[B3] Chapter 7 — A Quarantine?

“Our initial infiltration to scout out this situation has gone well thanks to Phoebe and Aldri joining the expedition,” Orlisi began, and Aldri inclined his head in acknowledgement. “It’s thanks to Phoebe that we are able to get curfew access to the tower. We’ve learned a lot, and the current assessment is that Ria’s magic will be the puzzle piece needed to force our way past the protections.”

Both Ria’s eyebrows raised. The only magic she could do that the others couldn’t was her orichalcum magic… Well, crystal magic now too, but she doubted that was relevant.

“With Selune in her fullness required for the guardian-summoning ritual to work, we’ll only get one shot at this per month, and the next time we can try is the third Divinesday from today. I want to get those of us on the infiltration team together to practice the required magics beforehand and do at least one more scouting mission before then. So, if we’re going to be ready in time, Ria, over the next two weeks, we’ll need you to work with Aldri and devise a spell to selectively disrupt spatial magic. Can you do it?”

Ria’s eyes widened further, and she glanced in Aldri’s direction. “Disrupting spatial magic? Isn’t that terribly dangerous?”

“It is,” Aldri agreed. “That’s why attempting to force our way through with just me maintaining a Spatial Lock on us is too dangerous. Iselyn suggested that with your domain spell, you could already do something similar to what we need.”

Iselyn nodded.

“Ah! Right,” Zena also nodded, understanding. “We did train Ria’s domain selectivity for the Divinesday tournament. It made the fight against the Earthshakers’ team much easier.”

“I-I see.” Ria could guess what they had in mind. When she did her own investigating, there were distinct spatial shifts between each floor. If they could prevent those shifts… “So, I need to suppress the tower’s spatial magic without suppressing Aldri’s magic.”

“Exactly that,” Orlisi confirmed with a grin and an imaginary wand flourish.

Ria’s knowledge on spatial magic mostly came from her preliminary research into creating magic bags, but maybe because of that, she had already considered at least one problem with such an approach. “What if each floor is its own dimensional pocket? Couldn’t we end up cast out into the primordial chaos?”

The question was met by grimaces from Orlisi and Aldri.

Keira’s eyes widened at the reaction. “Is that a real possibility?!”

Orlisi waved her hands in denial. “Aldri thinks the tower’s floors are part of the same space.”

Aldri nodded. “The fabric of the space after the first transition feels the same for the subsequent floors, and only the first floor and roof transitions seem to change the nature of the space.”

“Malleron said the same as well,” Iselyn volunteered, actually paying attention rather than reading her book.

Orlisi gestured toward Iselyn, directing Ria and Keira’s attention toward the answer given. “So, we’re fairly sure the interior floors are in the same space. What we don’t know is how the floors are connected within that space…”

“Best case scenario is a single elevator shaft that physically accesses each floor,” Aldri added. “If we’re that lucky, finding the hidden floor should be easy, and once I've experienced the location, I should be able to portal us directly there without having to disrupt the spatial magic between the floors. Though we may still need to use the initial ground-floor portal to access the space containing the other floors first, depending on how conceptually distant the location is from our planar reality.”

“So, can you do it?” Orlisi repeated, grinning with contagious excitement.

Ria nodded, not having to think hard about the answer. “I’ll do it.”

Even if she couldn’t design a specific spell in the required time, she was fairly certain her wild talent insights would facilitate adapting the spatial properties of her orichalcum magic to the task. Even better, getting Aldri to teach her spatial magic had the potential to help her solve a problem of her own: how to get up to no good without her guards knowing.

“What if something goes wrong?” Keira objected.

Faris looked Iselyn’s way, echoing Keira’s concern, “Will you all really be safe?”

“Malleron wll be with us, and the academy insignia’s work inside the tower. We will be fine,” Iselyn assured.

Having Malleron there with his knowledge and impressive ability to manipulate barrier magic was reassuring. Ria was less sure about the insignias. If her head was separated and sent to another place would the stasis on her disconnected body still reach it? Maybe they should wear their insignias as hair ornaments…

“There’s one unforeseen complication though,” Orlisi said to Ria and discreetly motioned with her head toward where Knight Rigonni was standing with his back to a bookshelf a polite distance away, eyes scanning over the students studying and having lunch. “Will that be a problem?”

