Modak held his phone against the scanner of the Magic Tower's entrance to open up the door. As it magically shifted open on its own, he quickly stepped inside. Almost immediately, he noticed the stares of the mages walking around the tower. Because of course they were staring.

  A few of them walked up to him, either congratulating him on his work breakthroughs or wishing him condolences because of Marge's death. He didn't quite know what to say to them beside an anxious 'thanks'. After pushing through the crowd, Modak tried to make his way to his supervisor's office. Because of what happened at the expo, he obviously had to check in with them first.

  He knocked on the door, and it quickly pulled open. On the other side of the large office stood a single desk.

  "Mr. Stonebreaker. How wonderful to see you joining us again," he said, not even looking up from the stack of paperwork that he was currently working through, "Are you ready to return to your regular work-cycle?"

  Modak walked up to the desk, replying rather anxiously, "Yes, I am. I, just... I wanted to ask what the situation will be now that Marge... Margaret Latch is gone."

  His supervisor stopped, finally looking up from the documents he was working on. He pushed the glasses up his beak and stared deep at the orc, "Well, there are a few matters for you to take care of. For one, you will need to finally sort through your lab to return her private items to her family. We also need you to fill out documents related to determining her share in your work thus far, so we can pay out the corresponding royalties to her husband. And then, you will need to search for a new assistant."

  Modak's stomach dropped, "A new... new assistant?"

  "Of course. Unless you would like to work on your own for the time being. Just be aware that you are still required to show periodic results and progress to show that you are deserving of the funding that we are paying out to you," the supervisor explained. He was staring at Modak intensely, almost as if he was trying to catch the orc in something, but as soon as he nodded his head in agreement he looked away and stood up.

  The supervisor grabbed some documents from a nearby drawer and handed them to Modak, "Please fill these out posthaste."

  "Right, yes, I will... I will try to get this to you as soon as I can," Modak nodded, grabbing the small stack of documents before going on his way. And now, it was time for him to get back to work. Modak was just dragging his feet. His mind was still woozy from the conversation with his father earlier, and all the people looking at him with such pity in their eyes didn't help him either. The orc made his way back to the external building where his lab was, which he immediately felt so much more comfortable in.

  For one, because he knew his way around well enough to avoid people as much as possible on his way to his lab at the end of that hallway. Modak unlocked the door and pushed it open. You could smell the dust in here. Clearly, nobody had been in here ever since the expo.

  Modak's stomach dropped as he approached Marge's desk. The pictures standing on there, the small cactus in front of the monitor... the half-knit scarf that she was using all her work breaks to try and finish.

  He put the stack of documents in his hands onto his own desk, and quickly grabbed the envelope labelled 'Personal Effects'. He opened it up and pulled out one of the blank sheets of paper, which when he did, quickly began to unfold into a cardboard box.

  Modak quickly began to put Marge's things into the box, trying to sort it all and make it fit without breaking anything. According to the document instructing him on this part, he just had to make sure that the lid could fit on the box later. Since Marge had a few too many trinkets and pictures set up, he needed to grab another box from the envelope. But in the end, he grabbed two of the lids and pushed them down on the boxes. As he pushed, they flattened out again and shrunk slightly, returning back into slightly thick sheets of paper. These two sheets of paper had a table on them with different fields to write down everything that was stored in each of these boxes.

  And so, Modak sat down at his desk and started writing exactly that down, double-checking just a handful of times to make sure that he got everything. The pictures of her sons and her husband. The magazine with an unfinished crossword puzzle.

  The writing was barely legible at this point. Modak's hands were shaking so much that he knew he had to take a break. He couldn't breathe in here, there was way too much dust floating through the air.

  "I can't breathe, I-" Modak, in his panic, ran out of the door and didn't even see the person standing right in front of it.

  "Mr. Stonebreaker. In quite the rush, aren't we?" an elf was standing in front of him. Modak wasn't sure if her smile was supposed to be encouraging or authoritative. But right now, whichever it was, he was just too anxious to even think about it.

  "Ms- Ms. Boreard," he stuttered, looking at the mistress of the Magic Tower, "I'm sorry, I just have a... I need to..."

  Alicia smiled, snapping her finger. A gust of wind poured through the hallway, pushing past Modak. The windows on the other side of the room opened up, and a quiet clean, cool air surrounded the orc. Almost immediately, he felt himself calm down a bit.

  "Please, just take a seat, okay?" Alicia asked, slowly guiding Modak back to a chair by the windows. He slowly nodded, trying to push through the rest of the panic attack.

  "Uhm... what are you... What can I help you with?"

  The elf shook her head, "I'm not here as the mistress of the tower, child. I'm here as the friend of a friend, so please speak openly."

  Modak carefully nodded his head. If he had heard anything about Alicia Ethel Boreard, it was that when she said something like this, she meant it.

