“Oh, no you don’t!” Diamond hissed, weaving a spell as she spindled mana together as quickly as she could. From the look of its scales, the monster likely would ignore any light-based attacks, and most physical attacks would simply bounce off. Since the Godsrage Mountains were noted for their cold-aligned creatures, that meant her best bet was fire. Unfortunately, Diamond wasn’t terribly skilled with fire. However, the time she’d spent with Jared hadn’t been wasted, and Diamond smiled thinly as she finished her spell.
A white-hot lance of light blasted from her hands and up into the cliffside above the worm. For a moment there was no effect, before the first molten drops of stone fell down from the hole she was boring into the cliffside. As the drops hit the monster, it screamed again, and this time, that world-rending shriek caused Diamond to gasp in immense pain, disrupting her magic and shaking her very bones to the point she felt that they would shatter.
That same scream cut off abruptly a moment later with a sudden, rumbling crash. It took Diamond a moment to recover, wincing as she looked for the monster, and gawking as she saw the spot where it had been. A mound of rubble had fallen over the area, just barely short of Ruby’s body, and a large portion of the cliffside above where her smoking hole punched into it was missing.
“G-good job, Diamond! Did you know its own scream would drop the cliff on it?” Amethyst spoke up nervously, and Diamond looked at the other woman as she continued the healing spells she was casting on Emerald.
Coughing up some dust, Diamond winced and climbed to her feet, moving to check on Ruby. “I’m afraid not. I was intending to dump lava on it, and hopefully scare it off. That was fortunate for all of us.”
She was relieved to see that while battered, Ruby looked like she was alright. But that relief faded as Opal spoke, much more unhappily. “While it’s good we’re all alive, this is going to slow us down.”
Looking at the devastated mountainside and their injured companions, Diamond winced and nodded, her voice heavy as she prepared a healing spell. “Unfortunately, I have to agree with you. I hope we aren’t too late.”
“From your lips to Our Lady’s ears,” Amethyst murmured, and Diamond cringed even more.
She hoped that Amethyst’s prayer was right, and that her own fears were wrong. The question of what Serel had done to Medaea haunted every step they took back toward their temple.
Chapter 11
Coordinating the weaving of his spell with Dorn, Albert watched the upper floor of the new guild house take form, satisfaction and pride flowing through him. It was especially satisfying with how the locals were reacting.
The masonry structure’s lower two floors were imposing and of far better construction than anything else in the city, forming a tavern, smithy, and outbuildings for alchemy and enchanting, and a set of stables as well, all surrounding a large training yard. The second floor was primarily rooms for guild members, while the third would be where the offices would be.
Right now, onlookers gawked as the stones floated into the air, re-shaping as gravel liquefied and solidified seemingly instantly to mortar the stones into place. Timbers shaved down to the proper size and took their place as cross-beams and structural supports, as weeks of work passed by in mere seconds.
The mana expenditure of such a spell wasn’t small, but it was far smaller than it would have been if Albert had tried to build each component individually. It was why the Adventuring Guilds had researched comprehensive spells to build standardized guild houses ages before. This way, no matter where a dungeon was found, they could build a guild house in a matter of days and be ready for the influx of adventurers.
It took about ten minutes before the last of the slate tiles slotted into place, and in tandem, Albert and Dorn ceased their chanting, lowering their arms and exchanging grins. Albert nodded, complementing the older man. “Good job, Dorn! Your skill with shaping wood seems to have improved again.”
“I’ve been practicing, Guildmaster,” Dorn replied humbly, the white-haired man smiling and bowing his head slightly. “I doubt I’ll ever reach the rank of grandmaster, but only time will tell.”
“Hah! I think you’ll make it, Dorn. You’re dedicated enough to manage it, given enough time.” Albert chuckled, then grinned at Evansly, who he saw standing nearby. “So, Lord Mayor, what do you think?”
“I think that I wish I had two dozen mages like each of you,” Evansly replied, obviously awed as he shook his head. “In three days, you built a structure fit to be a keep! Three days!”
