Hope

“I will be leaving Abonisle for a few days,” Elizabeth announced in the evening following Dervish’s regiment; just as they enjoyed dinner. It had been 3 days since the attack on the city and the investigation was ongoing, though yielding no real clues so far. The most hopeful part was apparently the teleportation experts trying to trace back and confirm any outgoing and incoming teleports, looking for a discrepancy that could put them on track; but that took time as they were barely halfway done with no results so far. At least as far as Irwyn had heard from Elizabeth; all his information was second-hand for the moment.

“All right,” Irwyn acknowledged. “May I know why?”

“Ah, of course,” Elizabeth nodded. “I received the news just today. I have placed a certain request several months before we even met which had been resting in a limbo of being neither accepted nor denied. After the attack, I suddenly had an additional argument as to why it should be approved and it seemed to be enough.”

“Is the attack being taken that seriously?” Irwyn frowned. If it was something Elizabeth struggled to get approval for, it had to be a major matter in the first place.

“Well, if it were happening in isolation, perhaps it would not have been,” Elizabeth inclined her head. “But there was the incident at Ebon Respite which, officially, a cabal of necromancers had been responsible for. Now, about two months later there is an attack with no immediately clear culprit, well, rumours have started to spread that another such heretical group could be involved. Although I don’t believe that is the case, it has still happened under my watch. I was able to argue that it would stain the pride of House Blackburg if I did not have the strength to participate in hunting down those responsible.”

“So it is something that will help you improve?” Irwyn’s gaze sharpened. He had obviously tried looking into any such treasures with his limited means, considering he had experienced something similar with the strange gem that triggered his first vision, however, there had been not even rumors of such a thing as far as he could find; though in all honesty, he had not looked that hard yet. Of course, he had always assumed that House Blackburg would have access or at least knowledge of any such things.

“It is not a widely spread piece of knowledge, and for a reason,” Elizabeth nodded. “The best name for it perhaps would be Ambrosia. However, obtaining such a thing is nothing easy. Creating just one dose requires a master of alchemy, parts of extremely exotic monsters, a tremendous amount of available mana, and - most problematically - a certain flower that can only bloom from the corpse of a mage just a single leap away from a Name.”

“That sounds beyond anyone but House Blackburg to gather,” Irwyn nodded, his mind spinning back to what he had uncovered in Ebon Respite. That decayed hideout where a flower bloomed from the corpse of a Magelord. Well, at least he suddenly had a much better idea of what the flower could be used for. He did not, however, know any Time mages. Though if one ever traded anything he desperately needed, he at least somewhat understood what his bargaining chip was now.

“It mostly is,” Elizabeth confirmed. “All nine Duchies guard any that they create for the best prodigies of their younger generations. Receiving Ambrosia in the Duchy of Black requires direct approval of the Duke himself and practically speaking, also of the strongest branch families of House Blackburg. Of course, if it was just that I would have been able to obtain approval much sooner, however, there is the issue of matching elements.”

“Your Voidflame is much, much rare than just Void, even in the Duchy of Black,” Irwyn easily concluded.

“Yes, there had only been two Ambrosias attuned with Voidflame in the ancestral vaults, both centuries old,” Elizabeth nodded. “With accepting one there is also an indirect expectation that I will pick up alchemy later in life to recreate it if I can find sufficient talent in that area.”

“Would reaching that level of mastery not take decades? But dedicating yourself to such a thing could slow your improvement in other aspects of magic,” Irwyn frowned. Though to his surprise, Elizabeth gave him a confused blink as she stared at him strangely.

“Oh,” she seemed to have come to a realisation after a few seconds. “I think you might be having a misunderstanding Irwyn… How do I say this…”

“What is it?” Irwyn encouraged. Elizabeth seemed hesitant to speak whatever was on her mind.

“Fine,” she sighed before looking Irwyn straight in the eyes, growing serious. “You should not necessarily expect mages to live the same lifespan as a mundane person. Across the Federation, in most duchies, the average life expectancy of non-mages is somewhere in the high 60s - with the exception of the duchy of Green where it is somewhere around 80. Meanwhile, with my talent and the resources of House Blackburg - barring any crippling injury - I should easily be able to pass 200. Even without the additional methods of prolonging my life, I would naturally pass 150. Among less talented mages there are few who die of natural causes before 100 years of age and most of such cases are the consequence of old injuries or incurable chronic conditions. That is not even considering that claiming a Name makes the bearer immortal.”

