Chapter 979: Unequivocally My Thing

Both of Jason’s territories on Earth had a central tower at the heart of them. The two buildings loomed over the cities they sat within, incongruous with their surroundings. Administrative centres for the clan, they also served as portal hubs, connecting to each other and the astral spaces they contained. The upper floors of the building contained office space and other amenities required by clan leadership. The bottom half of each tower was a massive atrium with multiple mezzanine levels.

The atriums were more like hanging gardens. Plants grew everywhere, dangling from bridges crossing the open air at every level. Water features spilled from one floor to the next. The natural light was oddly unnatural, finding its way everywhere, whatever the time of day. There were no gloomy corners or places overshadowed by the bridges or upper levels. At most there was a pleasant dappling as it made its way through the bridge gardens, or the two large willow trees on the ground floor.

The bottom floor was a reception area, but hard to navigate as it was more garden than lobby. The mezzanine levels had food courts, lounges and facilities related to the testing and training of essence users. Both staff and visitors could be found roaming the atrium at any part of the day. The portals were always to be found in the atriums somewhere, but had a habit of relocating themselves without notice.

The exterior of each tower seemed unrelated to the interior. The façades were prone to undergoing massive changes, with the reason and schedule unknown. Since Jason’s return to earth, the changes had been more frequent, from every few weeks or months to every few days. What might be a Chinese pagoda one day could be a celestial tower of marble and gold the next. What remained the same was the vast and spectral presence of a blue and orange eye, shining over the tower.

Emi loved discovering each new form of the tower. She enjoyed hunting through the atriums for the portals, visiting both domains to see what shape the buildings had taken. She would often take Vincent with her, wandering through the gardens together. He liked to sketch the towers, and she had a collection of his pencil drawings in their apartment.

Since her uncle’s return, she hadn’t been able to keep up with every change. They came too fast when she was busy, whether going to Australia or preparing for Jason’s longer-term plans. On this particular day, she had been called to the Slovakia domain, so she had the chance to visit the building.

It certainly wasn’t hard to spot, rising above the rooftops of Saint-Étienne as she rode a black scooter through the streets. The current design was a stark edifice of black glass and red embellishments, like the lair of some science-fiction despot.

“Do you think Uncle Jason is angry?” Emi asked. “I have this feeling that the building changes are based on Uncle Jason’s mood. This one time, it turned into what looked suspiciously like a Japanese love hotel, which I hope it doesn’t do every time he—”

“Mr Asano is, indeed, quite angry,” the scooter said before she could continue. “He has it under control, however, which is as much as we can ask for. He is distracting himself with another task.”

“The mysterious thing you aren’t allowed to tell me about?”

“Mr Asano felt it best to let the results speak for themselves, in case of disappointment.”

The tower sat in the middle of a large market plaza. Food from the magically rich astral spaces was abundant, and mostly shipped through the portals in the tower. Food kiosks and produce stalls formed a small maze, and Emi brought the scooter to a stop. She drew gazes as the scooter exploded into a cloud of darkness the disappeared into her shadow, and she heard the usual whispers. Princess of the Asano Clan. It was a long time since she’d let it bother her.

Normally she would check out the markets before going in. The food grown in the perpetual night of the Slovakian astral space were often unusual and interesting. Today, she headed straight for the tower doors that were, on this occasion, sliding slabs of dark glass.

The interior was like a different world, some fey paradise trapped in a villain’s tower. A butterfly came down to land on her shoulder, the blue and orange of its wings vibrant but real. While reminiscent of Gordon’s doom harbinger butterflies, these were not the glowing variants Jason used to kill by the score.

She wandered over to the long reception desk, where one of the four attendants were free. Emi recognised him as Tony Asano, who was a second cousin or something. Their great grandmother had already established a genealogy office to make sure that things didn’t get awkward a couple of generations down the line.

“Tony, do you know where the Slovakia portal is right now?”

“Second mezzanine, near the tteokbokki shop. Don’t you normally like to hunt it up yourself.”

“Somewhere to be, today.”

Tony leaned forward to whisper, despite it being pointless. With essence users having such powerful senses, each section of the reception desk had privacy magic to keep people’s business private.

“Is this something to do with your uncle?” he asked. “I heard he had Nigel’s teams bringing vampires back when clearing out blood farms.”

“I don’t know,” she told him. “They didn’t tell me anything.”

“I bet something so cool is happening.”

“You know that you could have been involved in stuff like this, right? But you couldn’t get out fast enough after basic training.”

“Well, yeah, but monsters are scary. I’ll stick to guided hunts and minimal combat quotas to rank-up, thank you very much.”

“That’s… not unwise.”

“Really? I thought you combat types were all ‘essences shouldn’t be wasted on the weak,’ and such.”

“I’m not a combat type, Tony. Is the tteokbokki any good? I haven’t tried it.”

“I had the one with the ganjang sauce for lunch yesterday. It was good, but I’d recommend the gochujang, if you don’t mind it a little spicy.”

“Thanks.”

***

In a ritual room in Carlos’ research centre, Jason, Clive and Bussinger watched Carlos and Farrah painstakingly draw out a ritual diagram.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“I appreciate the assistance,” Carlos told Farrah. “With magic this delicate, it’s good to have a ritual specialist make sure the circle is drawn with as much precision as possible.”

Jason turned when he heard Emi’s voice from down the hall.

“…would I want to buy an amphora? They’re just inconvenient jugs.”

“They’re artisanal.”

“That just means they cost three times as much.”

“Rhett, she knows!”

Jason shook his head and went out to reception. The two former Order of Redeeming Light zealots at the desk turned pale.

“Uncle Jason!”

Emi moved in for a hug, wrinkling her nose as he tousled her hair.

“Uncle Jason, I’m not a little girl anymore.”

“Of course not, Moppet. Let’s go.”

“What’s this all about?”

“You’ll see.”

He threw a stern look at Rhett and Jaime, who wilted like spinach in a sauna. Once he was gone, they both let out the breaths they were holding.

“Did she say uncle?” Rhett asked.

“She did.”

Jaime looked over at the small ‘amphoras for sale’ display at the end of the counter.

“We should change the sign to say we don’t sell to Asano family members.”

“This is the Asano Clan, Jaime. That would cut out most of our market.”

“That’s why we need to get the online store up and running.”

“We still have the shipping issue.”

“I’d rather work on that problem than have Jason Asano asking us why we sold his aunt or whatever a dodgy amphora we made with an enchanted 3D printer.”

“You know he can probably still hear us, right?”

“That does not undercut my point.”

***