Chapter 520: Rituals (1/2)

Chapter 520 Rituals

Ilea followed Felicia into a rather spacious factory hall.

None of the forges were currently in use. A few oil lamps lent their warm light to the gathered individuals.

“There she is!” Hector exclaimed with open arms. “Ah, she’s still mad.”

Ilea didn’t comment, only glancing at the dripping man in passing.

“Lilith. It’s good that you came. I expect Major Redleaf has already instructed you?” Velamyr asked.

Ilea nodded.

“Good. Anything new?” the General asked.

“Nothing,” Hector said, eating from a plate. This time with a fork. “Some of their vaults have surprisingly little security though. Had.”

Velamyr ignored the comment.

“I found several blood mages and ritual halls but not the one we’re looking for,” Michael said. Only one of him was here right now.

“We should inform the Order,” Ilea said.

“It’s too much of a risk,” Velamyr said.

Ilea noted that no members of the Dawn Company were present. It was just them.

“It worked in Yinnahall,” she said. “Messengers are on the way anyway. I doubt they’d take more than a day to arrive.”

“Our resources are better spent searching than trying to convince these fanatics to betray their own. Our interrogations proved such. Your suggestion is dismissed,” Velamyr said.

“I’m not one of your soldiers, General,” Ilea said, glaring at the man.

Hector snickered, nearly choking on his food. The others didn’t react much.

Velamyr nodded as he ground his teeth. “I’m aware of that fact. Though I was told you had uncovered the ritual site before the Order was willing to cooperate at a large scale?”

Ilea nodded.

“Do you think your word alone or that of a priest from Yinnahall will mobilize them quickly enough to find the site?” he asked.

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Ilea admitted. Benedict remembering the space magic related letter was kind of a fluke too. Just talking to him in the first place had been a risk. One that could’ve ended in the ritual site being warned.

Though I suppose now they know we’re coming anyway.

“Preventing the ritual is just one thing we can do. If we can’t find it, what about evacuation, or some kind of countermeasure?” Ilea suggested.

“We’re talking about a city wide scale,” Velamyr said. “And evacuation is impossible. Not in a reasonable time frame, not without hard proof. If we could show them the ritual site. But if we find it, an evacuation won’t be necessary in the first place.”

“City wide scale. You’re part of this group, can’t you create a countermeasure against it all? You’re a blood mage, right?” Ilea asked, looking at Michael.

“You think highly of my abilities,” he said, studying her.

Now that she got a better look, the man seemed quite ordinary. Brown hair and eyes, plus a rather plain face. Still he seemed downright regal, his golden armor coupled with his demeanor and the way he held himself painting an illustration of confidence and ability.

“Can you?” she insisted.

Velamyr raised a brow.

“We still haven’t found it. I expected us to be successful within two to three hours. I hoped as much because the ritual would have surely been used by then. It still hasn’t. Maybe there is some merit in trying to save lives,” Velamyr said.

Ilea shared an appreciative glance that he noted.

“I understand large parts of the ritual, however I could only guess at the space magic runes a countermeasure would require, I can’t perceive their effects after all. Nor could I set up something that could span the whole city,” Michael said.

“We’re sure it’s here. Either here or in Baralia. I dabble in space magic, maybe we can figure it out together,” Ilea said.

Michael blinked a few times at that.

“General skills? No, a third Class… I must have missed it. Impressive,” he said with a genuine smile.

Felicia glanced at Ilea but didn’t say anything.

Velamyr gave her a look too but didn’t seem quite as impressed as the others.

“How many of your selves would you have to invest?” the General asked.

“Just me,” Michael said. “That is if Lilith cannot be in five places at the same time?”

“I can’t,” she said.

“Then just me,” Michael said.

“We keep looking. Try to set up your runes without alarming the authorities. You know where the most densely populated areas are?” Velamyr asked.

“The academy and noble district should be our priority,” Michael said.

“Why?” Ilea asked.

He looked at her with confusion. “Because the brightest minds are located there. The most likely in this city to push beyond a mundane life of normalcy.”

“Because they’re nobles?” Ilea asked.

