Magoi Magus rose from his bed and held his head with a groan. Looking over to his still sleeping wife, the wildness of how yesterday had ended stuck in her hair, he firmly decided that they had at least one glass too much. Carefully, he got out of the satin bed sheets and wobbled his way to the bathroom.

He really liked his new apartment, specifically the jacuzzi John had insisted on installing. At the time, he hadn’t been all that convinced, but Magoi was soon forced to admit that it was pretty great. Anyway, hungover as he was, he didn’t feel like jumping into that right now. Instead, he brushed the remaining red wine off his teeth, rinsed and flossed and then felt a bit better.

‘I could drink way more when I was younger,’ he lamented as he put on his clothes. The many layered butler uniform was a bit hard to handle, but one had to make certain sacrifices if they wanted to look stylish. At least the mask attached magically when he pressed it against his face.

A bit of fidgeting, to make sure the lenses that allowed him to look around unobstructed were sitting above his eyes correctly, later he went to the kitchen. While he was a terrible cook and had to wait for his wife to wake up and bless him with some of her great culinary expeditions, even he knew how to handle a microwave. He grabbed the aluminium wrapped food that he had taken out from wherever they had eaten last at yesterday and threw it in.

Wait, the aluminium wrapped food?

The High Fateweaver’s alcohol recovering thoughts were too slow to stop his hands. By the time he heard the deeply unpleasant sound of the microwave’s radiation clashing rather unfavourably with the metal and saw the sparks dancing behind the plastic window, his brain had finally caught up and he put the machine out again. Of course, the kitchen appliance didn’t immediately break from the short exposure, but Magoi still felt rather silly.

‘Don’t drink and heat up your dine,’ he made a joke to himself and then proceeded to unwrap what would become his breakfast.

Sometimes even he forgot that being a High Fateweaver did not make him exempt from silly little mistakes like that. At least he got his coffee done without further incidents, even if it was entirely too strong and he only finished half the cup before eating his breakfast.

“Knock, knock, knock, knock,” he heard the sound of someone doing exactly what they blabbered out loud against his window. Making his way to the window, he was met with Sylph. The hyperactive, one could say normal for her kind, air spirit only stopped saying ‘knock’ and doing so when she spied Magoi, at which point she switched to “Wave, wave, wave, wave, wave.”

Opening the window by turning the locking mechanism at the middle and then pulling the two four-segmented halves towards himself, Magoi let in the curious thing. “Oh hey, it’s Magoi and Magoi’s home,” the tempest elemental flew by his face and tumbled through the kitchen. “I went up and down, but all the curtains were closed, so I knocked where it wasn’t.”

“Did you try ringing the bell?” Magoi asked.

“AUDIBLE GASP! No, I didn’t, right, bells, door bells, those are things, nice, so nice, I want to ring one now, they make that ding-dong sound,” Sylph announced that but was too preoccupied with using her entirely too small body to open a drawer. After successfully wrapping her arms around the handle, she flew backwards and pulled open what was where the Magus’ household kept their cookies. Magoi closed it again, knowing that his effective superior’s air spirit wasn’t allowed too much sugar intake. “You are all very mean!” Sylph adorably puffed up her little cheeks after flying up to Magoi’s face.

“Tell you what,” Magoi mused, “I will give you a cookie next time, if you ask nicely instead of trying to rob my kitchen.”

“Okaaaaay,” Sylph promised, eagerly nodding. “By the way, did you ever think about how, if we switch the b and g in your and your wife’s names, we get Ma-boi and Ma-girl, is that weird? I think that’s kinda weird.”

“Huh,” Magoi had, in fact, never thought about that. “That is kind of weird.”

“Also, John says he could use your help,” Sylph nonchalantly dropped why she came in the first place, judging by the slightly distanced look on her face and up-turned eyes probably because John himself was talking to her. Wasting a ton of mana, she accurately mimicked his voice, “If you could tell Magoi that I have some people interested in joining his new organization here, that would be great.”

“I see, tell him I will be there momentarily,” Magoi nodded and went down his tower of a home, putting on his polished shoes before heading out.

He almost bumped into Salamander on the way out. “Shit, fuck,” the fire spirit cursed, being minorly surprised, her hand flying back from the doorbell. “So the airhead managed to contact you after all?”

“Shouldn’t you be able to feel that?” Magoi asked with a confused blink; they were mentally connected after all.

“If you think I spent more time hooked up to Sylph’s thoughts than necessary, you are fuckily mistaken,” Salamander pointed out. That was fair enough, as far as Magoi was concerned. He had always had the patience to deal with the whimsical daughters of wind and their mother but he knew he was in the minority with that. Having met all but the mother of earth personally in his long life, he could say that the elemental kind he liked the least was water.

