13 - Chapter 12 - Day 1751 Continued
Adya’s convoy edged into the estate compound. With two dozen bandits on foot, it took a lot longer to make it back from the woods. It was starting to get late and Adya worried that if she had been much later her mother would lock her up in the estate for the next five years.
She pulled up to the barracks, and gave instructions for the bandits to be secured in the stockade. Whilst technically used to imprison recalcitrant guards, it could be used short term in the form of a prison,
The first person to come and greet her was Parth, the house’s master of arms.
“Greetings my lady,” quipped Parth, “I would ask how your day was, but it seemed that your day was far more interesting than any of us expected.”
“Good evening Parth.” replied Adya, “Lets go and see my mother, I would rather only relate the events once, rather than having to repeat myself ad nauseam. Dexter, please ensure that all our prisoners are secured, and the guards have been seen to, then join us as well. Phillipa please ensure my purchases are taken to my workspace. Sally, please draw a bath for me, it has been a long day and I don't intend to be too long.”
Everyone left to complete their assigned tasks, as Adya accompanied Parth towards Adya’s mother’s office. They knocked and were asked to enter.
“So I understand that you returned with a lot more people than you left with.” said Gauri, “I do wonder how that came to be. I do hope you have not caused any trouble.”
“Well mother,” replied Adya, “The day went well and the trip to the city passed without incident.” She neglected to mention the minor altercation as she was leaving, not considering it important. “When we were almost home, these pesky bandits attempted to hold up my carriage. Obviously, that sort of behaviour could not be condoned so near our estate. So I asked the guards to secure and imprison the bandits, pending sentencing. I thought I would step up and behave how you would expect any member of the house to behave.”
“The guards secured the bandits?” asked Gauri.. “You did not get into any physical altercations?”
“No mother, I stood next to Dexter the entire time.” replied Adya, keeping her face expressionless.”Even the one bandit who misbehaved was killed by one of the guards.”
“I see,” responded Gauri. “And what do you intend to do with your prisoners, you know we can't just keep them here indefinitely. You should have let the guards execute them on site.”
“I have some ideas, however that would require me to go back to the city.” replied Adya, “Besides my choices were limited, the bandits knew they were outmatched and had picked the wrong target. However, had I not offered them mercy, in the ensuing fight, there was a likelihood of our guards being injured or killed. I may have also had to defend myself. Our group was outnumbered more than two to one. In such situations, it is entirely possible for unforeseen dangers to occur. I ensured the fastest resolution of the situation, whilst minimising risk. Is that not what you commanded me to do?”
“The young lady’s assessment is correct my lady,” interjected Parth, “as long as she did not participate and kept her distance this was probably the fastest way to resolve the situation. Though I have to say, I am surprised by both the ambush by the bandits, and that they choose to give up when challenged. It’s more likely that they were sent by someone. I can get the answers out of them if you like.”
Just at that time, there came a knock on the office door. Dexter entered, having completed his tasks. “Perfect timing Dexter, can you confirm that the young lady was not involved in their physical altercation with the bandits.” asked Parth.
Dexter looked to Adya for permission, and at a nod from her answered. “Yes Sir, little miss took no physical actions during the altercation, apart from promising to spare the bandits if they surrendered, and promising to kill them all if they did not, or put up any resistance.”
“Also, no need to interrogate them again, “ interjected Adya, “Dexter has already done so. They are an independent group that were hired by the Shadowed Hand to hold up the carriage as it was seen as an easy target. They were told that we only had two guards, and they were offered 1 gold and 10% of whatever they managed to liberate from the carriage.” Adya knew that if she did not provide some details, then both Parth and her mother would be suspicious and investigate further. Far better to divert their attention to the underground group, if only for part of the reason.”
“Parth, please ensure that you notify the city lord of the events,” said a visibly angry Gauri, “then take our guards and show the Shadowed Hand the depth of our displeasure. They have really forgotten their station and grown far too bold. Also please inform the city lord that the bandits captured will be disposed of as we see fit as it happened on our land.”
“So just what is this idea of yours to deal with ?” Gauri asked Adya.
“Well, as I said I would need to go back to the city,” replied Adya, “but I managed to meet an artificer and enchanter in the city. He even let me watch him work. He mentioned that there was a formation that could ensure loyalty. If that is something we can make permanent, via a tattoo or some such method, then we can lock them in as indentured servants.”
“You met the actual enchanter, not just speak to an assistant?” asked an incredulous Gauri. Enchanters tended to be stuck up as they were in high demand and did not usually give time to anyone, let alone let anyone watch.
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“I can confirm that my lady.” replied Dexter, “She spent almost 2 hours watching him work. He even answered some of her questions, and told her she can come back again. Looking like a child probably worked in her favour.”
“That alone is probably worth the trip to the city, when you go back, try to cultivate that relationship.” said Gauri looking thoughtful, “Even if he doesn't give us favourable rates, just being able to see him an ask for commissions directly would be a massive boon to the house.”
