Monday 12/09/61, Location: 22.16513, 113.58226, Time 21:15
As soon as it was properly dark, Tads shook herself and rolled to her feet. Taking a deep breath, she held it for a moment, arms raised outwards, before slowly exhaling through her nose, her arms dropping slowly to her side while a look of serenity washed over her face as she grounded herself to the land. Opening herself up to the astral realm, she called forth some spirits, bargaining and treating with them for their service, channelling mana through her into them to give them form and power here. When she had five of her 'normal' spirits waiting for her, she summoned a larger one to go and protect the Broadsword under its concealing aegis. That, as usual, gave her a bit of a headache, so she sat down with a water flask and took a few minutes to recover, trying to keep her mind blank and calm.
Ten minutes passed, with nothing but the sighing of the wind as it raced around the mountainside. Around her, the team had settled down to watch or to sleep, following their normal routine that, by now, was second nature. Mary Pat sat to one side watching, not sure what was going on, but staying quiet and following the team's lead, for the moment. She fidgeted a little as the moment stretched onwards, her eyes flitting around. Shimazu and Hunter heard her little movements but ignored her, keeping watch over their areas of observation instead, while Aswon and Kai were snuggled down in their sleeping bags, ignoring the world. Finally though, Tads moved again, concentrating once more as the pain in her brain disappeared, calling another equally large spirit to help her with the mining. Once more she was successful in the call, but the headache returned with a vengeance, making her wince and frown.
But with the spirits now called, she turned back towards the mountain and gestured physically, helping her concentrate past the pain on what she wanted. A moment later, the spirits vanished, flying down the crack in the mountain to various depths, before then turning off and starting their search, slowly pressing through the living earth in search of its secret treasures.
Tads settled back down and looked at the bottle of painkillers, weighing up their use in her mind – before pushing them away and instead just taking a deep drink of water and settling back, her hands rubbing at her temple in a soothing circle.
"Now we wait?"
"Yes, Mary-Pat. Now we wait. The spirits are searching. If one returns, I will go back in and bore through the earth to follow its directions and recover the gems. And then we wait some more."
Their guide didn't comment again, but instead pulled out her small pocket computer and grabbed a blanket to pull over her legs and waist. A moment later, a soft glow illuminated her face as she powered up the device and started to read something. Hunter frowned as he picked up the glow in the corner of his vision and looked around, but then realised that if anyone could see it, they probably already had the camp under surveillance and were in a position to attack them anyway, so let it slide.
Minutes slipped by, collecting into a large gang that suddenly ambushed the next hour – but it was all quiet. The temperature dropped further and further under the clear night sky, the wind picking up a chilling edge. Overhead the stars twinkled, the pollution-stained atmosphere refracting the light even this far out into the wilderness, testament to the hyper-capitalist world that they inhabited. As the hours trickled past, first one spirit then another came back to report a find, and Tads stirred, sliding into the makeshift mine and then shaping the earth around her to find the gems indicated, before returning back to the camp and depositing them upon the pile of loot they'd found so far. A handful of smaller gems and a few more reasonable size came out, a slow trickle that meant she never got more than about forty minutes to snooze. Mary-Pat stayed awake with her until about three AM, examining the gems as best she could in the dark, but as the team swapped over and Aswon and Kai took over on watch while Hunter and Shimazu climbed into their beds, she yawned and found a space for herself too, realising that this was probably the pattern for the rest of the night.
And so it was. The spirits would come back, report their finds and get the shaman's attention. She would slither down into the crack, delving deeper and deeper underground. Gather her strength and cast her spell, carefully shaping a new passage off from the main chasm, sometimes up, sometimes down, drifting through the solid rock with sheer willpower until she found the gems. Some were mere specks, tiny little gems that weighed fractions of a gram and were small enough to be almost impossible to spot. Some were larger, a few grams perhaps, but none of them were large enough to meet their needs.
About an hour before dawn, the larger spirit returned and demanded her attention, signalling that it had found another gem. Yawning, Tads checked the time, gave a little sigh at having only just gotten back to sleep and then gestured for the spirit to lead onwards. It descended deep underground and then indicated off to the right and downwards, quite steeply. She cast her spell once more, feeling the familiar surge of power through her as the rocks melted away before her, creating a tunnel that angled downwards at forty degrees, into the depths below. She descended ten metres, and the spirit indicated that she needed to go further – move more rock. Much more rock. She cast the spell again, then again, dropping further and further down, until the spirit gestured to her to slow, and then stop – pointing at the rockface just in front of her. Working slowly now she moved the rock aside, letting it flow apart as if it were mud parting before a stream of water. She caught a glimpse of something pink, and moved even more slowly now – then let out a gasp as the gemstone emerged from the concealing rock. It was large – perhaps as long as her thumb but thicker and shaped like a losenge. She moved in closely and as the last of the rock flowed away from the gemstone, she cupped her hands around it and let it fall into her palms.
