Mage's Journey 9

Sorry for the lateness. It'll be released to the public on the 10th.
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As promised, L’Arachel was able to get an expedition organized to check on the Demon King’s seal. From Emperor Mansel’s questioning of his niece, Tanya gathered that he was mostly just relieved that L’Arachel was taking more than two bodyguards on her latest monster killing sojourn. Not that he wasn’t very concerned, but once it was made clear that there was no need for either the Sacred Twins nor the Sacred Stone to be taken along, he was mostly convinced that the quest was legitimate, and with so many additional forces there was little concern of ambush or betrayal. 

It does, however, take time on the order of months to muster and organize such an expedition; it could theoretically be rushed… but the issue was not urgent enough to do so. Anyway, it dovetailed nicely with the fact that L’Arachel was expected to attend several social functions as the newly declared Princess. 

Tanya’s own role in such parties was simple: she was to dress in an outfit and hairstyle that was notably less elaborate than L’Arachel’s own, making her look better in comparison, and follow her around. There were complex rules about how close she should be at any given time, as well as when she should act as a bodyguard or as a servant. If she was L’Arachel’s only present retainer, the rules would be different, she’d be wearing her armor and military cloak most of the time, but as Dozla was here to be the primary bodyguard, Tanya was more of a lady-in-waiting, or personal assistant, although neither term was used in Rausten. 

It was a bit annoying, needing to learn how to dress L’Arachel in the more elaborate gowns that were part and parcel to being a princess, as while she was in the palace maids would handle that Tanya would be responsible for it when she wasn’t, but at least the girl’s youthful adventures gave her enough of an independent streak that she only wore them during formal events instead of as everyday wear; the maids were eager to inform Tanya of how low-maintenance L’Arachel was in comparison to her mother, who loved dressing up as often as possible when she was in the palace, as she didn’t get the chance to when she was off defending the land from monsters. 

Currently, L’Arachel was awaiting the expected arrival of a flight of Pegasus Knights, dressed in her nice armor, enchanted for lighter weight. Mansel had sent a messenger bird, one of Frelia’s specialties, to inform them of the upcoming expedition, and they had responded appropriately, lending a token force to assist in the name of supporting the foundations of their alliance: Demon King = Bad. “How much longer?” The Princess asked in what would be slander to describe as a whiny tone. 

Dozla, he of infinite patience when it came to the Princess, reported with an even tone: “They are scheduled to arrive at high noon.” He pointed upward, at the sun that was directly above their heads. “They should arrive at any moment.”

The issue, of course, was that no form of communication was substantially faster than pegasus knights. They received a messenger bird that very morning, as it was sent overnight when the flight had set up camp outside the castle of one of the lesser nobles, politely declining hospitality beyond provisioning so they would not be overly delayed. 

“Do you even know who they’re sending?” Tanya asked, idly petting Opalis to keep her from moving out of parade rest, “I doubt they expected you to be waiting for them.”

“In fact, I do!” L’Arachel said excitedly. “The noble Prince Innes is leading the Pegasus Knights!”

Tanya paused. “How old is Prince Innes?” She asked, “I thought they couldn’t support the weight of a man over long distances.”

“They can, they just can’t take a man, armor, weapons, supplies, etcetera.” L’Arachel corrected, “It’s only a little more complicated than managing normal cavalry, because you can’t just walk a pegasus like you can a horse, you have to stop and rest instead.”

“Interesting…” Tanya murmured, thinking of the possibilities. Opalis snorted in offense, shifting her weight in agitation. “Sorry, Opalis. I was thinking about command implications, I wouldn’t abandon you.” She leaved forward and wrapped her arms around the horned equine’s neck in a hug. “Love you.” Opalis, appeased by her groveling, whinnied and went back to posing as if getting a portrait done. 

“Also, the prince is nineteen.” L’Arachel added. “Three years older than me.” Five years older than herself, then. 

As if on cue, one of the lookouts trumpeted the signal. The pegasi were in sight. “Okay everyone!” L’Arachel shouted, “Let’s give the heroic soldiers a welcome they won’t soon forget!” 

“Yes, Princess!” Came a synchronized shout. The composer waved his baton, making sure every member of the small orchestra was ready, before playing Frelia’s anthem, a song filled with whistling woodwinds more than the brassy trumpets and tubas that Rausten favored in their own official anthem. 

