Emilia POV
It took a week for Emilia to cut her husband some slack. It was difficult not to blame him at first, but she was sure he was doing plenty of that for the both of them.
She knew it wasn't really his fault. He couldn't possibly have known this would happen. They still didn't even know how it happened. The books Maros had let their son read had been thoroughly checked front to back for anything that could have been a detriment to the stability of his Conduit.
There was nothing. Not a single answer could be found among their pages. She wasn't exactly the most knowledgeable when it comes to magic, but even she knew how ridiculous it was for an Apprentice Mage to even damage their Conduit. Let alone entirely shatter it.
Then there was the matter of the Mage Heart her son had formed. It was becoming more difficult to call it a Mage Heart as the days passed. It simply didn't act the same.
While she wasn't adept enough at sensing mana to truly understand the difference, her husband tried his best to explain in a way she could understand.
"While it acts similarly to a normal Mage Heart in the sense that it absorbs and stores mana, that's where the similarity ends. It isn't converting the mana into a more manageable form for his use and it isn't even storing mana in the same way as a normal Mage Heart." He sat next to Aryn's bed with a hand over their son's chest and a focused look on his face.
What did that mean exactly? Neither of them knew, which was why they were currently awaiting a more experienced opinion.
***
Elder Aryn Mayer POV
Sitting on a log in front of a cozy little fire was a man that looked about 30 years old. He was not.
With such a focused look on his face as he stared at the fire, one would think he had gone senile. He had not.
Elder Aryn had a head of short, straight black hair, a clean-shaven face, and deep-green eyes that carried a hint of a confidence that couldn't be faked.
He donned the traditional robes of an Elder of Clan Mayer. The black silk robe reached his knees and its sleeves hung loosely around his arms. It was adorned with a purple pattern in the likeness of scales and bore the visage of a snake's open maw on its back.
With the front of his robes open, an average set of clothes could be seen underneath. A pair of tan pants and a white long-sleeve shirt, both of decent quality.
*Caw*
With the familiar sound breaking his intense focus on the dancing flame, Elder Aryn looked over to his right. Atop a young tree sat a Raven that he wouldn't fail to recognize. In its lightless beak rested an envelope.
"Amon! Has that grandson of mine finally decided I'm worth talking to?" He got up from his seated position and waltzed on over to the lovable bird, giving it a pat before taking the letter from its beak.
*Caw*
Amon jumped atop the man's head.
*Caw* *Caw*
"Relax you ink-stained chicken! I'll give you a snack when I'm done reading."
With that, Elder Aryn opened the letter and got to reading, the suddenly patient crow still atop his head. The first few lines were a simple greeting, he skipped through them while complaining in his mind that his grandson always had to write so formally.
His mood soured when he got to the main subject of the letter.
"Hmm... Time to take a vacation I suppose." He took a bottle of ink out of his robe's inner pocket along with a piece of paper.
The paper started floating in front of him, soon followed by a blob of ink that lifted itself out of the bottle. With a skilled use of telekinesis, writing was much easier and faster.
A short and to-the-point letter soon took form seemingly of its own volition.
'I'll be over to check on him myself in a few weeks. Don't do anything stupid until then.'
He didn't even sign it.
Reaching back into his robe's inner pocket, he pulled out some nuts that he held above his forehead. A very happy bird ate from said hand while letting an almost excessive amount of crumbs fall just in front of Elder Aryn's stiff face.
*Caw!*
With the fancy chicken now satisfied, he held up the letter and unenthusiastically waved his other hand in a shooing motion.
"Off you go then, back to Maros with you!" Amon grasped the letter in his beak and lifted off, tussling the spry fossil's hair in the process.
'Thank Mettis I pawned that stupid bird off to Maros.' He watched as it flew off east, waving as it went.
***
Maros POV
One month after his son's coma began, his grandfather finally made his way over. If he flew, he no-doubt would have made it here much faster. But only a complete buffoon would fly over the ocean. A buffoon or an Archmage, of which Elder Aryn was neither.
It had been some years since Maros had seen his grandfather in the flesh. And he looked exactly the same, not that he had expected anything else. He was already ancient when Maros' father was a baby, and he had died at the ripe old age of 312, ten years ago.
"Gramps, it's been a while. It's good to see you." He met the old man in the entryway, Emilia by his side with a small smile on their faces.
