Year 1023 of the new calendar, Month of the Sun, 16th day

An hour after the meeting with the Archbishop, Aelia came up to me and handed me a stack of papers, “Myanar’s friend, Dr. Avel, is situated in the local university on the second floor. Ask around a bit and find him, make sure to ask around for Myanar. Myanar hasn’t been seen in the city ever since three days ago.” I nodded, he could likely find the parliament member right now if he wanted to, but this was surely a test for me. “Take this, you will be alone for this one, but just in case, you can discreetly signal for me.” I looked at him, he still wore that old armor and didn’t look any different, “What are you doing, then?” He looked around and said, “Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

Knowing him, he wouldn’t budge no matter what I said, so I shrugged and thanked him. In my hand was a small bead, no larger than a centimeter, I stuffed it into my pocket and walked out of the room. The underground area of the Church provided me with a sense of warmth, I didn’t really wish to kill him, actually, why do I even have to assassinate him? I never did get a reason…, ah whatever, I’ll just do as I’m told. The torches on either side of the expansive walkway flickered with a warm yellow and orange light, lending it a nice atmosphere. A yellow ember drifted and cooled as it slowly approached the ground, extinguishing upon impact and turning into a dull gray color. This happened repeatedly, and by the time I reached the stairs leading up to the main part of the Church, I saw at least eight of these occurrences.

On the first floor, the priest that was there from early in the morning was still there, talking in a solemn voice on the origins of Solaria to the people there. A few noticed me, but then quickly averted their eyes back to the priest, who didn’t react to me. I left the Church and walked out into the bustling street, races of every different shape, color, and size were walking or running around the streets. Some were slowly walking around, one was with his sister, or so I thought. A young Naga child ran past the street…, he looked oddly familiar to the one I saw. The scene flashed back in my mind, Aelia plunged his knife into his tiny body. “Hey.”, I accidentally said, and the child looked back at me.

Now that I saw him again, he wasn’t even a Naga. I shook my head and sighed, that night still stuck with me, I don’t know if I can ever look at a young Naga child again without thinking about it. A woman rushing to the university knocked into me, she quietly whispered sorry and went on with her day. I sighed and followed the path she took to the bus stop, I had to get to the University anyway. She was fiddling around on her phone and dropped a coin when she went to pay the bus driver. She said sorry quietly and paid him accordingly, finding a seat on the bus and

going back to using her phone; her face looked to be a bit stressed.

I paid him and also found a suitable spot to sit in, some were looking at my robes, with others not caring. I looked around and noticed a Naga couple at the back, and the moment I saw their faces, my mind was transported back to the night. The two Naga peacefully slept on the bed, before Aelia took the knife that clattered on the floor and thrust it into them. The blood that went into my mouth had an iron flavor, and that came right back to me now. A nauseous feeling took over me, I could feel my back had some sweat trickling down from it. I could still hear the slight scream that came out of her mouth before she died. I shook my head a bit and looked down at the floor of the bus, it was surprisingly clean for a public transport vehicle. The woman got off this stop, and as I looked out the window, we were outside the University of Akino, so I stood up and got off as well.

It was a public University, so I could walk around its campus without anything stopping me. I needed to find Dr. Avel, his office should be on the second floor, but looking at the huge campus, it could take me forever to find him. I walked up to the woman that strolled into campus grounds and asked, “Hello, could you tell me where Dr. Avel is?” She looked at me with a confused look on her face, “Why do you want to know?” I smiled a bit, “I need to talk to him for a bit, and I don’t know where he is at the moment.” She nodded and said, “You can find him when you walk into the second floor, right-wing of the main building.” I thanked her and started to walk towards the building, formulating a bit of a way to get into it, but before I got three meters away from her, she ran up to me.

“I’m sorry, I just remembered. Dr. Avel is actually doing a public lecture at the moment, you can find him on the other side of campus grounds.”, she told me and walked away to her studies. I sighed and continued walking, making it to the other side of the campus relatively quickly, and noticed that there was a large cluster of people there that were listening intently. Dr. Avel, who was a short and stout human, talked in front of a microphone that projected his voice to everyone. He stood in front of two large cases, each being large, but one was much larger compared to the other. “Here, we can see the bone of a modern-day Tempest Ailea. What is fascinating about these types of creatures that can manipulate the elements is that their bones, and we can see it here, are marked. This juvenile here has distinctive blue marks on its leg bones, named the Aileans, and is actually where it gets its name from. Now, this is important because we can see these same distinctive markings on the Ailean bone of a creature for which we have no name currently.”

