The entrance to the ‘palace’ was exactly as Sechen remembered it, albeit with quite a few more people taking up chairs in the waiting room. Two of them looked up at Sechen for the briefest moment, dismissing her equally as quickly as they went back to whatever they’d brought to pass the time. She didn’t recognize the person behind the desk, a woman with large dark amber eyes filled with black concentric circles that ended on a tiny pupil, but the woman seemed to recognize her.

“You must be Sechen! Paui Runfree called ahead to let us know you were coming!” She said in a bubbly, high-pitched voice that Sechen knew would be exhausting to listen to for more than a few minutes. “The Emperor has two appointments before yours, but someone else asked for you when Paui called in. She’s waiting down near the Vault, just go down that hallway and follow the markings.”

The woman leaned over her desk and pointed off to Sechen’s right, her feet flipping up into the air as she stretched to get a little more reach. “Who would want to see me?” Sechen asked. “I’m not important.”

“Vault asked for you personally when she heard Paui’s voice. She seemed excited to meet you, but I couldn’t say why.” The woman looked Sechen up and down, then shrugged. “She’s already in a relationship, so it can’t be for your looks. Unless she keeps lovers like she keeps treasures, of course!”

“I’m not looking to be part of a whore-hoard, thank you very much.” Sechen said flatly, turning to take a seat. “If she really wants to see me, tell her she can come get me herself.”

“Oh, darn. You did it again, Inanda.” The woman muttered to herself. “Vault’s not gonna get you a good holiday bonus this year if you keep this up.”

“You know I’m not in charge of bonuses, right?” A woman with molten golden skin quipped as she stepped through the hallway Inanda had just pointed down. “I overheard everything, since I was just down the hall. Sechen’s here to talk?”

“Sechen’s right here.” Sechen said, gesturing to herself as she spoke. “You’re Vault? Why are you looking for me?”

“To talk? Why else would I look for you?” Vault laughed, then paused as she got a good look at Sechen. “Dad said that you were mostly skin and bones before you left, but that something was off in you. I didn’t believe him, but looking at you, I guess he must’ve been right.”

“Dad?”

“Dad, Emperor, Hoalt, whatever.” Vault said, brushing those important words away as if they were mere annoyances. “Jame wants to meet you, and I want to have a talk. Woman to woman. Follow me, but don’t say anything important until I say we're safe. SOME people can’t help but eavesdrop on every conversation. You know who you are.”

Someone cleared their throat off to Sechen’s left, a guilty crinkling of papers accompanying a creaking wooden chair. Whoever Vault was addressing apparently did know who they were.

“As long as I don’t miss my appointment with Hoalt, I don’t care how I pass the time.” Sechen shrugged. “Lead the way.”

“Welcome to the seventh-safest room in the mansion. Behind only…” Vault started, but was interrupted by an exasperated sigh from a gangly man in a thick black apron that hung off him like a tablecloth.

“She doesn’t need to know that, Vee.” Jame shook his head, pulling a pair of silver-lensed goggles down to hang around his neck. He offered Sechen a nod of acknowledgement. “I’m doctor Jame Vault, and unless Vee picked up the wrong girl, I’m assuming you’re Sechen Revelation?”

“Just Sechen will do.” Sechen said, returning Jame’s nod.

“A practitioner who values herself over her bond. Good.” Jame shuffled around Sechen, observing her with a discerning eye. “You can call me Dr. Jame. I look forward to working with you, Sechen.”

Sechen held up her hands. “Whoah, whoah. I didn’t say anything about working with you.” She pointed at Vault. “She said you just wanted to meet me.”

“She did, did she?” Jame raised one eyebrow, looking at Vault out of the corner of his eye. “Well, that makes this far simpler. Vault, undo the ocular shields for the lab. She can remember this.”

“Oh, thank the Eternals.” Vault sighed, letting out a breath she’d been holding. “Well, Sechen, welcome to the inner circle. Hopefully we don’t weird you out too much.”

A curtain of gold fell over Sechen’s eyes, muddying everything in a shimmering, sparkling film that made it impossible to differentiate Vault and Jame from the rest of the tiny room. A black fire sparked to life in the perfect center of her vision, a collection of tiny sparks that began eating away the gold and leaving behind utter darkness as it traveled outwards. As the last of the gold was devoured and Sechen was thrust into complete darkness, it suddenly disappeared. She blinked twice and rubbed her eyes, unable to believe the sprawl that stretched out in front of her.

The sterile white closet-sized room had grown to the size of Runfree’s grand entrance, a sterile white wide-open space with a mass of wheeled tables shoved off to one side as if they were an annoyance. Instead, a shimmering gold rectangle without legs took a majority of the length of the room, only a few feet of clearance near all the walls where cabinets of ingredients stood close enough that Jame had to sidle wherever he walked. It didn’t seem like anyone could get any work done here, and yet there were a good number of plants, coloured jars, and samples in tiny glass discs splayed out on the golden rectangle that seemed to be works in progress.