Although Undine was a nice girl and, aside from that giant misstep Magoi had heard from John about, not at all someone the High Fateweaver had any ill feelings towards.

“Anyway,” Salamander gestured and the black plates that naturally covered her arms and shoulders rattled in response, “if you know already that you have been asked for, I am off.” She floated off the ground, her similarly plated legs exuding a grey fire as she flew away.

‘An endflame elemental,’ Magoi shook his head at the oddity that was the one and only thing in the world that had fire that could reliably burn away Lorylim infestations. Normal fire just worked often enough to be the go-to measure, but it was far from a curative method.

John Newman seemed to have just enough luck to keep him alive in combination with his genius. Honestly, it was entertaining to see the man rise to power with good morals. Magoi found working under the Gamer to be a nice last service of his life, so much of it sacrificed to fighting tyranny and terror. Seeing such a meteoric ascent to a great power was truly great to behold.

‘I live in good times,’ Magoi thought, humming behind his mask and swinging his cane around his hand like he was the lead in a musical. Under the shadow of Lady Liberty, he made his way to one of the many staircases that led downwards, most of which had been newly installed as Magoi didn’t exactly like having to take the scenic tourist route whenever he wanted to go somewhere.

He passed three lampposts and Beatrice, who was only different from them in that she was shorter but she stood just as still. They said nothing to each other, the passive maid just bowing to him and then leading the way. It was obvious she had been sent as a guide.

Why Sylph or Salamander weren’t doing it was a mystery to Magoi, but he appreciated the silent, if somewhat cold, efficiency of Beatrice. Like probably everyone else, he liked Aclysia more for her warm persona and incredibly courteous nature, but Beatrice worked less like a person and more like a machine that was running down a program. Except for the times she was given a command in which she could sprinkle in a load of sarcasm.

Anyhow, they both had their advantages, but generally dealing with Aclysia was more pleasant. Magoi just knew his way better around women that were housewives at heart. “Waddup, Magoi.” Which was exactly why he never quite knew how to handle the pink-haired girl that greeted him all of a sudden. “Ya sober?”

“Sober enough,” Magoi answered; he simply played the part of the wise, somewhat grumpy old man. “Albeit I really should stay away from the wine and switch to the bourbon.”

“Both way too fancy, how about vodka?” Rave suggested.

Magoi remembered the scar on his back that had been disinfected with that particular alcohol. Desperate measures were taken when the healer got shot in the head with an icicle the size of a fist. “Kazakhstan trauma,” he simply stated.

“Oh, wow, something really bad?”

“Just a border skirmish between the Whites and the Last Timurs,” Magoi informed her. The former was the previous Russia-centric organization and the Last Timurs… well, if they were still around, Magoi hadn’t heard of them recently. He doubted it, the middle-east was a steady cesspool of regime changes since the fall of Babylon and even before then. The Great Sultanate seemed to be just about the only force that managed to hold on to its power.

Not that Magoi had any love for the region, the climate wasn’t to his liking whatsoever. He preferred areas with a good amount of rainfall and a temperate climate. Which was why he had made the south of New Zealand his home for a long time; it was either there, Britain or Japan he liked to spend his life. The US had proven to be quite nice as well so far, although he hadn’t been here for a full summer yet. Personally, he was more of an autumn guy.

“Man, ya gotta have a whole slew of stories,” the Lightbearer yawned cattishly and danced off to the side again. “Anyhow, was just looking for some small talk, ya have fun with those new recruits and stuff. I’ll be training.”

Magoi found her to be training quite often and he approved. Although this assortment of elites around John Newman was outstanding, he would need a lot more if he wanted to play with the two emperors of the old world. ‘Although I hear old Shi has been keeping to the Forbidden City lately,’ he thought. ‘Times of change indeed. If they crown an empress, what are the odds that John sticks his dick in her?’

If given the opportunity, the High Fateweaver guessed about an absolute likelihood that John would do it if she was even remotely attractive. Albeit, that was a large if. “Beatrice, how many recruits are we talking about anyway?”

“Depends,” came the abruptly ending answer. Her speaking was as choppy as always. “What measurement are we using? Potential recruits: 46. Promising recruits: 32. Recruits with previous Faterweaver experience: 5.”

“I see,” Magoi scratched his head; if at least one of those five was skilled at teaching, that would be good. “Well, let’s hope we can train them up for the big project in a moderate amount of time.”