“A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Hart.” The old man began, placing a hand over his heart and bowing at the waist as best he was able. “You may call me Grey.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Just Grey, huh,” I said skeptically.

“For now, Grey will suffice,” He replied unblinkingly. “Anything more than that is merely window dressing.”

That’s not suspicious at all.

“Okay, I guess,” I said to him, clasping my hands together in front of me and leaning forward. “Now what?”

The older man smiled at me again and mirrored my position.

“Mr. Hart, I understand that you might have undergone somewhat of an ordeal since your capture. So, I can appreciate it if you are wary of extending even the slightest amount of trust. To that end, you are welcome to the use of my washroom in order to cleanse yourself of the road dust and collect your thoughts.” He gestured off to the side of me as he was speaking. “Inside, you’ll find a clean pair of clothes that you are welcome to as well.”

Looking in the direction that he had motioned towards, I noticed a door that I had missed when I had first seen the room. Turning back to the older man, I opened my mouth for a second before closing it. Scooting forward to the edge of the bed, I gave Grey a nod.

“Thanks, that, uh, that sounds pretty nice actually.”

“Indeed.” He said, returning my nod. “Feel free to avail yourself of the facilities, meager as they may be. Take your time, and consider what questions you may want to ask me. I’m sure you have many, and I’m perfectly happy to answer what I’m able to.”

Walking around the bed, I made my way to the door that Grey had pointed out. Once I did so, I looked back over my shoulder at him somewhat uncertainly. Once he saw that I was looking at him, he gave me an encouraging nod.

Turning back around, I opened the door and went through, closing it behind me.

………………………………………

Grey had called his ‘washroom’ meager, but it didn’t seem so bad to me.

It wasn’t very large, and it didn’t resemble a modern bathroom very much, but it seemed usable. Inside, I could see that it had what appeared to be a bronze washtub, a small dresser with a large bronze bowl sitting on top of it. Above that was a surprisingly clear mirror attached to the wall above the bowl, a rack that had a few rough spun woolen towels on it. On the far wall was what I could only assume to be some kind of toilet.

The problem was, the tub didn’t have any water in it, and I couldn’t see any way to fill it if I wanted to take a bath. It didn’t have a spigot of any kind, and there didn’t appear to be any water pipes in the room. Looking down at myself, and more importantly, giving myself a sniff test, I could tell I needed a bath badly, however.

Standing around aimlessly for a few moments, I decided that I would need to ask Grey. Somewhat embarrassed, I turned back to the door and opened it.

Poking my head out the door, I glanced in the direction of Grey. I found him staring right back at me, as if he had been waiting for me to come out.

“Hey, uh, Grey right? I don’t, uh. I don’t see how to, um.” I said sheepishly, starting and stopping. “Where’s the water for the tub?”

“I see.” He said calmly. “Am I to understand that you do not know how to operate the facilities, Mr. Hart? Do you require assistance?”

Feeling my face grow red in embarrassment, I nodded.

“Certainly, Mr. Hart. I would be happy to assist.” Grey said, wheeling over to the door.

As I stepped out of the way to let him through, Grey entered the washroom. It may have been small, but there was still room enough inside for the two of us.

“Firstly, I believe you wish to take a bath, Mr. Hart?” He said to me.

“Yeah, but you don’t have to keep calling me Mr. Hart, you know?” I said to him. “Feels weird. You can just call me Nathan, or even Nate if you want.”

“I see,” He said thoughtfully. “Well Nathan, let’s begin with the washbasin.”

Wheeling over to the washbasin, Grey pointed to three separate bronze disks about the size of my fist that were physically attached to the side of the tub somehow. Leaning closer to get a better look, I was able to see that each of the disks had a symbol scratched onto them in a language that I didn’t understand. Each of the disks had a different symbol on them.

Looking back at Grey, I gave him a curious look. “What? What’s up with those?”

Nodding thoughtfully to himself, Grey answered me. “These disks are how you operate nearly any form of washbasin, no matter the size. Look here,” He said, pointing to the leftmost disk. “This disk will control the amount of water that is added to the basin.”

Having said that, Grey pressed his thumb down onto the disk. Hearing a bubbling noise, I looked over the rim of the tub and looked down. When I did so, I was able to see that there was water coming from seemingly nowhere filling the basin from the bottom up. Within seconds the tub was filled nearly to the top.

Taking his thumb away from the disc, Grey gestured to the water. “As you can see, the basin is now filled with water. However, you’ll find it to be quite cold. Not at all suitable for a refreshing bath, now is it?”

Pointing to the second disc from the left, Grey continued. “This disc is the one that controls the temperature of the water. Now I say temperature, but what I really mean is heat. This basin does not possess a Plate of Cold, and thus cannot lower the temperature of the water. It merely possesses a Plate of Heat to raise the temperature of the water inside. Like so.”

Having said that, he pressed his thumb to the middle disc like he did the first one. Within a similarly short amount of time, the water had gotten so hot that steam was visibly rising off of it.

“Be cautious, however,” Grey said to me, taking his thumb away from the middle disc. “Plates of Heat determine the temperature it exerts based upon how long you lay your finger upon it. If I had left my thumb upon it much longer, the water would have begun to boil. I do not believe that would have been conducive to a comfortable bath, no?”

Glancing at me, Grey smiled slightly.

“Lastly, we have a Plate of Dispersion. Slightly more esoteric in function than the Plates of Water and Heat, this simplified rune will empty the basin when you are finished.” Finishing, Grey pressed the third button in the row. When he did so, all of the water in the tub simply vanished, instantly.

