Melody of Mana

A fair time before the time agreed upon I made my way to the location. I needed to make a good impression and tardiness would certainly do me no favors. So I made found myself in a room of simple, if extremely well made furniture. Selene had joined me a moment ago and found a nice seat herself.

The orders frowned upon displays of excess, but that didn't mean that things were poor. Tables and chairs would be well made and comfortable, at least moderately. Art was sparse, but each piece was well made. There was no gold filigree or silver, no velvet or lace to be found, but that didn't mean that they didn't do things well. Even the food I'd been given this morning at breakfast had followed that trend, simple fare, but done well with good quality ingredients.

There was hiding that I was fond of food. I paid a lot of attention towards what I was eating, regardless of where I was. Nearly starving as a child had killed any pickiness that I might have felt, but it was still important to me to look at it, appreciate it, see what I could about what it was and how it was done. The dishes here were mostly fruit and porridge, but it was all done with a practiced hand an a well versing in how to precisely mix for proper flavor.

My rumination on food was broken as after a time the door opened.

"The elders will see you now," a young man said, leading us into the room.

Seated around the table were a handful older people, each in their own robes. A man with grey hair and broad shoulders gave a harsh look in our direction, narrowing his eyes above the symbol of the Shield. Beside him an elderly woman who exuded a scent of earth and leaf litter for the Vine. By a bit the youngest was a woman clearly here to represent the Lovers, her hair still a dark chestnut brown. The last wiry man looked like he wanted to be anywhere but here, his leg bouncing like he'd been forced to sit still in a place he found intensely boring.

Below the priests were a few administrators I was guessing, non-casters and casters whose dress singled them out as decidedly not priests. Those paled to what I saw at the head though. Aaron, the old man who I'd met and who'd given me a rundown earlier this day sat in priestly robes, at the seat of honor. I nearly spat out his name, but then remembered how he'd said to call him that 'in private' and held my tongue.

His aura was potent, the golden bubbles flowing off of him nearly pushing down those of the other nearby priests. It wasn't quite what I'd seen from a certain elf, but close.

"Am I the only non-archmage?" I whispered to myself, but a few people seemed to catch it.

It was a bit frustrating how all the other people brought to this world seemed to move to the peak of power. I was at least assuming he was a transmigrator, the bubbles seemed to be a dead giveaway to who we were. Then again, if I'd lived for what I was assuming were hundreds of years I might well have the same kind of incredible power.

Justin had mentioned another, a priest who could probably keep himself young. He hadn't quite managed 'young' but he was almost certainly the man the wizard had mentioned. As I looked at his eyes it clicked, the man in the mural who'd seemed so familiar, it could only be the one sitting here before me now.

"Please join us ladies, we've much to discuss," he offered.

Selene gave me a sidelong glance, seeming to have heard something of my whisper but joined me in one of the open seats.

"Certainly where would you like to begin?" I inquired.

The priest representing the Shield was the first to go. "Most of the important bits have been covered, but let us clarify. We've agreed to this 'gate' only because we will be covering the opening on our end to properly forbid any military use."

"Of course," I answered. "Though the instructions for its use are ironclad. Emperor Durin has designated it only for trade and limited travel with agreed upon individuals. Eventually it might be opened to public usage, but that would be in the future once we've got a proper network setup."

Nobody really believed that there wouldn't be some work to make this function for military purposes, even if they were pretty limited, but that was the official line. Personally I thought that in time we'd be sending extra gates, even small ones, through it to aid in the conquest of some of the local cities. Troops would be impossible though, and there didn't seem to be any plan to attack Linden.

Not because Emperor Durin didn't want it, but because it was insane to do so. Priests didn't normally get involved in wars, but this was their home base, and nobody believed that there wouldn't be some action if someone tried to take it from them. There were a few historical examples of kingdoms and empires that had tried, and it didn't surprise anyone that they'd all ended shortly thereafter.

"I have some questions about the setup, and these sequences of wards you've provided," said one of the city leaders, a wizard if I had to guess. "How do we know that you won't change them?"

Selene took this one, as she would be handling some of our security here. "You're welcome to provide them if you like, or we can leave them to be obscured physically by your people. None of them are state secrets."

That was a concession, but these weren't the same wards we were using around the military gate. They weren't even anything special, just a few shields and the like, all blocking things from exiting the inside too quickly. We were using a quite different set on our side though.

"Will there be any objections if we set up our own afterwards?" The man continued.

"Not so long as they fall within the agreed upon forms. The facility is under your control of course, but so is ours. Either side will be able to end the linkage," Selene answered with a shrug.

"How many others are currently in the network?" One of the others asked, her glasses and the ink stains on her fingers pointed to some kind of administrative work.

"None currently," I said. "Though that will be changing, a series within our lands first, then we'll be looking outwards again."

"I don't believe for a second that you don't have other gates young lady. I was asking about those," she said with a frown.

"If there are others they are not connected to this network," I replied, the line I'd been given should they push for it.

The answer got me a frown. We had others, and they knew it, but I knew that there'd be questions about those.

The administration had a number of questions about the place they would be putting it, but honestly all of that was their decision, not ours. We wanted this up, letting them own the location it stood wasn't the concern. There were only a few requirements, a couple observers from our side, and the room size specifications. All of that had been accepted in earlier proposals.

The elder priest from the Wanderers struck in once the city admins had let their questions finish. "How far can these go?"

