Chapter 14: Chapter 13

In the following week Hecatolite made leaps in its studies, not only being able to move its body but in its vocal training as well, it is now able to have a conversation without aid from Babylon, but it still seems to pause on occasion to think of less common words and it still slips into different languages if it speaks to fast. With being able to actually talk to any extent however turned out to be what it needed, being able to communicate near passively without needing to devote its whole attention to a translation or hold onto a screen with its hands, being able to communicate with Alexa and Taaffeite for the past week has done wonders for its enchantment studies. The three of them worked together to pull the enchantments from the world screens they had, though the two older women had been hesitant at first once Hecatolite started shattering enchantment rings inside of the screen. They quickly decided that if they were going to make use of the holy artifact, they would need to keep Hecatolite from completely destroying it, and with three skilled enchanters they made short work pulling all the intertwining rings apart and isolating the ones needed to convert it to a Babylon terminal and adding Hecatolite’s “soul binding” atop the enchantments themselves and they now had one fully functional “guest communication terminal”. They would have two but the process of removing the enchantments from both terminals was very delicate work, hundreds of intertwining threads of mana whare moving even one out of place caused it to disrupt the entire enchantment. Taaffeite stated that even with the three of them without Babylon taking notes and mapping the enchantments, they never would have been able to recreate it. It also was not lost on the two women how lucky they were that the rings Hecatolite broke in the first terminal were different than the ones broken in the second and thus they were left with enough parts to create a fully functional terminal that… was only slightly the wrong color; instead of the light blue of the voice of the world, or the crimson of Babylon, this terminal was glowing a vibrant violet. Aside from that it seemed to work as intended. With this exercise though both Alexa and Taaffeite had a new understanding of what Hecatolite meant when it spoke of weaving enchantments into one another.

Normally when one enchants an item they lay an enchantment on the surface, Alexa developed a way to place enchantments inside of items through very delicate mana manipulation. This protected the enchantments themselves from damage to the outside of the item. It is possible for one to stack enchantments atop one another but normally one takes great care to be sure they do not interact, lest one enchantment ring would interfere with another possibly causing one or both enchantments to fail. The world screen however had a multitude of rings all intertwined, intersecting, and reacting with one another. Instead of a bunch of separate enchantments it would be better to define it as one super large enchantment with a bunch of pieces. This kind of enchanting would require an astronomical amount of balancing and very careful placement of each ring, considering where and how many rings end up intersecting with each other, not to mention which ones. But Hecatolite oversimplified it stating “it’s really simple, you start with the strongest enchantment ring, this is the one that will be powered, you then attach the second most demanding ring to it, and just continue until you're out of rings to add. Just need to be careful to attach it properly or you’ll cause the power ring to fizzle.”

She seemed to become exasperated when Alexa asked about the ones that loop through many other rings, saying “too far, not enough juice with one, need to add more taps to get flow. Or added after, need lot of juice, so more taps needed.” It took almost a full minute to get the sentence out and another of the two women talking to get the gist of it. 

With this however, Alexa was able to help Hecatolite create the first ever aether fueled enchantment ring, and after a sizable donation to a local blacksmith for a handful of mage bane bands, they were able to create a working prototype of the aether storage ring. Mage bane is a highly valuable metal that is revered for its ability to repel mana, its mainly used in magic sealing cuffs, and is normally near impossible to enchant given part of enchanting something is infusing it with mana, however as Hecatolite says “it just drinks aether”. Leading Alexa to again question the difference in the two magic sources. The bands themselves turned out to be a metal rings that Hecatolite was forced to wear around her biceps, it had a stony gray color that was accented by the runic carvings they had to put on the outside that slowly filled with the inky black aether leaving a very ominous glow when the band was full. Hecatolite seemed off put by the color of the enchantment runes so much to Alexa’s disbelief she casually added a “color illusion” to the band so she could change the color of the aether charged band as long there was aether in it to power the enchantments. They quickly went to work making more, ending up with 6 in total though Hecatolite was only able to wear two at a time given her small arms she stated, “still grow, might get 3 per hand when full size” while holding the bands to Alexa’s arms for comparison. Though it would be possible for Alexa to ware 4 of the bands on each arm without hindering herself, they both knew Amethyst’s and Hecatolite’s physical body would likely not be as tall as her own. 

