At first, I was just walking aimlessly, on autopilot.

I walked past the rooms that I remembered belonged to Jacob and the guest room. I walked downstairs, towards the library. I guess it was the only place I knew, even after spending so much time here already.

Inside was as empty as the whole castle.

And I don’t mean only the lack of people. Even most of the books were gone. Some were probably just taken by For upstairs, judging by the amount of tomes that were lying next to her when she was in her “trance”, but even considering that, a lot was missing.

I started walking around the room, idly gazing through the shelves. Nothing caught my attention, not like I was really looking for something in the first place. Even the shelf with the anchors. I just briefly looked at it and just left, leaving it undisturbed and covered with dust, just as it was.

The next room I managed to wander to was… well, it wasn’t exactly the room, it was just the long corridor leading outside and to the plaza.

I remembered it was the place where I first realized I was on a very unique island that was going to be hard to leave. Now it was doubly true.

I gazed towards the horizon, where the “falls” were. And this time, I was no longer able to see them. Just like on that small island, the horizon was covered with light. From this high up though it looked more like a glowing fog, or a cloud.

I took another glance, trying to find anything interesting, but just like the first time, the only landmark that was visible was the horizon itself, cut short by the “edge of the world” or however else they wanted to call this thing.

I wandered back inside the castle and this time went towards the part where I have never been to.

Honestly, I was not sure at first if that was indeed the case, because of everything looking almost the same. I was only able to tell the difference because of the smell. And it was not really a pleasant one.

That part of the castle reeked of fish.

At first, off-putting, I soon started following the smell, just to satisfy my curiosity. And soon reached it. A full room, filled to the brim with fish of different kinds. What was unusual though was the fact that they were not stored in anything, nor refrigerated in any way. Just were tossed about and lying there like it was natural for them to be there.

The sight was bizarre to say the least.

I also realized the reasoning.

Besides fish, the room was also flooded with water. And not saltwater that was just brought with the fish accidentally, or at least not only. It was melted ice.

I could tell, because at the back of the room, there was still some of it remaining. It also told me how exactly the fish were preserved before.

Giant blocks of ice. Or rather blocks of frozen fish.

Like ice cubes in the water, half melted, at the back of the room, were flooding the whole room with smell and water. And fish.

It was most likely the effect of the crystal too. For some reason, everything that ran on magic was disabled. And that apparently included whatever spell was cast on this room. The only thing that was preventing total spoilage was the remaining bits of ice. And even those had not much in the tank left, already spilling outside.

For a second I wanted to flash-freeze the room. Not only to stop the food from decaying but also smell from spreading, but as soon as I gathered mana, I immediately remembered that I wasn’t able to do shit with it.

At best I would’ve been able to ignite the whole room.

I was not that stupid, so I just shrugged and left, trying to get as far away from the smell as possible.

The idea of using smells to direct myself around the castle was not the worst one, so I continued with it. This time I managed to pick up something different.

In comparison to fish it was a lot more pleasant: it was a mixture of various spices and herbs.

Like a dog, I started following my nose, and it didn’t even take five minutes for me to regret that decision.

The, at first pleasant, fragrance of herbs soon was turned into a stench that was hard to bear. With every step it was getting more and more intense, to the point where I was starting to believe that my senses were getting tricked by some weird magic, just to remind myself that the only people that would be able to cast magic here were still far away from me.

Yet, as I got closer, I realized that I was approaching someone.

Even without my magical senses, I already had a good idea who that might be. And if we add the fact that For told me that all others had left for the elven war, I was almost sure.

I finally reached the end of the corridor and another spiral staircase. It surely looked like I had arrived at the furthest corner of the castle.

The staircase was leading only one floor up and one floor down - it was definitely the smallest tower I’ve seen here so far. One sniff was enough to tell that the source of the overwhelming smell was right there.

The one person who was there was on the upper floor, so I decided to leave them alone and go down, to see what exactly have they done to make that much of a spreading smell.

The room was not that far down, yet since I was still on the ground floor, it was completely underground.

The door was made out of metal, like some of the more important rooms in here, but it lacked the shrapnel of the red crystal that I knew was the locking mechanism used in here, so I was able to enter no problem.

Inside there was… well, considering what I saw in the fish storage, that should not surprise me. It was absolute chaos.

Herbs, not even segregated, were laying there in piles taller than me, almost like bales of hay. Next to them, some crates, a bunch of them open and some even straight up broken, turned on the side. Every single one of them was leaking something. Be it a powder of unknown origin, something that looked suspiciously similar to salt, a full crate of pepper, grounded and not. A pile of ginger roots, another, even taller one of horseradish and more.

Another pile, this time of sacks. But those were mostly flour. Or at least something that looked like flour, because after a closer inspection I was not so sure about that.

Further in, there were some shelves, also stocked to the brim. Those, on the other hand, were filled with different kinds of jars and bottles. All full.

I could recognize some of the contents, but that was barely a miniscule part. Of course, none of them were labeled, yet every single one looked unique and very, very exotic.

Even just from the color alone, I was able to tell that I should not mess with those.

