We decided to head straight back to Haklan rather than return to the sea. It meant having less access to fresh food and water, but it cut days off the journey, so we tightened our belts and suffered through the uncomfortable heat and hunger as we rushed back to the city. Estorra had managed to recover and purify just enough of her ice from the battle to keep us hydrated for the trip back.
I was unsure if anyone had noticed any discrepancies in the chaos of the battle. If any of my party members noticed that the sand had tried to trap the wyvern, and confirmed that Estorra had not been responsible, I may have to prepare to answer some questions. The purification, while causing a violent reaction, would not have been visible, so it would have been hard for them to identify me as a source. In any case, we were all too tired to deconstruct the battle, and no one spoke much as we made our way back north.
Sleeping in shifts, and with all of us riding the sled rather than walking thanks to how much weight the sled lost from our decreased supply of water, it was hard to get enough privacy to make a call to Sera. I snuck away for long enough to let her know what had gone wrong, but that we were otherwise finished, and I would be heading back as soon as possible. I had her pass on the message to Nodel to prepare the army in case the wyvern returned, and a message to Horg about the dungeon break and that I would contact him from Haklan.
“You’re doing great, Tug,” Sidel whispered to her beast as she continued to trudge through the desert. “You can have a good rest when we’re back in the stable.”
The tamer did insist we stop now and then to let Tug sleep, but I was secretly using healing magic to help the nomadic rhinothell out. In record time, we were limping back through the gates of Haklan, then being rushed into Gorban’s office.
“Report,” he said as soon as the doors were closed.
To Markas’s credit, he told the whole truth without leaving anything out. There was no attempt to cover up the decisions we made or the results that came from it. When he was done speaking, Gorban had a deep frown on his face.
“Truthfully, I am very concerned about this escaped beast and what it might mean for the Kingdom. That was… reckless.” He looked at Rashir. “I expect better decision making from you in the future.”
“Yes sir,” Rashir said through gritted teeth.
I locked eyes with Shirel, who looked at me questioningly. I gave her a tiny nod.
“Still,” Gatosh said, interrupting. “They brought back the core. The Church thanks you for taking on these quests. You’ll get your payment, and we hope we can rely on you if we have need of your services in the future.”
Shirel carried over a substantial pouch of coin and handed it off to Markas, who nodded.
“Thank you. Of course, you can count on us. Now that we know…” he shot a glare at Rashir, who sighed, but nodded. “Now that we know what can happen, we’ll make sure to do it right.”
“Good. Dismissed,” Gorban said.
My party filed out of the room, but I stayed put. Markas looked back at me quizzically, and I shook my head. “I’ll catch up with you later.”
I saw a flash of suspicion in Markas’s eyes, but it did not really matter to me anymore. My job here was done, and I would be headed home immediately, especially now that I had to prepare for the potential fallout of this wyvern and the dungeon break. Shirel shut the door behind my former party as they left, and I turned back to Gorban, with only Otter by my side.
“I need your communication artifact so I can speak with Horg.”
Gorban’s eyes narrowed as he stood from his seat. “Excuse me? I don’t—”
I cut Gorban off by dropping my illusion. “Now, Gorban.”
The Guild Leader blinked a few times in surprise. “Pilus?” He shook his head with a sigh. “Why am I even surprised?”
Gorban looked over at Shirel as she stepped back next to him.
“You knew, didn’t you.”
Shirel just shrugged.
Looking down at Otter, Gorban frowned. “Well, now that you have a beast with you, it’s kind of obvious.” Groaning and rubbing his forehead, Gorban sat back in his seat, and opened a drawer in his desk to pull out the communication artifact. “Fine. Here. Are you taking the core?”
“That one’s a fake,” I said, dispersing the illusion on the stone replica. “I already have the real one in a safe place in case the draconic beast comes back for it.”
He shook his head. “How much danger are we in from that?”
“Honestly? No idea. I’ve never seen a dungeon break like that.”
Gorban nodded, then motioned to the artifact. “Go ahead. And Pilus?”
“Yeah?”
“You can still take this rock off my desk.”
* * *
After filling Horg in on the full details of the dungeon break and the possible outcomes from it, I gave Gorban back the communicator and left his office, my illusion restored, to find my party. Otter scampered along at my side.
The other members had already scattered to tend to their own affairs, but I found Markas waiting for me downstairs.
“Deklan,” he said with a nod as I approached. He handed me a smaller pouch than the one we received in the office. “Your share.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking the coin pouch from the warrior. A small beat elapsed before I spoke again. “So, I think I’ll be headed back north in the near future.”
“Hmm,” the party leader said, frowning. “I thought we worked well together. We made a lot of gold rather quickly, too. I notice that you’re only talking about leaving now that we’re done with the dungeon quests.”
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“Well, like you said. We made a lot of gold. Gives me the freedom to travel some more. Maybe pick up some work in Roko and join a convoy out east to see what’s going on out there.”
Markas stared me in the eye, studying me, then sighed. “I suppose so. I’m not sure if or how you were tied up in all this dungeon business, but I can’t really complain. We all made out well and we’re all uninjured, even if that last fight took everything we had out of us. All else aside, you were a good defender, Deklan. It’s going to be hard to find someone to replace you.”
“Thanks, Markas. I had a good time working with you all as well.”
Leaving my former party leader behind, I staggered up to my room in the inn. The battles with the wyvern had been exhausting, and none of us was able to fully rest and recover afterwards, given how aggressively we pushed in our return to Haklan. I needed sleep. Physically, I was fine, thanks to my healing magic, but I was mentally exhausted.
