William had decided he couldn't continue his training without proper knowledge of what he was dealing with, Loke and the other mages in the EA couldn't aid him as his type of magic was, to say the least, different.

William:"I've asked every mage in the group while Arryn had her assistants look up things in the royal archive for me...Nothing, the only thing close was the name of the only other manamancer that has ever been recorded. Krat Velga."

Loke:"That is indeed him, I've heard he had Elf blood along with his drakeling and demon origins. There are many other rumours about his parental origins but those were the main three recorded at the Great Archive in Rosevalt. You have some more free time before we must head for WillowHeart, why not pass by Rosevalt? The Great Archive has in it stored all the collective information the Magi Alliance has recorded along with other information the other alliances sold us over the decades. Also I have special permission to most sectors of it, you can use that to your advantage."

William's eyes shine for a moment, he takes Loke's shoulder:"Well what are we waiting for! You could have told me that before hand!" he says in a cheery mood.

They were strolling through the streets of DarkGlade, it was only noon and William had made up his mind to go to this Great Archive. He called up a meeting with the mercenary platoon leaders, it took them two hours to drop their work and assemble.

Kurt:"Well boss? What do you need us for now?" He grumbles and growls in his humanoid form "Do you need EVERY single mage, summoner, spiritualist and runecrafter assembled again? If you do, I hope your pockets are deep because I'm dealing with the blasted dwarves and their market right now."

William:"Nothing of the sort, I simply wish us to make agreements on an escort for me and Loke. We are heading for Rosevalt to give a visit to the Great Archive to further my research."

Seyl:"How many do you think you'll need?"

Jax:"Two hundred? Three?"

William:"A hundred will be enough, I want this to be quick so we have time to organise the larger escort to WillowHeart."

Kurt:"A show of force you said? I still agree with your words but is one fourth of our forces seriously a good idea?That is a lot more men mobilising than we are used to."

William:"Two thousand will be a deterrent for any bandit groups from attack our caravans and will also show the alliances we are not afraid of moving numbers. As far as I've collected each race holds military power of around ten thousand militia at their citadel, population wise each race is in the billions. A couple thousand mercenaries won't bother the populace but will be noticed by their councils."

Karl grunts:"Force too small, bigger numbers better? I not here last talk."

William:"If we move with too great a force we'll leave this fort undefended and also gain too much attention by the populace."

Kurt:"We'll get things worked on our side, Jax will prepare the first hundred or so escort for Rosevalt."

William:"How long will it take? I wish to leave as soon as possible."

Jax:"The bastards are always ready to move, I'll call up the squad leaders and send them your way once their done preparing the gryphons, should take them only an hour or so."

William:"Very well, also Kurt. I need your condensing magic, I have some armour I wish bound to an amulet. Can it be done?"

Kurt:"Hah! I can condense a mountain if you want!"

Seyl sighs:"Remember the hydra?..."

Kurt looks like he's about to puke:"Never mind...Show me the armour."

They all leave to prepare, Seyl and Karl start forming the main escort for WillowHeart but contacting their best squads while Jax sets up the smaller escort to Rosevalt with the gryphons. Kurt uses his magic to condense William's armour into an amulet Loke gave him for storage.

Kurt:"I'm still impressed you were able to make this, runic armour is rare and takes a lot of mages along with blacksmiths to forge."

Erza:"My master can do anything if he wishes for it."

Kurt:"Pfft! I wonder how much mana he used up." he grins.

Erza:"Same amount he used to set that earthen trap back then for you."

Kurt growls:"You wanna fight bitch!?"

Erza snarls, black smoke steaming out of her mouth:"Bring it guard dog."

Loke:"By the gods, stop before you two bring the whole fort down on our heads!"

William just sits on a chair holding his stomach, laughing. Erza stops to stare at him.

William notices her doing this:"What?" he asks in confusion.

Erza:"Nothing, just never seen that face on you before." she smiles.

*Kurt still grumbling in the background* Loke tries to calm him down.

Kurt:"Stop ignoring me you...." Loke put a mute spell on him.