  "Okay, uhm... then what are you doing here? I'm in the middle of processing Marge's personal effects, and I..."

  "I know. And that is why I am here, to make sure that you are doing okay with this."

  "No, how could I be? I'm obviously not okay," Modak laughed nervously, burying his face in his hands.

  "Though you say that, you seem quite healthy and filled with energy. More so than you would expect after what happened just a few weeks ago."

  Modak nodded slowly, "I know. I'm not sure if you knew this already, but I had quite a lot of aura inside of me. I managed to dislodge it all and get it moving, so I've been recovering pretty quickly."

  He wasn't sure if he was right, but what Modak saw in Alicia's face just now seemed to be a twinge of surprise.

  "Is everything okay?"

  "Yes, yes, of course. I was just a bit surprised that you had already gotten this far," Alicia smiled, trying to play things off. But Modak didn't let it go.

  "What do you mean, 'already'?"

  The orc started to see the smile on Alicia's face grow softer as a mellow pink flashed over her eyes. As the flash disappeared, so did her smile.

  "... You have a question you wish to ask me, do you not?"

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  Modak was taken aback. He really didn't understand this woman. She seemed to be doing whatever she felt like. Not just here, but even a while back during that party Ryan went to, where she made everyone show off their abilities, and even forced Ryan into it to some degree.

  "I do," Modak said. Though he had just come out of a panic attack, and most of his confidence was used up during his conversation with his father earlier, there was still enough left to act as the spark, "First, though. Are you sure I can speak openly? That I can ask you whatever I want to ask right now, without consequences?"

  Alicia slowly nodded her head, and Modak just came out with it, "How could you let that happen? At the expo? You were there. How could the security at the magic tower's expo be bad enough that an overconfident, cocky, inexperienced technomancer could not just kill someone out in the open but also completely get away with it?"

  The magic tower's mistress stood there for a while, her expression unchanging. The only thing that Modak could see was another flash of pink flowing past her eyes before she finally replied.

  "All things happen for a reason," she replied, and Modak jumped up off the chair.

  "Excuse me? What reason would there be for that? She's dead!" the orc's breathing sped up again, "Tell me, what good came out of it? What reason could there be for something like this?!"

  Alicia and Modak locked eyes. There was another flash of pink, and she opened her mouth. But Modak wouldn't have that. He slammed his hand on the table next to him. It was such a strong punch that the table's leg bent slightly, and a few items on it were starting to slide down, falling and breaking on the ground. And Alicia seemed genuinely startled, like she hadn't expected this. It was the first time that Modak had seen her out of her element.

  "Stop using whatever skill or spell you're using, just talk to me normally, like a person! I don't know what this is, if it's some kind of appraisal or whatever, but just... just say something normal!"

  Alicia averted her gaze from the orc, "Things... are simply supposed to happen this way. I promise you, this will someday make sense to you."

  Modak glared at the woman in front of him, almost too overwhelmed to say what he really wanted to say. But then, he just spat it out, almost involuntarily.

  "I quit."

  Ryan opened the front door, a bit taken aback by what he saw. It was his uncle, rushing into the house.

  "Dude, what's up? What are you doing here?" he asked, confused, and Runar just continued pacing around the room, nervously staring at every inch of this place.

  "Who's in here right now? I need to talk to you about something."

  "Just Silvia... Modak's still at work. What's going on?" Ryan asked, starting to get nervous. The elf in question came walking down the stairs.

  "Did you just say my name?"

  "Okay, that's fine, she... she can hear this," Runar was almost out of breath. If he didn't know any better, Ryan would guess that his uncle ran here or something.

  "You're creeping me out, man... What happened?"

  Runar stared at his nephew, trying to get his breathing under control, "It wasn't the shadows."

  "Huh?"

  "We weren't dealing with the White Shadow Society this whole time," Runar started, "Christopher Blanchard went rogue. He found out about the secrets of corruption, found Gaia's fragments, and came up with that insane plan all on his own."

  Trying to catch up to what his uncle was telling him just now, Ryan just let out a laugh, "What are you saying? But Christopher is the head honcho's brother, right? Of course it was the White Shadow Society's doing."

  "No, that's what I'm saying. Apparently, Christopher was jealous, and to try and garner some power amongst the shadows, he decided to deal with all of their problems on his own. I knew that this plan was making no sense, how did I not realize this earlier?!"

  "You're saying that... Gaia's dungeon, and the rampaging robot, and the berserking giant, all happened because of, what... a single maniacal lamia?"

  "No, Ryan. I'm saying that the corrupted spirits... the attack on the expo, and even that Richard kid's existence as a corrupted man, as well as all the things that you just mentioned, were Christopher's work. Christopher had just been put in charge of Bluesky to keep him busy, but apparently that bit of power got to his head very fast."

