That evening, Julius sits slumped in his viewing chair as he reads over another letter from Diedrik, this time short and to the point;

Will be arriving soon.

Diedrik has spent the last four years in his duchy’s home territory, constantly harassing Julius through the use of letters, vicious pigeons, and his growing collection of minions.

Julius has long since handed over the daily workings of mana rain sourcing and distribution to Diedrik’s minions but that’s not the only product Diedrik has out on the market now that Julius has to juggle.

The demands for Julius to find items has also escalated recently. He’s good but not good enough to get a dragon’s eyeball, unless Diedrik assumes Julius will hunt one down for him? That’s a no, and Julius will tell him as such when the child arrives.

Well, not so much a child now. Four years away…how old is Diedrik?

“How old is the child?” Julius muses.

“Mr Govain is sixteen this year,” Hien replies, sorting through the other letters from regular clients where she sits at Julius’ desk.

Julius tries to imagine a sixteen-year-old Diedrik and it’s just a slightly larger twelve-year-old Diedrik. Oh well.

Julius refolds the letter and flicks it up into the air, a 1^st circle disintegrating it because he’s too lazy to get up and walk to the bin.

There’s a thump of a stamp and Hien stacks everything up just as McPherson steps into the room. They all shuffle around packing up and head downstairs, turning the lights off along the way. The pounding rain drowns out everything as soon as they open the door, a thick sheet of water turning visibility to almost nothing.

Julius sees Hien and McPherson out with a golden umbrella above their heads and then locks the door after them. He turns on a heel, scanning the main room for anything he might have forgotten, and his robes accidentally catch on a small side table more like a pedestal for decoration.

He feels the tug and looks down just in time to watch as the small table tips over, the vase on top toppling off as if in slow motion but he’s just watching in shock. It hits the floor and cracks open like an egg.

Julius blinks and then sighs. “Great, now I have to clean up.”

The door explodes open in a shower of splinters, the entire structure flying across the lobby and smashing through the counter, cracking the wood and sending shards and papers flying. The hiss of rain abruptly turns into a scream without the door to block it out and the street lights flood into the dark room, light streaking and flickering around the sheets of downpour.

Inside the newly illuminated mass of destruction is a man, lying in the furrow his body made of the counter. His black clothes are soaked through with rain, or perhaps blood. He grips the remains of the broken wood cradling him and tries to pull himself up. The man gets his head and shoulders up but collapses back down.

Another man steps through the gaping hole in the building, backlit by the street light and it casts his face into shadow beneath a low hood. The stranger is close, standing not three steps from where Julius is frozen beside his broken vase off to the side.

This cloaked man checks his thrown opponent is still down and then turns on Julius, hand raised as a 3^rd level spell glows a moss green of the man’s eyes. Julius stares at the circle that blooms open.

“Move!” snaps the injured man.

Julius flinches, throwing up his hands and panic-stacks rebound spells. The green attack hits and snaps back with a loud roar, a blazing gush of flame instead of the pinpoint precision of an assassin’s kill shot, but it still has all of the speed and ferocity.

The stranger gets up a shield but that just means it flings him, into the wall, through the shop, and down the street until it hits the thick walls of the alchemist’s lab a few buildings down.

Julius gasps, loud in the sudden quiet. The shop is now missing a corner and creeks ominously as the ceiling starts to tip downward.

“No, no, please, everything will get wet,” Julius blurts out. Gold circles spring up from the ground and wide brick pillars shoot out in a frantic rush, propping up the second floor. Julius summons vines from the pot plants around the room, growing them thick and curling them around the cracking wood of the corner to hopefully seal it in.

There’s a pause as Julius waits, hands out. Nothing comes down. He lets out a relieved breath and drops the connection, spells shattering.

There’s a moment where he just breathes, trying to shake off being frozen, stomach still tight from the adrenalin.

Julius picks up a side of his outer robes to keep them from catching on anything and makes his way across the cracked flooring to the back of the room. He places a hand on the remaining counter next to where it’s splintered into jutting wood spikes and peers down at the injured man.

Julius smiles blandly. “My apologies, dear customer, but we’re closed for the night.”

“There are more,” the injured man warns like he didn’t hear Julius. After a brief struggle, he sits himself up. He’s bleeding from a wound on his temple, blood streaking down the side of his handsome face, and holds one of his arms tucked in protectively.

The man wears a noble’s clothes, black on black of fine material drenched in rain but the embroidery and trimmings still stand out as outrageously expensive to Julius’ keen eyes. A noble should have servants and guards with them but maybe they’ve been killed already.

Not Julius’ problem.

“Would you like me to call a carriage for you or is a servant waiting outside?” Julius continues, brushing a chipped piece of brick off his obliterated counter.

The man stands with what is probably a concussion-induced sway and he rises to Juliuss’ height, all long limbs. Only now does Julius release it’s a teenager, not a full-grown man. There’s an annoyed clench to the boy’s jaw and he’s glaring with sharp, dazzling blue eyes. “Are you done making fun of me, Julius?”

Julius blinks. That blue… “Diedrik?”

Diedrik (Diedrik?!) steps out of the rubble, turning to face the hole in the wall just as more cloaked magicians arrive. They start to form circles and Diedrik raises his own brilliant blue with five layers.