After finishing up, Jax informs William that the escort is ready. Being only about a hundred men and women the escort will fly by gryphon to Rosevalt and setup camp inside at the main Inn. The journey takes four hours and is eventless, except for William marvelling at how horrible a sense of direction his own gryphon had. They land at the edge of the city, the islands floating up above gracefully.

Loke:"I've informed Keil of our arrival. He'll be waiting at the main scholar island."

William nods:"Squad leaders, go turn in at the Inn. I'll leave the gryphons to be taken to the roost to you also." a couple nods come from the group.

William and Loke walk over to a warp crystal, Loke starts to speak the incantation for their select destination. After warping in, William takes in the scene. A large marble structure stands on this island, he was told it is an open school for magic users with one of the largest library like buildings in this world. Keil is waiting for them with his usual guard escort.

Keil:"Loke! Back so soon my friend?" they shake hands

Loke:"No scholar can be kept away from this place" he jokes.

Keil:"Indeed so!...My...William what has happened to you?" Keil takes in William's appearance, his white hair and his differently colour eyes.

Loke:"After his awakening, it seems his body went through a slight mutation due to the surge of mana. I do not know the cause for his hair but his eyes seem to each hold control over certain seals he subconsciously set for himself"

William looks at Loke, a tad confused:"I did?"

Loke:"Have you never noticed?Your purple eye seems to flare when you use your arcane magic or elemental magic while your grey eye does so when you use mana to enhance your body."

William pouts:"Well that's...A dead giveaway..."

Loke:"It only shows activate of mana flow, not much for you to worry about."

Keil:"Interesting, I wonder if this also happens to other humans...Anyhow I've informed the keepers, they've kept a operator open at the Archive for you to use William."

William:"Operator...They're the machines used to "search" for the information correct? But what are these keepers?"

They start to walk towards the left entrance, The Archive.

Loke:"The keepers are the guardians of the Archive, they watch over and interpret the information into multiple languages and search for inconsistencies."

William:(The internet could use some of those...) "Well here we are, do we just go in or knock?"

Loke "It is a public space, we can just stroll in."

They push open the door and walk in, William feels slight nostalgia as he takes everything in. The hall they reside in is very large in height but much more in length. It is a long hall with lines and lines of what look like computers with many different races operating them while others in uniform robes walk about watching or stand at attention at what looks to be a reception. On each side the wall is a screen with lists of words slowly scrolling down.

William:"This is...Beautiful.."

Loke:"Haha! Indeed it is my boy. The machines in the middle are operators, they utilise crystals embedded with illusion magic and runes, the ones on the walls show additions and changes being done by the keepers, each list is a different section. Here let us ask the keepers for your assigned operator."

They walk over to the reception where William is asked to hover his hand on a crystal, his identity confirmed a keeper walks him and Loke to one of the crystal operators. The "machine" is a flat blue crystal screen with runic inscriptions on the back and smooth plain surface on the front. On the table three more square ones sit next to each other looking like some sort of keyboard.

Keeper:"Would you wish for an explanation on use?" she asks William who is curiously eyeing the operator.

Loke:"It is alright, I know how"

The keeper takes a bow and leaves, Loke and William take seats in front of the operator.

Loke:"The crystal up top is what you consider a monitor" he starts to explain "The left crystal on the table is to enter characters, the middle is to set objects for scanning and the right one is to set the configurations of the operator. Here let me set those to Elven so you can understand."

William:"I don't speak Elven?..."

Loke looks at William:"You are doing so right now William..."

They both stare at each other for a couple seconds...

William:"Aliens...I mean..Gods...language differences..." he sighs and slightly shivers at the thought.

Loke:"I understand...The Gods must have settled that their own way...Well no matter, you can speak and understand Elven now... and as I've seen many of the other languages from when you spoke to Joltax and Kateera. Must mean you can speak them all without actually knowing them?"

William:"To me you're all speaking english...my main language..."

Loke ponders on that for a couple seconds:"What ever the matter, you should be able to read this." The crystals flash and William is able to read the english characters on the monitor."Simply use your hands to select a category on the monitor then insert the characters using the left crystal to make words to search the archive for what ever you are looking for."

