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“Shit. Damn it. Tiamat, are you alright?!” Mira screamed and ran to Tiamat’s side. The tiny dragon was laid out in a tangle of limbs. She breathed out in relief as her familiar coughed weakly and opened one eye.
“Argh, what the hell? What happened? Aww, I chipped a tooth!” Tiamat cried piteously from the ground.
Mira let out the breath she was holding and put the healing potion she had summoned back into her storage. Tiamat seemed whole and uninjured, except for her pride…and maybe that tooth.
“My god, T. You scared me. What did I say about being careful?” Mira looked around at the enclosures, but nothing had changed. The Pseudodragons on the other side of the force wall looked on with interest, their sad expressions showing sparks of hope. The other beasts didn't pay them much attention. Most importantly, Mira couldn't see any other spells triggering.
“Mira, you must help them. This is unacceptable! They are my people. Our race doesn’t do well with captivity. Look at them.” Tiamat said, hissing with anger.
“Ok, yes. Of course, Tiamat, but we need to be smart about it. Let's scout the area and see what we’re working with, okay?” Mira said. She summoned a bag of flour, grabbed a handful, and threw it against the wall of force. The powder hit the wall and dropped, showing the invisible barrier's limits for Tiamat to see. She handed the bag to Tiamat with a nod and raised an eyebrow to the other enclosures.
Tiamat began to systematically scatter the flour to outline all the enclosure barriers. Tiamat struggled with the big bag until she finally changed into her little girl-human shape, showing that her newly enhanced ring still worked. Mira paced the wall inspecting the invisible glyphs that powered and formed the spell. Finally, the pair reconvened to discuss and plan.
“Ok, good news and bad news time.” Mira began. “The wall of force spell is super powerful but there doesn't seem to be any monitoring attached to the spells or the enclosures. If we can break it, the Palace owners shouldn't necessarily know.”
“Even though the wall is Uber strong, a lot of these types of spells have weaknesses. So, we will use a little thing called the scientific method and run some tests. We already know that brute force is not likely going to do it, thanks to your unfortunate charge. What’s next?” Mira said, using her schoolteacher’s tone.
“Oh, I know. Let me try!” Tiamat stood a bit back from the line of flour and triggered her ring’s newly merged spell of [Flame Jet]. It worked the same as when the spell was within the fire gem, the summoned burst of fire could come from any point desired, hands, chest, the ring, or Tiamat’s favorite - her mouth.
I’m a goddamn flame-breathing dragon, at last. The diminutive AI thought.
The flame splashed against the invisible wall fanning out and illuminating the edges of the barrier. Mira was watching closely as the rune traces along the floor but under the barrier flashed and cycled. Tiamat’s burst of flame tapered off and ended. She picked up a pebble and hurled it. It ricocheted off the barrier and bounced into the brush.
Tiamat’s flames were very flashy and got all the beasts’ attention. The Pseudodragon were cheering them on as were the Aurora Sprites, the Pegasus milled about nervously, while the Gryphons, Wyvern, and Roc growled threateningly.
“Hmmm. This isn't a simple spell at all. I saw a special glyph activate. It’s called the Primordial Nexus. It's a powerful converter of elemental energy. I think that your fire’s energy briefly reinforced the wall and made it stronger rather than breaking it down. It’s quite fascinating. Theoretically, no matter how powerful your flame, it could resist it. I guess any inefficiencies might eventually make it fail, but I didn’t see any. Ok, let me try something new next.” Mira said.
She fired off her [Multi-Missile] spell, angling it so that the assorted flavors of magic bolts would strike the wall at an angle, one after another, instead of all slamming into it at the same time. The rain of deadly and colorful bolts shot into the wall.
The cold, fire, lightning, wind, and ice shards were deflected and absorbed. The void bolts seemed to sink into the wall a bit but were eventually also absorbed. The poison, stone, and crystal bolts bounced off and shot into the brush. The clear winner was the light bolt which passed through the barrier as if it wasn't there and struck the stone outcroppings that the little dragons used as a cave.
“Nice. I guess that makes sense, the barrier is see-through after all.” Mira said, still thinking deeply. After a moment, she had the beginnings of a plan.
“Ok, brat. I can attack the wall indirectly now. The glyphs that make up the wall are underneath it, but the light can pass through. The enclosures all have discreet walls running in parallel to a common mana source. There are several different ways to disable the walls. I can drain the power sink, overcharge it and explode the power sink, cut off the feed lines from the power sink, isolate the individual mana to force converters, same for primordial nexus, or even the repeaters that define the wall’s perimeter. What do you think we should do?” Mira asked, always looking to have a teaching moment. Tiamat might be an AI role-playing as the little dragon, but she was still only about a year old and didn’t have a lot of real-world experience.
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“Well, if your past exploits are good examples, it would probably be easiest to cut the mana lines from the power sink to just bring all the walls down. But…that would find us in the middle of a room with some very aggressive-looking monsters. Not so good for our stealth mission nor our continued health.”
