Chapter 395 – Countermeasures
Mage Fletcher showed Damion the volcano, and with the aid of his auto-mapper, they also mapped the area for 50 kilometers. Mage Fletcher was quite surprised to find that the secret location her family had been using as a dumping ground and as fuel for sneak attacks, was actually a chain of islands, each one containing an active volcano.
The two surmised that Mage Fletcher’s ancestors must have traveled far and wide to find such a secluded place and had at some point, managed to cross open water. Since even after flying around the islands and mapping them further, they were too far from the mainland for Damion’s auto-mapper to see anything but open ocean at its edges, the volcanic islands turned out to be like Mage Teft’s location for Atlantis, a location shrouded in mystery that the auto-mapper could not place with the rest of its maps.
When the day of Damion’s meeting with Headmaster Sorin arrived, he made a Portal to the mountain range above the valley like before. This time, once again wearing his Metamorphic Bracelet to disguise himself as Mage Picard. After waiting for several hours, the Headmaster finally arrived, along with four other mages, each at A Rank and with the Wind affinity.
“Good to see you made it on time,” Headmaster Sorin said, greeting Damion.
“You sure picked an out of the way place. Are these four the ones you want to enter Atlantis?" Damion asked, trying to sound ignorant of the real plan.
“Not exactly. You see the valley between the mountains?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to open a Portal large enough to cover the mouth of the valley.”
“Opening a Portal that large will take more mana. Do you have my payment?”
“I do, but I won’t pay you until you open the Portal to Atlantis and then go through yourself. My people will follow you through and give you the payment.”
“No deal. I’ll open the Portal, then you pay me and then I’ll hold the Portal open for a minute, and you can send whomever you want through,” Damion countered.
“Have you gained access to Atlantis?” Headmaster Sorin asked, abandoning the negotiation for the moment.
“I have. I can open a Portal to just about anywhere in the city.”
Headmaster Sorin surprised Damion by taking out a tablet and opening up a map of Atlantis. Damion realized that he should not be too surprised, since the auto-mapper automatically sent updates to the network. Atlantis being able to be pulled up by anyone was to be expected, of course, even if they could see the map, they could not tell where Atlantis actually was compared to the rest of human civilization.
“I want you to open it here,” Headmaster Sorin pointed to a place in the city. It was a large open market square, one that Damion knew his mother went to frequently to shop.
“That won’t be a problem, but opening a Portal in such a public place will likely lead to an immediate response by the local Justiciars.”
“I’m not worried,” Headmaster Sorin said before handing Damion a small bag. “Here is half your payment.”
“And the other half?” Damion asked after verifying the bag contained five aether coins.
“Available once you open the Portal. And take these,” Headmaster Sorin handed Damion a case with six vials, each was a high rank mana potion. “Once you go through, hold the Portal open as long as possible. Once my man sees that you have used all the vials, he will give you the remainder of your payment.”
Even without aura detection, Damion was able to tell that Headmaster Soring was lying. But that did not matter. He was going to open the Portal, and most likely right after that these A Rank people were going to start driving the Demonic Beasts through it, he doubted any of these people would be coming through, which he thought was a shame. Damion’s one regret about this plan was that he was not going to get to see the look on Headmaster Sorin’s face as he checked for updates to the Atlantis map and saw no damages.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“Alright then, I guess I will head down there,” Damion said, before launching himself off the mountain.
He could have opened a Portal to down in the valley, but he decided it was better this way. As he plummeted towards the ground, he periodically cast Blink to change his course, letting him avoid ledges and other hazards, as well as halt his momentum. Each Blink stilled his motion, so after he reappeared, he began falling again. Once Damion reached the valley floor, he focused on visualizing the volcanic island and opened the Portal a few meters above a caldera that was filled with lava.
“Alright! It’s good to go!” Damion shouted up to Headmaster Sorin. He then stepped through the Portal and cast Blink the moment he was through. Instead of plummeting into the volcano, Damion appeared on the lip of the caldera, and he then sat down and set up his tablet to record the Demonic Beasts when they started coming through the Portal.
