Monthly Short Story for January: Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School Side Story 2 An Interview With an Author (Patreon)

Hello Commissioned Pioneers! :D As promised as always, in accordance with the results of last month's poll, I present to you the Bonus Story of the Month! There were a total of four choices again, with a majority voting for Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School Side Story 2. Let's jump right to it then! I'd like to proudly present, Wearing Power Armor to a Magic School's second side story! 

An Interview with an Author

“I’m telling you boy… I’m no author, I’m just a journaler.” The old man continued to insist, practically coughing out his lungs in between every other word. His hoarse voice was barely able to compete against the torrential downpour outside, the entire week’s weather-net forecast set to be yet another miserable continent-wide monsoon.

“Just a moment, Dr. Estings, the audio-suite needs a bit of tweaking.” I interjected, as I had no choice but to quickly adjust and recalibrate my audio recording software to compensate for the sudden shift in weather. The pitter patter of the evening rain had now begun in earnest, signaling the start of its unrelenting assault on one of the last homely estates left in the United Kingdom. “The weather-service certainly has a lot to answer for, I can say for certain I’ll be filing a complaint as soon as I’m able to. It’s the tenth time this year the grid has had to compensate for unintended barometric differentials due to some local network maintenance somewhere in the arctic circle.” I wheezed out and moaned. Part of me was genuinely annoyed by the weather-grid’s recent hiccups. Another part of me was secretly hoping that by complaining about the weather, I’d be able to connect with the old British author on a spiritual level.

The rustling of the tree branches against, what I could only assume were window frames dating back from a time before the formation of the EF, conjured up images of the grand estates amidst idyllic country hamlets and shires that had been the centerpiece of the author’s many works. Indeed, every aspect of this home, from the mish mash of its Edwardian facade, to the timeless mid-century renovations, to even the failed attempts at post-modern minimalism in the form of its control panels, all added to the mythos of the man who I had the honor of interviewing today. A man who had otherwise vanished from the public eye almost immediately following the release of his last novel, 40 years ago.

This was supposed to be an interview of a lifetime. To be able to finally meet the reclusive and rarely seen Dr. L. P. Estings was an honor I never thought of as possible. Estings had been touted as a great many things in the 25th century. The next great father of fantasy, the heralder of an era long since past, the man who single handedly held together the spirits of a nation, of a planet, of an entire peoples through the horrors that was the second intrasolar war. The man inspired people to believe again, despite the public not knowing exactly who the man even was.

There had been scant, if any interviews of him. At least, not in the current generation’s living memory.

Everything we knew of the man was through his heavy media presence during the intrasolar war; during his great heyday which, at its height, saw the release of entire anthologies compiled and edited in a single year.

The man had a public appearance that rivaled even the greatest of popstars, influencers, and multimedia developers, all of which did nothing to placate but merely acted to exacerbate the growing anxieties of a generation that believed themselves to be on the brink of collapse.

It wasn’t hard to understand just why that looming sense of nihilistic dread was so pervasive at the time. War, famine, political deadlock, and the potential for a system-wide collapse of the climate-grid network at the hands of saboteurs, had raised a generation who practically lived under a constant haze of pessimism.

In the face of so much adversity, in the face of so much darkness, Dr. Estings was a name that people could look to for a momentary reprieve. To be invested in something that felt just as real to our own world. Ironic, given how his works all recounted tales from a world that was anything but real.

But perhaps that was what was needed at the time more than anything.

A means of escape.

A method of finding solace in a world that wasn’t our own, at least for a little bit.

He made regular public appearances back in the day, heck, he even hosted podcasts and radio shows that inspired countless more authors and screenwriters after his time had come and gone. There was a larger than life presence that the man exuded, one that was still palpable here on his deathbed.

Yet I’d only seen him on old newsreels and videos scattered about online.

As mentioned before, the man had gone dark after the release of his last novel about a decade after the war. The forty years of radio silence had, however, only added fuel to the fires of the mysteries behind the recluse’s life.

“Dr. Estings.” I spoke with a careful, respectful tone of voice.

“Please… call me Leanord. The old media called me Estings, and Doctor was just an honorary title that the universities gave me for my so-called contributions. I did nothing, and I am but a sham of a man who wishes to impart upon someone that still cares, the truth.”  The elderly man interjected, this time powering through the coughs with a sharp inhale of a harsh bronchodilator.

