Fallen Mage Regressor

Nothing happened. The light died down in an instant.

Mal breathed a sigh of relief. “That was scary.”

She hissed at him. "What were you thinking? If you had gotten that wrong, it—"

"Trust me, I don't get these sorts of things wrong."

Mal could physically see exactly how much energy was going into the receiver. He would have had to be blind for that to have failed.

One by one, he replicated the rune onto each of the receivers at the bottom of the hallway.

"Done."

Hemp looked unsure, then hesitantly reached her hand out toward the hallway entrance.

Nothing happened.

Mal stepped over it, careful to avoid touching the mana crystals.

Hemp did the same. She looked back at them and shook her head.

"Those'll only last us 30 minutes, so we still need to hurry."

Mal nodded at her. "Right. Let's get in and get out as quickly as possible."

They walked over to the office door and Mal swung it open.

The inside was illuminated by the faint glow of a candle. A small stack of papers sat at the edge of the desk while a pen sat in the center, indicating recent usage.

There were multiple cabinets, one of which was cracked open—it was filled to the brim with more paper.

He walked over to one of the cabinets and pulled it open all the way, then reached in and sifted through the words.

"Anything interesting?" Hemp poked her head over his shoulder and down at the paper.

"Not really," Mal said. "These are all just published research papers that he keeps on hand."

"And what are you looking for?" she asked.

"His private stuff. His notes on his barrier spell and his notes on core modification."

Her body tensed behind him.

"I'd somehow brushed over that," she muttered. "What exactly do you need his stuff on core modification for?"

Mal frowned. He slowly set the papers back inside of the cabinet and turned around.

"My servant," he said. "I owe her a great deal, and I want to repay her. She has a damaged core. She's had it for her entire life. I need every scrap of data I can find on successful core modifications to help her and make sure this procedure is as safe for her as possible."

There had been a flicker of doubt in her eyes at the start of his explanation, but it had slowly disappeared the longer he talked.

"And you're doing this for a servant?" She shook her head. "You're a weird-ass noble, but I guess I should have expected that given that you hired the person who stole from you."

"What can I say? I'm a bit of an eccentric."

A small half-chuckle exited out of her mouth. She looked at the ground and shuffled her feet back and forth.

"By the way, about that grimoire. I still have it. You can—"

"We'll talk about it later."

She fiddled with her fingers, then gave a nod. "Yeah. We will."

The two searched through Cornelias's filing cabinets for the next ten minutes. They found notes on everything. Small scraps of information related to the greater whole. But the big stuff—whatever compendium Cornelias had seemed to remain out of reach.

"What the hell is this?"

Mal poked his head up from his own stack of papers. Hemp was staring at a sheet with squinted eyes and a cross expression.

Mal stepped over. "What is it?"

She shoved the paper in his face. "Take a look for yourself."

The paper was complete nonsense.

And Mal meant that in the most literal way possible. Random letters were strewn about, mixed in with the occasional number. The formatting was the same as the papers—there were bullet points, there was clearly a paragraph structure, and there was some sort of pattern to the words. But for the life of him, Mal had no idea what it was.

"It's coded." Mal's hands dropped the paper. "Of course someone like him would code his papers."

Hemp picked it back up. "This is meant to be a code?"

"Yeah, and I would bet that Cornelias is the only one with a key."

"Can you break it?"

"Maybe? If I have years to burn?" He shook his head. "Cornelias is the kind of guy who would commit to something like this. It's unlikely that that code is breakable by anyone but him."

Hemp looked down at the rest of the papers that were coded.

"So that's it then?" she said. "Should we just bail?"

Mal rubbed his palm against his forehead.

"We'll take them," he said. "He probably has backups, but if he doesn't, we will at least be crippling him from doing any more research this way."

"Flip him a big fat middle one on our way out. I like it."

Mal approached one of the other filing cabinets next to the one with the coded papers and pulled it open.

Letters.

Dear Cornelias,

Your shipment of—

The letter continued on for a little bit longer, detailing the shipment's quantity and the logistical issues.

But strangely, it wasn't mentioned what exactly he was shipping.

