Chapter17:Processing Part 3

“The dungeons, Nixen. We set boundaries to concentrate the power of our portion of the sphere into smaller, more controllable areas. We needed a way to train our troops faster and thought it would help us to exert more control over the magic in our territory, which it did.”

“We did gain greater control for mages trained by us in these areas, albeit at a slight loss in strength outside the dungeons. We turned liabilities into impregnable bastions.”

Nixen asked,

“Defense only gets you so far.”

“That’s the beauty. We didn’t have to win. You’ve been through enough of the dungeons. Remember the Guerilla Wasps in the mid-tier dungeon in Nananarama County? The only way to kill them was to destroy the nest. We could always fall back to a position the enemy couldn’t crack, so they stopped trying.”

Nixen frowned,

“That still seems like a bad way to run a military campaign.”

Beckle piped up,

“It would be if we couldn’t drain one of the dungeons of magic at will to obliterate an area. They were wiped out whenever they gathered in significant numbers to corner us. Why do you think Glacier County has all those lakes?”

“Not Glaciers, I’m guessing.”

“No, unfortunately, after Keirmont retreated from our lands, the magicosphere started to become more aware and learned how to prevent the drain from fueling that weapon. And other issues started to crop up.”

Nixen rolled their eyes. Ragweed ignored the sass to get to the point.

“Another side effect was that those areas of higher magic concentration caused the awareness to form. Besides the initial spark being an accident in the dungeon, we still aren't sure how, like what happened to your novice.”

“Over the past few decades, it has become increasingly more aware with the passing years as the magical concentration builds in each dungeon. It seems to create these instances of transformation using soul magic and subtly controlling the victims. They almost always start a tour of the dungeons, and we know that for every dungeon they gain access to, it can have a greater influence over them.”

“This is why those afflicted are banned from access to the main dungeon directly. We don’t want to discover if it’s trying to create an avatar it can act directly through.”

Nixen asked,

“Is that why Master Ian isn’t allowed in the city? Most of us just thought he had pissed you off, Beckle.”

Beckle gave the dwarf a finger of inappropriate description.

“I’m not that petty, midget.”

“So a farmer deserved getting yanked into all this? How many other lives have you dragged into this, and why? What’s with the conscription? How do you even keep this underwraps”

“You don’t understand a quarter of why I make the decisions I-“

Ragweed held up both hands in protest, derailing that rant.

“Gentlebeings, please. If I may continue?”

Seeing the dwarf fall silent and Beckle shove his hands into the pockets of his robes like a petulant child, Ragweed continued.

“Hence, the bans on that type of magic. We don’t want to discover what happens if it gets its way. The sphere gets better at manipulating magic it is repeatedly exposed to.”

Nixen drummed the gauntlets they were wearing on their greaves in thought. Beckle winced at the sound.

“Do these accidents happen more often inside or outside the dungeon boundaries? Which causes it to gain more awareness or influence over the victims?”

Beckle stepped back into the conversation,

“It is an unnaturally even split. We would expect more of these occurrences within the dungeons, but that hasn’t happened for the last two decades.”

“What changed?”

Beckle frowned at the Master Dwarf Paladin.

“You don’t need to know.”

“Don’t give me that, Beckle. You’re reading me in on this much of it. Why can’t you give me more?”

“The heads of the temples know more. Check with your superiors if you want details. They have been working with us on a solution to this problem since it started.”

Ragweed decided diverting the conversation back to the subject at hand would let him get to his bed faster.

“Awareness doesn’t appear to mean intelligence, but it does seem to hold a grudge at those maintaining the boundaries. Inside the boundaries of the dungeons, it’s vague, anyway. Outside…the reasons some senior mages don’t often leave the cities should be self-evident at this point.”

Nixen was tugging with thought at their beard,

“That’s why you were concerned about using magic at Adder County? It’s pissed at you specifically?”