“I… see,” Irwyn nodded after a moment. He had never thought about that aspect of mage society. It was no wonder then that mages were subtly but actively being discouraged from interacting with magic-less people in their very education. Irwyn had assumed it was just for some kind of a greater scheme, however, this presented a distinct new possibility. The image of his friends – peers – from Ebon Respite dying around him of old age while he was merely half-way through the pessimistic estimate of his own lifespan was not pretty.

“Well, that is still far away in the future,” Elizabeth interrupted Irwyn’s somber musings. “To return to the point, I will have to travel to City Black to take the Ambrosia and the process itself may take up to several days. I will already be leaving tomorrow and return as soon as circumstances allow.”

“Fair enough,” Irwyn thought that such a short notice was slightly strange, however, he did not know how such matters usually went. He was also certainly not surprised by the nonexistent time Elizabeth expected to spend on traveling; Abonisle’s temporal beacon made long-range teleportation affordable for people with far lesser background than her. “You will know where to find me upon return. I may use the time to finally explore the city somewhat. Do you know when you will return?”

“No,” Elizabeth shook her head. “But it should be less than a week. Hopefully, some progress will have been made in the investigation by then.”

“Hopefully,” Irwyn agreed. “I will see if I can glean something from my own contacts, though I doubt it,” frankly, his best guess was that if someone stole something from a military facility, they might try to sell it or smuggle it out of the city, however, he was doubtful anyone in the Underworld would be actually willing to risk it. He did not know how much of a hornet's nest the situation was but with Elizabeth’s personal interest he imagined it was somewhere in the realm of ‘hunker down and pray’ for most criminals.

“Thank you, I appreciate it,” Elizabeth nodded. Although she had calmed down since then it was clear she was personally invested in catching the culprits to at least some extent.

Even though it was their last meeting for at least a few days, they did not break the routine of Irwyn finishing his meal and walking back to the hotel. He wondered if any of the staff had noticed that he always came back in but almost never out. But would it really even matter if they did? Either way, Irwyn had to make some plans for his unexpected free time. But that would come after his nightly reading, there was still plenty left in the pile of books and textbooks Elizabeth had gifted him.

The following morning, Irwyn stopped at the ‘The Serendipitous bar’, the very same place he had visited with Desir. And it was for that very same man that he had come along. Taking a seat at one of the booths, Irwyn ordered some of that non-alcoholic beer with no intention to drink it and waited for the server to return.

“Thank you,” he nodded as she was placing the drink down. “If you would not mind, I was wondering if my friend, Desir, has been around here lately.”

“I wouldn’t know,” she shrugged with trained ease, which only improved Irwyn’s estimation of the establishment. Most organizations did not have low-ish level personnel who could easily lie with a straight face. “I can hardly remember the name of every customer.”

“Ah, but of course,” Irwyn nodded agreeably. “I just hoped to meet him here, let us say… in three days, after dawn. Though I suppose it will be up to luck.”

“I am sure it will work out for you if it’s meant to,” she nodded ever so slightly which Irwyn took as confirmation that she would ask. That was good enough for him, considering that Desir had given him no other way to communicate; if the meeting time was not appropriate, Desir could just reschedule as the opposite was not true. Just letting the man know Irwyn wanted to meet was enough.

He spent another few minutes at the bar out of politeness, never once touching the drink he had paid for, and then left. He had a different idea of what to do with the rest of his day.

That idea was shopping. Or at least scouting out prices. He had been in Abonisle for a decent while, however, the constant training had devoured the vast majority of that time, therefore he had not gone to one of the ‘malls’ as they were called since the very first day in the city.

Back then he had noted that there were 2 floors which would require a mage’s license to just access. And well, Irwyn had a license nowadays, therefore that was where he would be headed.

He had considered whether to visit the complex he had originally seen near where he lived or whether to aim for something in the inner districts, eventually deciding for the latter. Generally speaking, everything in the inner districts was higher class, it stood to reason that so would be any places for shopping. If things were out of Irwyn’s price range he could visit the other place. He was not even sure if he wanted to buy anything in the first place, though there were some ideas flowing through his head.

Finding one, as it turned out, was not the simplest thing either. As the inner city was split into large floor layers it was not possible to just see large buildings from a significant distance; most constructions below the open-sky floors looked relatively similar. Irwyn had checked for a location on his map before leaving - and Abonisle’s street numbering system was comprehensive - however, he still struggled to find one. Eventually, Irwyn had to resort, to his dismay, to asking one passerby after another for directions, which many of them did not appreciate and completely ignored him. Eventually, he had finally found one of the many entrances to a large mall; turned out Irwyn had managed to get on the right floor, confused himself into going one floor beneath, walked underneath the area, and decided to go back up only after passing the mall, getting lost in the process.

