The person at the very front of the contingent was the famed Archmage Agiel, the youngest member of the Archmage Council. Compared to the other member of the Archmage Council who were people around the age of fifty and upward, he was only in the latter part of his thirties.
He had bluish-black hair, pointed chin and pronounced cheekbones, and alert ochre eyes. He was thin and somewhat taller than average, but when all the other member was always wearing the same kind of Archmage robe as him, picking him out of all the other from the back was difficult.
He stepped into the room, his bluish-black hair combed neatly to the side, expression bright and confident. Following right behind him were other members of his new faction that was established sometimes before the commencement of the summoning project. The member of his faction could be recognized quickly by their smugger, self-assured face compared to the dour face of the other faction members.
It was rumored that unlike the core member of his faction who wanted to shove off the monster problem – which was purportedly caused by the Demonkin and other nonhuman’s meddling – to the extra-planar helper, he held different belief. Archmage Luce was of the opinion that he agreed to the summoning ritual research because he wanted to dig into the planar mechanism and the planar energies when Selba made an idle inquiry.
And then Archmage Luce berated him for wasting time nosing around instead of finishing his assignment promptly and go back to studying what he had been taught.
In the middle of the procession, placed in the most prominent position, there was a huge floating box, and there was no outward sign of what it contained. When Selba gave it a curious peek, it looked just like the usual box used by The Tower to put away their magical devices.
The box was practically non-descript in its form, so much that If the box was placed among the other of its kind, Selba wouldn’t be able to single it out of all the others. The only thing that Selba could note was that the box was sealed with more than ten sealing locks.
Placed farther away, near the end of the procession, was a collection of other boxes of the same make, but there was a distinct lack of any sealing locks on them. Unlike the first box that gave a distinct impression that it was guarded vigilantly and handled carefully, these other boxes were just dragged along like an extra.
If Selba was to render the handling in some kind of picture representation, then the first box was something along the line of a royal carriage carrying a princess while the other boxes were just a donkey cart carrying smelly hay.
The procession moved at a fast pace, with Archmage Agiel and his faction member immediately headed right to part of the room where Archmage Farb was, while the members of the other faction split away from the procession one by one.
But compared to Archmage Agiel faction who looked smug and full of self-assurance, they looked disgruntled and full of annoyance. But they kept their silence and only gave the apprentices they passed by and their work before them a disinterested cursory glance.
Selba expected that his mentor Archmage Luce would have come closer to examine his work – even if he was not a proponent of the summoning ritual – right away when he caught Selba glanced at him, but he unexpectedly didn’t. Selba was almost taken aback because with how serious Archmage Luce carried himself, that was just the normal procession of events.
But Archmage Luce only gave Selba a knowing look and walked away with one of his Archmage friends toward the other side of the room while stroking his long luxurious beard.
Meanwhile, Archmage Agiel and the others had stopped in front of Archmage Farb, and proceed to talk after a brief look toward the work of the mage apprentice crouching down near Archmage Farb.
“What’s the progress?” Archmage Agiel asked promptly as he stopped walking, while his hanger-on spread out even while keeping the box floating.
“... They’re nearly done with the work. Just need a finishing touch.” Archmage Farb looked away from the apprentice he currently instructed before answering.
“Hum, The most appropriate time is nearly upon us.” Archmage Agiel declared with a terse tone, and he continued with, “Call off those apprentices and let them step aside!” before turning his back to order his faction to start the preparation.
When Archmage Farb raised his eyebrow at his impolite demand, Selba quickly piled off all the document and instruction pages and started to pack away all his tools unhurriedly. He glanced around as he did, and saw Archmage Luce snorted at his immediate action before turning back to continue talking with his friend.
“Everybody, collect your belonging and move back!” Archmage Farb commanded to the apprentices, tone still even like before, “come on, to the walls!”
Selba had finished packing, but he stayed crouching until half of the apprentices finished tidying their work area and stood up. He strode sedately toward the walls, staring around toward the busy people prepping the place. Some were checking the work of the apprentices and the others were placing the boxes except the locked things out of the way and opening them.
When Selba was halfway toward the walls, he heard the sound of someone berating those who were too slow to pack up. He was a little curious but before he could peek stealthily – to find out who had the misfortune to be scolded for being so slow to react – he felt the telltale of magic being cast. With a loud whoosh, all the tools that had not finished being packed flew away to the edge of the circle, and there was the sound of some heavy things hitting the floor and being swept away.
Judging from how the wind dragged against his clothes, those might have been the sound of the apprentice who got caught up in the wind blast and thrown away. Selba aborted trying to peek and keep the same pace in striding toward the walls.
