Chương 188: Chapter 186 [Not Seen In A Millennia]

Koss was waiting for them just inside the gates, tails swaying easy behind her, arms already open before anyone had said a word of greeting.

"There they are," she said, pulling Shai into a hug first, then Rika, then working her way down the group like she hadn't seen half of them in months rather than a couple of days. When she got to Sasha she smiled, then hugged her too, same as the rest.

"And you. Settling in alright, I hope?"

"Trying to," Sasha said.

"Still working out where everything is."

"You'll manage. Everyone does eventually." Koss straightened up and looked over the group properly now, taking stock.

"Merin and Yara are waiting on you. Been sat in there most of the morning, if I'm honest, ever since your message came through."

"They didn't have to do that," Mike said.

"Try telling Yara that," Koss said, already turning to lead the way.

"She doesn't sit around for just anyone." The elders' hall was cooler than the street outside, the kind of stone building that held onto shade properly no matter the time of year. Merin was bent over the long table when they came in, a rough map of the land south of the village spread out and weighted down at the corners with what looked like smooth river stones. Yara stood behind him, arms folded, watching the door rather than the map.

"You've come about the portal," Yara said, before anyone had properly finished stepping inside.

"We have," Sam said.

"Second test went well. Confirmed a link between two of them, no issues on our end." Merin looked up from the map.

"Good. We've had a bit of time to think it over since your first message, and we're agreed. There's a stretch of open ground south of the village, not far, that should suit." He tapped a spot on the map with one finger.

"Flat, defensible, close enough to reach without it being any real trouble."

"Not inside the walls, mind," Yara added.

"Not until we understand what we're dealing with a bit better."

"We wouldn't have asked for that anyway," Sam said.

"Wanted your say on where, more than anything." Yara's arms stayed folded, but her shoulders dropped a fraction.

"Sensible. We'd like to see it work before committing anyone to building anything permanent around it."

"That's fair," Leo said.

"Happy to show you today, if that suits."

"It does," Merin said, already rolling the map back up.

"Koss, is Marcus still in town?"

"Should be. Said he had business to sort before heading back."

"Might be worth grabbing him, if he's willing. Given what this is likely to lead to." Merin glanced toward Sam.

"No harm in him seeing it firsthand, rather than hearing about it secondhand from someone else."

"We were planning on finding him anyway," Parmo said.

"Good excuse to do it properly." Koss glanced back once.

"Come on, then. He'll be at the workshop." They found Marcus exactly where Koss had said he'd be, bent over his workbench with a loupe pushed up on his forehead and some half-finished piece of jewellery pinned down in front of him. He looked up when the door opened, and it took him a second to place the group before recognition properly set in.

"You're back," he said, setting the loupe down.

"Didn't expect that so soon."

"Good timing, as it happens," Koss said.

"They've got a portal working. We want to see it, and I thought you might want to as well." Marcus straightened up, eyes narrowing slightly on Sam's disk, the same focus he'd had at the festival going over each of their rewards, turning them over piece by piece.

"That so." He looked to Sam directly.

"Last time you were here, I could tell you roughly what half your equipment was doing. Never could work out the rest of it, though. The swords I had some idea. That stone of yours left me with nothing but questions — so it was a device that creates portals?"

"Yeah. Turns out it's a lot simpler than either of us thought at the time," Sam said.

"All I needed to do was run mana through it, similar to the enchantments you have for your bath. The irony."

"Indeed." Marcus said, a sheepish grin on his face. He reached for his coat off the back of the chair.

"I assume this is connected to why Diane sent word asking after my time?"

"It's more this makes that issue easier to navigate," Sam said.

"Figured you'd want to see the portal before deciding how much time you can spare us. With the actual trip way faster." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Wise thinking." He pulled the coat on, glancing round the workshop once, tallying up the day's remaining work in his head by the look of it.

"Knowing what your equipment actually does now, rather than half-guessing at it, should help me get somewhere with the rest of it. Last time was a bit like working a puzzle with half the pieces missing. Now I'll actually have the full picture to work from. That is to say, I should be able to use that knowledge to improve my own craft. Would you mind if I look at your rewards again, with as much information as you can give on how it all works?"

"Of course, anything that helps you is going to help the villages and likely our town as well." He stopped halfway to the door, then looked back toward the workshop's rear room.

"Lyra. Lucas. Come out here a minute." Lyra appeared first, drying her hands on a cloth, Lucas trailing behind her with his tail already going the moment he spotted the group properly.

"We're heading over to Monkhaven," Marcus said.

"Might be gone a fair part of the day. Working trip, mostly, but—" he glanced down at Lucas, "—I imagine there's a certain someone who'd want to come along, given what hatched not long after we last saw them." Lucas's head snapped up so fast his ears nearly caught his own hair.