Tanya raised one of her newest staves, the head resembling a giant tuning fork riddled with runes, and projected the sound of the music in the direction of the pegasi. She called this her Clarion staff, meant to project voices and other sounds to resound over a battlefield. It was an incredibly complicated staff to properly control, but after her experience with Dig it was pretty simple for her to use it well. 

After they finished one iteration of the anthem, the pegasi finally became visible to the relatively low balcony that they were overseeing the courtyard from. The band started up again, and Tanya more precisely directed the sound to their ears. She had been told by some nobles that the sound was so clear that it took on a wondrous quality when she did this, like the band was playing just for them and no one else in the world. Tanya didn’t see it; her headphones back home in Japan were much nicer. 

Once the fifteen pegasi landed, the boy that was clearly the prince; there were no other boys in the group, dismounted immediately and strode forth proudly. The conductor ordered the music to quiet, and Tanya used the Clarion staff to direct L’Arachel’s voice instead. “Rausten welcomes you, Prince Innes and the Pegasus Knights of Frelia.” She began, “Know that your hand of friendship extended now will be remembered in your time of need.” One other annoyance with learning courtly etiquette was having to actually read the local Bible, which means that Tanya knew that L’Arachel was paraphrasing Latona’s speech to the Manakete tribe with this greeting. 

Ironically, Latona’s words would ring false, as no one seems to know anymore where the Manaketes have hidden themselves away. Tanya wasn’t entirely certain if they actually existed, or if it was an apocryphal group of people that represented spirits or something like that. 

A messenger informed the Prince that he was to speak loudly and that he could then be heard, and Tanya inverted the Clarion staff’s tuning, allowing sound in a distant area to reach their ears. “Frelia has heard your concerns and shares them, and we come leading five wings of Pegasus Knights, which are at your disposal. May this gesture be a symbol of our friendship in the generations to come.” This, too, was part of the legend of Latona and the Manakete tribes, although supposedly it was just five Dragonstone Masters, whatever that meant, who were sent to defeat the Demon King. According to the legend, Chief Morva sent his heir, the Princess Tiki, in addition to the five, and the girl fell in battle. So his next line would be… “Furthermore, we entrust our future as an advisor, so that you may benefit from the wisdom of our scars.” Innes shouted back. ‘Our future’ meaning the heir to the throne, which would be Innes himself, and ‘wisdom of our scars’ was just an archaic way of saying that the advisor would be sent so that they could tell you if you were about to get these new assets killed by overestimating them. 

One more inversion of the staff, and L’Arachel finished the bible quote exchange. “Eat and get ready, for our journey has no guarantee of return.” She turned around and walked back into the castle, and the air of formality finally broke, as the no-doubt weary knights were offered quarters and stables until the mission began. 

Later, at the dinner table, Prince Innes arrived wearing nicer clothes than the one he was wearing in the courtyard, a green tunic with gold embroidery. He was incredibly handsome, calm and collected in a way that Tanya imagined she used to be, his eyes piercing as if evaluating everything that catches his gaze for imperfections. He arrived with a woman that had green hair, wearing a dress uniform. 

L’Arachel smiled widely at the boy’s arrival. “Well met, Prince Innes. Eat, enjoy our hospitality.”

“Well met.” Prince Innes returned, sitting down. The air was on the casual side, as Dozla and Tanya were bid to join them at the table. “This is Commander Syrene, she will be leading the Pegasus Knights in the field.”

“Well met, Commander.” L’Arachel said politely. “These are my retainers, Tanya and Dozla. They will be fighting at my side as we sojourn into the Darkling Woods, destroying every monster in our path, all to confirm the status of the Demon King’s Seal!” She slipped back into her usual boisterous tone as she finished, her ability to act like a demure young lady apparently having been worn out for the day. 

“How are the preparations going?” Prince Innes asked, “Are we expected to leave soon?”

“Within the week.” L’Arachel assured him, “But I’m sure that Rausten’s delightful sights will make what little time remains simply fly by.” From how she subtly posed, it was clear what sights she meant. The Princess was rather vain, when it came down to it. 

“That’s a good timetable.” Prince Innes said, ignoring L’Arachel’s clear interest. “I must ask, how did you get the music to reach us in the sky? I’ve never seen magic like that.”

