Magic is Programming
B2 Chapter 34: A String Grasped

"A new move? They have supplied a new item for you?"

Captain Granlan shook his head, not considering that the person on the other end of the communication talisman couldn't see him. "They have arranged for its delivery tomorrow morning. The job is to break into House Hadral in force, prove their defenses inadequate, and plant an item the client provided for Hadral to discover afterward. It seems our mysterious supplier wants to magnify the degree of vulnerability we demonstrate by helping us break into House Hadral's most secure vault to plant the item there, rather than merely in the manor."

"House Hadral? Hmm." The voice paused for several seconds. "They are among the weaker houses, and not especially noteworthy. Do you know why your client chose to target them?"

Granlan shook his head again. "My company built much of our reputation specifically on not asking about such details of our clients' affairs. Breaking that policy now would provoke suspicion, so I can only speculate, and I have little to found any speculation on."

"What about the item you are to plant?"

"It is sealed and protected against inspection. The seal is designed to open only for a Hadral."

"I see."

The voice went silent for about a minute, then a different voice spoke through the same talisman. "Proceed with the House Hadral job. This investigation is too important to risk compromising it by protecting them. As for the special break-in equipment, I will send a Crown agent to inspect it at dawn tomorrow. Be ready to cooperate with the agent as needed."

Captain Granlan nodded. "Confirmed. I will hand over the equipment as soon as it arrives. Granlan out."

Ressara lay in her tent, paying no attention to the early morning light, as she checked Carlos's level yet again, then Amber's, and finally her own. I'm being silly. I know I'm being silly. It's just… I'm Level 26, and they're only Level 25. How? They're orichalcum-rank nobles, and I'm just gold-rank, not even platinum. This shouldn't be possible. They're absorbing aether even in their sleep, while I have to actively concentrate to do it, and that's on top of them absorbing 6 times as fast as I do! How the hell am I the one pulling ahead? I know they said that nobles are more powerful per level, but they didn't even hint that the margin is that huge!

She shook herself and started dressing. She laughed once as a consequence came to mind. Well, I suppose this means I don't have to spend as much time advancing my power each day anymore to avoid being a burden.

Trinlen frowned and cocked his head. That's strange. The aether here is still 3 Levels above me, but the moment I compressed my essence to Level 26, my aether absorption rate dropped like a rock. It's down to, hmm… Less than 1/6th of what it used to be, and it's holding steady. Could this be the plateau I heard rumors about, where some promising adventurers stall out? But why now, and why is it so severe?

He contemplated the issue for a few minutes and experimented with trying to draw in more aether, only to quickly feel the soul-deep sting of aether overload. Shit. This is bad. I won't be able to keep up at this rate. He took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Well, I have to tell the boss. It's too important, and besides, he'll know the moment he sees me anyway. And who knows, maybe he'll have a miraculous fix for me.

Trinlen focused on the mental bond that was always in the back of his mind and reached through. [Hey boss? Sorry to interrupt your lesson with Felton, but I've got a problem, here. As soon as I hit Level 26, my aether absorption dropped to a fraction, and I don't know why. If we don't fix it somehow, I'll be stuck falling behind.]

[Hmm? Oh!] Carlos's mental reply strangely projected excitement rather than alarm. [You reached the Tier 6 unification. 6 of your 8 soul structures merged into 1. Now you have room to make several more new structures again.]

Trinlen blinked. Then he blinked a few more times, tilted his head, and raised an eyebrow high while squinting with his other eye. [Wait, what? I can make more soul structures now? What?]

[Oh, right, that's a secret of nobility. You're fine as a highly placed important staff member, but don't spread it around; powerful people would get upset about it.] A tinge of annoyance mixed with embarrassment flickered over the bond, then shifted back to excitement. [Anyway, I have some suggestions for you. We might have to pare it down a bit, trim some peripheral features and such, but you'll need certain things to easily work with the new approach we're taking with spell design. You saw bits of it in what we explained about my Find Path improvements, but there's so much more still!]

Slowly, Trinlen's mouth curved into a wide smile. [Oh, really now. I'm intrigued. Please, tell me more!]

[Hold on a moment, let me see…] Carlos's mental voice went quiet for a while. [Alright, looking at the synergies we helped you with, I believe it's your spell controller and spell conceptualizer that got left out of the merge. Which is convenient for this, because what I have in mind could be described as greatly expanding on the theme of the spell conceptualizer. I call it an "integrated development environment," and most critically you'll need the ability to work with the new spell language I'm making. Hmm, with the slots you have available to work with, we'll have to drop or consolidate a couple things. I really should have worked this out in advance, sorry; give me a minute.]

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Trinlen hesitated. [Wait, aren't you still in Felton's morning lesson? You shouldn't stop that just for me.]

