Focusing closer on the man as he examined the shelves, Sistina focused first on the staff he was holding. It was a fascinating magical object, an intricately constructed series of spells put together in a way she’d never seen before. Yet the overall intent of the design was quite clear in her mind, and she quickly realized that it was designed to analyze the mana concentration of an area, and nothing dangerous. So she focused on her body, looking at Ilmas and nodding. “Granted.”
“Oh, good. I’ll head back, then. Thank you, Sistina!” Ilmas replied, turning and beginning to jog down the long path back to the entrance.
Smiling, Sistina returned to the bedroom and slipped into the bed next to Phynis again. The young elf let out a sleepy murmur, turning into her, her eyes opening a crack as she complained. “You left.”
“Business. Dealt with,” Sistina replied softly, giving Phynis a gentle kiss before settling in next to her.
Phynis simply wrapped her arms around Sistina and cuddled in, quickly going back to sleep, a happy smile on her face.
The sound of the door unlocking got Albert’s attention. As Ilmas entered the room, he hopped down from sitting on the counter, smiling. “Ah, you’re back! How’d it go?”
“I was given permission to accept your request,” Ilmas replied, wiping some sweat from his forehead with a cloth. Taking a seat, he added, “But there are two things we need to figure out. I’m not going to make that trip twice more today, so I wouldn’t bring back your things until tomorrow at the earliest, and we need to decide on how much you’re going to pay for it.”
“Excellent! I was planning to offer you fifty silver marks for getting me the readings,” Albert said cheerfully, grinning. “Is that acceptable?”
“Fifty silver… you’ve got to be kidding!” Ilmas stared at Albert in shock for a moment.
“Why? Did you need more than that?” Albert asked, frowning slightly. He thought it was a reasonable amount, considering how important the data was to him. He might be willing to increase the amount somewhat, but it’d be a bit more than he’d anticipated. Fortunately, before he could say anything more, the elf spoke up.
“No, no! I’m saying that’s ten times what I was going to ask for. We don’t have much call for money down here yet, but I hope to leave one day. But even so, that much for a couple of minutes of work… you’re sure you aren’t doing anything bad?” Ilmas asked, seeming extremely nervous. “I really don’t want the dungeon angry with me.”
“What? I don’t… oh, right. I forget, you don’t have real artificers out here.” Realization dawned on Albert in mid-sentence, and he smiled as he explained. “Artificers make an enormous amount of money, Ilmas. What I’m asking you isn’t hard, but the information it can provide is important to me, so I’m offering you what I think the job is worth. Is that fair?”
“I… I suppose so. I just can’t take that much money, not when I can’t leave yet. Look, how about five silver now, five when I come back?” Ilmas offered hesitantly.
“That’s fine with me,” Albert agreed, and carefully unhooked the recorder from his belt, setting it on the counter and offering the sensor to Ilmas. “Just be careful not to hit this against anything. It’s expensive to make, and takes weeks of work to get perfect.”
“Right, umm, so what do I do with this, exactly?” Ilmas asked, taking the sensor with obvious trepidation.
“It’s quite simple. Hook the recorder to your belt, or have it about anywhere within a few feet of the sensor. With the sensor itself, place the tripod, then shove the spike into the ground. As soon as the sensor has everything it needs, the recorder will make a noise like a bell. That’s when it's done, and just pull out the sensor and fold it up,” Albert explained, pulling out a pouch and extracting the silver coins he’d promised.
“You’re right about it being simple,” Ilmas agreed, smiling slightly as he took the coins. “I’ll do that tonight and be back here tomorrow before noon. Is that alright?”
“That sounds fine to me,” Albert agreed, smiling more. “I’ll see you then!”
As he left, Ilmas took the recorder and locked the door again. Albert could just hear the elf whistling to himself as he left.
