"She spit the potion into his mouth?"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chancellor Kyle nodded to the king, "Yes, sire. More than likely saved his life."

 

Seated behind his desk in his office, the king surveyed the piles of work that had accumulated. Despite the mounting tasks, he had cleared a space to examine the documents concerning Reed Ratliff. Reed was the son of Leopold Ratliff, a baron and the most influential water wizard in the kingdom. The relationship between Leopold and his half-dwarven bastard son was strained, to say the least. None of that mattered because, regardless of his family's dynamics, Reed could easily become the pretext to shake the very foundation of his kingdom. Dealing with Reed’s reawakening and subsequent rampage was paramount if the king wanted to avoid this turning into a shadow war among his children.

 

"Let me get this straight..." The king slowly stood up and started to pace around the room, "Reed one day falls asleep in class. The professor wakes him up. He says several strange things then leaves to go use the bathroom." The king paused to stare out the window.

 

"He goes to his room, escorted by his roommate, where he encounters-" The king gestured to the chancellor, "Your son." This receives a nod of acknowledgment. The King returns to staring out the window, "Whereupon, Reed, who up until this point has been a lackluster water wizard with no skill and little talent for combat..." The king paused, thinking about how to put this tactfully, "Proceeds to have an... altercation with your son-" The king turned around to face Kyle, "Who I might add is being scouted to join the knights, mind you..." The king starts walking over towards the chancellor who remained standing next to the desk impassively, "And Reed wins."

 

Kyle finally displayed some emotions when he glanced away out of embarrassment. He pushed his hair behind his ear as he replied, "Correct, Sire."

 

The King nodded then resumed wandering the room, "He bumped into Arthur's fiancé and fondles her breasts. Slaps his sister. Encounters Morgan and casually bashes both him and his bodyguard into a wall." The king started to gesture with his off hand as he spoke, "Then he manages to evade the school's security for six hours. Pretended to be my son's footman to sneak out of the school, gets caught and it takes...” He paused to snap his fingers several times, “Remind me. How many well-trained men did it take to finally put Reed down?"

 

Kyle looked through his notes, "Eight royal knights, and..." He flipped a page, "Four school guards."

 

The king scratched his chin, "You are telling me it took a dozen men to put Reed down and drag him to our dungeon where my son told him he was going to be executed. Prompting the boy to screw everyone and hang himself.” The king paused to rub his temple before continuing, “Thus almost starting a shadow war between my three sons as everyone jumped to conclusions and attempted to use this opportunity to their political advantage."

 

Kyle's eyes rolled upwards for a few moments before he looked back at the king, "I would quibble on some of the details, but essentially... yes."

 

King Uther nodded slowly, "Essentially." He echoed.

 

Kyle shifted on his feet uncomfortably, "Yes."

 

"Essentially." The king looked at the floor and resumed his pacing, "Somehow he survived getting his neck broken. He lay in a coma for three days or so and upon waking up, manages to pick the lock on the manacles restraining him to his bed."

 

Kyle interjected with an uncomfortable expression, "Mana suppressing handcuffs, sire."

 

The king stopped pacing to look up at Kyle, "Mana suppressing... handcuffs. Thank you. I forgot." The king cleared his throat, "He picked the lock on mana SUPPRESSING... restraints barricaded himself in the infirmary, managed to use alchemy, OF WHICH he has no formal training that we know of. Then brewed up some sort of explosive to blow open the door from the infirmary.” He turned to look at Kyle again, “As well as some sort of hitherto unknown and remarkably effective elixirs that when combined created a massive cloud of obscuring fog that left the guards caught in it nearly blind and choking for... how long?"

 

Kyle reviewed his notes again, "Some recovered in under a minute, most inside five..." He flipped a page, "One didn't have his sight fully return for almost a half hour."

 

The king nodded, "Thank you." He started to wander back over to the window, "Whereupon he proceeded to make a mockery of the guards in my castle. Ran around like a madman for over an hour. He managed to... somehow... find the axe of Brune the Berserker that had been missing for almost eighty years now. He cut his way through solid iron bars covering a small stained glass window, caused a stampede, seemed to command horses by the power of his voice alone, and managed to dodge his way across the courtyard to the northeast redoubt, through a hail of arrows only taking one arrow to the arm in the process-"

 

Kyle raised a finger, "I would like to interject I never gave the command to fire. Those men have been punished for their actions."

 

The king held up a hand and waved off Kyle's concerns, "I'm not holding you responsible for any of this." He let his hand drop and kept staring out the window, "Finally. He sealed himself in the redoubt, climbed the tower, and was prepared to jump into the moat to escape, and if it wasn't for the personal initiative of the maid who was his attendant having the foresight to figure out the most likely method he was going to escape... and her HANDCUFFING herself to him... we never would have caught him."