Carlos responded with light laughter. [Don't worry, I can multitask. This isn't even distracting me. Now, as I was saying…]

Norlan, veteran mage of the Crown's service, sat in Captain Granlan's private study and scrutinized the object on the table in front of her. "This little thing is supposed to crack House Hadral's strongest vault?"

Granlan nodded and reached forward from beside her to point at a small black circle on the stubby steel cylinder. "Yes. We'll have to place it in front of the vault door and touch that spot to activate it. It will unlock the door and open a hole in the wards, according to the instructions that came with it." He waved at the single small paper note placed on the table.

Norlan leaned forward for a closer look at the marked spot. "Huh. I'd readily believe that the mana in it is enough to crack most common wards, but a noble house's best vault?" She held back from voicing more details of her skepticism. Whoever made this has shown high paranoia as well as incredible capabilities. Best to be cautious around it. She nodded. "Marked touch activation, when placed at the vault door. Got it. You ma–" She coughed. "Thank you, Captain. I can take it from here."

She silently cursed at herself as Granlan left. Damn it, I almost dismissed him like an underling. I know better than that! To deal with a truly clever and paranoid enemy, you have to match their paranoia. They could have built a remote observation enchantment into this device to watch for signs of anyone trying to investigate them. It's why I came here out of uniform.

She sighed and refocused on her task. Okay, first step: block any signals the device might try to send. That could itself tip them off, but it can't be helped. If they're that paranoid, then it's better to have them know only that they didn't get an expected signal than to let them know details of how I'm analyzing the device.

Norlan brought the appropriate spell to mind and fed mana into it, her spell activator negating any need to speak its incantation. The knowledge of it passed through her mind, but with her long experience, all that really registered consciously was the spell's name: Dimensional Mana Cage. Intangible walls of mana and essence formed in all directions around her and the table, and a sense of almost oppressive isolation came upon her.

All around her, Granlan and each of the other Black Blades disappeared from her mana sense, along with their impressive – for commoner mercenaries, at least – armory. Her dim awareness of the city beyond their domain faded as well, leaving her feeling alone in a way that she rarely felt. Even children had enough traces of mana for her to passively sense them from half a mile away, and she was rarely that far from the nearest other person. More than that, the cage's walls also extended in some strange way sideways of reality, in the manner of how teleport spells traveled, and her more esoteric sense of that sideways direction faded as well.

She noted the change, but dismissed it. Blocking her own senses like this technically made her more vulnerable, but Granlan knew better than to betray the Crown, and anyone else would have to get through him and the rest of the Black Blades to even reach her. If anything, blocking her mana sense of them actually helped by removing distractions so she could better focus on the device, the only thing that was locked with her inside the cage and thus still in reach of her senses.

Norlan smiled. "Now then, let's see what this mystery is made of." She called a second spell to mind, one she'd only learned recently: Analyze Enchantment. She began forming the spell, but before she could finish, the stubby cylinder's enchantment started reacting. Huh. I was warned that these devices might have active countermeasures for this spell, but I didn't expect it to react before the spell even fully took shape. Wait, that's not… Oh Crap!

She hastily grabbed the enchantment with raw mana manipulation, trying frantically to stop what it was doing, then followed up with a Stasis spell, even spending a pre-prepared instance of it for the slight speed advantage. Stasis couldn't truly stop anything, but with an uncomfortably profligate expenditure of mana it could at least slow things down enough for her to have a little time to think.

She tried to ignore her rapidly draining mana pool as she focused her mana sense as finely as she could manage. It's one subcomponent of the enchantment that's activated, and it's starting to tear the whole thing apart. This is completely different from the active countermeasure I knew about. That was designed to prevent detection and go completely unnoticed if possible. This is… Her eyes widened in realization. It's a failsafe contingency, specifically for items that are openly unusual such that spontaneous self-destruction would not raise suspicion. It probably reacted to having its signals blocked, not to the analysis spell. Damn. This is going to be tricky, and it's already done some damage that I can't reverse.

Norlan refined her examination, searching for the specific parts that were actively executing the destruction. Ah, there's one. I don't think I can aim this finely enough to completely avoid damaging another part of it myself, but some collateral damage is better than letting the total self-destruct proceed. Essence Sever! A tiny blade of essence, fueled by a sizable droplet of mana, cut into the enchantment, breaking off the sharp point of a stabbing tendril. She grimaced at the gash it left in a nearby section, but quickly moved on. She cast Essence Sever four more times before the cylinder's enchantment stopped damaging itself, and she watched it closely for another few seconds before she finally released her Stasis spell.

She slumped back in her chair for a moment, then gathered herself back up and focused on what still remained of the enchanted device in front of her. Well, we might have to wait for another one to do a proper analysis – if this incident doesn't spook them off from ever helping the Black Blades again – but this might still be intact enough to yield useful information. Let's see what Analyze Enchantment can make of it, and then I'll follow up with our older analysis techniques.