Taking a minute to make sure the recorder was hooked to his belt, Ilmas looked at the sensor with a bit of worry. A part of him was worried that it would cause problems, no matter how harmless Albert had claimed the device was. That was part of why he’d chosen to use the device a half mile away from Sistina’s tree, where it could do relatively little damage if something went wrong.
Carefully setting the device’s legs up, he braced himself. The sensor was lighter than he had expected on first seeing it, and it felt hollow, too. Finally ready, he looked around the small patch of gardens, took a deep breath, and shoved the spike into the ground.
The metal spike thrust into the ground with ease, and for a long moment Ilmas simply was waiting for something to go horribly wrong. But when it didn’t, he slowly relaxed. That was when the crystal at the top of the staff began to glimmer and glow. Crimson, green, and gold lights began to flicker through it, shining against the silver wires, and he frowned in concern. Albert didn’t say anything about the crystal glowing, and the growing light concerned him. It—
With a soft whine, accompanied by the chime of the recorder, the crystal flared brightly and exploded in a shower of shards. Flinching away, Ilmas began swearing at the numerous cuts, cringing away a bit too late.
“What the hell was that?” he spat out, stepping away from the sensor as the top of it began emitting a faint stream of smoke.
“Hello!” Albert called out as he opened the door. “Did everything go—oh, what happened to you, Ilmas? What… what happened to the sensor!”
Albert looked on in horror as he saw dozens of tiny cuts in the elven man, each starting to scab over, and the sensor with its crystal utterly ruined sitting on the counter. Ilmas looked up and scowled at him.
“You tell me!” Ilmas replied, gesturing at the staff-like sensor. “I did exactly what you said, set it up and everything. The crystal started glowing brighter and brighter, and then it exploded in my face! I’m lucky it didn’t take an eye out or something!”
“What? That doesn’t make any sense! It shouldn’t have been…” Albert began, then paused, quickly thinking over what could possibly cause an aetheric sensor to overload in such a way as to make the crystal explode. Softly, he murmured, “Possibly if there was an extremely dense concentration of mana, and a node… but that doesn’t make any sense. Not with what I saw before. I just don’t know.”
“Well, whatever caused it, it exploded and it hurt,” Ilmas replied, seeming a little less upset at Albert’s confusion. “But it chimed like you said it should, at about the same time it blew up.”
“At least there’s that. I’m sorry it blew up, Ilmas. I had no idea that would happen,” Albert apologized, shaking his head as he opened his belt pouch and pulled out the payment, as well as a small potion. “Here, the funds I promised, and a potion to heal your injuries more quickly.”
“I… well, thanks. I didn’t expect you to offer that,” Ilmas admitted, sighing as he took the coins. He considered the potion for a moment before uncorking it and downing the contents, obviously grimacing at the taste. “Ugh, that’s nasty.”
“We’re told to make them nasty so that people don’t get the urge to constantly drink them,” Albert explained, obviously amused. “So, it’s by design. You should be fully healed in a minute or two.”
As both watched, they could see Ilmas’ wounds scabbing over more quickly, and it was at that point that the elf spoke. “To be honest with you, I didn’t take the readings in the center of the dungeon. I was about a half-mile away, since I wasn’t certain what your device did. Just… in case that’s important.”
“Thank you for telling me. It might be important, at that.” Albert sighed, picking up the sensor and frowning at it, then looking down the hole in the top. It didn’t look like the interior had bee
n damaged, and he smiled slightly. “Doesn’t look like anything but the crystal was damaged. If so, it should be relatively easy to repair. If something inside was broken, I may as well just start over from scratch. Thank you for your help, Ilmas.”
“You’re welcome, Albert. It was nice meeting you.” Ilmas smiled as he added, “I suppose I’m willing to help you out again, too. Just nothing that will explode next time, please?”
“I’ll do my best to keep that in mind,” Albert promised, then looked at the recorder. “Now to go figure out what happened. Have a good day.”
And with that Albert left, happy that he at least had gotten his data.
