The Third Portal: Chapter Thirty-Nine

I stilled my mind, closing my eyes and extending my hand out to the slightly amorphous mass of gray light, then listened, wanting to hear what Fortune had to say. In the center of my mana-garden, the winds stirred, whipping up into a strange tornado. Resolve seemed content to allow me to take the power for myself. It would have a cost, draining away all of my points down to near nothingness, but I could take it, and make it mine. The power could, would, bend to my will, and improve on my already fairly comprehensive defensive abilities. Magic resistance might not be the flashiest power out there, but it was useful. 

Meanwhile, Fortune carried the image of someone else to me. I expected to see Ed, or maybe Liz. Ed was a strong defensive fighter, after all, while Liz had the money to actually afford it if she got her grandfather involved. She might be too prideful for such a thing, but it was always possible. 

Instead, to my surprise, I saw Damien Nobody, the orphaned enchanter who had also participated in the Beastgate Trial Trail, though they’d only received an F grade mark. They could use it, more than I could, and in a way that I couldn’t.

I shook my head as I opened my eyes, returning to reality, and a small part of me couldn’t help but feel a bit frustrated. For all that I’d tried to listen to the winds, and see what could be and what was, the first time I got anything more than vague feelings and impressions was about what to do with a chunk of magic? How did that make any sense? 

Then again, given that was how I’d created Dusk, maybe it made perfect sense. 

I leaned back and let myself imagine what an enchanter with a focus on beast magic could do with a natural treasure like this one. I was sure it could be used to create some really impressive magical armor or shielding, or maybe even do something I hadn’t considered. 

But one thing stuck with me – they needed the treasure, more than I needed it. I could bend this to my will and improve myself, yes, but I didn’t need it. Other treasures like the timemind would also be able to do a good bit of work for me, and if I managed to get something like the organshield crystal, it could offer similar, yet different, benefits. Creating pathways to flow telluric energy through most of my vital organs might also allow an increased flow of soul mana out of my beastcore and through them, and it would definitely increase my overall toughness. 

I looked up at Meadow and asked a single, simple question. 

“What are the odds that I’ll be able to learn portalant magic using just my spatial magic, if I can increase the flow of telluric energy in me by a considerable amount? I know I could do it with my beastgate mana, but I’d be interested in trying to stretch it to fit in just my spatial gates.” 

“Moderately high. Their magic is a blend of spatial, life, creation, telluric, mental, knowledge, lunar, and a dab of solar. You’re already in possession of spatial and life mana, and your Runelight Lens allows you to build up enough mental and knowledge reserves to cover most of it. If you can boost the amount of telluric energy you can draw on for spellcasting, then it might cost more mana, but I think you should be able to do it.” 

“Great!” I said, then pushed the treasure forward. “Let’s sell it. I think I have a buyer in mind.” 

Our morning trip to Damien Nobody’s enchanting shop was an interesting one. The moment that we explained what it did, their eyes lit up as they started creating a list of enchantments they could make with it. Their legacy apparently allowed them to infuse power from complex mana samples into enchantments for unique effects, which was why they had such an interest in beast magic.

Getting it officially appraised and transferring the balance to us was a bit of a pain, since Damien wound up needing to go into debt in order to cover the costs, and that meant convincing one of the guilds to loan to him, since the Brighteyes were only offering loans for land. They were convinced it would be worth it, and given how much energy they were buzzing with, I hoped they were right. 

Once everything had been settled down, I opened a portal to Mossford for Kene, then tracked down Edgar. Dusk was happy to allow the big turtle to ride along with us in our return to the city – there was a vault that needed raiding, after all, assuming that the other team hadn’t noticed the hours that the slaughter spirit was gone and already broken in. 

After a series of chained teleportations, we arrived back at the city, and the battle between Edgar and the slaughter spirit began. Edgar opened his massive turtle maw and unleashed a series of nine brightly colored blades of light, each one of which cut into the dreamstuff.

The spirit erupted through reality, appearing in the air over Edgar and unleashing its powerful beam of force down on him, but Edgar’s shell shimmered, and a vortex of power appeared, catching the beam and twisting it through space to fire back at the spirit. 

The dreamstuff making up the slaughter spirit parted before the beam, and it materialized underneath Edgar, who slammed one of his titanic feet into the ground, causing the nine blades of light to erupt from the ground. They dug deep into the spirit, but passed through Edgar’s shell harmlessly. Light began to build in the back of Edgar’s throat, spinning and compressing before thundering out with the power of a deep sea drake. 

The spirit, pinned in the blades of rainbow light, was struck dead on by the bright wave of power… and it did nothing. The dreamstuff flickered slightly, but didn’t seem to take much visible damage, and the spirit ripped itself free. A wave of force exploded out of it, leveling the buildings all around, while a swarm of force missiles thick enough that they blotted out my field of vision streaked out in every direction, curving inward to focus on Edger.

Next to me, Liz let out a gasp, but I held up my hand. I could still feel Edgar’s mana.

