The Simulacrum

Book 3 Extra 4: Like, reports of my death have been totally exaggerated.

It was a quiet, unassuming morning inside the study of one Amadeus Endymonion, at least as far as the clock on the wall could be believed; peeking out through a window to check whether the sun was up would've been a little tricky after all. The Arch-mage of the island was currently hunched over his work, his wrinkled robe hastily strewn over his usual suit, and his white hair in bewildering disarray. In front of him the heavy mahogany desk, covered under an eclectic collection of dossiers, artifacts, office supplies, and empty liqueur bottles, was closer to a shrine to pure chaos than any workplace had the right to be. Nyarlathotep would've most certainly approved.

However busy the old man was though, even he couldn't ignore the chiming sound coming from the large double doors leading into the room. He tried though. Oh, how he tried, but once his nerves frayed thin (which, to be fair, didn't take long), he slammed his hand down onto a relatively bare spot on his desk, at which point the incessant ringing finally stopped, only to be replaced by the magical equivalent of static noise.

"What is it?" he asked curtly, and there was an immediate answer.

"My Lord." The disembodied voice that quietly resonated in the room sounded slightly distorted and yet distinctly dry at the same time. "You have a guest."

The old man let out a throaty noise that wasn't quite a groan and emphatically stated, "I believe I have told you that I am going to be busy with dealing with the unexpected demise of Lord Saahira, and I would accept no visitors, have I not, Pascal?"

"You have, my Lord, but the guest is looking for you precisely because of the inheritance of the late Arch-mage."

"Inheritance? The body has yet to cool, and already" His words trailed into angry growls, followed by a stern, "Tell them I will not hear about such things until the investigation into her death has concluded."

'If only they were not so stubbornly obstinate and', he tagged on in a whisper that presumably wouldn't be audible on the other side, but before he could cut the magical communications, there was a new voice chiming in.

"Hey, Endy! Endyyyy! Let me in already!"

For the following five seconds there was a deep, deafeningly loud silence in the office, followed by a tentative question.

"Pascal? Was that who I think it was?"

"Yes, my Lord," the guy on the other side answered with a hint of trepidation.

" Let her in."

"Understood."

Not a second later, the door wings parted and a brown girl quickly squeezed through the gap as if afraid that they would close up in front of her again. Her fears were naturally unfounded, and she was soon followed by the tall disciplinary committee leader, standing straight and proper like a guard by the entrance.

More importantly, when the old man's eyes finally focused on the newcomer, his brows slowly descended into an expression that said he didn't have nearly enough drinks to deal with a situation like this so early in the morning, followed by a quiet sigh of pure exasperation.

"I was under the impression that you died," Lord Endymonion noted with carefully feigned indifference while the door automatically closed behind the two.

"Just a little, but not really," the girl answered with a giggle as she made her way over to his desk. She was wearing the spare uniform she bought from one of his students. Her antics during the last two weeks naturally didn't escape the old man's notice, but at the moment it was likely the very least of his problems concerning her.

"I can see that with my own eyes," the Arch-mage noted with a sour tinge in his voice. The girl seemingly wasn't paying attention to him but looking for something, so he straightened his back and asked, in a much firmer tone, "For what reason did you fake your death?"

"I didn't fake it," Sahi answered matter-of-factly while in the process of dragging a chair from the corner over to the old man's desk. Unexpectedly enough, Pascal walked over to help, only to wordlessly return to his self-appointed guard post by the entrance once it was in front of the desk. Sahi flashed him a grin and then turned to the owner of the room again. "My old body is, like, tooootally dead. Like, 'deader than dead' dead. Like... Um, how did Leonard say it? Ah, right! It's like, its metabolic processes are totally historical!"

"Do you mean Leonard Dunning? What does he have to...?" Lord Grandpa muttered with a blank expression, but only a moment later his eyes snapped into focus as the gears began turning in his head. "So you are telling me that your old body truly died, yet you are still in front of me. I presume that means you have succeeded in your experimental procedure."

"Like, doy," Sahi answered with a toothy grin, and a moment later she took a seat and crossed her legs while maintaining the same Cheshire cat grin.

"Yet, you did not announce your success, but in its stead you are content to let everyone believe that you died. That strikes me as odd."

"To say the least," Pascal added in passing.

"Oh, I'm just, like, planning to inherit my old titles and everything from myself and start totally anew. Tabula rasa and stuff."

