Anabel looked blankly at a shelf of rare magical ingredients. They sparkled and winked in her eyes, hinting at their potency, and she only vaguely took notice.
Marela pretended to take no notice and continued working. She was waiting for Anabel to speak and not force any conversation.
She waited for a long time.
Three potions bubbled away and Anabel had half heartedly set up five different experiments before she finally spoke.
"How is it you can make a simple, casual, suggestion and he automatically says, 'Yes Auntie' 'I will aunty', 'Whatever you say aunty'?
Marela exhaled dramatically in relief. "Thank The All Knowing. I thought you were going to blow us up before you finally said anything."
Anabel almost rolled her eyes in protest until she looked at the experiments that she was working on. She visibly shuddered and then cringed as she thought better of the eye roll.
She could usually run ten to twenty experiments at a time, partly because she utilized her wards, but mostly due to her close attention to detail. Looking at her experiments told her, at a glance that she was reckless and had worked without any thought.
She exhaled and rolled her eyes at her own behavior. She moved to the closest experiment and began resetting equipment and changing out solutions.
She was a wizard and used quite a bit of runes and spell weaving in her work but she was very interested in sorcery.
Sorcery was a close facsimile of alchemy and was interrelated to spell work and weaving. Through sorcery a person could use rituals and spell work that did not call for equivalent exchange.
Her experiments dealt with sorcery and skirted the boundaries of alchemy. When she was younger, eight hundred or nine hundred year old, she frivolously experimented in and worked alchemy but now she was ever cautious. She worked to understand new techniques slowly and meticulously. She never rushed when it came to anything new.
Not anymore.
Jolan sat next to his sister, quietly listening to her speak. He and his father both sat there mesmerized by Amethyst.
"Father" Jolan did not want to even think about the man at times. He had missed his sister more than he could ever explain and he could not disappoint her right now. He wanted her happy and nothing more.
With no warning Allistar looked to Jolan. "Are you going to Drousan soon?"
Jolan was caught a bit off guard but he respond without pause. "Yes sir. As soon as possible."
"Do you mind sparring with me? While I was looking for a cure for you I discovered an ancient magic based in time and portals. I am actually thinking about doing some experiments to expand my knowledge." He paused. "Maybe we can find something about it on Dousan."
Jolan felt a thread of excitement run through his body. His father spoke without emotion so the way he talked about sparring and experimenting seemed slightly disturbing. Even though it seemed that way to him Jolan was still excited about a type of time magic he had not heard of but had dreamed of and his father wanted to introduce him to it.
Suddenly he was confused. Still excited but extremely confused.
"Of course. Can you tell me about this ancient magic?"
Allistar paused, looking at Jolan for a long time, seemingly lost in thought. His shrug was subtle but Jolan still saw it and took note of it.
"It is based on the method of time magic based dimensional travel. It allows for movements through the weave of time that is sown between dimensions. This movement could be thought, magic, flesh, even concepts can be sent."
Jolan had sat up in his bed, his eyes wide open. "Just like mom thought. Is the weave an ancient spirit magic?"
Allistar nodded. "It is."
Amethyst let out one of her ear splitting squeals and both men slowly turned to look at her at the same time. She looked at them with a large glowing smile on her face.
"This is exactly how I saw us. I did not think it would happen so quickly." She lunged forward and hugged Jolan tightly around his neck. He groaned in pain and she hugged him tighter.
"Ame? You do remember that your brother is recovering?" Allistar put a hand on Amethyst's back, hoping to calm her, and looked at Jolan. "I don't think anyone is going to take it easy on you tomorrow. You'd better get some sleep."
At that Amethyst released him and set back, a sinister look on her face. "Jolan does not want anyone to take it easy on him. He wants to go to Dousan immediately and everyone knows if he is not at least at ninety percent Aunt Marela will not let him go anywhere."
Her eye brows jumped slightly as she stood. Excitement etched clearly on her face.
"Come daddy. Let's let Jolan rest. I want to talk to mom and you need to get your lab in working order. I think you two are going to be asking for some sort of link between your labs." Jolan's eyes gleamed at the thought and he looked at his father as if he were begging for such a thing to become reality.
