Blaire

After exiting the elevator, the four disembarked on the Ninth Floor. Mortius was still deep in thought about everything that had just happened in the Dark Vault, and wondered what he might find out about this steorrādōn. He already knew they were used to power celestial magic and Ābiscræft, and that Rieth’s Eyes were a cult based around the Old God of Time, so maybe the steorrādōn was one of the instruments used to boost whatever plans they may have had. For some reason though, it didn’t go well since the world is still here. Or maybe, they never got to it in the first place. Mortius had ideas swirling around in his head but no time to act on them as they approached a large wooden door, adorned with flowers. It looked extremely strange for a High Scholar’s door, but then again, if the doors in the Dark Vault were tailored to the Scholars then it was probably fair to assume that the High Scholar’s door and office would be the same. Still, Mortius never took him for a flower kind of guy. Saminha looked at the door in disbelief, but didn’t comment. Clive seemed to think it looked lovely as he took a second to admire the flowers, but then quickly became too busy being concerned with getting in trouble to think more about it. Strangely enough, Winkle was nowhere to be seen. The High Scholar stopped them just in front of the door which, as they all noticed, had no door handle. He whispered something into his emblem hand and lightly tapped against one of the dark purple flowers, causing a bunch of ticking and clanking sounds behind the door to start, sounding like the moving of locks and gears. The door opened by itself and everyone walked in.

Mortius looked around at the huge office which had two levels to itself. On the level they were occupying was the main bulk of his office with a self-sustaining fountain and pond in the centre of the room. The water glowed weirdly like there were little orbs inside it. Floating around it were silvery flowers that danced around the pond, lighting up the various animals swimming around inside it. Behind the pond, at the back of the room was the High Scholar’s long wood desk with numerous papers and books stacked upon it, completed with a large brown wooden armchair parked behind the desk which had a very comfortable looking purple embroidered blanket draped over the back area of it. Surrounding the walls were shelves with various items upon them, a few of them being bookshelves and most of the others having strange artefacts and supplements on them. On one side he had a sofa with purple embroidered pillows on them and a blanket, which Mortius wanted to assume was for napping when he needed a break, but even the High Scholar couldn’t be that lazy. The upper level was hard to see from here and it didn’t look like there would be anywhere to get up there, but he could only just see the top of a very large door, that he assumed could be a personal vault or room, in the centre of the upper level. The left side was entirely blocked off from sight but on the right was a white board and three single tables with chairs behind them. It seemed like a perfect place for holding his own detentions and he felt like this was where they were going to be for the foreseeable future.

“Everyone, take a seat please”, the High Scholar said as he pointed at three chairs in front of his desk. Everyone was baffled, wondering where they came from since they were certainly not there before. Even Clive, who had not taken his eyes off the High Scholar since they came in, was surprised at their sudden appearance. Everyone sat down and shuffled rather uncomfortably, facing the desk where the High Scholar sat down and sorted through some papers.

“Ms Winkle, please remove yourself from that very inappropriate hiding place”, he added, not looking away from his papers. Mortius and Clive looked around and noticed Saminha looking away at the left wall. There was a shuffling motion in her chest area and Winkle emerged from underneath her shirt, slowly and looking extremely embarrassed. Clive immediately went red and looked up at the ceiling, whereas Mortius smiled and held back a bit of laughter despite still feeling strange about their discovery in the Dark Vault. The High Scholar finished shuffling his papers and held three folders in his hand. He laid them out in front of everyone and opened them.

“Sir Mortius Maleos, eighteen years of age, Warlock. Sir Clive Ishmael, thirty two years of age, Angel. Lady Saminha Creele, ninety four years of age, D�"mon…” the High Scholar announced and mused over the folders. Mortius was looking at the two next to him and both him and Clive were especially confused at Saminha.

“Ninety four?!”, Clive mouthed. Saminha shrugged and darted her eyes back at him.

“Ishmael…”, she mouthed back. Clive went silent but then both of them looked at Mortius. He blinked and moved back slightly, wondering what they were looking at and how he was the odd one out here.

“You look much older than you are”, Clive commented.

