Chương 94: BECMI Chapter 93 – The Abbey

The end of the bridge eventually arrived, a good hour after we'd started, but nobody said anything about the pace. The end point was twenty yards further up the side of the hill, smoother sloped, with a wide circle to access it from. The guards, on the other hand, were gaping as the newer, higher bridge slowly rose up underneath them and swept past, where they were standing riding along with the edge of the span. They also got a new guard-post out of it, complete with bunks, chairs, a desk, and actual windows.

-How'd you make the windows, Lady? - Prince Ukker had to /ask silently for all of the curious dwarves. -Sand and earth is made from many materials which give it color. But if you look at them closely, many of them are just pure silicon and transparent… they are natural glass. Take the silicon particles, agglomerate them, wash out the impurities, and you have basic glass.

- He followed the process in his mind's eye as I demonstrated, pursing his lips at my being able to go down to find particles of sand, bring them together, purify them, and line them up as if fused by a glass-maker. Revered Cruxin was just shaking his head. He had access to the magic to Shape Stone, and technically should have been able to do the same thing. There was no way…

"Is it true that you could pave the road all the way to the Abbey?" Baron Torwell asked, all of the humans leaning on the Disks of black force bearing interwoven skulls and roses. I arched an eyebrow at him.

"At a decent walking pace, yes. I believe it is about two miles there from here." We could see the hill for the abbey rising in the distance. There were many scattered farms between here and there, as fishermen lived nearby and access to water and the ships that went by was important, but the fortified abbey itself commanded a good view of the surrounding land.

"It seems like a fine afternoon for a casual stroll in the sun," he said piously, looking at the cool spring sky. I hmmphed at him pressing my good nature, but my sense of time had lengthened, probably given my species, and it really was harder to act with immediacy than it was to take things slow.

"Very well." Boots an inch above the ground, I started walking as grins broke out behind me. Dread touched the ground with every step, and stones and earth Shaped themselves as Primus gleamed on my finger happily and kept at it. As we walked, a road spread out beneath and around me, as wide as the bridge behind me and much easier to Shape up. A lot of people had come out to watch after exclamations had alerted them to something going on with the bridge.

Now they got out of our way and stood jumpily aside as the road grew around me, their baron following me. I glided by just above the ground, not looking like I was working at all, but clearly in charge, and clearly forming the incredibly nice road as I did so, complete with curbs, ditch grates, and driveway breaks.

I left them gawking behind me as I strolled towards the abbey, not in a hurry, the road just casual mental exercise I could do without effort as we made our way towards the monastery being rebuilt in the distance.

Torford Abbey was deceptively strong. The wall ringing it was only ten feet high, but that was more than sufficient to defy anything but a strong and committed attacking force, particularly with Torwell right there in the distance ready to send aid if signal fires or mirrors were lit. The church that was the central area was holy ground, which had its own advantages, with the wings of it being sleeping quarters for the monks who manned it and working areas for the winery and food processing that was done here.

About five months ago, in the middle of the winter, something had come upon Torford Abbey in the middle of the night. There had been no alarms or lights or cries heard by any, although many farmers lived in the vicinity, all faithful to the church, with dogs and herd animals that should have reacted to any violence. In the morning, all of the monks and priests were missing. There were some signs of violence, but no sign whatsoever of what had happened.

The controversy had nearly cost Baron Torwell his seat, outrage bubbling up outside his barony that he had permitted such a thing to happen, and that he might even be responsible for this blasphemy! The Great Jordie, Archbishop of the North, had come in to investigate, and pronounced the Baron innocent of any wrongdoing, that other forces were responsible, and that they would be caught.

In the meantime, new monks had slowly been brought in to maintain the abbey and keep the wine presses moving, and now it was well over half-staffed once more. At the personal request of the Archbishop, I was coming here to find out what had happened. There were no Diviner specialist Wizards in this world as yet, as the Specialist Traditions weren't present, and not even Zanzyr had a Secret School devoted to it.

Aelryinth was a Divination specialist, and very, very good at it, although his forte was Seeing the Now, not Scrying the Future. Reading the Past was actually something few specialized in, and many Casters dabbled in, as scholars and intelligent Wizards loved finding out about history and stuff, especially those who dabbled with fabulously dangerous things of magic. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

It was a good thing my dhampir father allowed me some access to the human akasha, as Aelryinth's restriction to V's in my memory did limit what I could pull out of memories inherited from him. The shadenelves were not magical innovators, and given their heritage extended back right to the era I was presently in, had no Elven Wizards to draw off from.

Their Immortal Patron must have learned about the Tradition from the elves on the surface and worked hard to gain the knowledge needed to allow His followers to advance along the same route. They probably painstakingly stole knowledge from human mages of the surface, or tricked them out of the spells, with some desperate recreating of them from scratch as needed.