“Just saving my kin would mean we need runic surgery rather than vandalism, snipping the lines to the enclosure force converter, or maybe the repeaters that define the wall?” Tiamat finished, with more of a question than an answer.
“Very nice. It’s nice to see you pay attention when we're working. I don't see any magical alarms built into the runic structure. So, what I’m going to do is muck up the Pseudodragon enclosure’s mana converter sigil with the light bolt. Hopefully, that will take down only their barrier wall and leave the rest in place.” Mira said.
“I'm going to need to be extremely precise, so I'll rig a light bolt spell gem with a frame to aim it. While I do that, can you scout ahead? Find an exit. I can see the stairs over there beyond the Aurora Sprites. If I get this wrong, and all the walls come down, we may need to run…fast.” As Mira began to pull materials out of her storage, Tiamat flew off to map their exit path.
By the time Tiamat returned, announcing a clear path to the stairs and an unguarded door to the second-floor halls, Mira had her device ready. She had repurposed a telescope on a tripod and mounted her newly made light bolt spell gem to it.
“Ready?” Mira asked. The pseudo-dragons within the enclosure looked eager. With a nod from Tiamat, she summoned her staff and began to pull in and shape the Akasic energy. If her improvised magical device knocked all the force walls offline, she would be ready.
Better to be prepared, just in case, she thought as she pushed mana through the spell gems conversion glyph.
A small but powerful bolt of light shot out and down the aimed tube's length and struck a patch of flooring where the enclosure's lines of runes hid from mundane vision. The field visibly sparkled and pulsed with a low hum before disappearing, the marred symbols on the floor puffed, throwing the layer of sand off and then burning up.
The little bit of flour, that was still suspended on the force wall, now dropped to the floor as the field collapsed. Tiamat warbled a greeting and flew in to greet the group. The little reptiles erupted in a chorus of draconic that Mira couldn't follow.
Mira’s gaze raked over the other enclosure. The Sprites were waving for her attention, the Wyvern thrashed in agitation, and the herd of Pegasus looked forlorn not even looking up anymore. The gryphon watched with a predator's sharp gaze digging its claws into the earthen floor, and the Roc launched lightning and thunder attacks futilely against their still active barriers.
Mira was brought back from her inspection as the group of miniature dragons took off, flapping for all their worth towards the large windows of the open ceiling. Tiamat landed on her shoulder looking satisfied and proud with herself.
“Good job, brat. I’m thinking we should release the Sprites and Pegasi as well. What do you think?” Mira asked. Tiamat gave a tiny roar, sounding more like a kazoo than anything else, and the pair got to work.
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Resetting and moving the rig to the Pegasi pen went quickly and soon enough the small herd of winged horses were freed. The docile beasts needed to be spurred towards the exit with a few fire breaths from Tiamat to get them aloft and flying away from the Palace.
By the time they got to the Sprites' prison, the little fairies were bouncing off the walls with excitement. Mira waved them back while she set up to deactivate their walls. When the Sprites were freed, they charged Mira, flying in loops, forming a whirlwind about her. In a blazing flash, that was their namesake the Aurora Sprites all disappeared, and Mira felt a tingling on her right palm.
The Sprites had left her a parting gift, a faint mandala pulsing with Faen energy. Many adventurers had enchanted tattoos. They could be useful as pre-prepared spell forms that already had embedded Akasic energies and could be charged or recharged with internal Qi. Mira was a fan, but the politics of the Imperial Arcanum had been an obstacle. No mages dared go overboard with tattoos, despite their utility.
The Arcanum saw mystic tattoos as a crutch for mages too weak to stabilize a formidable spell array. Even hidden tattoos would not escape the notice of the Arcanum masters, who all could see the energy emanations despite any coverings. Such a display was treated with scorn and made functioning within the university too difficult to balance the benefits of the tattoo's aid.
Despite all that, Mira did have one minor tattoo with a Telekinesis spell and covered it with a bracelet. The masters of the magic school could see the utility spell but assumed it was enchanted upon the bracelet. It was yet another hidden card Mira had, in case she was ever disarmed of devices or overpowered in an Akasic duel, she would have a hidden spell that could utilize Qi instead of Akasic energy.
The Faen mark was complex and crafted with the chaotic energy of the final type of magic, the little-understood Faen mana. Mira didn't recognize the sigil, but it held some similarity to conjuring or summoning Akasic glyphs.
“Nice! It’s rare to receive a Fae gift without promises or deals. I wonder what it does.” Mira thought hard. The other beasts were going wild now. She was ready to leave when she had another idea.
“Hey T. I think we can use the first option you mentioned to our advantage. I’m going to set up the jailbreaker device to disable the main mana-source. I won’t trigger it now, though. I'll link it to a sympathetic sigil that I’ll keep on me. Remote control chaos on tap, if we need a distraction later!”, Mira said cheerfully. Seeing Tiamat’s malicious expression, she began moving the devices to maximize the destruction of the remaining enclosure barriers.
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