The Gryphon Knight was the topic of many whispered conversations, Ria noticed now that she was paying attention—conversations Ria doubted she would have been able to discern before the changes to her body. Not just her eyes had improved. She tried breathing in the scents around her and realized things she didn’t need to know about her friends.

“Ria?” Orlisi prompted, sounding concerned. Keira and the others also showed varying degrees of concern—except Arthur who was obliviously adding lines to an enchantment diagram in one of his journals.

“Ah, sorry. I’m still adjusting to my bloodline changes,” Ria apologized, returning her attention to her friends. “The ‘complication’ is a matter I have some ideas about. I’m hopeful to have a solution in time.”

“Good enough,” Orlisi allowed, giving a thumbs up and bright smile.

The boy that had replaced Ellen in collecting and delivering the lunch orders reached their table and started causing a small feast to appear, item by impressive item, and distracted Ria from what Orlisi was going to say next.

“Oh, yesterday’s celebration! Free eats! Thanks, Orlisi,” Arthur cheered in the elf girl’s direction, raising a festively tinted glass of something bubbly.

“Sure, sure,” Orlisi smugly responded, returning with a glass raise of her own.

Zena leaned close to whisper, “The celebration is in thanks to the gods and their High Priests for your recovery and safe return.”

Ria barely had enough awareness to nod, her eyes not leaving a certain familiar desert that had been placed only in front of her.

“What’s with the crown desert? Is that real gold?” Aldri asked, surprised.

Orlisi tilted her head in mock confusion and innocently replied, “What else would we serve our resident princess?”

“Everyone knows only the purest of enchanted gold can properly sate Her Highness Celestria ad`Drelfgar’s royal tastes,” Zena added with a dramatic flourish of a serving fork.

Aldri rolled his eyes and sought the other faces at the table to make sure it wasn’t a joke. “Seriously?”

“There’s a reason I only ordered one this time,” Orlisi solemnly cautioned, while joining the others in serving herself from the prepared platters.

“You should have seen the bloodlust Ria sent my way when I didn’t hand over mine…” Keira added, attempting the same mock seriousness.

“There’s no way… that is true,” Aldri’s voice trailed off for some reason, and Zena started laughing as she reached across to snag a drink and further fill her plate with delicious smelling delicacies.

Whatever.

Ria ignored her friends. Most of them had already learned of the discovery of her heritage at the Parthanex welcoming party, and if amusing themselves with her past embarrassments kept them occupied for the moment, that was fine.

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Her attention was focused on the rare opportunity glittering before her, smelling and tasting even more heavenly than it had the previous time. She was glad to immerse herself in the experience of the airy desert again, the call of its enchanted gold already causing her hand to move blissful spoonfuls to her mouth without consent, but…

Even so, the cheerful scene of the feast and friends only set what was missing in further contrast.

Her unconsciously moving hand slowed to a pause. Another empty seat. Even unsure of herself, Ellen had been there and joined them for each of their previous celebrations. Ria noticed, whether conscious of it or not, none of them made any attempts to include the boy that had replaced her.

No, she wasn’t going to get sad about it. She had already faced this. Ria pushed the emotions down into her soul reservoir, a reservoir that was more empty than full after the catharsis of empowering so many destruction spells just a short while ago. Like with the memories of her parents, she would choose to keep the time spent together as precious moments to be remembered fondly.

As they feasted, the conversation turned to the fun Ria and Zena had in their abjuration practicum and whether she would be joining the others for the next Divinesday newcomer tournament—another 4 vs. 4 event but with a ‘base defense’ and ‘capture the flag’ theme. Aldri and Orlisi related their own experiences with the event. Ria eagerly accepted, but with a hedge that she didn’t know when the meeting with her grandmother would happen, and the rest of her Divinesday team seemed happy enough with that.

This time Ria intended to take the competition more seriously and that included proper arena equipment. Her armor was taken care of thanks to Lady Vienne and Lady Asara, and thanks to Leriah, she had a new bow, but she would still need new daggers to fight at her strongest. Was there enough time to have something made? If she wasn’t already busy working on the apology gifts, she could make something herself, but as busy as she was… this did seem like a time to leave the work to experts.

