BECMI Chapter 56 – A Scale of Time
As everyone assembled quickly before the Portal once again, I casually heaped another thirty-foot suckered appendage up on one of the Disks in a spiral, and waited by the Cone while everyone got into formation one more time.
I looked around at them all, sighed again. “A quick time. I think we have one, maybe two more before the Portal is unstable.” I bent to the Silver Cone Temporal Beacon, lifting it off one more time to reveal another Gold Temporal Cone within.
Dread’s butt came down, everyone straightened. A minute later, “FREEDOM OR DEATH!” rang in the waters, and I was leading the charge back in time once again.
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Two jumps later…
The Portal was sputtering behind me. The Water Weird in front of me, its long spiraling form snapping to attention as I came through and the water changed to Airy Water around it, probably thought it was invisible.
Purify Water was a pretty niche spell, especially Cast from Valence. But the malevolent Purple thing processed my Aura of Water Elemental Command and flinched back. The corners of the room bubbled and roiled as no less than three powerful Water Elementals rose to life in them even as the spell reached out and removed every damn thing in the water from it that didn’t belong there, by dint of a giant phantasmal black skull manifesting and the roses in its eyes sucking in all the impurities about it.
The Water Elementals were fine, but the transparent serpent that was the Water Weird was empowered by fell energies and purpose, more an evil fey thing than a true Elemental. The spell tore apart its essence and removed it from existence.
The incoming Elementals, under the Charmed control of the Weird, found themselves abruptly released and facing a mortal who radiated a monstrous lethal danger to them, inside a nice bubble of the purest possible water that could exist. They were both released from slavery and suddenly in a very comfortable environment, Airy or not.
Very prudently, they retreated back to the corners of the room.
My company was hustling through, but all of them could feel and see that the Portal was unstable once they got into position and turned around.
“There are two more Water Weirds up top, and six Elementals! Priests, Purify away the Weirds, and I will vent the Elementals out the door!”
I pulled out a larger piece of blue dragonscale, and brought the Rune upon it to life just as Hanvol came through with the Cone.
The Rune of Time flared hard and strong, and the destabilizing Portal instantly crystallized and hummed to strong certainty! I handed it to Hanvol, locked his arm in place to hold it, and turned back around.
“Four minutes! Everyone out of the way of the Priests and I! You Elementals, follow us up!”
Revered Cruxin and Hammer Ogvier followed me up the stairs as quickly as they could. The door was Knocked open ahead of me by one of the waiting elves, and we surged out into the kitchen.
The Weirds had certainly felt their compatriot die, and the Eternal Lights suddenly illuminating everything definitely told them they had visitors. They were not expecting the Faerie Fires to surround the two of them, even as the other Elementals began to converge on us. The two Priests lifted their glowing symbols, and the water flashed and cleared before them.
The Water Weirds, their long serpentine forms outlined in crimson flowers with obsidian stalks, wobbled, wavered, and were washed away by what looked to be two great spectral hammers sweeping through the waters and disposing of them, leaving absolute clarity in the water behind them.
The Elementals, barely visible in the waters by themselves, moreso in the Airy Water, hove to an immediate halt, staring at me as the three others from below flowed in behind me.
“I am the Lady Edge, and I am setting you free,” I stated in Aquan, striding to the open door and lowering Dread to touch the Doorward there. With an invisible push and release of pressure, the barrier of Time was released, and the nine Water Elementals all spun past us and by, surging out into the open sea beyond and scattering the fish that had been gathering to investigate the place with joyous burbling in Aquan.
I waved my hand, bringing up a Detect Precious Metals and Minerals, sweeping it through the place rapidly, knowing what to ignore.
From a corner of the upper party room and under the bed of the owner’s room, I pulled two coffers with Funf’s TK, dragging them forth. One was wrought of ivory edged in silver, the other in gold and obsidian. I just held them in a TK grip, turning around and pointing, and the two Priests hustled to stay ahead of me as we all hurried back to the stairs down.
We were at least three hundred feet under the surface of the ocean. I was praying hard that this was our last stop, having no idea what the surface looked like above us.
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Everyone had already gotten into position, Cirru returned to her humanoid seeming in order to fit through the Portal more easily. Hanvol was visibly tense as he held the scale of Time in place, fixing the Portal, and I stepped up to relieve him.
“Let us pray to Heaven watching that our journey is over,” I whispered, bending to bring out the Golden Cone once again. It rose into position and vanished, whereupon I lifted the Silver Cone up, solemnly handed it to Hanvol, and took the Scale from him.
The Portal shimmered in front of us. “One minute! Make haste! We will win free or die, and I will not let you die!”
“FREEDOM OR DEATH!” roared back at me, and, Buck hanging onto my belt, I strode into the Portal.
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My first reflex was that there was no water on the other side.
My second thing was that it looked… different.
CLEAN.