He moved a bit and pointed at the bone that was much larger than the one for the Tempest Ailea, “This is a bone dated to over 100 million years ago, and yet it has the exact same markings as the one of the juvenile Tempest Ailea.” Someone in the crowd said, “Aren’t they just the same bird?” Dr. Avel smiled and shook his head, “No.”, and then ejected a small structure of earth from his hand. He then enlarged it to a monstrous amount and shifted it with noticeable effort.

It eventually came into the shape of the skeleton of both creatures, and there were some very noticeable differences, “Albeit we don’t have a full skeleton of the larger creature, who we estimate to have an average height of 25 meters instead of the 18 seen in Tempest Ailea, there are still parts completely different.” He shifted the earthen replicas that were suspended in the air and showed their feet in closer detail, “As you can see, the Tempest Ailea has four talons, three in front and one behind. However, the other one has five, with three in front and two behind in a V formation.” Dr. Avel then destroyed the earthen replica, and with heavy sweat, said, “Excuse me, I can’t keep that up for long. However, the most important part is that we can see extinct species from millions of years ago have the same marks as their contemporary counterparts.”

He smiled and went on for the rest of the lecture, “However, while that may be the most important part of this new skeleton, that isn’t to say that there aren’t other things. Here, in its Ailean bone, we can see small pigment sacs from before it died and markings distinctive of feathers. We believe it to be black and white, with a large and upfront red crest on its head and distinctive yellow feathers at its tail.” The rest of the lecture, on old extinct megafauna, went on for another thirty minutes. After it was over, the student body dispersed except for one person who stayed and asked a question, “Do the markings we saw earlier mean that they had the same powers?”, I heard him say.

Dr. Avel smiled at the wind elemental, “No, Caleb. We can see the markings in other creatures that utilize it differently.” Caleb, seemingly satisfied, walked off with his bag that he carried with the wind. As Dr. Avel finished packing up, I walked up to him, and under the morning Sun, I asked him, “Hello Dr. Avel, I’m Akiro, and I have a few questions for you.” He smiled at me and said, “Why, I haven’t met you before, young chap. What's with the robes? Ah, no matter, what questions do you have for me, I have the time.” He was quite the talkative person, I smiled and said, “Whatever happened to Parliament Member Myanar? I’m actually supposed to talk to him.” He thought hard for a while, before saying, “Well, I haven’t seen him for a while, actually. Now, we didn’t have the best of friendships, but we were still good friends, you hear?”

I nodded, and Dr. Avel started to walk off, “Come with me, son.” Without missing a beat, I promptly followed him inside the main building. The building had a checkered pattern on the floor, with wood walls and an antique feel to it. Something about it felt old, which I suppose it was, and there was a unique charm to the entire building, I always did love these sorts of buildings. While we were slowly walking up the stairs, he said to me, “Now, don’t you go on and tell everyone what you hear, son.” I nodded and said, “Of course.”, as we walked into the second-floor office he had. It was similar to the rest of the building in its design, and had a bookcase inside it, “Oh, you like Roland too? I find his works fascinating.”, I said to him. He chuckled and said, “I never thought young chaps like you would read his works, you know, I actually helped him on that book.”

I smiled at him and nodded, taking a seat as he did, “Myanar is a good person, you hear, what people say about him is lies. Politics…”, he said that word with much contempt, “is a vile thing, really. And I’m sad to say it has ruined the good young fella into a bitter old man, like me.” He found that funny and chuckled to himself, “Myanar was always too busy with his work, though. I told him that many times, though the bastard never did listen to me. His wife, well, his wife cheated on him.” I looked shocked, “Yeah, I hear what you think. I can’t tell you why, but I do know it hurt him very dearly.”