“Leonard, I would very much like to know what prompted you to stop writing? It didn’t come as a trickle before an eventual end. It didn’t come as a result of any announcement or any sudden accident. It was all just so sudden. From a height of 12 books a month, down to none at all… even if there was no rhyme or reason to this, the public has in effect constructed their own narrative as to why. I wish to get to the bottom of it, to clear the air up, to set the record straight. That’s all I want to know, Leonard.” I managed out with a series of carefully worded and enunciated sentences. The formality, the professionalism all but waning however as I reached the precipice of my line of questioning. “Why did you stop writing? Why did you stop interacting with the world?” The younger boy in me asked. It was at this point that the UN TODAY journalist, Theodore Eskings, left the room. The person who sat there now, at least at this specific junction in time, was the 10 year old Teddy who had felt lost and alone following the sudden and abrupt disappearance of his favorite author.

And the death of a world that would never again grace the pages and screens of the world.

This personal heart to heart, this plea for the truth, was clearly not lost on the old man as he stared back at me with a solemn look of personal guilt and disappointment.

Yet despite all of this, he remained adamant on maintaining that ridiculous cover story.

“I’ve told you son, it was because I was a sham to begin with.” The old man continued cryptically. I didn’t interrupt, allowing him to finish his statement. “The stories I wrote, the worlds I detailed, the tales I recounted, were all embellishments of the very real adventures of one of my closest friends. A friend who died in that lonely fall. A friend who, by every metric, was the impetus behind every piece of literature in my collection. A friend who, without which, I simply could not continue writing. Not only because I simply have no ability myself, but because any additional embellishments would be akin to revisionist puppeting of the legacy of a man who I wished to preserve.”

I turned to face the only other person present in the room, the nurse who the family estate had hired to keep a close eye on the author as his declining health could no longer be ignored. Our eyes locked for a moment, as she clearly understood what my intent was with that questioning gaze. Her answer, however, remained the same as it had been throughout the past few hours.

She reaffirmed the fact that the 127 year old man was in fact, not suffering from any psychiatric ailments. Nor was he on any medications, or was suffering from anything else, that would have led to bouts of confusion and delusion.

This led me down a narrow path of possibilities, all of which required me to take that small leap of faith.

“You’ve told me about this friend, and how he was… not of this world, is that correct?” I reiterated, quoting directly from some of our conversations earlier in the day.

“That is correct.” Leonard nodded.

“You told me that this friend, this individual who was instrumental in the construction of the worlds you’ve written up, and all of the stories that you’ve crafted within them, was in fact, part of these stories himself?” I pushed forward, jumping straight into the meat of things as if to reiterate just how ludicrous it all sounded. A small part of me hoped that if Estings heard this being phrased from an outsider’s perspective, that he might be able to break through this self-imposed delusion.

“That’s not exactly correct.” The author responded with a solemn sigh.

That rational, skeptical, part of my mind lit up.

Finally, we’re getting somewhere. I thought to myself as I waited with bated breath for the man to continue.

“He wasn’t instrumental in the construction of these worlds. He simply told me about his world, what it was like, how it worked, and so on and so forth. He had no hand in constructing it.” The old man began to laugh, as if he found that aspect of it to be ridiculous, and not the whole narrative behind this ‘friend’. The laughs soon devolved into a series of harried breaths, followed by coughs, and another sharp inhale of a bronchodilator.

I gave him a moment to recover, to finish the train of thought he had so clearly committed to.

“That’s why the world felt so real. Because they were real.” The man reiterated, clenching the fabric of his mattress tight. “All of it. From the Kingdom of Lasan, to the detailed breakdown on the Lursina species, to even the wars and petty struggles between the various Kingdoms, Duchies, Principalities, and Counties of the Central Realm.” He maintained that strong, almost unnervingly intense eye contact with me at all times, never once wavering. “And the stories I recounted? From the very first tales of a lone elven adventurer reaching out into the wild expanse of his small county, through to his first encounters with the woman who would become his traveling partner then wife, to even his ascent up through the ranks of the adventuring parties until his ultimate rise to guild hall leader of Elusia… every last one was simply a retelling, a recounting of the tales of the man’s life. A life I had never once deviated from, in any of my works.”