Jolan laid back in his bed and began making calculations in his mind. Runes began forming and swiftly erasing on his ceiling.
Both Amethyst and Allistar disappeared as he remained lost in thought.
Amethyst appeared draped across her mother's shoulders in her fox form. Allistar sat at a bench across from Marela. He looked at two potions curiously for a while before his eyes moved to one of Anabel's experiments.
'Mother. Jolan wants to go to Dousan as soon as possible. Dad and I are going to spar with him. I think you should work with him on his runic work. He was scrying runes and they looked a bit lacking to me." She shrugged. "I was always bad with runic magic so if it looked off to me then…" She did not end her sentence and moved on to another topic.
"I want to strengthen my spirit body but I do not want to take a potion. I don't want side effects. What do you recommend?"
Anabel shook her head slightly as she slowly poured a green irredascent solution into a flask. A bright pink solution was already dripping into it, one slow drop at a time. As the two solutions hit the crystal clear liquid smoking at the bottom the flask the solution remained clear and the smoke slowly swirling above it turned blue, then red, then the purest white. A large single eye slowly opened in the smoke. It closed again and Anabel maintained the steady stream and slow drips. The eye opened a third time and she stopped both.
As the smoke settled the eye opened again and did not close. A sound that was akin to a violin and cello in a musical war reverberated throughout the lab.
Anabel erected a sound proofing wall of magic just as several pieces of glassware shattered.
Anabel opened her mouth and the sound of a cello was heard. She spoke to the eye for a brief moment then the eye settled. It stared out from the smoke never shifting its gaze or blinking.
"I need to practice my Shallmon. My tones are off."
"You sounded okay to me. I understood what you said."
Anabel looked at Marel for a moment, a stunned look on her face. She decided to ignore it for now. "I think Elder Root will help you Amethyst. I think I have some pink and green Elder root." She paused and looked to Marela. "I think a rainbow Elder Root would be better. They found one in the mines in Brassen I think."
Marela paused in thought. "I will have them send it to us." She looked at Amethyst her forehead crinkled in a frown. "Amethyst can not consume such a thing."
Anabel was walking into one of their storage rooms. Her voice as clear as if she stood next to them and as nonchalant as if the concern was an insignificant thing.
"We will create a runic smoke funnel and allow her spirit body to absorb it. It will be like infusing strong nutrients directly into the system of the spirit body."
She returned to the bench with three more solutions, a box, and a bag. Everything was gliding next her ear and gently sat on the work surface as she returned.
She looked up at Amethyst from some papers that she was studying. "It will be a permanent change and the Elder Root will actually Amp up your abilities and cause your systems to advance naturally but at an exponential rate."
"With no side effects." Marela's words were laced with pride.
Anabel nodded, her eyes never leaving Amethyst's. "Without any side effects." She smiled. "I can do some research into a few other methods but one may have side effects and others do not advance with you.
"The rainbow Elder Root will remain in your system as a benign substance that only activates as needed, like antibodies or other cellular bodies coded for specific fuctions."
Amethyst smiled and shrugged. "Sounds perfect to me."
Marela looked at her slack jawed. She slowly shook her head in disbelief. "You have never wanted to study."
"Nope. She has only wanted the results."
Amethyst shrugged again and laid her head back on her mother's shoulder and promptly went to sleep.
Allistar looked up from the experiment before him. "I sense necromatic energies in this experiment. I see components to induce evolution." He pointed at a thick piece of skin stretched taut between two mounted clamps. The skin was grayish blue and it seemed like a whole piece of a limb because no actual cuts could be seen. It was like a section of limb was dissected but allowed to live and become hole all to itself separate from the original being it once was a part of.
A wave of magic rippled across it and muscle suddenly rippled and buldged within it.
Allistar smiled. "This is some type of cellular regeneration technique."
Marela pursed her lips. "Seems like she never stopped loving you huh?"
Allistar looked at Anabel and Anabel blushed, turned her head and shot a death look at Marela.
"Do you mind telling me about this one?"
"Of course not. Maybe we can set the same up in your lab and see if it takes the same path."
Marela's eyes widened as a slow smile bloomed across Allistar's face.