She had to admit… the magic was fairly decent for a complete amateur. In a lot of ways, what Syron showcased to his mother in the library was many of the reasons people feared illusionists… even if he did it in a ham fisted, ridiculous way. He created several highly detailed images, which people fear because they could be tricked by an illusionist posing as someone they love or trust. He mimicked Patricia’s own voice, though poorly, which only furthers the ability to assume someone else’s life for a while. A normal battlecaster could take someone’s life, sure… but an illusionist could steal someone’s life. Honestly, given people’s attachments to what they may leave behind, Patricia wasn’t sure which was worse.

At any rate, what was truly impressive about Syron’s magic today was not the illusions, since any illusionist can make one, obviously. What was so impressive was the sheer number of them. Even given Patricia’s rather extreme amount of knowledge on the subject of illusion magic, she wasn’t quite sure how he had done it. His pathways were such a mess, there was no easy way for him to process that kind of power. She had often wondered, just why had he done that to his channels?

When she had first found out his aptitudes, she didn’t care about what society thought of him, she only wanted him to be powerful. As such, she studied illusionists in an attempt to help him. Earlier on in his life… he disregarded her help. Perhaps she should have insisted, or perhaps prepared study material anyway? Maybe she still should? She had been given a clean slate, after all, even if she was as clumsy with it as he was at mimicking her voice.

That will have to wait. First… I’ve a Dukedom to put in order.

Patricia Forrester, Grand Duchess and The Warden of the Woods… sat down at her desk and went to work. It was almost refreshing, given she had not done it properly in over a year, but the amount was substantial and she had no one to blame but herself… and whomever sent that assassin she exploded into overgrown meat chunks. To avoid any interruptions, she started cycling her magic to remove the sense of courage and comfort from around her room and nearby in the hallway. Anyone who came close would suddenly find themselves desperately wishing to be anywhere else. Even she suffered from the fear and anxiety her magic left her with, but after years of learning to cope as a child, she merely shrugged it off like the teasing of an old friend.

Reading a report from the Wardens, she sighed. They requested her personal assistance in healing a few of the more seriously wounded from her suddenly demanding they capture a variety of monsters for her son to study. It was not that she told them to capture monsters, as they normally do that anyway. It was that she gave them one day to fulfill the order because she made a rash decision. Mistakes were inevitably made. Patricia knew that it was a possibility that they could suffer injury from her command, but what did they expect? They are trained monster hunters. If they cannot handle a little monster hunting, they clearly do in fact need more training. Regardless of how she felt about their failure of keeping themselves safe, she would stop by the barracks tomorrow and heal all that still need it. Today, however, she was staying in Rowan Keep while her son recovered from extreme Magic Soul fatigue. Of course he had passed out. Syron is terrible at magic, and did way too much of it all at the same time.

Seriously though… how did he keep all those illusions going at once? By the end, he had two trees, four humanoids, one goblinoid, and the fog… even with allowances being given for most of them not moving when they were not the focus of the action, he maintained them solidly for a significant amount of time. That is pretty impressive for someone whom has never practiced before… or has he? Ugh! Why am I going down this route again? Obviously he kept some secrets from you, but you need to learn to trust him at least a little! He is a different person now! At least… he will be with proper parenting!

Patricia sat alone in her office, chiding herself mentally over her perceived failings. Meanwhile, the maids within ten rooms of her office were seriously reconsidering their life choices that led them to this House.

* * * *

Raylin was down in the kitchens, plenty of rooms away from The Lady’s office. The other staff were interested in what she had to say, but clearly there was a bit of trepidation in just accepting what she said at face value. After all, so many things could go wrong when you mess with tricky powers like the Young Master’s.

“And then the little caricature of the Lady started ball room dancing around the tree, and tripped on a vine! It was so stupid, I couldn’t help but start laughing. The best part? The Lady’s character, the swordsman… winked at me! Like he led her into the root on purpose! Once he’s back up and able to do magic again, I’m going to see if he can show me an illusion of me kicking a goblin in the jewels! Or an orc! Or… oh, pretty much anything with jewels!” Raylin gushed, earning a few awkward laughs from a majority of the staff. The few that felt more comfortable with the Young Master chuckled rather genuinely, however.

In front of everyone’s eyes, on the prep table in the center of the kitchen, a miniature ghostly Raylin and accompanying goblin appeared. The goblin made a growling noise at the Raylin that was starting to color in with details.

