Melody of Mana 6: A Progression Fantasy, page 11
part #6 of Melody of Mana Series
It took a few moments, but soon the door opened, revealing my smiling, and slightly confused looking, companions.
“You found a way to turn it off?” Dras asked.
“Fun fact—our predecessor had the same feeling about fail-safes that the old Elven king had. Probably just so he didn’t have that thing lose it on him or anyone else.”
“Makes sense,” Ulanion said. “So, are we getting out of here?”
“Still haven’t found the shutoff for the wards,” I explained.
“How’d you escape from the bathroom anyway?” Dras asked as we continued down the hall.
“Add a reminder to check that our plumbing is warded,” I replied.
After a quick and very unproductive search of the office, we made our way to the largest and most heavily fortified door in the hall and began picking apart the protections. If there was going to be a way to turn the protections off, or cut off their power, it would be in there.
Dras and I were both experts when it came to things like this, and the door’s protections were already beginning to fail. The building wards were, too, having not been maintained as they should have, but enough still worked to be an issue. This door, however, we could force, even if it took time. It wasn’t like we were doing anything else until we figured it out or got help.
An hour of work later, Dras began ripping the whole thing out. Even without the magic in it, the door was still a formidable physical defense. As the door fell, Dras and I smiled. Our years of work had paid off. The sight that graced us beyond the felled door made me freeze.
“Is it me, or is that thing …” Ulanion let the end of his question fall as he stood there, mouth open.
“That is eerily familiar,” my old friend said, looking upon it.
“And it’s certainly doing more than just making light,” I added.
CHAPTER 22
NOT A LAMP
Hovering in the center of the room was a sphere so perfect I struggled to look at it. Runes covered its surface as it gently spun. This sphere was the very center of the underground area’s whole setup. I stopped, jaw clenching.
“It’s like yours,” Dras said, turning to me.
“The effect isn’t as bad, not at all,” I replied.
“Care to explain?” Ulanion interrupted.
“I made a lamp when we were in school that was too perfect; it hurt to look at, like this. Might also explain why this place is still functioning, because it was insanely efficient,” I told him, walking around the small depression from which the sphere was hanging.
“So …”
“So, Ristolian made something similar,” I said, gesturing to the sphere, “but this is no simple lamp. I never repeated the experiment because it was weird, but this … It’s the power source for this whole area, and possibly even further than that.
There would be no telling what all was going on here until I got around to taking it apart. This thing could very well turn our current warding scheme on its head. The possibilities were staggering to consider.
“Dangerous?” Ulanion asked, keeping close.
“No, I don’t think so, at least not in and of itself. The lamp I made was odd, and very mana efficient. Suppose that’s why things are so stable with it.”
“So, if it’s a storage device, we might be looking at something that would hold for, well, at least centuries. I can think of a few uses for that,” Dras said, appraisingly. “How much is it storing? And why didn’t you ever peruse this?”
“How much? Who knows. As for why I never looked deeper into something like this, simple; I had other things on my mind. I did tell Mystien; maybe he did. He saw the lamp and all, but neither of us expected storage as an option.” It would take me time, a lot of time, to decode this thing completely, assuming what I was looking for wasn’t hidden, which was a distinct possibility. “All right, let’s look for controls, standard issue ones for turning these wards on and off. Just find them for now, see what we got, and don’t touch yet.”
The room was large enough for the three of us to spread out, maybe twenty feet on each side. The sphere alone didn’t need an area this big, and since the room was basically a vault, such a thing would be rather counterproductive. The center of the space had the object we were most concerned with, and it was taking up a fair amount of space, about five feet in circumference. All around it were various panels with readouts and controls. This was, after all, not a room one would mess with without reason.
I quickly found some books, which were in excellent condition for their age, and began to carefully flip through them. One thing about old ink and vellum was that it just lasted for centuries without any issues.
“Find something?” Dras asked, seeing that I’d acquired literature while he was checking out one of the panels.
“Yeah, I think these are the operations and maintenance manuals. Joker or not, this guy was organized, like, impressively organized.” I waved my hand at some of the sheets hanging over the little case with the books. A quick glance told me they were the records for this room, dated with all problems listed out.
“I think this is the power control panel,” Ulanion said, pointing. He wasn’t a mage, but he was very used to dealing with magic.
I strolled over to his section, looking at the levers and indicators. “Yeah, looks like. One sec … What did he put it under? Power … not on/off … ‘Shutdown procedures’ it is.”
After taking the time to do a once-over of the current state of things, I frowned. The wards here were quite good, and while I could see that they were registering an attack, they were also very capable of keeping themselves up for quite some time against it.
“You’ve got that look,” my fiancé said.
“That look that says if we hadn’t shut this down, we’d be stuck in here for almost a month? Because yeah, that’s the look right now.”
“There’s no way that’s right,” Dras interjected.
“According to these and some rough division, it is,” I said, turning. I didn’t like it that he didn’t trust me in this.
