Chương 112: Reconciliation

The very first thing Ryland did as soon as he appeared through his rift was cast his Glyph of Tranquillity. It shone bright in the air high above them, sending down glimmering light that bathed them all with its soft, warm glow. Then he turned his attention to everyone staring at him. Acrypha was there, looking shocked out of her mind. Viren appeared as though he had swum all the way there. Then there was Castigor, standing entirely unaffected by the general mood.

"I believe we're all in a bit of a weird situation here," Ryland said.

"Perhaps we can move to someplace where we will be bothered less by the locals." Acrypha looked too stunned to agree, and even Viren appeared far too angry for some reason. Something had clearly happened. Something that wasn't just whatever Castigor had revealed about the stolen Vestige.

"I will take your silence as a yes," Ryland said.

"Castigor, you may come with us." The Fatehound stood straighter.

"Command—received." Castigor disappeared. A second later, Ryland cast [Translocate] as well and all three of them vanished from the deck of the ship too. It was perhaps a bit abrupt to depart from the barque. The Sailor Mages who had already seen them might be concerned about their disappearance. They might even check their records to check against their passenger list.

"Let me take care of something first," Ryland said once they reappeared in his room. He used [Translocate] again, this time vanishing to reappear on the ship. There, he quickly spoke with the captain on board. It took longer than he would have liked, but he managed to convince them that everything was fine. No, he hadn't just kidnapped two children. No, he wasn't seeking a ransom from them all. And yes, he would stop violating their ship's defences by rifting at will.

In the end, they accepted that Viren and Acrypha were two overly adventurous students from the academy, and Ryland was their minder here to take them back. They believed him once he proved he really was a sub-Academ from Arcoryx Academy.

"Alright," Ryland said, once he returned with his third [Translocate]. Or fourth, if he counted the one he had used to come to the ship in the first place.

"Let's begin." Just to be sure, he had kept an eye on both Viren and Acrypha with [Omniscience]. The fact that they hadn't moved or done anything at all from the point where he had left them said quite a lot already. Viren hadn't even started drying himself, which was a sign that things were not quite alright. Especially between the two of them.

"I didn't steal anything!" Acrypha's voice was on the verge of sobbing, more broken than Ryland had ever heard it.

"Your dog is lying."

"Castigor reads Fate," Ryland said, matter-of-factly.

"And Fate cannot lie." She looked him square in the eye, red despite the tears she was holding back.

"You think I stole the Vestige then?"

"I don't believe so. I know your character, Acrypha. A thief you are not." She looked more confused than satisfied with that answer.

"Then what does it mean, sir?" She began looking around, her eyes landing on the door to his hotel room.

"I'm not even supposed to be here. You can't babysit me forever, sir. It's best I leave. Fast."

"No," Ryland said firmly.

"Enough about leaving. You may be facing a problem, but running from it will not help you." Viren looked almost triumphant at that for some reason, but the general despondence he had possessed since the moment Ryland had seen him still reigned supreme. And those words made Acrypha deflate entirely.

"Then… what am I supposed to do, sir?" she asked.

"First of all, tell me everything that has happened," Ryland said." Both of you." That had Viren jumping just slightly. Ryland understood they were dealing with complicated emotions. He could also just cast spells like [Rewind] and find out everything for himself, even if it would be a bit inconvenient. But he wanted dialogue. He wanted both his pupils to get over their feelings enough to adhere to the truth. And thankfully, they did.

With fits and starts, with the occasional glare that they shot at each other, they both told him their sides of the story.

Ryland understood the basic gist pretty easily because they essentially confirmed what he had suspected. Acrypha had tried escaping with a ship. Viren had barely spotted her. Finding no time to warn anyone else since he was by himself, he rushed after her and then got into an argument. Then Castigor had arrived with the dire announcement.

"Well," Ryland said, still trying to find the right order of priority for everything going on.

"At least we've found the Vestige we've been searching for all this time."

"Sir—""I know, Acrypha. I'm not accusing you of stealing. However, it is with you. Castigor is right." She stared at him, both nonplussed and aghast at the same time." How?" Viren was staring hard enough that it was obvious he had the same question.

"I don't know yet, for certain," Ryland said.

