Melody of Mana

The hills blurred by us as Ulanion ran. We left the giant spacial distortion floating there, and the hole in the bedrock that was slowly draining the local water sources down into... wherever it went I wasn't honestly sure. As we moved I got a close look at the landscape. Nothing was too obvious outside of the immediate blast zone, since there were no trees to knock down, nor stones to shatter. As we moved away from the scene of destruction everything seemed to be normal, some of the grass was perhaps pushed back a bit, but nothing too out of the ordinary.

That was except for the sky, which had a huge cloud over where we'd been. A massive amount of rock, dust, and water had been thrown in every direction, and that would be visible for miles with the flat lands here. It only became more and more clear where we'd been as we moved from the site.

"Are you good?" I asked to the running soldier, trying not to focus on the speeding ground below me.

"Fine, this isn't anything, just hold on." It didn't even sound like he was out of breath as he spoke, just like he was going for a light jog.

We circled wide around the city, which was just a white blob on the horizon. Getting spotted wouldn't be acceptable, and we didn't have time to waste. We needed help, and needed it now. I let the minutes pass as the winds pulled and tugged at my dress, making it flap wildly in the wind.

Soon enough we came upon the waystation, the hill rising before us before Ulanion slowed. There was our ticket home, and to gather aid.

"Others are here," he said in a low voice, pointing to several horses tied up nearby.

He sat me down and together we walked to the door. As fate would have it, none of the other guests were there, or happened to be peering out the window to look as we'd been approaching. Before I could reach forward the door opened of it's own accord, the person inside trying to leave.

"Who... oh thank goodness, you're alive, the mayor is panicking!" The man in the doorway froze for a moment to process before speaking, letting a great breath out. I recognized him as one of the servants from the manor, apparently he'd been dispatched here. "He's currently forming a party to look for you, but..."

"We'd circled around the city and were near enough by to make our way here instead of returning. The horses spooked and fled. Please tell the mayor that I'm fine. Are there reports of other injuries? Or what happened exactly?" I asked, wanting as much information as I could get right now.

"I'm not sure, but I think most of the old folks made it back. I was sent here to request support as soon as possible. As for what happened..." he looked unsure.

That was good, nobody knowing how badly things had gone was ideal. It would be even more ideal if we could get people out here and get it fixed before anyone from the city found the massive area of distorted space and the crater.

"I suspect a magical phenomenon, perhaps some kind of beast. For the safety of the populace, have the mayor keep them inside the walls, it will be safer that way," I ordered, hoping to get damage control going immediately.

"People won't like it miss... but you're probably right. Will you be returning?"

"I know they won't like it, and not just yet, I've got to put in the proper paperwork here. Don't worry, my guard will keep me safe and these waystations are well fortified." At my look he understood and quickly made his way to his mount, hopping up and riding towards the city.

As soon as he was out of earshot I walked up to the nearby worker, who was frantically writing things down. I recognized her as the woman who'd met us when we arrived. She still looked quite unhappy, and very focused on the task at hand.

"Did he give you anything to send off?" I asked.

"A preliminary alert, I'm writing my report now," she answered not even looking up.

"May I?" I asked, holding my hand out.

The woman looked irritated, but obliged, handing over the mayor's letter, and letting me have a look at what she was writing. I skimmed them both after breaking the seal on the former and picking up the latter. Both pieces of paper were then rolled together, and deposited in the nearby stove.

"Excuse me! Who exactly do you think you are!? When I speak to your superiors..." she began to rant but held her tongue when the armored man behind me stepped forwards.

"Let me be clear, I am not some official sent here for compliance, the rest you do not need to know. You will exclude the information about what has happened from all of your reports, until told what to put there. As for my superior in this matter, his name is Emperor Durin, you may file whatever complaints you have with him when it is done. For now though, we need to get to the gate immediately, because this situation is far out of hand. Ah, and you need to stay here until told as well, there's nothing out there you want to be involved in." My voice was harsher than normal as I spoke, I didn't have time to deal with anyone in my way right now.

She scoffed, and I was sure that she was still thinking she'd have someone to rant to later. It might be an issue, but right now she turned and led us to the gate room, which was what I needed. If this woman was fool enough to think that approaching one of the many people I'd be bringing for backup about my actions, she'd quickly find out how wrong she was.

The gate room was dark and cool, unbothered by all the goings on above and around it. Whoever had made these had basically built each like a bunker and buried them, to stave off attack if I had to guess, or contain any mishaps. They also all looked pretty much the same, with a panel for turning the thing on, and a few additional readouts to show mana levels and the like.

With practiced movements the attendant walked over to the panel and placed a hand on it, activating the magical item. I watched as the mana crept from it's storage in the item, flowing over it. There was a brief flash of the gateway coming to life, and then it blinked out again with a loud pop. The failure made my stomach fall almost out of my body. The second and third failures to activate didn't help either, and the worker began to look a bit concerned.

"That's not good, let me take a look," I said stepping forward.

"Absolutely not! This is a vital, irreplaceable magical relic!" The shouting was once again soon stopped by Ulanion interspersing himself between us, and moving her firmly to the side.

"If she can't shut up while I work, you're welcome to knock her out or something," I advised as I moved to the panel.

Ulanion sighed, "The difference between knocking someone out and killing them is too slight to even joke about, but I will restrain her if needed."

I assumed he knew his business as I got down to mine, the attendant had already been let in on the fact that I wasn't to be bothered, but some people would always insist on learning the hard way. It might be advisable to see if I could have her transferred when we got back.

The panels that these gates ran on were pretty complex things, not that most people would know that. The readouts and information both they, and the gate itself could let you in on was pretty impressive. Most people wouldn't know, or care about that, as the part for standard users was made as simple as it could be, but if you knew how to get into some of the deeper parts you could see more complex readouts. Having built several similar models, and studied this particular one for years, I was privy to those bits of knowledge.

Primarily, the gate was repeating the same information, 'Connection Failure'. I got to see this notice several more times as the gate briefly flashed without my input.

"What are you doing?!" I was asked loudly from the side.

"That isn't me. The other side realized we attempted to make a gate and are trying to make one here. They're meeting with the same success we did. This is all standard protocol, have you not read the manual?" The manual in question being the updated user manual for these gates, which Mystien's lab had published and I knew for a fact distributed to each and every portal location.

After one more quick blink of the gate activating it stopped. "That was attempt five, which means they will now revert to one attempt at connection establishment once a day, and dispatch a squad to this area to aid us with haste." That too was in the manual.

The many failed connections had let me find the relevant part of the readouts and rune sequences though. This one wasn't immediately obvious to me, as there were a number of issues that could happen. The most likely by our guesses were all pretty easy error codes, but this one was buried, and I needed to consult the sequences written on the gate itself to find the exact problem.

Ulanion looked with wide eyes at the stream of obscenities I let loose in both the human tongue and Atali. I let them go on and on for a bit, wearing out every curse I knew, and even added a few of the more effective English ones.

"That bad?" He asked.

"There's interference and the gateway connection is unstable. They're still seeing each other, but have realized that things are so wrong in-between us that they're refusing to keep it open. Safety protocol built-in, and no way to turn it off," I answered.

"Don't suppose you can change the sequence?" He asked hesitantly.

"You cannot alter any item's functions outside of the parameters once it's built, you know this," I sighed. "And this one is not made to be worked around."

"Looks like we're on our own then," he said.

"Looks like."