“Hello Elane. Long time no see.”
In the corner of the cell she is huddled together and looks miserable.
“Who are you?”
“Oh, you never saw me in this body. I am Null, remember me?”
“You are not Null, you are a Woman. Null is a man.”
“Oh, this Body’s name is BB, well her former Nickname, but now it is the designation of it. Ignore the discrepancy and just call me Null like always.”
She looks incredulous at me. Maybe she does not believe me, but that does not matter to me. Right now I am here to understand what she is doing here.
“What I need to know is, why are you here?”
“I… I can not answer that.”
“My mistake, it is because of the collar, right? Let me see this. Loopy, open the door and guard me.”
Opening the door he holds his broom like a weapon. I really need to give him something better to work with in such situations.
The collar is a restraining and obedience device. I believe a similar thing was in my former World too. Slavery Collar was it? Never mind, here the slaves do not need that thing. They get whipped into obedience normally, maybe those collars are for dangerous slaves or disobedient workers? Who knows, not me…
“No, please do not mess with it! It will kill me if you damage it!”
Yeah, the trap inside is already visible to my Mana sense. Touching it with BB is all I need to look into it even if Elane’s Aura keeps otherwise getting in the way. Multiple different runic circles are engraved in the internals. Most are for modulating the Mana inside the wearer to follow orders like some suggestion. The wavelength of the marked owner is Willard. So he was the one who put it on her.
Right now I still try to take him over, but he extremely struggles. Shaving of his defensive Mana is tedious and annoying, as it seems unconscious behaviour. His body is even in a comatose state struggling. Back to the Collar.
If forced open the Mana inside bursts in the inner circle and cuts the neck like butter. While it can be opened, it has some booby traps to make it burst if analysed in the normal way. I do not use the normal way, so it is fine. If I starve off the perpendicular rings around the trap will not be activated and with that I can take out the Mana in the charged rune to…
click
“...and open. So now you should be able to talk normally to me without being strangled if you tell me something you should not. Can we begin anew?”
“Wha… How did you open it without permission of… What is going on?”
“Huh? Oh, that thing is more of a toy in light of how that bastard of the ancient Kingdom copy protected his own Runes. I am still analysing the whole vocabulary of runic Circles but for now I have already mapped all two dimensional writings of those simpler ones.”
“You can read… That is impossible, even our highest Magi have only ever deciphered one or at most two Runes of their true potential in their lifetime!”
“Do not sweat it, I work differently on them. So do you talk, or do I have to wring the answers out of your brain?”
Ah, she realizes again where she is and got white again. Back in her corner she looks at me in fear and does not know what to do.
“I ask again. Do you talk willingly or do I need to make you like this BB here?”
Maybe she understood, maybe she does not know what I am threatening her with, still she seems to try to bring her thoughts into words.
“I was ordered to come here, but I refused! While Master Harvey gave Willard the most hospitality, he also gave me to him as a present for a steady cooperation, when he took over this place! They chained me with the bracelets and the collar to lead him around the Castle! …Could you remove the bracelets too?”
“I know those are for regulating your Magic. If I remove them you can use your Mana again and might attack me. So no, I can but will not remove them. Anything else?”
“Master Harvey gave me away and the others had only slight concern but were appeased quickly. I am… not of the Blue Ice anymore…”
Figures. I have a suspicion of how Magic works and it shows their ugly side more and more. Harvey is an Ice Mage, inundated with Mana filled with cold intention. He might gotten cold in his emotions because of that.
Willard is the complete opposite of him. Explosive Magic leads to an explosive demeanour. He not even wanted to talk, just kill right as he saw me. Talk about a short fuse. The more someone is in his element, the more he is behaving like it. Do they not try to suppress that?
“I can imagine. So it means Harvey is cold like his Magic and Willard is explosive like his. Does that mean everyone is like their Element? You were always guarded and careful, so I would think the Shield spells have an influence on you?”
“I… Maybe you are right, we Mages normally work on this demerit, but why are you asking about that right now? Did you not want to interrogate me?”
“Ah, you are right! I am drifting off in different directions sometimes, sorry. So thank you for remembering me on my task.”
She noticed, how she said something stupid to bring me back to the main topic. Too late, sorry.
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“I suspect you want to live. So I will think about it, if you cooperate.”
“...that won’t do. I will not cooperate on that vague promise.”
“What? Why not? You could survive, you know?”
“Yes, I could survive. The truth is obviously I will most likely not and just throw everything I know into your hands.”
...clever! She understood the crux of the problem. As expected of someone that guarded.
“Do not worry, I could just take over your body and rummage in your brain, but that would mean you will stop existing, and I am right now thinking of how you might be more worth alive.”
“...as bargain for blackmail. I was collared and might have a grudge against Blue Ice and the Willard Family. You want me to pressure the ones who invaded to pay up.”
“Something in that line, but not quite. I am thinking of making the whole Telk not think of messing with me again for a while.”