William nods:"I understand, I guess firstly let's see if their is anything on manamancers." He enters the word and a list of three entries appears on the monitor."Not much here...Krat Velga records...simple information on him...inconclusive manamancer study..Nothing I don't already know...wait.." he opens the Krat Velga records again and stays stuck on a certain sentence. He quickly goes back to the manamancer study and starts to enter another character to search.

Loke:"What is it? Why are you searching for Void?"

William:"Krat Velga was a soldier in the Void wars, he was one of the many that died on the other side."

Loke:"That is interesting but why does that have anything to do with your magic?"

William:"It was written that he wasn't recruited by the army but he himself begged to join."

Loke:"He must have been curious about the Void, he wasn't said to be the studious type tho."

William:"He was searching for something....." He scrolls through the thousands of entries about the void."Is there any way to limit the search for Void that have his name in it?"

Loke:"Yes..." He messes with the configurations and enters a search, a single entry pops up."It's just an unofficial study on the Void...By Varge Lakt. Hmm, Lakt is a demon house..."

William reads through the record:"This...It's a hand written journal of someone who was on the other side!..Wait...Varge Lakt...Loke! Arrange the name!" he quickly turns at Loke who seems to still be pondering on the house name.

Loke:"Arrange?"

William:"It is common practise when hiding something to arrange the keyword into something else, in this case he used his own name! Varge Lakt, using the same characters with the same amount you can spell out Krat Velga! Krat Velga is a fake name he made for himself to join the invasion! His fake name was used to record his origins and nobody noticed! His real name Varge Lakt was never connected to the manamancer who revealed his powers around the time of the Void wars! It's all hear! His study on his powers.. Dammit its minimal!"

Loke:"Indeed..all these puzzles for barely any information...What was he hiding?"

William:"This journal is written all around what he saw in the Void, there is barely anything at all about manamancy except for the occasional "mana surge" he mentions...I know what he means...I feel it too, "uncontrollable shivers", "Large mana signatures". I sometimes too get those together but they disappear quickly, he mentions they are constant while he was in the Void."

Loke:"When have you felt these?"

William:"Mostly while we were at DarkGlade, I felt it once both here at Rosevalt and once at Heaven's Gaze."

Loke:"Check the last entry."

William moves the screen to the last entry on the journal."Journal recovered from Void beast...This is not one of his entries, some one recovered the actual journal from a Void beast..."

Loke:"Probably the one that devoured him..."

William starts reading backwards."Here! this is his last entry." He reads from the top;

Entry 152: Void forward invasion,Year 5, Month 1, Day 49.

The usual scout party, being only a squire I was commanded to follow the party and record anything out of the ordinary.

The squad leader is going over the usual route on the map they draw up of the landscape.

I've been here for only a month and I can already feel it, this sensation, it grows worse by the day.

The earth started to shake, Void creatures swarming by the millions in the sky and on the ground.

We are surrounded, the squad leader and half the group got killed while we made a break for a cavern. The void creatures haven't noticed me and three others in this damn hole yet.

I feel it, it's like my whole body vibrating with fear. They are all dead, jake went mad and ran out of the cave. Jarl and Kess..I woke up to them being dead still.. there is no food or water here.. we had no provisions.

It's out there...I hear it...This cave...It's the den of a beast...I

William:"Eerie..."

Loke:"His last written words..."

William:"The feeling he wrote about...the swarming Void...It was the day the invasion army was pushed back out of the portals...He could feel it! Like I..."

Loke and William turn to each other, wide eyed. Putting the puzzle together.

Loke:"You don't think? With your sensory?..."

William:"Manamancers have heightened sensing of the mana around them. Varge was the same as me, if his sensation grew stronger the longer he spent in the Void and went mad as soon as the Void struck back. We can sense them, we can sense the Void."

Loke:"If that is true... then you sensed the portal at Darkglade... and a portal here and Heaven's Gaze?"

William:"Yeah...I had my suspicions but this confirms it."

Loke:"Confirms what I say?"

William:"The atlantians, The Gods. They lied."

Loke still staring blankly at William grows more confused:"About what? Why?"

William:"About my choosing, about my kind's separation from the rest. And worst of all, about their own intentions."

---

Author: The plot thickens!!