It was at that point that I put two and two together. It was with those last few sentences that I realized who it was the old man believed his friend to be.

“Are you saying that this friend, this person you’re talking about, is in fact-”

“Alaroy Rital himself. Lord-Mayor of the Township of the Two Rivers, Slayer of the Dragon of the Grey Canyon, Repeller of the Tainted Blight of the Orsin, Liberator of the Aether, and Grand Master of the Elusian Guild Hall of Adventurers.” The old man interjected, finishing my sentence for me as he grinned widely upon that revelation. “Yes, I’ve known Lord Rital ever since I was a wee lad. I met him, in this very room in fact. It did take a while before I finally did find him, and it was only because of fate that I did. You see, my family maintains a secret which has remained within these four walls, dating back as far back as this house is old.”

It was at this point that the nurse excused herself, leaving just the two of us in the room.

“You see, my family has a tradition. A long standing myth more accurately, of a window, hidden somewhere within this very estate, that grants a chosen few the power of limitless creation. Now the terms were vague, but after having discovered this window and being chosen myself, I know why the myth was kept vague. It was because if it were expounded on any further, no one would ever take it seriously. This window into the power of limitless creation wasn’t some telepathic mcguffin that granted limitless creativity, heavens no. It was merely a tool, a means of communication to a different world beyond our own. It’s affixed, as much on our side, as it is on theirs, and should you be lucky enough… there might be someone on the other side to answer the call of curiosity.” The man’s tone of voice reminded me of many of the early audiobooks he’d done himself. There was this sense of great adventure being retold, an undeniable undercurrent of giddiness wrapped up in a frankness that felt as if you were being told an old war story or some first-hand historical account. “I expect the reason why it takes several generations for our family to end up with a successful author is down to the rules of probability. For just how probable is it to discover the portal at such a specific instance where someone on the other side just so happens to be up for a chat?” He chuckled for a moment, taking the time to steady himself before moving forward. “I’ve spoken too much as it is… but, the truth must be known. That this is the reason behind our family’s constant success in the literary world.”

The old man took another deep inhale from his inhaler, steadying himself before continuing.

“But, there are no records of anyone else in your family being published authors-” I paused, before correcting my course. “-Unless you’re of course, implying everyone had been using pen names and pseudonyms prior to your career?”

Leonard nodded slowly. “Yes. They did the smart thing, keeping the questioning gaze of the public away from us. Something that I didn’t wish to do, because I was foolish, and selfish.” The man’s tone grew increasingly dour as he finally broke eye contact with me. “This is something that I’ve wished to rectify for so long, but only now, do I have the courage to do so.”

I let out a huge sigh, clenching my forehead tightly as I gave the man yet another chance to explain himself. I hoped that I wasn’t further encouraging his delusions. “You keep saying you’re selfish. I don’t see how a man who kept the spirits of an entire nation up can ever be considered as selfish.”

“That’s not the point.” He looked away warily. “The point… the point is, I enjoyed the limelight. I reveled in press interview after press interview. I relished the attention, basking in the glory of the tales of another man, all the while propping up the illusion that his tales were of my own making. The gift of insight was supposed to be an honorable one. One that has blessed our family for as long as we can trace back. It is a gift meant to both inspire the world, and maintain our coffers. I wasn’t meant to have basked in the limelight, and even if my stories did inspire the world when it needed it… I didn’t need to push my own personal agenda for an egotrip to do so.”

“I… I broke family tradition for my own selfish desires. But what’s more, I took an honorable man’s deeds, and passed it off as my own tall tales.” He looked out the window, at the windswept landscape that continued to be battered by the monsoon. “What am I, but a man who has led a life in the shadow of another man’s legacy?”

It was with this that I began to grow increasingly concerned, shifting in my seat as I opened my mouth to ask another question, only for the author to interject before I could.

“You wish to see evidence, don’t you?” He asked, to which I could only nod in reply.

“You must forgive my skepticism, Leonard, but I think we both know that a combat mage worth his mettle is one that does not take the word of another as gospel.” I replied with a smirk, quoting a line directly out of one of the man’s first novels, eliciting a small smile from the author himself.

