Raistlin and Ykka talk in a garden at night in the style of Art Nouveau, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

  Interlude A

  The township of Mu

  Year 5612 of the Confluence

  “Hey. I’m Ykka.”

  “Hi. Raistlin.” He extended his fist for a bump.

  She reciprocated. “Have you worked here a long time?”

  “A few years, yeah. It’s alright.”

  “Seems good, yeah. I just started last week. I’m a Conjoiner.”

  “Ah, management?” There was a hint of unintended distaste in his voice.

  She smiled disarmingly. “Maybe one day. For the moment I am just facilitating cooperation for a small team over at B6. Nothing fancy.”

  “You like it? I’m a Conjurer, working in energy production. B10.”

  “Many friendly people here. It’s a good community. You know, I’m throwing a little get-together this weekend, just to get to know people better. I’ll invite my team, obviously, and maybe a few neighbors and other people I bump into. Wanna come?”

  Raistlin had no plans and there was a considerable risk that he would end up just staying at home playing games and watching something on the ether. His mind tried to make up a sarcastic joke saying, sure, what I really need is to get a manager into my life to put things in order, but it wasn’t working. Anyway, the girl was cute. “Sure, why not.”

  “One of my neighbors is an Invoker, so I promise it will be fun. See you then!” She sent him her contact details and a semi-formal invitation.

  ---

  Raistlin pinged her as he walked through the front door. She came over, a smile all over her face.

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  “You showed up! Welcome!”

  “Thanks!”

  “Just leave your shoes on. You can hang your jacket over there if you like.”

  Raistlin was wearing his favorite jacket, made from an alloy called liquid metal that was comfortable but super-durable; it was all black and had the logo of his favorite ska punk band, Operation Ivy, on the back. Dressed to impress, but it was too warm here to wear it indoors.

  Ykka introduced him to some of her other guests – he knew some of the guys from B6 and hung back with them for a while. After some chitchat, he asked them what their first impressions of their new team leader were; the general consensus was that she was alright so far, not the sort of prick that management types can be sometimes. “Especially if it’s a woman!” one of them exclaimed, and when everybody laughed Raistlin laughed too.

  Before long, Ykka asked them all to gather in her living room, where Grigorij, her Invoker neighbor, informed them about tonight’s entertainment. For those who wished to partake, he would be offering a mix of Perk and Rizz for the early evening and then change to Mellow and Bloom at some later point.

  Raistlin had tried all of those before, but never in those combinations, so that was exciting. He wondered, lewdly, what Ykka had promised this extremely bearded neighbor of hers in return for him going out of his way to please her guests.

  Enhancements were great fun and Raistlin never declined an invitation to partake. Not everybody shared either his enthusiasm or his indifference to allowing a stranger to affect his mood, and a few people excused themselves because they needed to get back to their kids or familiars soon. Most of the guests seemed ready for a proper party, though.

  The Perk/Rizz combo was amazing. Raistlin was full of energy, enthusiasm, and confidence, and everybody he talked to just seemed so interesting, like they were these amazing people he loved getting acquainted with. Even better, they clearly felt the same way about him.

  Ykka escorted him out into her back yard for some fresh air, conversation flowing freely between them. He asked her what music she liked, and thought it was fun that she was so old-school; the bands she mentioned were great, but her favorites dated back at least a millennium and she didn’t really know much about the contemporary scene.

  She had a good grasp of the classics, though, including a range of deep cuts that Raistlin himself had never really gotten around to investigating. Definitely a cool girl, a bit weird maybe but he didn’t mind. She seemed mature, confident, and composed; he thought she was maybe two or three years older than him.

  When Grigorij switched to Mellow/Bloom, Ykka played some of her old favorites and Raistlin thought she had really good taste – she turned tracks like Morning Girl by Degiheugi, Jazzy Hop by FaFko, and Frustration by Flemme, tracks Raistlin had never heard before but found himself instantly enjoying and adding to his ether playlists.

  Without the enhancements he would probably have felt a bit out of his depth – he didn’t meet people like this very often – but here and now he was able to relax from all that and sink into the conversation like it was the most natural thing for him.

  He found himself talking to her on several different occasions, and then when it was getting late and most people had left, the two of them had a long final talk sitting on a bench in her backyard.

  She asked him if he had ever imagined being something other than a Conjurer, and he confessed his fascination for Invocation magics, which he knew only from parties, and then, in order not to seem like a superficial dolt, he added a few things about Divination, imagining all the exciting adventures that might involve.

  He tried to say something polite about Conjunction, too, although he really did not know too much about it. For her part, she thought Conjuration seemed pretty cool – “no, really!” she protested, laughing heartily, when he said she was just trying to be nice to him, “you guys can do lots of cool stuff, like energy shields and fireballs and lightning bolts! You really make things go boom. Kinda dangerous to be around, actually,” she finished with a flirty dark look, which gave him enough confidence to ask her if she wanted to see him again sometime.