MiP B2 Chapter 47: Ultimatum

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Aaand a `spell enchant` to finish the job! There we go, all done. Carlos raised the gauntlet he'd just finished tinkering with high in front of him and inspected it with a critical eye. He turned it over a few times, probing it with his mana sense thoroughly, and found nothing out of place. In particular, no part of it tried to divert his attention from anything, even though he was being extremely blatant about investigating every last part of it.

He looked over at Amber, who he already knew had finished the other gauntlet in the same suit a couple minutes ago, and nodded. She nodded back, and the two of them turned to Crown Mage Felton and sent the paired gauntlets floating over to him with a casual display of telekinesis.

Felton took the gauntlets in his own telekinesis spell with a flawless handoff and placed them on the armor stand beside him with the rest of the suit of armor. "All done, I take it? That was impressively quick."

Carlos tried to keep his face blandly neutral as he shrugged. "What can I say? We work fast." He was sure that Felton would speculate privately about them having some kind of mental enhancements, but he wanted to minimize any hints about the details. He especially wanted to not let on about having several minds working concurrently on different parts of the project; letting that secret out would be too likely to either inspire poorly done attempts to duplicate it that backfire into insanity, or suspicions of them having fallen victim to such insanity themselves.

Felton accepted the excuse without comment and scanned the entire suit of armor with a spell. Carlos easily identified the spell as a modified variant of the same enchantment analysis spell the gauntlets themselves used, with the modifications guarding against the interference the sophisticated sabotage had used to conceal itself. Felton nodded, satisfied. "All functions appear intact and operable, and I detect no sign of sabotage. We will still have to test it more thoroughly to be certain, but I believe you have succeeded. Excellent work."

Amber started to bow and prompted Carlos to do the same, then hesitated and adjusted to merely a respectful nod. She blushed and tried to pretend the aborted bow hadn't happened. "Thank you, Mage Felton. We are glad to be helpful to the Crown."

Felton gave a half-bow back and smiled. "If only all nobles felt that way, this country would be much easier to manage." He pressed his lips together, then shook his head and sighed. "As helpful as this is, the Crown will want to not be dependent on you for it. I respect that it involves a house secret, but I think the Crown might insist that you disclose this particular secret so that the Crown's own mages can implement the fix ourselves."

Carlos nodded. "I've been thinking for a while that that might be the case. I haven't decided on what to ask for in exchange yet, but I'm sure we can come to a good agreement on it." He thought to himself, We can teach how to enchant things without revealing the greater secret of the system's self-documentation. He gave Felton a sharp look. "I will definitely want a guarantee that the Enchanters Guild will not learn the origin of the Crown's knowledge, though. I don't want to find out how they would react to that."

Felton chuckled. "I can't imagine the Crown having any objection to that. If anything, letting people think the Crown discovered it themselves would even further increase the already-high prestige and reputation of the Crown." He waved his right hand, and the whole armor stand disappeared. "Anyway, I believe you have some consultation and planning to do with Lorvan and the rest? I'll go present our results and leave you to your business. Good luck."

"Thank you." Carlos nodded, and Felton vanished with the mana flash of a Teleport spell in Carlos's mana sense. Colonel Lorvan stepped up from the side, where he'd been observing the proceedings, and Carlos sent a telepathic signal through Purple to all the House Carlos staff in the camp. Soon, the entire camp was assembled in the relatively clear but still-covered spot they'd been using as a workshop for their magic crafting work. It seemed as good a place as anywhere in the camp for a meeting.

Carlos waited for everyone to assemble. Ressara was the last to arrive, and he nodded to greet her before surveying the group. Colonel Lorvan and Major Ordens stood front and center, resplendent in their heavily-enchanted royal guard armor. The enchantments kept trying to push his attention away from their souls, especially from scrutinizing details such as their level, only to have the opposite effect by pushing on inverted levers around his mind.

Trinlen, academy-trained mage and prankster, lounged in the air to Carlos's left, supported by a customized Flight spell that he claimed feels like lying on clouds. The adventuring party from Dramos stood just right of the royal guards, all lined up in a row: Haftel, tall and lanky and packing a great many daggers; Esmorana, long hair waving in localized wisps of wind; Noralt, stocky and musclebound; and Sconter, large yet strangely quiet. Their souls all felt denser than they used to, though still far short of what Carlos knew was possible. Kindar, not yet officially confirmed as a noble, had the densest soul of anyone present except Carlos and Amber themselves. Ressara, self-styled investigative scholar and definitely the least combat-capable person present, rounded off the lot.

Carlos clapped his hands together to start things off. "Right, so, I expect you all already know that Amber and I will advance to Level 46, the highest the aether here can support, overnight tonight. Lorvan tells me the risk of the guardian noticing us will increase rapidly as we approach closer than this, so we need to be ready for that fight." He raised his right hand and waved to quiet any objections. "I know, I know, Amber and I will have to take on the fight ourselves. We're the only ones here with enough power to properly stand up to it. But we could use some advice on strategy. We've gotten a lot of advice for fighting monsters in general, beasts, and other people, but not for wellspring guardians."

Haftel chuckled and idly flipped a dagger with his left hand. "As far as I've ever heard, wellspring guardians can be anything. Any type of monster, any type of beast… I suppose nobles could be considered human wellspring guardians, but that's the one possibility you definitely won't find at this wellspring. So, really you're asking for advice on how to fight exactly the same things, just stronger."