The stone was cold and rough, and looked more like a fruit sweet than a desirable gem, being dull, irregularly shaped and covered in a whitish powder. But when the light from her headtorch caught it just right, the inside lit up in a brilliant display of light, revealing intricate patterns and reflections within the interior of the gem. She carefully packed the gem away into an inside pocket, had a quick look around the opening for any further gems and then started to climb out of the small chamber she was in. She paused at the entrance to the steep tunnel, and turned to the spirit.
"Thank you – I think this is exactly what we needed. Please, if you will – with whatever time remains before dawn, now just look for any other gemstones around here, of any type at all. Even if they are not rubies." The spirit slowly melded into the rock wall, and Tads started the arduous climb up and out of the mountain, and back to the camp, again putting the rock back as closely as she could to how she had left it. Once back, she carefully woke Shimazu and Hunter, motioning for them to be quiet and to avoid disturbing Mary-Pat, who lay back against the slope of the mountain, her mouth hanging slightly open as she snored quietly. Once she had their attention, she pulled out the ruby to show them. Sleep vanished from their eyes as they took in the size of the gem, and Hunter motioned for her to pass it over to him.
He carefully poured out water into a dish, watching the level until he had about 50ml inside, and then slowly lowered the gem into the water, until it was fully covered. Then, he pulled the gem out and shook it carefully, before handing it back to Tads and studying the level of water remaining.
"About 43ml, I think. Maybe 44. Let's call it 44. That means it's displaced about 6 grams of water by volume. But rubies have a density of 4g per cubic centimetre, rather than 1g for water… so we're looking at that weighing about 24 grams – which makes it about 125 carats. That's rough of course, it would never stay that weight once it's been cut – but we weren't asked for a cut stone."
"So that will do, then?" Kai asked, holding out his own hand to examine the gem. "And how much is this worth?"
"Six figures at least, I would guess. Big stones rise in value more than smaller ones." Hunter saw the look on Kai's face, and rephrased his thoughts slightly. "Ten stones that only weigh ten carats each are a LOT cheaper than one stone that weights a hundred. Bigger stones are just inherently more valuable than smaller ones of the same quality. Though it also depends on a lot of other factors."
"Such as?" Aswon leant closer to Kai as he asked, examining the stone carefully.
"Colour, clarity, shape, purity, imperfections. Though sometimes imperfections can raise the price." Hunter saw the look of confusion that Aswon shot him. "Rubies naturally have tiny little interior imperfections, called 'rutile inclusions' – little needle-like flecks – that show up throughout the structure. If a stone has been heat-treated, they tend to fade away, and artificially grown rubies don't have them at all. So having them present indicates a natural and untainted stone, that's probably worth more. As is having a blood-red ruby, rather than a pinker shade. Just worth more due to perception."
"But we have what we need for this ritual?" Kai asked in confirmation, looking between Hunter and Tads, and getting firm nods of agreement from them. To an outsider, it must have looked very strange as the group kept looking around at each other and then nodding or shaking their heads, their conversation being picked up by the sub-vocal microphones and relayed to them via their ear-pieces. But despite the back and forth between them, there was no sound to disturb Mary-Pat from her slumber.
"What do we do about her?" Aswon gestured with his head towards the sleeping woman. He saw the angry look from Tads and shook his head at the shaman. "Not like that – I don't mean we're going to harm her or rip her off. But we said we'd split things with her. It was her location after all. I mean how do we split that out. An even number each? By weight? By size, based on what Hunter just said? How do we divvy things up fairly?"
"Oh, I see. I don't know."
"Well, gimme the big one and I'll tuck that away safe. And we can work out how to split the smaller stuff up."
"Could we do alternate picks between us and her?" Kai looked around. "If some of the colours are more valuable or different sizes matter, we let her have a pick, then we have a pick, and so on? Or maybe we tell her to split them into two piles, and we pick which one we have – or the other way around? It's on both sides to try and do an even split then?"
"Any of those work, I guess."
"We should let her choose." Shimazu stated. "And I think we should show her the gem. The big one." The rest of the team turned to look at him with curiosity, or in the case of Hunter, defiance. "She's the one who provided the location that let us find the stone. Sure, it needed the spirits and the spell to get it out, but if we'd been on the next mountain over, we might have spent a month here looking, and found nothing. But she's extended a certain amount of trust in us. And if we just announce that we're done looking and we're off – without showing her anything, then she knows we've found what we wanted, but also that we could have found much more. And she'd never get over that distrust. Or if the positions were reversed – would we?" He looked around at the others first, seeing them come around to his point of view, ending up with a stare at Hunter who just shrugged, clearly not in favour of being completely up front with her. "This is someone Tads trusted, and who has helped us out. Would you want us to treat someone you know any differently?"
Hunter scowled but looked down at the ground, giving an angry shrug – but it was clear that shot had hit home.
"Fine. Whatever." They were interrupted by the larger spirit returning once more, alerting Tads to another discovery – which she immediately went to sort out. The sky on the eastern horizon had a tinge of colour to it and she knew dawn wasn't that far away, and after an experience on a foggy ship one time, she knew better than to risk having the spirit disappear. When she returned, bearing a few small pinkish spinels twenty minutes later, and with an increasing level of colour far to the east, the team 'got up' making enough noise to alert and rouse Mary-Pat.
