They wandered again the halls of the castle, until they got to the dinning hall. There were large wooden tables, very old craftsmanship. They were empty, except by the center one, which had a small feast served on one end. They each took a place at the table.
They were all starving at this point, but only Estela observed the wide variety of food, the other three looked at each others suspiciously. After a minute or so like this Azelia decided to speak.
“If it will make you more comfortable you can scan the food for poison, we’ll take no offense in it.”
Jacob had a scanner built in an apparatus he carried around in his wrist, the resembled a wrist watch, bit did not tell the time. He began scanning the food, while Tabitha decided to explain a bit, though she believed explanations were unnecessary. Estela looked at them back and forth confused.
“We appreciate you being so understanding. But since we are eating prior to business one can never be too careful.”
“No need to explain, it’s perfectly reasonable, specially considering your host is not dinning with you.”
“Why is that by the way?” Asked Fiona intrigued.
“Well, his habits are quite eccentric, he keeps to himself most of the time, and spends a lot of time in the forge. Mostly he prefers to avoid eating with outside people, but since he likes to be a good host, he makes sure you get a fitting meal.”
After the analysis showed the food and drinks were safe, they made a quick toast to their absent host and ate to their hearts’ content. At the end Fabrice joined them, wearing a very dark red leather overall, a black shirt and a pair of jeans.
“I take it you’re all satisfied right? So now we can talk with calm. I believe it’s always better to negotiate on a full stomach. But first let me show you around.”
He took them around the castle showing different parts of it. There were some many different ambiances, for fighting, for learning and even one for kids to play, this one full of kids. Fabrice went on to explain how his family likes to keep being secluded, so they were self taught, they had some knowledge about magic, and many fighting skills. Apparently they maintained a high level of education, and after a certain age, they could opt to remain here, go to college or even go live away. Occasionally the family adopted children, or embraced people who shared their point of view. That’s how their family has grown so large.
“This here is where we study applied technology, it is very important to me. I’m a fanatic for relics, usage of magic with technology. And here we study it. At the forge we put some of these theories to practice. In fact I was so entertained with some new toys I got today that I almost forgot you were coming.”
Estela looked at Tabitha, as if to confirm their discoveries from that afternoon, but she looked firmly at Fabrice.
“Take this for instance.” He pulled out of his pocket a bronze colored stick, with a octahedron diamond crystal at the center and two spheres at the ends. “If I energize it, it begins to hover near me and turn around it’s center.”
He demonstrated it, and by his looks he was fascinated by it.
“I’ve been playing with it for a few weeks now, trying to understand the magic principle behind it, but I can’t quite get it yet.”
Jacob on the other hand was less than impressed, and more surprised to see such thing here. “Well, have you tried attacking it with magic?”
“What? Hummm no, why?”
“Because it a Diverter, it’s a defensive item used in war to protect more distracted soldiers from being hit by basic spells.” Jacob explained calmly. “It does not work very effectively because of the cost to divert a spell in energy is often too much to pay in a large scale battle. There is also the problem of where the spell goes to after, there is little guarantee, or even none, that the spell won’t end up hitting a friend. Latter on we created the Reflector a device used redirect a spell back to it’s caster, much more useful, but much more expensive and rare.”
Fabrice stared back at Jacob, wondering for a second such marvelous inventions he might have seen, then he smiled.
“Wonderful, I wish to know more, but you are here with a purpose, other than tell me stories. So let’s go to my study where we can talk more privately and we’ll see what we can do for each other.”
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