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Lornera paused as the mesh of yet another Teleport spell unfurled around her without warning. The essential core of the spell was the same as every Teleport she had ever observed, but several parts of its framework were different from what she knew. Some of those differences were, no doubt, responsible for the rapid series of several translocations instead of the usual single one, but there were too many structural differences in the spell for that to account for all of them. She allowed it to move her anyway; it was cast by Carlos, and she trusted him. She sensed her father's immense strength approaching through the odd sideways-to-reality direction that Teleports used, but Carlos's spell whisked them all away barely before Elston's arrival.
Carlos's mental voice rang in her mind, speaking so quickly that she had to engage her mental acceleration to make sense of his words. [Dammit, how is he tracing these What so method quickly? did Nyralis's thief use?] Then she had to puzzle out the bizarrely-nonsensical grammar. Wait, was that two questions overlapping? Just as she thought of that explanation, Carlos followed up. [Oops, sorry about that. It won't happen again. How is he tracing these so quickly, and what method did Nyralis's thief use?]
Lornera frowned. Speed could be explained by soul structures for, simply, speed, such as certain of her own soul structures. Accidentally overlapping the asking of two concurrent questions had a much more concerning likely cause. [Did you split your mind? Do you have even the slightest idea of how dangerous that is?!]
Even with time crawling to her accelerated perceptions, Carlos's reply came almost immediately. [First, not exactly. Second, yes, we know; I solved the problem with it months ago. Third, is that really the most urgent thing to discuss right now?] A quieter question followed instantly. [We're staying ahead of him well enough as is, maybe we could just automate the procedure and call it done?] A hint of embarrassment came over the link. [No, never mind, that was a silly thought, sorry.] He sent such a clear impression of clearing his throat that it had to be intentional. [Anyway… As I was saying, the most urgent thing?]
Lornera blinked and took a mental step back to reassess. [I suppose not, but I will come back to this when we have time. I must have confidence that your continued sanity is stable. As for your questions: Father must have enlisted the service of a noble, whoever was best suited that he could reach; and the thief left an abundance of teleport traces in the same spot, all of them genuine and made close together, such that we could not distinguish which one was their actual path of retreat.]
[Okay. How many spurious traces do we need?]
Lornera suppressed her surprise at how calmly Carlos was taking the idea. [Hundreds, at an absolute minimum. Preferably thousands. Honestly, I doubt you can achieve enough without taking more time than we have to craft a new spell for it, but it's the only idea that I'm confident should work.]
Carlos again surprised her with his degree of calm consideration. [Hmm. Alright. Let me see…] He kept rearranging a complex structure of mana that seemed reminiscent of spells, but no part of it actually matched to any part of any spell that Lornera had encountered. He often removed parts of it, too, sometimes even whole sections, to then replace the removed parts with something wholly different.
Lornera had to hold herself back from distracting Carlos with questions as he brought several irregular lumps of metal out of his pack. Each lump was roughly an inch across at its widest point, and all of them held mana suffused uniformly throughout their volume. Four pieces gleamed like silver and emanated an impression of lightness. Two drank in the light around them, leaving the area dim as if shadows surrounded their absolute blackness. She recognized what they were instantly: raw nuggets of mythril and adamantium, the rarest and most magically potent metals that could be found in nature. She could guess that House Carlos must have found them at their mana wellspring — some very fortunate finds — but she had no idea how they would be useful for what they needed.
Carlos said something mentally to their tame dungeon core and released his Telekinesis spell, and the dungeon's mana grasped them. More dungeon mana flowed into them, pressed on them, and shaped them. Several flakes of impurities fell off, ejected by the dungeon's work, then the four mythril nuggets merged into one and flattened into a thin rectangular plate, about a foot wide and four inches deep. Then the dungeon formed the adamantium nuggets into one large piece and three smaller ones and melded the pieces onto four separate sections of the mythril plate. The specific sections were clearly chosen intentionally, but the reason for it escaped Lornera's understanding.
Then Carlos touched his mana to the newly-formed flat rectangle of magical metals, and the purpose of both the metals and his complex mana arrangement became clear. In some process Lornera could not decipher, Carlos's mana arrangement was transformed into exceedingly-fine writing on the mythril and adamantium — runic writing. Somehow, impossibly, he had cracked the Enchanters Guild's greatest secret: how to create a runic enchantment.
The instant the last line inscribed itself into the metal, the dungeon abruptly presented the enchanted plate to Lornera and spoke to her. This time, it didn't bother trying to disguise its mental voice. [You will have to provide the mana to power this. All of our mana combined isn't enough for that many Teleports without resting.]
Lornera carefully picked up the inscribed rectangle and inspected it. It felt different in some subtle way to all runic enchantments she had seen before. She tentatively touched the item's mana intake — which was made with the largest section of adamantium, naturally — and gasped as it drew in her mana more smoothly and efficiently than she'd ever experienced. The differences made it somehow better than the guild's products.
The enchantment took the mana she offered, but she could tell it would need something more in order to actually operate. She grasped the mana intake and connected it to her mana pool, offering the access to pull as much as it needed, and the activation switch lit up to her mana sense, ready to use. She hesitated a moment longer, uncertain about entrusting so much power to an untested enchantment that she did not even remotely understand, but she firmed up her resolve. Carlos had made this, and she trusted him. Provisionally, for now, but still.
