The vial of blood was carefully kept in an ornate, spellwoven box. Roland Turner vi Ishodir carefully took the vial, which was just about the length of his finger and peered at the contents. The glass was opaque and covered in runescript patterns, many of which involved his grandfather’s Time Affinity: Stasis Lock.
It kept the contents as fresh as though it had just been placed inside and because of that, it also prevented ambient Elemental Energies from affecting it. The contents could not be used as a medium while within stasis, but that had never been the intent anyway.
If Professor Davar could not be scryed, even with the Archmagus' power, then an arcane medium would be of little use. She would have removed the connection as soon as she could. Ritual spells that determine their targets using arcane mediums take a while to cast simply from the complexity of the spell circles.
Well, hopefully grandfather could make use of this. He peered at the contents, admiring the golden shimmers trapped within the crimson. Ah, he shouldn’t keep the glass translucent for long since the opacity helped with preserving the spell.
He returned the vial into its box and gave it to Amaya to send to the Tower. He expected the old man to be happy about finally getting something, but when he received a rather terse summons after a couple of days, he had an inkling things weren't quite alright.
As always, it took Amaya several minutes to open a passageway through the in-between. After it was opened, he entered the portal and arrived directly outside his grandfather's laboratory.
The double doors opened and he found Edward Turner conducting several spell circles with both voice, somatic, and runescript. At the very centre of the circles was a crimson droplet of blood, but…
Roland frowned. The droplet wasn't so much a single drop but a globe of red liquid that was larger than his head. He thought he could see glimmers of gold somewhere in that mass, but they disappeared by the time he blinked.
He carefully waited for his grandfather to finish, or more likely, come to a safe stopping point. He waited for half an hour as the globe of blood slowly morphed into something else. He didn't like what he saw but was powerless to do anything. Eventually, the spell paused and Edward slowly lowered his hands and turned towards him.
"You did well, but it is not enough."
"How so?"
"The primary option failed. It was not enough to unlock the shard's secrets." He smiled, "But it reacted. It was slight and cut off almost as soon as it happened, but it does cement the possibility that Yuriko Davar is the key. Why that is so, I still have to conduct more studies, and sadly, the samples you've acquired for me are insufficient. I'm currently working to remedy that."
"Do you still wish to…bring her here?" Roland asked carefully.
"It would be best."
"The operation was harder than expected."
"It is painfully obvious."
Roland swallowed nervously, "Unless we deploy the Guardian, we cannot guarantee success. Three True Magi were unable to overpower and capture her via ambush."
"Do better." With that, the Emperor Emeritus turned back to his spell and continued. The sight of his back was a clear dismissal.
Roland took a deep breath, nodded, spun on his heels and left.
____________
Yuriko flew above the Kerromerre Mountains, though she was only a couple of longstrides inside the strange Conflux’s territory. She was close to the eastern border, however, and was using her altitude to scout the terrain. Eastern Bresia…or perhaps it should be contested Virtalla now, considering the mess that was the Republic’s Council.
Shaking her head, Yuriko kept her Enhanced Sight active. The technique had grown more potent over the years. She remembered barely being able to see a longstride away clearly at the beginning, but now, she could probably count the hairs on a spider’s back a league away. That meant she was able to get a distinct view from over twice that far, and about ten times as much if she really focused. More than that if she flushed her eyes with Animus, but unfortunately, this realm’s Elemental Mists meant that anything more than a league away was shrouded. Of course, there were Farsight spells that could bypass that restriction, and she was practising those now. Well, Clear Sight would be a better description since it somehow neutralised the mist’s obstruction…well, only for a limited distance. She wasn’t able to combine an Animus technique and a spell perfectly, so her range wasn’t all that much better, but it did allow her vision to be a bit better at making out the details.
And what she was seeing was troubling, to say the least. Past the Vitrovin Forest Conflux and within the settled lands, she could see hundreds of thousands of Chaos Fount-borne beasts. At this distance, they looked like dots on the horizon, but she could feel and see the Chaos they embodied. They were moving slowly, but steadily southwest, and she suspected they were being directed towards the Greyith Strip. She needed to get a closer look, but she also needed to remain close to the fortress.
Whoosh! Swish!
She heard the Ib’honara’s flight before they entered her perception range. She recognised one of them as Adan Ortiz and the corporal barrel rolled to give her a cocky salute as he passed by. Well, they were the scouts, and not her. She just enjoyed flying, come to think of it, heh.
Shaking her head, she flew slowly back to the fortress. It was already a few weeks since the new term started and the Battle Magus class moved to the Fortress. Well, not the entire class, but really just Sofia, Juliette, the twin wolfkins Mark and Javier Villareal, and another five boys and girls who were new to her class. Thankfully, she had not been expected to handle the entire curriculum, though she was the only professor in Greyith from Niria.
