Sworded Affair

Crystal cut a distinctive figure, wearing a dress that lived up to her name: ten thousand fractals that somehow maintained both cohesion and by extension her modesty, even as they constantly moved, rearranging themselves into kaleidoscopic patterns of blue and white with each passing second. It was sufficiently distracting to overshadow all else, such that Emma had already landed next to her, before realising she hadn't a clue how first introductions were meant to go. She'd met other practitioners, yes, but mostly within the context of a familial relationship, or else during a period of crisis where other matters could take precedence. That said, even in her ignorance, Emma was pretty sure Crystal wasn't supposed to ignore her entirely in favour of staring at her hand, or rather the ring it wore.

"Eden's Echo. A good name, one that honours past glories without being wholly bound to them. A worthwhile purchase, though I admit to some bias in that field."

"Thank you?" Emma managed to respond, trailing off at the end to make the question obvious.

"Pleasure doing business," Crystal grinned, taking Emma's hand and shaking enthusiastically, with enough force that Emma half-expected her arm to fly off at the elbow.

"Truth be told, if you'd mentioned who you were, I'd have given it to you for free," Crystal added slyly, after releasing Emma's hand. "Just having you here, wearing my creation would be more than enough payment."

"I'll keep that in mind for the future," Emma demurred, though she didn't see herself needing a replacement any time soon.

"Oh, forgive me, you must be confused!" Crystal gasped. "This is your first time here, right? I know it's a bit early, but let me give you the grand tour! At least then, you'll know where everything is, once it's all set up for the big show."

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Somehow, Emma found herself being dragged along for the ride, striding past rows of tents somewhere between a walk and a run, heading inexorably towards Stonehenge itself. For someone with the highest level Emma had seen, besides the founders, Crystal was surprisingly approachable and very energetic.

So, uh, any quick notes on her? Emma thought, as she struggled to keep up.

[Crystal is an old hand, just shy of her eighth century now, by my reckoning. Born to a family that served one of the Masters of the era, she demonstrated signs of magic at a young age, with a particular talent towards crafting. Now keep in mind, back in those days, artefacts such as portable storage items were rare and exclusive pieces, crafted by artisans working meticulously over weeks or months, commissioned by the rich and powerful. The idea of just walking into a shop and buying one, even with a few added steps like in the Emporium, was essentially unheard of. There were workarounds, such as the internal inventory the System offers, the Paradox school of magic, or the qi-based alternative available to Nascent Soul cultivators and higher, but they were equally rare. Almost all practitioners and even most magi still relied on mundane forms of storage, in that era.

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Now, Crystal was earmarked as an apprentice to one such artisan, but their arrangement fell apart mere months after it began, the victim of an inter-family feud that erupted and scuttled their working relationship. Rather than give up and look for another career, Crystal persisted. She went into virtual seclusion for decades, shunning all contact to focus on honing her craft.

Using the basics that she had been taught and her own diligent mind, she dissected and rebuilt the art from first principles, to create an entirely new framework for spacetime manipulation. This new system was modular, highly flexible and easily deployed, superior in every way to what came before it.

When Crystal first demonstrated her creation in public, quite a few of those same artisans rioted, going after her to demand she hand over the secrets of its creation. That's when they learned that unlike their inferior paradigm, this new variant of spatial magic could freely store parts of people, without needing to keep said parts attached to the greater whole.

Many severed heads later, Crystal received an Order of the Empire, Third Class for services to magical research, and has gone from strength to strength ever since.]

Impressive, Emma admitted begrudgingly, as Stonehenge neared. Not the backstory I was expecting, from someone who acts and dresses as she does.

[You'll find that most Masters are similar, in that they act however they want, unbothered by trivial matters like decorum. What's the point, really, when they've seen a thousand years of fashion rise and fall, and when decades can pass during a single closed door experiment at their workshop? I'm one of the few to actually stay in touch with current trends, thanks to my ownership of the System. With some of my oldest colleagues, you'll be lucky if they speak English, given that Norman French was still in vogue, the last time they actively participated in high society.]

That's, uh… Emma wasn't quite sure how to reply to that. I guess it's a good thing I have a trait for built-in translation?

"Here we are!" Crystal's voice pulled Emma out of her internal reverie, to see that they'd made it within the bounds of Stonehenge itself while she was distracted.

Quite contrary to the feeling of doom Emma had gotten when approaching from the sky, the inside of the monument appeared entirely ordinary, just a number of large stones scattered vaguely in the shape of a circle. The grass was soft and green, and a faint layer of mould crept up near the bottom of some of the stones: far less than would be expected given their age, which pointed towards regular cleaning being undertaken.

"So, this is the stage," Crystal emphasised, tapping her heel twice against the ground. "Once the opening ceremony starts, the floor turns into a raised platform for the presenters, high enough in the air to be seen from every tent. More importantly though, that's when the overlay turns out. In previous years, this was a way to keep us separate from regular old tourists, in a separate dimension close enough to still be Stonehenge, but which only the magical can perceive. It's probably overkill for this year, though the organisers will still do it, being stickler for tradition and all."

"How do we know if we're in the filter?"

"Oh, the sky will tell you," Crystal chirped, making Emma stare at her. "No, really! See, right now it's normal and blue, but if I pull on the edge of space just right."

Emma' stomach lurched.