But a feeling told Sam that before their eyes this was what drove the portal and what took their toll in blood, an inch that wasn't exactly small. She had lost many of her people on the way down, and perhaps even all of them without the Frost Region. The stranger turned out to be really competent and if the times were not different, then she would have hired this new one. Mages were rare and competent even more rare, although she still wasn't sure what she specialized in.
Magna was already looking for a way down. The inner sense of urgency of the situation only increased with each passing second. If the other team were infected, he was sure they would try to destroy the ring or switch off the filter. But how was he supposed to end it all? At least he had to see it up close, how could he find out anything else? Did the task really not have any other requirements? Was the idea really to just blow up the whole shit heap?
Through an adjoining room he came to metal stairs that led to the inside of the facility on the wall. Sam stayed close on his heels. In such dense mana he certainly didn't have to worry about parasites.
He spent the next few hours studying the magic patterns, hoping to find a way to turn it off in a simple way. The time had already fallen to under 12 hours. They just ran out of damn time. Couldn't it just solidify all of the mana, but would it really disrupt the supply? The men broke some of the smaller crystals to put the fragments in their pockets, backpacks and other places. If he broke the great crystal, would the portal collapse?
Sam seemed more and more nervous to him, which told him that she could also feel the pressure to get the job done. He didn't even want to think about the far-reaching consequences of failure. Even no failure had far-reaching consequences. Entire villages were probably dependent on this water supply.
Magna: Either we damage the enchantment that is likely to collect the mana, causing the portal to simply consume the rest, or we cut the direct link by destroying the crystal, but I am not aware of the effects, nor can I be sure how it takes a long time to use up the remaining mana.
Sam: What do you want to say?
Magna: That I have no damn idea about it. I do not know their enchantments. I don't know your damn technology and am trying to find an easy way to solve that.
Didn't the others think he could solve it before they got their part? Would they have taken such a risk or had they been parasitized long ago?
Sam: Why don't just hit it with my hammer?
Magna: You can't believe that this can always be the only solution. Not everything can be solved with a hammer.
Sam: But most of it is.
Where upon Sam reached out with her hammer to swing it against the crystal. But instead of this shattering, she just got a massive recoil from the crystal that just seemed harder than her hammer. He almost laughed if the whole damn situation hadn't been so damn serious.
It just didn't help, no matter how hard she hit the crystal with the hammer. With which her last chance was enchantment.
Magna: Samira, please try to damage the enchantment for me?
Sam: So my hammer can loosen something?
With a mighty grin, the woman turned to the enchants on the floor as well as on the walls. They probably had to scratch more than a few lines, because if the creators of these weren't bunglers then they had some breakdown insurance or some other form of insurance.
But also here Magna was badly disappointed, because no matter how long Sam hit the enchantments, it brought no change. No, not even a single fucking speck of dust seemed to come off. This facility was built to last forever! The magical shielding allowed him to work magic, but not to manipulate the environment with magic. Drawing new lines to sabotage the enchantment was also impossible.
There was probably a control room in this facility somewhere, but where was it? And even if they found him, which guaranteed he understood what to do to shut down the facility.
In the corner of his eye the time display seemed to be laughing at him. The square stones in his attic were useless, the water was useless too, none of them could make a difference, but maybe?
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Without further ado he put down his backpack and grabbed the ropes, muttering "That could work."
Sam laughed: Do you want to tie the crystal?
Magna: Something like that.
A lasso should be easy to tie, how could he not know how to tie a lasso? Hopefully the ropes held!
Magna: The top end has to be put around the crystal, we will move the crystal a bit.
The idea was so simple that he almost didn't even think of it. That would turn the energy source away from the portal, but the channeled mana still had to go somewhere. Strength was not the value he would have liked to invest in, because he thought his previous strength was already sufficient, but in an emergency he would put the points into it.
Sam called their people together, throwing the end over the crystal. The ropes were just enough to encircle the tip and leave enough room for pulling. It was an absolutely crazy idea. All together went to the ropes, whereupon she began to move the crystal by a few centimeters. Not very much, but maybe enough to change the focus of the channeling?
As he expected, they lacked a little bit of strength. As it always was, even though Leica pulled the end piece with its mouth. The gigantic crystal had been damn hard to move. In order to arouse as little suspicion as possible, he began to slowly invest his free points in his strength until it finally stopped at 150.
That seemed to be enough, but Magna had to exclaim several times to pull slowly, otherwise the ropes would break. The additional force slowly tilted the crystal, the mana beam starting to touch the ceiling instead of the hole. With that, the portal could already have run out of juice.