“From what I’ve been told, the guild refined the spells over the course of decades to the point we can build the guild houses this quickly, so we can’t build just any sort of building this quickly,” Albert told him, grinning again as some of his subordinates began to survey the building. “But it’s always impressive to see. I’ve only been involved in building one other guild house, and it’s amazing to see how people react.”
“That explains why kingdoms don’t just have their mages build walls and fortresses, that’s for sure.” Evansly sighed, shaking his head. “It doesn’t keep me from wishing, though.”
“True enough!” Albert chuckled and grinned. “But if you’ll excuse me? I need to inspect the building and get people started moving in. Then I need to examine the mountainside.”
“May I ask what you’re doing? I’m afraid we’ve had insurgents from Sifaren in the area, so I’m somewhat concerned about people’s safety,” Evansly asked, suddenly looking nervous.
Albert raised an eyebrow at the comment, but let it pass. He’d heard enough from Penelope about the local affairs to know that the man was trying to put a good face on Kelvanis’ quiet war with both neighboring elven nations. But it wasn’t the Guild’s place to interfere in the affairs of a host nation unless they were trying to interfere with the exploration of a dungeon, and he wasn’t going to put their members at risk. Instead, he explained, “I’m just going to be setting up some aetheric sensors around the mountain to try and gauge how large the dungeon actually is. Normally, we detect a dungeon when it grows to a particular size based on how far away it is. With how far from our nearest Guild house this is, this dungeon should have had no more than approximately twenty to forty rooms, depending on each room’s size, and been about two to three hundred feet across. This dungeon seems to have exceeded that size by a fair margin, so we’re trying to figure out why that is.”
“Aetheric sensors? Aren’t those sorts of devices usually used by skilled artificers?” Evansly asked, blinking in surprise, then light dawned in his eyes. “Oh! You said you were an artificer, but I didn’t realize you were that skilled! Sorry, we’ve only had… well, middling artificers at best come out into these parts.”
“Oh, I’m quite aware. You know why, don’t you?” Albert asked, watching a man pull out the sign to hang in front of the guild. The pole had been built with the structure, but they never tried to take care of all the fine details, like the furniture and doors.
“Actually, I don’t,” Evansly admitted, shaking his head. “I know that we haven’t had nearly as many artificers, or as powerful mages develop out this way, but I don’t know why.”
“Honestly, it’s because of your mountains over there,” Albert replied, gesturing toward the heart of the mountain range, then frowning slightly. “The gods who died here… before they died, legend has it that they burned the world tree to the ground, and it was its death throes that allowed the gods of darkness to prevail. At least that’s what I’ve heard in the capital. Regardless of what did it, we’ve long known that the aether out here is much wilder than in other regions of the world. While some mages can handle the mana from it more easily, most can’t, and the delicate magical machinery that artificers like me handle? It just didn’t work. Often it would overload and explode, so we avoided the region.”
“Oh. I’ve heard a few bits and pieces about such, but I never really… really, the world tree?” Evansly seemed surprised, then paused a moment before asking, “But why
can you come here now? You’ve got the steam engines and all.”
“Over the millennia, the aether has calmed to the point that our equipment functions. Oh, I wouldn’t take any of it into the heart of the mountains, but I imagine a few centuries back you probably could have managed some of the simpler devices out here. It’s probably just been habit keeping everyone from coming out this way,” Albert told him, grinning slightly. “Fortunate that you had a dungeon here, isn’t it?”
“I can agree there. Knowing that we could have had things like that sooner is somewhat depressing, but at least it’s begun to change,” Evansly replied with a sigh, shaking his head. “I’m going to have to do some research. I really don’t know much about magic.”
“It’s a worthwhile subject to study. However, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an inspection to perform.” Albert nodded, smiled, and slipped away before he could be dragged into another discussion with the mayor. At least the man had enthusiasm, but that didn’t make him the best company in the world. Albert honestly never would have associated with the man if it wasn’t required for his position.