“No!” Julius panics, grabbing the boy’s arm. “No, no, stop damaging everything!”

Julius spins out a massive ring of gold that washes through everything like a shockwave, stopping outside the store perimeter. It cuts into a 3^rd level spell, the layers forming a huge cylinder around the building. A brown spell ricochets off and the barrier only glows stronger.

“Oh, you’re 3^rd class now?” Diedrik mocks. He’d never believed Julius was 2^nd class.

“Damn it,” Julius hisses and sets another barrier, this time a stationary 2^nd level one that can’t deflect and takes down his 3^rd.

“Ridiculous,” is all Diedrik says and he shakes off Julius’ hand, walking away.

“Diedrik?” Julius asks pointedly, watching him leave with wide eyes. “Where are you going? You seem to have some visitors, maybe you should go outside and greet them. Away from my shop.”

The other magicians are smart and co-ordinated, firing low levelled spells into one area to exhaust the barrier. The gold dome is wavering already.

“Distract them!” Diedrik calls over his shoulder as he takes the stairs two at a time.

“Who even are they?” Julius complains, rushing after the boy. “Why are you here instead of the Govain manor that has guards? You can just leave and they’ll follow you.”

“I’m not strictly acting as a Govain right now,” Diedrik says dismissively as he reaches the third-floor storage and just tears down the security ward.

“You have been here for two minutes,” Julius complains as he follows the boy inside. Four years and nothing has changed, the brat has just gotten larger.

“I’ll pay for damages and anything I take,” Diedrik assures, picking up a container of tea leaves and dumping it out on the ground before tossing in some flying fish scales.

Julius comes to a halt and stares down at the tea leaves while Diedrik weaves through high shelves, finding more things to destroy. Julius takes a deep breath. It’s fine, he knows Diedrik will pay him back. Just let it go, consider it already sold.

Diedrik comes back, the tea container now shut. He walks to a window, shakes the container up, and then tosses it outside, down onto the heads of the magicians who have crowded together to break the barrier.

Diedrik then grabs Julius and throws them both to the ground.

The bomb detonates with a shrieking crack-boom. There’s no shockwave and no physical force but Julius chokes on an inhale and his mana compresses painfully before going limp, his body following.

“I’m going to cry,” Julius wheezes.

 “You’re fine,” Diedrik tsks, standing up with only a brief stagger -thought that seems more from his injuries- and checks the situation outside.

“I’m crying,” Julius insists, lying weakly on the ground in a sprawl of his robes.

“I’ll reimburse you double.”

Julius claws his way up a shelf to help him stand. “Is there anything else you’d like to ruin, sir?”

Diedrik looks over his shoulder, the streetlights illuminating his smile. “It’s good finally seeing you again.”

“I’m going to go sit down,” Julius mutters and does just that.

Julius spends the next hour relaxing in his viewing chair as guards gather on the street below. Diedrik sweet-talks his way through most of it, bribes anyone else not cooperating, and his servants arrive in a carriage just in time to whisk away the collapsed magicians – probably never to be seen again.

As things wind down, Diedrik steps into the office, followed by a maid carrying a huge chest that she thumps onto the table with a huff of effort before bowing and stepping out.

“I’m sure that will be enough,” Diedrik muses, coming around to stand by Julius, hand on the back of the chair. “I have plans. We should talk.”

“I’ll check my calendar.”

“The people trying to kill me now know you’re involved too.” Diedrik reaches out and brushes a splinter off Julius’ shoulder. “You might be…hm, 4^th class? But judging by your instinct to freeze in a fight, you wouldn’t last long.”

“I’m 2^nd actually.” Julius looks up at Diedrik, lips pursed. “Did you deliberately lead them here?”

“They caught me off guard on the forest road in,” Diedrik admits. “The 1^st classes swarmed like ants but there was a 4^th -the one you blasted through a few walls- so I was running and picking them off one by one. I found myself in the area and yours was the only light still on.”

“I’m sure there are whorehouses open this time of night,” Julius mutters before he can strangle the urge because as if Dedrik couldn’t handle a 4^th even when the boy was still a 3^rd.

“I’d rather spend my money on you.”

Julius shifts in his chair so he can face Diedrik, incredulous. “Do you hear yourself?” he demands.

Diedrik rocks back on his heels, face blanking. “You…started it.”

Julius smothers the expression he wants to make into a bland customer service smile instead. “Sir, the shop is closed. Please come back tomorrow.”

“We really should talk,” Diedrik insists.

“Yes, and we can do that tomorrow, after I recover from the devastation of you destroying my shop.”

“There’s more of them out there. I’m not sure if they pulled back or if they’re waiting for an opportunity. I don’t have a good enough grip of the situation right now, so I can’t guarantee you’ll be safe tonight.”

Julius pauses. “Thank you for your concern.” He stands up and gestures to the door. “I’m sure you can see yourself out. I’ll be a bit busy with weatherproofing the giant hole in my building - because you wanted to play cat and mouse instead of ending it.”

Diedrik doesn’t move, expression becoming serious. “This is not a game to me and they are not a joke. We got lucky because you keep an entire apothecary’s worth of rare ingredients in here.”

“I appreciate the concern,” Julius reiterates.

After a long pause, Diedrik nods. “Fine. Tomorrow.”