"Is there a reason for that? Aside from a arbitrary caprice? Or the malicious desire of increasing my workload even further?"

"Oh, please! Not the entire world revolves around you, you know? I have, like, plenty of plans, but first I wanna live a little! Like, have a cow to the max! But I guess an old badger like you wouldn't understand," Sahi told him while making some vague gestures with her hands, and the old man's brows once again descended into a frown.

"You are trying my patience, Lord Saahira."

"Come on, Endy! Don't be a wet blanket! Can't you, like, let a gal enjoy being young again for just five minutes?"

"Not when you lit the flame of another incident on my island before the embers of the last one could even burn out," the old man pointed out. "Who else knows about your persistence of mind?"

"Just my aides and my secretary. Oh, and, like, one more person, but he's secret, so I'm not telling."

"Uncooperative and annoying as always."

In response to his words, the brown girl immediately began pouting with the intensity of a thousand exploding suns, give or take a few, but it only laster for a short while, as she soon looked over her shoulder and addressed the third person in the room.

"You see? This is the reason why this geezer never got married and had to clone himself! He's a total buzzkill for sure, am I right?"

"And your attitude does not help my disposition at all," the elderly man stated, and then menacingly tapped his fingers against his desk for good measure.

The two unlikely Arch-mages stared daggers at each other for a while, right until Sahi crossed her legs the other way and spoke up in an only slightly less petulant tone.

"Listen, Endy. This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I, like, had to grab it, and whether or not my apparent death would inconvenience you wasn't my biggest concern at the time. Sorry, not sorry."

The old man continued to silently glare at the flippant girl, but whatever acidic words he originally wanted to respond with were quickly swallowed back down and he let out a tired breath instead.

"So it was an opportunity. Can I take it for granted that it was where Leonard Dunning was involved in your current... rejuvenation?"

"Weeeell... It's supposed to be, like, a secret and stuff, but it's pretty obvious, so yeah," the brown girl confirmed with a shrug, and the old man responded with another long sigh.

"Obvious indeed. That young man is akin to a whirlwind of trouble and impossibilities," he mumbled as he began sorting his bottles, and once he found one with some alcohol in its bottom, he began looking for a clean glass instead. "Did you hire him? Or maybe he just helped due to one of his strange whims? I do not even dare ask in what he did or asked in return."

"Is that so? I thought you'd be toooootally curious," the girl teased the old man with an impish smile, and he all but scoffed in response.

"I value my sanity. After poking a nest of wasps once, only an utter fool would attempt to reach into it for the third time."

"Don't you mean the second time?" Sahi pointed out, sounding as if she was just thinking aloud, but the owner of the room still sent her a withering glare for her trouble.

"I know what I said," he brusquely told her, following which he immediately downed the contents of the bottle in his left hand. "So, I presume there is a reason you came to see me beyond a simple courtesy call. What do you want?"

"Weeell you see, I told you it was a sudden opportunity, right?" The Arch-mage nodded, so she continued. "So, like, you see, I kind of rushed things a little, and while I wrote a will to give everything to myself, I kind of forgot a few things"

The old man let out another sigh and told her, "Just say it already, I do not have all day."

"Okay, so, like, I need you to vouch for my identity and support my claims. I don't think I can inherit my old Arch-mage position, so I totally need a new title in the Assembly as well. Oh, right, and I want to enroll in the school too! I never got to go to public school before, so I want to try it!"

Even after she finished making her requests, the old man's face remained locked in a state of profound skepticism.

"You remain as infuriatingly capricious as always," he finally stated in a flat voice, followed up by the question, "How are you planning to compensate for these favors?"

"Oh, I can totally share my old research with you. Like, I have no need for it anymore, right?" All of a sudden the owner of the study perked up, only to return to his previous, tired expression when the girl added, "I can only give you the blueprints for the arrays and the equipment though; I can't do anything about the transfer procedure."

"And why is that?" he asked immediately, and Sahi promptly shrugged her shoulders.

"It's because Leonard did it, and I, like, have no idea how. Ah, but even if I did, I totally couldn't tell you either. We've got a binding contract and stuff."

"You have a contract," the old man repeated after her, and she nodded right away. "With Leonard Dunning."

