“Of course, Milady,” Sora replied, and bowed her head as she backed away. Leaving, the maid went to inform the other slaves.
Isana turned back to the mountains, and her voice was soft as she prayed. “Oh, Fate, please let this not be my ultimate destiny. Let this chance be true.”
“So, what’s all this about?” Zarenya asked, looking around the gathering. Everyone was in the antechamber of the temple Sistina had built for the worship of Medaea, as it was the best place for all those in the dungeon to gather.
Sistina stood and held her hands behind her back, taking a deep breath as she spoke an almost rehearsed series of explanations. “Tomorrow, changing dungeon. Massive changes. Safe places, stay in them.”
“What?” Phynis asked, blinking. “Is this your surprise?”
“Not telling,” Sistina replied promptly.
“Which places are safe?” Diamond asked, seeming a little worried. “And how long do we have to stay in them?”
“Temples. Library. Academy. Main cavern. All safe,” Sistina replied, soberly looking at them. “Time start, noon. Dawn next day.”
“That’s a long time. You haven’t had us do anything like this before, Sistina. Why now?” Desa asked, glancing at Lily, who nodded nervously.
“Now…” Sistina paused, hesitating a moment as she tried to think of how to put it. The situation was far more complicated than any of her other changes by far, and she wasn’t certain how to convey the ideas she had in her head. They just had no idea how extensive of an idea she was trying, so she finally shrugged and looked at Desa before replying softly, “Moving everything.”
“Oh.” Desa nodded.
“Wait… when you say everything, are you just talking about the caves and buildings?” Ellis asked as well, and Sistina couldn’t help but shake her head.
“No. Everything. Mountain shape,” Sistina insisted, and it was at that point that most of the people in the chamber paled, instead of talking softly among themselves.
Finally, Lily spoke. “We’ll stay safe, Sistina.”
“Good.” Sistina smiled in relief, but noticed the worried frown on Phynis’ face.
In the pre-dawn darkness the next morning, Sistina trudged outside and looked around at the town, Granite Point. She didn’t have any particular feelings about the town one way or another, but it had struck her as odd. Crude, in many ways. She appreciated the adventurers, but she didn’t know much about most of the others. Still, she would give them a chance.
Planting the sign in front of the entryway, Sistina turned and walked back into the dungeon, and the cave entrance rippled, then closed behind her, leaving nothing but a rock wall.
Chapter 51
“What the hell is this?” Darak asked, shouldering his axe incredulously, staring at the sign in front of a blank rock wall.
The sign said ‘Closed for Renovations.’ Joseph looked at it in bemusement, then up at where the entrance of the dungeon normally was. He opened his mouth, then shut it as Penelope spoke.
“I’m guessing it means that there was a reason the dungeon had been building up all that mana. I think it’s good that it’s doing something with it. Albert was starting to get weird,” Penelope suggested, shrugging. “I just hope it isn’t, oh, adding lava to the foundry or something.”
“Gods, don’t even suggest that! That would make breathing a damned nightmare!” Darak protested, blanching at the thought.
“I think that the simple answer is that we aren’t going to be going on a delve today,” Joseph spoke up, trying to cut off any banter between the two. “At least they put up a sign. It could have been much worse.”
“True, but… Nirath? Are you alright?” Penelope paused, looking at the mage in concern. Nirath wasn’t staring at the entrance, but she was looking into the air above the mountain.
“I’m… I’m fine. But I believe it might be a good idea to go back to the inn. Or a few miles out of town,” the elven mage murmured, blinking slowly.
“Why?” Darak asked, his tone vigilant. None of them took Nirath’s warnings lightly, not when the elf had the rare ability to feel mana as physical sensations, and could literally grow drunk off it in some cases.
“Because I’m sensing more mana than I care to describe. If it’s all used at once, I might not wake up until sometime next week,” Nirath replied, her pupils slightly dilated. “It won’t be bad, but I’d rather be conscious to watch. Assuming I remember any of it.”
“I’d say let’s get you back to the guild. Maybe we can convince Albert to put you in a room facing the mountain. With mana dampeners to help,” Joseph offered, feeling nervous as he looked at the others. “In all honesty, I trust the guild house to survive anything that happens better than the inn.”
“Agreed. Let’s get back to the guild house and let Albert know what’s going on.” Penelope nodded, and led the way as they headed back.
Joseph made a note to keep an eye on the mountain as he took up the rear, making certain Nirath kept moving. He was curious what was happening with the dungeon.
Sistina checked to be certain that everyone was safely out of the way as it approached noon. Once she started her ritual, she couldn’t stop without causing things to go disastrously wrong, so she was being a bit paranoid.
Everyone appeared to have settled into their chosen buildings. Kassandra was the only one in the academy, while most of the others had chosen to stay in her primary cavern. Only a handful of priestesses had chosen to stay in their temple, while most were here as well. Part of Sistina suspected that they were simply curious how she was going to do what she was. But since everyone was in place, Sistina fully withdrew from her body, leaving it among her roots as she reached out to the pulsing heart of the mountain, buried beneath the pond near her tree.
