MiP B2 Chapter 31: Noble Reaction

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High Lord Recindril Tostral took a moment to get his bearings after respawning, but once the memory of how he died came back, he was unsurprised to find himself not in his normal bedroom at Castle Tostral. Lornera said she would make an example of us; she would not have stopped at just making me respawn. Losing a level is a significant penalty, since I am beyond the level where wellsprings could restore it quickly, but hardly enough to give other noble houses pause. He shook his head and sighed. No, I expect Castle Tostral is gone, reduced to a scattered pile of shattered stones.

Well, eventualities such as this are why we have this backup home. He got out of the bed he'd respawned on and quickly threw on some clothes, followed by armor. He was buckling his sword belt on when the door to his room was unceremoniously flung open, and an angry teenage girl stormed in. "That bitch! How dare she! Father–"

Recindril leapt forward, flung his daughter to the floor, and landed with his armored boot on her chest and a drawn sword at her throat. "Silence!"

The girl's face paled and her eyes widened in utter shock.

Recindril slowly withdrew his sword and sheathed it, but kept his boot on her for now. "Jamar, it is clear to me now that I have been far too uninvolved with your upbringing and far too trusting in your word. You knew that Carlos was ignorant of the rotation agreement, but you led me to believe that he was knowingly violating it instead. You told me that he was from a minor house, when in fact you knew nothing of his background. You rashly confronted him with shockingly little information, and as a result carelessly revealed to the Crown a secret that the nobility have been scrupulously keeping for generations.

"And when the consequences of that finally came back to visit themselves upon you, your first reaction was indignant anger?" He glared at her. "You are self-absorbed beyond reason, almost beyond sanity. My apology for the rough treatment, but you must understand that you have brought this upon yourself by your own actions."

Jamar sniffled and tried to blink away some tears as she stammered. "But, but– You're supposed to take my side."

Recindril sighed and stepped back, allowing her to sit up. "Then you have learned nothing. This is not a matter of sides. This is a matter of you reaping the consequences of your own mistakes." He contemplated in silence for a few seconds. "I will take up arms against the Crown, as you want, but I do not do it for your sake. I do it because I have no other choice. Heed my words well, Jamar: Your recklessness may have doomed our entire house to ruination. I will have to consider what to do with you. Until I have decided, you will be confined to your room. And since you have proven I cannot trust you…"

He raised his voice and called for a guard, who arrived promptly and bowed. "Escort Jamar to her quarters. Ensure she does not stray, and station a guard to keep her there until further notice. Instruct all personnel that, by my own direct order, Jamar is stripped of all authority."

"Yes, my lord!" The guard saluted, took hold of Jamar's left arm, and sternly marched her off.

Recindril stared after her, long after her sullen figure had gone out of sight, then at long last shook his head again. "I need to figure out how to spin this for all the other houses." He chuckled humorlessly. "Maybe I should ask Jamar for advice on that. She is evidently quite skilled at spinning things, if nothing else."

He started walking, considering his next steps as he walked. First, check on Recindren's room just in case. Lornera probably captured him alive, but there's a chance she might have killed him by accident. Whether she has a hostage against me will affect the politics of this.

___

Hours later, Recindril had a slight spring in his step despite his grim countenance as he came to check on Jamar. Lady Balon of House Briston was gratifyingly receptive to my call for action, and a surprisingly large number of others aligned with her. It seems the reports of her audience with Prince Patrimmon were understated, if anything, not the exaggerations I initially thought. We must move carefully and prepare, but it seems the Crown has grown complacent and utterly out of touch with the concerns of the noble class. We fear the Crown's power, yes, but we fear being reduced to nigh-helplessness even more. Patrimmon is too arrogant by far or a fool if he can't see that.

He stopped and nodded to the guard at Jamar's door. "Report. How is she taking this?"

The guard bowed deeply. "Poorly, my lord. Scion Jamar has thrown and smashed several of her room's furnishings, and she yelled a series of vindictive rants for more than an hour. She tried several times to order me to release her, and one time even attempted to physically force her way past me. She seemed rather shocked when I stopped her."

Recindril nodded. "That fits with her earlier behavior. What did she rant about?"

"Well, my lord, at first she cast aspersions on your character, parentage, and competence as a parent."

"Drop the sugarcoating. I need to know exactly what I'm dealing with, here."

"Yes, my lord. Jamar called you a cruel heartless bastard, said you had failed your parental duties, accused you of stabbing her in the back with a foul betrayal, and called you a lying traitor for 'siding with' the Crown after all the times you've said hostile things about the Crown."

Recindril sighed. "It seems that I have failed my parental duties by not teaching her better than this before now." He gave the guard a sharp look. "There's more, isn't there?"

"Yes, my lord. After she got on the topic of the Crown, Jamar went on quite a tirade about Princess Lornera's arrogance, rudeness, and disrespect. She called her a bitch, and several other things I'd rather not repeat." The guard shook his head. "Jamar seemed to give up on that topic eventually, I think because she knows that the Crown is beyond her ability to punish. Instead, she's settled on blaming Carlos for everything. The last time I checked on her, she was going on at length about all the various things she wants to do to Carlos to punish him for ruining her life."

"Blaming Carlos, hmm?" Recindril cocked his head for a moment, thinking. What I really need right now is just to keep her from causing any more trouble, until I can spare the time and attention to properly correct her education. He nodded. "I can work with that. Stand aside."

