Chapter 856 856 - Two options
Giggling lightly, Elora separated from Erik's lips, shrank her body, and flew up to sit on Erik's shoulder. Meanwhile, Erik stepped closer to the bed and folded his arms, keeping a close eye on the unconscious, immobile Meilin.
"Well…" Elora began hesitantly as she started answering Astrid's question. "That's kind of the question, isn't it?" The fairy started chewing on a strand of her beautiful crimson hair, as she often did when deep in thought.
"We'll have some time to figure it out, at least…" she mumbled softly. "Her weakness and the dome's connection to Erik's dimension allowed him to pull her in here safely, and as long as she's in this place, any connection between her and the outside world is severed."
She looked around at the dark, smooth stone that the structure inside Erik's dimension was made of. "Not only are we in a separate dimension, but our home also has several protections against outside influence. It's not impossible for Imogene to have methods unknown to me, but… I'm ninety-nine per cent certain she's completely cut off."
She then pointed at their capture. "Furthermore, when she tried to blow herself up so hastily, she left her magic core fully open to my suppression sigil. The sigils inscribed in this room and on the bed will keep her both immobile and asleep, but even if they fail, the sigil on her core will ensure she can't access her magic core in any way."
Nodding, Erik jumped in with the thing he cared about the most: potentially keeping her away from his family.
"And even if all those things failed,"—he thumbed behind him at a section of empty wall—"you may have noticed the missing door. Just as Elora once turned the roof of my room into a window to the sky, she's figured out how to configure more of the structure at will. Teleportation by me is now the only way to get in and out of this room."
Emma and Astrid both nodded instinctively. Though the missing door didn't cut this room off from the larger structure, they were all very aware of the toughness of this dark stone that their home was made of. Since neither Erik nor Astrid—nor even Emily's corrosive darkness—could put a scratch on the stuff, there was no way Meilin could.
Still, Astrid then waved her hand while glancing at Erik and Elora with amusement. "Alright, alright, I get it. She's not going anywhere, but that's not what I asked! It's not like I doubted your commitment to keeping our family safe. If Erik thought there was any chance for us to be happy living a cloistered life, he would have already built one of those isolation cube things like what's under Enkare Nkai and put us in there for safety!"
Emma and Elora giggled at the image Astrid created, while Erik smirked wryly. She wasn't wrong. Erik's desire to keep his family safe was at constant odds with his desire to see them happy, and if it wasn't for the latter desire, he would have already found a way to keep them locked up in absolute safety somewhere.
Was that healthy? No… but it's not like he had the time to look into the psychological issues his past gave him. So long as those two balanced each other out, he could just live in compromise.
"What I asked was," Astrid continued as she turned to wave at the unconscious Meilin, "what the hell do we do with her? It's not like we can interrogate her while she's unconscious."
She glanced back at Elora with a cocked eyebrow. "Unless you're going to read her memory? You can do that, right?"
Before Elora could answer, Erik waved his hand with spatial energy. The next thing everyone knew, they were out of that room and into their main living area.
"This might turn into a long discussion, so let's get comfortable," he sighed, before letting himself drop onto a nearby sofa. Though Emma's healing during the battle had helped refresh him physically, mentally he was still a little exhausted.
Elora and Astrid nodded before sitting down on nearby seats as well, with the former enlarging her body once more. Emma, however, didn't skip a beat and instead walked over a nearby tea station.
Erik watched her with a warm grin, and moments later she returned with tea and snacks for everyone. She did it all with a serene smile and without a word. Then, when done, she sat down on Erik's lap and nestled in there.
Astrid and Elora watched her with indulgent smirks. Even the fairy had to admit that Emma's constant caring earned her that place on Erik's lap, even above herself. Her favourite place was his shoulder, anyway.
"To answer your question," Elora then continued as she turned to Astrid with a thoughtful frown, "attempting to read her memories is one option, but not a great one. Not without knowing exactly what fail-saves Imogene put in place… because there's no doubt she did."
"Fail saves like what?" Erik then asked, frowning thoughtfully. He also hadn't discussed any of this with Elora yet. He'd been busy the past week and had only discussed the capture plan with her in that time.
The fairy shrugged somewhat helplessly. "Any number of things, unfortunately! Though Imogene has spent the last however-many-thousands-of-years-exactly on Earth, she was already older than me before Earth was cut off. Her power may not be above mine now after having been drained by Earth's aetherium vacuum, but her experience very much is."
Sighing, she sipped her tea and continued, "A general sweep for traps, countermeasures, and fail-safes would only work if my power were higher than hers. For anything else, I'd have to know what to look for, and I don't. I could check for the basics, but I'd never trust it enough to think memory searching is the best way to get information out of her."
"Fair enough," Astrid nodded, before narrowing her eyes and hitting her palm with her fist. "So, how about we do it the old-fashioned way? Wake her up, then beat some sense into her until she's willing to talk!"
Giggling, Elora shook her head. "Although I appreciate the enthusiasm, I'd never trust information gained purely through torture. And it wouldn't work, anyway. I already checked, and she's bound by a Bond of Service, like our servants are. No 'physical encouragement' would get her to say anything useful."
Astrid groaned and leaned back in her seat. As usual, she preferred the direct approach. "Always so complicated…" she grumbled under her breath and crossed her arms. "Did you ever tell us if it's possible to remove those bonds?"
"I'm not sure," Elora shrugged. "But it is possible… and difficult. Once again, I'd need to be more powerful than Imogene, or… Ironically, I could remove it right now if I had this confessor's cooperation."
Everyone, even Emma, looked at her with deadpan expressions. Though the Bond of Service didn't prevent freedom of thought, meaning Meilin could theoretically be convinced into wanting to break the Bond, none of her behaviour had suggested this would be a viable strategy.
Rolling her eyes at their looks, Elora shrugged. "Don't look at me like that, I'm just giving you the information." Turning a little more sombre, she then put her drink down and frowned. "Regardless… I have thought of two options for getting what we want out of her."