Chương 124: Book 3 Chapter 2 - The Easton Arena

The papers Dustin had been working on, and even the desk and chair he had been seated at were gone. He must have stood up at some point, to where the protective bubble she had maintained around him no longer protected the desk and chair. The walls had been torn apart, and large holes allowed them to see into the rooms on either side. The ceiling and floor were both scorched and a smokey haze filled the air. Dustin exhaled, then walked slowly over to where Zoey lay and held out a hand to help her up.

She accepted, pulling herself to her feet. With the adrenaline of the sudden attack winding down, she found herself shaking slightly. She was proud of her efforts, she had successfully defended Dustin from a high-rank threat. Even so, she began to cry. The shock of being attacked and forced to defend herself, the immense focus and concentration it had required, the fact that one of their servants had been killed in front of them, and the knowledge that she had just killed a man all crashed down on her.

"Come here," Dustin said consolingly, pulling her into a close embrace. He hugged her tightly and patted her on the back while she sobbed into his shoulder. She felt silly at first that she was crying, but his reassuring presence and behavior allowed her to simply give in to the moment and let it out. They stayed like that for a few minutes without saying anything, and he just let her cry. Eventually she pulled away, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

"Thanks," she mumbled, once she was able to speak without her voice cracking.

"No, thank you," he replied, placing a calming hand on her shoulder. She looked up at him.

"You saved my life," he said earnestly. She nodded in response, her eyes red from the tears. She looked at what remained of Ugor.

"Who was he?" she asked, assuming Dustin would know. He shrugged and shook his head.

"No clue." She glanced at him.

"Shian?" He nodded grimly.

"Seems likely it had something to do with her. It makes me nervous about what we might find when we return to Easton." * Ersten had been working for the Easton government his entire adult life. One of his responsibilities was maintenance on the dueling arena near the center of the city. The same arena that had recently been used when House Yountal challenged House Norshod to a duel.

He was only tier 2, and couldn't personally understand the complex enchantments that surrounded the arena, but he still knew them like the back of his own hand. It was like studying a foreign language until you recognized the shapes, even if you didn't understand what each shape meant. He'd studied the arena's runes on more than one occasion, hoping to glean some small piece of how they worked. He didn't know the details of how the runes worked, but he knew the result of those runes and enchantments quite well.

Part of his job was to activate the enchantments each month and test them to make sure they were working as intended. He then checked the mana crystal batteries that powered the enchantments to see if they were running low. Month after month, he made the rounds, and every month it was the same thing. Now, a few days after the duel, something had changed. It was subtle, and he didn't notice it at first, but something seemed to catch his eye.

One of those things where you knew something was up, but you weren't quite sure what, until finally it clicked. Some of the runes were slightly different. He thought he was imagining it at first, but he noticed enough small differences that he eventually decided he must be right. He didn't have a perfect memory, and if someone asked, he couldn't tell them what had changed, he just knew that something had. Some of the shapes didn't quite seem right.

He had seen them so many times, walked past them, studied them, that he had a certain expectation for how they looked. Every month, it was the same thing, the same sight. Now, some of them were wrong. There weren't very many that had been altered, but some of them were clearly different from what his brain was expecting. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. He began to sweat. Had someone sabotaged the arena? Was that even possible?

He hurried to activate the enchantments to see. As the enchantments flared to life, he squinted his eyes, checking the barely-visible mana flows in the air. He knew the very terrain of that protective bubble, every fluctuation, every nook and cranny. He knew where some of the mana flows seemed to thin, or where others bent slightly out of shape. The sights were familiar, comforting things, like cresting a hill and seeing your home from afar, recognizing the familiar terrain.

As familiar as the fluctuations and weak points were to his mind, he knew they were a liability. He had tried to raise a red flag about it a few times in the past, but no one would bother to listen. Ersten's ability to sense the mana flows was unusual for his tier, and no one else seemed to be able to pick out what he could. Even if they could, they likely wouldn't have made the effort to do anything about it. He wasn't even sure if it mattered, honestly.