Lornera activated the enchantment, then swayed unsteadily as it pulled an incredible torrent of mana from her reserves. It immediately wrapped the whole group in the mesh of a Teleport spell, of course, and their surroundings flickered and changed, but then it maintained the mesh and teleported them again. One moment, they were surrounded by trees at a comfortable distance. The next, they were enmeshed in the middle of a copse of trees, only for the copse to flicker out and be replaced by clear skies before anyone could react, even Lornera herself.
A cliff appeared beside them, only to flicker back out after a barely-perceptible instant. The dirt beneath their feet became stone, then snow, then dirt again, then different dirt. The flickers came faster than Lornera could count, even with her mental speed at its maximum. She managed to discern that one place repeated every few flickers, but only because of the persistent pattern of its trees. The rest blurred into a blended streak of colors.
Then, abruptly, the flickers stopped, the drain on her mana ceased, and the mana mesh dispersed. She took stock: Her mana pool was down to precisely half of its capacity. They were in a moderately high-level zone, with the ambient environmental mana at Level 42. The nearest monster was half a mile to the east, with another two within one mile of their position, and the monsters were not reacting to their presence. Plenty of minor beasts filled the area, and a few of the nearest ones were hastily hiding, but there was no large-scale reaction. The dungeon was concealing the group's mana, and there was no disturbance drawing attention to them. Her father could undoubtedly pierce the concealment to sense them, but even he would have to be shockingly near.
Tall trees with a thick canopy sheltered them from sight from above, and a mountain peak loomed to the southwest. Bushes and low vines obscured vision at ground level past about 100 feet. A continuous rumble filled the air from the west. Peeking through the slight gap between undergrowth and canopy in that direction, she glimpsed part of a large waterfall a few miles distant. She called up the image of the Crown's maps in her mind's eye and searched for the combination of mana level, mountain, and a river waterfall in the Wilds. In moments, she found their location on her map. They were in truly Wild ground, outside the areas of influence of all organized powers. Good. The only potential danger here was if Carlos's latest spell hadn't foiled the teleport tracing after all.
Finally, Lornera looked back at the rune-covered rectangle of metal she was holding that had teleported them so very many times. It was hot enough to burn a normal person's skin, and some of the lines on it looked a little scorched. In the adamantium section that was the mana intake, the edges of the runes looked a little soft. She held it out to Carlos with a shrug and an apologetic smile. Such damage was to be expected, really. Only orichalcum could stand up to the strain of channeling large amounts of high-level royal-tier mana.
Carlos took the runic plate with a wordless Telekinesis spell and grimaced as he inspected it. [Yeah, I'll have to repair that if we need to use it again.] He started tinkering with another complex arrangement of mana — which Amber was also tinkering with at the same time, somehow — but his mental voice still seemed completely focused on Lornera. [Alright, now what? If that still wasn't enough, what else can we try? For anything as costly as that, you can provide power for just one more attempt. And if that did break our trail, where do we go from here? I doubt any of us would be satisfied with just settling down out here on our own.]
Lornera chuckled at the idea of staying in the Wilds forever. [No, definitely not. I must return to Kalor. Not now, and perhaps not soon, but in due time, I must repair the damage of my father's folly. I… I would hope that you will join me in that goal and ultimately forge the alliance that I tried to persuade him for, but I will understand if you wish no part of the Crown's affairs. You have far more freedom in where you can go than I do.]
Carlos cocked his head at her, even as his mana poked intermittently at the intricate structure floating in front of him. [How so? Your loyalty, of course, but I sensed a reference to some other factor.]
Lornera mirrored his gesture. [Isn't it obvious? For any other nation you go to, you are unknown; they may be suspicious of you, but they will treat with you. My father will not announce his own failure to detain you to any outsiders. But wherever I go, I will be recognized as a Kalor. They will believe me to be an agent for my father. If I reveal my… disagreement… with him, they will consider me a fugitive. Either way, none would allow me free movement, and especially none would grant me aid.]
Carlos turned his gaze back to his inscrutable spell design work, but continuously emanated a feeling of calm consideration over the dungeon-linked mental bond. After several seconds, he finally spoke again. [If we decide to leave you, what would you do?]
[I… don't know.] Lornera hesitated. [Addressing the vulnerability that Nyralis demonstrated requires the aid of someone with magecraft skills similar to your own, and just what I have personally witnessed from you already far surpasses any other mage that I know. Coerced aid would be asking for betrayal, however, and I am not fully confident of being able to defeat you, regardless. I… suppose I would ask for whatever secrets you are willing to share or trade, and then seek out the most promising other mages I can find.]
Carlos nodded. [That sounds well-reasoned. And if we do ally with you after all? How would you treat us? What secrets would you share in return, and what position would we ultimately have in your… reformed government? If we are to be your willing allies, it must be as equal peers, with mutual gain for both sides. I believe that the very same value you see in us that makes you want our aid means that we have earned such treatment.]
Lornera paused, her thoughts spinning in circles. She had always considered House Kalor's supreme superiority to be utterly beyond question, and its secrets as sacrosanct, but she could not deny the logic of Carlos's point. What secrets could she share? What should she share? What would having a co-equal royal house be like? Most crucially, how much could she reconcile as being compatible with her loyalty to the Crown?
She was still trying to puzzle out her answers to any of that when Carlos asked another question. [As for going to other nations, what are dragon flights like? I imagine they're very different from human nations, and we had a rather intriguing conversation with one Ankalondorithmal of the Silver Flight.]
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