Peter and the Heart of Alchemy (War of Contractia Book 5)

by Tj Dixon

  “I’m sorry to put you through this, but please just keep the magic up until we enter the room. Rin, Hermes and I will kill the goblins before they can call for help or harm the prisoners, but we need to be in the room and they all need to be there too. Fighting in this tunnel is impossible.”

  “I’m doing my best.” Midori says in pain and anger.

  “Thank you Midori. You’ll have my eternal gratitude if you manage this.” I tell her.

  “I’d better have.” Midori mutters. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her like this, so the magic must really be taking its toll on her.

  As the prisoners and goblins enter the room the seconds pass by slower than ever before. Even when I waited to enter the arena for my first battle, time passed quicker than this. Finally though, the last prisoner is shoved into the room by the last of the goblins. I force myself to wait a moment for them to get far enough inside to make space for us.

  The moment there is enough space I fly us into the room and up into the air at full speed. I sense Midori’s magic fade before I am ready to attack. There is no time to target the goblins so I send weak but huge lightning bolts in every direction. The goblins shield but the prisoners are knocked out. Using the shields as targets I send stronger lightning bolts and blast through their shields before they have time to use magic to contact their allies.

  “Sorry. I couldn’t last.” Midori tells me weakly and then her head falls forward, hitting mine. Since we are already pressed together and kept up in the air with my flight magic she just stays in place, but from her aura I can easily tell that she is unconscious and not simply tired.

  “Good work Midori.” I say quietly and lower us to the ground. Once we reach the ground Rin and Hermes take a step back and start to look around at the prisoners and the charred corpses of the goblin guards. I put my arms around Midori and hold her up whilst I consider our options.

  Sooner or later the goblins will be missed. It is also possible other goblins may bring more prisoners here before that happens. Letting the goblins leave here without our being noticed would have been better. Now we are in a battle against time and I don’t even know where to begin.

  I suppose the first thing to do is to start freeing the prisoners from the goo, or would it be better to find any mages first? Then focus on freeing the people who can fight?

  “Peter…” Rin says sounding just as worried as I am.

  “How easily can we get rid of that goo?” I ask and Rin winces.

  “If I had an alchemist’s lab full of potion ingredients I could probably brew something up that would dissolve it in a few days.” Rin tells me and I gulp as I realise how hopeless the situation really is.

  “Maybe the other prisoners have already had the goo removed.” I say, but I really am clutching at straws here. The goblins wouldn’t remove the goo unless there was something else to restrain the prisoners with. Most likely the other prisoners are attached to the floor or the roof like the men we saw earlier were attached to that stone bar.

  “I’ll take a look.” Rin says but I shake my head.

  “Stay here and find a way to remove the goo without a lab or much time.” I tell Rin and she blinks in shock.

  “That’s impossible.” Rin says desperately.

  “Then make it possible, because if you can’t we’re probably going to die.” I tell her. She looks at me angrily for a moment before sighing.

  “I’ll see what I can do.” Rin tells me but there is fear and deep resentment in her voice. I’d be surprised if there wasn’t.

  “Hermes, take care of Midori!” I call out and Hermes, who had been looking closely at one of the prisoners hurries over to take Midori from me.

  “Where are you going?” Hermes asks me as I run out of the room.

  “To the other prisoners!” I call back. Only after I do so do I consider that there could be enemies hidden within earshot. It’s too late to worry about that now though, and if they could hear my call they would have heard my lightning too.

  I race down the tunnel from our room and then down the opposite tunnel. At the end of the tunnel I enter the room. I find about fifty prisoners encased in goo from their feet to their necks and hanging from the ceiling in much the same way that the men were from that stone bar. The prisoners here are all women though.

  “Peter!” One of the women groans and I turn to face her. She seems vaguely familiar but I can’t think where I’ve seen her. She seems to realise that I don’t recognise her. “I’m Hilda Lightwood. Cherry and Sherry’s mother. Everyone here was part of my patrol.”