“Crazy, but at least he’s honest,” Ilmas muttered under his breath, glancing after the vanished mage. Looking at his arm, he added, “And he healed the injury, too. I’m pretty sure that means he isn’t too bad.”
Looking around the room, Ilmas frowned. Despite the other man’s job, by and large his time here was pretty boring. Maybe he could do a few woodworking jobs in the back room or something to pass the time? He wasn’t much good at woodwork, but it was something to do.
“Almost anything is better than boredom some days,” Ilmas muttered to himself, then grinned. “Heck, maybe I can actually learn how to be better than incompetent.”
At about that time, he heard adventurers coming along, and a man with a long, blond beard stuck his head into the room. The man spotted Ilmas and smiled. “Hey, I heard you do some odd-jobs for adventurers. Is that right?”
“Pretty much. What do you have in mind?” Ilmas asked.
“Nothing big. We just want you to come along and carry our spare gear. It’s about a pack’s worth. That fair?” the man asked. “I heard something about charging a copper per floor.”
“Sure! Let me just lock up and I’ll come along with you,” Ilmas told the man, smiling as he got up and prepared to get to work. At least something was going better for him.
Chapter 19
“We’re almost there. Just hang on, Sapphire,” Diamond urged, taking a deep breath as they hurried up the trail.
Sapphire didn’t respond, instead almost panting as she followed the rest of the group. They were hurrying, since they’d reached the trail to the temple only to see a number of tracks that indicated a large number of people had passed by recently. The tracks had forced them to move even more quickly, and left all of them cursing the time it’d taken them to recover after their fight with the screaming worm.
Ruby was in the lead, almost scrambling up the hillside, with each of the others following as quickly as they could. Diamond could only pray they weren’t going to be too late as darkness began to fall.
Jaine hummed happily to herself as she walked into the hedge maze, closely followed by Lieutenant Torbyn. Her guard was adamant about not leaving her on her own, but Jaine knew that he would also be discreet about things should everything go as well as she hoped.
Going stargazing with Daren left her positively beaming with happiness. The only thing that was a detriment on her mood was how Beryl didn’t seem to have anyone important to her as of yet. Glancing back at the manor where they were staying, Jaine caught the silhouette of her sister in the window of her room, the lights just barely overpowering the setting sun to reveal her.
Letting out a sigh, Jaine perked up slightly as a thought occurred to her. Maybe Daren might have an idea of who might be able to get through to her sister! Smiling, she hurried along to meet with him, excited by the idea.
“How close is the teleportation circle?” Thompson asked, his arms crossed as he tapped his foot impatiently.
“It’s about ready, sir,” one of the mages replied, nodding at the other nineteen around the circle that they’d set up in the middle of the chapel. All of the pews had been roughly moved aside, and two dozen mana stones were inset into the circle. The mage continued, his voice confident. “It’ll take about five minutes to open the portal, at which point we can transport all the soldiers as fast as they can walk into the circle. We can only hold the portal for ten minutes with our mana supplies and the mana stones, though, so it’ll be a bit of a rush. The faster we get through, the more mana we’ll have left to give support on the other side.”
“Good. Get it open, and we’ll go through,” Thompson rumbled, smiling slightly at the positive information. Turning to the Enforcer, he asked, “You’re leading the squad going after the crown princess, Enforcer?”
Corvek nodded, smiling thinly. “Yes. I have a hair of hers that we can use to track her down. I will take her to the rendezvous point once I have her.”
“Excellent.” Thompson nodded. “I’ll be through shortly after you.”
Nodding politely, the Enforcer stood and moved to his squad to give instructions. At least the horses were outside for the moment, and Thompson frowned slightly. Each squad would bring their horses with, but even so, ten minutes would be a little tight. At least the priestesses were being kept out of the way until they were gone.
“You know what surprises me?” Diamond asked, taking a breath as they hurried down into the valley toward the temple.