“All right, let me look,” he said, joining us to do his own estimates. There were a series of murmured expletives. “Okay, well either his outputs are wrong, or something odd is going on here.”
“His sequences must be way more efficient than ours, and with that thing,” I said, pointing at the orb, “running it well.”
“Right, so, turning it off?” Ulanion finally said, looking quite ready to go.
“Ah, yeah,” I responded, turning to the correct section of the manual.
There was another big, friendly red button to shut things down, but I didn’t want to test my luck. It would probably work, but with things as old as they were, it seemed wiser to go through the process of lowering the defenses slowly.
As I let my hands work over the proper levers and buttons, it occurred to me that this room must have been made possible to break into. Surely it could have been a tougher nut to crack, but maybe that in itself was a fail-safe? If things went wrong, it would be possible to turn it all off, even if it took a while. I briefly wondered if there were design notes or instructions around here somewhere, because I was very curious to see old Ristolian’s theories on that.
When the rescue team finally arrived, it was clear they were in a state. “Ma’am, we’ve been trying to get to you, but couldn’t. Are you okay?” their leader asked.
“I’m quite fine,” I replied. “Please secure everything here. I know it will be a chore, but we’ll need guards and some way to seal it that we control. There’s also a skeleton in the other room; please secure that as well. He needs a burial.” My orders given, I had a growing list of things to get into.
I wanted to dive into researching the work Ristolian had done, as we’d found a veritable treasure trove of materials down there. With some time, I might manage to have us pumping out some of the most advanced protections on the continent in the next year or two.
Sadly, I had some personal business to conduct first. Never had I met that particular world-hopper, but I knew he’d had at least one friend. Since there was literally nobody else, it seemed appropriate to contact said friend and see about giving the man a proper funeral.
The letter I made for Justin was formal, and in English. I told him we’d found Ristolian’s body; though, there wasn’t much left. Then, I asked him if he knew of any particular arrangements the wizard would have wanted.
It took a few days, but I got a response. Another note hefted through the portal Justin and I were using as a mailbox. It was short and to the point.
“I would like to speak to you at length; please bring the stone.”
When I arrived, Justin was there, his face, skin, and build the same as always. His eyes, though, looked so old for a few moments. It passed, but in those seconds, I saw the weight of the ages pushing down on him. I couldn’t imagine seeing everyone you cared for turn to dust.
“My condolences. We haven’t buried him yet, if you want to be there,” I began.
“Thank you. I do, I do, but he should be buried at his home, and that complicates things. Let us put that aside for the moment,” he said, nodding to me, smiling gently.
“All right, then what should we discuss?”
“You have the stone?” he asked.
As soon as I produced it, he snapped his fingers, and the stone turned to dust in my hand. I glared at him and wiped my hand on one of his couches. Just because he could destroy it, didn’t mean he had to be rude about it. His eyes shifted, and they were almost apologetic, realizing his misstep.
“Are you done?” I asked in an exasperated tone.
“No, I’ve got a new one for you. Please see to it that everyone uses it. This will put a few safety measures in place, and I’ve included a document in old Elven explaining it all.” A stone similar to the one he’d just destroyed was set before me.
“Wow, an actual explanation with it, thank you.” I wasn’t even sarcastic. I really did appreciate it.
“I’d also like you to deliver a letter for me, to the head of the temples.” He seemed almost nervous to ask. “I do not think it will go well, but I really do need to get eyes on that anomaly you made.”
“What does that have to do with the orders?” I knew they didn’t like him, but I didn’t know the specifics.
“Old history, Alana, very old history. If I took any direct action on your continent without discussing it with them, or heaven forbid, went there, it might well become quite nasty.”
After that, he told me about Ristolian. He’d never actually learned what the man had been called back on Earth, but it hardly mattered. The human man had come to visit him, always with new stories and jokes, always with a smile. I got the feeling that Justin didn’t get to do this much. I let him go on until he finished getting it all out.
“Everything well?” Ulanion asked when I got home, his face concerned about how long it had taken.
“Fine, fine. I need to go to Linden though. Wanna come?”
“Oh, Alana, you still haven’t realized it yet, have you?”
“Hmm?”
“That my favorite place to be tends to be wherever you are,” he said, pulling me gently against his chest.
I kissed him, if only to make him stop spewing corny lines.
CHAPTER 23
A LITTLE CHAT
It was hard to say if I really wanted to go back to Linden, but at least this time would be straightforward. Justin wasn’t blaming me for the dangers of the portals, which I was thankful for. He was even helping me with my mission to fix them before something terrible happened. It seemed the least I could do was go and talk to the only other living transmigrator for him, or deliver a letter, as it were.
Before I did that, though, I had a few meetings with my own people to deal with. The first was with those of us who’d activated the stone and gained the ability to make portals—my people and Dras’s. We were all in a large room, which had been reserved just for us.
