Within the half-collapsed remains of the Mage Tower, light filtered through broken stained glass, casting fractured rainbows across cracked marble floors. Dust lingered in the stale air, saturated with the residue of failed spells and ruptured containment circles. The tower groaned faintly, as though resenting the scars it now bore.
Archmage Lorien Quavek stood at the edge of the Grand Observatory, a once-sealed dome now shattered to expose the sky. His robes, a tailored cascade of deep cerulean etched with silver runes, rippled in the wind. Beside him, his staff pulsed with the ebb of leyline energy—still alive, but quieter than before.
Despite the ruin surrounding him, Lorien remained poised, his expression one of cool detachment. As always, the world had disappointed him.
A knock echoed from the stairwell.
"Enter," he said without turning.
The footsteps that followed were measured, respectful. Magister Renn Vallor approached with a shallow bow, a scroll in his hands.
"My lord Archmage, the leyline report," Renn said.
"Proceed," Lorien replied, already weary. Reports were inelegant things—crammed with numbers, too sterile for real understanding—but he tolerated them. Barely.
Renn unrolled the parchment carefully, like one handling a volatile relic.
"After two months of recalibration, the leylines have settled. The wild fluxes following the cataclysm are gone. Interference is minimal, and standard attunement rituals are yielding expected results once more."
Lorien arched an eyebrow. "However?"
"The mage towers, my lord. Most remain unusable. Their structures are compromised. Arcane channels are misaligned—some are so damaged they cannot be salvaged."
"Of course they are," Lorien muttered, voice sharp as glass. "Centuries of channeling and containment undone in days. The gods claw at the sky and we, the stewards of order, are left in the rubble."
Renn hesitated. "That is why reconstruction has begun. Using material from the collapsed towers… processed through Liam Passart's alchemy circle."
At the sound of the name, Lorien's jaw tightened. A vein pulsed near his temple.
"Must you say it like a sacred rite?" he snapped. "I am aware of Passart's… methods."
Renn tread carefully. "His modular transmutation circle lets us recycle spell-fused stone without breaking it down. It's fast, efficient, and doesn't disrupt residual ley-attunement."
Lorien turned, his silver eyes narrowing.
"Yes, I know what it does. I also know it operates on a logic so alien it offends the laws of spellcraft. Hexadecimal vectors? Torque harmonics applied to quintessence fields? It is an abomination in script."
He paused, then added, "But it works."
"…Effective," Renn offered.
"Painfully," Lorien replied.
He turned back to the view—the city's skyline, still fractured. Through the haze, faint sparks marked Liam's mechanical constructs hauling raw material. Tower skeletons rose like ribs from a corpse, rebuilt with impossible speed.
"Passart treats the arcane like a broken toy," Lorien muttered. "He guts it, rearranges it, bends it to clockwork logic. As if wonder is something to be dismantled and optimized."
"The Council approved his integration, my lord," Renn said.
"They're desperate. We all are. Function is mistaken for wisdom. Progress worshiped over tradition." Lorien clasped his hands behind his back. "Do you know what that man told me when we last met?"
Renn shook his head.
"He said: 'Magic is inefficient. Give me an hour, and I'll build something that makes a thousand spells obsolete.'"
The archmage sneered. "Such arrogance. But gilded with results. That is Liam Passart."
A silence settled between them, punctuated only by the sound of wind moving through broken stone.
"Shall I proceed with integrating his matrices into the remaining towers?" Renn asked.
Lorien didn't answer at first. He seemed to weigh the decision, then gave a single, reluctant nod.
"Yes. But quietly. I want the Mage Order restored—not rebuilt into a machine shop."
"Understood."
As Renn bowed and took his leave, Lorien remained, staring toward the ruins. Among the debris, a glint of steel caught his eye—one of Liam's machines, trundling across the rubble like an insect with purpose.
The archmage's lip curled in quiet disdain.
"You may be useful, Liam Passart," he murmured. "But you are not one of us. And you never will be."