Properly constrained Orichalcum manipulation and kinesis magic-

Motion in the corner of Ria's field of vision caught her attention and interrupted her chain of thought.

A library-stoled figure was indeed trying to discreetly gain her attention.

“I need to take care of something real quick, I’ll be back soon as I can,” Ria said to excuse herself and slid her chair back.

“It’s bad form for the guest of honor to leave early, you know,” Orlisi teased, having also noticed Atresia.

Orlisi was right. Ria’s gaze went to the food and drink that remained and her friends looking up from their conversations and hesitated. Whatever Atresia had found could probably wait one more day… maybe a quick talk to arrange a better time would be fine?

“Go on. Go visit with your secret third-year friend. I’ll save portions for sharing with the team later,” Orlisi offered with a laugh and made a shooing motion.

No one seemed upset. Rather, everyone was smiling and saying they would see her later at practice or class.

“Um, sorry everyone- I mean, for everything, thank you,” Ria mumbled and quickly stored her unfinished sampling of food and drink and hurried over to where the third-year from the Order of Celestial Knowledge was nervously waiting. Ranger was at her side, having already finished his share of the feast and not needing any prompting.

Knight Rigonni following her as she left drew whispers from the students at the other tables. Ria tuned it out. Hiding that she was the one the knights were there for was bound to be pointless. Surely, there was already a Daily Shadow article being prepared, especially with the controversy of the knights being on campus in the first place.

It took showing Rigonni the attunement-testing room’s interior and some brief convincing that Atresia was trustworthy to get him to guard from outside. Ranger’s presence had been a point in their favor.

The moment the door closed, Atresia pointed at Ria’s horns, a frustrated expression on her face as she huffed, “Didn’t you promise to spend the week resting?!”

Seeing Ranger sagely nod in agreement with the accusation, Ria found a stretch of wall to take an interest in as she objected, “I did spend a week resting! Just like you recommended!”

A peek back revealed Atresia staring at her with hooded eyes and crossed arms. “A week of forced recovery at Healer’s Hall doesn’t count!”

“How could I expect I’d get poisoned with a bloodline destroying poison and High Priestess Elora and Researcher Shadwich would have to take desperate measures?” Ria grumbled in her defense.

Atresia blinked. Then blinked again. “…sometimes I forget the heights of the… people taking interest in you.” The girl sighed and gestured as if brushing dirt from her hands. “What’s done is done. Shall we get to the measuring?”

Relieved at the return to their usual routine, Ria hurried to remove her enchanted gear. The testing proceeded quickly and the only change from the testing results at Shadwich’s lab was an expected increase in shadow and light attunement.

Though the extent of the increase to shadow might be a tad worrying…

“At least the consequences weren’t without benefit,” Atresia noted while jotting down the measurements then motioned toward the Astacio crested broach on the table with a curious expression. “This is something I haven’t seen you wear before. I’m surprised you’ve already accepted an offer from a Greater House… have you discovered more about-”

“I have!” Ria excitedly interrupted.

Explaining the new information about her and her father’s names and the ad`Drelfgar and Astacio heritages resulted in a smug exclamation of triumph from the third-year Celestial Knowledge girl.

Atresia puffed up her chest with pride and nodded to herself as if the pieces were coming together. “Didn’t I say that your metal affinity was similar to the Astacio’s silver affinity when we first met? And royal bloodlines often have divine aspects—deep dwarven royalty clearly being no exception. It is still fascinating that the Divinity of Farming and Husbandry would take such an active role in your protection.

“All of that tentatively accepted as true… those crystal horns certainly don’t look dwarven to me. Draconic, if I had to say. Then again, it would certainly be reasonable that House ad`Drelfgar was established by descendants of King Drelfgar, and he was called Dragonfriend. Perhaps he was more than friendly with said dragon…”

Ria cringed, and didn’t even want to think about how that would work.

Atresia laughed. “I doubt it’s anything like whatever you’re imagining, Ria. Most adult dragons learn magic to take the form of other races. There are plenty of stories in folklore and the histories to tell us of dragons doing such things to ‘walk among the mortals’. Still, it’s a bit surprising that they were able to hide the dragon-kin nature of the descendants.”