Not long after he set up his tablet the Demonic Beasts start rushing through the Portal. At first it was just a couple, but then there more and more. Damion guessed Headmaster Sorin and his helpers had caused a stampede of sorts.
After nearly ten minutes of holding the Portal open, in which Demonic Beasts were still coming through, though not nearly as many as at first, he decided to close it. There was no way that Headmaster Sorin could have expected him to hold open a Portal that long, not to mention the fact that the Headmaster had promised Mage Picard additional payment when his people came through. As far as Damion could tell, none of the mages had passed through the Portal.
Removing his Metamorphic Bracelet, Damion cast Portal again, this time actually opening a gateway to Atlantis and stepping through. He appeared inside the city council chambers where the S Rank mages of Atlantis were waiting.
“So, how did it go?”
“I believe it went off without a hitch,” Damion answered Mage Teft’s question. “Headmaster Sorin drove at least a few thousand Demonic Beasts through the Portal, and they all fell right into the lava. I almost feel sorry for them.”
“Almost?” Mage Fletcher raised an eyebrow.
“On one hand, the Demonic Beasts were pretty much minding their own business, but on the other, they would have eventually been a threat to someone. I’m just glad we cut this attempt off. The question is, how do we protect the city from another, similar attempt?”
“No method of protection is foolproof, our isolation is our greatest advantage, but as we have just seen, there are ways to strike at us despite our precautions,” Mage Teft said.
“Is it possible to block Portals from opening?” Damion asked. Despite having the Spatial affinity, he was not fully versed in all the ins and outs of the affinity.
“Yes, I can construct an artifact that will block the Spatial affinity within a certain radius, the problem is, it will interfere with any application of the Spatial affinity, and it is not always successful,” Mage Fletcher told the group.
“Why would it not always be effective?” Damion asked.
“Simple, the artifacts would require mana to power, and we can set them up throughout the city, but artifacts have no will themselves. A strong enough mage can overwhelm their blocking effort. If that happens, then it will be as if they aren’t there at all.”
“Then we are still in the same situation as before, not able to fully protect against attacks from Spatial mages,” Mage Strand surmised. “I don’t think setting these things up and causing everyone with a spatial artifact or the weaker spatial mages we’ve allowed in to be inconvenienced.”
“Maybe we can bluff Headmaster Sorin,” Damion suggested. All eyes in the room turned to Damion and he felt a little subconscious as he continued on. “Headmaster Sorin knows, if not now, then soon, that the attack failed. There is no way he would think the Portal would stay open as long as it did, maybe he thinks I fled as soon as I entered, keeping the Portal open as a distraction and have no idea what happened or maybe something else happened and kept the Portal open. Doesn’t really matter I suppose. Mage Picard can completely vanish. Seemingly meeting the same fate as the Demonic Beasts.”
“You want to make him think that we have some means of defending against foreign Portals?” Mage Strand questioned.
“Yes, but not directly. If we just go up and accuse him, then he’ll know something was up, after all, outside of his people the only person who knew about the attack was me. But if Mage Fletcher goes before the S Rank Assembly and advises them that an unknown Spatial mage opened a Portal to Atlantis in an attempt to attack us and that her special countermeasures diverted the Portal somewhere else, it makes it more believable.”
“The councils for the White Zones at the very least will want such countermeasures for themselves,” Mage Fletcher pointed out.
“In that case, all you need to do is say no. Tell them you would have shared the countermeasures, but because of the attack on Atlantis, you can’t risk exposing how they work, since we don’t know who orchestrated the attack.”
“Devious,” Mage Fletcher said with a smile. “I like it.”
“Without Headmaster Sorin knowing how our method works, he won’t risk the same approach. In addition to that, the S Rank Assembly will be aware of someone making an attempt on a White Zone. Now all we need is proof,” Mage Strand pointed out.
“I think this will work,” Damion said, taking out his tablet and projecting the recording he had made of the Demonic Beasts falling out of the Portal and into the lake of lava. “I’m sure this will make everyone think twice about making another attack like this.”