"Myep." She licked at her dry lips and took a drink, swilling the icy-cold water around her mouth to try and rehydrate it a little. "I'll try that again. How's it going? Have you found much more?"
"We have. Including what we came here for. We found some more smaller and decent-sized gems, and this last lot just a few minutes ago. But we found a big one. Hunter – can you show her, please?" She looked over and saw Hunter hesitate for a moment before the last of his defiance crumbled and he grumbled as he reached inside his pocket to pull out the gem.
"Oh – gimme!" Mary-Pat's eyes went round when she saw the size of the gem, and her excitement was palpable.
"We look with our eyes, not our hands," Aswon said, getting him a sharp look from Mary-Pat. His face cracked into a grin though, leaving her uncertain of how serious he was. Instead she grabbed her jeweller's eye-piece from her pocket and screwed it in tightly to her right eye, then reached out again for the gem. Hunter passed it over, watching her like a hawk as she held it up in front of her and examined it slowly and carefully.
"It's beautiful. The find of a lifetime normally… something you could spend years looking for."
"Perhaps longer. It was about a hundred and twenty metres below the passage, and to the right, drifting downwards at about a forty-degree angle, I think." Tads informed her. "It was pretty hard to get to, and there was nothing else down that way."
"Wow. So these spirit things… hard to do?"
"Quite difficult, yes."
"Shame." Mary-Pat continued to examine the gem, rotating it round and round, until she'd covered every square millimetre of the surface. Removing the magnifying glass from her eye, she then just looked at it normally, marvelling at the size and colour, before handing it back to Hunter with palpable disappointment. "It's very beautiful. And very, very valuable."
"A shame we don't get to keep it, then. But we have to give it to a dragon, so I doubt it's ever going to be seen again." Kai added off-hand, trying to remind her that she was dealing with powerful people – or creatures, depending on your point of view.
"Oh. Well, disappointing all round then. What about the rest?" She gestured down at the pile of much smaller rubies that were laid out on the cloth at their feet.
"We can split those between us, as agreed." Kai grinned at her. "Bearing in mind that we needed your help to find this seam and spot, we thought it was fair to let you divide the gems up into two piles, and pick which one you wanted." Mary-Pat shot him a look, and then glanced around at the others, expecting someone to laugh. Her look of confusion intensified when they all looked back at her, either nodding or with utter seriousness on their faces.
"That's an unusual proposal."
"Look, we appreciate your help. Sure, we need to pay for our fuel to get us back home. But WE could have spent weeks, months or even years looking for this gem without your help. You helped us out, or you helped Tads out. It doesn't matter which – but we have what we need to save that kid's life. And we agreed to split the profits on the other gems found. So we're trusting you, like you trusted us." Kai projected an aura of certainty, reasonableness and calm, his smile fading while his stare intensified.
"Alright then. Let me split them up." Mary-Pat moved so she could get at the stones, put her magnifying glass back to her eye and started to sort through the stones from largest to smallest, sorting them into some kind of order. As she did, Hunter watched her carefully, assessing how she did so and saw her sorting them based on apparent clarity and then colour, while Aswon was carefully watching her aura, probing at her mood and intentions. It was horribly invasive from a technical point of view, but she'd never know unless she was actually magically talented herself – and they had no indication of that at all.
The rest of the team started to pack down the shelter and all their gear around them, cleaning up the campsite and scattering the rocks that had provided some cover and security through the night, trying to make the area look more natural.
"There – done!" They paused in their efforts for a moment to look at the two roughly equal sized pile of gems laid out on the cloth. "That one has a tiny bit more weight to it," Mary-Pat gestured to the pile on the left, "but this one has two stones with perfect colour, which will probably get a higher price."
"Ok." Kai glanced up at Hunter quickly and got a nod of approval. "Pick which one you want and pack them up. We'll take the other one." Mary-Pat quickly scooped the pile up that supposedly had the better colour stones inside, and poured them into a screw-top container, sealing it up tightly and then burying it in an inside pocket. As soon as she was done, Hunter collected the second pile, putting it into a snap-top container and then bundled the sheet up.
"Don't forget, Mary-Pat – those stones have been mined naturally, and are magically pure. You may get an even better price than usual from any magical buyers because of that. As long as they don't get treated with some kind of industrial process from now, anyway." Her friend nodded to her. "And I have no idea if there are more rubies and other stones in this seam. Especially with what we found. It's possible, but it might take a lot of digging to find them. Sorry."
"What we have here is quite nice. And probably more than I could have mined up here alone. I can get these sorted out for a while, and keep the people in the village fed for a good time from this."
"How much would you say each of those piles is worth – just in general?" Kai asked. "We're not exactly gem experts, so I don't want to get fleeced." Kai carefully didn't mention that both Hunter and Tads were actually more than adequate geologists, and Hunter especially seemed to have found some very useful matrix sites that told him more than enough to keep him in touch with the world.
"It depends how they're cut. And what the magical premium is that Tads talks about – that I don't know. But I'd say the whole collection might sell for… maybe a hundred thousand gross."