  "You're fucking with me right now."

  "I'm not. I met with a representative of the White Shadow Society and they apologised for Christopher's actions. Hell, they even agreed to pay out some damages..."

  Ryan laughed, still not buying it, "So what, you just misunderstood the shadows this whole time? They're not trying to cause the extinction of all magical folk?"

  "Oh, they are. But they would never be so stupid about the way they do this. In the first place, the fact that we even learned the perpetrator should have been a sign that something was wrong," Runar explained, "But I need you to understand one thing here, okay? This means that something horrible is going to happen soon."

  "Hm? Dude, you're not making any sense. If this was just Christopher, doesn't this mean that the shadows were just sitting on their ass all this time?"

  "Exactly. I told you before, didn't I? Vasix Blanchard, the head of the current White Shadow Society, is one of the most shrewd, intelligent people in this world. It's part of the curse that he is afflicted with. In exchange for all that was stripped of him, he was given an incredible mind," Runar said nervously, "I don't believe that Vasix Blanchard did not know about what happened or what his brother was up to. But now, he's definitely going to take over the things that his brother started. He's going to take advantage of that chaos in a way that I can't predict at all. Now that Christopher is gone, Vasix will-"

  "Wait, wait, gone? What do you mean, 'gone'?" Silvia asked, looking back and forth between Ryan and his uncle. Runar took a deep breath and slowly responded.

  "... He's dead. Christopher Blanchard was found dead just earlier today, and he was killed by his own brother, Vasix Blanchard."

  This time, Ryan really couldn't help himself but laugh out loud. This was ridiculous. He knew that Runar didn't have a sense of humour, but this was just not making any sense at all. But Runar just looked at him and shook his head.

  "Listen, I know this is nonsensical, but I'm telling you... Vasix is the current 'White Curse's Child'. They're all absolutely insane, okay? The moment they touch anything personally, you just need to expect the absolute worst. Since Vasix hasn't been head of the shadows for that long, I had hoped that he was just more incompetent than I thought, looking at how chaotic and unplanned all of these happenings seemed, but... Now I know that's not the case. Really, Ryan, you need to be careful. If you notice anything weird at all, no matter how small it is, tell me immediately."

  Ryan slowly nodded, "Right... Right, of course. I will."

  "Good. Sorry, I need to go already. I couldn't take the risk of calling you," Runar said, taking a deep breath as he rushed back to the front door. But before he stepped out, he turned back around one more time, "Oh, and... you didn't happen to have heard anything from Anders, right?"

  It was the dead of the night. Ryan was in his bedroom after failing to fall asleep despite the shock from Runar's explanation earlier. Silvia was presumably asleep, and Fae was here tonight as well. Meanwhile, Modak hadn't come home; he was with Yanna tonight. Apparently, something happened at work today and he needed a bit of time.

  And Ryan was just sitting at the edge of his bed, staring at the wall on the opposite side of the room. The spirits were doing their own thing in their domains, so he was just focusing on them here and there. Things were getting harder and more complicated to deal with. Seriously, what was going on right now? It was all so confusing and woven together in a way that he had no shot of understanding right now. That didn't change the fact that he was kept up by all of this. It was almost breaking his head in half.

  But as he sat there, Ryan heard something. The elevator was moving down.

  "Hm?" he immediately jumped up and walked up to the elevator's entrance in his room, using his 'coin' that acted as a key to reveal the elevator's button to call it up here.

  It took a while, since the elevator moved all the way down and back up, but soon it opened and Ryan quickly stepped inside, holding the horn of shapeless water just in case. Did Modak come home? Did Silvia go down there? Whichever the case, it was weird that the elevator just started up. Worst-case, someone broke in. If Vasix Blanchard was such a threat, that should be easy for him... right?

  The elevator came to a halt, and Ryan quickly rushed out. He could see the door on the other side of the room, inside of the titan's skull's mouth, closing, so he quickly ran over there to follow whoever was down here.

  "Modak? Silvia? What's going on?" Ryan asked, entering the titan's garden while clutching the horn. Just in case, he already turned it into a bat.

  Ryan pushed through the thicket and overgrown path, and soon reached that small clearing in the centre of the skull. And what he saw there was... concerning.

  It was Silvia. She was waving her brush around, drawing something in front of her. She expanded the drawing bit by bit. It was a door. Just a regular, old wooden door, like you could see almost anywhere. But Ryan had a bad, bad feeling.

  He rushed forward and grabbed Silvia's shoulder. The moment he made contact with her, Silvia fell to the ground, unconscious. No... asleep. She was sleepwalking.

  Usually, when Silvia lost concentration, these drawings were supposed to disappear.

  But the door was still there.

  With this, we have reached the end of Book 3!!! Thank you so much for reading so far!

  Book 4 will begin with Chapter 182 on Wednesday!!

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