Unaware of this, Robert was already at the top of the pyramid, just about to smash the ring with a war hammer of his old comrades, when at the same moment the portal started to flicker.
Robert: No, noooo. We were so close! No. Neither my vengeance nor my task! Even so, he struck the ring, not knowing that this was the last thing the portal would support.
[System: Congratulations. You have successfully deactivated the portal rewards have increased, fallen and defeated ones have been calculated.]
, your[System: Rewards have been added, you have earned nine bonus levels, your companion has also been rewarded. You can claim the rewards at any time.]
Further down the compound, the crystal seemed to keep falling, instead of simply maintaining its lean angle, the beam swept across the room once to pause at the height of the enchantment. The quest was confirmed to them and in addition experience was calculated, and bonus levels were calculated anyway. In one fell swoop he got to level 97, with which he shot 9 steps upwards, and Leica also got 9 more credits, these were probably the increased rewards. Was it going through his head?
The beam had transformed the rock into something else in a matter of seconds, and everything that was touched by the beam began to glitter. Probably a single boulder that was touched by this energetic beam was priceless, but the crystal fell into a complete slope and shot the channeled mana back into the presumed mana collecting circle, which led the mana back to the crystal.
Usually that wouldn't have bothered him, but the gathering circle continued to collect mana from the environment, whereupon the crystal slowly but surely began to pulsate.
Magna: Oh shit! Murphy's Law! Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Sam: What's up and what's Murphy's Law? We stopped at the portal and many of us gained strength.
Instead of answering, he simply pointed to the crystal, which slowly began to pulsate:going to This thing is blow! Do you know what this means? It does KABOOM! Probably this whole damn part is going to go up, maybe even the whole damn plateau. So sorry if I'm not happy if I've just seen the proverbial shit flown into the damn fan.
Sam looked confused: What is a fan?
Inwardly, he could swear that the gods, the system, or whatever exactly saw this situation coming. They had to get out of there, get out of there quickly. The damn crystal began to vibrate slowly. Damn it, it didn't matter if the others were still busy with the crystals. Magna grabbed his goddamn backpack, Leica right behind him he started his goddamn legs.
If the thing went off, he didn't want to stand by it anymore. Sam only needed a moment longer to understand why he was suddenly in such a hurry, whereupon she gathered her people and came after him. Magna took the damn metal stairs up in leaps and bounds.
It took Lark every ounce of stamina, as did the occasional fight, but he managed to get the young lord back outside. On their way he had to avoid Robert countless times, but at some point he disappeared and with his disappearance his feeling of coming outside grew closer. The sun was burning strong, on top of the pyramid they could see Robert acting like a madman.
He screamed and screeched, hitting everything around him with a hammer, also knocking down some of the snake-like creatures. The ring no longer existed and the portal no longer existed, apparently the other group must have been successful, but not a single trace of them was to be seen. He slowly seemed to run out of stamina, if they were discovered they would have ended, so he dragged the young lord into the next collapsed building where they hid together.
Magna had already arrived in front of the morgue, which had previously become an advantage as the corpses began to block the passages to them now became a significant disadvantage. This effectively blocked your way back. Samira still lagged a little behind them, so he packed a few of the corpses in his attic and threw them into an adjoining room shortly afterwards.
He had no idea how many of these blockages were still ahead of them, but it made it easier to step over the corpses. Who would have thought the damn memory would come in handy for that. Past the laboratories, he cried for everything he left behind, although whenever he unloaded the corpses in rooms, some of the goods that caught his eye were shipped directly into the attic.
He just didn't have time to make a precise selection. Books, crystals, tools. Everything that crossed his gaze for a moment ended up in his memory, unless he was being observed.
He wanted to pocket at least a few consolation prizes. One of the laboratories looked like modern golem research, he packed the models and books in this laboratory practically in passing. Leica even growled at him because he couldn't help it. She wasn't wrong about that, it took enough time to maneuver through all the corpses and occasionally take out one of the surviving creatures. Sam and the small rest of her people stayed close on his heels, too.
Well, the best part was that the way out had been easy to find because they just had to follow the trail of corpses. A little macabre, but effective if asked about it. What had been hours of battle before was just a minute-long sprint through the various corridors, floors up to the stairwell on the ground floor. He lingered there a moment to wait for Sam. That sounded stupid, but he was sure that despite the danger in the basement, the whole city was still teeming with beings.
In addition, he was apparently already expected on the first floor, because there was one of the knights with a completely delusional expression in his eyes. It was the man who previously helped him break up. His armor was stained with blood from top to bottom, but instead of attacking him, he just stood there, staring at him. Until he started screaming.