"That's currently unknown," I said. "We've not hit a location that they can't reach."

"Instant movement to anywhere in the world?" I could see his eyes twinkle as he thought about the possibilities. His order did reach for the edges of the map, so this could really speed them in some ways.

"Not quite instant. There's a small delay on very long trips," I felt the need to clarify.

"Hmm? I wonder why," asked the elder for the Lovers.

"Current working theory is to protect causality, but that's not really important. The delay to circle the world would be limited." That was intel, but wouldn't help with the gates, so I had no problem giving it to them.

"Causality?" She seemed confused by my answer.

"The progression of events from one to another. If you were to be able to change that who knows what destruction might follow," Aaron finally spoke, having been quiet up till this point.

"Um... thank you Elder," I could see that she was still a bit thrown off.

It occurred to me that he'd told me that most called him elder, but I'd been thinking 'elder'. The truth was that he was 'Elder' as in the oldest, and probably strongest priest they had bouncing around.

"It would breach into something like time travel ma'am. Imagine if you were to go back in time and kill your grandfather before your father was born. Then you might never come to be, so you couldn't go back and kill him, so he wouldn't die, so you could, so he would, and so on." The grandfather paradox was an old one, and explained the issues with time travel quite simply.

"That sounds... like something bad would happen," she said, still trying to come to grips with the concept.

"There have been recorded attempts at time travel and manipulation over the years, all with destructive outcomes. Why would traveling too fast compromise that though?" Their old wizard explained, then asked.

"I'm afraid that that is secret. Our government has no desire to see anyone foolishly attempting such things again." I answered. Selene didn't know much about that, but I'd spoken with some of our team about how things didn't travel faster than light before. Not that I had the knowledge to properly explain more than a standard sci-fi show though.

There was a bit of grumbling, but it was soon interrupted.

"I've only one concern, and questions that I expect you to answer. Where did you get these from?" As the Elder spoke everyone else fell silent.

I looked to Selene at this. This wasn't something we'd expected to have to share. There were a few ways to answer, but a lot of that was things we really couldn't share. Selene wove a veil of silence around us and leaned in to whisper.

"Not sure how much we can say. Will they let us out without some answer though?" She asked.

"Honestly, I don't know how they'll respond if they don't like what we say, or if they've some way to know if we're lying."

There was a bit of a back and forth for a few moments before we decided on what to say. It was a risk, and did reveal some things, but not everything. The real concern was what would happen if we didn't answer at all.

"Emperor Durin provided the original, an artifact which we then researched to create the current model," I said, a truth, but not much in the way of from where, or whom.

The ancient man narrowed his eyes and thought for a few moments. "I see. To your knowledge do any others have access to your gate system, particularly other nations?"

He was asking about the elves. No matter how much time had passed I got the feeling there was still bad blood there, a lot between this old man and the other. More must have happened than the simple explanation I'd been given about that mural.

"No," I answered, a full truth this time. The gate to the elven lands had been turned off by Justin, and was currently off by our own designs.

"Very well," he said after a time processing my answer and staring me down. "We will need a bit of time to discuss amongst ourselves."

We were shown to the waiting room and had to twiddle our thumbs for nearly an hour. During that time Selene shot me a few looks, but said nothing. It wasn't clear what was up, but she certainly wanted something from me.

Eventually they gave the final rubber stamp. Everything had been approved already, the details hashed and rehashed out long before we'd ever set out. This was supposed to just be a final talk before work began, a last chance for any questions, but for a bit there it looked like we might have to make the trip home without finishing, something I was really not looking forward to doing.

The day had grown long before it was all done and when we got back I nearly fell onto my borrowed bed. While laying there a knock sounded from my door. I opened it to find Selene there, looking quite bothered.

"May I come in?" She asked, looking around.

"Sure, something up?"

"One moment please." She began casting, layers and layers of her own privacy wards. I recognized most of them, having known her for awhile now, but some were a mystery to me.

"Okay... what's going on?" I said when she looked finished.

She glared, "Alana, what did you mean when you asked if you were the only one who wasn't an archmage?"

That had not been meant for her, or anyone really, to hear.

"Well, we've been meeting a lot of them recently haven't we?" I tried.

"Alana, I'm not an idiot, nor am I blind."

"Er..." I was trying to think of something. I expected that one day my family, or maybe Mystien would start asking uncomfortable questions, but Selene? She'd been there, just... in the background, around, a bit of a friend.

"How long have we known each other? That Elder guy, he has the same kind of aura as that terrifying elf, the same aura as you. Now, I'd really like to know, because it looked to me like there was some other communication between you two. He knows something, something you do, and something you're not telling me."

That was not good, if she was seeing this, then someone else might.

"It's about the aura Selene. It's like everyone I meet with that is scary, and weird," I lied.

"You're weird, and scary in your own right when you need to be. That isn't all though, and this isn't over. There's something up, something about these portals, and I think you know what." We just stared at each other for a few minutes, neither wanting to talk.

"There's some kind of magic going on, something that I don't understand." While that was the truth, I had no idea how we'd all gotten here, it certainly wasn't all of it.

"I see, so that's how it is." With that she turned on her heel and left closing the door hard as she passed through.

I waited, waited to see if knights would come to take me, waited to see if there'd be some alert among our people. None came though. For all that she was clearly pissed, nothing was coming for now. I sighed, I'd need to come up with something, or things would be very, very bad when I got home, if I went home.