"Gross?"
"Well, the gems at the end will have a value of that. But there's the cutter's fee to come off, and the distributors, of course."
"Oh, of course." Kai thought for a moment. "So what kind of money do you think you'd clear, as a general guideline?"
"Well, if I'm lucky, maybe eighty percent. It really depends on the market saturation and stock levels. I've got three cutters I normally work with, that I've built up a reputation with and that I trust, so I can get an idea of how busy they and their competitors are, and then feed my gems into the pipeline. They work on a commission basis normally, which is why you want someone you know and trust."
"Commission basis? That seems odd…"
"Does it? It's in their best interest then to maximise the yield from the stone. The better cut they manage, and the more carats they preserve, the higher the value overall – and the more they get paid. If they do a bad job and butcher the stone, they cut their own pay and margins. Same thing with the distributors – they get a fixed percentage of what they shift the stones for, so they're experts at checking the market place out and working out when to sell and when to hold. But in both cases, you end up with someone else holding your gems for a while, so you'd better trust them!"
"Ahh, I see. Well, in our case, I suspect that most of these will be bound for a magical practitioner, and won't end up getting cut or polished, so that may not be a concern for us." He looked around the site, seeing that pretty much everything had been packed away. "We all good to get back to the aircraft?" There were a chorus of replies from most of the team, apart from Aswon who held up one finger.
"I need a minute." He walked away from the team, then knelt on the rock, placing both hands palms down on the uneven surface. From a few paces away they heard him muttering something, barely audible words that they couldn't make out clearly. He spoke for thirty seconds or so, then lowered his forehead to the ground, resting upon it for a moment, speaking some more, then pushed himself back upright and rose to his feet. "I wanted to thank the spirits of the mountain for their help." He didn't bother waiting for a response from anyone, but pulled on his rucksack, grabbed his spear and then set off towards the area of the mountainside that might charitably have been called a 'path', starting his descent.
They descended the mountain in single file, moving steadily and cautiously as they walked, slid, scrambled and stumbled down the steep slopes in the dim light. Technically the sun was 'up' for this part of the world, but it was on the eastern side of the mountain, and they were descending down the western side in a gloomy twilight that only made the journey more challenging. But despite a few minor scares, they managed to make it back to the valley floor unscathed and could pick up the pace a little, heading back to the south towards the village and the side-valley where the Broadsword lay waiting.
On reaching the split from the main valley, Mary-Pat gave Tads a quick hug, then offered a handshake to the rest of the team, her cool and untrusting demeanour having apparently thawed with the bounty of gems she now carried with her, before wishing them well on their journey. The team headed west into the valley and found that Marius was up and had done as much as he could already on derigging the cammo netting, and just needed a number of extra hands to actually pull the nets down and roll them back up into bundles ready to be stowed.
By nine in the morning the sun was just starting to climb over the high peaks to the east, illuminating the dorsal section of the Broadsword just as they lifted off amidst a plume of sand and dust. Rising rapidly out of the ground-effect clutter, the aircraft sparkled in the sunlight as Hunter reconfigured the polymers, transforming them from an all-over smudgy brown rock pattern to a mixture of polluted blues on the ventral surface. Marius angled the nose down slightly and picked up speed, angling south-east on a heading of 112 degrees, for the fifteen hundred kilometre journey back towards Trafford.
Their journey was uneventful, and the three hours of travel turned into four by the local clocks as they advanced through a time-zone, but they were able to land, refuel and stretch their legs for a few minutes, before leaving the river-side landing spot and skirting the South-Nepalese mountains as they headed further east, this time for the two thousand kilometre hop to Dragon Ridge.
They were over the Kashin State, just north of Myanmar, and closing in on the border with Yunnan when Shimazu felt a weird sensation, icy fingers trailing down his spine. He was on watch, looking through the viewing prism, and he quickly cycled through the available sensors and directions looking for the cause. Nothing leapt out to him as being obvious, and he pulled the headset off and then blinked to get his eyes to refocus to a different distance and checked around the cabin. Again, nothing looked odd – most of the team were dozing or thoroughly asleep in their seats, recovering from their efforts on the mountainside. But the feeling persisted, and Shimazu felt another icy sensation as something disturbed his magical aura. He leant over and shook Tads awake, tugging at her blanket until she made disgruntled noises and uncurled from her traditional tight ball.
"What?"
"I'm not sure – but I think someone is trying to magically track me. I've got a strange feeling in my aura…" That bought her to full wakefulness, and she uncurled from her seat and moved around to stand in front of him, her hands steadying herself on the armrest to either side of his legs and she peered at him intently.
"Yes. That's…concerning. Aswon! Grab your spear!" She saw movement from his seat as the merc woke up swiftly, and was glad to see him grab the magical weapon without any questions. "Kai – you too. Grab your blade, we could be in trouble."
"Wasmara?"
"Someone has managed to get a tracking ritual through the ward on the aircraft, and is trying to home in on Shimazu. I have no idea if they're just trying to magically track us, which is bad enough, of if they're going to get a spell through as a follow up attack."