Carlos shrugged. "I suppose I am. Except it's also a one-off opponent with a known home base that we are specifically hunting. This isn't some random thing we happen across; it's a specific target that we can prepare for. Can we scout it? Find its strengths and weaknesses in advance? Hide from it? Prepare traps? Maybe bait it into an ambush?"

"Hmm." Haftel cocked his head, then looked to his party.

Sconter looked back, then raised his right hand and wobbled it. "Against most things, I would be confident of scouting them undetected. Against a wellspring guardian, though… Maybe even odds it might notice me? Depends how close I get, I suppose, but any significant gap in its senses is a vulnerability a competitor likely would have exploited to defeat and replace it already."

Haftel nodded and shifted his gaze to Esmorana, who shrugged in response. "I can probably locate it from a distance, and even tell its shape from how the wind flows around it. That won't reveal much about its abilities, however."

Haftel faced Carlos again and spread his hands, but Carlos looked at Noralt, the last member of the party. Noralt raised an eyebrow at him. "What are you looking at me for? I'm a fighter, not a scout."

Haftel cleared his throat. "Honestly, your best bet for sussing out its weaknesses is probably some kind of magecraft. I've heard of spells that let a mage see all kinds of things from miles and miles away. But that's more your own specialty, not ours."

Carlos shared a look with Amber and Trinlen, then nodded. "Fair enough, though I hope not everything will come down to finding the right spell."

Trinlen laughed from his floating perch. "I don't know, Boss, wouldn't that reinforce that becoming a mage was the right choice?"

Amber nodded sagely. "Versatility combined with power is the reason I chose the path of a mage, after all."

Carlos groaned, but he couldn't help chuckling a bit, too. "My point is that I'd really like to get more from this discussion than just 'it's all up to us'." He sighed. "Okay, fine. Whatever strategy we choose, there's a high chance that a spell or combination of spells may be the best way to implement it. I understand that. It still leaves the question of what strategy or strategies we should use our spells to implement. Scrying the monster is an obvious first step. What then? Could we, I don't know, tunnel underground to sneak into its territory? Would approaching it in the air with flight help?"

Haftel shook his head. "By this level, flight and burrowing are both common, and so are ways to deal with them. Flying in would just get you spotted sooner. Burrowing might get you closer. It will not get you all the way. Same for invisibility, incidentally."

Carlos cocked his head. "What if we have our dungeon do the burrowing? Would that make any difference?"

Haftel hesitated. "Maybe. Dungeons don't usually form this far from civilization, and your dungeon has capabilities I don't fully understand. The guardian will undoubtedly sense it at some point, but I can't predict whether it will react with caution or aggression."

Carlos nodded. "Alright. What about baiting it into a trap? Any reliable ways to do that?"

Haftel looked uncertain, but Lorvan immediately nodded. "There is one thing that every wellspring guardian will always react to with great and immediate hostility: large-scale absorption of their wellspring's aether. It is a valuable resource that they guard jealously."

Carlos grinned. "We can certainly do that! So, we'll have Sconter and Esmorana see what they can scope out while we try our hands at scrying; then we'll have our dungeon burrow a tunnel underground toward the wellspring, and we'll prepare for a potential fight at each major step; and when we're as ready as we think we're likely to get, if we get that far before it responds, we'll stop trying to conceal our aether absorption. Sounds good to everyone? Any ideas to add?"

___

High Lord Recindril Tostral restrained the urge to rub his eyes or massage his aching forehead. It wouldn't do to show any kind of weakness in front of someone looking to him for leadership, after all. A sigh of shared exasperation was fine, though. "High Lord Katra, I wish I could say that your report is unique. Unfortunately, a dozen similar reports have come to me ahead of yours. Let me guess: your house treasure simply went missing, without even the slightest trace, and no other indication that a break-in had even happened. You only discovered its absence when you went to retrieve it to add its power to our forces."

The man in front of him frowned and slowly nodded. "That is exactly correct, High Lord Recindril. Not even a speck of dust was out of place, except that my shield was gone."

Recindril nodded back. "And you came to me and not the Crown because you suspect the Crown is the culprit."

Lord Katra shrugged and nodded. "Who else could it be? Especially with them stealing from so many rebel houses? The Crown has the motivation, and I can think of no one else who might have such incredible capability."

Recindril verbally agreed, keeping his true thoughts on the matter hidden. I can think of one other who might be capable, but what would they gain from earning our ire, and possibly also the Crown's?

___

King Elston Kalor stood on air in front of his throne, his powerful muscles and orichalcum raiment on full display and his face grimly serious. He waved his left hand toward his back left where his third child stood. "Settle down, Lornera. The rebellion, their thefts of house treasures, and their strikes against the Crown itself, are no longer your problems. Your job is now to support my resolution of it. Show a united front with us for the announcement."

Lornera obeyed wordlessly, facing forward and glaring, stone-faced.

King Elston looked at the royal mage handling the spellwork for the event, who immediately held up 3 fingers and gave him a countdown. "Recording for distribution in 3… 2…" The mage folded the last finger, then nodded silently.

King Elston proclaimed, "It seems that some people need a reminder of who the true power in this kingdom is. One week from today, at noon, I will be at the center of the Kalor Barrens. Only my children will accompany me there. Come challenge me, all of you rebels together, if you dare. If not, cease this rebellion at once, on pain of soul death. I will personally hunt down each and every one of you, if I must. One week. Be there, or surrender, or I will end your pathetic existence!"

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