“Diamond…” Ruby gasped, glowering at the high priestess. “Now isn’t… the best time…”
“They asked me… about all the passive defenses… but not once did they ask about what ones we could activate,” Diamond gasped, smiling grimly. They could see the soldiers gathered around the temple, and she hoped they were going to be quick enough.
“A-are you saying that you… can still use them?” Ruby glanced over, slowing slightly as she nearly tripped. “They didn’t disable them?”
“They’re intact. Sapphire, Ruby? Each of you lead teams against them. I’m going to activate the bell tower,” Diamond ordered, glancing up at the bell tower above the chapel, her eyes glittering as her confidence grew.
“Yes, archpriestess!” Sapphire replied instantly, her own eyes bright with hope.
Just another minute, and they’d be close enough. And if Medaea hadn’t been removed from the temple, Kelvanis would face the wrath of an angry goddess.
Acolyte Evelyn sang softly to herself as she swept the chapel one last time for the evening. Medaea’s shrine in Golden Vale wasn’t large, which was why she was the one who took care of it most of the time, but she loved the shrine regardless. The inscriptions, carvings, and ancient prayers seemed to permeate the sanctified ground, filling her mind with a sense of ease that no other temple of her goddess ever had managed. That was why Evelyn had volunteered to take care of it three decades earlier, and she loved her serene post.
Which was why she was so startled when a loud buzzing sound like dozens of angry bees interrupted her hymn. Turning in surprise, she fell silent in shock as one, two, then a full dozen men and horses abruptly appeared in the center of the temple. Her eyes widened as she recognized that they were humans in armor. Dropping her broom, she turned to flee, taking a breath to cry out an alarm, footsteps echoing through the room behind her as the men charged toward her.
Evelyn was just starting to scream when a gloved hand wrapped over her mouth, yanking her backward as another hand grabbed her shoulder. An instant later, her eyes bulged as she was slammed painfully into the ground.
She couldn’t even whimper as she laid there for a moment, dazed. And behind her, a cool voice spoke. “Tie her up, gag her, and leave her for the Major. We’ve got other problems to deal with.”
As other rough hands began to manhandle Evelyn, she had to wonder what was happening. But there was nothing she could do but hope that someone had heard her aborted scream.
“What was that?” Liras asked softly, pausing in his attempt to climb the tree.
“I thought I heard a scream,” Warrif replied, frowning as he looked down toward the nearby shrine.
The two teens were trying to get a look into the room of Ceres Lalan, daughter of Duke Crownglade and the most beautiful maiden in Yisara. Her chambers were just barely in view of the upper branches of their tree, and they were almost in
position. Neither were eager to get caught, but the chance of getting a good look at the noblewoman was worth it in their minds. Especially if they caught her changing for bed.
However, every thought of peeping flew out of their minds as they saw a group of armed men emerge from the shrine to Medaea. Liras’ eyes went wide as he realized they were humans, and a moment later, he hissed. “Shit, those are humans, Warrif!”
“I can see that as well as you can! What do we do?” Warrif asked, looking panicked.
“Uh, wait until they’re far enough away,” Liras quickly replied, thoughts racing. “Banas brought more guards than most of the others, and he’s nearby. We’ll raise the alarm with him!”
“Okay, that’s a good idea,” Warrif spoke softly, staying still as they watched the group round a corner, and then they quickly climbed back down the tree and raced off toward one of the nearby manors.
“Ugh,” Thompson grunted as he stepped through the teleportation portal. It was almost like it’d taken his stomach a moment to catch up with the rest of him, and he looked around at the soldiers, stepping forward as he forced down the nausea. He quickly began to bark out orders. “Each of you, go out by squads and get to work! It won’t be long before the alarm is raised, so we have to make the most of it!”
Nearly half of the first hundred soldiers were through the portal, which would definitely help with the attack. He was just taking a deep breath when he heard a horn blast out an alarm in the distance. And he swore aloud, quickly commanding, “Get moving, all of you, go!”
Spells of Old (Ancient Dreams Book 2) Page 14