Recindril opened the door and stepped in, unsurprised by the torrent of invective that greeted him. Jamar's swearing trailed off quickly as she realized who had come to visit, and he seized the moment of silence before she could decide which new reaction to settle on. "Jamar, I hear you want to punish Carlos. How would you like to command the force I'm about to send to hunt him down?"

He met her beaming smile with a milder grin of his own, keeping any hint of his thoughts out of his expression. A figurehead command position, of course, and she'll never catch up enough to actually reach him if the speculative report about Carlos heading for a wellspring is correct. He has too much of a head start by now; by the time Jamar is even able to survive the ambient mana where Carlos is, he'll have already claimed the wellspring. This should serve perfectly to keep her out of trouble without having to forcibly constrain her.

___

Carlos woke up uncharacteristically early, eager for the day's planned activities. Finally, we'll get some practical field experience! And I'll get to try out using my multiple minds for something other than making yet another set of soul structures! Hell yes! He sprang up, threw some clothes on, and set about industriously packing for their move. He barely even noticed Amber watching him with an amused smile on her lips as he left her nothing to do.

He waited for Felton to teleport Kindar to safety, then scooped up Purple for their flight. He idly inspected the dungeon core while Esmorana called up a fierce wind to fill the sail of her… What do we even call this thing, anyway? Neither airship nor airplane fit. It's kind of like a multi-person reverse parachute, I guess? With seats? Whatever we call it, maybe we'll be able to use Fly spells instead next time. He shook his head and refocused on the purple crystal in his hands. Closing in on 3 inches tall, I think, though not quite there yet, and half that wide and thick. Getting to be inconveniently large for carrying in a pocket, anyway.

Amber's mental voice interrupted his ruminations. [You're almost bouncing in your seat with eagerness, but have you made any actual plans for this? If so, you haven't shared them with me.]

Carlos blushed and hung his head. [Plans. Right. Plans would be good. Um. Well, to start with, we should test the limits of our current capabilities. The ones that are readily testable, at least. Like how many parallel minds we can support. Our limit for that was 3 minds when we initially created that structure at Level 16.]

[4 minds.] Amber responded almost immediately. [I can have 4 minds at once now that we're Level 22, though the fourth one takes some extra effort.] Overlapping with that statement, another thought came over their mental link at the same time. [The real question is how useful the extra minds can be now. I managed to activate a pre-prepared spell with purely mental effort before, but casting without verbalization was too much.]

It took Carlos a moment to sort out and separate the concurrent mental conversations, but ultimately it was just a variant of focusing on one conversation while in the presence of other active conversations. He focused on the 2 conversations with 2 of his minds, and the obvious next step immediately sprang to mind for his second mind. [`spell begin; use mana =…`]

Amber's mental voice spoke in concert with his, each of them casting the same spell in unison with only their minds and mana. Carlos's third mind watched in fascination as the process played out. Each mentalized word prompted a tiny piece of essence to be formed into the corresponding part of a spell structure, the pieces were assembled, some parts were duplicated or even mass produced as if by a factory assembly line, and finally the whole of it was put together and his spell activator pressed the triggers to set its operation in motion. White light bloomed above his right hand, and simultaneously above Amber's hand, as they each completed the spell.

[That's still more difficult than speaking it, but it's possible now.]

Carlos nodded in agreement. [Yeah, and I think I could race through it mentally faster than I could form the right sounds verbally. It's not at the point of just invoking the spell like a compiled program on a computer, but we're getting closer to that, at least.]

They experimented a bit more during the flight, but aside from verifying that they could cast multiple spells simultaneously, most things would need a more practical field exercise for a truly meaningful test.

Soon, they were circling over a potential landing site, with Haftel pointing out relevant features. [Level 29 aether, suitable for Ressara without special measures. That small clearing over there would be good for positioning Kindar as a decoy. Esmorana detects plentiful game and a fair number of predators in the jungle nearby to the east, good for practicing your hunting and combat skills. And it's a bit obscured by all the trees, but there's a steep hill right below us. Putting your dungeon core in the side of that hill would be a more defensible position than most.]

Carlos looked at each of the spots Haftel pointed at. The clearing was obvious, of course, but aside from that all he could see from above was a thick canopy of leaves and tree branches. [Sounds good. Let's do it.]

In short order, Carlos was looking at a 60-degree slope and whistling. "You weren't kidding about it being steep!" He placed the purple crystal he was holding into the side of the hill. "Alright, Purple, do your thing. As we planned."

The crystal pulsed with purple light, and a web of mana and hair-thin strands of essence flowed out into the surrounding area. The web focused its expansion in a few specific directions, and the currents of aether changed. The change was subtle at first, a slight increase in orderliness and reduction of chaotic randomness, but grew stronger quickly in the nearby area.

Unlike the previous times they had done this, however, the web kept expanding, growing to cover a vastly larger expanse. For the first time, Carlos's soul structures specialized for sensing large scale bulk movements of mana, essence, and aether got a proper workout. Before this, he had sensed only the natural background and actions on the scale of a single localized fight. The web he sensed Purple emplacing now was miles across, and all of the more distant parts of it got more subtle, rather than less, as it all settled into place. The outer regions hid themselves, but most importantly concealed the stream of blatantly hyper-ordered aether that was coming from the clearing to fuel their continued advancement.

Carlos's jaw dropped open as he stared in wonder with his various mana senses. "Wow, Purple. I had no idea. That's amazing!"

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