“How do you get any work done here?” Sechen wondered aloud, shuffling back to press herself against the wall. “There isn’t room for anything.”

“Simple.” Jame stated as he walked through the golden rectangle, the Issi unforming and reforming behind him as he went. “The emperor gave me a small space to work with, and I made the best of it. Do try not to touch any of the ingredients if you can, since I don’t know how they’ll react to your Issi.”

Sechen took a tentative step into the golden rectangle, feeling it part around her with minimal resistance. It was like stepping through a thick fog. “You aren’t worried about me destroying your ingredients?”

“He wouldn’t keep any of the rare ingredients out on the table like this.” Vault said, brushing aside a branch with little buds of glowing pink flowers. “Jame keeps all the hard-to-get stuff up there.”

Sechen followed Vault’s pointing finger upwards, her eyes settling on another golden rectangle ten feet in the air. “How do you work on that stuff up there?”

“Stairs.” Jame responded simply. “Then I make a floor while I’m standing there. It’s also where I keep all the instruments I use to create my supplements.”

“Neat. So, why’d you want to see me? I don’t think I’m all that interesting, and I know you two are way stronger than I am.” Sechen waded through the gold to better see what Jame was working on, but it seemed as if he was just washing a wooden bowl with pockets of amber crafted into it. “Maybe you thought I was Metea/Irric? She has an interest in this stuff.”

“The girl Novia’s got his sights on?” Jame looked over at Vault for confirmation.

“That’s the one.” She answered.

“Good, then my memory isn’t going. No, I’m not interested in someone who wants to be a trinketsmith or a weaponsmith. I’m far closer to a pharmasmith than I am to either of those.”

“Pharmacist.” Vault corrected with a smirk.

“I know what I said, and I know you know what I said.” Jame huffed. “My focus is on consumables, either single or multi-use for whatever reason. They can have permanent effects, or they can be something as simple as a medicine that restores a burst of a certain type of Issi. And that’s where you come in, Sechen.”

Jame placed the bowl in front of Sechen, held up a finger for her to hold her tongue, and turned to the shelves behind him. “Now where did I… ah. And then… yes, yes, finally… here we are.”

Four small gold cubes with black letters were placed in front of Sechen, along with a bottle of bright yellow liquid with swirls of vibrant oranges and reds dancing about inside of it. Jame tapped each of the cubes in turn, revealing an ingredient inside each one. A piece of coppery, curved horn that looked as if someone had sanded it halfway down in the first. An overflowing number of tiny glass orbs with inky approximations of bees hovering inside each and every one spilled out of the second, causing Vault to curse and dive for them while Jame didn’t so much as react. The third held half a box filled with red sand, shiny grey lines shimmering into being as it was exposed to the light. And the final box held two nuggets of salt, blindingly white crystals that stung Sechen’s eyes the moment they were open to the air.

“These are the ingredients for a pill that, when swallowed, fully opens a practitioner’s headspace to the world around them. It would allow someone to walk through their headspace without their mind’s interference, or show it to others so they could help with issues they might be having.” Jame tenderly caressed the edge of one of the boxes, then sighed sadly. “Or it would be. Even if it is theoretically the proper combination, and I’ve quintuple-checked the ratios and methods, I’ve never gotten it to properly function. But something about you made me want to revisit this. You have something that I think will let this work, though I don’t have any idea what it is.”

Sechen let out a breath she’d been holding. She’d thought that was going to go in a very different direction, but luckily Jame didn’t know how much trouble her headspace was still giving her.

She plucked one of the salt crystals from the box, feeling a refreshing yet harsh Issi coming off of it in waves. Like stepping into a scalding hot bath after weeks of going without. “And what, you want me to make this thing? See if that somehow makes it work?”

“Exactly. I will prepare the ingredients, and you will combine them while powering my instruments. Of course I do not expect you to do this for free; the Emperor would have my hide if I gave out an untethered favor for something so simple. Vee, can you go get what we talked about?”

Vault nodded, turning on her heel to leave. “Sure thing. I’ll be right back.”

“Thank you!” Jame called after Vault, who caught the door before it could close and shot Jame a salute. “Sechen, do you have any experience in creation?”

Sechen stepped back to give Jame space. “Nope.”

Jame was silent for a moment, fidgeting with his hands as he hovered above the ingredients.“...Would you like to learn?” Jame offered, obviously fighting with himself to get the words out.

“If it hurts you so much to offer, then no thanks.” Sechen said, waving away Jame’s offer. “I’ll just stand here and watch.”