Heather leaves Christopher's room and muffled voices can be heard just outside then a light *knock, knock, knock.*
"oh my god! Give me some piece!" Christopher yells frustratingly.
Christopher stomps his way to the door and swings it open, yelling. "what the fuck do you want?"
On the other side of the door was the captain of the guard. "oh, it's you. Sorry about that, just had my brother almost break my door. Come on in." Christopher says.
"thanks lad. I'm actually here to make a request of you." The captain says.
"ask away. I'm listening." Christopher says.
"right. I don't plan on keeping you." The captain says.
"you're annoying me. Just spit it out." Christopher says, becoming irritable.
"sorry. We have an especially stubborn prisoner who isn't responding to questioning. Would you mind coming in and trying to break him?" The captain asks.
"oh yeah. I can do that for you. I request compensation for my efforts, however." Christopher demands.
"of course! Relating to that, all the paperwork has been filed and processed. Your good deed will be in 'Paper Capital' tomorrow morning. Here." The captain holds out a small, jingling brown coin purse.
(narrator) Hehe.
"thank you. How much is in here?" Christopher asks.
"about nine gold." The captain answered.
"sounds reasonable." Christopher takes six gold from the bag. "but I'll only take six. We don't need that much money right now." He continued. Handing the purse back. Christopher reaches behind his robe and brings out his, Haider's and Heather's purses. He puts two gold into each bag and returns them behind the robe.
"hold up. Why did you put that into three separate bags?" The captain says.
"my brother and sister trust me with their money, so I keep it till they need some. It's our way of managing our finances I guess." Christopher says.
"wait so how come it doesn't jingle when you walk around?" The captain asks.
"I have them tightly fastened to me so I there's nowhere for them to jingle to." Christopher lied.
"that's actually a great idea. I'll make a mental note of that." The captain says.
"you get pinched often?" Christopher asks.
"I did, yeah. You just put the culprit behind bars." The captain answers.
"oh, so I killed two rats with one spell. Efficient, I like that." Christopher jokes.
"hah, yeah. Back to the issue at hand. When will you be available to help me out with this?" The guard captain asks nervously.
"if I get to do it in public, then tomorrow afternoon." Christopher teased.
"I pray to the mother that you're joking right now." The captain nervously laughs.
"of course I'm joking! Come get me tomorrow afternoon, as the sun reaches its peak. I'll have some time then." Christopher says.
"got it. Thank you, lad! You're doing this Empire a service." The captain says.
The captain gives him a nod and leaves. Christopher sighs deeply and starts rubbing his neck. "god I'm sore." He walks to the single couch in the living room. The second he sits down, someone knocks on the door.
"oh my god." He mutters. "NO! Leave me alone!" he yells out.
"just a second of your time Christopher." Zoey says, her voice muffled by the door.
"just come in!" Christopher yells.
Zoey enters the room briskly and stands in front of him.
"spit it out. I'm annoyed enough as is. If someone else bothers me after you leave, I'm going to destroy this entire building." Cristopher whines.
"you bloody won't!" Zoey yells.
"it's a figure of speech mixed with a little truth. When I'm filled with too much emotion, I lose control and I destroy everything around me." Christopher explains.
"I'll make sure no one comes up here then. Now for why I am here. I just got a juicy bit of info from a customer that a thirteen-year-old boy and his siblings took out Tomlin, the invisible thief. That wouldn't have been you guys, right?" Zoey asks.
"what if it was?" Christopher asks in reply.
"you guys are probably just as famous as Heddwyn already because of that." Zoey says.
"that's cool I guess." Christopher says.
"why aren't you more excited!?" Zoey yelled.
"because I'm exhausted Zoey! I've experienced almost passing out from mana exhaustion twice today and I just want to relax with a few distractions as physically possible." Christopher moaned.
"your rather brazen for a thirteen-year-old boy. What made you think that treating people like shit is a good way to act?" Zoey sasses.
"oh, I don't know. Maybe the fact that I'm way smarter than all of you?" Christopher sasses back.
"is that right? Then how does that fridge work back there?" Zoey asks confidently, crossing her arms.
