With nothing to do, Nona turned around and looked back into the miniature city that crowded the center of the disk. He should really go exploring around the disk, but he didn’t want to accidentally interrupt anybody’s spellcasting. That, and he’d probably get lost even with the map. He crinkled the envelope, feet itching to go somewhere, but where? Perhaps the envelope held the answers he desired.
Nona plopped down where he was and dug into the envelope, sorting through all the documents inside. He put the map aside, didn’t need the schedule, the welcoming speech written out would be of no use, and searched until he found another, smaller envelope encased within. Flipping it over, he found that it had a golden seal emblazoned with the visage of a sassy-looking owl, yesterday’s date written on the bottom, and a small tally mark next to it. He carefully peeled the seal off and tore it open, unfolding the parchment within. Nona scanned it quickly. It was a letter from his new tutor, Veralia. They wanted to meet him asap, and all he needed to do was bring the letter to the mailroom in Center Spire. Nona gazed out at the middle of the disk, where the super-obelisk held up each of the Guildhouse’s massive disks. That had to be it, right?
Nona strode back into dense center, eyes focused on the middle. He took as many turns as he could to get to the middle. He ducked through an archway and tiptoed across a small garden with rows of luminous vegetables, until he came face-to-face with a wall that rose barely above his head that encased the garden. He briefly considered hopping it; with a little run-up, he probably could’ve. But no, this wasn’t the Outskirts. And besides, there was a dryadic apprentice who was already looking at him strangely as he traced the footprints through the loam to where Nona was standing at the wall. Nona hurried out, leaving from the same archway he came in, and accidentally kicked a strange orange gourd, yellow lights peeking out of its vents, on his way out.
Nona continued his trek, while the steady stream of apprentices scurrying about on various errands swirled around him. Nona tried to keep his eyes on the Center Spire, but the apprentices kept drawing his attention. Two chatted on an outdoor table right outside a café about embedded spells, one carried a bundle of staffs in his arms, and another munched on a snack, nose buried in a spellbook, as she walked absentmindedly along. They weren’t doing anything remarkable, but Nona couldn’t help but wonder what they were talking about or what those crazy staffs were used for. As he neared the Center Spire, there were more apprentices for him to gawk at, little shops and eateries began to replace the bizarre laboratories, and the buzz of conversation grew louder.
After crossing two rows of shops, Nona burst into a small plaza dotted with tables and chairs. It was dusky since the light from the giant magical spotlights did not fully reach the plaza, but many of the apprentices were followed by their own Lightballs as they took a moment to chat with friends or enjoy a nice, hot meal. The obelisk itself had no glow like the other four obelisks, made only of that solid white stone, but it was so large it probably could have fit the other four inside of it. There were two glass double doors that were propped open, and a queue of folk stretched outside. Nona joined them at the back and patiently waited his turn to go inside.
When he entered Center Spire, he realized why the line seemed so long. The room was tiny, mostly concealed behind a long desk which stretched the length of the room. One Ishvian man sat behind the desk. He wore a yellow silk wrap that stretched from one shoulder across his broad torso. He was completely bald, his skin was a deep blue that almost seemed to glow, and he sported a bushy black beard coupled with thick eyebrows. Six muscled arms rested at his desk atop two massive, open books, one green and the other blue, and he held two quills in two of his right hands, and a stamp in his lowest left hand. There was also a black slate propped up on a small easel. When Nona approached him, he was scribbling in the green book while watching the slate. When he was done, he blew a puff of air on the slate, then asked Nona: “For you, what can I do?”
“I received this letter a little while ago, and now I think I have to send it back through the mailroom. This is the mailroom, right?” Nona replied.
“Yes yes, Pashtiik is Mailmaster of this mailroom. You want to send mail back, back where?” he asked quizzically.
“Back to where it came from, I suppose,” Nona said, handing the letter to him.
He took the letter with his upper two arms and examined it, which had the same symbol as the seal stamped on the bottom. With his middle two arms, he flipped through the pages of his great big blue book simultaneously. He kept flipping until he got about halfway through, then he flipped a page back and forth a few times, his brows furrowing in confusion. He looked at Nona and asked accusatorily, “You are apprentice Nona, no?”
