MiP B2 Chapter 61: Royal Appreciation

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Carlos quickly grabbed all of Nyralis's disabled items with Mass Telekinesis and stripped them off of him, then pulled them out of the cage and held them well away from the man. He was pretty sure Nyralis had no way to undo what they had done or to get out of his cage, especially with all of his soul structures removed, but there was no point taking unnecessary risks. Nyralis glared impotently, and even ground his teeth together when Carlos extracted a blue gemstone engraved with many tiny runes from under his shirt. The gem, which Carlos guessed might be a sapphire, had an attention diversion ward on it, plus a rather hefty mana reservoir connected to a manual-activation Teleport enchantment that had a large array of add-ons for pushing through all kinds of interference.

[Okay, Purple, I think we've got him, now. Focus everything on breaking the traps on the king and scions until they're out. We'll help, too.]

A flicker of acknowledgement and agreement flashed across their bond, and the dungeon domain around them ceased spreading and instead bore down on the bubbles of force like an industrial sander combined with a heavy-duty acid bath. The spell lashed out in response to the assault, but there was nothing for it to hit. It was like reality itself had taken objection to the spell's existence.

Carlos, for his part, cast a powered-up Force Drill, focusing as much power into as small a point as he could manage. He'd sent similar spells at the same barrier before, but this time, he made the tip self-repairing and gave it access to half his remaining mana to sustain it. Perhaps more importantly, he surrounded the tip with gluey hooks that wouldn't allow the barrier to pull away, copying one of Nyralis's tricks, and he made it hollow with a hidden expandable passage. He could have gone for cracking the barrier spell's control construct, but this spell protected itself strongly, and he was still wary of revealing too much about what they could do.

Inside the trap, the king avoided Carlos's drill in favor of continuing to attack other parts of the barrier. Carlos tried shouting to him, "If you focus where I'm drilling, it will break faster," but to no avail. Amber pressed her own attack on the other side, however, and pincering the slippery barrier between their spells finally made real progress. The barrier dropped a small section to allow their two spells to push against each other directly, much like it had before when the Kalor scions coordinated with their father, and they acted almost as one to take advantage of that gap immediately.

They projected sheets of force perpendicular to their drill tips, jamming their own barriers between the two sides of the trap, then separated and pulled back. They finally had the tips of their drills sticking through the barrier and into its interior, and Carlos poured mana into expanding the hollow passage hidden inside his spell, widening the hole in all directions. The barrier tried to resist, but it was weakening under Purple's constant erosion, and its design held no specific countermeasure for the widening of a tube that was already securely embedded through it.

Nyralis, seeing them seemingly distracted from him, drew an unenchanted steel dagger they had overlooked. Still on his knees in the cage they'd placed around him, he tried his last remaining option for escape. He whipped the dagger toward his throat to slice. Carlos intercepted the movement with a Telekinesis spell—he'd dedicated one of his minds to watching Nyralis the whole time. He followed up with a set of restraints that would hold the enchanter almost completely immobile, then scanned for a hollow poison tooth. That search came up empty, and he settled that mind back into just watching.

Meanwhile, Carlos called out through the passageway he'd opened, "Your Majesty, it's open here!"

King Elston glanced at him, suppressed a shudder as yet another razor scraped across his soul, and turned away. He pressed his armblades together, pointed them straight ahead of himself like a single combined weapon, and flew forward with all the force his royal-grade essence could exert. The trap tried to move with him, as it had before, but part of it was caught by Carlos's and Amber's spells. Carlos blinked at Elston's refusal, then mentally shrugged and pulled on his embedded drill.

Caught between Elston's push at one end and the twin anchors of Carlos's and Amber's drills, the trap spell's membrane stretched and distorted. Purple's mana continued wearing away at its substance, and it was becoming noticeably thinner. After a few more seconds, the spell finally tore. Elston's twin armblades pierced through the barrier, and he emerged. He swept his armblades to the sides, casting the remains of the trap behind him, and immediately set to freeing Brenelle next.

Carlos shared a look with Amber and considered whether to help, but Elston didn't give them much time to think. Elston clasped hands with Brenelle, causing her trap to open a small hole, then shaped his hand into several wide spokes, spread in all directions and digging back into the trap's force bubble. The trap tried to just let his spokes back out, but he thickened and flattened them faster than it could react, ending up with something very similar to the solid sheets of force that Carlos and Amber had used to prevent Elston's trap from evicting their intrusion into it.