So finally, after two weeks Hecatolite had finally used enough aether to…

“What do you mean not enough!” Hecatolite yelled, swatting the screen, “I managed to burn two fifths of my entire pool. How much aether do I need to burn off before I can wake her!”

“Half would be the minimum; it is estimated Amethyst’s mana pool would be ¼ the size of Hecatolite’s aether pool. If you were to get your pool constantly to ½ it would be possible to coax Amethyst's soul into awakening.”

“I’m so close,” Hecatolite whined as it sunk into a chair at the dinner table, “I could use another aether band but it’s… temporary, I need to change them out every other day and drain them constantly to keep my aether down, and given they are mage bane metal I can exactly have Amethyst wear them around, can I?”

“Maybe if we change the metal for something more mana friendly?” Alexa spoke sitting next to her. “That way Amethyst can wear them around as well.”

“We could but they would be twice as big, remember the one we made of normal magic steel?” Hecatolite asked, referring to the bracer they made a day prior. “If we don’t use bane metal we need twice as many storage rings, we got lucky that we even found out about it when Alastair brought home the manacles from the guard.” Both let out a deep sigh as they tried to find a solution. 

After a long pause Hecatolite finally spoke, “If we can’t find a solution soon, we may have to consider other things.” Her tone was flat as she looked up at Alexa. “I do not know how long she… can sleep like this.”

“don’t.” Alexa replied, it was soon after the world screens Hecatolite brought up a soul spell that could potentially split her and Amethyst’s souls. But that would leave Hecatolite without a physical body, when Taaffeite asked what would happen after she was removed from her sister, Hecatolite simply shrugged and replied, “dissipate”. 

The echoing slap that followed will haunt Alexa for years to come, the pained expression her mother wore as one of her children so casually mentioned suicide is something she hoped never to have to see again. And Alexa truly feared what would become of her mother if Hecatolite did such a foolish thing. 

“We will find a way,” Alexa spoke as she patted the young girl's head, “no need for such rash actions yet, even Babylon says Amethyst can likely remain like that for up to a year and suffer no ill effects. We have time.”

---

Taaffeite sat in her office, her new desk clear from the clutter of her previous one thanks to the introduction of Babylon. Her husband was sitting across from her looking over the document their son had sent them.

“Dear mother, I hope all is well. I regret to inform you that the counsel of the United Empire of Crown has rejected your proposal to remove the religion of Valor from the sanctioned religions due to lack of evidence of foul play as a whole. The Queen sends her deepest apologies in the attack on our family however the act of one foreign missionary regardless of his standing in the church, does not reflect the religion as a whole. Without evidence of corruption within our borders it will be impossible to ban the religion. My commander has also informed me that any hostile actions towards the church will be considered a direct affront to the rights of the people of Crown and will be prosecuted in full force. Please mother let it be, with the death of the bishop the kingdom of Alamgir is already calling for repentance from our territory and the Empire will only protect us for so long. Let this pass before you do anything rash. Best regards Jasper Lapidary”

“I doubt Queen Irithyl ever even saw that proposal.” Alastair said as he dismissed the terminal. 

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“An affront to the rights of the people,” Taaffeite murmured, “those fear mongers’ mock people in our streets, openly denounce our entire territory, hell our entire nation for allowing beast kin to live peacefully here.”

“Babylon! Send a message to Jasper. Jasper, you will do well to remember that the Lapidary family are not soldiers, we do not yield to your commanding officer. We will do what is best for our people with or without the support of the council and if they want to march an army to our… forget it Babylon cancel that message.” She waved her hand, canceling the skill, “it’s not worth making enemies of the entire empire.” Taaffeite sat with her head in her hands, she knew her proposal would not be accepted by the council, the church of Valor is too well connected in politics, but she still held hope that the Queen would hear of it and be moved into action. 