  “So you’re all mages?” I check, glad to have found her so quickly. Leaving her here is of course not an option, but we are quickly running out of options.

  “Yes. If you can get us free from this awful stuff we can help.” She tells me. Just what I was hoping for, but the crucial part is if we can get them free of it.

  I walk up closer to her and direct my senses at the goo as intensely as I can. My face is about level with where her belly must be and only a few inches away. All of a sudden some of the goo lurches forwards at me and I have to jump back with wind magic to avoid it. The goo leaves her bare belly exposed for a moment before returning and hitting her with a loud smack. I can tell from her expression that it must have hurt but she doesn’t make a sound. Instead she just grits her teeth.

  There is a scream from behind me, in the direction of the room I just came from. It is Rin’s voice. Cursing I turn and fly straight back as fast as I can. The sight when I enter the room is exactly what I feared. Rin is now covered in goo that is quickly spreading over her body. Her uniform’s protective enchantment is resisting it but her arms are both completely covered already and melded together with the goo.

  Hermes is looking on in fear, clearly with no idea what to do. I have no time to think so I just act. I raise a shield between the goo and Rin’s shoulders, which the goo is currently attacking. The shield flickers but I increase the strength and forcibly push it away from Rin.

  The goo on her arms doesn’t seem to be as firmly attached as it is to the prisoners, so it starts to slide off of her. Once the goo is pushed back all the way to Rin’s elbows it falls to the ground and melts a small hole in the ground before evaporating into a green mist. I look at the mist suspiciously but it fades into nothing after about half a minute.

  I check my mana supplies and realise I used a lot more than I would have liked. I’m down to about a quarter of my full mana now. I look at Rin though and am mostly just relieved she is ok. Her sleeves have been completely dissolved, so the prisoners’ clothes must have been completely destroyed.

  “Who were you examining?” I ask.

  “Her.” Rin says, pointing at a blonde woman. Actually every prisoner in this room is a typical Contractian. They range from very young men and women not much older than some of the Year 1s at the academy to very old people.

  “Has the goo reduced at all?” I ask.

  “No.” Rin sighs.

  “Her aura seems weaker than most of the people in this room.” I say with a frown.

  “Perhaps the goo used her power to regenerate.” Rin says very tiredly.

  “Then if we could cut off the link between the prisoners and the goo it might be easier to remove the goo.” I think aloud.

  “Yes.” Rin nods but then she sighs. “How would you do that though?”

  “Let’s go to the room opposite here. Everyone there is a mage, so it makes sense to focus on them first.” I tell Rin and Hermes. They nod in agreement. I expected protests from the prisoners but they seem to lack the will to even speak. Perhaps the goo is eating more than just their mana…

  I quickly lead the way through the tunnels to the other room. Not that it is exactly complicated since it is just a straight line between the two rooms. Hermes and Rin carry Midori, holding her up with an arm under each of her arms. Rin and Hermes clearly recognise Hilda and if she were conscious I suspect Midori would too.

  “So how?” Rin asks tir
edly.

  “Let me think for a moment.” I tell her irritably. Rin just sighs, glares at Midori for a moment and then shakes her head. I can see tired resignation in her eyes as if she has already given up, but I don’t have to time to try to cheer her up. If I can free a room full of mages that should help improve her mood as well as our chances of survival.

  Contact with a person seems to be key. The goo didn’t target the goblins so perhaps it only works on humans, or maybe… Maybe the goblins used active magic, which would make it too late to work out how they did it. That would be wasteful though, and would only take a second of lost focus to end up encased in the goo themselves. If not active magic then maybe they had an enchanted item such as clothing or jewellery. Not that I can really see ugly goblins wearing jewellery.

  “Wait here. Don’t get too close to the goo.” I tell Rin and Hermes. Rin looks at me sceptically but Hermes nods.