"Yeah. It has, like, a bazillion non-disclosure clauses," she told him like she wasn't the one who wrote them onto the paper. "Leonard reeeeeally didn't want me to tell anyone." She had an almost smug smile on her face, but it only lasted for a second, right until her eyes opened wide and she snapped her fingers. "Ah, bogus! I almost forgot about it, but Leonard told me that if you, like, act all pigheaded and lame, I should remind you of something."

The Arch-mage suddenly became guarded as he straightened his back in his seat, and a few seconds of hesitation later he tentatively asked, "What is it?"

"He said I should say the words 'liqueur cabinet'," the young ex-Arch-mage stated with an awkward smile that said she found the choice of words simultaneously baffling and a little amusing.

The active Arch-mage, on the other hand, more or less froze up like a deer in the headlights and he immediately sneaked a peek at the corner of the room. Once he saw that his cabinet was where he left it, his eyes returned to the girl in front of him and the gears in his head began spinning so hard it wouldn't have been surprising if smoke started coming out of his ears at any moment. At last, he came to some kind of conclusion, and he slowly exhaled a measured and yet audibly defeated sigh.

"I will take care of confirming the authenticity of your identity. I can give you a research assistant designation in the artificer's department and provide you with your own workshop for the time being. I will also talk with Gowan and tell him to support you and supply you with all the resources you need. If you require lodgings, I can open up a private room in the dormitories."

"I I don't need a room, no."

Sahi sounded about as unbalanced by the sudden change in the Arch-mage's attitude as expected, but the old man only nodded in acknowledgment of her words.

"Understood. I will also notify the staff of Blue Cherry High and expedite your enrollment process."

" Okay. Thanks?"

"You are welcome," the old man answered, and then glanced at the young man still standing by the doorway. "Pascal, please escort her upstairs and take her to the supply department for her books and uniforms."

"Understood."

After receiving his response, Lord Grandpa turned back to the increasingly more flabbergasted Sahi and told her, "If you require anything else, tell Pascal, and we will try to accommodate your requests."

"O-Okay"

Since the guy with the armband already walked over to her side, Sahi automatically rose to her feet, and she remained in a baffled stupor right until they were already outside in the corridor and waiting for the elevator. Once she finally shook it off, she looked up at the student standing by her side and asked, "So, like What exactly just happened?" When Pascal only gave her a questioning glance in return, she clarified by saying, "Like, Endy totally changed his tune the moment I mentioned that liqueur cabinet. Was that some kind of password or, like, a secret code or something?"

"No, it was" he began, only to bite back his words and shake his head. "It is simply a sore subject for Lord Endymonion, and I recommend you do not try to pry too deeply into it."

"Oh, okay then." After thus concluding the question, the two of them remained silent in the empty hallway for about five seconds. "Hey? Hey? Pascal?"

"What is it?" the guy responded with palpable trepidation hidden under a diligent veneer.

"I'm hungry. Let's go to the cafeteria first."

"The Lord specifically told us to go to the supply department," he pointed out in a flat voice, and in response the brown girl rolled her eyes so hard she even circled her head along.

"Oh, come on! Don't be lame! Your cute junior wants to invite you to celebrate, so as a guy, you should totally jump at the opportunity!"

"You are not my junior yet, you are not cute, and there is no reason for me to do that."

"Don't be shy," she continued to pester him by poking him in the side with her elbow. "I'll even pay for your share!"

"I am not shy, and you literally cannot pay for my share. As a member of the student council, I receive free meals at the cafeteria."

"Really? That's wicked! Then, as a senior, you should totally treat your cute junior to some cake to celebrate her enrollment instead! Like, I don't even know the last time I could properly taste a cake! I want a strawberry one! Or chocolate! Or, like both? Can I have both?"

"You are still not cute, and" Pascal began, but then Sahi directed the dreaded puppy-eyes at him, and after a long beat, he let out an exasperated groan and told her, "One slice, and then we head to the supply department."

"See, I knew you'd come around!" Sahi exclaimed with a toothy grin, and the nebulous narrative powers of convenient timing once again reared their ugly heads, as it was this precise moment that the elevator arrived and its doors slowly opened. The moment she could squeeze through, the girl hopped into the car, turned on her heels, and flashed an even wider smile at Pascal while saying, "Now we only have to work on being more honest, and one of these days you're gonna be totally tubular!"

For a moment the guy looked like he wanted to retort her, but he ultimately decided to remain silent and entered the elevator as well, all the while pointedly ignoring the snickering girl by his side as the automatic door closed on them with a hiss reminiscent of a tired sigh.