Book 3 Extra 4: Like, reports of my death have been totally exaggerated. (1/2)
It was a quiet, unassuming morning inside the study of one Amadeus Endymonion, at least as far as the clock on the wall could be believed; peeking out through a window to check whether the sun was up would've been a little tricky after all. The Arch-mage of the island was currently hunched over his work, his wrinkled robe hastily strewn over his usual suit, and his white hair in bewildering disarray. In front of him the heavy mahogany desk, covered under an eclectic collection of dossiers, artifacts, office supplies, and empty liqueur bottles, was closer to a shrine to pure chaos than any workplace had the right to be. Nyarlathotep would've most certainly approved.
However busy the old man was though, even he couldn't ignore the chiming sound coming from the large double doors leading into the room. He tried though. Oh, how he tried, but once his nerves frayed thin (which, to be fair, didn't take long), he slammed his hand down onto a relatively bare spot on his desk, at which point the incessant ringing finally stopped, only to be replaced by the magical equivalent of static noise.
”What is it?” he asked curtly, and there was an immediate answer.
”My Lord.” The disembodied voice that quietly resonated in the room sounded slightly distorted and yet distinctly dry at the same time. ”You have a guest.”
The old man let out a throaty noise that wasn't quite a groan and emphatically stated, ”I believe I have told you that I am going to be busy with dealing with the unexpected demise of Lord Saahira, and I would accept no visitors, have I not, Pascal?”
”You have, my Lord, but the guest is looking for you precisely because of the inheritance of the late Arch-mage.”
”Inheritance? The body has yet to cool, and already…” His words trailed into angry growls, followed by a stern, ”Tell them I will not hear about such things until the investigation into her death has concluded.”
'If only they were not so stubbornly obstinate and—', he tagged on in a whisper that presumably wouldn't be audible on the other side, but before he could cut the magical communications, there was a new voice chiming in.
”Hey, Endy! Endyyyy! Let me in already!”
For the following five seconds there was a deep, deafeningly loud silence in the office, followed by a tentative question.
”Pascal? Was that who I think it was?”
”Yes, my Lord,” the guy on the other side answered with a hint of trepidation.
”… Let her in.”
”Understood.”
Not a second later, the door wings parted and a brown girl quickly squeezed through the gap as if afraid that they would close up in front of her again. Her fears were naturally unfounded, and she was soon followed by the tall disciplinary committee leader, standing straight and proper like a guard by the entrance.
More importantly, when the old man's eyes finally focused on the newcomer, his brows slowly descended into an expression that said he didn't have nearly enough drinks to deal with a situation like this so early in the morning, followed by a quiet sigh of pure exasperation.
”I was under the impression that you died,” Lord Endymonion noted with carefully feigned indifference while the door automatically closed behind the two.
”Just a little, but not really,” the girl answered with a giggle as she made her way over to his desk. She was wearing the spare uniform she bought from one of his students. Her antics during the last two weeks naturally didn't escape the old man's notice, but at the moment it was likely the very least of his problems concerning her.
”I can see that with my own eyes,” the Arch-mage noted with a sour tinge in his voice. The girl seemingly wasn't paying attention to him but looking for something, so he straightened his back and asked, in a much firmer tone, ”For what reason did you fake your death?”
”I didn't fake it,” Sahi answered matter-of-factly while in the process of dragging a chair from the corner over to the old man's desk. Unexpectedly enough, Pascal walked over to help, only to wordlessly return to his self-appointed guard post by the entrance once it was in front of the desk. Sahi flashed him a grin and then turned to the owner of the room again. ”My old body is, like, tooootally dead. Like, 'deader than dead' dead. Like... Um, how did Leonard say it? Ah, right! It's like, its metabolic processes are totally historical!”
”Do you mean Leonard Dunning? What does he have to...?” Lord Grandpa muttered with a blank expression, but only a moment later his eyes snapped into focus as the gears began turning in his head. ”So you are telling me that your old body truly died, yet you are still in front of me. I presume that means you have succeeded in your experimental procedure.”
”Like, doy,” Sahi answered with a toothy grin, and a moment later she took a seat and crossed her legs while maintaining the same Cheshire cat grin.
”Yet, you did not announce your success, but in its stead you are content to let everyone believe that you died. That strikes me as odd.”
”To say the least,” Pascal added in passing.
”Oh, I'm just, like, planning to inherit my old titles and everything from myself and start totally anew. Tabula rasa and stuff.”
”Is there a reason for that? Aside from a arbitrary caprice? Or the malicious desire of increasing my workload even further?”
”Oh, please! Not the entire world revolves around you, you know? I have, like, plenty of plans, but first I wanna live a little! Like, have a cow to the max! But I guess an old badger like you wouldn't understand,” Sahi told him while making some vague gestures with her hands, and the old man's brows once again descended into a frown.
”You are trying my patience, Lord Saahira.”
”Come on, Endy! Don't be a wet blanket! Can't you, like, let a gal enjoy being young again for just five minutes?”
”Not when you lit the flame of another incident on my island before the embers of the last one could even burn out,” the old man pointed out. ”Who else knows about your persistence of mind?”
”Just my aides and my secretary. Oh, and, like, one more person, but he's secret, so I'm not telling.”
”Uncooperative and annoying as always.”
In response to his words, the brown girl immediately began pouting with the intensity of a thousand exploding suns, give or take a few, but it only laster for a short while, as she soon looked over her shoulder and addressed the third person in the room.
”You see? This is the reason why this geezer never got married and had to clone himself! He's a total buzzkill for sure, am I right?”
”And your attitude does not help my disposition at all,” the elderly man stated, and then menacingly tapped his fingers against his desk for good measure.
The two unlikely Arch-mages stared daggers at each other for a while, right until Sahi crossed her legs the other way and spoke up in an only slightly less petulant tone.
”Listen, Endy. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I, like, had to grab it, and whether or not my apparent death would inconvenience you wasn't my biggest concern at the time. Sorry, not sorry.”
The old man continued to silently glare at the flippant girl, but whatever acidic words he originally wanted to respond with were quickly swallowed back down and he let out a tired breath instead.
”So it was an opportunity. Can I take it for granted that it was where Leonard Dunning was involved in your current... rejuvenation?”
”Weeeell... It's supposed to be, like, a secret and stuff, but it's pretty obvious, so yeah,” the brown girl confirmed with a shrug, and the old man responded with another long sigh.
”Obvious indeed. That young man is akin to a whirlwind of trouble and impossibilities,” he mumbled as he began sorting his bottles, and once he found one with some alcohol in its bottom, he began looking for a clean glass instead. ”Did you hire him? Or maybe he just helped due to one of his strange whims? I do not even dare ask in what he did or asked in return.”