Ragweed shook his head in hesitance,

“Me, but it also appears to target anyone who has ties to anything to do with maintaining the boundary sigils in each of our dungeons. The longer you’ve helped, the faster it zeros in on you when you use magic outside those boundaries. I’ve been around since the beginning, Master Nixen.”

Nixen thought some more before answering,

“Using magic, so our non-mages are relatively safer, in theory.”

Beckle shook their head in negation,

“For manipulating a certain outcome outside our understanding of its goals, it appears yes. Do you know how the training of our apprentice non-mages helps them incorporate ambient mana into their actions?”

“This has been observed to cause them to be targeted more generally. Those who use it in that manner are less likely to be affected directly.”

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“Those that control the magic directly, like our mages running the boundaries, are in the most danger. They must be screened monthly for outside influences. Why do you think all of our journeymen Mages are recalled to one of the cities for specialization training? They have reached a threshold where the magic Sphere often notices them as prime targets.”

Nixen queried the next obvious issue with this statement,

“How does this improve our Military strength if most of our mages are locked up like overly attractive lightning rods?”

Ragweed traded off the response to Beckle, who had dragged over a chair from the side of the room,

“Like we said, the longer you’ve been helping maintain the boundaries, the faster the sphere can find you. Our senior mages don’t leave the cities where we have intervention procedures set up to prevent the most insidious influence from festering.”

Ragweed took over the conversation again,

“The rest are rotated into and out of the field. I can’t leave for much more than an hour, though. Initially, I helped create the boundaries, and the sphere doesn’t like me. I’ve had to up my will application for my spells to work outside the boundaries.”

Nixen looked to Beckle, asking,

“Where are these boundaries? I’ve always thought it was daft to build our cities around the dungeons. I see why we did it in the past, but if we don’t have access to that weapon anymore…”

Beckle pursed his lips in further distaste at revealing this much information at once but spoke,

“We don’t have access to the weapon, but we can use the excess magic in other ways to bolster our troops. Every major dungeon in our Kingdom has a series of boundary stones at the city limits. Further linking stones are placed strategically between the cities to aid in channeling power where needed by the military or to cities when the cleansing of a dungeon is needed.”

Nixen asked,

“You mentioned cleansing back in Adder, and I’ve helped with a few, but what is their true purpose? It can’t be simply clearing out excess mobs, not after what else you’ve said. And what role do the churches play in all this?”

Beckle shook his head,

“You don’t get instant answers on all of this. There is more you don’t need to know right now. Don’t look at me like that. The procedure my predecessor and the king set down dictates how much we’ve told you already.”

“Again, you must ask your temple about that last part. I helped create how the chain of command works, and you need to be reminded there is one.”

Nixen glowered at the man and asked instead,

“Well, what happened with Winnie then? Why isn’t there any fixing this?”

Ragweed had regained some of his energy during the lengthy conversation and stood,

“I’ll explain. It gets pretty esoteric in detail, so I’ll use an analogy.”

The mage shuffled to the side of the chamber and rummaged near the sink. He grabbed a small hand strainer and tucked it under one arm. After filling one cup from the faucet, the mage brought back two cups. He approached Nixen and reached into a pouch at his waist. He withdrew a hand and showed Nixen its contents.

“The salt is the concentrated mana Winnie was exposed to and contaminated with. The water in the cup is her soul. The first cup is her body before it was damaged in the process of trying to cure her.”

Seeing Nixen nod at this explanation, the elf handed the strainer to Nixen before waving a hand over the two cups in his other hand, the one filled with water, which started to boil. With a quick motion, the elf poured the salt into the boiling water and rotated his finger just over the water. The boiling water swirled for a few seconds before the elf clenched a fist, and it froze solid inside the cup, cracking it.

Another gesture and the water quickly melted to a liquid and started leaking from the cracks quickly. The elf gestured at Nixen, who held out the strainer. The elf positioned the empty cup under it and poured the remaining contaminated water from the cracked cup through the strainer into the lower cup.

