Several days later
“Ah, there you are,” Captain Sinclair said.
Henry paused his game of Asphalt and looked up, finding the woman walking over from the front door.
“Finally found a lead?” he asked, thumbing his phone back into his pocket.
She came to a stop at his table, then pulled out a chair and sat. “If you can call it one. We ran a flight up north the last couple days, past the Gatebuilder site, and thermal got a hit. Some kind of heat source under the canopy.” She shrugged. “Natural geothermal, some sort of active machinery – we’re not exactly sure yet.”
“Or the Elemental Dragon breathing fire all over the place.”
“I doubt it.” She shook her head. “Too stationary to be a dragon.”
Henry tilted his head. “Huh. Fair enough. What do you think it is?”
“If you made me bet?” She gave a small shrug. “We found what might be a road leading up to the site, so I say Baranthurian, confidently. But a confident bet is still a bet, so don’t hold me to it. Anyway, I scheduled a sit-down with the Guildmaster and the others. Half an hour. You good to go?”
“Gimme a few.” He nodded at the food. “Just talk at me in the meantime. What else we got?”
“Well, let’s see…” She settled back. “So, the flare-ups are intermittent, but there isn’t a pattern as far as we can tell. Sometimes it runs for only a few minutes before going dormant again for hours, but lately it’s been running for hours at a time. No way of telling if someone’s turning it on and off, or if it’s an automated or natural process. Not without putting boots on the ground.”
“Which is us.”
“Not till the Guildmaster signs off, technically,” she said. “But yes, we’ll likely have you guys scout it out.”
Henry affirmed with a short hum, taking another bite.
“We also found one more thing of interest: the EMF in the area spikes over thirty thousand milligauss every so often, but it’s a bit confounded. Data’s turbid, what with all the background noise. We can’t confidently tie it to the hot spot activity since it could honestly just be the natural fluctuations of the region.”
“Baseline?” Henry asked.
“Twenty-five,” Sinclair answered. “Sounds concerning, but isn’t dangerous in itself. What it implies, however…”
Henry finished for her. “Whole lotta mana. So no comms, which means we’re on our own.”
“Yup. Not to mention the impact on the threats you’re likely to encounter.” She then gave an attempt at a reassuring smile, though it neither looked nor sounded like she was very convinced. “But then again, the Elemental Dragon probably scared everything off.”
Henry cleaned up the last of his plate. “Can’t tell if that’s supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing.”
Sinclair shrugged. “Look on the bright side: it means you’ve only got one thing to worry about.”
Henry snorted. “I feel reassured already. Let’s head out.”
Heading over to the Guild, they found the conference room upstairs already half full. Kelmithus was there, along with the Guildmaster and a few of his people – Hedrin, Drunn, and Tormund. Henry pulled out a chair and sat.
Hedrin let the room settle, then rapped a knuckle on the table.
“We’re all gathered, then.” He looked down the table. “The summons was Captain Sinclair’s, so the matter’s hers to lay afore us. Captain, if ye would.”
Sinclair stood and set her tablet at the head of the table. “Thank you, Guildmaster.”
She brought up the first image. The thermal came up on the screen, a smudge of lighter blue amidst a sea of dark blues and purples.
“Three days ago we ran a flight up north, past the Gatebuilder site. There’s a heat source up there, under the canopy. It’s been holding above freezing while everything around it sits at thirty below, and it comes and goes – sometimes minutes, sometimes hours, no pattern we could pick out. There’s also a strong magic signature. Our measure of mana spikes well over the regional baseline when it’s active. We can’t cleanly tie the spikes to the heat, given the whole region is extraordinarily mana-dense, but they’re there.”
Sinclair switched off the thermal, back to plain optical. The warm patch resolved into terrain, and running off it was a surface four lanes wide – choked with low foliage, but bare of the old growth that crowded everything around it.
“That’s a road, alright,” Henry said.