"Oh, drek. What can we do?"
"Not a lot, really. We're travelling fast, so that's going to make their lives difficult. And the ward on the Broadsword is strong. Like, really strong. But if they've managed to overcome both of those things, then we're talking about a strong, powerful and committed magical team. And unfortunately there's several people that could be now!" She thought for a moment, then hit her commlink, broadcasting through to the cockpit as well. "Marius, we might have an issue. Shimazu is being tracked, even through the magical defences we have up. Speed can help throw off the tracking ritual a little. Can we go to full speed, please?" Almost immediately she felt the pull to the rear of the cabin and heard the change in engine pitch as Marius accelerated.
"Do you require full standard speed, or do we need FULL speed?"
"As fast as we can go…NO WAIT. I get what you're asking now. No, we don't need to go that fast!" Sudden flashbacks to a nose-first dive towards the ocean and then a level of acceleration that had terrified her suddenly washed through her mind. "Just as fast as we can normally and safely fly, please."
"Affirmative."
"Ok, what can we do, Tads? What's the drill here?"
"If it's just a tracking ritual, then a spotter will be following the magical charge that's building up, homing in on Shimazu. If he appears here, but we can kill his or her astral form quickly – then they won't be able to report back. So keep your weapon handy and active, as you'll only probably get one shot, one chance to strike before they move away from the body to see where they are in the world, and then disappear back to their body. If they do flee in astral, I'm the only one that can chase them, and I have limited options to affect them with. So we need to take them out before they get out of range for you to strike."
"Can't you put up more defences? More shielding thingies?"
"Not in the time we have. They're tracking him now – and to put up a stronger ward would take us the best part of a day, even with all of us working on it. It's a little terrifying that they've managed to get through the ward as it is."
"What about a spirit, Tads? To conceal Shimazu, and hide him from the world?"
"We could… if we can land. I can summon an air spirit, but they're not good at concealing things. A mist spirit, or certain spirits of the land… maybe. But I need to be in the domain to summon…. Wait. I have an idea…" Tads spun on her heel and headed towards the door leading to the cockpit, pulling it open quickly and then stepping around the corner. There was a small junction then, with the bunks on her right, the combination shower/toilet ahead, and the entrance to the cockpit on her left. She could see Hunter looking back at her in confusion, while Marius was slumped in the right hand seat, held in place with the harness while the rigger jack connected his brain to the aircraft.
"What you doing up here?"
"I need your bunks. Or to be near your bunks, anyway. You both sleep in here, right, nearly every night. Or every night you're near the aircraft. And you shower and stuff here?"
"Well, as best I can. It's not massive you know, so I have to leave the door open… do each half separately."
"Um..ok, I don't think I need to think about that. But you live here. Eat here… wash here. I think it should do."
"Do for what?" Shimazu asked, having followed her forward, and now leaning against the first corner. The edge of Aswon's hair was visible just behind him, and the cockpit area suddenly felt very crowded.
"If they live here, then it's a home, the place they reside. It might be enough. It's a house, a residence… the domain of a hearth spirit. And hearth spirits ARE good at concealment. So if I can summon a spirit here, it might be enough."
"Oh no, no magic in my bedroom!"
"Would you rather whoever is tracking Shimazu RIGHT NOW manage to get a lock onto his location, and then ritually cast a spell that destroys the aircraft and sends us plummeting to our deaths?"
"Err… no?"
"Well, then. Hush, I need to concentrate." Tads began to draw power in to her, pulling mana from the cockpit environment, feeling the slight difference in 'flavour' to how it felt in the back. It was strange what a change in mental approach did – though the seats in the back were comfortable, clearly the rest of the team didn't feel that the Broadsword was their home, the place they stayed – it was a means of transport, no doubt similar to the hundreds of thousands of air passengers that flew around the world each day. But for the two up front, it had clearly crossed some indefinable boundary to their 'place', and that had subtly changed their world around them, and without them being aware of it. "Aswon, if you can, check out Shimazu's aura as I put the spirit on. Shimazu, you might want to try doing the same if you can. I'll look as well, and we can see if there's any change when the spirit conceals you… ok, ready? Now…"
She asked the hearth spirit to conceal Shimazu from the outside world, while carefully scrutinising his aura – as did both of the others. When the spirit wrapped itself around his aura and disguised his presence, she felt the grasping tendrils of magic slide off, flailing around madly for a moment before losing their grip and disappearing, a ghostly hand fading into nothingness. She also got a taste, a flavour of the magic, just the faintest hint – but it had a very distinct tone to her, that she realised she'd encountered before.
So had the others, it seemed, as almost in chorus they called out "Iran", exchanging looks between them.
"It's gone, though. For now. I feel a lot more normal."
"Let's go back and sit down then." Aswon turned, nearly bumping into Kai who had squeezed forward as far as he could to listen in, then ushered him back into the passenger bay, so that Shimazu had room to turn around and head back too, finally clearing the way for Tads. As Shimazu left the cockpit area and stepped over the threshold into the passenger cabin, the hearth spirit vanished, unable to leave its domain – but it had served its purpose in disrupting the ritual.