“That is impossible. They will come to eradicate you, did you not hear how Willard sent the signal? Even if he was manic, they will believe him. This whole place will be raided and eradicated.”
“...and like I told Willard already, the Message never got sent. It bounced against the natural… or rather unnatural shield of the Crater and vanished.”
“He used a highly precious tool for…”
“And the whole Continent used highly precious tools to scry the Crater, but only got bleeding eyes or a vague inkling of it maybe a crater instead of a mountain range. Nothing goes in or out, even many natural Laws are unable to enter. If you do not understand the Miasma on a fundamental Level, there is no way to pierce through it.”
Finally she starts believing me. I might bring her in as a ‘guest’ maybe. As long as her Mana is restrained, she is weaker than a normal Human. Mages have the whole side effect of relying on their Mana for better cardio, so without it they are frail.
…
Such a long discussion. With the whole back and forth we finally got to an agreement. I will not kill her, but she will have to be tethered to me. What this entails she does not understand, but realizes the aspect of being chained to a Monster/Demon/Eldritch being.
What she understands is, how this means she is now subordinate of a non Human being, as Snow has affirmed me as Null and having multiple human bodies. I even changed into Beta to make it even more clear. Prototype One and Two would be too much for her psyche maybe, so better not using them.
To prepare the tethering, I have to modify a few of my vats. I never thought about taking only a piece of a being not under my control in any way before. It will be a nice experiment, and if it not works, I can just take her over and fuse her Body with BB.
I am still thinking of just taking her over, as she also has some information of Magic, but right now I digest the other three Mages and work on that annoying Archmage.
“Why do you connect her anyway? I do not really like her.”
“You know Snow, I do not like her either that much, but it is a needed experiment to see if people can be taken over even if they are not in any way tethered to me. If there is any need for it later, then it would be good to know if it even works or if there might be complications.”
“I can hear you two, you know?”
...maybe we should talk about it without Elane in the vicinity. Well, not that it matters.
“So what if you hear us? You do not like us, too. Isn’t that right?”
Way to be direct Snow.
“We are in the same boat. I do not want to die and so I am aligning myself with you even if it costs me my humanity, you know?”
“Does that mean you like us? I do not think it does!”
“Well… Not really, no. But we are now working together, right?”
“Gunu… Still you said mean things about us to this Harvey and the others after you incarcerated us!”
“...wait, you know about our talks behind closed doors? How?!”
tehe
Snow… Well nothing to have hidden between maybe later allies.
“One of Snows abilities is to summon rats out of shadows. She eavesdropped on your behind the door talk. Do you think we would not at least gather information against the ones who attacked us?”
“But… How?! Our whole Fort is secured with anti scrying wards!”
“Nothing to ward if Snow is physically there as a Shadow Rat. The wards are rather toys in view of how often she slips through the wards of the Lost Village Sewers.”
“All the same wards, nothing exciting to puzzle out.”
“Of course they are all the same, otherwise… Wait, are you building different Wards on a whim?!”
“...Of course? Otherwise I can not see which one is the most effective.”
“That defies all reasoning! The complex runic circles would not work if even one rune is written wrong! You…”
“Yeah, I know. The whole thing is so convoluted. The runic system works in a way, that makes it hard to understand without threading the whole Mana flow.”
“Threading the flow? But…”
“Can we come back to the main topic? You will have to work with me on this, so there are some things for you to do. Meditating in specific Mana and accepting it fully is only the first step. I will take something out of your Spirit, but you will not be injured in any way, at least I hope not.”
“You make it really compelling to me, you know?”
“I never did it with someone who is not having my influence at least a bit in their body. Snow was the furthest of what I can call disconnected from me, and she is filled with my Mana, Miasma and fully trusts me.”
“A matter of course!”
I pat Snow’s head. She is delighted and I am soothed. This adorable rat is so trusting to me, and I do not even understand why she is like that. I am happy about that though.
“I will try my best. As long as I survive, the future can hold more for me.”
Good mentality. With that she might even survive the experiment.
…
“Are the Children okay?”
“They are all right, but the smell in the foyer… What exactly happened?”
“We were invaded by Mages of Telk. They wanted to take the Crater for themselves. To do that they were ready to eliminate all people here just to keep Information from leaking.”
Sister Annette was shocked. Katie is lesser perturbed, I would think she has seen her own share of battles between Nobles in her time as Maid. Both have understood the hint I gave, that all people had to be removed, including the Orphans and themselves, if the takeover had succeeded.
With that the Castle is back to normal. Belk had already brought the Villagers out and the reconstruction of the Mansion is under way. While the Villagers are helping in cleaning the streets the mechanisms of the Bridge and the holes in the Gates get fixed by me. Their acid is quite potent to go through rock like that. A few samples are still in some pouches, so I can look at it at my own leisure.
All the ruckus of yesterday night is slowly vanishing in the normalcy of another work day. The children work at dusting the chambers, Villager harvest more vegetables and Snow is playing around with the Blacks in the chaotic Stairway. In all the chaos I had a nice Idea and with it a change of plan.