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Probably contrary to what they expected, they weren’t given any patrol duties nor were they expected to fight in the fortress’ defence, although the latter was mostly because Greyith isn't directly threatened yet.
So most of what they did were training exercises and sparring. Yuriko trained the in-house brigades by fighting them, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch to include the kids in the training and incorporate them as soldiers…though she really shouldn’t refer to them as kids since they were the same age. Huh.
Time was weird. Sometimes, it flew, and others, it crawled. The monotony of her life in Greyith should have felt like it would go on forever, but one day she woke up from her meditations and realised that half the Season had already come and gone. The weather was either cold and windy, or balmy and humid. Living on the north shore of the lake meant that it rained often too. The days of relaxing on the beach didn’t end, but since the waters were cold as well as the winds, nobody frolicked on the beach. Still, relaxing there with her students was good in its own way.
Desire sent her a message through Blanca that she would enter the Chaos Sea to advance. She didn’t know how long it would take since she needed to go deeper into it but promised that she would return as soon as she could. Their bond should allow the Chaos Lord to track her down easily enough.
Fluffington enjoyed running on the beaches, swimming in the lake, and exploring the mountainside. He grew a few inches taller at the shoulders, and twice that in length. His coat was long and luxurious, especially once he learned how to brush himself using his Anima. Ryoko had gotten the wolf pup a horse brush and had ministered to him. It didn't take much longer for him to do the brushing by himself, and he’s spent half the day bruising and combing for the past couple of weeks now.
Yuriko headed towards mission command and dropped off her findings. The Ishodirian armies were still holding the border forts, but she hadn’t done any reading since last Season. While she had severed the connection between herself and her stolen blood, something was still nagging at the back of her mind. Well, she hoped those three would ambush her again…ah…they can’t if she doesn’t leave the fortress. Rotter…
Well, there were no more missions to raid the forts, and the scouting missions were all given to the Ib’honara soldiers… at least those that involved aerial surveillance. Scouting on the ground wasn’t that useful in the open terrain, and the Ishodirians weren’t holding up in the forests anyway. No, that was what the Scions were doing.
Word on that front was that Virtalla City’s government managed to root out the insurgents and clean up the city. It was still martial law there, and they were mostly cut off from the rest of the country. The empire controlled most of the countryside and while the city wasn’t under siege, it was blockaded.
Yuriko checked the open missions list and sure enough, there were some blockade runner requests, too. The corner of that listing told her that the mission was also concurrently given to the Adventurers’ Guild and was an open contract to any brave enough to make the attempt. The parameters involved going to Bresia City and taking supply packages from there to the beleaguered city.
Related missions also included caravan protection, and there was one being organized and would pass through Greyith in about a week. The Ishodirian presence didn’t mean that the farms supporting the city had disappeared, but it didn’t mean that the produce they grew made it to Virtalla, Yuriko supposed. How many people lived in the city anyway and would a small caravan deliver enough food to help?
Or perhaps the supplies unmentioned weren’t food but other things? Huh. Either way, she thought that becoming a caravan guard would be a good exercise for her students though only if she could watch over them directly.
Yeah…that’s a good idea and it would break the monotony, wouldn't it? Hmm, well, the next step was to set it up with the commanders…No, she should ask Sofia, Juliette, and the rest of the students if they wanted to take the assignment. Or she could just set it up and make joining voluntary? Yeah, there were only a dozen students anyway, and if they didn’t want to join, they could continue training with the brigades…
With that conundrum solved, she headed to Monica’s quarters… Hmm, she should actually head to the office instead, but Monica’s hobby is baking, and well…ehehehe, she really liked those cream-infused pastries. The older woman invited her a few weeks ago, while both of them were taking their mandated rest days, and she’d baked up a bunch of pastries for her grandkid, Cillian, who, after his arm mutated from the Chaos exposure, apparently reacted badly to sweets now.
Yuriko didn’t know what she’d do if she couldn’t eat sweets…
Well, they spent the day just chatting, drinking tea, and enjoying Monica’s pastries. A pity the matriarch didn’t make any chocolate desserts, but she supposed it was too precious to desecrate like that.
“Yuriko, hello!” Monica said brightly after she opened the door.
“Hey, Monica.” Yuriko said, “I’ve got an idea…”
“Well come in.” Monica’s smile turned sly, “You want some cream tarts, don’t you?”
“Ehehehe…”
“Hmph! What are you, a cat? You always come sniffing around after I bake.” It was true, actually. Although Yuriko’s sense of smell wasn’t enhanced by any Animus techniques, her Radiant Physique improved everything about her, including her senses. Plus, her Anima perception could easily pick up the delicious scent of freshly baked pastries…
“So, what do you want, aside from the tarts?”
Yuriko grinned and told the older woman of her ideas. She got served tea and those beloved pastries while she explained, and at the end of it all, Monica nodded and said, “I’ll make arrangements.”