Inheritor Of Magic: The Magi King - #607 - 607 607 Delayed Message
607 607 Delayed Message
Wolfe awoke with a start to hear banging on his door just before dawn the next morning, and someone desperately calling his name.
“Patriarch, please wake up. You have a summons to the castle. Please, the door is locked with magic and I can’t get in.” The voice pleaded.
Wolfe opened the door to see a dishevelled maid with a letter in her hands. She turned it over to him with a sigh of relief, and then took another from her apron and ran off, presumably to deliver the next message.
Wolfe opened the letter and read the content.
[Things have changed. Get to the castle before breakfast, we need to finish the alarm upgrades.]
Minister William sent a messenger even before Wolfe was up to have breakfast, summoning both him and Rail to the Castle to begin work on the [Alarm] spells, using what knowledge they had gained from a single day of research.
That sounded both incredibly urgent and incredibly ominous. Yesterday he had been talking about getting it done in a matter of weeks, and today he wanted it done before breakfast. Rail ran up to his door just as Wolfe opened it, out of breath and with her coat unbuttoned.
“We need to go. The summons was slow, and it’s almost time for the Castle’s breakfast to start.” She announced.
“I hope that you’re in the mood for some fast moving. Because if we’re going to make it to him, much less get started on the work before breakfast, it will take some effort.” Wolfe warned the tiny succubus.
Rail laughed, and pointed out the window.
“Onward, trusty steed. Let’s not start the day off in trouble with the security minister.” She laughed.
Wolfe picked her up in his arms and flew out the open window, gently closing it behind them with a nudge of Gravity Magic as they raced over the town toward the Palace gates.
The guard just laughed and waved at them as they approached the gate, and Wolfe saw that the maid who had come to wake them up was still blocks away from the palace itself. He waved back at the guard, who was observing the morning rush from his now sweltering guard shack, and headed straight for the closest entrance to the stairs down to the security minister’s office.
They raced through the hallways, staying near the ceiling to avoid the workers who were going about their day, and then down the stairs to come to a sudden stop in front of the office as the Minister opened the door in front of them.
“What took you so long?” William demanded.
“You sent a maid on foot halfway across the city in the morning rush hour to wake us up early. When did you expect us to get here?” Rail complained as she tried to button up her coat without getting down from Wolfe’s arms.
“Will you put the Succubus down and get in here? We had four trespasser reports this morning already. I don’t know what is going on, but someone is going to great lengths to get into restricted areas of the Palace, and I want it stopped. NOW.” William responded, ignoring Rail’s comment.
Wolfe nodded. “Alright, I need a map of every single doorway that you need marked, and it would be better if I went to them all personally so that I could mark them for the spell. Then I need a durable base for the spell, I like flat metal discs, and this one will have to be fairly large since you want so many layers marked on it. Drawing too complex of a magic spell through an object stresses it, and it can shatter an inferior base.”
The Minister sighed, and went to the storage room across the hall, while Wolfe and Rail waited in the office.
He came back with a large brass Frisbee with sharpened edges that appeared to be some sort of extreme sports equipment. “Is that a Murder Frisbee?” Rail asked as Minister William walked back into his office.
“It is. And I already told you to get down from his arms. Don’t test my patience today, I don’t have much, and I haven’t had my morning coffee yet.” Rail hopped down to the ground and gave the Minister a cheeky salute. “Understood, I am also a bit insufferable before my morning coffee.” She agreed.
It was in an entirely different way than the big demon, as she went out of her way to make everyone else as annoyed about the situation as she was if she had to get up early, but he was a Royal Minister, and she couldn’t just outright insult him, so she had defaulted to being petty and annoying.
“How about we start with the staff room down the hallway so that everyone can get their morning coffee and something to eat? It might help prevent injuries later.” Wolfe suggested.
William sighed and then smirked at him. “I notice that you didn’t say who might be getting injured.”
Rail laughed at the insinuation. “Well, he’s wearing a five element armour spell, and you’re too slow to catch me, so I can make a few educated guesses.”
Wolfe patted her head to distract her.
“See, this is why we need coffee. So, let’s start there, and you can give me a tour of the building as we add more layers to the spell. If you would be so kind as to hold the spell core, Minister, I would appreciate it.” He suggested.
William led them out the door without a word, and straight into the staff break room, where a number of maids and messengers panicked at the entry of a senior Investigator along with the Security Minister. Seeing a combination like that usually meant that someone was about to become a public spectacle for their crimes, but none of them knew what they did wrong.
It was Wolfe who settled their fears.
“Can we get three coffees and something that we can eat on the go? I’m afraid that we’re going to miss breakfast this morning.”