"well giving that the rune in there needs a constant supply of mana, my best working hypothesis is that you're collecting leaking mana from guests using a mana syphon." Christopher says.
Zoey says nothing. She simply walks away. As she grabs the handle of the door, she says, "I'll stump you next time, brat." and slams the door.
Now finally getting the solitude he so desperately wanted, Christopher closes his eyes and gets into his favourite reading position and pulls out a small box from his pocket dimension with hundreds of small cards inside. On the front of the box, we see the initials HH in bold letters.
(narrator) is that Hilda's recipes? Poor guy. He really misses her. Even though he isn't showing it, you can tell.
Christopher slowly smooths the top of the box and meditates intensely. Meanwhile, on Haider's floor, he is yelling at someone trying to go bother Christopher.
"I'm telling you, if you go up there right now, he will kill you. It doesn't matter if it's urgent, it will have to wait until he stops meditation. It's a very personal and private thing for him and if you disturb him, he will end your life. Not even a drop of blood will remain as evidence. Now go back down to the 1st floor before you get yourself killed."
The elf fearfully and shakily walks back down the stairs. Haider's sound of genuine concern for his life successfully deterred him from certain death.
"oh, when all of you are f-f-free. Come meet me in room one, it's a message from Engilram. M-m-my name is Mizubi, by the way." Mizubi shakily says.
"I thought that face looked familiar. Alright, I'll let everyone know." Haider says.
Mizubi heads back down and Haider uses ice magic to block off access to Christopher's floor. The spell took him a second to finish as he doesn't usually make this much frozen carbon dioxide. The spell he used is called flash freeze. It is a simple spell, only comprising a single rune circle and 10 runes. It compresses carbon dioxide In the air until it solidifies. It can also be called dry ice as it doesn't have a liquid state and will convert directly back into a gas. Haider opens as many windows as he can to make sure the air is breathable after it turns back into a gas.
"How is he doing sis?" Haider asks.
Inside his room, Heather is peeking out the window using a spell. A vine is going out and up the building before making a small spider that's looking at Christopher. This spell is called soulustrious. It is a single spend spell that brings life and soul to non-living things. Heather has perfected this spell, so no runes or circles are required. But for those who haven't, it requires different amounts of mana depending on the size of the object they want to soulustriousize. It can take anywhere from a single rune circle and 10 runes, up to eight rune circles and 140 runes.
"he seems to be especially sad today." Heather says.
"he got her box out, huh?" Haider says, sitting on his sofa.
"I don't know how we can help him. It's been eight years, Haider. He's still so broken!" Heather's voice catches in her throat.
"take a break for now, sis. Seeing through that spider's eyes for too long will give you a headache." Haider says.
Heather calls the spider back to her and closes the window. As she pets the spider in her hand she says, "this little guy is so cute. He's maybe my favourite. Not tell the others lil guy."
"you know, taking to them is a little weird." Haider says.
"I wouldn't be a good alustrious if I didn't care about the things I make. The day I see an alustrious mistreat their creations will be the day I will be arrested for manslaughter. I'll skin them alive. They have personality and a soul. They should be treated as if they were real animals." Heather says.
"I get it ok." Haider says.
"time to sleep now, little guy. I'll keep your body safe and healthy, I promise." Heather says to her pet spider. The spider jumps up and curls into a ball. Heather puts the spider made of vines into a pouch on her belt satchels.
Zoey knocks on the door. "Haider, why is there ice blocking the 7th floor?" She asks.
"just come in here Zoey." Haider says. As Zoey enters, he answers her question. "so that's dry ice. I put it there to stop people bothering him."
"I need to get up there." Zoey says.
"we won't remove it, Zoey. Christopher is in the middle of his meditation; he's also having a tough time. He mourns for Hilda while he does it. If anyone disturbs that, they will be collateral damage in his rage." Heather explains.
"I would recommend that you wait till he's done." Haider says.
"alright, it wasn't important. He got too cocky, and I wanted to see if he knew about-." Zoey says.
(narrator) oh hell no. I'm skipping that bit of info. I don't want to reveal my identity.