Magically talented, the shadenelves probably hadn't needed more than a century to get the range of spells they used to this day, according to my mother's library. Either way, getting my hands on higher Valence spells was not automatic, until I started playing games with my Sorcery. I was a Rank H at this point, or Ten+5 on the common scale, with an effective base Caster Level of 20 and the base combat skill of a 20 th level human Fighter (or a 12 th level PoT Melee, with far fewer Feats).

Being an H allowed me to Exemplar Surge all the way up to VIII's, which was more than enough to get some pretty powerful spells temporarily… and then I could Write those spells to Funf's' Ringbook for use in my Wizardry, which ranged all the way up to the IX's now.

One thing forty years of solitude enables you to do is a LOT of studying on the basic spells, and that was before my Sims located or made off with scrolls and spellbooks with the higher Valences in them, either as loot or over the smoking remains of their owners. Good ol' Benjamin the lich had a fairly complete set in his Portable Hole when he went away forever, too.

There was a whole range of Psychometry spells of varying duration, range, and efficacy, but being able to pull up one at VIII+1 wasn't all that hard to do, and effectively going off at an IX meant it would reveal what I needed it to show.

We were seen from some distance off, men in armor being led by a woman in black and red being the sort of thing that attracts attention from afar, not to mention the road taking shape and all the stunned farmers marveling at it behind us.

Given the fuss and the fact the Baron himself was with us, the head abbot turned out to meet us personally, watching the road come into existence before me like a wave sweeping away the crude dirt path for wagons and replacing it with a stone road so fine and extravagant there was no possible way it could be afforded. I found it greatly amusing that he had a tonsure, but the Order of St. Gilavo had its own rules, and the men were mostly White to Blue, so I didn't question it.

"Baron Torwell! And this must be the famous Lady Edge the minstrels are waxing so poetic about." The ascetic man in brown and white robes gave me an uncertain look, given my choice of attire, but the stone walls of his gate had grown a foot while he was standing there, and a hundred cracks and chips in them had vanished, so he decided to say nothing of it.

"Welcome to Torford Abbey. I am Abbot Jenralimo. Please, let me invite you in for a drink, and we can discuss business."

"Your Grace," the Baron said for all of us, and we all followed him up the winding path of the hill towards the abbey above.

It was only bread and wine, but both were excellent. Many of the local men milled their grain at the spring-run mill at the abbey here, and the monks were as serious about their bread as they were their wine, the latter of which was sold far south in the Empire of Iberon, as well as locally. I could find no fault with it, a solid 20 on the QL scale. Excellent quality, if not exceptional, probably one of their better years.

"I see. What manner of magic are you going to be spinning here, that will solve the mystery of our missing brothers, Lady Edge?" the abbot asked, his thin and severe face wary, after learning of our purpose and what I would be doing here.

"I am going to reach back through time and bring forth the memory of what happened here from the shadows. They will re-enact the evening that occurred for us and we will be able to observe all that happened that was not specifically shielded by powerful magic." I gestured to the dwarves.

"They will be stationed around the building and miss nothing. Our combined eyes will see what happened, and we can ascertain where to go from there."

"I see. When can you begin?" the abbot asked, gravely interested in all of this.

"Immediately. It will take less than an hour. If you could ask the monks to open all the doors to any rooms and leave the abbey for a short time, we will be able to get our answers quickly," I responded firmly. He was impressed at that.

"I had expected such powerful magic to require more preparations for the Ritual," he admitted gravely.

"I finished the preparations while we were sampling your bread, Your Grace," I informed him smoothly, tapping Dread upon the stone floor of the dining chamber.

"The required formations have been formed underground and I am empowering them as we speak." He blinked at me, looked down, and sighed in defeat.

"She likely reworked the foundations of the abbey und shored them up, improving the drainage, removing cracks, plugging mouse holes, und the like, too," Prince Ukker commented cleverly. I did glance at him, he looked up at the rafters innocently, but I didn't deny it, because I could and had done so, because why not do so? The walkways of the buildings, the uneven foundations, the basements excavated so crudely, floors of the cellars, the central beams, water damage to the stone, piping and drains…

It was just mental flexing, so why not update things nicely for them? It cost me nothing, even if I could charge a fortune for it.

"I will instruct my brothers to finish up their tasks quickly," the abbot agreed rapidly.

"Is there anything special you wish us to do?"

"No. You may observe as you wish from within, but do not move unless told to once the magic starts, or you may interfere with the witnessing. We will be spread out to cover all views and points of access."

"Allow me to help you get started then, Lady Edge," the slender man nodded to me, rising and calling out immediately as he did so. This should not take long.