24 Meeting - Part 2

'I can't do it!' Kyvas yelped.

He couldn't do it. The gilded door of the headmaster's office instilled an anxiety in him that he did not believe was possible after the rest of the day.

"It's now or never, Kyvas..." Jach sighed and knocked on the door. Krys' gulp echoed throughout the hall.

'Hey! you cou-'

The door swung open before Kyvas could complain. The headmaster greeted them with a solemn nod. His eyelids were dark and swollen. Krys and Jach replied with a nod each.

Kyvas looked around the room—the headmaster was the only one inside. His desk was dishevelled, and his chair was replaced with one of those reserved for visitors. Odd crates piled with books replaced the empty corners of the room.

"There." The headmaster pointed to a bookcase, though it was particularly lacking in books this time.

"I know." Krys walked up to it. Jach followed behind, Kyvas in his belt.

The headmaster went back to his desk and took out his quill. He let out a yawn and wrote on the metal sheet in his desk.

"Kept you up?" Jach asked.

"Mm," the Headmaster nodded. "Got the message after midnight. Been here since." He crashed back into his chair and yawned again.

The bookcase swung back, stealing Kyvas' attention. Behind it lay a dark and narrow stairway. The stonework was lavish and pristine, though a fleck of freshly applied cement was still illuminated by the office's glow.

"Call me if he needs anything," The headmaster said before he closed his eyes.

Jach thanked him. He followed Krys up the stairway.

"Oh, and Kyvas?" The headmaster called out.

'Yeah?' Kyvas replied.

"Good luck. I hope you can get home soon."

'...Thanks. I hope I can, too'

===

The stairs curved up, following the shape of the spire. Lighting was sparse—a crystal lamp with a too-faint glow every few dozen steps. The floor levelled out after what felt like an entire revolution of the spire, and in front of them stood a massive arched door. The iron handles produced a long, reverberating sound as Krys used it to knock on the door's wood.

"Come on in, already," the Immortal, Kyvas presumed, called them in. His voice sounded... younger than Kyvas had anticipated.

Jach rested a hand on Krys' shoulder. Krys looked back and nodded.

The door swung in, opening all the way by itself after an initial push by Krys. The room behind it was a mess—A large hall that took up the entire floor, illuminated brightly enough to make Krys and Jac. cover their eyes. The intricately carved marble floor was all but hidden by an uneven grid of tables, most of them similar to the students' and teachers' desks that Kyvas had seen before. The tables themselves were piled with books, maps, loose pages, enchanting stations among other things. One even contained a massive ice cube.

The faces of the walls were masked with torn pages, hastily scribbled notes, drawings of runes and the magical patterns they made. Some were even connected through strings.

"Ah, interesting," The Immortal's voice drew Kyvas' gaze to a part of the room that he had unknowingly glossed over.

It was bright. Blindingly bright.

The Immortal exuded enough mana that it bleached Kyvas' vision a pale green. He tried his best to curb his mana sense. It took a lot of effort, but Kyvas was able to tune it down enough as to make out that part of the room.

Only to find that he had been too distracted to notice that he's been flying into the Immortal's hands.

"This is... interesting." The Immortal said after a deft catch.

Kyvas looked up at a young man clad in an excessive amount of jewellery. His robes, his hands, his neck, the flowers in his hair, and even his spectacles were all inlaid with pieces of crystal and metal. His face, angular and lacking any facial hair, was staring at Kyvas with a slight frown.

"How did you get so close to your limit, little knife?" The Immortal droned. He inspected Kyvas, turning him this way and that. He drew a rune in the air—the one that allowed one to check the enchantments on an object.

'Please—' Kyvas could not finish his complaint before the Immortal finished his rune. The revolting feeling hit him, much stronger than before. It felt like his entire being was laid bare before the Immortal's searching eyes.

"What was that?" The Immortal glanced up at Krys and Jach, before returning his gaze to Kyvas.

Jach had a small conversation with Krys using his eyes, following which he performed a bow.

"G-greetings, your—"

"Cut that out." The Immortal waved off the greeting. Another set of runes were drawn just as Kyvas had recovered enough to groan. The terrible probing redoubled.

Kyvas tried to call out to Krys for help, but he found that he couldn't say anything. It felt as if the Immortal's magic was overpowering him and taking control over him. He remembered feeling that way once when Jach had first held him, though this time was much worse.

For a moment, his self-repair enchantments flared up and a sharp pain shot through his self. His sight faltered, his hearing screeched, and he could feel an immense heat scorching him.

He tried to scream. Nothing came out.

The runes dissipated, and so did the pain. The self-repair enchantments settled down as well. Kyvas wanted to tell the Immortal to stop, but he still couldn't speak.

"Oh, yes, of course, I will-"

"Get to the point, yes," The Immortal interrupted Jach.

Jach gulped. "T-That dagger, sir, It's the one we summoned a person into."

That gave the Immortal pause. He looked down at the dagger, and then up at the professors.

"Oh," He muttered. "That's disappointing."

With the aid of a ring and a flick of the wrist, the Immortal cleared the table he was standing behind. The contents of the table—several books, a quill and ink bottle, and a notepad—flew over to an empty table not far from him. Another flick caused three chairs to float up to the table. The Immortal gestured the professors to take their seats while settling himself on the chair that the Headmaster formally used to use.

Kyvas stared expectantly at the two. Perhaps he would be able to contact them if they got closer to him. The two puzzled their way through the maze of tables and settled down in their seats. Krys fidgeted with his pocket watch, while Jach tried his best to keep up his strained smile.

And Kyvas couldn't reach them. He couldn't use telepathy to send his thought across, and he couldn't send images or feelings across either. In fact, Kyvas could not use telepathy at all, and nor could he enchant himself with anything else. It was as if the Immortal's presence has stolen the few shreds of autonomy he had left.

"So-" Jach started, only to be talked over by the Immortal again.

"How did you raise the mana output to this degree?" The Immortal looked expectantly at the two.

Krys blinked and answered tentatively. "I enchanted the two types of steel in it."

The Immortal waved for him to continue.

"... Simultaneously. With self-repair on each side."

"I can see that." The Immortal nodded. A faint glint appeared in his eyes. "And?"

Krys faltered. "Uh-"

"What did you use to stabilise it?" The Immortal prodded. "That's a positive feedback loop, it would explode without something to stabilise it. What did you use?"

"I- uh..." Krys was taken aback. "W-we just used the summoning spell with it. It didn't explode after that."

"Oh." The glint disappeared. The Immortal inspected Kyvas once more before putting him down.

Kyvas felt a shackle on him break loose. It overwhelmed him. Kyvas attempted to gather his bearings again.

"... The summoning spell that summoned a person?" The Immortal raised a brow. "Where is this person?"

Jach took a breath as if he were about to answer.

'... Inside the dagger you just tried to exorcise.' But Kyvas groaned out a reply first.