L’Arachel beamed. “That’s the work of my genius retainer, Tanya! She’s a scholar, you see, always making new staves that do all kinds of things.” She gestured for Tanya to leave the table. “Show the Prince one of your tricks.” She ordered. 

“Yes, Your Highness.” Tanya said, standing up. “I’m afraid all I have on me right now is the Clarion Staff, but…” She struck the end of the staff on Dozla’s armguard, sending singel note ringing out into the room. With an exertion of will, that sound warped, and Tanya waved it up and down to adjust the singular tone into a small ditty. “It’s difficult to use properly, if I was to mass produce the formula I’d want it to be less complex. I’ve been thinking of pairing it with some kind of image projection and make it both send and receive noise at the same time, so that it could allow for two-way communication over a few hundred meters of distance.” However, she was still at a bit of a loss as to how to proceed with such a thing. 

“Battlefield communications are incredibly important.” Syrene said, eyes locked on the staff. “It could be an invaluable military edge.”

“For now, it’s highly limited.” Tanya admitted, “I’ve got an order for materials coming to make a supply for the expedition, but this one’s nearly spent.” More like thirty percent remaining, if she measured it right. “Some of the more senior mages,” Specifically, the ones who hope to one day wield the Sacred Twin Latona, “-have managed to use one of the other prototypes, but most were wasted trying.” Failing to control this particular staff tends to result in deafness for the user and everyone around them, but fortunately healing magic was quite capable of reversing the damage. “We won’t be able to replace message runners and command relays for quite some time, the formula will need to be iterated upon.” This was already model… seven? Two if she only counted the ones that succeeded at the design goal of enabling battlefield communications. Even if they did create a good one, it would still have a limited supply available, so it may never reach the heights of the short wave radio. 

“I look forward to seeing you in action, then.” Prince Innes said, which was nice of him; if she was a more self-centered girl, she might have read into that, but he clearly was just impressed by her staff’s capabilities, it had a lot of potential, if she did say so herself. 

Now, if only L’Arachel would agree with that assessment… alas, she is a rising star in the field of self-centeredness, gunning for the title. She doesn’t think that the princess holds a candle to Being X, though. 

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In the palace, Tanya had a workshop, as promised by L’Arachel. There were a few things she couldn’t get in her sleepy village, and she quite liked them. 

First, she had multiple workstations that she could set up to create just one kind of staff each. She still had to changeover sometimes, as there were only four, but it boded well for the future: She could train another artisan and have them work to create her designs, a simple task with how optimized and poka-yoke she made the workstations, once she had an adequate supply of materials, vastly improving her throughput. Currently, one was reserved for experimental builds, with minimal customization, while the other three were set up to recreate the Bonfire, Clarion, and Dig staves: her original design, refined as it may be, couldn’t get close to outperforming the spirit-blessed one, but it still had plenty of utility: most notably, it was excellent at extinguishing fires. She had about three different staves in production, on top of ideas for the next iteration of her usable designs. 

Second, while L’Arachel’s misconception of her as some kind of genius was tiresome and embarrassing at times, particularly as she seemed to think that Tanya was more passionate about inventing than she was, it did mean that if she wrote up designs, she had access to highly skilled artisans for whatever custom tool or machine she thought of. So she had quite a few tools that history would probably credit her as the inventor of, even if she was just cheating. 

First, there was her lathe. It was horse-powered, she understood gears well enough that she was able to turn a workhorse pulling a single wheel right outside her workshop into the necessary rapid rotations, and that allowed her to create the foundations of her staff designs quite readily. She even had a set of kinetic batteries in the form of some portcullis counterweights that were repurposed for the task. At first, Opalis had gotten jealous of the other horse, but quickly recanted that position after realizing that she was simply not equipped to pull such a heavy load at the desired speeds. 

Next, she had a few larger than normally used tools that could be linked up with the lathe’s power source, like the mixer, the grinder, and a basic centrifuge, all of which helped when she needed to refine batches of novel ingredients so she could experiment with ratios. 

Granted, she needed assistance moving these heavy machines whenever she needed to swap which one the horse engine was powering, but there was always some sturdy knight available to use the muscles honed carrying heavy armor around for the task. L’Arachel’s command that Tanya’s words were to be considered to be her own carried a lot of weight, and Tanya was always sure to be polite when dropping by the barracks for a new laborer. It was also how she got access to the draft horses that had been gathered for the logistics train of the expedition; half of them were just waiting around for the expedition to begin. 