Somewhere in Iran, a whole team of mages were, no doubt, reeling back in shock as their ritual failed and they coped with the magical backlash from the mana expended, dealing with those questing tendrils as they dumped their power back to the only thing they were still connected to.
"Well, at least we know what we need to do if that happens again." Aswon pointed out.
"Yes – as long as we can summon a big enough spirit to make a difference. I think they must have been lucky to get through the ward in the first place – but then we were lucky too, in that the spirit was just strong enough to overcome their efforts. But I couldn't have summoned a larger or more powerful spirit – that area is too small."
"So what do we do instead?"
"Hunter actually made me think… the little shower toilet thing in there. How about it we warded that? A ward inside a ward. But really go to town on that one!"
"I don't know how long it would take to ward, but it's probably a while, and we're going to struggle to all fit in there to work!"
"You can take it out you know. It's modular!" Hunters voice came over the speakers, showing he was clearly still listening to what was going on. "If we stop somewhere with some tools and stuff we could take out the entire shower module and put it out in a hanger or something, and you can do your spooky-wooky stuff on it, and then we just slot it back in."
"Oh… that would make it easier. Ok – one to think about for the future then!" Aswon nodded. "It's going to take a chunk of money for the materials, but having a really, REALLY strong ward on something like that might be generally useful as well. If we need to hide something that we've picked up too."
They chatted about the ward concept for a while as they flew on towards Dragon Ridge, then landed, refuelled and stretched their legs once more. Once they were back in the air, Kai called ahead to Chun and told him that they'd like to come in and see him and his students, as they had a bit of a strange request…
Chun seemed to take the concept in his stride, and still clearly felt that he owed the team for rescuing Harley and their help at the tournament, and gladly agreed to host them – and was even more interested in Kai's suggestion. Aswon had dreamt up an idea of a little tournament between the students as a way of getting them to work hard, and provide a little demonstration that would ensure lots of sweating – and Shimazu had then improved on the idea by pointing out that they could even offer a little prize for the winners, of a few small but valuable rubies! When Kai relayed this Chun leapt at the opportunity, and said he'd be more than happy to host them once more. Kai also sent a message ahead to Allora, though he wasn't sure if she'd get it – but he could at least warn her of their arrival.
Their two-thousand kilometre journey had pushed them another two time zones ahead, so they adjusted their commlinks once more, updating the time once more to try and adjust to local conditions. On take-off, Marius angled further south, heading down towards Vietnam, then over the Beibu Gulf, back over the island of Hainan – where they skipped over the Mosaic smuggler stop before proceeding into the South China Sea for the over-water journey down to the Spratly Isles and their next stop. Crossing more time-zones and another two and a half thousand kilometres, they eventually landed on the sandy island at around 3am, their bodies feeling discombobulated after the long journey – partly from the long journey, but just as much from the change in time-zones and the change in local time.
As they landed, they saw Allora was up and about, and already dragging out the fuel hoses from the decrepit little shack that concealed the pump, dragging it down over the sandy beach towards the swirling sand and depressions that were the only physical sign of their landing. They refuelled the Broadsword, Kai grumbling as he slotted the credstick into her battered and worn cred-reader, seeing more money disappearing from the certified store.
"There's only one watcher in the water. Looks like a merrow this time." Aswon noted, examining the optics. "I don't know if that's because of the time, or because she trusts us a little now." Outside, Kai took the credstick back from Allora with a nod of thanks, and then moved a step or two to the side, Shimazu mirroring his movements, letting Tads take a step forward to replace him. She was about to take a deep breath, then caught herself and instead just tried to calm herself and compose her thoughts, breathing shallowly through her mouth instead, trying to ignore the smell.
"Hello again. I hope you're keeping well, and enjoying the fruits and things."
"Oh, I am. Thank you. They're very tasty!"
"Good. We have a bit of a strange request for you, and wonder if you can help us?" Tads quickly outlined recent events at a very high level, then repeated the requirements that Yat-Gwan had given them. "We need the healing dust of the earth, compressed and crushed into solid form, the bones of the earth and able to absorb the acid of our foes, extruded from the very roots and formed under great pressure. Our thinking here is that we need something from the sea bed, where there's lots of pressure. And able to absorb acid – so that means some alkaline material. And we've done some research, you see, and we know that there's some cacl-alkalic extrusive igneous rocks that make up the sea bed just around here. So what we're hoping is that we can work something out, so we can harvest some of the rocks from the sea floor that we can take away, to help with this ritual – to save the child's life."
"You want to take the ocean's bounty away to use it?"
"Um, yes – I suppose we do. If that's ok?" Tads thought for a moment. "It is to save the life of an innocent, a small child. And we don't want much." She turned with a start as she felt a gentle touch on her elbow, then relaxed a little as Aswon loomed out of the darkness.
"It is, as she said, to save the life of a child. But the risk is so great, that the alternative is to kill the child, to protect everyone else. The danger is significant, but we must try to save him, because we do not wish to face the alternative. But if that is the only option that we have available…"
"A noble cause. I hear you, Aswon. But I suspect the answer will still be no. However, I will ask the question. You have earnt that."