  “It’s not like I was planning on approaching the goo.” Rin mutters. I ignore her and run back to the first room we entered. I search a goblin but there are no traces of magic left other than my lightning. I check a few more but there’s nothing. Given how badly charred they are I suspect that any enchanted items would be wrecked beyond repair but it was worth a shot.

  I walk back to the other room slowly as I try to think of other options. If I can encase the goo in a magical shield then it should lose contact with the prisoner and be unable to attach to anyone else. Perhaps that would be enough to destroy it like the goo on Rin was destroyed. It used a lot of power with Rin, but if I isolate it from the prisoner from the very start it should be quicker and easier.

  I’m out of options so by the time I enter the room I’ve decided to try it with everything I have. I won’t stop until I’m knocked out by mana loss. If I can free even one mage it will improve our chances of survival, because they can start to replenish their mana and help free someone else. Of course the key factor if I succeed will be how long it takes for the goblins to be missed and how much power it takes to free each mage.

  “Rin and Hermes, if I’m attacked please shield me.” I tell them and they nod nervously.

  I close my eyes and focus my senses on one of the closest mages. I intentionally avoid Hilda though, because I don’t know how risky this is and don’t want to risk killing Cherry and Sherry’s mother with my first attempt. I also choose one of the younger women, because she is healthier and so probably going to be able to recover quicker and less likely to be killed if this goes wrong. I try to penetrate the goo with my senses. At first I don’t think I can, but then I realise that by combining my wind and fire senses without getting distracted by my other senses I am able to do so quite easily.

  I focus on the woman’s skin and on the outer edge of the goo. Once I have the exact shape I take a deep breath and then raise a powerful shield in direct skin contact with the woman but also all the way around the goo so it can’t escape. The goo hisses loudly and there are a few loud pops, a couple of louder bangs and then the green goo starts to fade. A few moments later it is completely gone.

  I open my eyes and drop my shield, allowing the woman to fall the couple of feet to the ground. She uses her hands to break the fall so is unhurt. She is completely naked now though and looks quite different to a girl. I blush and then feel hands covering my eyes.

  I check my mana supplies and realise that I used a LOT of mana just now. I can probably free one or two more people before replenishing my mana, but any more than that is most likely impossible.

  “Rin, can you uncover my eyes?” I ask.

  “No!” Rin tells me fiercely.

  Chapter 25 (Peter)

  Facing away from the prisoners, under Rin’s orders, I consider who to free next. The first woman is lying in one of our beds that Rin got out of her bag. Midori is lying in the other one. It should help them recover quicker so it makes sense.

  There’s nowhere to flee to so having the beds out isn’t going to slow us down if we’re attacked. In fact if we’re attacked right now we’re going to die. Without Midori we can’t even hide. Goblins eat children so surrender doesn’t strike me as wise either. Not that I would surrender even if I didn’t think they’d eat me. I’ve lived as a slave long enough. Sure we could try to hide our presence, but there’s no way we’d stay hidden for long. I’d rather die fighting than be killed one by one as they find us.

  I consider freeing Hilda next but it makes more sense to free someone younger, because what we need most right now are mages with some mana. Experience and talent are less important. I could take power from them if it came down to it.

  I choose two young women near the front and focus on penetrating the goo with my senses. Having done it once it is much easier to do it again. I can easily make out the exact shape of their bodies, which makes me blush, but is exactly what I need to do.

  It will be tricky but if I use shields on both of them at the same time it should be slightly more efficient. This way I only need to expend slightly more power at the very initial stage to create two shields compared to one shield. After that it should use the same amount of power to finalise and sustain the shields whether I do them at the same time or separately.

  The problem is that if I run out of power I may fail to free either of them. If I work the magic one at a time I can definitely free one of them. I very carefully gauge the amount of mana I have left and calculate exactly how much mana it should take to free them both, assuming that the goo is destroyed at the same rate as it was when I freed the first woman.