“Because they have the most resources at their disposal,” he said.

“True but why would an already comfortable noble push for more. I’d argue a slave wanting to improve their life would have more of a chance to survive out in the wild,” Ilea said.

Based on her experience, most nobles reached a high level and simply remained there, more preoccupied with trade and politics than fighting deadly monsters.

“I agree with the ash woman,” Hector said and pointed at her with a shrimp.

“We compromise then. We work out the runes and then each of us gets to chose a district. We roll dice for the first one. Does that sound agreeable?” the gold mage asked. “We should not waste time on such discussions.”

Ilea nodded.

“One hour again. If you find the site and can disrupt the ritual, do so. Make sure to blow some things up if you can’t defeat the Order in your teams, the rest will respond,” Velamyr said and vanished.

The rest did the same, Felicia giving Ilea a light nod before she left.

Hector finished his plate before he dissolved into water, flowing out a nearby window.

Shouldn’t he be with one of Michael’s copies?

“I assume you’re unfamiliar with the city layout?” Michael asked as he summoned a single dice, rolling it on a floating golden plate.

He got a three.

“Higher wins?” she asked and took the six sided dice.

He nodded.

Ilea rolled a five. She hadn’t manipulated the result and couldn’t see anything fishy on his side either. “I don’t know the city.”

“Follow me then,” Michael said and vanished.

They teleported deep into the island town until Michael stopped in a dark alley.

A thin man with a rusty knife stood up nearby, murmuring something in the native tongue.

“Leave,” Ilea said.

His eyes cleared a little before he murmured a curse and ran.

Michael was already working, gold cutting into his arms before a large amount of blood rushed out, splashing to the ground and forming runes she neither knew nor understood.

“How did you track them here anyway?” she asked.

“Lady Redleaf has a nearly divination like tracking ability,” he said. “You can perceive space?”

Ilea nodded.

“Tell me if this is stable,” Michael said as power rushed into the runes.

Something flared up, a short ripple going through space.

“Came and went,” Ilea said.

He adjusted the runes without talking.

They spent twenty minutes with trial and error until Michael stopped. “That’s good enough.”

“What exactly does this do?” Ilea asked, looking around at the complicated layout.

“The ritual seeks out life energy to consume as fuel. It’s not a continued effect but a one time surge. The runes placed here are fueled by a tiny amount of my life. There are sections in their ritual that prioritize higher quality energy. I can fool it into taking only what I have provided here,” Michael explained.

And your word is all I have for that, Ilea thought.

At least she doubted he was creating a copy of the ritual or something similarly sinister.

“We have a lot of ground to cover. Make sure to check if the runes act stable each time. I’m not versed in space magic. It’s volatile and without the associated sight only testing will bring results,” he said.

He messed up a few times but in the end the district was done in less than half an hour.

Michael chose the academy district as the next target, continuing his work with focus.

They mostly remained silent.

“What do you think the ritual does? I know you said you can’t perceive space but you understand the runes well enough to create them,” Ilea said after he finished with the academy district.

They continued with one of the poorer areas.

Michael looked at her as he worked. “The blood magic part is rather simple. Just a way to collect life energy and force it into the space related runes. Don’t understand me wrong, there are perhaps three blood mages I know who would be capable of creating something of this extent. And even they would need time to both work out the spell and actually execute it.”

“None would have a reason to do so. The space aspect is confusing to me. I haven’t seen any of the executed rituals but the base seemed unstable,” he said.

“The results were unstable. It seemed like a forced tear in space itself. All ritual sites had the same monsters coming out of it,” she said.

He smirked ever so slightly. “A connection to an unknown realm then?”

“Probably,” Ilea said. “I had hoped you knew more.”

“It’s a shame I had to disappoint,” the man said but he didn’t sound sorry at all.

He finished up the current runes when Ilea saw a ripple in space.

“Did you just test it again?” she asked.

Michael shook his head. “No, the runes are stable.”

“I just felt something,” Ilea said, trying to make out the epicenter. “A ripple in space.”

He opened his eyes wide and used a few spells. “I can’t detect anything. The runes here haven’t been affected either.”