5.10 Dilemma

Difference: Minimal

In between moments, Elizabeth found herself elsewhere. She had felt the slightest tug, but had been dragged away without a chance to resist. And Irwyn was not with her. She suppressed the pang of fear, then tore it to pieces when it tried to surface again. Her love deserved nothing less than absolute trust. The best way to help him would be a cool head and quick return. She needed to access what had happened.

The rest of their group had been mostly kept close to each other, with perhaps the exception of Waylan, who she would not be able to spot either way. The place they found themselves in was completely nondescript: a cyan cube with flat ground and no features, no bigger than a large room. Others have also been dragged along in similar huddles. Much more numerous than their own, each counting at least a dozen people if not twice that.

There were seven Domain mages present, including her Cousin. One for each of the groups, except for one, which was seemingly missing theirs. All of them were naturally gathering in a circle, though with large gaps that showed clear suspicion. The groups were also slowly moving behind their leaders. Elizabeth decided to stand aside as an equal instead, dragging Alice along by the hand while Desir followed a step behind. 

That left Alazat standing completely alone. Definitely awkward for him. Already, he was gathering much attention and judgment. Which was, simply put, good riddance. Elizabeth was going to get the halfwit demoted and disgraced as low as a Domain mage could fall, then at least a few rungs deeper. But it wasn’t the time to focus on vengeance. Their groups needed to speak. There were no awkward introductions. As soon as everyone was gathered, they began discussing their predicament.

“We should not assume a lack of imposters,” one woman started. 

Her clothing was a white and red silk habit, interwoven with motifs of cracked skulls. Inquisition and definitely Domain, though Elizabeth was struggling to figure out what exactly hers did in all the noise. If each Domain was a loud instrument to the magical senses, the present situation was a cacophony that obscured the exact nature of each of them.

“Actually, any member of any group could have also been replaced,” another pointed out. A man in a pure white suit. There were no explicit motives, but it seemed likely that all the Domain mages except her distant relative were Inquisition. “Trust no one you don’t have an agreed-upon code with.”

“Do not share your private codes out loud! There could be a mirrored room just like this with our remaining and replaced companions just waiting for those secrets while the Rot listens in!” The first woman declared.

“There was no Time acceleration,” Alice spoke up from beside Elizabeth. “Just the teleportation. I just barely couldn’t resist the pull, but I am certain there was nothing else.”

“Do we have a more senior Time mage?” the woman in red and white immediately spoke up, looking around. “No? That will be a problem.”

“The Void is still connected,” Elizabeth sensed.

“And will be trapped so densely even the lack of dimensions will not let anyone dodge.” 

“They might not have had the time to set all that up,” Elizabeth disagreed. “Even if the vaults formations shrink and sever the localized Void from the rest, truly filling even that small portion to the brim is an astronomical task. And if there is the slightest gap, I can slip through.”

“Even if you can navigate back, it will be no use. The rest of us will be stuck here. And no offense, I don’t think you can handle two to three Raveners, Lady Blackburg,” the suited man spoke again.

“Is that what we are going with?” The woman in red and white asked. It seemed that mostly the two of them were talking out of the inquisitors. The others were seemingly only paying partial attention, attempting to find a loophole with their magic in the meantime.

“Sounds about right,” the man shrugged. “One had to build that device, so a crafter. That means almost certainly limited direct combat capability. If they have no combat specialists that would be great, but let’s assume the worst. But if they had more than two of those, they would have likely split us differently.”

“And do we know exactly what this trap even is?” Elizabeth questioned.

“I believe that the device briefly turned the areas just in front of the doors into something akin to teleportation platforms,” Alice immediately explained. “Thereafter, it worked like any regular ‘platform’ and swapped everything on top of it into here. Though the connection back to where we had come from had been cut and isolated by the remaining enchantments on the device. It’s basically a spatial prison now.”

“They coordinated us so that every group would break through the door at the same time!” one of the other inquisitors in the exclaimed with a hint of fury in the voice. “I should have stopped pushing the instant the resistance had lessened unexpectedly.”

“It matches the people my group is missing,” the red-white inquisitor nodded. “I remember they had been behind the corner. The spell likely had aiming limitations - a trade-off for all that activation speed. It also has the benefit of splitting us up.”

One of the inquisitors who had been silent up to that point turned around at those words. He stared at one of his subordinates for a moment, then raised his hand with blinding speed, causing a stream of milky white strings to seep into the much younger man and envelop him in a binding embrace.

“Sir…” The junior inquisitor startled under the sudden burst of magic. 

That did not make his superior hesitate for even an instant. Reinforced by a Domain, there was no escaping as pressure mounted over the weaker man. For a few moments longer, he seemed scared. Then a bestial snarl overtook his expression as he tried to burst out with magic. But to no avail, given the level of restraint put on him. Elizabeth had no way of knowing for sure if he had actually been undead, but none of the others even blinked, so she took solace in their experience.