Reminding himself of his task for after the inspection, though, Albert’s eyes brightened and he began humming a jaunty tune. He loved actually getting the chance to analyze magical readings!
Setting up the sensor wasn’t terribly difficult. Each leg of the metal tripod could be extended to allow it to sink one of the legs into the ground on most terrain, and the spikes built in meant they wouldn’t move easily once anchored. The rest of the device looked a lot like a long metal spike with a crystal at the top, but even that was a simplistic description. Each of the eight sides of the sensor was a carefully sanded steel sheet that had been welded together, both interior and exterior engraved in complex magical symbols that had been filled with gold or silver. The entire device was a single unbroken whole, from the purple-hued adamantine alloy spike on the base, to the platinum wiring that connected the sapphire to the rest of the device.
That was why it made Albert’s heart lurch slightly every time he slammed the spike into the ground and the device shuddered in his hand. The last thing he wanted was to hit an unexpected rock and have a seam rupture, ruining countless hours of work in an instant.
Fortunately, the sensor plunged into the earth easily this time as well, and he let out a wordless breath of relief, letting it sit while he pulled out his recorder, making certain the gem within was holding the aetheric readings the sensor was collecting. Satisfied by the soft white glow of the gemstone, he put away the small pendant and waited, looking around him.
“Fairly pretty back here… and that must be where the one bureaucrat went missing. Stupid bastard,” Albert muttered, his eyes coming to rest on a stone cliff. It wouldn’t have been remarkable if there hadn’t been a trail of cracked stone that he recognized as having previously been molten trailing away from it.
“If they’d asked, I would’ve told them that it was a bad idea,” Penelope replied calmly, leaning against a tree in boredom.
“I wasn’t talking to you, sis,” Albert told her, grinning slightly.
“Oh, then why’d you talk aloud?” she asked, raising both eyebrows. “Is your brain wandering off into the aether, like Kettle’s?”
“I asked you along because no one ever lets the guildmaster go anywhere alone,” Albert replied, his voice dry. “With you, at least I know what to expect.”
“Heh. Whatever you say.” Penelope smirked, and fell silent for a minute. It was a while, but he could tell she was thinking, and finally she asked, “Why do you think this dungeon is so unusual? I didn’t ask why, but Joseph seems a little bit wary of it. He has since we started noticing the power level changing as we progressed through floors.”
“Hmm. If I’m being honest, I haven’t the foggiest clue off-hand, Penny,” Albert replied seriously. “But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that there hasn’t been a dungeon spotted within a thousand miles of these mountains since the Godsrage. And I’ve been wondering if maybe they just have been lost in the noise of the aether? Or maybe there’s something about the location that’s messing up the sensors. I honestly don’t know.”
“That’s why you’re out here, isn’t it? Not because you wanted to be the guildmaster,” Penelope responded after a moment, smiling slightly. “You wanted to be the one to investigate, and Kettle held it ransom until you agreed to be guildmaster.”
“You know me far too well, Penny.” Albert chuckled, then grinned. “But while that’s true, I did manage to get Dorn as my second in command. He’s going to handle most of the regular work, which will let me get some research done instead.”
“Actually… thinking about it, my explanation doesn’t make any sense either. You could have come out here as a regular adventurer.” Penelope frowned, and her eyes narrowed slightly, making Albert’s heart begin to race in anxiety. “How did he manage to maneuver you into this?”
“I may, just may, have been under guild house arrest?” Albert offered weakly, looking at the sensor post.
“Albert… what did you do?” Penelope demanded. At that moment, his recorder chimed, filling him with a sense of relief.
“Oh, scan done, on to the next location!” Albert spoke brightly, quickly dislodging the sensor and folding the tripod. “Let’s go!”
“Albert!” Penelope followed him, her tone growing more pointed, and he rapidly picked up his pace.
Much later that night, Albert looked over the mana levels he’d recorded via the sensor and frowned, muttering under his breath, “What in the hells? This can’t be right.”
