The Soup Master

Chapter 4

With a sigh born of weary relief, Malec closed and locked the door to his shop. Just after he finished turning the open sign to close, he began to slowly make his way back over to the stairwell that lead up to his private quarters.

He didn't get very far, however, before a knock on the door drew his attention. Standing outside appeared to be a couple, both of whose faces were hidden. "We're closed!" He called, not wanting to open the door, despite his usual interests in trying to help anyone he could. "I'm sorry, but you will have to come back tomorrow!"

"Oh, please sir! Spare us one moment of your time! We won't be long." A female voice replied. Somewhere at the back of his skully, Malec could swear he recognized that voice. However, he was too tired to care at this point, and ignored his intuition. This would go on to be one of many mistakes he would make in the next few days.

"As much as I hate refusing a customer, I'm afraid that we are still closed! Come back tomorrow, when we are open again!" Malec called back, turning back for the stairwell.

He didn't make it very far, before a loud rumbling sound filled his ears. At first, he thought it might be a passing car, as those things were often very loud. And maybe, it was the cleaning crew for the apartment next door. One of the inhabitants had a rather irritating, bustling, and incessant cleaning crew that came by every few days. However, the sound didn't stop, and turning to face the front of his shop, he was shocked at what he saw.

From the main door to the windows on either side, the entire shop was trembling. It was like it was being blasted by so many loud instruments, playing simultaneously. Furthermore, the windows and door seemed to duplicate, each one bending inward and rotating towards the side wall as they moved. As each of these duplicates moved, the main doors and windows seemed to separate further and further from each other, before the front of the building simply exploded. Splintering the glass of the main door in half, the walls curved inward toward the shop, bending so that that each side on either half of the door curled into the room towards the side that they were adjacent to.

Throughout this entire thing, Malec was thrown off of his feet, and into the main wall that separated the shop from the kitchen. He watched in horror as the two figures stepped through the now massive opening. Looking up and down the street, he felt relief that no one had seen them, as he hadn't recently had the chance to work on his memory spells. And, again, he was wrong in that respect as well. However, the pair of eyes that had seen all of this were a friendly pair, which would make themselves known shortly thereafter.

"Now, Malec, is that anyway to greet family?" the first of the two figures stepped through the now gaping wall of the shop. "Do you mean to tell me that all the times we have spent together mean virtually nothing to you?" Her comrade had been silent this entire time, and that silence seemed to speak wonders for who he might have been.

"At this rate, I can't tell who you are, so I have to wonder if that statement really applies." Malec replied slowly, trying to get a handle on his options. "Considering that you have just destroyed part of my shop, and potentially revealed magic to the world, I would have to say that yes it is the way I would greet you."

"Oh, allow me to fix at least one of those two things. I daresay that the other is of no consequence to you." The woman replied. Holding out her hand, the strangest thing happened. What almost looked like several small ice crystals, or fragments of ice crystals, formed out of thin air. They came together to form a long, slender rod, with a slight bubble at the tip. A small flicker of energy seemed to trace its way up from the base of this tool to the crystal at the top, and everywhere it touched turned to metal. It had a rather unusual design overall. There was an indent that wrapped around the rode from the base to the tip, giving it the impression that it was both uniform, but not. At the tip, a crystal materialized, and began to glow. The wand itself was familiar, but how, Malec wasn't quite sure. The element behind it seemed to ring a bell as well.