None of them looked like they were “normal” so to speak, all had weird colors, ranging from pure jet-black to pink with, I swear, glitter inside. It also was impossible to not notice the fact that all of them were magical in nature. If I didn't already know who was upstairs, the contents of this room would’ve been a dead giveaway: it was Eise’s storage room.

I carefully stepped away from the shelves and started walking out from the tower, but not before I took a peek into the upper floor, where Eise was.

The upstairs was not even a tiny bit brighter than the cellar. If not for the stairs, I would’ve sworn that I had to be underground again.

The room was essentially a mirror image of the cellar, the shelves included. This time though, instead of the piles of herbs there were just stacks of boxes that were blocking the view and way towards the other end of the room, where I could hear her shuffling about.

I really was not trying to be stealthy, but she seemed preoccupied anyway, so she didn’t notice me at all.

Peeking from behind the boxes, I noticed that she was standing in front of a large desk, filled with a pile of glass instruments: vials, bottles, jars and so on.

The desk itself was made out of the crystal, the same one as the walls. In the middle of it, there was a hole with a red crystal sticking out, a bit darker than the walls. On top of it, there was a small glass jar placed with something that looked like clear water inside.

Next to her, I noticed a rather large, iron pot, standing on the floor besides the desk.

As I was trying to get a glimpse of what was inside, she suddenly started mumbling something and grabbed the jar. She inspected it carefully, and apparently was not happy with what was inside, because she barked a few rather unpleasant words and poured the contents to the pot beside her.

As she was doing that, I was able to tell that both what was inside and what she poured was just water. Infused, but still, just water, or at least that's what it looked like.

Without a word, she grabbed a next jar and placed it back above the crystal, mumbling again,

-I don’t understand, nothing’s working properly… if she awakens… I don’t have time for this… Maybe…

She froze for a second. I thought that she noticed me, but nope. She instead had some kind of an idea, I think.

She quickly moved towards one of the boxes that was further away from her and started rummaging through it. Whatever was inside sounded like a lot of glass, and at a certain point I think I heard something breaking, but a minute later she emerged again, this time with something else in hand.

It was yet another bottle, but this time it was filled about half-way with purplish-blue liquid. She took a piece of string, soaked it with the liquid and left it half-way submerged, with a small piece sticking out from the bottle, spilling some on the table. She put it aside and instead focused on the stone in the opening in the desk.

For a good moment she was struggling to pull it out, but managed to do so, with an unpleasant grinding noise, accompanied with a shower of sparks.

Luck, or the lack of it rather, wanted that some of them landed right on the spilled liquid.

It was flammable.

Her reaction was immediate. She quickly moved the bottles away from the fire and shoved the rest of the ingredients away. At the same time, I heard her casting a spell.

-Geksu, jemvy!

But, nothing happened.

So For hasn’t been able to get to her yet… Damn, of course not. It hasn’t been even an hour! And I’ve been around all the time. I would’ve known.

At least the fire was small though, so she shouldn’t have problems extinguishing it, right? It was even contained inside the opening in the table, essentially making a small fireplace for her.

But, strangely, she was not trying to extinguish it any more, and the fire had no intention of going out. Whatever the liquid that was, it had to be very flammable. Good thing that she moved the bottle away, because if that thing was to catch fire…

Just as I was thinking that though, the weirdest happened.

Normal person, seeing as their previous attempts at extinguishing the fire failed, would’ve probably tried something else. Or maybe just straight up move away, try to look for help. But not her. She did the exact opposite.

Fixated on the fire, she slowly reached for the bottle that she just moments earlier moved away placing it on one of the shelves, and removed the string. She tossed it away, or rather let it fall on the ground and slowly was moving the bottle towards the fire.

Even without seeing her face completely, I knew that I’d already seen that kind of look. On Melle’s face when I first used light magic. On Kon’s when I first showed him how his body worked.

And, more importantly, on Eicam, when I started the fire.

Those were the same eyes.

Without much hesitation I stepped out from behind the boxes and with a blink of an eye was right next to her.

From that close up, I was now doubly sure. She was no longer seeing anything else than fire. Well, maybe good that she was not able to see me, because then she’d definitely drop the bottle in shock, if I was to judge after the first time she saw my partially crystallized body.

I swiftly grabbed the bottle from her hand and shoved her unceremoniously away.

I sort of forgot about my ability to drain magic, but luckily for her, we only briefly made contact, so the amounts of magic I absorbed were minimal. I am not even sure if that was from her or just from residue on her clothes, because I swear I did not touch her directly.

Nevertheless, I immediately placed the bottle on the furthest shelf I was able to reach and focused on the fire on the table.

It still was giving no signs of disappearing, but was still contained in the opening in the desk, so I just shoved my hand inside, trying to smother the flames with my palm.

I was… moderately successful. The fire was not gone, but I managed to reach the liquid at the bottom. There was surprisingly a lot of it… definitely more than she spilled.

And it was definitely infused.

That would also explain why it was still burning.

It was just infused water, but very condensed. Even without the flames I would’ve felt the heat of the mana.

But that was a good thing, I could then easily extinguish it: the touch was enough for me to absorb most of the mana from it, making the flames almost instantly disappear.