Nope. Ria still didn’t want to think about it.

“Mating habits of your ancestors aside,” Atresia continued to tease with a wink while summoning a worn ledger and a large vellum scroll which she unrolled onto the table to reveal a map. “I haven’t been idle while you were recovering. My research has allowed me to narrow down the likely location for the entrance to the Deep Dwarven city…”

Ria’s head was again filled with the call of adventure as she walked alongside Orlisi and Ranger through the hallways of Serenity Hall on their way to Researcher Vimlov’s lecture, Knight Rigonni trailing a respectful distance behind and drawing attention as he had done all day.

As much as Ria wanted to set out for Dartha province at the first chance, she knew such desires were unrealistic with the inconvenience such an expedition would cause, and frustratingly her mid-year break was already dedicated to the Summer Games.

With her current responsibilities and commitments, she would have to give up on that adventure for now, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other adventures to be had while at the academy. Finding the Moon Elf gardens surely counted, and… “You never did tell me whether you found that princess.”

Orlisi gave one of those mischievous grins of hers in response to the sudden topic change. “Speaking of that, I forgot to mention there’s someone I’d like you to meet after Games practice today.”

Ria stopped short and blinked. Seriously? Just like that?

The troublemaking elf was already continuing into the classroom as if nothing of consequence had been said, and Ria had to hurry to catch up.

“What would you have done if I had plans already?” Ria uselessly berated her friend.

“Sorry, sorry. It slipped my mind.”

Like hells it did!

Still… actually getting to meet a real princess! The thought had her nervous and excited.

Would there be time to tend to her appearance before the meeting? Ugh. What if she was all sweaty from practice?

As they approached their seats, Ria saw Phoebe reading through the reports of academy gossip as usual. “I haven’t grabbed today’s Daily Shadow. Anything good?”

“Not something I would call ‘good’,” Phoebe advised, sliding the rumorsheet onto Ria’s desk and pointing out the report that had her interest. “A second elf member of Farenthil Hall’s Grand Games team was found with full affinity loss. A third-year boy this time. I am glad to see you back and recovered, Ria.”

Orlisi’s eyes narrowed at the news. “Another member of their team? That sounds like their team is being targeted.”

Phoebe nodded. “The team captain is furious and is calling for Inquisitors to investigate and wants any team involved to be banned from competing for a decade at least. There are some blaming the team captain for the training methods, and others who are raising worries about the possibility of a magical disease that affects elves. The report is quoting elders suggesting that Faranthil Hall might be quarantined from the rest of the academy until student safety can be assured.”

“A quarantine…” Orlisi breathed out.

“War-woof?” Ranger asked, not sure what ‘quarantined’ meant.

“I think it would mean no one can go there, and we wouldn’t be able to attend our class with Caretaker Etrelle,” Ria told Ranger while skimming over the report and its quotes. It really was as bad as Phoebe was summarizing.

“Woof…”

Ria had to agree. When not working on his attunements, Ranger had been working on his beast arts. Orlisi was more worried about what the elven areas and the Reserve being closed to entry would mean for the elven community.

Somehow, even with all the worries pulling her mind in different directions, Ria found herself drawn into the day’s lecture. Maybe it was a welcome escape into the mundane?

“Here, we see the commonly used containment structure of a circle inscribed in a triangle, and here, inside a square. As can be readily seen, the intersections are all located at the midpoints of the outer geometry’s edges; this is true for all regular geometric shapes.

“Now one would think that the more sides the outer figure has, the stronger the containment but the more energy required to maintain it. While this is generally true, it is an interesting case that a triangle is not only more efficient, but also stronger than a square for containing energy within the circle, while the square is better for excluding energy from outside.”

Oh? That would mean the square safety enchantment Master Rigure taught her wasn’t the most efficient or safest design for enchanting scrolls.

Though a triangular formation would be less optimal for a scrolls’ square or rectangular surface. Unless, she inscribed two enchantments per scroll. Hmm, filling the empty corners with battery constructs connecting to the midpoints might further improve the efficiency and passively distribute fluctuations in containment load… something to think about.