“That wasn’t of my own making too you know?” He chuckled back. “That was one of the many direct quotes from the elf himself. Now…” He raised his hand, and pointed at one of the many pieces of antique furniture in the room. “There’s all the evidence you need. The window, the notepads, even the audio and video recordings I have of our interactions. All of it is within that wardrobe. I’ve… never opened that thing ever since Alaroy’s passing. So be warned, it may be dusty.” He warned me, as I finally got up to approach this otherwise unassuming part of a room seemingly stuck in a period of time before even the advent of the internet.

The wardrobe was, upon closer inspection, unusually large for its general shape. I’d honestly just chucked it up to the eccentricities of Edwardian or Victorian designs, not that I had much knowledge in ancient history. Though there was something nagging me about how simple it looked compared to what I knew was Victorian and Edwardian. The thing looked old, yes, but it didn’t look as well appointed and overly detailed as much of the rest of the period furniture was in the room. If I were to dig deeper and entertain my inner conspiracy theorist I might have even assumed it was probably older than the house itself.

But that was just the younger, more naive, part of myself talking.

Right now, all I wanted to see were those records. Those so-called recordings of these ‘conversations’ with a fictional character.

My hands trembled as they finally touched the handles of the door. They were rough, almost sandpapered down before being worn down from centuries of use. Yet they were sturdy, and wouldn’t yield even after a firm tug.

I looked back at the old man, even though I knew I didn’t need his approval to open a damned closet.

All there was within it were probably some old clothes and family heirlooms.

The logical side of my mind knew that.

And yet.

Part of me hoped I would be proven wrong.

My heart raced as I steadied myself, feeling both silly and apprehensive as I just thought to myself to hell with it, and opened both of the doors at once.

What was inside both surprised me and disappointed me in equal measures.

Inside was a large doorframe, leading to nothing but the wooden backing of the wardrobe. I stared blankly at it for a moment before I decided to rummage through the various drawers attached to the two swinging doors I’d just opened.

Yet all it revealed was dust and a great load of nothing.

I quickly turned back to the old man, who stared at me with an excitable gaze, unable to see anything from where he lay.

“Leonard.” I sighed.

“You see it? The window?” He asked immediately.

“No. I don’t. All that’s here is a doorframe affixed to the backside of the wardrobe. There’s nothing else in view.” I explained carefully, which elicited a look of genuine confusion from the man.

“I… check the cupboards, there should be both digital drives and hand-written notes, cameras even, along with printed out photos-”

“There’s nothing in the cupboards.” I interjected, halting the old man’s panicked and exasperated words in his tracks. I quickly closed the doors of the empty wardrobe, turning back to face the recluse author who looked at me as if I’d ripped the last chance at salvation right out of his dying hands.

“I’m sorry, Leonard. There’s literally nothing in that wardrobe.” I espoused with an exasperated breath.

The man’s old, weary eyes shifted back to the window and the raging monsoon outside. It was clear something was going on in his mind, something I can only assume was a direct result of the cognitive dissonance I’d just inadvertently served him.

“If you’d like, we could continue the interview tomorrow as it’s getting very late-”

“Is he in there?! Is the bastard in there with him right now?!” I heard shouting somewhere down the hallway, followed by a series of rushed footsteps that grew closer and closer by the second.

“I feared this might happen.” Leonard mumbled to himself as he gestured towards one of his bedside cabinets. “Quickly, in that cabinet is my last manuscript. It contains what should have been the final chapter to the Alaroy saga, and all of the notes involved with the creation process.”

Without much hesitation I walked over to the cabinet and opened it, revealing not an empty disappointment, but an obsolete memory drive and a few scraps of paper. Out of instinct, I pocketed all of them on my person, having done so in similar circumstances more times that I was willing to admit.

“Theodore, you must promise me that you will publish the truth of what you’ve heard today. You must promise me that you’ll read through the manuscript and understand that everything I’ve said was the truth. You must make sure to tell the public that I’m not the man they built me up to be. Expose me, and all of this, for the sham that it is.” Leonard pleaded with me, desperately as he struggled to get to a comfortable sitting position, before finally, the door was slammed open.

Entering the room was a man who I hadn’t yet met on the estate, a relatively middle-aged man in an admittedly wet, but finely tailored 3-piece suit. The look on his face said everything I needed to know.