“Good afternoon everyone,” I began. “I have good news, and bad news. Let’s begin with the good. I’ve got some new built-in safeties for the portal network, which should solve some of the biggest dangers for us. We’ll still need to be careful, but it should allow us to get back to expanding the network shortly.” My declaration was met with a small cheer.
“Excellent, so what are they?” one of Dras’s people asked.
“This stone will allow us to upgrade our cores in such a way as to allow it.” I pulled out the new stone, showing it to everyone with a small smile. “Now for the bad news. Everyone here will be restricted from leaving the facility until they’ve upgraded their cores sufficiently.”
There was an uproar.
“Where did you get that!?”
“Changing the core isn’t something that anyone can do, ma’am. Can you!?”
“We can’t leave?”
Eventually, I whistled a tune to silence the room.
“I know you all have questions, and I understand your concerns, but this is not a negotiation. The one who gave this to me has their reasons for doing so, and the ability to force the issue if needed. I would rather it not be needed. There are other questions that will be answered on a need-to-know basis, and I hate to say it, but most of you don’t. Please understand that I’m doing this for all of our protection,” I said, giving each person gathered a harsh look.
Everyone other than me, Dras, Selene, and the twins was dismissed. We needed to have this conversation, and they needed to know the truth of the matter.
Selene mostly kept to herself nowadays, but her glare at the stone in the middle of the desk was hard. “Where did you get it?” she asked.
“The same place I got the last one,” I answered softly.
“I found the last one, not you, and it was in a desk.”
“Where I planted it at the behest of the one who made it.” That got eyes from all of them on me, everyone knew how serious this was.
“That Elven mage we met, the one who knew you?” Dras asked.
“That was Justin, the former Elven king; the one who made the cores, and the one who’s now demanding we do this. I’m going to be honest here. I went to him seeking help, and this is what I got in return. I also got a not-so-thinly-veiled threat about what would happen if we refused.”
The bomb quietly dropped, and everyone stood there in stunned silence. Many looked several shades of unhappy, and I was prepared to deal with that. I’d already put fail-safes in place, and anyone who tried to flee with what they currently had would be dealt with swiftly. This was just too important, even if I hated it.
Leah blinked several times. “He’d have to be thousands of years old though?”
“He is,” I agreed.
“And not dead?”
“Elves don’t age like us. My understanding is that the full-blooded ones don’t really age at all past a point,” I explained. This was rumored already, but there were so few of them still around that it was considered unconfirmed.
“Can I talk to him? I mean, the light he could shed on any field of research …” the excitable researcher began.
“I’ll tell him you want to, but he doesn’t like most people. Far as I can tell, he tolerates me, but that’s about as far as it goes,” I said, trying to placate Leah before she did anything extreme.
“You know, Alana, I’m really beginning to dislike you and your secrets,” Selene said tiredly. “Even if I understand why you keep them.”
“Will you continue to keep them?” I asked, hoping she’d say yes.
“Yes, I owe you that much. For a while, I blamed you for what those bastards did to me, but they would have done it anyway for the portals. Could I blame you for that mission? Maybe, but we’d have gone anyway, and without you, perhaps we wouldn’t have made it back. Just don’t expect me to help you with missions like that in the future.”
I looked at Selene with pain in my heart. Ever since our kidnapping, we weren’t friends. She knew about me, about my past life—she was one of only a handful. Now she was here, broken, and her frizzy hair was wilder, her eyes more sunken than when we’d first met. She was harder, less bubbly, and it made sense.
“I won’t; thank you for everything.”
She left us, and Leah made sure I would request a meeting with Justin for her. Her brother looked more sedate, concerned, a good reaction to the information they’d all just received. They, too, soon left, leaving only me and Dras. My oldest friend was giving me long consideration before he spoke.
“Secrets, plural. Any you’d share with me?” he finally asked.
“I have a few more, Dras, but nothing that would change anything. I would still be me, and you would still be you. Please, let it be,” I replied.
“Okay,” he said easily. At my raised eyebrow, he smiled and continued, “Alana, I hope one day you’ll tell me, but if you don’t, you’re still the same girl who found me and made sure I was trained properly, still the same girl who saved my life, well, how many times are we on now? Just tell me though. Is it something bad?”
“Not really, just something that would cause me a lot of awkwardness and pain.”
“Then keep it. I’ve got lots to do right now, though, so if you don’t mind.” He rose and headed for the door.
“Thank you, Dras,” I muttered as he left, trying to keep all the ups and downs of this particular meeting contained.
Over the next couple of days I was tense. Letters had to be sent, travel arrangements made. The city of Linden needed me to send a request for a meeting, and they needed to agree, all of which took time. The entire time I worried that my people might rebel against me, but they didn’t. They accepted my judgment that the new update was needed, and everyone worked on it.
Ulanion joined me as I made my way to the portal room, satisfied that I could be missed for a few days without issue. That was a good thing, as there were times when I would need to be gone for extended periods. The guards there waited with us as the connection was established, and I stepped through. It wouldn’t take too much time to go through the stopover, at least. We’d need one due to the lack of a direct link.