  I have just enough mana, but it will be close. If I free them separately I probably don’t have quite enough mana. I could take some from Hermes and Rin, but they both seem to be low on mana too. I should take a little anyway, but Rin seems in a really bad mood so I don’t want to ask her and if I just ask Hermes it will make Rin’s mood worse. I can’t quite work up the courage to ask her so I decide to go ahead without taking any mana from either of them.

  I take a deep breath, close my eyes and reaffirm the shape of both the women’s bodies below the goo. I prepare to raise shields around the goo and then quickly but very precisely raise the shields. The goo begins to attack my shields right away but I maintain the shields as efficiently as I can, avoiding wasting even a drop of mana. There are plenty of drops of sweat from my forehead as I struggle to keep my focus on maintaining both shields.

  It is taking longer this time and I’m really worried, because I feel my mana slipping away from me. I’ll continue until mana loss knocks me out though, because if I fail I’ll have wasted most of my remaining mana. I feel my consciousness slipping but I struggle to stay awake.

  All of a sudden I feel something like the cork of a bottle popping inside me. Mana seems to be flowing madly. I feel like I could do anything. The goo disappears within the shields but I feel like I have plenty of mana to free the other prisoners. What the hell, it’s worth a try, isn’t it?

  I focus on penetrating the goo with my senses and I can quickly sense the shape of the body of every woman in this room. It makes me feel weird, almost like energy is flowing through my veins in place of blood. I summon shields around all the remaining women, trapping the goo. I feel it reacting wildly against all my shields at the same time but it feels like little children knocking on a castle wall.

  The goo is gone and I drop my shields. I quickly turn around as if it is urgent that I see the fruits of my work. Instead I see Rin’s fist racing towards my right eye so I jump back, but she uses flight magic to pursue me and lands the blow on me anyway. In shock and off balance from jumping back I fall to the ground.

  “What are you doing?!” I protest, rubbing my eye and looking up at her.

  “Don’t peek.” Rin tells me firmly and glares down at me like a devil. Before I can reply though my new found energy leaves me like bats fleeing a burning cave. My vision fades and I feel myself falling backwards.

  I wake in a bed, squeezed between a wall on my left and someone’s arm on my right. I look to
my right and see Midori looking back. She puts a finger over her mouth. I frown but stay silent and open my senses. We still seem to be in the same room but it is now covered in blankets with women lying on each of them and there’s a pile of burning wood in the centre of the room providing some light and warmth.

  The women are wearing a variety of clothes ranging from plain white panties plus a white shirt, to wearing basic brown mage robes with a small enchantment to help them recover mana using the power of the stone they are lying on. I sense Hermes earth magic on all of the robes. I also sense Hermes passed out in the other bed, alongside a young woman wearing a white shirt and a short black skirt. Rin seems to be kneeling over one of the women on the opposite side of the room.

  Midori presses herself against me. She puts her right arm around me and hugs me tightly. I blush as I feel her body pressed so tightly against me. Then I see Rin standing up and glaring at us. She starts to walk towards us.

  “Rin’s looking.” I whisper to Midori but she doesn’t pull away.

  “Eternal gratitude.” Midori whispers. I did promise her that, but right now Rin looks as scary as a hungry drake.

  “That can wait.” I whisper to Midori who grins mischievously.

  “Ok, but don’t forget.” Midori whispers and then rolls away from me. Midori then calls out happily. “Good morning Rin.”

  “I don’t see what’s so good about it. In fact it’s not even morning.” Rin says a little irritably but in a surprisingly calm voice. Even her scowl is gone, though it is replaced with a very worried expression.

  “Have any more enemies come here yet?” I sit up and ask Rin.

  “No, but it’s only a matter of time.” Rin tells me.

  “Are you able to use stealth magic again and how many people can you hide?” I ask Midori but she shakes her head.

  “I need to complete a complicated ritual to shake off the aftereffects of the magic before I can use that again.” Midori tells me.

  “Are you able to complete the ritual here?” I ask but again Midori shakes her head.