Ennette’s heart was pounding so loud in her chest that she was afraid the professor walking next to her would hear every beat. While the reality had begun to set in, the shock that she hadn’t been able to go back home was still alive and well inside her body. Looking at her hands and patting down her body as they walked through the halls and courtyards of the Tower, seeing every detail and feeling every sensation brought her just a little closer to acceptance.
But glancing behind her, where Maziar was following them about ten feet behind, Ennette really wasn’t entirely sure how it couldn’t be a dream.
‘I’ll talk to Olamar later,’ Maziar had said.
That made two names that she knew from The Lady of the Golden Star, both in the kingdom of Varsal. While the book didn’t go into detail, Laria, Olamar, and Nurlos had all attended the Tower together before they joined forces with Rhaltz to defeat the Dark Magician. Was it possible that Maziar had gone to school with them?
Not much information was given about Dark Magician Maziar in the book other than he had quickly risen in power by becoming the feared Lord of the Darklands and had the intent of destroying the kingdom. There had been a few interactions, she supposed, where a former, more friendly relationship between the characters would have made a lot of sense in context. Olamar, in particular, always seemed to hesitate when it came to joining with others in their relentless teardowns of Maziar’s character. When she was reading, it felt more like it was set up simply to juxtapose his own position as a desperate mercenary who had also done evil in the past. It also set him up to be a good person despite his greed-motivated occupation—but what if there was more than that?
But that would mean I haven’t just entered the novel, but it would mean I’m living in the novel’s past, Ennette thought, furrowing her brow. She looked to Zerathon, who seemed to be thinking through problems of his own—but hers were more important.
“So let’s say that I already—somehow—understand certain things about the way this world works,” Ennette asked the professor guiding her. “Like, so, I understand all about the dimensions and planes and stuff enough to get the picture, at least, but what about time? How does time work between the planes?”
“Time?” Zerathon considered. “Hm. Well, you know, to be honest, I’m not exactly sure. My field of study is more limited to the creatures of the planes rather than the planes themselves. I suppose you’d need a caster with a time or dimensional affinity to answer that query—though I’m not sure one could understand one part without also understanding the other. Why do you ask?”
“Is there anyone here that might know anything about it?”
“Perhaps. Serving in the Northern Tower are two magicians and one magus with dimensional affinity, and one magician that specializes in time magic,” Zerathon said. “Dimensional affinity is uncommon enough, but time affinity is even more rare. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a shared affinity for both magics unless the practicing caster has omni-affinity, and you aren’t likely to run into one of those outside of the Imperial Tower.”
Ennette hmm-ed and stared at the cobblestone path they walked on. The Imperial Tower was a Tower that was limited only to the strongest casters in the kingdom and only after they had done something worthy of being given a title of nobility. There was no way she would ever gain access to anyone there unless something extraordinary occurred.
“What about the Grand Wizard here?”
“Lady Izaria is a wizard of many talents,” Zerathon said. “She has multiple affinities, of which she practices mainly light and water magic.”
“Yulda Izaria?” Ennette asked.
“You know the name?”
“Yeah, she’s—” The one who specifically trained Laria to defeat the Dark Magician. “But… there isn’t a student here named Laria, is there?”
“Laria?”
“Laria Carpenter? Or, perhaps, Eldrannan?”
“Eldrannan?” Zerathon raised a brow at that. “As in the southern dukedom?”
“Um. Yeah,” Ennette said sheepishly, somehow forgetting that if she were assigning a daughter to a dukedom even the dukedom didn’t know they had, it could get her in a lot of trouble.
But Zerathon just chuckled. “I assure you, Miss Ennette, if there were any daughter of Duke Eldrannan here, I would know. As far as I remember, though, he doesn't have a daughter. They did, once upon a time, but she was lost to illness.”
“Right…”
It was frustrating being in a place she knew well enough to navigate the world and the mechanics but not enough to know what was and was not okay enough to say out loud. Zerathon seemed trustworthy enough, but who was he? He was never mentioned in the story—but did that make it okay for her to talk to him about things?
Deciding she would be better off waiting till she got the chance to speak with the Grand Wizard who was a confirmed ‘good guy,’ Ennette tried to think about the events in the book. It would only do her so much good to know where she was if she didn’t know when she was—and if she could figure that out…
Then what?
Let’s say, for a moment, that I have really transmigrated, she started to think. If that were the case and this was really not some prolonged dream that she couldn’t wake up from, then she was, for better or worse, stuck. The gears in her head were turning a lot harder than they usually did as thoughts of how she was supposed to live in this world bubbled up to the surface.
