Olz Hap in the style of German Expressionism, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

  Chapter 4: Quartidi

  Mikla metropolitan area

  Year 5638 of the Confluence

  Countdown: 19

  Olz Hap

  The Diviners at the Foresight Statistics Office today reported an overall drop in overall productivity of 34%, with exhaustion cases further quadrupling since the previous report three days ago.

  Briefings with the Excession Investigator went nowhere. As before, he emphasized the need for a careful and measured approach that did not reveal information about our capabilities – what capabilities, Olz had wanted to ask – to the enemy forces presumed to have instigated the Energy Blight.

  Being ineffectual and not getting anywhere made Olz feel depressed. She wished Corto was here, but they had agreed to be careful at work.

  Luckily, she at least did not have to face her dark moods unassisted. Her favorite engram for bad moods was called Perk, which made her feel energized, talkative, and happy, but that seemed too restless for a situation where there wasn’t really anything she could do.

  Instead, she chose Mellow, which was an engram that made her feel relaxed and dreamy – not normally something she would cast during work hours, but then she could always cancel it and Perk up instead.

  In her 20s, Olz had joined a group that wanted to build a little village for themselves far out in the wilderness. At the time it was the height of fashion, and she found the idea of living far away from everything very romantic.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  To get such a thing working without actually dropping out from society, the group needed at least one Conveyer, who would have the responsibility of transporting everybody to the nearest Conveyer node, from where they could get to wherever they wanted. Olz’s group had two such people, and one of them was Corto.

  All such groups also needed at least one Transmuter to build the dwellings in the first place and a Conjurer for raw energy and foodstuff, which the Transmuter in turn prepared for them.

  Having an Invoker around was not strictly necessary, but Olz’ enhancements greatly improved everybody’s quality of life. Invoks were usually fun people to hang out with, as long as they did not turn on you.

  She was the life and soul of the party, and she never turned on anyone. They had found an isolated valley high up in the mountainous Sky region, and their Transmuters dug an opening deep into the cliff side and transformed it into very stylish and comfortable apartments. They had a communal dining area in a glass-covered box protruding from the cliff, looking down and out over an icy lake nested between mountain peaks. It was glorious.

  She was happy there. In the beginning she was with one of the Transmuters – a guy called Sentenus Po – but then she started getting interested in Corto, and after that one of the Conjurers.

  Olz was straightforward with everyone and there were no (obvious) hard feelings, so she did not think that her serial monogamy was the reason some of the people eventually soured on each other. But for whatever reason the other Conveyer left, and after a while people felt uncomfortable with just having Corto around – if something happened to him, they would be isolated deep in the wilderness.

  Olz suggested trying to recruit a new Conveyer, but to some of the others that seemed like too much of a gamble. Eventually everybody went back to Mikla or some other city to pursue their careers and whatnot.

  But for a few years that mountain retreat of theirs was paradise. Olz never felt that her relations at work suffered much from being unavailable after work – every day she had to be at a certain Conveyer node at a certain time in order to get home – and always wanted to go back to her retreat. As a politician this would not do, however, and of course the High Magus needed to live in the High Magus Residence, so that was that.

  She and Corto sometimes went back there for a visit, though. The place was abandoned but intact, as beautiful as always but freezing cold now that no one was maintaining heat levels.

  Maybe when she retired, she would team up with a Conjurer and a Transmuter and Corto and go back there on a more lasting basis.

  ---

  Thinking about Corto all day made Olz impatient for their date that evening, which they had managed to agree upon more than a week ago.

  (To make time for it, Olz had to cancel an open meeting with the Association for Childcare Professionals, which were people from all fields of magic – except Abjuration – who in some capacity worked primarily with children; Corto had to cancel an evening with his extended family.)

  They had a very fine dinner prepared by her personal staff and reminisced about the olden days – she Mellowed them both – and then later in the evening she added a good mix of Perk, Rizz, Bliss, and Bloom and fucked his brains out.