Dr. Avel sighed and took a sip from a water bottle as he started to grade some papers on his desk, “Sorry, but an old feller like me has to use all the time during work hours to get work done.” I shook my head and said, “Don’t worry about it, but no one knows about his wife cheating, right?” He shook his head, “No, Myanar has told some of us, but we weren’t supposed to tell anyone.” I looked at him weirdly, “Then why share it with me?” He sighed and took another sip of water while marking down a 56/100 on the paper, “I never was much good at keeping secrets, you hear. There’s something about you too, a young feller like you, I just feel like I can trust you.”

I smiled at him, “Ah, I see. Then go on, where is Myanar now?” Dr. Avel marked the next paper with a 99/100 and continued to talk, “Well, it was relatively recent news. Myanar took it to heart, I guess. The old bastard went and wanted to get away, I heard he went over to the capital in the past few days, but he should be back now. Last I called an hour ago, he should be living in a hotel called The Sunset Lodge. Now, why does such a youth like you want to know about a parliament member?” I looked at Dr. Avel who had his face buried deep in his papers, “I wanted to ask him some questions, you know, I want to become a member of parliament too.” Dr. Avel smiled, seeming to find it greatly amusing, “A young chap like you ought to not get into politics, but that’s just what I think. If that’s really what you want, then Myanar should be perfect to help you.”

I nodded and stood up, “Thank you for your help, Dr. Avel.” He smiled and without looking up at me told me, “Well, good luck on your journey.” I smiled at him and said, “Can you give me a diagram of the skeleton? I find it to be a truly fascinating topic.” I could see his eyes beam with pride, “Aren’t you something, well, here.”, he said as he opened his drawer and threw me a USB drive. “On that there, is the 3D model for the entire skeleton. It has every part of it, or at least, the parts we have.” I smiled and thanked him, before leaving the room and pocketing the drive. Dr. Avel, despite his small stature and manner of speech, was a truly proficient mage that I could learn from, I should strive to reach his level of mastery and make the perfect skeleton in the sky. Walking down the hallway to the stairway, the same woman earlier in the day looked at me and asked, “Were you in Dr. Avel’s office?” I nodded, “Yeah, oh right, what’s your name?” She replied, “Yvonne, why were you in there?”

Yvonne, Yvonne…, that name sounded familiar. Oh right, her name was on the paper he graded. “I just asked him some questions I had, look forward to the next few days, by the way.” She looked confused, but I was already walking down the stairway and made it out of the front door of the main building and out into campus grounds. The fresh, morning air was marred by the task I had to do later today, killing Myanar. Dr. Avel…, he was a nice, old man, I wonder how he would feel when he finds out Myanar died. Ah, no matter, I shouldn’t dwell on these things, and I walked into the street once more. My stomach started to growl, damn, I didn’t have breakfast, and I was pretty tired from last night. I walked off and made it to the Sunset Lodge, which was surprisingly, only a short fifteen-minute walk from the entrance to the campus.

As I entered, the receptionist said in a happy voice, “Hello, would you like to rent a room, or did you already rent one online?” I smiled back and said, “A room for one.” She nodded and typed something into her device, “Name?”, to which I answered, “Akiro Thyra.” It wasn’t my real name, but I would be stupid to use it. She nodded and said, “Room 530.” I gave her the price for a single night, which was thirty Solarian dollars and five Austral. Then, with the key in hand, I walked into the elevator and pressed the button for the fifth floor, someone went in after me and pressed the one for the eighth. He smiled and as I looked at him, I realized it was Myanar…, by the Sun himself, what kind of accursed luck is this. “How are you today?”, he asked, I answered shortly, “Good, you?” He sighed and said, “Okay, got any plans tonight?” I shook my head, “No, first time here, actually.”

He looked at me and said, “Yeah, you don’t look like you’re from around here.” I sighed and said, “No, I’m actually from the deep South of Solaria, the cold parts.” He nodded, “You got any plans?” Myanar sighed and didn’t say anything for a bit, before shaking his head, “Yeah, I plan to go to a bar later tonight, probably eight.” Why was he telling me this in an elevator, was he already drunk? Also, why was he going to a bar at his age, no less? He seemed to notice my weird expression and laughed, “No, no. It’s just that I need to wind down today.” I smiled and nodded, “What's a good one in town?” Myanar said smoothly, “Well, I would recommend the one just due south of here, it’s the one I’m going to. It’s closed now, opens at six, called Tempest Times.” I nodded and said, “I see.”, as I stepped out of the elevator that stopped on the fifth floor.