As she activated it, the water of the pond pulsed, shuddered, and turned brown from stirring silt, while a strange crimson light appeared from below. Moments later, the water shifted and began to flow off a shimmering crimson surface, and Sistina heard gasps as a ten-foot across ruby slowly levitated above the pool of water, resplendent with mana stored within it.
With a thought, Sistina connected it to the massive magical circles she’d been silently carving under the mountain for the entire winter. None of the tunnels with the runes connected to her main tunnels, so no one had seen them, and even if they had, she doubted that anyone could have understood them without months of mapping and deciphering. It wasn’t an easy ritual to set up by any means.
And now she just had to control the flow of mana until the circles were fully charged and active. If she didn’t, the circles would explode, and that would be… bad.
“What the hell is going on in there?” Albert muttered, examining his instruments and scowling. His steam engine kept sputtering and nearly extinguishing due to the mana levels dropping in the area, which was worrying.
The overall mana level in the region was dropping quickly, reducing the power of spells and making it more difficult for devices that ran on ambient mana, like steam engines, to continue to function. The question was what was causing it.
“I’ve never even heard of anything like this before. What’s happening? Did a dead god wake up or something?” Albert asked, glancing toward the mountain nervously as the sun began to set.
As the sun set, the magic of the world shifted, and the new moon truly began. The symbol of new beginnings, magic rose across the landscape, and Sistina shivered internally. Taking a mental breath, she activated the formation, beginning to speak the words of the spell.
The first ring roared to life in a massive circle of golden light beneath the mountain. The second was inside the first, and offset slightly, glowing with the same golden light as the first. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth circles sprang to life as well, each in a different alignment, until the seventh powered up, creating a massive sphere within the mountain. And that was when the spell began to throb in truth, echoes of Sistina’s words shuddering through the ley lines as a pill
ar of golden light pierced the sky.
“What in the hells is that?” Ulvian gasped, waking from his sleep as something that felt like a massive, immaterial bell had rung only feet away from him. A moment later it happened again, and he gasped, blinking. “Was that the aether? What in the blazes is happening?!”
Dragging himself from bed, the ripples of power came again and again, and Ulvian threw on a robe before opening the doors of his balcony, scanning the horizon for a sign of what it could be. And it was then that he froze, his mouth wide open, murmuring, “Dear gods…”
In the far distance, he could see the pillar of light blazing in the night, and he couldn’t imagine the power that it took to create such a display. Since it was coming from the direction of the mountains, he wasn’t too worried that it was one of his opponents, but it was certainly disconcerting. The only issue would be if it happened to wake up Tyr—
Ulvian’s eyes went wide and he blurted, “Oh, shit!”
He abandoned all dignity as he raced downstairs to ensure that the goddess didn’t wake under the rippling aether.
“Holy gods of light! Is that coming from the dungeon?” Reva demanded, shielding his eyes as he looked at the pillar.
“I’m not sure, but if it isn’t, it’s damned near there,” Vendis replied, the scout captain looking shaken as she stared at it as well. “I have no clue what could possibly cause something like that.”
“Me neither,” Reva replied, staring for a moment before he murmured, “This is going to make things interesting.”
The light couldn’t just be seen from Kelvanath. Every mage in Sifaren and Yisara woke from their beds, and those who looked into the night sky could see the thin golden beam piercing the vault of the sky with its brilliance. The very weave of magic across the world shuddered as a form of magic unknown for thousands of years awakened once more.
“Albert! What in the ever-living gods is that?!” Penelope demanded, causing Albert to cringe as he paused in the midst of trying to shut down his tools.
At that moment, one of the mana detection crystals exploded, and he flinched before snarling back. “What it is is a high magic ritual! One that’s bleeding off enough mana that every damned device I have is going haywire if I don’t shut it down! My steam engine was the first thing to go, as it choked on the mana influx. Now pardon me, I want to keep half my things from exploding!”
“High magic? That’s impossible!” Joseph protested, just behind Albert’s sister, both of them unclothed enough that Albert knew what they’d been up to. “High magic was lost after the Godsrage!”
“Tell that to the damned dungeon! I’m busy!” Albert snarled, ducking as a wand whined and overloaded, exploding into pieces.
Within the dungeon, Phynis stared at the giant ruby, shaken at the amount of power she felt flowing out of it and through the dungeon. The entire dungeon was throbbing with power, and she could hear words echoing in a chorus throughout the halls. It was as if Sistina was using the entire structure to speak in ten voices all at once. It echoed like thunder, yet it didn’t, and she shivered, asking softly, “Desa? What is she doing?”
“It’s obviously a magical ritual of some form, but I’m not entirely sure what she’s trying to do. And I have no clue how she’s doing it,” Desa replied, her voice soft as she looked up at the crystalline ceiling. Following her gaze, Phynis’ eyes widened at the golden light coming from above. As Phynis gasped, Desa murmured, “I don’t know where the circles are, but she wasn’t joking about the power involved. No matter what, don’t interrupt her, Phynis.”
“I won’t. I can feel how hard she’s concentrating,” Phynis agreed, swallowing as she looked at the tree, which also glowed with golden motes of light, branches swaying in an invisible wind.