“Do you have jewels!?” The mini Raylin demanded of the goblin in a poorly recreated copy of the true Raylin’s voice. It pulled out its loin cloth and looked down, appraising itself. It looked back up at her and growled again, charging at her. The mini Raylin swept her foot back, and then smashed it forward into the goblin that shrieked three octaves higher. She then gave a peace sign to the crowd, and bowed with a flourish before vanishing. The goblin clutched at its heart and ‘died’ like a stage actor having a fake heart attack before also vanishing.

“Something like that, Head Chef?” The Young Master looked a little tired, but much better compared to earlier. Raylin clapped happily while most of the staff looked uncomfortable. Syron looked around, noticing their discomfort, but shrugged like it couldn’t be helped.

“It was wonderful, Young Master. Definitely invite me again next time you decide to put on a show! Ah… if only there was a way I could have that image with me all the time. Or, maybe me kicking a burly man so hard in the boys that he coughs blood? I could show it to vendors that try to overcharge me! Wait! What are you doing here!? You’re supposed to be in bed! Stop using magic, idiot boy!”

The staff collectively gasped. Surely, even with her foul mouth, the Head Chef wouldn’t call the Young Master an idiot? That could get you beheaded in lesser Houses! The Young Master just laughed with a warm expression.

“I was in bed! But I woke up famished like I hadn’t eaten in a week. Where’s the bread? I want to make myself a sammich!” The Young Master then looked contemplative for a moment, muttered “Sandwich?... yeah, that was too much. Sandwich!”

“I’ll make one if you make an image of me dancing with a handsome man!” A scullery maid declared before covering her mouth in both embarrassment and horror.

“Well, I’ve only seen one of those since I woke from my coma, so he’ll just have to do.” Syron said, sitting tiredly down on a stool in the corner. On the center table a ghostly woman with the maid’s face was appearing while wearing a gown. Syron took a little extra time trying to make the gown actually attractive, but sadly failed rather spectacularly. Instead, to his eyes, it was almost like he was mocking the mortified girl. Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything he could do about it because he couldn’t think of a proper dress to put her in, and putting her in the maid clothes at this point would seem a little mean.

So he did the next best thing… he made a copy of himself appear wearing the gaudiest, most offensively acid green suit he could imagine. Its color was so bright it looked like it may be radioactive, so Syron went ahead and made it radiate a slight glow. It came complete with a comically large top hat and cane, which the image threw off to the side and started hillbilly tap dancing in front of the maid’s image. Her image started to perform a salsa dance that looked impossible in her ballgown. Realizing he didn’t know enough about salsa dancing to keep the dance going longer than a few seconds, he shifted both of them into doing the macarena at each other before shifting into the robot.

Realizing that he might end up disappointing the maid with how odd the image was, he decided to change them both into the outfits they were actually wearing, and then having them perform a silent foxtrot around a bowl of peeled potatoes. Enjoying the effort of making the illusion look ‘just’ right, Syron maintained the image as long as he could. The two dancers were slow at first, as though they were testing each other’s capabilities, but soon started to speed up into a more vigorous, physically demanding dance. Feeling the mood wasn’t quite right yet, Syron darkened the room and added a spotlight to follow the dancers. Finally, a solo violin started to play as though it was off in the distance. Syron didn’t know the right song for the foxtrot, so instead he just had the violin play a mishmash medley of various songs he used to listen to on the internet.

Feeling his magic soul starting to struggle, he shifted to a slower song for his finale. The darkness and spot light faded away as the two dancers finished their twirl and stopped in a dip. They gracefully stood up, released each other, and bowed to the maid that had requested the image. Reaching his limit, Syron released the images and they faded away into nothing like smoke in the wind.

The whole kitchen was stunned silent by the image, as it had steadily gained details and definition to it that rivaled reality a few moments before it had vanished. The scullery maid in question was tearfully looking on the empty table where the dancing couple were located only moments before.

“Bloody beautiful… Young Master… that…” Raylin had lost track of what she was doing and had already prepared four sandwiches by the time the dance had finished. Syron strolled up to her, took two of them with a wink, and head out of the kitchen.

No one else said anything. They were too stunned. Syron himself was too tired to say anything, so he just escaped before they realized how tired he was. They just kept staring at the table, remembering the image and swaying slightly to the music they had never heard before still playing in their heads. It took another minute of stunned silence before someone spoke up what everyone else was thinking, though they hadn’t managed to start their brains back up to vocalize it.

“I know illusionists are bad and all… but I don’t know… the Young Master doesn’t need to trick us, and that was…”

A few of the other staff members nodded solemnly. The staff all thought it separately, though mostly in the same way.

Illusions can be wonderful, too.