Magic Discovered

Chapter 31

Arriving back at the city, the friends went straight away to tell the Queens what they had discovered. Upon hearing the news that Nu was attempting to get ultimate power and immortality, they were obviously distressed. The mages were dismissed with the promise that they would create a plan later in the day, after other necessary matters were taken care of, and decided to head down to Lydia's laboratory space to a bit of their own thinking.

"Holy cow!" Algon exclaimed as they walked through the door. "This is impressive!"

"If you think this is cool, you need to see what I've got set up back at the Quintessium."

Last time they had seen it, the room was cluttered, but still relatively normal. Now, the space was packed to the brim with floating sigils and notes. Lydia walked over to a workbench and rummaged around for a minute before finding a pen and began jotting something down in the air.

"So, we need to figure out what we're going to do when we get back to Rioyda," James said.

"Isn't it obvious?" Delta asked. "We stop them!"

"Thanks captain obvious. But how?" Lydia said as she put the finishing touches on an equation and capped the pen. "These aren't normal foes in any way shape or form. Even by themselves, a Celestial Mage and a Mythical Mage are a terrifying duo."

"Hold on," James interrupted. "We don't know for certain if Phanes is against us."

"Then why would he come back to Dorian-5 at such a perfect time?"

James thought for a moment. "Maybe he's trying to stop Nu, in which case he'll be willing to help us."

"That's not a guarantee," Algon said. "What if he's not? They're scary on their own, but together there's no way we are even close to being qualified to fight them."

"And that's not actually everything," Lydia said. "Don't forget about what happened to Aura. Nu is stealing magical power in order to acquire the Reguli. We don't even know how he's doing that, and there's a good chance if we fight or try anything we could get drained and knocked unconscious."

"Isn't there anything you could whip up to prevent that?" Delta asked.

Lydia shook her head. "I don't even know where to start, and even if I did it's the same as the situation with the lantern. I'd need to understand the fundamentals of how the spell works, and that's not something I can do within the next week."

The group lapsed into silence. Lydia sighed and went over to the workbench, picking up an earlier project, while the others tried to think of a solution. James absentmindedly fiddled with his bracelet while he thought about the events that had occurred over the last few days.

"Wait," he thought. "Bracelet?"

He looked down and saw that he was still wearing Lydia's shielding bracelet. It had taken on a scorched appearance from when it had to block Salvor's attack, but surprisingly it was still intact.

"Hey, Lydia. Maybe this will work?"

She turned around to see him holding up his wrist. "That bracelet? How could that help?"

"Take a look at it. It managed to completely block one of Salvor's attacks and still has a bit of energy left. Since it uses the energy from the Ikirians, maybe it's strengthened against Void magic?"

"That is a possibility, but the bracelet only shields against attacks. It'd be useless."

"Couldn't you modify it to activate on a different trigger. Say, when there's no more magic in the surrounding environment?"