Irithyl was a woman who cared very little for political or religious fervor when it threatened her people. The Queen had once heard a rumor that one of the older noble houses was abducting young women from their territory and using them as playthings before selling them to a slave market over the border, and with that one rumor she had personally traveled to the edge of the empire burned their mansion to the ground, hung the family head, ordering that anyone found to have been involved to be captured collared and sent to the mines. The rumors were found to be true thankfully, Taaffeite shuttered to think of the backlash if they were false, but Irithyl had a way of seeing the truth, so no one questioned the Queen when she flew into a rage over it.

“So now what, we continue to watch Valor’s church?” Alastair asked, eyeing his wife, “they likely won't slip up again, if they do, they will have another excuse, I’m sure.”

“We can’t even watch them, after the attack they closed their doors to the public and refused to open them to anyone not baptized by Valor, even then the public is only allowed into the courtyard for prayer. They are claiming fear of our family” She stated. “They attacked my daughter in the street, we should have just burned it down then and there.”

Alastair sighed as he scratched his chin, “I think I would rather fight the dragon again.” This caused both to laugh as Taaffeite called up Babylon once more.

“Dear Jasper, I hope my proposal to the “Queen” has not caused you any trouble with the council. I can assure you that our family has always and will continue to support the rights of our people and their freedoms, we do not wish to cause unjust hardships to any groups in our borders. We will continue to monitor the situation on our end and be sure that both we and the church of Valor continue to uphold the interest of our public and act within the confines of our laws. In terms of the repentance the kingdom of Alamgir is demanding, inform them we have already returned the body of their bishop to the local church in accordance with our laws, and the repentance for his death is us not demanding payment for the damage he caused to our city or the death of our guard. Or did the council forget the thousands of gold in damage that man caused to a city of the empire, or that he killed a very promising guard woman and citizen of Crown. Or do they plan to abandon their people for foreign interest?” She sent this message, dismissing the screen, “I was hoping to inform him of the completion of the communication terminal, but I fear there might be prying eyes watching him now.”

“Honestly,” Alastair started, as he stood from his chair. “They wouldn’t have to watch him; he will probably tell them anything you say at this point.” He walked to the window pulling a pipe from his uniform, his wife hated the smell of tobacco, but he simply smiled when she wrinkled her nose. “Honestly Taaffeite,” he lit the pipe and took a deep drag, “this may very well cause a war if we are not careful.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke obscuring his face as it trickled into his beard. 

“There are rumors of them torturing people Alastair, even before they attacked us, we have been watching them. They are zealots, racist arrogant zealots that hide behind their religion.” She spoke, waving her hand causing the window to blow open, the sudden gust blowing the smoke from her office.  “We just need proof.”

“Well, if Hecatolite gets within 100 yards of that church I feel our problem will solve itself.” Alastair said with a laugh full of confidence that if his youngest daughter were to decide to take exception to the church, there would be very little anyone could do to stop her.

“I will not use our child as bait!” Taaffeite snapped, “why would you even bring that up?” remembering the last time Hecatolite and the church ran into each other is what caused this mess. Luckily the young woman hasn’t left the house in weeks, unable to control her magical pressure and seeming unwilling, she seems more than content to lock herself in the house and study a way to wake her sister. 

“Well given her and Alexa just walked up the road, it might be unavoidable.” He laughed as he took another drag off his pipe, the shrinking forms of his daughters visible in the distance as they walked towards the city.

“She what!” Taaffeite yelled, jumping from her seat, and dashing to the window. “How did we not feel her vanish?” She knew Hecatolite was radiating a massive magical pressure, and she was confident that anyone in her family would notice if such a pressure just vanished, so how did she not realize it just vanished.

“Probably missed it while you were threatening violence on the entire Crown army.” Alastair rubbed his wife's back lovingly. “Looks like the suppression enchantments are working at least.”

“She is going to cause a riot if she summons Babylon,” Taaffeite trailed off thinking of all the possible outcomes of Hecatolite entering the city. “You know what when’s the last time we had a family outing, let's be sure our daughters don’t get into trouble.” 

Alastair, the dragon slayer, magic swordsman extraordinaire, could do nothing but roar in laughter as his wife locked arms with him and pulled him through the third story window of their home.

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