“It is indeed.” Kel grinned like a madman. “And roads are seldom laid without purpose. I should suspect the Baranthurians. Given how near we sit to the Gatebuilder site, it would be entirely in keeping with their habits. They had a marked tendency to raise their works wherever such ruins were found, the better to study them. A facility at the end of this road would accord with that admirably.”
“Maybe. But one that’s up and running?” Henry looked at Kel. “Shouldn’t a site like this be long dead?”
Kel nodded. “Oh, quite.”
“And yet it picked the last few days to wake up. Crazy timing.” Henry let it hang.
Tormund connected the only dots available. “Then your suspicion falls upon the Nobians.”
“Most likely, although I admit that it could just be recency bias.” Henry shrugged. “Can’t tell for sure from up here, but c’mon, it’s no coincidence it sprung up just now, right after we reclaimed Velkrath.”
“Affirmative,” Sinclair said. “So, for the record, here’s the full list of theories.”
She held up a hand and counted off.
“One, a Baranthurian facility, like Kelmithus says – most likely, given the road and the construction. Two, the Nobians are somehow involved, either making use of said facility or simply building their own Rune System. Three, plain geology – a vent, magma, something natural throwing heat, with the spikes in mana just being regional noise. Four, it’s some sort of Gatebuilder machinery, which could be plausible since we’re near a site, but not so likely if we consider their usual designs. Their technology is cleaner than this; we wouldn’t expect it to leak a signature this crude. Five, a creature, though how it’s producing such an anomaly is beyond me.”
She paused. “That said, between how stationary it is and the lack of any behavioral pattern to the cycling, I’d rule out the dragon.”
“Six,” she went on, “a magical phenomenon we don’t have a name for. In that much ambient mana, we can’t rule it out. And seven, something none of us has thought of.”
Hedrin folded his hands. “Strange luck, a thing sleeping an age an’ rousing the very week we’ve enemies underfoot.” He looked between her and Henry. “How would ye see the matter settled?”
“Send a team up there and scout it out,” Sinclair said. “Confirm what’s up there, don’t commit to anything, come back and report.” She glanced at Henry. “I’d send Alpha Team. Kelmithus with them, for the magic side.”
Kel perked right up. Only a guy like him could be that delighted to be drafted for so treacherous a mission.
“The main catch is that we won’t be able to communicate with them up there.” Sinclair set the tablet down. “Which is why I’d also like to send Lucan’s Chosen with them, as backup.”
Henry didn’t love the idea of working with Lucan again, but he wasn’t about to turn down the strongest reinforcements he could get short of air support.
“That I cannot grant ye,” Hedrin said. “The Chosen rode east two days past, on a quest that’ll not see them back inside o’ two more – an’ that, should it go clean. They’re as far beyond yer reach as ye’ll shortly be beyond ours.”
Well, that sucked. Despite his opinion on Lucan, Henry would’ve preferred having him along. Hell, he’d even made up his mind and everything, and now he didn’t even get the consolation prize for the trouble.
Sinclair glanced at Henry, then back to Hedrin.
“With respect, Guildmaster, I don’t think we can afford to wait for them. The risk isn’t symmetric. If we delay two or three days and it turns out to be nothing, we’ve lost a little time and gained some caution. But if it’s the Nobians, we’ve given them two or three days for their operation. I’d rather not find out what they do with the extra time.”
Henry couldn’t have put it better himself. The catch was that deploying now only traded one problem for another.
“Agreed,” he said, “but that leaves us light on firepower. If we’re not getting the Chosen, what can Armstrong put over us?”
“Besides the RQ-180 that’s already tasked to watch the site?” She thought about it. “A pair of F-15EXs and a pair of F-35s. But given the lack of comms, they’ll pretty much have discretion on when to intervene. They’ll help when it looks like you need it, avoiding danger close since, well, we’ve got no comms to deconflict.”
She turned to the natives and explained, “These are the same flying machines we used to level Korth Varren and break the wyvern flock a few weeks back.”
Hedrin gave a slow nod and raised a hand. “Grant me a moment to take counsel wi’ my fellows.”