"Let's find out. But first, just to be safe, let us all move to an even safer spot. [Translocate]." It was perhaps a good thing they had rifted enough times with Ryland now that he didn't need to worry about spatial sickness affecting them too much. They were both quite resilient. Acrypha gasped.

"We're above the sea!"

"Almost flying again," Viren murmured, clearly referring to when Ryland had exorcised Fate from him and Tallow.

"I got the idea from your little ship trip," Ryland said. He had brought them far out to the sea. Gildharbour was a small speck in the distance, the tiny golden glimmer of its towers visible from this distance only because it was daytime. They were several dozen handspans above the surf, yet the breeze still carried the taste of the salty spray. Beneath them, the sea continued roiling with waves as it ever did. Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"Now," Ryland said.

"We can check what exactly is happening with you, Acrypha." Her posture turned a little defensive, but she did her best to maintain an open expression. Ryland began casting. [Omniscience] was already there. But he needed something more. Something that would reveal the kind of magic he wasn't even aware of normally." [Revelation Space]," he incanted. Rifts sparked to being, tiny rents in reality that started shooting out energy like little fireworks. Ryland had opened the tiniest of doors to Realm 37.

A world where mana was in a very volatile form, one that caused all other mana to first reveal itself, then dissolve. It sort of reminded him of his Glyph of Dissolution. Ryland didn't care for that latter effect, of course. He just needed to see the magic in play. So, he let the first part of the rift's effects play out. A lot of magic came into being at several spots and shone under all of their clothes, indicating where Glyphs and Spell Circles had been Inscribed for different effects.

Ryland was practically turning into a cloth-covered beacon with how brightly he had begun to glow. Both Viren and Acrypha had stopped being surprised by their own Inscriptions coming to life before staring at Ryland. They had to shade their eyes with their hands a second after they had started gawking at the sheer intensity of the light coming from him. Admittedly, this body did have a great number of powerful Inscriptions. He just kept most suppressed all the time.

But where they were content to stare at him, Ryland had found a very different draw for his attention. Acrypha's hair band. It had started glowing just like all their Inscriptions. A moment later, it turned into Glyph. A blood-red one that was edged with iridescence, indicating a high Tier.

"What the—" Acrypha jerked away as she felt her blonde hair fall loose around her shoulders.

"What's going on?"

"Stand back, please," Ryland said, stepping forward." [Eternal Bastion]."

"Uh, sir, we're not standing," Viren said. That was a terribly valid point. Nevertheless, what Ryland meant was that he needed to get in front of his pupils before they were in any serious danger. Because this Glyph spelled danger with every bit of its magical being. Ryland couldn't even read it properly. It felt like some of the curls and lines were appearing and disappearing out of reality, making it difficult to grasp the meaning. And then the Glyph expanded.

It was for that exact reason Ryland had asked Viren and Acrypha to step back. And also why he had cast [Eternal Bastion]. The red Glyph had now appeared fully in reality, its ends spearing outwards to stab through space. It even stabbed right through them all. Viren and Acrypha both cried out at its sudden surge. They both fell back too, though Acrypha paused all of a sudden. That was when Ryland was finally able to read it.

"Ah, an Encapsulated Glyph," he said. He was trying to read it quickly, but he really didn't need to know that it had fulfilled its purpose. Its edges and lines were no longer going to flicker in and out of sight.

"A Glyph of Multidimensional Chain."

"What?" Acrypha asked. Viren echoed her sentiment through his expression.

"You probably haven't covered this in your academics yet," Ryland explained.

"But you can use something like Encapsulation Prints to condense entire spells into a single Glyph. Well, not you necessarily. But once you gain sufficient power, it's certainly possible." They clearly had questions about that, but their actual predicament took centre stage. None of them could move.

"Multidimensional Chain," Acrypha said with a little bit of awe and fear.

"Is that why I can't move? Because it's chaining me to my position?"

"That is how I've come to understand its current application, yes," Ryland said.

"I'm attempting to study how exactly it's performing its function, though a part of that is obvious in its name. It hasn't speared through us, exactly. Otherwise, we'd feel it physically. Rather, it has latched onto the space we occupy in multiple dimensions."

"And it's that space it's locking down."

