The Fusionist Book 2 -- Chapter 47

Chapter 47

Larek turned around to see the same healer that he had talked to earlier on his way back to check on his friends’ wellbeing. She appeared exhausted with rings around her eyes that hadn’t been there before, and her shoulders were slumped as if she was having difficulty staying upright.

“Hurry up, I have way too much going on right now to have to deal with this ridiculousness,” she added, waving him forward. Larek looked at Nedira and she nodded, which let him know that she was fine staying by her brother and Verne without him.

The healer simply grunted as he got up to follow her, and he was quickly led through a few hallways and stairs until he was on the third floor. This area of the building was near the entrance to the Academy and the quality of the walls and floor literally reflected its importance, as it seemed to shine with a polish that reflected the unnecessarily bright magic lights in the area. He was led to a set of double doors that the healer opened in front of him, before waving him in.

“Here’s the student I told you about earlier. I have to get back—”

“Thank you, Helena. You may return to your duties.”

Larek barely heard the exchange as he looked around at the luxurious room he was led into. Underneath his feet was a plush, multicolored rug that made him self-conscious of his dirty boots, and looking at the stuffed overstuffed chairs and couches he observed scattered around the room with their silky soft-appearing upholstery, he would be wary of sitting down on one of them on the chance he might ruin it with his dirty robe.

When he was able to tear his attention away from the décor immediately around him, Larek was able to see that the walls of the spacious room were filled with bookshelves that reminded him of the library, though these ones contained a plethora of different books, instead of multiple copies of all placed next to each other. It was almost as if there was an entire copy of the library he had recently visited in just this one room.

Expanding his senses, he looked around to see that there were multiple people in the room. When he saw who it was, he was immediately on his guard, as two of the half-dozen people included Dean Lorraine, the woman in charge of Copperleaf Academy, and…

…Grandmaster Fusionist Shinpai.

“Please sit down for a moment, if you would. We’ll be done in just a moment.”

Larek snapped his attention away from his Fusions instructor as he heard the Dean speaking to him, so he chose the nearest chair and sat just barely on the edge of it; he didn’t want to get it dirty, and this way he might be able to brush off whatever he touched. Once he settled down, he listened in to a conversation that was already underway – by a group of Professors he didn’t know sitting around a large wooden desk with the Dean at the head – when he arrived. The Dean wasn’t even speaking, only listening, so Larek did the same thing as he heard the unknown Professors discussing the Scissions that had recently appeared.

“—lost only a single student, a third-year by the name of Harden. A promising young Pyromancer who got a little too close to one of the Rolling Pillbugs that made it up on the west wall. Injuries are rather minor on our side, though the Fort lost a half-dozen trainees and have around 100 major injuries and amputations here in the healer’s ward. They aren’t too overwhelmed, thankfully, so all of those injured should make it; limb replacement has been prioritized to the SIC defenders on the wall first, but over the next few weeks the trainees should be good to go in that respect, as well.”

“Does anyone have any further information about what is going on? The rumors—”

“Are obviously not rumors anymore, Jickson. We’re going to have to change our entire curriculum and potentially push our students out faster to keep up with the demand for SIC defenders.”

“Such a thing hasn’t ever been done since the Academies were founded. It would be setting a precedent that could lead to additional deaths if our graduates aren’t prepared for the world they’ll be heading into. From what I’ve heard, the SIC is already stretched thin as it is, and with all these changes in the Scissions’ behavior, I don’t know what they’ll do.”

“That’s not a logistical problem that we have to deal with, fortunately, as that is all up to the SIC. Our only job is to teach these young minds what they need to know to survive before we push them out into the world to serve in the SIC if that is what they are destined to do.”

“But what do all of these changes mean to us? The danger to the city and the Academy is real, because I’ve heard that Scissions are now opening up inside—”

“Yes, yes, we’ve all heard that, too. Fortunately, we have one of the few great concentrations of Mages and Martials in the Kingdom right here, even if most of them are half-trained. I don’t think its something we have to worry about too much here; it’s everywhere else in the Kingdom that will have trouble without help.”

The Dean raised her hand at the back-and-forth between the Professors. “We’re not going to be deciding anything today, and unless something forces us to make some tough choices tomorrow, this discussion can wait. You all know what needs to be done to calm the students and get us back on track starting in the morning, and that is what we need to focus on right now. If you have any specific concerns, please bring them to my attention. I’m looking at you, Jickson,” she added with amusement in her voice, looking at an older Drome Professor that was standing on the chair he was at rather than sitting like the others.

“Yeah, yeah. Then I guess we better get to it, shouldn’t we?” Jickson jumped down from the chair even as the other Professors got up to leave. He looked back at Shinpai, who hadn’t moved. “You coming, Shinpai?”

The Grandmaster Fusionist shook his head. “Not yet; I have a… specific concern I need to address with the Dean and our guest over there that’s been listening to you all flapping your mouths.”

The four Professors turned to stare at Larek who immediately became incredibly self-conscious at their scrutiny, but they fortunately didn’t keep their gaze on him long as they nodded back toward the Dean and Shinpai. In less than a minute, they were out the large double doors which closed with a booming finality that made him feel extremely nervous as he noticed both the Dean and his Advanced Fusions instructor looking at him with severe expressions on their faces.

“Come here and take a seat a little closer to us, Larek,” Shinpai abruptly said, waving toward one of the chairs that had just been vacated by the Professors.