"Perhaps, if you are willing, Tads can share the actual recollection of the event with you, and what we face. So that you can understand why we face such a decision. If she's willing?" Aswon glanced over at Tads and got a nod.
"Very well. Show me." Tads reached out a hand, touching Allora's, and then cast her mindlink, trying not to retch as a fresh wave of the smell entered her nose. But she quickly banished that thought from her mind, and instead relayed the desperate chase to the Kowloon slums, their fight up through the building and their encounter with the horror, and the insidious power it seemed to be exerting over people, then the relief and joy as they had rescued Spook and her son, followed by the fear and anxiety of discovering the magical curse or mark that had been placed upon him.
"Very well. I will go. It may take some time. Rest here, and I will return." Without a backwards glance, Allora headed into the surf, the water repelling backwards away from her and the magical aura woven into her being, until she sank below the surface, trapped in a little bubble of air, disappearing below the surface.
The team settled down to wait, relaxing on the Broadsword in the darkness for a few hours, then watching a spectacular sunrise to the east, unobstructed by anything within view. Tads renewed her spirits after performing her morning rites of thanks, while the rest of the team made breakfast and did a little exercise on the beach, unsure of how long they'd be waiting.
"Heads up!" Aswon called out, about thirty minutes after dawn. "Oh drek… she's back – with a lot of friends!" The team turned to look at the water, and spotted Allora walking up the shallow slope, emerging from the water in her bubble, bone-dry and with her arms draped with several strings of sea-shells and seaweed. But behind her were many shapes in the water. At a quick count there were at least two dozen each of naga and merrow, clustered together in groups, watching them carefully.
Tads quickly assensed them, trying to get a read on their emotions. She didn't pry, doing a very quick and casual surface scan, which at least didn't make her panic, though it wasn't necessarily reassuring.
"Watchful, distrustful, protective – I think, of Allora. But not sure. And resentful. I don't think they like us – but they don't feel like they mean us harm. At least not yet!"
"You have been granted an audience." Allora announced as she approached them, her face a mixture of surprise and delight. Nobody knew who with, but it was abundantly clear from her face that this was unusual and something to be cherished.
"Thank you. Who are we being allowed to see?" Tads asked, trying to keep her tone respectful.
"She who lies below, of course!" Allora lifted one arm and then pulled off the small number of shells and weed strung together. As she lifted it up, it became clear that it was a necklace of some kind, and she offered it to Tads, who took it carefully. Glancing into the astral she saw the spells woven into it, quickened to the natural forms of the shells and linked together by the seaweed. She recognised some of the magical energy, matching that of her oxygenation spell, but the other spells were unfamiliar to her – though she suspected that it would be similar to whatever had been cast upon Allora herself.
"Thank you. We're all very grateful and privileged, and would be happy to accept." Kai announced, as he stepped forward to receive a necklace for himself."
[You can be happy and privileged to kiss ass all you want, but I ain't going swimming] Hunter's voice transmitted over their ear-pieces.
[I too will remain with the Broadsword, thank you.] Shimazu sighed a little as he heard Marius agree with Hunter, but then stepped forward to receive his own necklace, then moved aside to let Aswon approach.
"Ahh, it seems that our pilot and his engineer need to remain with the aircraft to do some minor repairs. But we're ready to go!" Allora paused as Kai announced that, and looked at him with confusion.
"But they have been granted an audience." She gestured to the two remaining necklaces draped over her left arm. "They have been granted special permission. This is most… unusual. It was clear that you were ALL invited."
"I see. Let me speak with them again. One moment, please." Kai nodded and smiled at her, trying to project some reassurance, then turned and headed towards the Broadsword, starting to address the two mundanes even before he got aboard. "Right, come on you guys. It's clear that whoever it is wants to see the whole team, so get your asses in gear and get out here." He was met with a small burst of whining and invitations to perform unnatural and anatomically impossible acts upon himself that made it clear that they had no intention of putting on some 'fishy magical nonsense and getting in the water'.
"Come on, you guys. It's not like you should be scared or anything. And besides, if you don't come – who's going to stop Kai accepting a job from whoever or whatever is down there, for free. And if they need technical representation, who do you want representing us – one of us lot, or one of you two?"
The argument flowed back and forth for another minute, but when Tads added her voice into the mix as well, requesting that they should both also come, their resolve didn't so much slip, as just get talked over several times in a row. Manifestly unhappy, they emerged from the aircraft, with Marius sealing the doors up behind him and locking the aircraft down, before they tromped over to Allora to receive their necklaces, somewhat gracelessly. With everyone now adorned, they headed down towards the shoreline, tentatively walking into the water and watching the waves crash against the bubble of magical force that now projected around them. It was surreal to find themselves in the centre of a bubble of clear air while the water rose up around them, but then Allora waved for them to stop as they got to a waist-deep level.