“You act like I’m the only young Warlock you’ve encountered”, Mortius replied. 

“No talking, please”, the High Scholar interjected, still looking at the folders and flipping the pages with only a waving motion as the papers flipped themselves. Everyone was silent again and the High Scholar continued to look through the folders until he was at the end. He put them all together and into a small basket on one side of his desk before facing the three and their tiny guide.

“So. What did you find in the Dark Vault?”, he asked calmly. All four of them looked among each other, wondering if they should tell the truth or not.

“It was Mortius’ idea! I tried to stop them, sir, but they wouldn’t listen…” Winkle began to yell frantically. The High Scholar held his hand up and glared at her menacingly, prompting a very quick silence on her part. He continued to wait for an explanation from the rest of the three but received nothing. Saminha appeared to be shuffling with something in her pocket but Mortius opened his bag and pulled out the steorrādōn.

“Just this, sir. Nothing else”, he said as he placed it on the desk. The High Scholar looked at it for a moment, not with concern, disappointment, or lack of interest, but more in admiration. He marvelled at the inscriptions on it and the colour and design. Looking back up at Mortius, he asked again.

“Did anything else appear while you were there? Did anything escape?”, he asked. Mortius opened his mouth but the look on the High Scholar’s face indicated that admitting anything further would result in great trouble.

“No. Nothing else, just this”, he said confidently. Immediately, the High Scholar seemed satisfied and leaned back in his chair.

“Right. Well, I can’t condone this behaviour since you were all explicitly told to stay away from the Dark Vault when you were first introduced to the school. Lady Creele, you have been told multiple times since your first start here to not poke around where you are not permitted. However, Sir Maleos, I won’t punish a student purely for acting on curiosity. And Sir Ishmael, you have a proven record of clean and spotless behaviour prior to this. Therefore, you will all be attending daily detention with me for the next seven days. After lessons, I want all three of you here at 4:05pm sharp”, the High Scholar explained. Saminha groaned, but not too loud as to give him any reason to scold her further. Clive was severely shaken after the ordeal but Mortius felt that this was a good getaway compared to what it could’ve been. All three of them stood up and walked toward the exit but Mortius remembered something and swiftly went back to the desk. He stood before the High Scholar, unsure how to word what he was going to say next but he didn’t need to.

“It’s only a relic of the past, Sir Maleos, barely usable by this point. By all means, keep it. I do believe it has no significant magical value at the moment”, the High Scholar remarked as he pushed the steorrādōn toward Mortius. Cautiously, he picked it up and looked up at Winkle.

“Miss Winkle will be staying with me for a debriefing”, he smiled.

“Absolutely right she’s getting a debriefing! A good smack up her tiny head!”, came the bellowing voice of the Fīaldas Guide boss. Winkle was frozen solid and looking paler than usual. She looked at Mortius, seeming extremely scared and, though he felt no reason to defend her, his mouth spoke for him.

“She was right, sir. She tried to tell us not to go but we still went anyway. She was just there to keep us out of any really big trouble in the Vault”, Mortius tried to explain. The High Scholar simply smiled and nodded toward the door. Feeling like he couldn’t say more, Mortius walked to the exit where Clive and Saminha waited, and the door shut and locked behind them.

“NINETY FOUR”, Clive finally yelled. It made both Mortius and Saminha jump up in the air in surprise and Mortius shushed him quickly.

“There’s time for that later! We have to go to the Supplements Store now!”, he said in a hushed but frantic tone.

“No point. It closes after 5pm and it’s almost 7 now”, Saminha said. Mortius grumbled under his breath, turning away and pondering what to do next.

“Alright, fine. I’ll go there during lunch tomorrow by myself. You guys just, do whatever. Maybe see if you can find out more about the cult and… my father”, Mortius said as the two looked at each other in disgust but agreed. Clive took the secondary elevator to the Astral Vault whilst Mortius and Saminha went to the ground floor to head to the Void Pools.