After a minute of hushed back-and-forth, Hedrin turned back to them.
“The quest is yers to take up, save that ye’ll not set out wi’out Captain Jurgon Tor at yer side. That much I’ll have settled afore I set my seal to it.”
“That’s the scout, right?” Henry asked. “Tier Eight guy?”
“Aye,” Hedrin said.
Sinclair looked over at Henry. “His experience and the local knowledge are worth having. I’d want him along regardless.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.” Henry looked back to Hedrin. “We accept. How fast can he be ready?”
“I’ll have him summoned at once,” Drunn said. “He’ll be ready to depart wi’in the hour.”
Henry nodded. “Alright. Send him to our inn. I’ll get my guys ready and we’ll step off from there.”
Hedrin rose from his seat. “Go to it, then, Captain, an’ may ye find naught up there worth the trouble. I’ll keep this council no longer.”
Everyone in the room got up at that, stretching.
Sinclair reclaimed her tablet, turning to Henry. “I’m going to stick around the Guild today. Still have a lot of corroborating to do.”
Henry left her to it. He took the stairs down and pushed out the front of the Guild, Kel falling in alongside him.
Once they were out in the snow, Henry looked over at the Archmage. “Hey, Kel. You know how the Nobians managed to subjugate the Goblin King? How difficult do you think that was for them?”
Kel rubbed his beard as they walked. “Less difficult than one might suppose – thaumically speaking. Hardale and Eldralore alone would have afforded them ample opportunity to study the matter. I should be greatly surprised if the principles of Subjugation Magic still posed any difficulty to them.”
He glanced back at Henry. “To bring a Goblin King into subjection entirely is a formidable undertaking, though not, I think, an unprecedented one. They exerted influence over the Vorikha Apex at Eldralore, did they not? Imperfect influence, certainly, yet influence nonetheless. Thus the principle is already well within their grasp. They need only the mana, materials, and preparation commensurate with so ambitious a spell, though I doubt the Nobians were compelled to devise any new principle in order to accomplish it.”
The whole Eldralore fiasco established precedent, sure, but Henry couldn’t project it forward, not with the logarithmic difference between the tiers.
“Hmm. How much of an increase, exactly? Compared to Eldralore, I mean.” He thought it over and tried again. “Or maybe I’ll put it this way. How much do they need to invest for Tier Eight subjugation versus Tier Nine and Tier Ten?”
“For Tier Eight, I should estimate no less than one hundred pounds of high-grade mana crystals, together with suitable conductors, preferably of mithril constitution. Tier Nine is considerably more demanding. One would wish for at least a thousand pounds of crystals and a network of orichalcum conductors. Indeed, the distinction is not merely one of efficiency. Below a certain threshold, complete subjugation becomes impossible. That, I suspect, was the case with the Vorikha Apex.”
“And Tier Ten?” Henry asked.
Kel let out a breath. “A Tier Ten subject is an exceedingly ambitious undertaking. I should hesitate to attempt it with less than ten thousand pounds of crystals. A Baranthurian mana reactor would be preferable, were one available.” He shook his head. “Nor would I willingly undertake such a challenge without aurethium conductors.”
“Why, would it explode if you didn’t have any?”
Kelmithus gave him a sidelong look. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact. Catastrophically so. How did you divine that?”
Well, shit. Henry had only said that as a joke. “Wait, you’re actually serious?”
“Quite serious,” the Archmage affirmed.
Now, Henry knew the Nobians well enough. They were far from stupid. Naturally, that meant they weren’t so mentally deficient as to blow themselves up experimenting with a pipe dream. So the fact they might even be trying to attempt this in the first place only meant the worst-case scenario: they genuinely had access to all the prerequisites.
“Say the Nobians did have all those things,” Henry said. “Could they, hypothetically… subjugate an Elemental Dragon?”
For the first time all morning, Kel had nothing ready. He walked on a few steps without a word, all the previous academic curiosity gone from his face by the time he spoke. “Yes. They could.”