Walking down the hallway, I contemplated what to do, should I just kill him before he goes to the bar? Perhaps I should kill him when he is going to the bar? After he comes back, maybe, should I go to the bar with him? Meet him there and pretend it’s a coincidence, and then slip some poison into his drinks? Aelia did tell me that Myanar was only an ordinary human, so it should be relatively easy to kill him for me. Aiken, you’re a mage, a real, bona fide, genuine mage, like the ones kids in little towns talk about. I can kill a normal man, I mean, why can’t I kill him? Yeah, I’ll be fine, just… fine. Inside my room, I placed an alarm for six-thirty and laid down on my bed, I needed to sleep.

I awoke with a start and checked the time, six-twenty one, and my entire body was covered in sweat. I had a horrible dream, the memory of that Naga child running up to me in the restaurant haunted me over and over again in my mind. The face when he was killed, the blood that spurted into my mouth, the entirety of the scene. The sister’s body crumpled and fell on top of the already dead body of her brother…, the sickening sound of bones being crushed by the force of gravity. The sickening smell of blood turned from one of rust to a sickly sweet aroma, and it only made me nauseous more. Maybe his sister went to that University, no, she wasn’t of that age? Or was she? Was she…, no, she wasn’t, or perhaps. No, I should stop thinking of these things, it was already six-twenty five. I stood up and went into the hotel shower, trying to rinse away the sweat and grime that accumulated over my body, the hot water didn’t help my guilty mind.

I shook my head and got dressed, walking out into the relatively fresh air of the outside world. At this time, there would still be a good amount of sunshine left in the sky, but it would set at around seven-thirty. I sighed and started to quickly walk due south, deciding to meet him there in the bar and kill him there, after all, wouldn’t it be better than when he was sleeping? Yeah, killing him when he was sleeping felt too much like… that night. Poison instead of a knife, poison instead of a knife. Thank the Sun Aelia gave me poison not too long ago, or else getting it would be horrible. Aelia…, I shouldn’t fail him twice, yeah, I’ll complete this one quickly.

In just under fifteen minutes of walking, I made it to the Tempest Times and saw their blue and white logo, walking inside the establishment. The place, understandably, stank of booze, and I walked up to the bar and asked, “Just give me your best non-alcoholic drink.” The bartender looked at me weirdly, but complied and gave me a yellow, red, and orange drink, “1 Solarian Dollar.”, he said, what…, a whole dollar? With a sigh, I gave it to him and looked back at the drink. It was a damn good drink, and the colors reminded me of Archbishop Joan…, ah just thinking of her made me happy. That hug still lingered in my mind, and as I slowly took sips out from the cup, I heard some conversations around me.

“Yo-You hear about the new alliance we have with the Empire?”, one guy said as he was talking with another person. He was very obviously drunk and had a slur to his words, his friend replied with, “Yeah, it’s a good thing you know? I surely don’t want to get drafted.” His friend laughed and nodded, “Aye, you got that right. Getting dragged into a war just doesn’t sound like fun, I’d rather spend my days drinking every day.” His friend laughed and said, “You do that anyway.” I looked around the room and noticed another person there that was sitting by himself looking horrible. He had a glass of beer in his hand and muttered to himself, “Stupid job, stupid boss…, that fucking little bitch fired me for no reason. I’ll kill that bastard, yeah, I’ll go kill that bastard.” There was a group of six or so people drinking together, laughing with one another over the recent marriage of their friend, and then the door rang. I looked behind me and saw that Myanar walked into the establishment, despite it being only seven.

He noticed me instantly and walked over, “What are you doing here?”, he asked me and looked at the bartender, “The usual.”, he told him. The bartender nodded, and I said, “Well, I took up your recommendation. After all, what fun is it if I just spend my first day here cooped up in my room.” He laughed at that and nodded, quickly shooting down a shot of very strong alcohol. “It’s an acquired taste.”, he told me and I nodded, sipping slowly on my own drink, “Non-alcoholic? Oh come on, add some spice to your life.” He laughed and poured the shot of alcohol into my glass, “Life is just boring without these things.” It seemed like he was a happy drunk, “Keep it coming till I pass out!”, he yelled at the bartender merrily.