Nirath watched raptly, shivering from within the magic-dampened room as she saw the soaring spell-forms take shape. The ritual was like nothing she’d seen before, save in hints of scattered texts in the guild libraries, yet it was familiar too. The spell seemed similar to the one which Albert and Dorn had used to build the guild house, simply on a massive scale. Feeling the streamers of mana as gentle touches against her body, Nirath chose to simply bask in them and watch.
Slowly, all the snow melted away, vanishing into the mountain, as did all the vegetation and trees. The animals had long-since fled the mountain, leaving it a bare expanse of dirt and stone. But even that was shrinking, compacting. Under the golden light, the mountain that stretched over five thousand feet above her head seemed to melt and reform like a potter would shape clay. It wasn’t fast, taking place over the course of hours, but it was frighteningly fast on the scale she could see.
The mountain lost over two thousand feet of height, reshaping into a massive, flat-topped cone that rose nearly a half-mile into the sky. Two flat terraces slowly circled their way down the mountainside, each over a hundred feet wide and seeming to be crafted almost entirely of granite. As she watched, buildings slowly emerged from the stone, fully formed as rows of houses, shops, and temples appeared along each terrace. The terraces each were connected by stairs, and she saw depressions form, just in time for water to begin flowing from somewhere near the summit, pouring down into carefully formed pools, waterfalls, and canals throughout the forming city.
It was then that five massive walls emerged from the mountainside, rising thirty feet from the stone and each five hundred feet of altitude apart, regular towers rising above the walls, and a gatehouse piercing the wall above where the entrance to the dungeon had once stood. Nirath blinked as she realized that both signs had vanished as well, but the changes had not yet ended.
A gleaming palace of white marble slowly emerged from the summit, visible only due to that immense golden light. At its heart was a massive tower, seeming to rise above all else around it, within which shone an immense crimson light, bright enough to be seen for dozens of miles.
Nirath felt the changes continuing, but none of them were where she could see them. Instead, her eyes turned to the walls and the winding path leading up to the gate some fifty feet above their heads. The sloped stone base of the mountain would make it difficult for a siege tower to get close enough to function, even if one could be made eighty feet tall, and she could see runes carved into the walls, enchantments designed to reinforce and repair them.
The mage couldn’t help but sigh at the beautiful sight.
The rumbling within the cavern had grown still at last, and the immense ruby was gone; it had ascended into a hole in the ceiling hours earlier, a hole which had closed with its passage. And slowly, everything grew quiet once more. Phynis waited in apprehension, looking over to the still figure of Sistina. After a few moments, the dryad opened her eyes and smiled tiredly, looking at them and nodding. Phynis realized she’d never seen the dryad tired before.
She and Desa stood, along with a few of the others that had gathered together. None of them had gotten much sleep that night, and Sistina approached them, her voice quiet but simple. “Follow. Please.”
“What did you do, Sistina?” Desa asked, apprehension in her voice. Not fear, Phynis noted, simply worry.
“Not bad. Can’t explain. Will show,” Sistina replied gently, shaking her head. “Tiring.”
“Okay. Just lead the way,” Phynis spoke softly, wondering what had been happening all night. It was supposedly a surprise for her, but she wasn’t certain what sort of surprise it might be.
Sistina nodded and began toward one of the exits, adding in a warning tone, “Long walk. Many stairs.”
Most of the others who were up followed, since all of them were curious about what had happened. Sistina led the way to a nearby stairwell and began to climb. The dryad’s warning was well taken, and Phynis found herself breathing hard under the effort as they climbed the seemingly endless stairs upward. If they hadn’t been in the dungeon as long as they had, Phynis suspected that most of the women with her would have had to stop and rest. But at long last, she saw light from ahead.
They emerged into what must have been intended to be gardens, with elegant paths between fields of tilled soil. The wind was cold, and Phynis shivered as she paused, gawking at the sight above and in front of her.
In front of her was the side of an immense elven palace of a style she hadn’t seen, save for in a few surviving buildings from before the Godsrage. Near the peak of the main tower, extending a hundred feet into the sky, she could see the ruby from before, glowing like a lighthouse from within the tower. When Phynis turned to look away from the palace, she inhaled sharply.
Around the palace, she could see the lower terraces of a city bigger than she’d ever imagined before. Gardens, ponds, and canals interspersed the city, but she could see the walls, hundreds of thousands of houses, and more. Blinking, she asked numbly, “Is that the temple of Vanir over there? Did you move it to the surface, Sistina?”
“Yes. Temples, academy, library. All above surface,” Sistina replied softly, but gestured. “Come.”
Phynis followed, and it took a little while for anyone else to do so, as each of the others who reached the surface paused, taking in the pre-dawn sight.
Sistina opened the front door of the palace, and the temperature grew warm again as they entered richly appointed halls. Much of the decorations looked like things that Sistina would have made, but Phynis didn’t have time to examine them as she tried to keep up with the dryad. Desa followed as well, the mage obviously holding back her own questions.
Spells of Old (Ancient Dreams Book 2) Page 35
