and she should be more than powerful enough to take the Throne.” 

“I agree,” I said, nodding to Rhys. “What about you, Jin?” 

“She wants more than just a powerful familiar,” she agreed. “But I don’t know what.” 

Jin let out a frustrated sigh then and ran a hand through her short black hair. 

“If I was able to use portal magic, I might be able to get more information.” 

I sat bolt upright in my seat and grinned at her. 

“Well, why didn’t you say so? I might not be able to open a portal myself, but as it happens, I know someone who is very good at portal magic.”