At the end of XIX century the tiresome magical wars between two nations ended with the reunion of the Sawashimas and the Omnious. The most progressive of them took part in regulating social life, and succeeded in establishing peace between magic users and magicless people. The Academy was officially acclaimed and renamed into the Professional Institution of Specialists in Magic. The organization now has many offices throughout the world, with its HQ founded in the new city which would eventually be given the name New Tokyo.

—Guide Book to New Tokyo

“Ooooooh… ooooooh! Oh!”

It seemed like it was everything Haydee could imagine.

“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Sunny rolled her eyes.

“It is filex, you stupid!” Haydee glanced viciously at the pink-haired and looked at Niji again. “Honey, you are so lucky! Where did you get this thing from?”

“Long story.” Niji replied. “What exactly is the filex?”

“Don’t you know the basics of the artifact theory? Urgh, what do they teach you at the Academy these days...”

Haydee bounced away from the magic girl, scaring her a little, and dived into her pile of scrolls.

“Waaaaaaaaaait a minute, I’ll find eeeeet!” Her voice was flowing through the flying papers. “Ooooh, where aaaaaaare youuuuuu?”

“That’ll take an hour or two, I guess,” Sunny said, stretching her legs.

As her eyes had accustomed to the darkness, Niji didn’t find a better time-killing activity than to observe the archive. The first discovery didn’t look inspiring: at the corner of the room there was a strange piece of furniture, a mix of electrocution and dental chairs with a semi-sphere to place a head inside. Thinking about what it could be used for gave her the creeps. She moved her eyes towards a windowed shelf holding bullets, each of them placed on a small pillow.

“Antimagical bullets. They distort arcane pathways and penetrate every defensive spell,” Sacred whispered to Niji. “The more powerful the magic is, the more devastating the effect will be. Top class thing to fight Violets. Haydee’s secret design. The pinnacle of her career, if you ask me.”

“Dasnor never told me such a device existed.”

“It takes months to produce just a single one, and the resources are very limited—twenty bullets a year or so. Fiber guards each of them like a madman. By the way, these are still brewing. Their light is very dim, see? When they are ready, it will change to bright blue.”

Most of the room was taken up by endless bookshelves, stuffed with old books and all kinds of old pottery that had succumbed to spider web. Intrigued, Niji took a folio from the nearest shelf. The book was so worn-out it was about to turn to dust. The Elementalist risked it and opened the book on a random page—landing on a story that was well-known to every mage kid.

A parable; a fairy tale or legend. It was devoted to seven unknown wanderers who had somehow managed to enter the Kingdom of Light and see Mother in person. An ink-drawn sketch on the left page depicted seven silhouettes reaching out to a female figure with six wings. The hem and sleeves of her simple dress curved upward, and her long hair also seemed to fly into an imaginary space. It looked like it was the stylistic device the artist had used to emphasize the serenity and divine origin of the woman. Any child could draw it better.

The text, though written with an intricate calligraphy, was readable. Niji noticed that sequence numbers were differently colored—the publisher must have been pretty rich.

“... And they entered our Mother’s domain, and astonished was she with their wit and agility. She wondered what dreams they cherished the most and made a promise to fulfill it.

The first wished to rule flame and water—Mother made the elements obey.

The second wished to run fast and see far—Mother made the inner might obey.

The third wished to transform the world—Mother made the inanimate obey.

The fourth wished to learn everything—Mother made the knowledge obey.

The fifth wished to help and save others—Mother made the life force obey.

The sixth wished to see other worlds—Mother made the Unknown obey.

The seventh wished to be loved. Mother refused as she couldn’t make love obey. Then the seventh wished to control what couldn’t be obeyed. Infuriated was Mother, and along with granting the wish she cursed the seventh with a hex both ancient and cruel—to die three times earlier than destined.”

Basically, that was the end of the story, as the seventh one had returned to the “real” world and had indeed died before even a single spell was cast. On the bottom of the page there was a beautifully drawn mark and the final abstract.

“‘Desire moderately, be grateful to our Mother for her gifts, and then the Light will guide you,’” Sunny quoted over Niji’s shoulder. “The story of how magic was born. My Mama’s bedtime story.”

“It just occurred to me that all this mess happened because of lack of love. Right?”

“Eh… fuck if I know.” Sunny shared her expert opinion and turned to Haydee. “Hey you, are we there yet?”

“Yes, yes!” The mage woman raised her hand in a triumph, demonstrating an old book.

Haydee swam through the piles of waste paper and swept a nearby desk clean. Some things knocked, clanged and even crashed to the ground, broken. The Lackluster threw a book on a dusty tabletop and began to flip rapidly. In a half a minute she succeeded in finding the proper page.

“Filex, translated as ‘Protector.’ It is a divine power of Eos, Mother of Light’s advisor. Or, according to this version, Mythra… or Tsukiyomi… eh, goddamn foreign names.”

“Aaaaaaand?” Sunny asked.

“It is believed that filex is a unique concentrated energy of protection and compassion. In modern magical science terms, the resulting effect of the spell is called ‘Celestial Shield.’ The most famous and powerful filex is stored in the Shield of Goddess. It was washed by morning dew, which was previously Mother’s tears.”

The mad scientist pointed in the text. There was an image of the Shield Niji had destroyed in the temple. The Elementalist bit her lip.

“It is considered to be one of the Legendary artifacts,” Haydee said, reading further. “It is assumed that mage priests had put it into some sanctuary, the location of which is still unknown…”

The archivist’s mood underwent a drastic change: she narrowed her eyes and squinted unkindly, almost pressing her face to Niji’s nose.

“Once again please, Miss Murasaki. Where did you get that amplifier?”

“I uh… well…”

A nasty drop of sweat ran down her back. But lucky for her, Niji heard quick steps up the stairs—and Dammit bursted into the cellar, panting.

“Holey moley, I’ve been searching for you everywhere, Have you tried switching on your smarts? What are you doing in this forsaken place, all of a sudden?”

“We asked Haydee to find Freyja!” Sunny reported quickly.

“This bitch!”

“Sacred has her book and...”

“Hold on here!” Dammit exclaimed. “I’ve just arrived to tell you I know where she might be.”

“Really?!” Even Niji started to scream.

“You bet! She has a gig with her ‘Enchanters Band’ in the ‘Lazy Dracula’ club. Saturday, in two weeks.”

Those present were taken aback. Niji, of course, was the most shocked:

“But… how did you know that? Thaumaturgy?”

“Fuckomaturgy. This sinful city is filled with the posters, you just can’t miss it… whoa, don’t you stare at me like that!”