“Double-check everyone you are not sure was in line of sight,” the senior Inquisitor said, then went silent again. All the other inquisitors turned towards their group to glance over them. Half performed some similar checks, one of which even yielded another imposter - determined by the suited man. So two altogether found in their groups. Elizabeth had no way to be sure that had been all of them though.

“How feasible is it to break us out?” She turned to Alice as that was wounding down. Even just the relatively few inspections had demanded time and effort.

“I cannot wrestle with a Domain,” Alice denied. “I could perhaps find our way back with an opening, but if I try while the device is active, we are almost certain going to arrive in smithereens.”

There were two other Concept-bearing Time mages in the crowd who mirrored her opinion, though they weren’t so sure about finding the way back. To which Alice quickly broke in a very technical tirade. Elizabeth assumed she was explaining what they were doing wrong and probably insulting their pride in the process, though she lacked the expertise to be sure about the former.

“This lack of Time mages is a scourge,” the red and white Inquisitor spoke over them in parallel. It was starting to get on Elizabeth’s nerves to not know her name, but there had been no good opening to ask.

“What can you expect? They are still recovering from that slaughter two cycles ago. Which we did get a Name out of, so it’s not the worst trade,” the white-suited man replied.

“The Ravener outside is probably one of those casualties,” she grumbled. “They always stash away a few good Time mages and diviners in between the wars.”

“Then we better get rid of it for good,” the suited man nodded. “I propose we yield command to the Lady Blackburg. Anyone in favour?”

Then, before she could so much as blink, all the Domain mages except Alazat had their hands raised. Her Cousin seemed to be just as confused as her by what had just happened.

“Me?” Elizabeth asked, startled. She was by far junior after all.

“The undead know us,” the red-white woman explained. “Any plan we are likely to come up with, they will have anticipated. You, on the other hand, are enough of a wild card to give us an edge, while seemingly competent. It is a solid strategy while already on the back foot.”

“Very well. You are Inquisitor…?”

“A list of our names should have been provided at the start of the operation. You should at least recognize the Domain mages, Lady Elizabeth.”

“Not to me,” Elizabeth retorted, then turned towards her cousin with a very pointed - and very obvious - glare. He withered when the room’s attention briefly turned to him. “Complaints will be filed. But that is in the past. I will need names now.”

“Senior inquistor Hildrin,” the woman in red and white said with a persisting frown. “Prismatic, PERDITION. So Soul-burning flames, mostly.”

“Senior Inquisitor Renoir,” the white-suited man joined. He was pure Soul and did not share his exact Domain. Everyone else introduced themselves as well. Elizabeth would remember their names, unlike Irwyn, if they needed to be called upon.

“Thank you. First of all, Alazat, can you reject the containment inflicted upon us with your Domain?”

“Something close enough,” her cousin hesitantly agreed.

“Then start doing so at low strain. Try to pay attention to any disturbances to integrity. Particularly if it is outright broken by someone still on the outside.”

“Your friend with one or two Concepts?” Hildrin asked dubiously. “Our missing Domain mage is likely desperately struggling for their life right about now, so it is unlikely they can help.”

“He has the contingencies to survive a Domain… though he will not likely resort to them unless forced to,” she explained vaguely. She would bet on Irwyn against a few Raveners if it came to it. At worst, he could force a battle of attrition and thus win by default. The problem was still that they did not want to reveal as much if they could at all help it. “Alice.”

“Yes?” The other heiress startled. She had been glaring down at the other two Time mages.

“When the device we saw fails, will we be brought back?”

“No, definitely not,” Alice shook her head. “The teleportation and the imprisonment were separate functions.”

“Then start preparing platforms to bring groups to the room, do you remember the exact layout?”

“Obviously.”

“Desir, please draw out the memory for visualization. We will need to agree on exact spots for the operation to proceed.”

Her shapeshifter blinked at the command, but did not hesitate to get to work. He might have limited experience with such tasks, but it would be made up for simply because Alice implicitly trusted him. More importantly, so did the ring, at least to some extent. The Domain mages could likely do things quicker, but they could feasibly unveil Alice’s secrets in front of her obnoxious relative.

“While we wait, I have an important question,” Hildrin spoke up.

“Go on,” Elizabeth nodded.

“Renoir, you had mentioned to me last month that a potent teleportation ward had saved your life.”

“Yes, shame it wasn’t good enough for this,” the man sighed wistfully. Alerted, Elizabeth tried to observe any discrepancy, yet found none. In that white suit, all she saw was perfectly natural body language.

“That, or it was,” she said grimly. “Except the undead already knew about it today, so they had the time to prepare an imposter.”

“Now that is quite the accusation. Just the kind of excuse an imposter could use to wrongly determine someone to be ‘undead’.”

“We have six Soul mages that can cooperate in an examination,” Elizabeth interrupted. “Keep each other in check. If more than half of you are false, this situation is unsalvageable anyway.”

“Of…” Renoir started, then was already lunging before even finishing the sentence.

