A few minutes later, Cadenza accepted her sword from Tiriana and straightened up.
“So, you asked how I took Layla down? I didn’t target her armor. I created a powerful magnetic field under her and the iron in her armor reacted. The pull was stronger than she could resist so she went down like a tonne of bricks,” Cadenza explained before giving a sigh of relief. “I’m just glad she was wearing steel in the first place. Fortunately my information on her was correct.”
“What information?” Sera asked, confused as to how Cadenza knew anything about Layla in the first place.
“Layla El-Amin. Former Amazon chieftainess. One of my party leaders is an Amazon and Layla is apparently someone any Amazon would know about,” Cadenza began, establishing the context first. “Arrogant. Headstrong. Exiled from every sisterhood simultaneously, which almost never happens. Apparently she believes in power and nothing else, so when she got a number of her sisters killed because of her poor leadership, she refused to step down unless she was defeated and killed or maimed many more.”
Sera wasn’t actually surprised to hear there were Amazons here, knowing the connections between ancient Greece and Atlantis. She’d be willing to bet that the legends originated in the Atlantean continent as well. She also wasn’t surprised to hear that Layla was cast out of society, having, well, met the woman.
“I didn’t know someone even could be exiled from the entire Amazonian Confederation of Sisterhoods,” Tiriana said in surprise.
“Normally she’d only have been exiled from her own, and then she could have petitioned another sisterhood for entry if she could prove she’d changed her ways. But she caused so much damage to her own that other chieftainesses were forced to step in and remove her, and she still wouldn’t accept it because it wasn’t a one-on-one fight. That’s why I knew the only way to make her submit was an overwhelming victory in a duel.” Cadenza sighed, looking annoyed. “Of course, she’s an exceptional combatant. I doubt anyone here could defeat her on their own. But I was wagering that after losing her expensive equipment during her exile she wouldn’t have been able to afford anything better than steel as an independent adventurer, and I was right.”
“You could have also just worked with someone else.” Sera gave the woman a look of exasperation as she spoke. “Why risk fighting her at all?”
“I had no choice. She’s not the only Amazon here now, and knowing her history, I knew she would likely try to establish a new sisterhood by forcibly conscripting the Amazons under my command. The only way to prevent that was to make her accept me as her leader first, as there would be no point in doing so if it just left her relaying my orders to them and not issuing her own,” Cadenza finished, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t think that’s how it works. Wouldn’t she need approval from the other sisterhoods to be recognized as a new group?” Tiriana asked. She narrowed her eyes as she tried to remember what she knew about the Amazons, but it wasn’t much.
“Normally, yes, but there’s not exactly anyone else out here to tell her no, is there? The chieftainesses that expelled her to begin with might have the motivation to come all the way out here to put her in her place again, but then again, they also might not.” Cadenza shrugged and Tiriana gave a hum of acknowledgement, accepting the point.
“And at the same time, you gained the loyalty of a very strong warrior…assuming she doesn’t come back and challenge you again later, anyway,” Sera added.
“That’s why I put on that show and riled her up. I wanted her too mad to think straight, and I needed her to think the fight was so completely one-sided that a bit of training wouldn’t make up the difference. So I acted like she would have in my position. That way she filters the way I behaved through her own lens and comes to the conclusion that she can’t defeat me all on her own,” the veteran adventurer concluded.
“You used her own arrogance and mindset against her to trap her in a prison of her own mind. Clever, assuming it works,” Tiriana responded, probably still wary of how Layla would react if she ever realized the truth.
It was probably the best solution to the problem, though, short of murdering Layla outright. Sera wasn’t sure that had even occurred to either woman as an option, but that probably said more about Sera than it did about them.
“How are you going to handle Rinnie, though?” Sera asked, fairly certain the same strategy wouldn’t work on the scout.
“She put Layla in her place. Rinnie isn’t going to fall in line just because of a show of strength, but she dislikes Layla enough that she’ll probably give Cadenza the benefit of the doubt now,” Tiriana answered before Cadenza. She did know the first-wave adventurers better.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Unfortunately not everyone has an easy method that can be used to convince them. She’s a scout, though- I’m not as concerned about how well she follows orders because she’ll have to act independently much of the time anyway. I’ll talk to her when I can find her and see if I can at least convince her to come with us,” Cadenza explained in turn.
“Oh, no need to worry about that. Tiriana wasn’t wrong. Seeing that tin-plated bitch get humiliated was a nice enough down-payment that I’ll give you a chance to prove you can lead. If I’m not satisfied, though, I won’t be coming along next time,” Rinnie’s voice cut in from around the corner of the building they were next to. Footsteps could be heard from the same direction the moment she stopped speaking.