Finally, and most importantly: she had a coffee grinder, roaster, and kettle. As it turned out, Emperor Mansel loved coffee beans, and had an ample supply. L’Arachel had told him about the roasting technique, and he had asked her how she thought coffee was best prepared. 

It didn’t need to be said that Emperor Mansel loved the coffee Tanya had brewed in response to his query, even if she thought there was a long way to go before it met her admittedly high standards. Her fumbling attempts had started out at ‘the crap she drank in officer’s school’, even a bit worse than that, but by now she feels that it was at least at ‘vending machine coffee’ level of quality by now. She hopes to one day drink coffee comparable to the kind she occasionally dropped five hundred yen or more on back home. Even if she has to figure out what the heck pumpkin spice is by trial and error. 

The problem, of course, is that by being L’Arachel’s retainer, and by being in the capital, where one could not simply forage in the forests for ingredients, acquiring such ingredients was… challenging. 

Her best source was the Sacred Forest, a preserve near the capital that held the Shrine of the Fire Emblem, supposedly the site where Latona received her vision of Being X and was forewarned of the Demon King’s arrival. According to legend, the Fire Emblem was a mirror that Being X would speak through on holy days, but only when interred within that shrine. 

The forest surrounding that shrine was off limits to most, but L’Arachel was able to give permission, and given that Tanya requested access so that Opalis doesn’t get homesick. The magical beast got moody when she spent too long outside of a forest, any forest. 

It was reasonably sized, there apparently wasn’t anything resembling a precise measurement of the borders, but she thought it was about a thousand square kilometers. More importantly… the place was rarely traveled and never hunted, so the forage was amazing. While she’d never organize a harvesting operation for making a job lot, if all she was gathering materials for was experimentation, the variety was perfect.

“Ah! That’s a new thing!” Tanya shouted, “Turn back Opalis, I want to see it!” The unicorn in question grunted in displeasure at the command, but nevertheless obeyed Tanya’s tug of the reins to slow down and re-locate the new plant. 

The thing had caught her eye due to the bright reddish pink flower, but on further review it appeared to be some kind of small bush, and this was merely the first bloom of what looked to be… twenty-ish flowers. “There’s some honeycups-” Which were a kind of nectar-rich flower, to be clear, she noticed the beautiful hummingbird eating their fill. “-over there, have a snack.” She instructed Opalis as she took out her satchel full of reference books. “Okay, if it’s a bush, it should be in this one…”

In short order, she found it. “Ah, a rarity! Heartdrum flower. The stem holds a sap that, when refined…” Tanya blushed. “Bolsters energy and fires up the body for vigorous activity…” Tanya hesitated, but carefully extracted the flower, short stem and all, anyway. “The irony is that this might be what I need to finish that coffee staff, I need another stimulant.” She said to Opalis, who shook her tail dismissively. “I’ll need to refine this a bit more than other ingredients, I’m sure…” After securing her new sample, she pet Opalis to signal that she was about to mount up again, before doing so. “See if you can find any more of those flowers in bloom. The book said that it needs to fully ripen for best effect.”

Opalis snorted, swallowing the flowers in her mouth, and they rode off, the unicorn navigating the roots and other tripping hazards with an unnatural grace. 

Her rides through the Sacred Forest with Opalis were noon to sundown, so they covered quite a lot of ground. Soon enough, Opalis found another bush… with only four trees between it and the Shrine of the Fire Emblem. The Shrine itself was relatively modest, it didn’t even have a roof, just the mirror, reflecting the sun’s light to… right next to her. Interesting. It was surrounded by water; either it was on an island in a pond, or it was a moat of some kind, she couldn’t tell at a glance. 

The new bush had four new flowers, and that should be plenty to play around with it’s properties in small scale testing; another innovation she was blatantly stealing. Finished with her goal, she looked at the Shrine. Well…

Before she could reach the small shrine with the magic, potentially Being X-contacting mirror, the water surged up and formed into the waist and higher of an androgynous spirit, naked and only modest by virtue of their bottom half not being visible. “Who are you?” The spirit demanded. 

Ah, crap.