A couple of merrow approached each of them, passing in some kind of rope made out of sea vines, paying out a length as they separated outwards and ahead of them. As the team gripped the rope, the merrow started to swim, dragging each of the team-members down the slope and into deeper water, quickly dropping down into the sea as they reached the edge of the sandy shelf. It was a surreal experience for each of them as they finally submerged, with most of them wanting to hold their breath as the water washed 'over' their heads – or rather over the bubble protecting them, but the magical force held the water at bay and there seemed to be more than enough oxygen in the air trapped inside.
The other merrow spread out fore and aft of them, while the naga seemed to make an extended perimeter outside that. It wasn't clear to them if this was for the protection of the team, an honour guard, or something closer to jailors escorting a batch of prisoners and making sure they had no opportunity to escape. The merrow quickly descended, their powerful forms slicing through the water easily and dragging the team and Allora downwards.
"GPS signal lost," Hunter announced, "it doesn't work underwater. I've got a reasonable inertial fix, but we're going to drift off that fairly quickly."
"Well, at least we can still see." Aswon tried to cheer him up.
"Not for long, not at the rate we're descending." Hunter's warning proved to be correct. As they passed one hundred metres they passed out of the euphotic zone into the dysphotic, and the dawn sunlight from above quickly faded away, as did a lot of the plant life that had been clinging to the rocks.
"I think we've gone past the entrance to Allora's little grotto – where she took me to teach her the spells last time. We're going a lot deeper, it seems."
Another minute passed, and the towing merrow showed no sign of letting up, the team descending downwards further and further. The water around them was an inky black now, with the occasional flash of some creature in their vision as it got too close before darting away. First one, then another of the team felt their ears pop as the pressure increased, and then with some alarm, Hunter called out to them.
"Hey – my bubble's getting smaller!"
"Mine too!"
"And mine. I'm having to crouch over a bit to keep inside." Aswon added. "I guess the bubble reduces the force of the water, but doesn't completely stop it."
"For every ten point zero six metres we descend, the pressure will increase by one atmosphere," Marius said quietly. "I estimate our depth as about six hundred metres based on our speed. If this magical thing fails, we will be crushed in an instant."
"Maybe you lot will, I've got my air tank!"
"That will not help you, Hunter. If you tried to ascend from here, you will be wracked with pain from the sudden pressure, and it would force nitrogen in your body to invade your tissues. As the pressure reduced, it would not have time to leech out again, your vessels will rupture and you would suffer decompression sickness. It does not matter how strong or fit you are – that would kill you."
"Oh great!"
"Passing seven hundred metres, I estimate."
"This is starting to hurt my ears!"
"Me too, Kai. It's the pressure. But there's nothing much we can do. Stop talking, hold your mouth open, and try swallowing." Shimazu advised.
The team fell quiet as they tried to follow Shimazu's advice, and found it helped a little – meaning the pain wasn't quite as intense as it had been. It still wasn't comfortable by a long stretch, and felt more like someone had smashed their palms together on either side of their head and was trying to squeeze their brains.
"I think I can see something. Something below us. Either that or I'm hallucinating!" Aswon called out. "There's a glow."
"Strange. I think we are about a thousand metres deep, maybe more. Well into the aphotic zone. There should be no light down here at all." Marius looked down, cycling his eyes back to 'normal' vision. "However, I too can see a glow. Like a phosphorescence."
"Oh, glad it's not just me, then…" Does that look like… farmland? Those glows look awfully straight…"
Sure enough, as they descended and the light level marginally increased, they could make out what looked like straight rows of faintly glowing plant growth, laid out in fairly regular patterns. Closing in, they could see hordes of merrow apparently tending them, making the whole area look like a transposition of medieval peasants tending the land into a bizarre underwater version. Occasionally a naga would swim along to somewhere, the farm overseers checking on their work.
They were dragged over the top of the farm, then realised they were moving more sideways now, holding depth, heading towards a large sea cliff that loomed out of the stygian depths suddenly. They accelerated towards it, then found themselves in a cave or tunnel, the walls rushing past as their merrow guards dragged them along, towards a brighter disc of light ahead of them.
Like corks popping out of a champagne bottle they burst out into a chamber, a huge domed amphitheatre where every wall was covered in more of the bioluminescent fungi or plant that had been growing outside. Light pervaded the area, making them blink and flinch a little after being submerged into the darkness outside.
"It cannot be!" Marius exclaimed loudly, as a shape heaved in the water ahead of them. It was hard to judge the true size of the massive body that sinuously swam through the water towards them – the chamber was itself vast, but had no reference points by which to judge size or scale. But at a guess, the enormous creature was fifty metres long and must have weighed tens of thousands of kilos. "I know of only one Sea Dragon, and it is in the North-Atlantic. Off the coast of the United Kingdom. Not here!"
Regardless of that, the Great Sea Dragon swam effortlessly through the water, her greeny-violet scales shimmering in the light, before a serpentine neck raised up a head larger than a troll to examine them, while two ancient, cold, and utterly alien eyes regarded them with no great favour.
"These are the landwalkers that you spoke of?" The voice echoed through all of their heads, just like it had when Aden had previously invaded their thoughts.
"They are, my queen!" Allora called out, her eyes blazing with joy as she addressed her liege. "They come asking for a boon…"