Mal frowned and picked up another letter. The same type—a letter detailing the information of a package, but no mention of what it was.

"What on earth are you involved in, Cornelias?" Mal muttered as he flipped through the pages.

The longer he looked, the more confused Mal became. There was no sign-off on the name. Just a "Dear Cornelias" at the top and then the content.

Every now and then, the letters would mention something about difficulty of transportation, that the "product" was dying from a lack of air or warmth.

Air and warmth.

Chills ran down Mal's spine.

He dropped the papers and stepped away.

Hemp cast a curious look at him. "Hey, what's up?"

Mal clenched his jaw. "I knew that this bastard was corrupt, but I didn't think he'd sink that low."

"Sink that low? What are you talking about?"

"It all makes sense. That's how they were able to bypass the security for the cup. Cornelias was involved in the theft."

"Theft of what?" Hemp stomped her foot into the ground. "Can you stop muttering about nonsense and actually explain what's happening!"

"I'm afraid that Theologue Cornelias is working with the cult," Mal said. "A bit of a conflict of interest, all things considered."

Hemp paled. She stepped away and her elbow hit a glass vial sitting atop one of the shelves.

"You mean the Bird Eaters?" she said. "Hey, pal, I didn't sign up to tango with a bunch of dark magic nutcases. I thought we were just going after a member of the church."

Mal continued reading through the papers. "If you want to leave, you're free to do so."

She growled. "That's not my problem, you dumbass. I'm already involved in this. You don't just get to back out of a situation like this."

"Then stay." Mal flipped through another piece of paper. "And you can flee a situation like this. As thanks for your help, I can get you shipped off to the other side of the continent. It would be challenging for the cult to track you down when you're disguised as an elf and in the middle of nowhere."

She froze. "But that would cost a fortune."

"I'm the son of a duke. Like you said, I have too much money to burn and not enough ways to do it."

She fell into a silence. Her fist crumpled around a piece of paper.

"If you're offering, I'll take it," she said.

On the outside, Mal didn't change his expression. On the inside, a slight flicker of surprise passed him. He honestly didn't think that Hemp would take him up on that. She had too much of a bone to pick with Cornelias and far too temperamental of a personality to ever let it go. At least that was what he thought.

No, he could respect her decision. She'd assisted him thus far and got him a wealth of information that he would have never been able to get without her assistance. Although it would be a shame to be without his spymaster, he would find an alternative.

"Once we're out, I'll make the arrangements," Mal said.

She stared at the ground and chewed her lip. "Yeah."

Mal flipped through more letters. It was always the same. Another mention of information. Another—

He froze.

"What the hell?" he muttered.

Dear Cornelias,

Be on guard.

I don't know how this has happened, but the Endbringer has woken up early.

I don't know how—it isn't the right time. But on the plus side, his awakening has meant that we're able to track him and find out who he is.

A boy of the Patoal family.

Keep an eye on him. He's transformed from a part of the plan to a wildcard.

Mal's skin itched. Cornelias had known? He probably had known who Mal was during that very first meeting.

All of a sudden the walls of the office pressed in on Mal from every angle.

He hurriedly read through the rest of it. There wasn't much to even read.

Our contact in the school will eliminate him if he becomes too troublesome.

Contact?

All of a sudden, Mal felt as if he were a rat staring down a very hungry and very large snake.

He crumpled up the letter and stuffed it into his pocket. "We need to go, Hemp."

Hemp jolted. "What? Go where?"

"Out of here." He walked off toward the door and Hemp kept pace behind him.

"But why?" she said. "He's not going to be back for the rest of the night, and our manastones still have a good fifteen minutes left."

"I'm starting to think we were lured here on purpose."

She laughed, but the noise was strained. "Lured? Don't be ridiculous. He had no idea who either of us are—"

"He knew who I was. My name was in one of those letters."

A beat of silence.

"Shit."

Her footsteps sped up and she rushed ahead of Mal. She gestured for him to move faster. Mal followed her and got on the other side of the barrier. She pulled out each of the manastones and stuffed it in one of her bags on her belt.

The two of them raced down the stairs and—

"And where do you two think you're going?"

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