In only a few more moments, Elston and Brenelle together had pried the trap open and broken it. Then Patrimmon used the same trick to get his hand through to the outside, and put them both to shame by somehow reshaping his whole body to flow through the conduit of his wrist. He was out almost faster than Carlos could blink.

Then the three of them lined up together facing Carlos and Amber, floating perfectly steady in the sky as if that was the most normal thing. Elston scowled at them, and though he had turned his arms back into normal, if heavily muscled, arms, he held them ready at his sides. "Who are you, and why are you here?"

Princess Lornera's voice answered from behind them before Carlos could more than open his mouth to reply. "Father, these two are the ones I told you about; the victims of the House Carlos kidnapping incident, who led to discovering the rotation agreement and the sabotaged enchantments, and who found a way to fix the sabotage. They are here because I called for aid, and they accompanied the only guards who responded. I had no idea that they had developed a royal-tier soul plan, but they proved willing to reveal that secret to answer our need. They have rendered priceless aid to the Crown, and they deserve to be rewarded accordingly."

King Elston hovered in place, his scowl unmoved, while he silently assessed each of them. His bruised and scratched soul extended some essence to probe Carlos, then Amber. Carlos felt almost naked, with the exact person he had been the most concerned about personally inspecting his soul while his disguise was completely dropped. Still, Carlos kept himself calm and waited. He didn't dare inspect Elston in return, but even just his passive senses picked up a lot of thin cracks being held together more by active exertion of will than by healthy integrity. Elston's probe shook slightly once, and Carlos pretended not to notice.

Finally, Elston withdrew his probe and curved his mouth upward into a smile. "You have the Crown's thanks, Lord Carlos Founder and Lady Amber Carlos. I will have to consider what reward would be appropriate. But first, deliver the traitor and his items to me."

Carlos and Amber bowed deeply, and Carlos plucked Nyralis bound and helpless from his cage. Elston grabbed Nyralis by his throat, then unleashed a suffocating wave of soul pressure on him. Elston's soul quivered briefly, but Nyralis's face blanched even whiter, and his body slumped and relaxed. Nyralis's soul, impotent without any soul structures despite his high Level, yielded to the pressure. All conscious direction or purpose in the movements of Nyralis's mana ceased.

Elston shook Nyralis's unconscious body, then lowered it and casually grabbed the enchanter's various items out of Carlos's telekinetic grip and tossed them to his children. With Nyralis dangling from his left hand, Elston looked at Carlos again and cocked his head. He glanced at Amber, then back to Carlos. "Would the two of you consider marrying into my house? Loyal mages of royal potency could be a worthy addition to Kalor's power."

Carlos's thoughts screeched to a halt, and he looked at Amber. Her eyes met his, every bit as shocked as he was. The idea of marrying a Kalor felt terribly wrong to him. The idea of marrying anyone—anyone except Amber—felt equally wrong. One of his minds reached out to her through Purple's bonds, and he felt a deep stew of embarrassment, shock, affection, and incredulous growing hope reaching back to him.

He firmly and emphatically pushed his own similar feelings toward her through the bond even as he schooled his face into a mask of polite calmness. He bowed deeply again. "Your Majesty, I am greatly honored that you would consider such a union, but the question came to us rather suddenly, and such a weighty matter should be considered at length."

Elston looked at the two of them quietly for a few seconds, then shrugged. "Very well." He looked past them at his younger daughter. "Lornera, you called for aid, and only the Carlos mentors responded? Why did you not ask them to bring you to personally marshal the palace garrison?"

Carlos slapped his forehead, but refrained from commenting. Lornera replied sheepishly, her voice filled with chagrin, "I didn't think of that in the moment. In that, I failed you, Father. I will serve whatever penitence you see fit."

Elston waved off Lornera's statement of contrition. "What's done is done. We have more important things to handle now." He looked sternly at Carlos and Amber. "You two, retrieve your minders and teleport Lornera to Kalor Palace. She and the garrison will handle matters from there. Retire to… wherever for now. Return to Kalor Palace at noon two days hence. I will have a suitable reward prepared for you at that time."

Carlos bowed and mentally nudged Amber, who hastily bowed as well. "Of course, your Majesty. At once!"