“You.” He snarled out. “Didn’t the estate manager tell you that my grandfather is not accepting any visitors-”

“I said I was fine with this one, damnit!” The old man propped himself up, aided by the nurse who returned swiftly to his side.

The man ignored him, instead, focusing all of his attention on me. “My grandfather is confused, delirious, and in a poorly state. You expect him to be of any use to your little weekend morning blogs?”

“I’m a journalist for UN Today-”

“I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re the editor-in-chief of Times-Examiner itself, you’re trespassing on my family’s property, and I suggest you leave before I call the authorities.” The man huffed, his face reddened with a fury I was used to seeing in my line of work.

I stood my ground, maintained my calm, and simply nodded in agreement.

This wasn’t a hill worth dying on.

“I apologize, Mr. Estings.” I spoke with a calm, sincere tone, making my moves towards the door. “I understand I’ve overstayed my welcome, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be taking my leave.”

It was with that, and without even wishing the old man goodbye, that I left the Estings estate.

Getting to my car was more complicated now given that the house staff was seemingly given instructions to purposefully ignore me as I ran out through the rain and into my car.

Taking a few breaths to steady myself once more, I quickly sped out of there before anything else could happen, and set the auto-drive function for London which gave me a good 4 hours to take stock of everything that had just happened.

There was a part of me that wanted to go through with the late Estings last wishes. In fact, it’d be a huge media frenzy if I did. It could be yet another leap for my career, and even propel me to more lucrative cases.

But I knew I couldn't do it.

I wasn’t a writer for a tabloid magazine.

Nor did I care much for using something so controversial as a launching point for my career.

Beyond that however, I had a further obligation. I couldn’t let a late author’s deluded self-doubt change what was in effect the brightest legacy in the darkest pages of our history.

I couldn’t just retroactively rewrite history, not when the story that was poised to replace it was simply ludicrous and simply impossible.

Maybe Leonard’s grandson was right. Maybe his delusions just weren’t fully diagnosed just yet.

I let out a huge sigh of frustration as I began palming through the physical pages of the manuscript. Nothing stuck out to me, at least, not in the context of what I was looking for.

Accessing the drive proved more difficult but given the Universal Compatibility Acts, I could at the very least access some of the files within it without having to go through a complicated series of file conversions to access any of it.

On it were primarily just more drafts and manuscripts similar to the pages of the handwritten document.

There were, however, two files that seemed strangely out of place. An audio file, and an image.

The image itself was… strange, to say the very least. It was a picture of the wardrobe. Yet unlike the man’s fantastical claims, the picture very much reinforced what I’d already seen for myself.

There was no window into another world, no one else on the other side, merely a doorframe and wood.

I sighed as I realized that my fears might have actually been actualized. Perhaps the man was in fact, chronically mentally ill, and the case might’ve been something much more sinister. Perhaps it was a family trying to keep his mental illness hidden from prying eyes. Perhaps his family was merely using him for his success.

My mind went through a flurry of possibilities as my car came to one of the few sections that required manual input to continue.

We were due to cross one of the many bridges across much of the flooded plains, after manually pressing the ‘okay’ on a few of the popup warnings, the car pressed on.

Moving on to the audio file that I played almost immediately after seeing the image, I’d expected perhaps audio confirmation as to Estings’ claims.

“Good morning again old friend.”

…

“Did our times not align once again?”

…

“It seems to be the case, aye. Such are the mysteries of the artifact, but, let us be grateful it is not a wider difference in time.”

…

Nothing. The man was talking to himself. There was no mysterious voice at the other end, nothing but silence, the chirping of a few birds, and some minor static.

“Where did we leave off? Right! I was telling you about the great war in the heavens-”

CRUNCH

I felt the wind being knocked out of my lungs as my entire body was thrown to the right side of the car, my ears rang, my legs contorted only for the airbags to deploy as my whole body entered a fight or flight response… just in time to see the concrete pylon of the bridge beneath me coming into view.

The world slowed to a crawl, the manuscript flying ‘up’ and towards the trunk of the car, the voices playing over the speakers continuing without pause, I felt that sensation of weightlessness I so often felt when leaving the confines of Earth on a shuttle as my gut churned and my heart fluttered.

Before finally, I felt it all coming back down, with a solid thump as I felt myself being forcibly pushed forwards.

Then.

It all just went blank.