As the dust faded, Edgar was revealed, standing there, coated in a shimmering field of magic that glinted like diamonds suspended in the air. Power began to cycle through Edgar’s shell as he opened his mouth. Colorless gray light began to flicker in his throat, then streamed into the air. It began to warp, shape, and twist, forming into shapes that I thought were probably wards or enchantments, while his feet started to glow with a strange brownish-green light, and the energy of the world began to warp and shift, drawing into his feet, cycling into his shell, and then expelling itself out into the smoky light. 

The spirit rippled and appeared before Edgar, releasing its beam down on his head, but Edgar drew his head into his shell. The white of the shell transformed a polished mirror-shine surface, and a portion of the gray smoke hanging in the air streamed into the mirror. The beam was sucked in as well, then rocketed out with more power than it had before. 

I arched an eyebrow. I wanted to learn that spell. 

The beam was ultimately still force, though, and unable to harm the slaughter spirit, but it didn’t seem to need to. The nine brightly colored blades appeared in the air again, and the smoke rushed into them, causing them to grow in size until they were closer to the size of a person than a sword. Each of the blades was glowing with colorless light shaped into rings of enchantments, and they swept at the spirit faster than they had moved before. 

The slaughter spirit seemed to realize that these posed a major threat, and it began to glow brighter. 

“Get back!” Edgar bellowed to us, and his voice had a note of panic and fear that I’d never heard before.

I reacted as fast as I could, and Dusk moved in perfect unison with me. We tore open a portal to her realm, and I shoved Ed in while she unleashed a low powered shockwave spell to knock Liz inside. Dusk passed within, and I slammed the portal shut, teleporting as far as I could. 

Behind me, there was a massive boom, and my body was hit by a shockwave of an enormity that I’d never experienced before. I tumbled head over heels, pulling myself into Dusk, but the shockwave seemed to have passed into her realm as well, though weaker. It rippled across everything, causing chips of stone to fly off of the waterfall cliff, sending massive splashes in the lake, and knocking trees askew.

I felt Dusk and Dawn’s power lashing out, trying to hold it in place, and the shockwave slowed. When it hit the purestar and lushloam trees at the edge of the clearing, Dusk’s dominion spiked in power, and the wave came to a stop. I hit one of the trees, and heard a crack as the wood splintered around me. I forced myself to a stop using Immovable Lock, pulsed Starfish Regeneration to make sure nothing was too damaged, then teleported to the shore of the lake, where Liz and Ed were. The moment I was sure they were okay,I ripped open a portal and teleported out in the direction of Edgar, holding my breath. 

Edgar had retreated fully within his shell, and it was under the effects of several defensive spells. I spotted the shimmering diamond barrier, the mirror polish of the shell spell, and a layer of forged scales that felt distinctly like cavern dragon mana atop the mirrored shine. Several other spells were woven in and out of the magic, but they were already fading as Edgar’s head poked out of his shell. 

I took a moment to survey the damage. The slaughter spirit had detonated itself, spending every bit of mana it could on a single massive explosion. Houses around Edgar had been ripped to shreds, the earth was torn up in every directions, and the ancient paving stones – or were they flagstones? Cobblestones? Was there a difference? – that had once made up the roads were scattered in every direction.

“Are you okay?” I shouted. 

“I am unharmed,” Edgar said, stretching out his legs. “Are you and your family okay?” 

“We’re okay, just a little disoriented,” I said. “What happened?” 

“Slaughter spirits,” Edgar said disdainfully. “They’ll try and kill, even if it kills them as well. A plague on the world.” 

I nodded and opened a portal for Dusk, Ed, and Liz to emerge from, where we started heading for the vault, while Edgar went his own way to collect things that interested him. When we found the vault, Liz let out a curse. 

“Those looters!” she said. “They stole our vault!” 

“To be fair, we did leave it behind, when we knew there was another looting team around,” I pointed out. “And it was also tangential to our mission.” 

The other team seemed to have broken the wards around the vault and opened the door, where they’d taken off with everything that their rings were capable of holding – which was to say, just about everything. There were a few very old fashioned looking mana storage devices that had been too cumbersome to loot, but that we might be able to break apart for valuable materials. 

I was eyeing them up and wondering if I should summon the ghost of the soul strengthening array enchanter when Ed banged on the door of the vault. 

“I don’t know,” he said. “This is solid most of the way through. The enchantments might be dead, but it’s still third gate null-steel. It’s great for large scale defensive wards.”

I turned and focused on the door. I hadn’t paid attention to it before, but sure enough, there was a current of abnegation energy running through the vault door. It had been pushing aside some of my mana senses, but now that I was focusing on it, I could definitely feel it. 

“Dusk, you might not have been able to absorb the vault, but could you open a portal and let us drop this in the sands of your desert?” Liz asked. 

Dusk nodded enthusiastically – it wasn’t a matter of absorption at that point, just shoving it in and out. 

Liz let out a laugh that I could only describe as a cackle, then turned to the hinges of the door, acid leaking from her fingers.