I wanted to call Sera and speak with her, but when I collapsed onto my bed, the siren song of sleep was too much to ignore. Closing my eyes, with Otter curling up next to me, I told myself I would call her after a short nap.
When I awoke, it was the sound of screaming.
* * *
I leapt out of bed and ran out the door to my room, heading down into the tavern and finding it empty. The front door of the Adventurers Guild was wide open, which was unusual given that it was still daytime, so I made my way out to see what had caused everyone to rush outside and not even close the door behind them.
My head immediately went to the worst possible place. Had the corrupted wyvern returned? Was it razing the city?
Except, already the screams I had heard were fading into a murmur of confusion. I did not hear the sounds of combat, nor the cries of the beast. Stepping outside, I found the streets filling up as people poured outside, even though it was the middle of the day. People were looking up to the sky, pointing with looks of fear and confusion on their faces.
I looked up, and froze in place.
Part of the ring around the gas giant was expanding, like a pane of glass had been struck by a bullet or a lake surface was splashing out after being hit by a rock.
My brain attempted to comprehend the sheer scale of what I was seeing and faltered. An asteroid would not have caused that much devastation. I could not think of any natural phenomenon that would.
Did the wyvern actually fly into space? All the way to the planet’s rings?
I had no idea what would happen if that was the case. With magic, it was basically impossible to extrapolate and draw conclusions. The wyvern had clearly been frantic to get its red crystal back, and it would have had access to a virtually infinite amount once it reached the ring. Furthermore, it would be surrounded by the blue magic crystal as well.
Perhaps that created some kind of… magical feedback loop? Did the corrupted wyvern become some sort of magical nuke and blow apart the ring?
As I continued to hypothesize how it could have happened, my brain caught up with the implications. The crystal of the ring was spreading outward from the force of the magical explosion.
Whatever caused it was likely dead. The fallout, on the other hand, had yet to begin.
I found Gorban and Shirel in the crowd, looking up at the sky and whispering amongst themselves.
“How long ago did this start?” I asked as I walked up next to them.
“I’m not quite sure,” Shirel said. “My spies are gathering intel now. We think it's been going on since the morning, but only got big enough to notice recently.”
“What is it?” Gorban asked.
I shook my head. “I’m guessing our wyvern is responsible for it, but… that doesn’t really matter now. What does matter is what happens if a flood of magic crystal rains down on us.”
“Magic crystal? Like…” Gorban looked up at the sky. “Like the dungeon core?”
“And the magic which transforms beasts.”
Shirel’s eyes narrowed. “So we could be looking at countless beasts transforming in the wild and a slew of new dungeons?”
“I hope that’s all that happens.”
“What else could?” Gorban asked.
I shrugged. “We have no way of knowing. At the very least, I’m worried about beast tides and how they’ll affect commerce and trade. But…” I shook my head. “In any case, I need to get back to the capital immediately.”
“It’ll be weeks, even by boat,” Shirel said. “It might be better to weather this here.”
I could not afford weeks. “I may have a solution for that.”
* * *
Back in the privacy of my room, having sorted out all the lingering threads of my time in Haklan, I reached into my inventory and pulled out a pair of magic circles I had made years prior but never actually used.
Like the 8-point magic circles, I had two different 7-point magic circles. Unlike the 8-point magic circles, neither was a compound polygram. They were both regular polygrams. Despite that, {7/3} contained a smaller {7/2} as part of the larger polygram, just like how {8/3} contained {8/2} within.
I was not working with elements this time, and I was not compounding or isolating. Instead, I wanted to touch the very fabric of spacetime itself. My ability to use {8/2} as an advanced tool for doing 4-point magic was the basis of how I established which of the two magic circles was best for each task.
This time, I was trying to leverage my long-time use of my inventory skill. I was already reaching into a subspace of some kind and moving matter beyond what was possible. That, or I was holding things outside of space and time entirely.
It had been decades since I studied anything to do with relativity, or how spacetime was curved by mass and energy, and I would not likely find any such texts in this world. I had to use what I already knew.
Time and space could not truly be separated, but many people liked to think of time as a fourth dimension beyond the three dimensions of space. I could imagine a three dimensional construct frozen in time, with no movement, but could I imagine time without the platform of space to operate on?
I could not. In that case, I could make an argument that space was a necessary platform for time, and therefore time magic could not work without a basis of space within. In that case, the {7/2} magic circle was best suited for space, and the {7/3} magic circle was best suited for time, though as with all language and grammar there would be exceptions to the rules.
Focusing on my {7/2} magic circle instead of using my inventory skill, I channeled some MP into a spell to withdraw some stone from my inventory.
Skills {Inventory (0/1000)} converted to new skill: 7-Point Magic
Skill acquired: 7-Point Magic
111 SP reassigned to converted skill.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Now comes the hard part.
Tucking everything else I owned away in my inventory with my new magic, including putting away my {7/3} circle, I stood still and focused all my attention on the {7/2} magic circle, my location, and my destination.
No time passed, and then I stood across the room.
Otter squeaked in surprise, looking from where I was previously standing and where I was now. He ran over to me in concern, rubbing against my leg.
I took a shaky breath and checked my MP. Thankfully, my inventory skill was expert level, and all those skill points applied to my new 7-point magic. Even with my large magic pool, I was nervous about the costs of 7-point magic spells, and the idea of using spacetime magic with only a basic or advanced level of the skill terrified me.
As it was, I barked a laugh when I saw the minimal MP cost of my small first jump. Altering time might be very different, but I had been moving items in and out of real space for decades already.
It was time to go home.