The strainer had caught some of the salt that hadn’t dissolved in the liquid. The elf discarded the cracked cup. Grabbing the second container from Nixen, he clenched a fist more slowly over the top, and the water inside started to freeze again along the outside edges of the cup with some remaining liquid. The cup still cracked, though not as severely. The ice inside the cup had spread into the cracks, stopping what little water hadn’t frozen from seeping out.

Nixen stared at the cup before looking at the strainer still in their hand containing the salt that hadn’t been dissolved.

They asked,

“She’s still got some of that in her? Why didn’t you say that?”

Ragweed nodded in confirmation before explaining,

“I hate analogies like this because they aren’t always precise and leave out the years of study you would need to truly understand the nuance of what just happened without further explanation.”

“This seems an easy fix. Souls belong to the realm of the gods anyway. I’m sure our deities could sort this out with some cooperation from fellow paladins in the temples.”

“When these accidents started, that was one of the first avenues we tried. It’s not in her. It has become part of the makeup of her soul. The magic is her now. The act of pulling more will further damage her, and some of her magic-infused soul was already diverted to patching up the damage she went through,”

The elf pointed to where the ice had stopped the water from escaping,

“These filled gaps represent where her soul and our circle helped some of it to be used to restore the vessel, her body. Without those repairs, what little wasn’t contaminated would have escaped. Over time, those frozen portions will grow into new material that matches the rest of the vessel that contains her soul. It may have been a mercy if we had let it all escape.”

Nixen asked with sorrowed strain to their voice,

“How do we get the rest out?”

Ragweed wore a look of sympathy on his face as he replied,

“We don’t. I promise we have done our best, and if you hadn’t acted, there wouldn’t be this much left of her. This is a tragedy beyond even the gods. It simply is.”

The elf put a comforting hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. Beckle said nothing, simply remaining silent, for which Nixen was grateful. Nixen sighed heavily and put the strainer with the leftover salt in his hand on the bench before standing and shuffling to the door with sad clanking noises. They turned at the door and said,

“Master Ragweed, thank you for the efforts. Master Beckle…I will consult my deacon on the next steps forward. Can Pellet stay with Winnie?”

Beckle had placed his hands inside the sleeves of his robe as he crossed his arms over his chest at the dwarf’s words but responded,

“The bird? For now, yes. It will be seen to if it becomes a problem for her recovery. Your deacon will answer what questions she can, maybe. A report containing the pertinent details of this incident will be passed on to the proper filing department.”

“Consider yourself debriefed on this. Check in with Admin before you head back to your outpost. Your new status as Master must be properly annotated. The paper dragon awaits you.”

Nixen winced at the coming onslaught of pen, ink, and over-important, self-centered administration jockeys but nodded dejectedly and shuffled out of the room, clanking as they went.

Ragweed noticed piling tasks onto the dejected Paladin as the diversion it was but said nothing. He chanted briefly and gestured casually to the walls where the runes glowing faintly on the wall faded along with the pressure in the room.

Nixen nodded and left the room.

Ragweed spoke to Beckle after letting the caring expression fade from his face,

“We could have added her to the nursery had Nixen not been allowed into the room. The others would have been settled, for a while, by a mother. Why didn’t we?”

Beckle’s sharp look at Ragweed was filled with contempt at the suggestion as he responded,

“And she would have lasted what? A week? Two? She needs to be more recovered if she’s to last long enough for our benefit before the children eat her.”

Ragweed scoffed and walked with Beckle towards the door, arguing softly with the man,

“We only have a few more weeks before it needs to be addressed, Beckle. If we don’t…”

Beckle cut him off as the pair left the room,

“The caps his novices brought in may extend our timetable. I’ll begin work after they are evaluated for…”

Behind the men, Pellet still sat on one of Winnie’s shoulders, nuzzling into her neck, trying to get her human to give her some attention. Her eyes glinted at the two men, still arguing as they left the room.

One of its doors still cracked open along one wall on the side of the room, where the ornamented wardrobe the wheelbarrow mage had been shoveling dirt from. A soft scribbling sound could be faintly heard floating through the chamber.