The complex was a bit closer to the central spires than the restaurant he had come to frequent thanks to Elizabeth and it took up a wide area from the third to the sixth level. Which was a lot considering that each city level was four to five regular floors. It also had elevators. A lot of elevators. Moreover, he found similar disclaimers about the top 3 floors being ‘licensed mage exclusive’ areas, as he had hoped.

He considered wandering about the mundane floors but decided that he would perhaps see if that was worthwhile later. Instead, he boarded the elevator and immediately noticed an oddity: The top floor, 15, had no button to allow going straight there even though the number was still on the elevator dial. Irwyn noted it but shrugged that off for the moment as he instead went up to floor 13, supposedly the first floor exclusive to mages.

What he noticed immediately upon exiting was the checkpoint. Or rather, the automated mechanism that served as one. There was a barricade of thin void magic blocking the way just a few steps outside the elevator. From what Irwyn could see it was not anything particularly impressive to the point he could probably break it with a thought. But stopping people probably wasn’t the point anyway. Rather, it was the device next to it that had a card-shaped gloving plate, its purpose apparent. When Irwyn placed his license onto it the plate changed colour for a few seconds and then opened the way forward.

What he saw was, frankly, underwhelming. Yes, there were a lot of people, most of whom Irwyn could vaguely feel were mages, however, they were surprisingly… meager. The magic in their Vessel was a fraction of a fraction of Irwyn’s own and they seemed to barely maintain any control over it. Irwyn realised that he may have had too high expectations all this time. He had thought he had met barely any mages on the streets of Abonisle during his stay, however, now he wondered if he might have genuinely just missed most of them because of their weak presence being concealed in the incredibly dense ambient magic.

It made sense in hindsight. He could not expect any random mage to be even vaguely comparable to a literal scion of House Blackburg like Elizabeth or to some of the better people the Underwold had to offer. Still, it was a strange realization. The kind of thing that should have been obvious yet never occurred to him. Or perhaps it was because he had been so used to any mages being incredibly rare. None even passed through Ebon Respite most of the time.

The layout itself was, to put it simply, open. Large semi-empty halls with decorations ranging from colourful lights, dancing shadow shows and fountains. Irwyn did not need to inspect those deeply to realise that these were all coming from enchantments instead of actively maintained. Among the decorations, there were many storefronts but also small stands and a few individuals that seemed out of place with a rug like a vagrant street peddler. The floor also had a clear theme as Irwyn quickly realized: It was packed with charms, potions or various other single-use items; at most some had several, but a limited number, of uses.

That interested Irwyn greatly. His magic was powerful - and a quick inspection of anything offensive on sale showed him that those were literally inconsequential compared to what he could cast himself - however, he was far more interested in utility and defensive options. For example, Irwyn could block a barrage of hundred projectiles just fine, but what would he do if someone tried to forcefully teleport him into a trap? What if he was struck by some kind of curse or got wounded in an ambush? There were many possible weaknesses. Irwyn had learned that there were in fact curses, or something that worked basically the same way as that simplified idea. They also came in many varieties depending on the element and the actual effect, though Void magic had surprisingly few of them and Irwyn could most likely dispel those just by washing his body with light magic. However, something like a luck bane curse or a dysmorphic curse did not sound pleasant.

But first, Irwyn had to make sure he had the funds available to actually buy something useful. It took him a few minutes but he did eventually find a sub-branch of the Bank. He had hoped that there would be something of the sort present as it only made sense, though if it weren’t he would have had to leave after scouting out local prices without actually buying much. Majority of his funds came from Old Ibis’ job and Irwyn had deposited all of it.

There at the sub-branch, the clerk, who was actually also a weak mage, confirmed his account and gave him a local spending card. Essentially, he could use it to buy things at this particular mall for the rest of the day and the bank would take care of the transaction afterward. It had some limits on the amount of funds he could use this way, though the clerk had assured him that if he needed to make a purchase above that boundary their personnel could make that happen with some extra safeguards put in place; he was also assured that they provided instant loans, though did not mention their - no doubt harsh - interest.

Armed with access to finances, Irwyn looked around the floor again. He had done the first pass while looking for the sub-branch so he had some idea of where he wanted to go first. It was finally time he had a look at some potions. It was only appropriate considering Elizabeth was technically speaking doing the same.