The arena had seen plenty of duels, and the protective enchantments had always done their job. They had functioned perfectly a few days ago, even handling some direct hits from a tier 4! If that Kane fellow couldn't break through, no one in Easton would. The chances of this arena seeing another tier 4 duel in Ersten's lifetime were basically zero. Now, as the familiar mana flows sprang to life, Ersten's heart skipped a beat. The mana flows themselves had been altered, too. The nooks and crannies were gone.

The thin points in the mana flows had been erased. The protective bubble around the arena was as smooth as polished quartz, with a perfectly even thickness everywhere he looked. He couldn't believe his eyes. He tentatively launched a small spell at the dome, watching as it was absorbed. The energy was perfectly distributed along the barrier, rippling out slightly from the impact point. He gaped at it, trying to understand what it meant. Had the runes been fixed somehow, fine-tuned, instead of sabotaged?

It was the only explanation that made sense. But why? And who? Ersten was in charge of maintenance here, so if they'd brought someone in to work on the dome, he would have known about it. He moved on to the next part of his duties, checking the mana crystals. For having just been through a high-tier duel, the mana levels in the crystals were about where he would expect them to be. Everywhere except for one crystal that is. One of the crystals was way more full than it should be.

He touched it gingerly, half expecting something to blow up in his face, but the crystal seemed normal. This section of the wall was the only one where the crystals drained in tandem, rather than in sequence. Ersten had to keep a careful eye on these crystals to make sure they were both changed out at the same time every few years. Now, as he watched the mana being pulled to fuel the barrier, another impossibility manifested before his eyes. Only one crystal was being drained, rather than both of them.

The less full one was powering the barrier, and the one that had been recharged was waiting its turn, ready to serve as backup, the same as every other section of the wall now. He deactivated the enchantments, having finished his inspection. He wasn't sure how to fill out the form, though. The inspection form allowed for one of two possibilities: no noticeable change, or degradation that required someone's attention. It did not, however, allow for the idea that the enchantments had somehow improved.

Furrowing his brows, he left the form blank for now, hurrying off to the city offices to try and explain to someone what he had seen. He was sure his reports would continue to go unheard, though, the same way they always were. * Kiara spent the next few weeks at her estate in Easton recovering. A week after her duel with Kane, Dustin and Zoey returned from Portish. She told them about her duel with Kane, and everything else they had missed during their week in Portish.

They told her about Ugor's attack on the Portish estate, which had her fuming. She had half a mind to march down to Lord Goren's estate over it, but she knew that Ugor had likely been acting of his own accord. Besides, all three factions of the Easton feud were in talks with the Baron now, and the nascent peace was still brittle. She didn't want to rock that boat. Dustin explained Zoey and Ugor's fight from his perspective with wide eyes and a look of admiration at Zoey, causing her to blush.

Later, in private, he admitted to Kiara that although he had felt safe and protected during the fight, Zoey was downright scary when she unleashed her full power. Even after a week, he was still reeling from the incredible display of magic he had seen. Zoey revealed to Kiara that she had finally learned her wind concept during her time in Portish, and was now working on advancing to tier 4.

She was enlarging and strengthening her mana channels, after which she would strengthen the walls of her mana core and condense the mana in her core. All of that built up to the final step, where she would infuse her core with all of her concepts to break through to tier 4. That last step, infusing her core with her concepts, was something she wasn't quite sure how to do. She also expressed concern that after advancing to tier 4, she wouldn't know what steps to take next.

Kiara assured her that she would look into finding her a mentor, or at the very least a temporary instructor that could help her once she was at that point. To that end, Kiara decided it was time for her to officially move to the new estate in Portish. She would have an easier time searching for a mentor for Zoey in the larger city. Even there, though, she wasn't sure how many options she would have. The count was reportedly tier 5, but beside him there weren't many known tier 5s in Portish.

The same way that it was rare to see anyone above tier 3 in Easton, it was rare to see anyone above tier 4 in Portish. Even in the ducal capitals and the kingdom capital, tier 5s were rare. Finding someone that could coach Zoey through tier 4 and into tier 5 would likely be quite tricky. Then again, she already personally knew a tier 5 – Victor. He was quite friendly, and it wouldn't hurt to at least ask.