Jumping slightly, I couldn’t help to gape stupidly at everything I had just witnessed. I had seen some pretty wild stuff since I had gotten here, but this had to have been the most overt display of magic that I had witnessed. I thought I had internalized the fact that magic had to have been real, otherwise how could I have even ended up here? But everything else I had seen up to this point had been more subtle than the magically appearing and disappearing water. I felt dizzy all of a sudden.

Leaning up against the tub away from the magical discs, I crossed my arms, closed my eyes, lowered my head, and murmured to myself. “Magic is real, huh.”

I felt stupid immediately for saying it. Obviously magic had to be real, you dense moron, I thought to myself. Feeling overdramatic and silly, I opened my eyes and looked over at Grey.

He was staring back at me with a raised eyebrow. “Indeed. Magic is quite real, young man.” He said dryly.

Coughing into my fist, I desperately searched for something to say. “So, uh, how safe are those things? If I had been sitting inside the tub when I pressed the Plate of, um, Dispersion right? Would I have been vanished or destroyed or something?”

“They’re quite safe Nathan, no need to worry,” Grey reassured me. “Every commercially available Enchantment Plate has inbuilt safety mechanisms that detect the presence of a soul, and will not trigger if one is detected in its bounds. Besides, it would take something far more powerful than a simple washbasin Plate to disperse a living being.”

“Additionally,” Grey continued. “The water was neither vanished nor destroyed, as you put it. It was merely dispersed, as the name suggests, back into free-floating Aether. Indeed, nothing can ever be truly destroyed, as you so put it. Not even Aether.”

Nodding thoughtfully to try and show that I understood what he was talking about, even though I didn’t, I nonetheless did catch what he said at the end. Nothing can ever be truly destroyed, huh. That sounded an awful lot like a very important law of physics.

Maybe magic didn’t completely spit in the face of the universe after all.

Wheeling away from the basin, Grey continued his explanation. “Moving on, if you inspect the washbowl,” He said, gesturing over to the bowl on the dresser. “You’ll notice that it possesses the same trio of Plates.”

Walking over and looking at the bowl, I was able to see that he was right. The bowl did have those same three discs attached to it, even if they were smaller than the ones attached to the tub.

“Additionally,” I heard Grey say from behind me. “If you feel the need to ah, relieve yourself. You’ll find that the privy also possesses a Dispersion Plate. I implore you to use it.”

Turning around and fixing Grey with a weirded-out look I said, “So these plates can even disperse, um, ‘waste’? You don’t…breathe it in or something afterward, right?”

Bringing his hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose, Grey sighed wearily. “No Nathan, you are not breathing in any waste after using a Plate of Dispersion. You are not the first to ask that question, and I somehow doubt you will be the last. Any material dispersed in this manner is neutrally aligned and carries no hint of its previous state.”

Okay, but I still didn’t like the fact I could potentially be surrounded by poo magic being in this room.

Straightening back up in his chair, Grey fixed a smile back on his face. “Well! I hope this was helpful to you, Nathan. If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave you to your bath.”

With that, Grey began to wheel out of the room. Stepping aside to let him out of the room, I told him, “Thanks man, I appreciate it.”

“No problem at all, Mr. Hart,” Grey said, staring at me thoughtfully once he had exited the room and turned about. “No problem at all.”

……………………………………...

I must have been in the bath for nearly an hour after Grey had left, but it was impossible for me to tell the time. Relaxing in the steaming hot bath after the crazy week I’d had and just letting my mind drift felt amazing. Even though I realized this wasn’t the end of my troubles, I badly needed to decompress in some manner where I wasn’t in mortal danger.

Getting out of the bath and toweling off, I went rummaging through the drawers of the small dresser the bowl was sitting on. Eventually, I found the change of clothes that Grey had mentioned. There were a pair of brown linen ankle-length pants and a matching white linen short-sleeved shirt with a lace-up neck. I was surprised to find Grey had even set aside some linen socks and a type of underwear I wasn’t familiar with. They resembled boxers, to a degree, but with a drawstring built into them. Everything fit surprisingly well.

After getting dressed I moved over to the mirror to get a good look at myself for the first time in a while.

In my professional opinion, I looked like shit. Even after the bath.

I looked haggard, honestly. I still had the same brown hair as always, which I had brushed backward like I usually did with a bristle brush I had found in the dresser. Still the same dull green eyes, even if I had massive bags under them. Still the same pale skin, even if it looked paler than usual considering everything I had been through. I was surprised I hadn’t sunburned, considering how easily I usually burned.

However, peering into the mirror I eventually noticed something strange. In the upper right-hand corner of the mirror, I could see a small blue box moving around. Trying to get a better look at it, the box seemed to be moving around in the mirror in relation to the movement of my eyes.

“The hell…”, I murmured to myself, reaching out with a finger to try and touch the blue box.

When I finally managed to touch the glass right over the blue box, I heard a short chime inside the washroom. Jerking in surprise, I glanced around wildly to try and find the source of the noise but wasn’t able to. It was as if the noise had come from nowhere.

When I looked back at the mirror, I jumped in surprise again. In front of me on the mirror was a large blue box with words on it in a language that I couldn’t understand, similar to the runes on the Enchantment Plates that Grey had taught me about earlier. The blue box was so large that it was preventing me from even seeing my upper body in the mirror, even if I could still see the background around the edges of it.

As I watched, astonished, the symbols in the blue box began to rearrange themselves into words that I could read.

“What the fuck…”, I breathed.