“Back to the main matter,” continued Gauri, “what would you have these indentured servants do, if your plan works out?”
“Well mother, I noticed that the road from here to the main road is barely a dirt track.” replied Adya, “I would like permission to construct a proper road. It would significantly help with our trade caravans. Also if we can obtain a method to ensure loyalty to our house, I am sure that would be worth a lot to our house?”
“There are too many suppositions in your plan,” replied Gauri, “ look into the details, and come back to me when you have something concrete.”
With that Adya and Dexter left the office leaving Parth and Guari alone.
“So what do you think?” asked Gauri.
“I do believe that they were telling the truth,” replied Parth, “I just can’t understand how they managed to take all the bandits prisoner without a fight.”
“I am sure you will have further opportunities to find out.” replied Gauri. “My daughter has never acted like normal children, and has always been much too mature for her age. This may just be another facet of the same behaviour. All we can do is keep an eye on her”.
Adya returned to her suite. It had been a long day, and she wanted to take a long bath and use the time to think.
Adya: so what did we get from the book, and from watching that man work?
Sai: Well the book included a lot of formation designs. It described the structure and how the formations function. Interestingly our trait Universal Language Guru is actually treating the formation design as a language.
Adya: I guess it could be compared to an ideographic programming language. That would mean we can read the instructions.
Sai: That is what I am working on, I am reverse engineering the character set for formations. Then I need to conduct a comparison with programming languages in the database to work out what is missing. If a set of instructions are not used in any of the formations, then we will be able to infer what is missing from a standard language. Then I need to analyse how this formation langage compares to the formations, arrays and runes of knowledge from the old world in our memories.
Adya: how long until that analyse and review are complete?
Sai: I predict it will take another 10 hours to complete that analysis. Then I will need to create a new language based on our combined understanding and optimise it. I won't have an estimate for the second part until the first part is complete.
Mai: We had a skill upgrade today, the Soul Mana Manipulation skill evolved all the way to Energy Manipulation. We need to push the capabilities of the skill to see what we can do with it. We also need to discuss how our Killing Intent can be weaponized in a more discrete manner. Fine control is required, and I will need data to understand how to control it.
Since Sai was taking time to finish processing the data, it would take until some point tomorrow before Adya could experiment with formations. She decided to spend the time in her bath practising her energy manipulation skill. She also wanted to understand why the mana pattern was visible to another person while crafting, but the same pattern was obfuscated during combat.
Of course the reasoning made sense, if anyone could see the patterns behind spells, then it would become much easier to counter them. The same issue did not apply to crafting. However, the disparate treatment, if what on the surface, was the same process baffled Adya. The process was still using mana to form a pattern and achieve a result. So assuming that crafting was the natural state, that mana sense could detect and follow the intricate patterns would make sense. It would also make it easier to teach new patterns to pass on the knowledge. Why didn't the same apply to spell patterns used in creating combat spells.
Adya spent a long time thinking about the issue. She felt something was missing, and her understanding of the situation was incomplete. Finally after letting her mind wander, she came to the obvious answer. The patterns for skills were never visible. The pattern that allowed the enchanter to create formations, that pattern was also not visible, only what the enchanter created himself was visible.
So the system had some way to obfuscate the patterns when spells and skills were evoked. If the system could do it, could Adya do the same manually?
Sai: anything is theoretically possible, and while we understand that it's possible, we currently don't have a framework to start to analyse how. We will have to just hide the formations for now. We also can't start to understand how formations and spells differ.
Adya: We also need to understand the difference between spells and skills. We need a lot more data for that.
Adya spent the rest of the night practising her Energy Manipulation by rotating between the different energies and using them to create more and more intricate shapes. As she stopped through more and more complex forms, Adya had an epiphany. Why was she limited to a single mana core to step into cultivation. Mana would give her spiritual cultivation, did that mean that if she managed to form a stamina core that would give her body cultivation. Would a will power core, and it should be theoretically possible as the energy was responding to the same manipulation as mana and stamina, give her soul cultivation or mind cultivation?
That created even more questions. After core creation, the idea was to create a meridian network to allow the core to send energy to every part of the body. In the old world, people had created convoluted meridian networks that could cause all sorts of problems. Adya had long theorised that a simpler circulation system, copying the blood flow and treating the core as the heart, would be far more efficient. With the medical knowledge from the tech world, that should be imminently possible. However, would that idea scale to 3 distinct energy types? How to go about fitting three additional circulation networks in the body. More questions that would require experimentation. Would the networks have to be created simultaneously or could they be completed separately? She couldn't even start that process until the cores were complete, and now she would have to create three cores if she wanted to pursue her more radical idea.
Only one thing was certain, today had created a lot more questions and opportunities and Adya was going to gather every advantage that she could.