“…is she stepping harder just so we can tell she’s leaving?” Sera wondered dryly, keeping her voice to a whisper that there was a good chance Rinnie could hear anyway. It was hard not to comment on the over-dramatic performance, though.
“Let’s not borrow trouble with questions we don’t need the answer to,” Tiriana sighed. Then she looked over to Cadenza. “Anyway, I don’t think we’ve actually talked about the goal of this first exploration. Isn’t it a bit soon to be heading down there since the base isn’t even built yet?”
“Your report mentioned that you suspected there might be a secondary power core in the unexplored section. Since we could use it to activate the defenses in an emergency and we don’t know when the nachzehrer might return, I consider finding that a high priority.” Cadenza pointed past the building they had watched the construction of and Sera noticed the mages had already begun work on the next one while she was looking the other way. “This won’t take long anyway, and I have a tool that will allow me to talk to my second if anything changes.”
“We don’t actually know there’s one down there,” Sera pointed out with a frown. “If we’re searching for something that doesn’t exist we could be down there for a while.”
“True, but we’re not operating several days away from our base this time. All we have to do is backtrack to the elevator and we can return to the surface whenever we want. I’m not sure how we’re going to activate it, though,” Tiriana admitted. She covered her mouth with one hand as she thought. “We might be able to hook something up, but I’m not sure I like the idea of potentially stranding ourselves at the bottom if something goes wrong up here.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that. I checked while you were writing up your plans and the underground has already become a dungeon.” Tiriana looked up sharply at the reveal, but Sera didn’t know enough on the subject to be surprised.
“What does that have to do with the elevator?” she asked, glancing between the other two women. Although Tiriana had told her a bit about dungeons, that had mostly been regarding monsters and how to prevent their formation.
“Dungeons are caused by mana buildup and most magic technology is powered by mana,” the elf explained absentmindedly, sinking back into thought. “If the mana density is high it begins to seep into anything that will absorb it, and our tools are designed to do that, so they’re quick to activate in a dungeon setting. But those tools would also be siphoning mana from the atmosphere, making it harder to form a dungeon in the first place. If there’s enough down there to not only bring the elevator online but also to spawn monsters…”
“…then there’s most likely a leak from a large source of mana like a power core, yes,” Cadenza finished for Tiriana. “I believe the theory you proposed was that the secondary core would have had to have been disconnected before the primary was destroyed? I suspect that a force lacking the knowledge to find a way to shut down the main core likely also didn’t know how to properly disconnect the secondary.”
“So the secondary core activated after all, but it didn’t have anywhere to send the mana. Instead it was just released through the damaged conduits into the interior.” Tiriana ruffled a hand through her hair, letting out an inarticulate growl of frustration. “The damage to the system is probably worse than I thought. I may not be able to repair it myself.”
“Which is part of the reason the airship is remaining on-site. Doctor Kahnton’s team didn’t have a magical engineering expert, obviously, but he knew we’d be dealing with that kind of technology and convinced Master Hippodamides to lend us the ship and, more importantly, its crew,” Cadenza revealed with a sly smile.
“Because a ship that size would have an entire team of technicians aboard to maintain it,” Sera realized, looking at the ship in the distance. It was hard to tell because the shape was so different, but that ship really was closer to a large boat than a passenger plane in scale. It also moved much more slowly. Given the amount of time it would be in the air on any given trip, of course it would need more crew than just pilots and attendants.
“Our job is to locate and secure the core. Then I can call in other teams to establish a safe route to it and bring the technicians down to get it repaired. Once that’s completed we’ll be able to reduce the ambient mana until monsters stop appearing.” Cadenza laid out the objectives and looked at both Sera and Tiriana to see if they had any questions.
“Are you providing supplies?” Sera asked, remembering what Tiriana said about the food situation previously. They still hadn’t managed to restore their stock of preserved rations when Doctor Kahnton’s group arrived.
“Yes, we brought more than enough to last us until we can start producing locally,” Cadenza answered.
“I can’t think of anything else. I’ll talk to Vivi and make sure she’s there. She’s going to be ecstatic, trust me,” Tiriana promised.
“Good. I have to finish organizing my teams, so I’ll see you both tomorrow morning.”
Cadenza headed off towards the airship where numerous adventurers were milling about still. They were likely the teams picked for exploration and backup, as others were patrolling the perimeter of the rapidly forming settlement. Support personnel had progressed from unloading the ship to moving cargo closer to the construction area, and some were unloading magic tools and other fixtures and transporting them to the few buildings that had already been completed.
It was a slightly random thought, but Sera wondered what this future town would be called.