Selba picked a place to strode to, on the other side of the room from his mentor, somewhere out of the way. he thought he would stand alone as he observed the ritual being done. But as he turned back to watch the Archmages walking around checking and finishing the work of the apprentices, he found that there was someone else heading toward him. He took a brief look at Dekran – the one walking closer – before observing the process of preparation.
It looked like I was working too fast. There were only twenty others who were nearly done with their work like mine were.
Dekran halted near him and turned away to see what Selba observed before narrowing his eyes and scoffed at him.
“Bet you’re happy with yourselves, huh? You don’t need any instruction, yet you had the same level of progress as me and the others.”
Selba glanced at Dekran briefly before turning to observe the area where Dekran worked before.
Oh, he’s among the twenty.
“What? Are you looking down at me?”
The Archmage finished checking the work of the apprentice, with only one or two bending down to touch up and complete the unfinished area.
Those places will definitely be marked down and the apprentice responsible be penalized...
When those who had to complete the unfinished part had done and satisfied, they stepped aside to give way to four pairs of archmage holding the container which gave off the feeling of something heavy and magically charged. Those four pairs of people halted in the center of the room before splitting off into the cardinal direction, one kept the container floating and the other drew away from the content from its opening.
So it was a catalyst liquid... I don’t recognize the smell and signature. Was it something higher leveled than the usual?
Dekran was still grumbling intermittently, but Selba ignored it in the favor of watching those Archmages finishing the preparation. They worked quickly but in a steady and careful way. It didn’t take long before all the inscribed runes and geometric shapes being covered by the catalyst liquid. In the meantime, there were other groups placing mana enriched objects and mana storage gems in many specific parts of the grand magic circle.
They worked fast. I guess tasking the apprentice with part of the project was just for the learning experience...
Selba turned toward the many boxes that had been opened. Among the many ingredients and props taken out of it, there were a lot of unexpected things too. Like a box that looked like it contained a series of assessment orbs and tools, and the boxes containing many humanoid and four-legged beast mannequins.
Those mannequins didn’t look like something simple or commonly made. Specially made? From its mana signature, it felt like something really expensive ... Selba observed the detail of the mannequin carefully.
“Hey, do you even listen to me?”
Selba turned toward Dekran, caught his eyes, and hold a steady gaze as if he was doing a staring contest. When Dekran's expression twitched in fury, Selba rolled his eyes and looked back to the center of the room, mumbling “Useless” under his breath.
Dekran’s breath hitched, and Selba could almost hear the gnashing of his teeth before Dekran exhaled loudly and stopped grumbling. Meanwhile, the preparation was almost over, with the mannequins placed in easy reach while some of the Archmage was led by Archmage Agiel to open the locked box.
When the box was opened, Selba saw something that looked like an ethereal cube, but it deformed and expanded into various shapes in the tune of a heartbeat. Selba thought for a while before recognizing it as something he had read in the archives of the empire’s significant artifact.
Wasn’t that the cube taken away from a strange dragon beast? I thought it was written as something unusable and incomplete, with parts that make it usable pulled off as the beast ran away?
Why was it used here?
Archmage Agiel held the strange cube gingerly and placed it in the center of the room while the other dragged the opened box and throw it to the edge of the circle. And at his signal, all his faction members jogged toward their preset place while the other Archmages walked leisurely – there were even one or two who trudged reluctantly.
When everybody who was important was in place, Archmage Agiel led the ritual and started chanting in a loud voice. There were many parts of the chanting that Selba didn’t understand, so he inclined his ear and try to memorize as much as he could. The strange cube began to behave strangely the longer the chant progressed.
It expanded and deformed in a new rhythm, radiate a peculiarly enchanting glow, and the color of the glow was difficult to describe. There was something in the air that started to intensify, the heavy feeling set in, and Selba felt really uncomfortable.
....
...
...
...
Selba suddenly became aware again.
He looked around and saw that the Archmages were standing around wearily, while most of the apprentices sprawled around like corpses. Only one or two were in the sitting position like him.
There were glowing lines and wide ribbons – flickering into existence and disappearing irregularly – that came out of somewhere, through the walls, the roof, and the ground, going inside a sphere floating in the place where the cube was. There were other lines with substantial and solid form, leading into the collection of humanoid mannequins, disregarding the beastly one entirely.
As he wiped the blood flowing from his face and nose, Selba saw the mannequins changed form little by little, from metallic and wooden parts, into something made of flesh and blood.
The chanting had decreased in its loudness and intensity, and Selba recognized the part that Archmage Agiel currently chanted. It was a part of the ritual process of binding any kind of familiar and forcing it to obey and serve. When the ritual was almost over, suddenly the cube imploded before parts of it were ejected violently toward each mannequin.
At the same time, most of the Archmage doubled up and spat blood, being injured severely by the backlash of the ritual.
