---[ POV: Flynn ]---

Before the two men could even enter the corvette, Gwenvar was already on the second deck by the side of the young girl, trying to feed her the liquid contained in the flask she was given by Herman.

What is happening here?! Wondered Flynn, looking at the bright light coming from above.

Once he reached the second floor, he realized that the light was coming from this young ‘Amy’ girl. She was enveloped in a nimbus of swirling golden motes and her insides seemed to burn with a white flame that showed through the skin of her chest and her eyes, mouth, nose, and ears.

What. The. Hell? Flynn looked at Herman to see if he was as startled as him but the old man just seemed concerned, not surprised.

Herman approached the bed, waited for Gwenvar to finish administering the potion, then pushed her asides gently and started his own examination. It mostly consisted of the old man closing his eyes, extending his hands above the young girl and mumbling some foreign chant while waving his arms around as if he was trying to evenly distribute some invisible matter over the girl.

“What is he doing?” whispered Flynn to the woman Herman had referred to as Gwenvar.

“I don’t know, I’m neither Forged nor Blooded,” she said with a worried look on her face. “You should know better than me.”

I should?

Herman face was contorted with concentration and he seemed like he was in pain. He was starting to sweat. He made an annoyed, gesture at Flynn and Gwenvar, requesting them to quiet down, then he increased the volume of his chant. His croaked and hoarse voice resounded throughout the entire corvette. After almost 15 minutes of this strange behavior, some of the swirling specks of light started to converge toward his hands as if he was siphoning the air. Herman changed his position; he kept one of his hand above the girl and extended the other in the opposite direction. Flynn saw the light and golden motes follow his arm from the siphoning hand to the extended one as if it was some kind of channel. At the end of this ‘channel’, the shimmer and motes were being expelled and dissipated into the air.

The glow around the sick girl diminished somewhat, but at one point, she screamed, convulsed, and an explosion of renewed light emanated from her body. The hand of Herman still extended above the girl suddenly caught fire. The old man removed it with a curse, shook it to extinguish the flames, then stuffed it in the folds of his robes to wipe the burn.

“The Fever is fighting me,” said the old man. “I’ve never seen such a fast and intense collapse of essence before. One of my specialties is fire magic so I should be able to help; I’ve been trained to manipulate it since I was young but, despite my expertise, it does not seem to help in her case. There is something strange about her mana.”

“You said you could help her,” growled Gwenvar.

“I said I could try,” answered Herman, unimpressed by the underlying menace in the woman’s tone. “And I’m not done trying. I told you I’ll do everything I can. Unfortunately, this is beyond me. Even though I say fire magic is one of my specialties, I am in no way a master. After my early years as a mage, I diverted from the more flashy fire magic to some more practical field of studies. My old mentor, however, is the best and most powerful fire mage I know of. Maybe he could help.”

“And how will you get him here in time?!” said Gwenvar. “She doesn’t have a lot of time left!”

“I can teleport to him - I know a ritual. He will probably be able to teleport us back.”

“You know how to teleport?! How is the Inquisition not glued to your vile, murderous, old ass?! And there’s no way I’m leaving the princess’ side anyway,” said the woman. “and it’s even less likely I would ever let you cast a teleportation spell on me.”

“I can understand. Teleportation has its reputation after all. I must admit I only ever used this spell once before, because of how costly and risky it is. Anyway, it's not you I was expecting to bring along, but our mighty friend here.” Herman slapped Flynn in the back in an overly familiar manner.

“You can call me Flynn. And I have no idea what you two are talking about,” said the young man before they could rope him in anything he would not normally agree to. “I have so many questions but, first of all, can I know what the girl is suffering from? I’ve never seen this before.”

“Yes, it’s normal,” said Herman “although I’m sure Lord Flynn has heard about Arcane Fever, this one is fairly unusual so it’s no surprise you did not recognize it. I’m surprised though; Gwenvar told me you are a mighty mage of your own. Can’t you feel the agitation of the Weave?”

“The Weave? Mage? Arcane Fever?” Flynn frowned and the other two looked at him with strange eyes.

“Never mind for now,” said Herman with a dismissing hand gesture. “That girl has an hour or two left at best." He produced another green bottle similar to the first one he had given Gwenvar and gave it to the woman. “With this, she might survive until morning, but all it does, really, is alleviate the pain and slow down the inevitable. We should really get going unless someone has a better idea?” The old man observed both Flynn and Gwenvar with intensity.

“Well… not me,” reluctantly admitted the woman.

“Me neither,” said Flynn. “If I understood correctly, you want us to go and enroll the help of another person? That mentor of yours?”

“Yes,” said the old man.

“What are they saying?” asked Athena. “I don’t understand anything. Why are you able to, but not me?.”

“Because they knew if they let you in on that you would just run your mouth, pester us and waste our time until that poor girl dies,” said Flynn.

“But...”