“Yeah, that’s me.”
He scratched his beard with a free hand and huffed, “They did not prepare Pashtiik for new apprentice, and so you do not exist in this land of mail. No matter. You will be born anew in this realm of mail. Pashtiik will register you, and you will gain mail-life. It will be good, very good, for you. Who is your master?”
“I don’t have one yet. I’m supposed to get one soon, I think, but they didn’t tell me when.”
Pashttik nodded, then reached down with his lower arm and grabbed a glass bottle. He uncorked it with a pop and held it out to Nona. Nona hesitated when Pashtiik told him to spit in it, but the Mailmaster became more insistent, waving the bottle around in Nona’s face. He leaned forward and spat a glob of saliva into the jar. Nona shyly looked away when he noticed some of it had splattered on Pashtiik’s hand. He didn’t seem to care; he spun around his chair and opened a small slot in the back wall, barking out some orders in a foreign language to the workers behind the wall. A stubby, hairy hand reached out, grabbed the bottle from Pashtiik, and slammed the slot shut.
Then, Pashtiik smoothed out the open page in his massive blue book, holding it down as flat as he could with his lower two hands. He spun it sideways with his middle hands and lightly rested his fingers of his upper hands on the open spine of the book. He focused, the tips of his fingers began to glow blue, and he almost seemed to pull a new page from the bindings of the book upwards. The new page glowed the same light blue as Pashtiik’s fingers, but it flowed and molded like taffy, as he carefully laid it float the. His lower hands slid under the glowing page, taking care not to let it touch the next page, as his middle hands smoothed the edges and the front like a potter. When he was satisfied that it was precisely the same size as all the other pages, he let go of the mysterious spell he cast, and the new page lost its glow, settling into the book as if it had always been there.
When he was finished, the slot behind Pashtiik slid open, and two hairy hands stuck out of it, holding the jar of spit with a swab in it, a stamper on top of a matching tin of wax, and a strange, mechanical, bird-like artifact. Pashtiik grabbed the items and placed them at his desk, then began scribbling some notations on the new page. The bird-like machine hopped around the table, experimentally pecking at the desk while Pashtiik worked. He used the new stamper on an ink book of his own and stamped the page, then took the swab, dipped it in Nona’s spit, and brushed it on the bottom left corner of the new page. He then jotted a few sentences in Nona’s letter, folded it back up, and slipped it in an empty envelope. Pashtiik opened up the tin of wax and pressed the new stamper against it. He let the thick golden wax drip down into the tin before he sealed the envelope.
The bird-like machine perked up, hopping up and down on its thin legs. It was made of brass, with a large beak connected to a solid head, which looked like two curved plates overlapping each other on top of a bowl. A small, fluffy pink flower grew out of a tiny hole on the top of its head. When it fluttered its wings, Nona spotted two pigeon feathers tucked securely into undersides of the solid brass, and its torse was glass, where a luminescent crystal which hung suspended inside from a chain. When Pashtiik held out the letter to it, it froze, and its beak snapped open. He slipped the letter inside, and the bird grabbed it with its beak, then -blam!- its head expectantly at Pashtiik. He whispered Veralia’s name to the machine, and it nodded, flexing its wings as it hopped to the edge of the table. Nona ducked as it suddenly bust off the table and soared out the open door, flying high above the disk floor.
“It will find her in twenty minute, if she is in the third disk,” Pashtiik said, “If you want to send mail, make sure you use this wax and make sure seal is inside the beak of the Homer. You can wait outside for a reply, if you wish.”