“Well, I suppose.”, I said as I completely downed the entire drink. “Woaah, brave aren’t you?” I laughed and said, “I don’t drink much, but I always have had a high tolerance.” Myanar had a glint in his eyes and said, “Oh yeah? Why don’t we test it out against mine.” I laughed and said, “Bring it down.” Alcohol should give me more courage for the inevitable. “Keep two of the shots coming, put it on my tab.” The bartender complied, albeit with a sigh, and handed the two of us shots of what looked to be a cloudy white liquid. I took it, as did he, and we both downed it in a second, “Oh yeah, I’m only getting started.” The bartender came the drinks coming, one after another, after another, after another, after another, after another, and another. By this time, he had already been close to passing out while I wasn’t anywhere close to being drunk. Mages always did have a hard time getting drunk on normal alcohol, after all, unless one forcefully stopped the mana in one's body, then alcohol would get distilled naturally.

After one more, he stood up tipsy and walked over to the bathroom, now was my chance. I stood up and followed him to the bathroom, where I found him hunched over a toilet vomiting his entire stomach out, there wasn’t anyone else in there. The stall's door was open, he seemed to forget to close it, and as I watched his quivering form hunched and vulnerable, I slowly picked out a small vial of poison. It had no odd smell, no odd flavor, and in all aspects but one, it was the perfect poison, it had to be directly drunk and didn’t have any other delivery methods, but that was fine. In his tipsy state, he looked up at me and said, “Heyyy, how are you?” I smiled at him and picked him up, seating him on the toilet, and handed him the vial. “Here, drink it. It helps with the vomiting.” Myanar, in all his incompetence, believed me fully and drank the vial, I saw the drops drain from the bottle, into his mouth and watched him swallow.

Almost three seconds later, he stopped moving, and I could feel his heart stop beating…, he was dead. That, that was a lot easier than I thoug- I couldn’t finish my thought as a nauseating feeling came over me. I vomited the contents of my stomach onto the floor, and it felt like the entirety of my stomach was evacuated in it. I actually killed someone, yeah, actually…, but why? “By the Sun, how am I going to clean this up in time?” A little giggle came from behind me and scared me down to my core, I quickly turned around and prepared myself for a fight only to come face to face with… Archbishop Joan.

She giggled and smiled at me, “Good job Aiken, good job. You did an amazing job at killing him.” Her voice melted away all of my fears and worries, instead, it gave me only an intense love for the moment. “Here is how you will clean it up.”, she said and then a massive blast of mana came from her. It knocked into me and I felt myself become dizzy, and then the world turned black. When I came to, I had my head on her lap on the bathroom floor, by the Sun, WHY. I quickly stood up and looked around, noticing that the body of Myanar was still there, yet my vomit was not. She stood up, and already answered my question before I could ask it, “Well, here comes the best part, of course.”

She sent out a small surge of mana that wriggled its way into Myanar’s corpse, animating it ever so slightly, and she took out a pen and paper. The corpse slowly stood up and walked over the pen and paper, taking it and starting to write something perfectly in the air. She smiled while doing this and said, “Well, now that I’m an Archbishop, I’m so riled up in politics, it’s boring. Sometimes, I like to relieve the good old days of when I was an illuminator, like you, so I do these things.” She sighed and answered me again before I ever asked the question, “Why, making deaths look like suicide of course.” I felt nauseous again and looked at what the corpse was writing, a suicide note cursing his wife and the world. “By coincidence, or not-”, she giggled a bit, “his wife cheated, a perfect story.”

“So, we have the story, now we just need the method, and why not, the simple bullet?”, she said to me while I was frozen in fear. A small pistol manifested from her robes and landed in the hands of the corpse Myanar, “He has the power, and we can manufacture fake buy records easily enough.”, and with that, he shot himself in the mouth one time, splattering blood everywhere. “Don’t worry, no sound can escape this room.” I looked at her, the body, and the bloody mess on the floor and asked, “Why?” She laughed and answered, “He opposed us, that is why. Easy enough.” I looked down and, with a tremble, said, “Is this how the Church is?” She giggled more, and moved closer to me, I moved back, and she moved closer, up until I was against the wall, and she was against me. In my ear, she whispered, “Oh this is only the beginning, you have no idea.”