Carlos cast a short-range Teleport to pop down to where Lorvan and Ordens were, wrapping the spell around Amber and Lornera, too. A quick question procured the needed destination coordinates from the guards, and they all departed unceremoniously with another Teleport.

Purple's awareness and influence in the area faded quickly with the loss of his connections to it, but in the few seconds it lasted, he saw the three remaining royals react to Carlos's departure. Elston let out a great sigh and relaxed his iron grip on his soul's surface, and Brenelle and Patrimmon followed suit. Hairline cracks opened all over their souls and mana poured out for a moment before they all shuddered and clamped down again. The two scions rushed to their father's side and, despite their own injuries, pushed themselves to help the king.

___

Two days passed in a haze of nervousness and speculation for Carlos and Amber. Would they be hailed as heroes in front of every noble in the nation? Would they be given vast riches? Would they be greeted in a private ceremony and given a medal or other token of appreciation that they would never be able to publicly explain? Would King Elston insist on tying them to him by a marriage alliance? Would they be able to marry each other, as they had realized they both wanted? What of the fears that had prompted them to disguise their royal-tier souls in the first place? Had their investment in those disguises been a complete waste? Should they replace those soul structures now that the secret was out, and with what?

Finally, the time came for Carlos and Amber to return to Kalor Palace. Colonel Lorvan and Major Ordens escorted them, but Lorvan had firmly admonished that no others were invited, so everyone else stayed at the wellspring. An honor guard of eight royal guards greeted them at the teleport receiving room. Carlos tried not to be too obvious about gawking, but the amount of mythril on display greatly tested his self control, even in the short walk the guards guided them through.

The doors they arrived at were 15 feet tall and 10 feet wide. A few pieces of adamantium inlay decorated the massive wooden slabs, which together with the size assured Carlos that this at least would not be a small private audience. It seemed that even the Crown was not so rich as to use actual orichalcum metal for mere decoration, though; the inlaid designs featured the color of orichalcum prominently in depictions of crowns, auras, and wings, but none of it was the actual metal.

The huge doors opened ponderously as they approached, then closed behind them with a muffled thud. A walkway of flawless marble, lined with mythril on the sides, led straight forward from the doors. Ranks of royal guards stood at attention on either side of the path, gauntleted hands held in motionless salutes. After 60 feet, the marble path widened into an open area, though the mythril lines continued up to the dais 40 feet farther on, where King Elston Kalor waited on an ornate throne. There, at last, was a tiny bit of orichalcum on the tips of the throne's armrests, though Carlos suspected that it held some potent enchantment rather than being solely decorative. It was hard to distinguish a potential enchantment from the mana and essence inherent in the metal itself with only casual observation.

Three mages in the Crown's uniform stood at the back, behind the dais, and Carlos recognized the feel of Felton's soul as one of them. Princess Brenelle stood at the king's right hand, and she stepped forward as Carlos and Amber entered the open area. Prince Patrimmon and Princess Lornera stood behind the lines of guards on either side.

Brenelle greeted them. "High Lord Carlos Founder, and High Lady Amber Carlos, I welcome you in the name of the Crown. You have done much for the Crown. Extraordinarily so, for nobles so young, and especially since you have not even reached the point of public announcement of your house. You uncovered a treasonous conspiracy against the Crown, and in the course of that conspiracy's attempted revenge, you exposed the first evidence of a second, deeper conspiracy. You found a way to neutralize the work of the deeper conspiracy, and you provided this service to the Crown freely. When the Crown called for aid, you answered. And at the last, your intervention may well have saved the Crown from a rebellious plot that had grown in hiding for generations. Come forward, and receive your reward from the Crown himself!"

Carlos shared a look with Amber, and the pair walked forward in unison.

King Elston stood from his throne, and power filled the room. The bruises and scrapes on his soul from two days ago were gone, his soul healthy and whole once more. He nodded to them. "Perhaps your most significant achievement is that you have developed a soul plan with potency that rivals that of the Crown. The first nobles to ever do so." Abruptly, his face morphed into a hateful glare. His eyebrows creased, and he frowned and drew back his right arm. "And that cannot be allowed!"

Elston transformed his right arm into a sword blade and charged, seeming through sheer speed to almost teleport across the intervening distance.

An orichalcum blur appeared in front of Carlos, intercepting Elston's attack. Wind blasted in all directions from the thunderous collision.

Elston's shout echoed a fraction of an instant after the thunder. "Lornera?!"

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