-
1 ReplyEdited by Merribor: 8/12/2022 8:40:11 PMNona took the stamper and the tin of wax from Pashtiik, gave him a quick thanks, and left the room. Outside, he took a spot at an empty table and waited. He never would’ve noticed the little shadows high above his head had he not know about the Homers. It was mesmerizing; watching them duck and weave in the air, some with messages in their beaks, and when they got close to Center Spire, they tucked in their wings and dove into impossibly small holes. Nona could hardly believe that they were mechanical and not real birds. There was a lot Nona could hardly believe about this place. Here he was, sitting at a table by himself, waiting for a brass bird to deliver a message he didn’t write, and over there across the plaza, a giant, sentient, bipedal toad was zooming around, cross-legged on a hovering pillow, and nobody cared! They probably saw much more amazing spellcasting every day! Then, Nona’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a gnomish fellow who stood at about three and a half feet tall, though his comical green felt hat gave him another foot in height. The hat was pushed down almost all the way to his bulbous ruddy nose, and Nona could barely make out his low, squinty eyes set just beneath the rim of the hat. He wore a simple white wool tunic with a wide belt, and brown pants. He tugged on Nona’s sleeve and told him that the message had been received, and that he should probably wait a few more minutes for Veralia to arrive. Nona thanked the gnome, and he waddled off back to the mailroom. Nona wiped his hands on the knees of his pants. For some reason, he couldn’t deny the growing pit of butterflies in his stomach. There was no reason to be nervous. All he was doing was meeting this new mentor; it wasn’t like she would expect anything out of him today. He didn’t know that though. What if she quizzed him on some sort of arcane ideology, and he knew nothing about it? But that wouldn’t happen. Well, it might, but it wouldn’t be a big deal. Or would it? Should he have studied something before he moved into the Guildhouse? Ahsante didn’t mention anything like that, but he also didn’t mention that there would be an oral section on the entrance exam either. He’d be spending some time every day with Veralia, so if he embarrassed himself again, like with Teorakest, and she took a disliking to him, then it would be a rough few weeks. Or months. Or however long he was supposed to be studying here. Nona sighed. As exciting as being an apprentice in the Mage’s Guild was, everything here felt so foreign. There was still so much he didn’t know, from basic spellcasting principles to how long he was supposed to be training to the layout of the Guildhouse to the mage that would eventually take him under their wing. Then again, no matter where he was, he’d probably be just as lost. Even if he was in the mythical “home” that he daydreamed about, he wouldn’t know it. He didn’t have his memories; he didn’t have any friends or family. Except for Reke, Nona considered Reke a friend, and he hoped that he considered Nona the same. So far, Reke had stuck with him, and he’d stick around longer until he found Lusahn, which would give plenty of time for Nona to find some new friends in the Guild. All he needed was one good friend. Suddenly, movement caught Nona’s eye. Standing in the doorway to the mailroom was the gnome and a young elvish woman wearing a sleeveless, light gray tabard over a plain white shirt, with white leggings tucked neatly into calfskin boots. Her gray scarf hung loosely from her shoulders, with a golden pin of the same sassy owl that was on the letter’s seal. Her loose, blonde curls were tucked tightly out of the way behind her long, pointy ears, and they hung down until they rested lightly on her shoulders. The gnome pointed at him, and she strode purposefully toward him. Nona, unsure of whether to watch her approach or look away, pretended to be distracted by a pebble on his table until she stood right in front of him. “Are you Nona?” she asked, tilting her head slightly to the right. “Yeah, that’s me,” he replied. She outstretched one her slender hands and introduced herself, “I’m Veralia. I’ll be tutoring you on basic Arcane Theory for the time being. It’s nice to meet you,” “I’m Nona,” he introduced himself, shaking her hand. “I know,” she said plainly. “Right. And your name is Veralia,” Nona said slowly, flushing red with embarrassment. “Yes, that’s what I said.” “Right.” Nona nodded and Veralia blinked as they shared an awkward silence between themselves. Veralia sighed. She was looking forward to having her lunchtimes to make a dent in her stack of books that needed reading, but it looked like she was stuck babysitting. Again. “There’s something I’d like to show you before we get started on lessons tomorrow. Do you mind taking a short walk?” she said. Nona bounded to his feet, and outstretched an arm, gesturing for her to lead the way. She turned on a heel and walked back into the maze of buildings, Nona right on her heels. Next Chapter: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/261538288 Previous Chapter: https://www.bungie.net/en/Forums/Post/261054374?sort=0&page=0