Ch. 22: Adrian's Hesitation

"My father doesn't consider you guys a threat, but a necessity. It's basic crowd control. He can do whatever he wants, as long as the people have an outlet to express their hatred of him." Rosy explained to the gathered leaders.

Mana nodded, thinking aloud. "It's rather similar to how you operate, Miss Rosy. Quite a few of our people here are only loyal to our cause due to their hatred of you, or due to something that you did on orders from higher up."

"Back when I worked as an assassin, I'd often allow my targets to escape if they were capable of disappearing like you did, Mana. Driven by their hatred, they'd inevitably join the Resistance, and likely live far better lives working to better the kingdom than they'd ever live simply not living up to my father's expectations. But my father goes a step beyond that. He keeps a close eye on your possible suppliers and ensures that you can only have a certain number of people in your armies. That way, you won't be a threat, even if you're individually strong." Rosy explained. 

"So... Fabian's suppliers..."

"Are about to start dying en masse." Doma finished Reese's thought for him. It was ruthless and efficient as a tactic. Cultivate fear. Allow a rebellious faction to exist, but clip their wings so that they think that they're doing something, while they're actually doing absolutely nothing to change the status quo.

Now the problem was in the fact that Rosy was now officially joining the Resistance. Before, she'd been doing work for the kingdom, fear mongering. She'd gained quite a reputation as a horrifying executioner, and from what Adrian had seen, it was well deserved.

She was skilled beyond what seemed possible, and her very presence could turn the tides of battles. With her alone, the Resistance had a real bite to it for the first time ever. That meant that their wings would need to be further clipped for the balance that the kingdom'd kept for so long to stay in effect. But...

"I'm sorry, but this isn't my fight." Adrian said. His job was simple. Get the Kingstone. Return it to Uriah. That was his entire mission. Uriah and Noctus were in separate, almost mirrorlike dimensions, according to what Rosy had told him during their travels. In other words, it took a rather powerful (and unstable) spell in order to go between the two.

The entire reason that Noctus wanted the Stone was to make a stable path between the dimensions, which would allow them to attack Uriah. It would also affect the very dimension that Uriah existed in, in ways that nobody could predict. As long as Adrian prevented that from happening, his home would be safe, and as the crown prince, that needed to be his top priority, even if he needed to abandon the good people of Noctus to do it. Rosy'd agreed to help Adrian with his mission, though he didn't know what her end goal was.

"You're not here to join us alongside Rosy?" Doma asked, surprised. The old Drake had been almost certain that Adrian and Rosy were lovers, and that he was the one who'd finally pushed Rosy to follow a morally upright path.

"I'm from a kingdom called Uriah. The only way to get there from Noctus involves a complicated, draining magic ritual that only a few people have the ability to withstand. Normally." Adrian explained.

"I heard about that. They took some sort of magic catalyst, right?" Mana asks.

"Exactly, the Kingstone. It's a symbol of Uriah's royal family's power. I need it back before they use it to invade my home." Adrian explained.

"I see." Chloe realized.

"Then... I don't see the problem." Mana declared.

"What do you mean? They could use it at any moment, and Uriah's military forces probably won't last very long-" Adrian started, but Mana interrupted him.

"Interdimensional magic is incredibly stupid. You have half a year before it'll be possible to try it on such a large scale." Mana told them.

"What do you mean?" Rosy asked for Adrian.

"Think of it this way... Basic magic interferes with the two dimensions that control motion. 

Then, we have Blood magic. It forcibly connects things through those two dimensions, mixing whatever it acts upon in an absolute manner. That's how we have demi-humans, like Wulfics and Vampires, et. cetera."

"Rosy mentioned that, but I've never heard of demi-humans or blood magic in my world." Adrian interjected.

"Natural blood magic creates Chimeras, like Gryphons, Centaurs, Drakes, and Imps. They're incredibly rare and tend to have negative views on humans. If they exist within human society, you're not going to find them standing out too much. They likely exist in your world, but you've probably never seen them." Mana explained.

"The third type of magic is Void magic." He continued, "Void magic essentially either represses or expands the effects of basic magic. It's caused by interference with the two dimensions that basic magic use. This can happen either as a byproduct of extremely strong or unstable blood magic, or as an intended effect of basic magic. For instance, Brute vampires can't use magic at all, but Royal vampires like Rosy here can use far stronger magics than the average person."

"Yeah. Our swords use Void magic. What's your point, Mana?" Rosy asked, getting impatient. Most all of this stuff was common knowledge that only Adrian didn't know, after all.

"My point is that any magic capable of moving a person to another, unrelated dimension requires blood magic. On top of that, from my own experiments on the subject, there's already an unstable blood bond between this dimension and something that I haven't pinpointed yet." Mana explained.

"So... There's some sort of void magic field around this entire dimension?" Doma asked, following Mana's explanation.

"Exactly. Sending one person away... It's risky. Sending an army? Even with an incredibly powerful magical catalyst, and an incredibly powerful mage casting the spell, you'd need to wait until the void field is at its weakest, or you'd just be sending people to their deaths." Mana told them all.