"Right! Because the space itself now must remain constant, because I suspect that was what the original spell's various Subglyphs would have ensured, we're forced to remain still as well."

"So annoying."

"Indeed."

"You keep saying we and us," Viren finally said.

"But it hasn't touched me." For all that he couldn't move, Ryland managed to turn his head just enough to note that Viren indeed wasn't touched by the dangerous Glyph. A stroke of luck? Something else? Ryland didn't know but he appreciated that there was at least one of them free to act immediately.

"I can go get help," Viren said.

"If it's stopping you from casting magic too, sir, then I can just swim all the way back." Ryland really didn't think that was the best of ideas. They were way too far out at sea. Besides being quite high up as well. Dropping Viren here would be like dropping him right on cement, though the water's choppy surface would help against that.

"One moment," Ryland said.

"I should be able to find a way to break out of this Glyph's hold. We don't need to do anything drastic." Apparently, that was the absolute worst thing to say. For that was when furious magic decided to spike in the far distance. Ryland felt marginally cold, like a shiver was trying to run up his spine. The distant magic crackled, like lightning slowed down to a thousandth of its natural speed and thorning through the world. With the magic came a building presence, an otherness that he hadn't felt in a long time.

A burgeoning sense of emergence. A fatality he needed to prevent. This time, the shiver did rush up his spine. Those who had set up this whole mess had immediately taken advantage of his current predicament. Viren and Acrypha didn't sense it at first. They only noticed Ryland staring off into the distance. And that was enough to set their alarms off too. Both of them followed the direction of his gaze, expressions of concern heavy on their faces.

"Sir," Viren said.

"Is something happening out there?"

"Something is certainly stirring…" Ryland made a split-second decision. Every moment he wasted here was another when something horrible might occur. He had already cast his magic, and was confident that it would work in time. But he wasn't free. And that would take time. Time he really didn't wish to take.

"Viren," Ryland said.

"Since you're the only among us free enough to act, I need you to do something for me."

"I… I'll try, sir," Viren said. There was a strange hesitation to him, a wobble that Ryland hadn't really expected. Not from him of all people.

"Are you alright, Viren?" Ryland asked.

"Because this task needs you to brave your fears, face your hesitations, and proceed onwards anyway."

"I—""I'm sorry!" Acrypha said. She looked miserable.

"I don't want to make this about me again, but I'm sorry, Viren. I really am. I didn't mean it." Ryland wasn't quite sure what had happened between the two of them. And while a part of him was pressed for time, he decided against interrupting. They knew full well how much time mattered too.

"It's fine." It clearly wasn't fine, judging by the tone of his voice, but there wasn't much room to disagree with him at the moment.

"I'm going to do what I can, weak or not." Acrypha winced hard. Her face looked like it was on the verge of crumbling again.

"I'm weak too. It's why I ran away." Viren took a deep breath before collecting himself.

"Then looks like we've both got room for growth then." She met his eyes and nodded resolutely.

"Sir," Viren said.

"I can go. I can do this. I swear." Ryland nodded.

"I know. I have faith in you." He looked at Viren and Acrypha.

"It seems there is quite a lot we need to discuss, but perhaps we can take care of it after our current predicament." They stared at him. Admittedly, despite the tension, he had spoken very mildly"Alright, Viren," Ryland said." [Remnant Domain]. There. Please carry that with you. Now, are you ready to get going?" Viren jumped—which looked rather odd since he was floating mid-air—as a black orb appeared before him. He caught it instinctively, if a bit carefully. The depths of the orb glowed a bluish white.

"What is this, sir? And what exactly am I supposed to be doing?" Ryland layered a few more defensive spells on Viren. He blessed the fact that he could continue to cast spells even while the Glyph of Multidimensional Chain was keeping him trapped.

"Just a bit of my manasoul," Ryland said. He ignored Viren's gawking.

"You don't need to worry. All you must do is get to the Manabreak mine. I need to see what's going on there. Normally, I'd deposit you right there, but I believe the magic I'm sensing is warded against almost all forms of disruption apart from physically forcing one's way through." Viren swallowed. Doubt surfaced on his face." Can I force myself through, sir?"

"As I said, you need not worry." Ryland gave him an encouraging smile, glancing at the black orb of swirling magic now in his arms.

"I will be right there with you."