His sensor could clearly detect the border of the dungeon just outside every side of the mountain, but the readings were completely wrong. The ripples of its presence should have been dozens of times higher than they were if it was that big. With the mountain being nearly five miles across at its base… this made no sense to him in the slightest, and he frowned. To be the size it claimed it was, the dungeon had to be hundreds or thousands of years old, not a few decades.
Albert knew he would have to get his sensor inside the dungeon to figure out what in the hells was going on. The other readings he’d picked up were also strange, but the number of ley lines in the area was inconsequential beside how huge the dungeon seemed to be.
Chapter 12
“Your Majesty? There’s a dispatch from Commandant Reems for you. It was marked as urgent.” Captain Laila interrupted Calath’s paperwork with a knock at the door, her expression serious.
“Oh? May I ask why you look concerned, Captain?” Calath asked, setting down her inkpen and rubbing the bridge of her nose tiredly.
“The messenger told me that the guards from the dungeon arrived at the fort just before he was dispatched,” Laila explained, her frown deepening as she added, “He didn’t remember the full number of them, but there was no mention of the princess.”
“Phynis is no longer a princess, Captain. She made certain of that with her last missive,” Calath replied gently, a hint of anguish crossing her face as grief nearly overwhelmed her again. “Bring me the dispatch. We need to learn what has happened since our last messages from them.”
“As you say, Your Majesty,” Laila acknowledged, bowing deeply before leaving the room.
Calath tried to go back to the reports, but her mind wasn’t able to focus on the overview of crop supplies for the winter after the interruption. The supply was sufficient for Sifaren to not starve and avoid rationing, which was the important thing. Instead, her mind was focused on her daughter and former heir, the young woman whom she’d driven away with a few ill-chosen decisions. What was Phynis doing now? Did she still feel that she loved the dryad manifestation of the dungeon, Sistina?
The very thought of Phynis being in love with a dungeon filled the queen with fear. According to the records in the archives, even the best of dungeons tended to be ruthless and kill opponents without remorse. It caused the very thought of her own daughter choosing to bind herself to such an unknowab
le being to frighten her. But at this point, there was little Calath could do, with Phynis having officially removed herself from the rolls of the family line with a decisiveness that had shocked even her mother.
The door opening broke Calath’s train of thought, relieving the monarch somewhat. She’d been stewing over the subject for a week and a half, and hadn’t come up with a single good answer to her question of what to do. Laila stepped into the room with a small packet of letters and wordlessly brought them to her monarch.
“Checked for poisons, I presume?” Calath habitually asked, glancing up at her guard.
“Yes, My Queen,” Laila spoke softly, taking a step away as Calath untied the small bundle and looked through the letters.
A letter from Commandant Reems was on top, but the queen set it aside. The man was overly pretentious, and rarely had anything important to say. Not finding a letter from her daughter, she looked for the one in Desa Iceheart’s handwriting and opened it, frowning at how thick the letter was. Within were several sheets of paper, and she unfolded the top letter to read it.
Queen Calath Iris Constella,
It is with great difficulty that I send this letter to you. The struggle between my devotion to Phynis and oaths to Sifaren has taken a toll upon me, and prior to the events of my last missive, I had chosen to honor your commands above all others. However, Phynis’ near-death due to my orders has forced a degree of personal reflection upon me. That I was caught between oaths to state and oaths to my charge is a matter that I lay at your feet, for you bear responsibility for it.
Today we were attacked by the forces of Kelvanis. Fifty soldiers of Kelvanis, led by Adjudicator Jared Falgrave and supported by seven powerful enslaved priestesses of Medaea, assaulted the cavern through the entrance they located because of the attempt to remove Phynis from the dungeon. The attackers had more than enough power to overwhelm all of our defenses, and yet they failed because of Sistina. She neutralized the priestesses without slaying them and unleashed a war golem of her own creation on the attacking soldiers. It was a massacre, Your Majesty, and I believe it was a demonstration for us.
Spells of Old (Ancient Dreams Book 2) Page 9