“You know, I’m all for this fun and mischief that you seem to be diving into, but do you really want to know what your father has done?”, Saminha finally asked as they left the front of the Institute. Mortius shrugged, not wanting to answer but there were hundreds of ways he could answer her question. The new revelation that his father was a Scholar at the Institute was more than enough reason for him to want to know more, with the added bonus that he was involved in a cult that basically tried to kill everyone on the planet. He wanted to know more about the steorrādōn and also that strange jewel that they saw in the cabinet. The two of them continued walking down to the Void Pools, Mortius now feeling less strange about it and walking into the Morzestus quarters like he’d done it a million times already.

“Well, whatever. Let us know what you find out about that thing then at least”, Saminha said before retreating to one of the dorms. Mortius walked to his section and found his bed where he sat down and placed the steorrādōn on the bedside table. Staring at it for a moment, he contemplated what he would find out when he took it to the store and had it appraised. 

The next day couldn’t have come any quicker as Mortius finished up with a very difficult round of Spell Weaving and hurried to the elevator, pressing the plate for the Seventh Floor. The elevator went up, stopping at three and five for a few other students and finally to seven. Mortius exited and walked toward the right and down to the end corner of the square floor toward the Supplements Store, which was identified by a crooked sign with “Supplements” carved into it in very neat handwriting. However, below that nice sign was “and Other Menagerie” hammered into a plank of wood below it, carved in a rather childishly scrawled attempt at copying the above plank. Mortius walked in and found himself in yet another enormous room. It looked like a cluttered storage cupboard with shelves overflowing with items of different sorts. There were collections of silver and gold items stacked around the place and even on the floors. Mortius could see books lying around everywhere, some dusty and old, some clean and new. In a lot of the shelves were old odds and ends stacked upon each other, things like jugs, lamps, stools and chests. The place was enormous and the only other things that were visible among the mess were a ladder propped up against the wall next to the door and a singular desk in front of Mortius with a man sitting leaning back in his chair with a newspaper on his face, snoring away. He was wearing very different clothing for a member of faculty, sporting torn black pants, black boots and a black and red shirt with no blazer and a few of the top buttons undone. Mortius approached with caution and knocked on the desk. The man became startled and woke up suddenly, panicking and shouting about his lack of vision before realising the newspaper on his head was still there. He took it off and looked up at Mortius. He had a very alternative look about him that detracted from the professionalism of all the other staff. Long, black hair and a bit of a scruffy black beard with a singular ring pierced into the middle of his lip and a pair of enormous thick rimmed glasses on his head.

“Oh, hello there. Welcome to the Supplements Store! How can I help you today?”, he asked, stretching and yawning slightly.

“Erm, you’re Blaine, right?”, Mortius asked.

“Blaire. Means ‘plain’. Yes, that’s me! Resident supplement vendor for the Gholgrad Institute of Magic!”, he chirped happily. Mortius breathed in and prepared for what he might find out from the instrument in his bag. Opening it up, he took out the Steorrādōn and placed it on the desk.

“I want to know what this is and why it’s so different”, he said. Blaire looked down at the steorrādōn and was immediately drawn in. He put on the pair of large, squared black glasses that were previously nested on his head, and peered down at the item. Picking it up, he examined it from top to bottom, paying attention to the markings and writings around it and nodding and muttering during the process. Putting it down and taking his glasses off, he chuckled and looked back up at Mortius.

“I don’t know how you got your hands on this gadget but… this right here is Astovar Krowlei’s Steorrādōn.”, Blaire explained, still marvelling at the object before him.

“Hold on, what? This is Krowlei’s?!” Mortius asked, bewildered at the fact. Mortius had read about this particularly famous Warlock. He’d started a movement over his theories that Warlocks were meant to be masters of Īdelcræft, utilising the void to summon and control the Old Gods. However, none could have believed he was a strong practitioner of Ābiscræft.

“I can understand your surprise. When Krowlei died, people believed he used the last of his magic capability to transfer all of his power and knowledge into this little thing, explaining its colour and design. It took the concept of boosting Ābiscræft to a whole new level, making it very dangerous and a lethal weapon to any practised Warlock or Ābiscræft user. Though, that part is just rumour. This is definitely Krowlei’s though…”, he said as he continued to admire the object. This was fascinating and terrifying news to hear. Astovar Krowlei’s Steorrādōn. Mortius wondered how the High Scholar could’ve not known about this but then maybe there are certainly things he doesn’t know. Still, the thought of such a powerful object being stored in his late father’s personal effects was a troubling thought, especially considering he tried to end the world at one point.