"Yeah grandpa, good to see you!" She chimed in.
Elder Aryn was wearing the same getup as always. 'Does he even wash those robes?... I hope so.'
"Yeah, yeah, good to see you two brats too. Now where is my great-grandson?" As always, his grandfather was clearly an avid conversationalist.
Cutting the pleasantries short, the couple led the Elder to Aryn's room on the second floor, Maros opening the door for the other two before following in behind them and closing it.
Emilia and he stayed silent as Elder Aryn walked next to the peaceful-looking boy on the bed and stood still. They had no doubt the old man was inspecting his condition.
"Cool." That was certainly not what the couple had expected to hear from the Elder's mouth.
""What?"" They tilted their heads in unison.
"I think I know what happened." Elder Aryn stopped there. His love for theatrics one of his less-lovable aspects in Maros' humble opinion.
"And?" Maros' eyebrow was twitching.
"And you raised a madman. Well done!" The old man gave a big thumbs up.
Before Maros could get annoyed at his grandfather's antics, he continued.
"It seems like the kid is an ambitious one. I'm fairly sure he tried to form a Mage Heart-Conduit hybrid. The exact method he tried, I'm not entirely sure. But it should involve the mana he had stored in his Conduit at the time." Elder Aryn started pacing around the room for a brief moment before turning back to the couple and continuing.
"I've seen something similar theorized, but that method involved a phylactery... Clearly, this case is a little different." His face turned more serious. "Now the bad news. I don't think he used this method himself. There was likely outside influence to guide him through it."
Maros' and Emilia's face hardened. He had considered the possibility, they both had. But they dismissed it due to the wards placed on the manor by the man in front of them. To get in without being noticed, they would need to be either a highly-specialized High Mage. Or, Mettis forbid, an Archmage.
"How sure are you?" Maros asked.
"Truthfully? Not very. I find it hard to believe someone powerful enough to do so wouldn't be wise enough to choose a better target. But I also find it hard to believe the kid could have enough skill in manipulating mana to control the sheer amount of it contained in a Conduit without outside assistance."
Maros was at least a little reassured by the answer. At least there was a chance they hadn't been targeted by someone so far beyond their means.
"How exactly do you think he did it? Maybe we're missing something?" Emilia chimed in this time.
"In the method I know of, an aspiring Lich would take the Conduit from a fellow High Mage's body and crush it to use the mana contained inside to create a temporary pseudo-phylactery to ease their soul into a more permanent vessel. This pseudo-phylactery would be dense enough to both protect their vulnerable soul until the ritual is finished and draw in the surrounding mana for their use similar to the formation of a new Conduit."
"How is that similar to Aryn's situation at all?" Maros frowned.
"Because he hasn't formed a Mage Heart yet, and it isn't his heart itself that is drawing in the surrounding mana." Elder Aryn paused again for his damnable dramatic effect.
Luckily, he could read a room. "His heart is crystalizing similar to how a Conduit would. That's why it's sucking in so much mana. The amount of mana required to crystalize something of that size is simply indescribable."
"Crystalizing!? Is he going to be okay!?" Emilia's ensuing panic was swiftly stopped by an upheld hand from Elder Aryn.
"Relax, he'll be fine. The muscle fibers of his heart are all changing individually. His heart will work just fine. Better than fine, in fact. I suspect that in a way, he succeeded in forming a Mage Heart-Conduit hybrid."
"How is that any different than just having both?" Maros placed a comforting hand on his wife's shoulder and asked.
"It's not, as far as I know. But it's never been done before, so that has to count for something right?" Maros' grandfather scratched his head. "Well, there is the difference in the amount of mana contained inside. But the only real way to use that is to blow yourself up so it's not terribly useful for more than a deterrent."
His grandfather's words were not very reassuring.
"Well... At least we know." He tried to cheer up his wife a bit, mildly succeeding before his efforts were ruined by a topic he would rather have forgotten about,
"Anyway, I'll do some investigating and see if I can't find anything amiss with the wards." Elder Aryn walked out of the room, leaving the couple alone.
They stood in silence for a while, looking at their comatose son. They still didn't know when he would wake up, but at least they knew vaguely what had happened.
"What should we do?" Maros posed the question to his wife.
"I'm not sure... Just wait I guess?" That was all they could do. The matter was entirely out of their hands.
And it felt terrible.