 

Kyle nodded, "Yes, Sire."

 

The king enjoyed looking out the window for a while, then added, "Oh. And according to her testimony, instead of him using the axe of Brune to cut off HER wrist so he could escape, he was instead going to cut off his own."

 

Kyle nodded again, "Yes, Sire."

 

The king looked at Kyle out of the corner of his eye, "How?"

 

Kyle shrugged and waggled his head back and forth for a moment before saying, "Well. I imagine he would lift the axe up-"

 

The king snapped, "That's not what I meant and you know it!" The king paused, sighed, then returned to his chair at the desk, "How does a halfling bastard who is barely recognized as a water mage, whose eyes are sapphire and not steel grey, display so many abilities of an aura user?" He dropped into his chair making it creak from his weight, "Let us count, shall we?" He started holding up fingers as he went, "Displayed superior strength, speed, stamina, healing, resistance, AND..." He was on his second hand and wound up waving his index finger towards his chancellor, "He can channel mana into magical weapons." a long pause, "Six." a final pause before he shouted, "SIX!!!"

 

The king slammed his hand on the desk, “HOW?”

 

The door opened without anyone knocking. The school headmaster in his long robes and staff of office waltzed in past a protesting secretary, upon whose face he slammed the door. The headmaster seemed to be all smiles. Cheerful even.

 

The King slouched in his chair, staring at his old friend, "You seem chipper."

 

The headmaster nodded as he leaned his staff against the wall, "Indeed! I can't believe there is a second one!” He clenched his fists up under his chin and shivered his shoulders, “And in my lifetime, as well!"

 

Kyle slowly turned to look at the headmaster, "A second what, exactly?"

 

The headmaster reached into one of his many pockets to produce a parchment he dropped on the desk, "That boy! That wonderful boy! He has TWO MANA CORES!" Kyle and The King's jaws both dropped open in unison. The headmaster practically giggled, "Like the young miss, he has both an aura and evocation core, but unlike the miss, his aura core is far more developed. In fact, it seems to have developed overnight! Damn, dangerous. I'm surprised he didn't explode a half dozen times just running around your palace!"

 

The king blinked, "What?"

 

The headmaster nodded with a broad grin, "Indeed! I have no idea how he is even still alive! Any normal person would have detonated from the titanic strain on his system! The mana in his body is sloshing about from core to core, rushing to and fro. He must be in absolute agony!"

 

Kyle pressed his fist up under his nose as he was want to do when he was deep in thought, "Hmmmm... it sounds like he is unlikely to survive."

 

The headmaster chimed, "Oh Hell No!"

 

Both Kyle and the King looked at the headmaster askant. He continued, "Not only is he recovering, but his mana cores seem to be increasing in size. It's as if the strain has forced them to... expand. It is like how exercise makes larger muscles. All this strain seems to be of some... I don’t know... benefit?" Kyle was about to ask something, but the headmaster kept right on rambling.

 

"Furthermore, even though I estimate he lost a third... maybe as much as half of his blood, he is recovering at a remarkable rate! Ordinary healing magic cannot replace lost blood, and yet-" He threw his hands up into the air while shrugging his shoulders, "He's doing just that! When I started the examination, I thought he'd be in bed for a month. Now? I wouldn't be surprised if he was waking up as we speak!"

 

This time, the king slammed a fist on the table jolting everything upon it, "HOW???"

 

The headmaster shrugged, "Not a clue." Then grinned devilishly, "Isn't it wonderful?" And turned to head out.

 

The king slowly stood up as he called after the headmaster, "Where are you going?"

 

The headmaster paused in the doorway to snag his staff, "Back to that boy, of course. I want to be there when he recovers. I have so many questions and I am of no use to you here." He wiggled his fingers at the king as a farewell, "Toodles!" And slammed the door behind him as he stepped out.

 

The king stared at the closed door, before slamming both fists into his desk, "BLAST IT!"

 

Kyle commented, “You’re going to need a new desk at this rate.” Then turned to walk out.

 

The king followed Kyle with his gaze, "And where are you going?"

 

Kyle looked back, "To be there when Wonder Boy wakes up, of course. We're not going to figure anything out here."

 

Kyle opened the door and stepped out. The door closed with a soft click. The king looked down at all the parchment scattered across his desk. He picked up the sketch of the mana flow inside Reed's body, left behind by the headmaster. The two cores, one in his stomach where the aura core should be, and one in his head where an evocation core should be. They were outlined on the sketch quite clearly. A dual core is such a rarity one could be forgiven for saying it was impossible.

 

Something caught his eye. He held the parchment closer to the light to examine the lines of force coming away from the two cores. Something was off. Where they interacted over the heart was a rather concentrated tangled mess.

 

Something...

 

Wasn't...

 

Quite...

 

Right.