A Domain mage was fast. Very few people in Conception could even hope to react to one. But no longer incomprehensibly so. And Elizabeth had feasted on a dragon to empower her reflexes. Created and mastered a specialized mental enhancement she was pretty sure was literally unprecedented at her level due to its downright suicidal nature. Not to mention, she had been put on guard.

So, much to the undead imposter’s surprise, she moved before it did. By the time the lunge had begun, she had already been in motion. No one cared about a Conception mage keeping up all her spells in the current company, so Elizabeth traversed at her full capacity. Hopefully, her Cousin would not notice exactly how fast she had reacted, though that was a lesser risk compared to a Ravener’s suicidal assault.

It was most amusing when the undead struck the spot she had been standing in, only to find out she was no longer anywhere near it. She had even tackled Alice and Desir, dragging them along just in case of a follow-up. But that never came.

There was a reason Elizabeth had called that attack suicidal. The undead had completely neglected any defense against the five senior Inquisitors around. It was unfeasible to outright stop a sudden sneak attack with no preparation time, but it was not difficult to overpower an enemy with such an overwhelming numbers advantage afterwards. 

Basically as soon as that first strike was over, the Ravener was instantly enveloped in layers upon layers of magic. Unable to move or so much as resist, it took merely a few seconds for it to perish. Milky white strings bound its body, pale red flames burned out of its stolen eye sockets, semi-transparent barriers rose in every direction in a thick and inescapable perimeter. Those all stayed until the body was reduced to ash, then scattered to some kind of cleansing spell Elizabeth did not quite understand.

“You dodged,” Hildrin said with clear surprise once that was done. “Well done. I thought we would have to reassemble you.”

“I just got lucky,” Elizabeth downplayed. “The Rot tends to start the ambush in the middle of a sentence. It’s basically a pattern. So I guessed that would happen again and started moving preemptively.”

“They will not do it one day just to surprise you, so be prepared for that. Still, very well done. There should also be two of our Domain mages outside in this case. That likely buys us more time.”

“Before we discuss further,” the Inquisitor with strings - Algor - interjected. “We do have to re-examine the impostor’s group. I suspect that the one he had ‘found’ earlier had been a good soldier martyred.”

And they quickly got to that task with efficiency. And in groups of three. It was still not a guarantee, but if there was another senior imposter, it would keep them in check. Soon enough, they indeed rooted out one additional undead hidden in the former one’s group. They were quickly removed. With all the most powerful mages working in tandem, even the relatively large group took no longer than minutes to sort through.

Elizabeth considered making the Domain mages also examine each other, just to make sure, but that would take too long. A semblance good enough to fool cursory examination without the slightest hint was extraordinarily difficult to achieve. Elizabeth had read that much. But the real benefit the Rot gained from it was the possibility in places where it wasn’t necessarily actually present. Because becoming absolutely certain such a visage was not present would inevitably take minutes for each - proving a negative was a difficult task, even for experts. 

“They will also be under more pressure. That gives us an opening,” so Elizabeth moved on instead. “Desir, ready yet?”

“Despite the interruption, yes,” the omnimage - if that was even a term - stood up from where he and Alice had been knocked flat right beside her. They weren’t injured, though Alice seemed visibly frightened by the prior ambush.

Desir quickly proceeded to create a large illusion of the room in the middle of their gathering circle, as large as it could fit. With Alice’s borderline eidetic memory for ratios and dimensions, the image was practically perfect even though she couldn’t have gotten more than a half a second's worth of sensing before being teleported.

“Here is my plan: We will prepare three platforms, one for each of our Time mages. Make them as robust as possible. We will then make groups of people that are relatively durable mages to occupy them. As many as the Time mages find bearable.

“We could apply temporary bodily reinforcement,” Desir suggested. “We have enough Life mages for that.”

“Yes, good idea. That will make any turbulence easier to weather. The Rot will try to intercept.”

“But not the Raveners?” Hildrin asked.

“That will be our task,” Elizabeth nodded. “I will take two of you with me through the Void first of all.”

“Are you certain you can navigate the traps inevitably put there?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth nodded. “I am my father’s daughter. Navigating the Void comes to me very naturally, to say the least.”

“I hope that is confidence speaking, not hubris,” Hildrin added, but did not complain further.

“We will disable the device keeping this prison secure as our opening attack, then my passengers will occupy the Raveners so that they cannot intervene again. I will assess the situation and assist any survivors or cut down any Time mages I can spot. With Alazat pushing against the damaged prison with his own Domain, no one should die from interference by their Draugr. One more Domain mage should stay behind with him, so that everyone is in check; the rest will go through to get everything firmly under control. Alice, can you handle two Domain mages by yourself even through all that interference?”

“It will probably wipe me out for a while, but I can,” she nodded.

“Good. Any other problems or blind spots?” she asked and looked around. No one said anything, so Elizabeth grinned. “Alright, who is coming with me? Preferably if they are not prone to vertigo.”