With hesitant steps, which sunk into the plush carpet underneath his feet, Larek approached and then sat on the edge of the chair the Grandmaster Fusionist had indicated.

“Now,” the Dean announced once he was relatively settled, his hands clenching nervously at his robes as he was stared down by two very powerful people, “tell us exactly what happened to you and your first-year roommates.”

He stuttered a little at first when he began his story, but after about 30 seconds he lost his nervousness when he began to repeat everything he had told the healer. It only took a few minutes in total to explain everything, leaving out things it was better they didn’t know, but he told the truth in everything he actually said.

“That… was one of the greatest retellings of events that skirted right on the edge of complete and absolute lies I’ve ever heard,” the Dean announced when he was done. Taken aback, Larek didn’t know what to say.

With a sigh, the Dean leaned forward and looked him straight in the eye. “I cast a truth-reading spell as soon as you entered my office, which thankfully I don’t need to maintain physical contact to access,” she explained, and Larek’s heartrate sped up after hearing that. “It’s a little less refined than one that requires physical contact, but it’s oh so useful for determining the truth from multiple individuals… or to catch someone unaware of what it going on.”

Looking around in a panic, it was only then that Larek noticed a very subtle glimmer in the air, encompassing a large 30-foot-wide bubble that enclosed him, Shinpai, and the Dean.

Magical Detection has reached Level 15!

“Ah, he sees it now! You were right, Shinpai.”

“Of course I was. I’ve been around for way too long to be wrong about something like this.”

Larek wasn’t sure what was going on, but he was completely confused by the exchange. The bad feeling he’d had since he walked in the room was now even worse.

“Now, Larek, while you didn’t actually lie to me, you weren’t entirely truthful, were you?” she asked, but didn’t give him a chance to answer. “I’m going to ask you a few questions… and I hope for your sake that you don’t lie to me.”

Staring her in the eyes, he nodded.

“Good. First, do you know why these people abducted you and hurt my students?”

“Yes,” he answered, but he didn’t elaborate. Almost unconsciously, he slipped into his hyper-focused state as the questioning continued. He wasn’t sure if it would actually let him avoid getting in trouble for his answers, given that this truth-reading spell didn’t work exactly like he thought it might, but he figured it couldn’t hurt.

“Can you tell me why?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Oh, you’re trying to play smart with me, aren’t you? Fine. Please state why these people abducted you.”

He didn’t hesitate. “Because of my height.”

When he didn’t go on, she cocked her head to the side. “Wow. That is impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone beat my spell so easily.”

“I told you so,” Shinpai added with a chuckle.

“You sure did,” the Dean said with a nod, not taking her gaze away from Larek. “Moving on; how did you get free of this room you said they kept you?”

“I removed the Fusions that strengthened the door and then kicked it down.”

“Removed—what is he talking about, Shinpai?”

The Grandmaster Fusionist simply waved her question away. “I’ll explain later… if I can.”

Clearly exasperated, the Dean kept going. “Do you know who either of the Martial members of your abductors are?”

“No.”

“Do you know who this Mage is?”

“I do.”

“I thought you said you didn’t know who it was to Helena. What changed?”

“I didn’t at first, but later I recognized him when I finally looked through all of my memories of the encounter. There was a point in time when he didn’t disguise his voice and appearance when talking to the others with him.”

“So, who was it?”

“An Aeromancer named Ricardo. I only remember him because he was the one who showed us around when I arrived with the rest of the students from Crystalview.”

There was a silence after his announcement for a few seconds before he heard the Dean curse under her breath.

“Are you absolutely, completely, perfectly certain it was Ricardo Floris in those memories?”

“In those memories? No, I can’t be 100% certain.” That was the truth, too, because when he thought back at a few snippets of time when he was in and out of unconsciousness while being carried to the interrogation room, he remembered glimpsing and hearing Ricardo speaking to the Martial trainees. It was only in this hyper-focused state he was holding himself in that those memories were brought to the surface, but on those memories alone he couldn’t accurately say he was certain of who it was. If the Dean asked about later… well, at that point, he was 100% certain because of the fact that he had killed Ricardo.

She sighed in relief for some reason, though thinking about the Aeromancer, he realized it was probably because he was a very high-ranking Noble. He really didn’t understand what that meant other than in a vague sense, but it must’ve been worrisome to have to accuse a Noble like that of committing the acts he had.

“We’ll do an investigation on our own, but we’ll leave it at that for the moment. Last question: Do you know what happened to your roommates that caused them to slip into a coma?”

“Yes.”

“Please tell me why they are in a coma, then.”

Larek hesitated for a moment, which turned out to be a good thing. A very slight movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to glance at Shinpai, who cleared a smug-looking expression off his face once he saw Larek glance at him. He also twitched his right hand away from his left wrist, where he saw a glimpse of familiar wood peeking out under the edge of his instructor’s sleeve.

Either he was just getting better at reading people or his hyper-focus helped with it, but Larek was suddenly confident in what was going on. Turning back to the Dean, who was looking at him expectantly, he saw the affirmation that he was correct in the depths of her eyes, though she attempted to hide it.

“You already know, don’t you? Shinpai told you about the Healing Surge Fusion. What is going on?”

The snort that came out of the nearby Grandmaster Fusionist was all the confirmation he needed.

Book 2 Chapter 48: https://www.patreon.com/posts/fusionist-book-2-84228298