“No 'but'. I was only half-joking there. We really don’t have the time to talk or ask questions.”

Athena made a sullen sound but she stopped to talk.

Flynn then turned an inquisitive stare toward Herman. “It’s great that your mentor might be able to help, but why is my presence necessary?”

“Not just your presence,” said Herman while looking all around the corvette. “Your magic and your secrets too. See, my mentor is an extremely old and powerful wizard but he is also a greedy and selfish man that will outright refuse to help us without proper payment. Unfortunately, his fortune and legacy have been long secured. He would not lift a finger to help even if we offered him the entire hoard of a dwarven king. No, for a long time now, the only things that have been able to catch his interest have been knowledge and novelty. If you are ready to trade one or two of you secrets or artifacts with him, and if he is sufficiently impressed, he might help. That’s why I want you to come along. I know that I have no right to ask such sacrifice of you, but the life of the young princess depends on it at this point.”

“Please, Sir Knight, My Lord,” said Gwenvar with an imploring tone. “She does not deserve to die.” She darted a despising look toward Herman but the old man just gave her a cryptic smile and shrugged. “She is everything to me. If you save my Ward, I’ll do anything you ask to repay this debt.”

“Mmm…” said Flynn. “If I help, I’ll ask of you both that you take some time to thoroughly answer all of my questions. I am not from around here and I am really confused about… well, almost everything. Are you even from the Empire? You’re clearly human but you don’t seem to know about the Empire.”

“Seems like a pretty fair and reasonable request to me,” nodded Herman.

“To me too,” said Gwenvar. “The Empire?”

“I think he meant the Realm,” said Herman, “but the charm he is using is pretty old. Some words might get lost in translation.”

“Ah. In that case, yes, we are from the Second Realm, and this girl here is Princess Amaryllis of Osgarath; save her and the most prominent royal family of the Second Realm will be indebted to you...”

“As much as I'd like to play friend and learn to know each other, let's just talk later,” said the old man as he left for the cargo bay. “Lord Flynn! I will start to prepare the ritual right away. Please chose your offering. Chose carefully. My old mentor is probably the closest thing you’ll meet to an archmage. He 'is' will he himself tell you! There is not much left to impress him anymore.”

Flynn had so many questions fighting for answers in his mind that he had trouble thinking straight, but it would have to wait for a moment if he wanted to save the girl.

The young lieutenant had understood by now that those people referred to their strange powers or unknown technologies as ‘magic’ but that could not be real magic? Could it?

As much as he wanted to help and save the girl, he was still reticent to share his technologies with those people. Given how backward and primitive their technology level seemed to be, he could probably get what he wanted by giving relatively inoffensive things, but the problem was that he had no idea how 'magic' played into all that. Would they be impressed by what he had to offer or were they just able to replicate it with magic?

Flynn did not know what to offer Herman’s mentor. He needed more information on this world and its societies. On how it worked, what was considered normal or not, what was valuable or not. Since he was so rushed, he had to guess. He stuffed the armor storage with everything laying around he could afford to part with, even bringing one of the spare power-hammer. He was not planning on giving it away but it could still be used to put on a show.

Herman had gone outside and traced an intricate and complex pentagram on the ground of a flat and sandy area.

“I think it was something like that… yup! Pretty sure it was,” he said. “It’s been almost 10 years since I last used this spell. At my age, the memory can get spotty.”

The old man laughed nonchalantly but Flynn doubted that his memory was affected in any way, especially not because of old age. He was vigorous and spry for what looked like the late sixty. Hell, even people half his age had not his vitality. Beneath his large and bushy white eyebrows that gave him a kind and carefree air, Flynn could see two sharp, attentive, and cunning gray eyes that did not miss a detail of their surroundings.

“So, are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes. I believe so.” Flynn was not sure what was about to happen but he had heard them talk about teleportation. And it is quite dangerous apparently. Damn, why did I accept? I don’t even know that girl so why am I taking such risks just to help her.

As he was questioning himself, the crying face of Gwenvar and the complete distress she had shown as her Ward was dying came back to his mind. The sick and pained princess, pale and on the verge of death accompanied the first image; a young teen barely out of childhood. As Gwenvar had said, she did not deserve to die. She at least deserved a chance at life and seeing her being robbed of it before she could even try sat wrong with Flynn.

Right, though Flynn, a good deed never goes unpunished.

He was not a particularly emotional person but years of leading and taking care of men had created this instinct to help and nurture those that needed his help.

“Good. Let’s do this then,” said Herman.

He pushed Flynn toward the middle of the pentagram.

“Caution there, boy, don’t walk on the lines,” said the old man while following Flynn.

Once they were both in the middle, Herman winked at him, “Let’s hope this works.” He started to chant and gesticulate and Flynn could see and feel the world starting to distort around him. The sensation was eerily familiar.

Oh God, that’s like a jump but without the protection and stabilizers of a ship! I’m gonna die!