“What would happen if this was used in a spell or ritual?”, Mortius asked.

“Oooh, bad things, definitely. A person with a supplement of this magnitude would be able to reverse time to the very beginning or the very end. Very powerful stuff”, he replied. Mortius mulled over this for a moment before nodding and returning the supplement to his bag. He was about to leave before he noticed Blaire’s eyes wandering a little.

“That’s a nice staff you have there. How did you get it?”, he asked.

“It was my father’s”, Mortius replied, narrowing his eyes slightly at the curious man.

“Indeed. Very nice piece. Well, have a nice day!”, he said cheerily before sitting down and returning to his nap, falling asleep almost instantly. It was quite a talent but Mortius had no time for this. He began walking out of the store and was stopped immediately at the other side of the door by Clive and Saminha, Clive looking very frantic and Saminha looking calm but still a bit uneasy.

“What? What did you find?”, Mortius asked.

“You first, what’s the deal with this thing?” Saminha asked, pointing at the Steorrādōn.

“Oh. Apparently it belonged to Astovar Krowlei. It’s supposed to be super powerful and exactly for what you thought, very advanced time magic”, Mortius explained.

“Oh dear… I was hoping you wouldn’t say that…”, Clive mumbled.

“We were in the Library looking through history books and spell books and we found something a bit… off. There is one book called Ende Līf Ūndon Þurfan which documents all known instances of attempted world-ending and the parts on Rieth’s Eyes were removed. As in fully torn out”, Saminha explained as she produced said book and flipped to the section where exactly three pages were taken away. It was surprising that nobody had picked up on this in the past as the page remains that were still in the book looked just as old as all the other pages.

“That’s not the strangest part. I was checking spells and stuff and there’s a ritual called Szu Vollft Rieth and it’s horrible stuff… have a look”, Clive added and produced a spell book titled The Time Journal which showed a variety of Ābiscræft and he opened up on the ritual. It was such a long incantation with various components required but then he saw a crossed out section on one of the required components.

“Oh, hold on, I think I remember a spell that could help with this… erm…”, Mortius put down his bag and held his staff out. Placing his hand on the jewel, he focused and felt the power surge up his arm again. He then placed his hand on the book and said the incantation.

“Naur vor.” The ink on the book started to spill out slowly, pouring out from the book as everyone jumped back. From the page a twisted and contorted face started to form, inky liquid seeping out from jagged teeth and looking up at Mortius. As it grew in size, a whirring sound could be heard and suddenly all the ink dissipated, returning the book back to as it was. Everyone looked back towards the door of the store, now slightly ajar, and saw Blaire glance over at them, winking, before going back into his nap.

“Oh move aside, amateur. Hold this”, Saminha said, shoving the book into Clive’s arms and taking up her glaive. Concentrating deeply, Saminha placed the tip of her blade, where the gross pulsing eye was, on the book and said a new incantation.

“Asir’in boch”, the book reversed in state to look more new and fresh as well as the scribble being undone. Saminha was a very experienced magic user so it made sense that she had at least a fair command of Ābiscræft. The scribble came off and, as Mortius suspected, the missing component was Astovar Krowlei’s Steorrādōn. This was very valuable information that needed to be kept safe.

“Oh, dear Father… this kind of information shouldn’t be available to anyone! What was the Institute thinking with this?!” Clive agonised, closing the book and trying to somehow hide it under his arm and darting his head from left to right.

“Calm down… just give me the book and I’ll make a note copy of all of this and then we will hide the book somewhere. Meanwhile, just carry on with classes and everything as normal. Besides, my father is dead so it’s not like he’s gonna come back and try this again, right?” Mortius reassured them both. Clive nodded and took deep breaths, handing over the book and looking around. The two headed off to their next lessons and Mortius did the same, checking to see what he had next.