"The dragon egg? It hatched?"

"It did," Luka said, crouching down slightly the way he always seemed to around him.

"Gold, just like we thought it might be. Wanna meet him properly?" Lucas looked between his parents, then back at Luka, then his parents again.

"Go on," Lyra said, already untying her apron.

"I could do with seeing the place myself, if I'm honest. And Marcus is going to be useless company the whole way there if he's thinking about that stone of yours the entire time."

"I am stood right here," Marcus said.

"I know, dear." She smiled at him, then looked to the group.

"Give us a minute to lock up properly." Lucas was already tugging at Luka's sleeve.

"Does he have a name yet?"

"Apollo," Luka said.

"You'll like him. I'm sure we can make a short trip to see Mars and Growlie as well. I'm sure he misses you." The walk south of the village didn't take long, the group falling into loose conversation as they went, Lucas darting between Luka and his mother, peppering him with questions faster than anyone could keep up with answering.

"Is he bigger than Growlie yet?"

"Not yet," Luka said.

"Give him time, though."

"Will he get bigger than Growlie?"

"Might do. Torren reckons he could end up a fair bit bigger, actually." Lucas turned to look up at Torren for confirmation, and Torren nodded once, solemn as ever.

"Difficult to say for certain. But yes, I'd wager on it." That seemed to satisfy him for about ten more seconds before the next question arrived. The stretch of ground Merin had marked out was much the same as the one back near Monkhaven, flat and open, closer to treeline on one side than the other. Sam didn't waste much time once they'd settled on the exact spot, crouching down with the stone and pushing mana into it the same way he had twice already that week.

The oval built itself out of nothing, drawing outward slow and steady, and settled into place. Koss, Merin and Yara had all gone quiet, watching it. Marcus had stepped in close, close enough that Leo half expected him to reach out and touch it, though he kept his hands folded behind his back the whole time, studying the shimmer.

"Amazing," Merin said eventually, half to himself.

"There are tales, back in the core. Tales of such things, though no one has seen or heard of one being seen in a millennia."

"It's beautiful," Koss said, tails going still behind her. Lyra had a hand resting on Lucas's shoulder, keeping him a step back from it, though Lucas didn't seem bothered by the distance, too busy staring at the shimmer with wide eyes. Sam smiled at the awe on their faces.

"I'll link it now, give me a few seconds." His eyes went distant for a moment, working through the tab only he could see. As they watched, the portal's centre slowly changed to reveal a clearing, and some people moving around with equipment, clearly measuring out the space.

"Linked. It should be as easy as stepping through and coming out the other side, but we haven't actually tested it yet."

"I want to try it," Koss said, already stepping toward the shimmer before anyone could object.

"After you, then," Sam said. Koss stepped through first, and the rest of the group followed after her, Marcus and Lyra close behind with Lucas held firmly by the hand between them. Leo brought up the rear. The moment Leo stepped through, he understood why the walk had looked closer than it turned out to be.

What had seemed like a single step from the outside stretched out into an actual tunnel, walls of shifting colour and shape held back on either side like glass, the moving light kept somewhere outside the space he was actually walking through. It reminded him of one of those aquarium tunnels back home, tank curved all around on every side, except here there was no water, no fish, just colour behaving like it was alive, folding over itself endlessly beyond the walls he couldn't quite touch.

The far end sat a good few strides ahead, the clearing they'd seen through the portal's surface waiting there, small and clear. He walked toward it, the others' footsteps echoing somewhere close behind him, until the tunnel gave way and his boots hit solid ground. Koss stood a few feet ahead of him, staring back the way they'd come.

"That," she said, "was amazing."

"Good trip?" Rika asked, grinning. Lucas let go of his parents' hands and spun round in a full circle, tail going.

"Can we do that again?"

"Maybe later," Lyra said, though she was still catching her own breath slightly, one hand pressed briefly to her chest.

"I mean it," Koss said, turning to face the rest of them properly now.

"Do you understand what this means? Getting help to a village under threat, safely, without days of travel. If we could set portals up inside the walls themselves, kept switched off until they're actually needed, that alone could save lives if we're ever attacked again."

"Some way to signal it, maybe," she went on, thinking it through as she spoke.

"If a settlement's surrounded and needs help immediately, some way to open the door from a distance rather than waiting on a runner to reach us first." Sam nodded slowly.

"That's already possible, technically, if there's someone inside with a UI who can reach me directly. Long term, though, I reckon there'll be proper ways to communicate through the network itself. Magitech, maybe. Something that doesn't rely on someone specific being in the right place at the right time." Marcus, still looking back over his shoulder at the shimmer they'd just stepped out of, nodded slowly.

"Well. That sounds like exactly the sort of thing worth my time. Let's go and see Diane."