The third thing was that there was a cluster of soldiers right in front of me, looking rather startled as I came out, then scrambling to lift up crossbows armed with glowing, magical Bolts in them.
The mage backing them up put a whistle to his lips.
The Sound Bubble from Dread swallowed the alarm at the same time as Funf’s TK flipped the glowing Quarrels out up from all of the guards’ crossbows and sent them clattering to the sides, making them tense even as hasty shouts cut through the frantic whistles in a language I didn’t know, except from representations in some very old tomes.
Buck squirted right past me, threaded his way past the crossbowmen before they could react, and jumped right onto the mage, smashing his head into the man’s face and sending him tumbling over and down in shock at the unexpected assault.
Cirru was already out behind me, glancing at me once.
“No killing!” I stated, even as the men here were dropping their crossbows and starting to pull out their swords.
Her Spear flicked out as did my Staff, and the four soldiers in front found their swords tumbling away from their grasps. Their calls of alarm as racing warriors surged out of the glowing Portal behind us didn’t get very far.
“Alive!” I repeated firmly, Magevoice making sure I was heard. “No killing! Take them alive!”
They were easily pushed back against the wall by a dozen glowing Spears seething with magic they very much did not want to test. Their eyes and faces were completely defiant as they shouted at us, but I didn’t even bother to translate yet.
“This one looks like a wizard,” Cirru said, as our force spread out through the room with sure speed and rehearsed practice, the ascent team already in place to lead the way. She reached down as Buck got off the chest of the human he had his knife to the throat of, and hauled the mage effortlessly upright by his shirt.
He had the requisite component pouches, done in leather instead of cloth, the mark of someone serving in the military and needing tougher gear. The cut of his clothing was subtly different from what I knew, as were the designs of the armor and helms of the soldiers in livery now firmly corralled against the wall, deprived of weapons and unable to do anything, shutting up after one too many shouts were met with snarls from Hargold Skifnerson.
Hanvol came forth, clutching the Silver Cone protectively, and looked around sharply as he emerged.
I held out my hand, and he passed the Cone over immediately. I inserted it into my sleeve, whereupon it vanished and was gone, Deeppockets sending it into the Portable Hole folded up and secured behind an armored section of my boot.
Everyone was wet, but the air was temperate. I waved my hand, and the air sizzled and hissed as the briny water came boiling off us all. It was promptly sent directly to the drain in the corner, leaving everyone much more comfortable and not needing a fresh bath to get rid of the smell and itching.
I looked at my Detect Time.
-3054 Years Crowning. Before the cataclysm that had destroyed Darkmoor, obviously.
“The place is clean!” Prince Ukker gave voice first to what everyone was wondering. Obviously we knew the sight of it inside and out, but we had never seen it truly intact and cleaned up.
I tilted my head upward, looking at the Auras above.
“There are a lot of people above, scattered about. Over three dozen of them, as a matter of fact. I find myself not really caring about their motivations at this time, although we can’t blame them if they get upset that such a large force is now inside what they probably thought was a very secure building.
“Our objective is to reach and test a coin.” I paused significantly. “The till was undisturbed at our previous jumps.”
Everyone around sighed.
“We don’t want to make enemies if we do not have to, but this should be the end of the loop. From here, we either stay in the past, or return to the future.”
“Freedom! I can almost taste it!” Bjorn proclaimed excitedly, his eyes gleaming, ignoring the way the native soldiers glared at him. “Call it, Lady Edge! We will fight our way out of here if we must, as we fought our way to here!”
The presence of so many elves and dwarves seemed to be confusing the natives, especially the wizard Cirru was clearly intimidating.
“Um, excuse me?” the man asked in halting Dwarven, enough to earn a bunch of eyes turning his way intently. “It, it would probably be a good thing for you to surrender now?” he said, keeping a stiff upper lip as Cirru kept him effortlessly up on his toes, ignoring the bespectacled fellow’s broken nose. “This Inn is completely surrounded by the King’s Royal Guard, and several of his champions. Even as many as you are, you aren’t getting out of here alive if you attempt to flee!”
His answer was some low chuckles and knowing glances my way. He caught the glancing of the eyes and turned his attention on me warily, then blinked as he processed what I actually looked like, and went red with embarrassment.
“I think,” I said softly in sharply chiming Dwarven, leaning in just so, “that you do not know what and who you are dealing with.”
He paled immediately. “You cannot leave the Inn without permission, Lady!” he squeaked. “Surely you know this!”
I just looked at him, ignoring the smiles breaking out all around, then waved my hand at the men in the corner.
The Greater Sleep washed over them, and the soldiers collapsed in a heap. It was late at night, and they were tired, anyway.
At the same time, the wizard’s spell components, in six different places on him, all lifted off of him and were deposited on the Disk in front of Hanvol. “Follow me. We secure the taproom, and if people want to get violent, then we are going to get violent.”