Food. A safe place to live. Money.
A certain amount of new dread filled her as she was instantly plunged into a world with nothing to her name aside from the clothes on her back—and even that was just a pair of yoga pants, a t-shirt, and a pair of socks—a fact she’d only just then realized, along with how much her feet had started to hurt and how tired she was.
But she had no house. No room. No bed. No family…
Shaking her head, Ennette put that last one aside. If she thought too hard about it now, she’d be too distraught and distracted to deal with her more immediate problems. Plus, who knew how long she’d be here, anyway? It could be a day. It could be a month. It could be years. It was far better for her to think of this as some kind of vacation, or study abroad program, or… adventure.
Ennette’s panic suddenly turned into a great deal of agitation as she looked at the sky.
It was blue and bright, and it looked about mid-day—but she had faith that the stars were up there when she cursed them—them, the Starlight Secretary, and the Universe, too. This was their fault, after all. She wasn’t quite angry, but she was cross enough.
All right! she told herself. So we are on an adventure… to another planet. Right.
A work-study via transmigration. She’d be home when the contract was done. According to the book, this world and Earth were technically connected via the planes. How possible it would be for her to find a way home was a detail that could be worked out later. The bigger question was how was she going to feed herself until then?
Most of the stories dealing with transmigration that Ennette knew had characters of all kinds—but usually, they either had some kind of status or their own protagonist bonus to help them along the way. Many, like her, had found themselves in novels that they read and were able to use that information to their advantage.
Protagonist bonuses weren’t real things, but the information she had its value. If she could find a way to make money, she could invest in the trends and businesses she knew were successful in the future, and if she managed to make enough she could reinvest in real estate. In that case, perhaps she could simply hire someone to take her home.
It was a decent long-term goal, but she would not only have to figure out a way to do the necessary work and research in advance to pull it off, but she’d also need a way to get money in the interim—and survive long enough, besides. If she were tied to Maziar as a familiar, then would she technically be considered a slave? Then what?
Ennette’s head throbbed as her mind did circles around the plethora of problems that she found herself facing.
Where should she even begin with Maziar? What advantages could she possibly have in being the familiar of the villain?
The Tower seemed responsible enough, if Zerathon’s reaction was a decent judge of that, so maybe she could at least count on a roof over her head and food—even if it was begrudgingly given by her ‘master.’
Scrunching her nose at the thought, Ennette took another side glance at the (definitely not handsome) young man trailing behind her.
Careless, carefree, and, from the looks of things back in the other room, the underdog of the Tower, he didn’t seem like a threat. If this was the same Northern Tower where Olamar, Laria, and Nurlos studied together and received their mage certifications from, and Laria wasn’t there yet, it was reasonable to assume this was at least four or five years before the start of the novel took place.
Okay, so where does that leave me? Ennette considered. Other than eternally cringing at the fact I’ve been checking out the villain? Hopefully her brain would work with her to bury that particular mortification.
She could just kill him before the plot started. Two birds, one stone, Ennette mused. It sounded like he wasn’t all that powerful. Neither was she, but if she had a few years to train for it, maybe she could pull it off.
Could she actually, though? Kill someone? That was a different question. And what if he were only pretending to be powerless, and any attempt to harm him would just end with her death, anyway?
She knew for certain that the Dark Magician didn’t have any familiars in the book, let alone one like her—and that was probably not a good sign of her chances of survival.
The building she assumed to be the central tower loomed above them as they came to the inner courtyard. Maybe the Grand Magician really was her only hope—but what if she didn’t believe Ennette either?
“Are you all right, Miss Ennette?” asked Zerathon, peering at her face with a look of concern. “You’ve turned rather pale. Has the summoning perhaps made you ill?”
“Oh,” Ennette flinched, pushing her hair behind her ear. “I-It’s nothing, it’s just…a lot.”
“Once we get into the central tower, I can get you some water at least.”
“That would be nice,” Ennette said, suddenly realizing how thirsty she was, too. There were a lot of things Ennette wanted to ask and ask for, but she hardly knew where to begin.
And then they came to the doors. Zerathon pressed his hand against a magic circle inscribed on a thick iron bar, and the door creaked open with a horrible grating sound.
Would she find salvation here, or would she really have to face a new reality? Ennette gritted her teeth and prepared herself for the worst.
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