NOVEL WEB Ch. 21 One Portal Closer (Alison)
The scared old woman who called herself the vile mother didn’t hold the answers Alison wanted to hear. Like her bull-headed highway robber underling, the vile mother didn’t know who Devin was. Charles continued to probe while Alison busied herself around the pitiful woman’s personal office. The spacious room was chuck full of sealed jars containing potion ingredients, dusty old tomes filled with recipes, and a wealth of flasks, vials, and beakers. To stave off the despair that threatened her heart, Alison began sampling the various poisons lined up on a nearby shelf.
“-the only ones who…” The vile mother trailed off as she watched Alison sipping her poisons with a look of pure confusion.
Charles glanced over, sighed, turned back to the old woman and waved his hand in front of her face to regain her attention. “Don’t worry about her, she’s going through some stuff lately. Tell me about that prophecy you mentioned.”
Alison gave no outward sign that the various deadly liquids she was sampling had any adverse effect on her. Truth be told, in her previous world she had spent many years brewing, testing, and reinventing all kinds of toxins. So much so that her body had developed an incredible resistance to almost any combination of poisonous materials. What once might have turned her insides to painful mush now simply provided a steady buzz in her stomach. It wasn’t particularly pleasurable, but it diverted enough of Alison’s crippling loneliness away to the point where she downed four bottles of paralysis toxins in rapid succession.
The vile mother watched her with morbid curiosity.
“Mornir’s neighbor to the north west. They’re a border nation and one of the strongest human nations in the world.” The old woman explained while she observed Alison. “They’ve had a prophecy about a summoned hero, but I don’t know much about it.”
“The Fevelian Kingdom?” Charles confirmed the name of the nation the old woman was telling him about.
“That’s right.”
“How do we get there?” Charles asked.
The old woman jerked her head in the north west direction of the room. “Go out onto the road and start walking. Or hire a carriage. Should take you about a month to get there.”
Alison shook her head and picked up some papers off of the table.
Too long. It will take too long… wait… Alison took a second look to confirm what was written on the page.
It was a list of goods, a departure date, and an arrival date along with the destination of each grouping of material. Most of the cities named in the manifest were meaningless to Alison but one stood out among the rest.
“You smuggle things into the Fevelian capital?” She looked sternly at the old woman while passing the paper over to Charles.
Charles skimmed the paper and raised an eyebrow. “A shipping manifest?”
The vile mother shifted in her seat. “Well, yes, we have a small presence within the capital of Fevel. That has nothing to do with your own quest to find this Devin fellow.”
“Look at the arrival times.” Alison instructed Charles.
The portly man read the details more carefully and his eyebrows knit together.
“This doesn’t make sense. Your goods depart at one time and then arrive at their destination two minutes later?” He looked up at the old woman and narrowed his eyes. “How is that possible?”
The vile mother straightened in her chair and crossed her arms across her chest. “Look, I’ve answered your questions. Our methods of operations are of no value-”
Alison took the vial she had been sipping on and dumped it on the table in front of the old woman. She lurched backwards, nearly falling out of her chair as the dark liquid sizzled and began eating through the polished wooden surface in front of her.
“You’ll tell us anything we want to know or I’ll go back to killing everyone involved in your petty band of thieves.” Alison growled.
“In self defense of course.” Charles added with a sly grin.
Alison shot him a glare. “Not a word to Devin.”
Charles chuckled and leaned back. “Of course. I may look relaxed but I’ve always been scared of you.”
He looked up at the ceiling as if remembering fond memories. “Heh. Good times.”
Alison turned her fierce gaze back to the old woman who yelped and shrank in her seat.
“Okay, okay! I’ll show you.”
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The extensive underground complex that the Basilisk group built under this city was impressive. The old woman led the pair of them down a length spiral staircase hidden behind a bookshelf that eventually opened up to a large cavernous room filled with shipping crates. The towering stacks of goods were separated into distinct shipments that lined the exterior of the circular room. A dozen people moved on the far side of the room as they hauled a new shipment out of a large lengthy tunnel and into the queue of crates. In the center lay a complex magical circle that had been carved into the smoothed rock flooring.
“Teleportation circles need two people to operate them. One mage on the receiving end and one on the shipping end.” The vile mother explained. “Both mages have to finish their spells within a few seconds of one another or the spell will fizzle and no connection will be made. Timing is everything.”
Alison nodded. That explained why the workers on the far side of the room were moving so quickly and with great efficiency. One missed shipment could throw off the rest of their schedule and it would take a long time to get it reset.
“So why aren’t there portals in every major town?” Charles asked.
The vile mother scoffed. “Because the people in charge of every nation are fearful cowards. Granted the timing issue makes connections difficult, but rather than find solutions the kingdoms determined the magic too dangerous and outlawed its use.”
“I’m sorry, dangerous?” Charles cut in.
The old woman shrugged. “How precisely the mages finish their spell and make the connection with each other determines how precisely the objects sent through arrive in their proper position. If there’s a bit of variation in timing… well…”
She turned her gaze into a nearby corner where a stack of broken crates lay.
Not broken… Alison looked closer. Spliced into each other.
The crates had fused together in sickening ways. Wood forced into other pieces of wood, the material bulging and fracturing due to the excess material appearing where no room for it existed. Alison shuddered.
“Shipping crates of materials is one thing, but people…” The vile mother shot Alison a look. “You’re better off on the road.”
In the center of the room the group of workers finished piling up the next shipment. The workers carefully removed themselves from the magical circle and a singular man in robes stepped forward and consulted a small book that hung at his waist as well as a small watch that appeared from his pocket. The man watched the time closely before snapping the book shut and beginning a length chant with his hands stretched forward towards the magical circle.
The symbols on the floor glowed brightly. At the end of his chant there was a flash of light and the large pile of crates vanished in an instant. In its place sat a much smaller return shipment. Once the magical circle lost its glow the group of workers scurried forward and began offloading the crates that just arrived.
“I’ll show you out so you can begin your journey.” The old woman announced and gestured back towards the spiral staircase.
Alison shook her head. “No.”
Charles paled. “Hey Alison, you know, a month of travel isn’t so bad…”
She ignored his comments as she turned towards the old woman. “When is your next shipment to Fevel?”
The old woman sighed but called out to the mage still in the center of the room. “Marcus. When are your next two shipments to Fevel?”
The mage frowned but opened up his small book and flipped through a few pages. “I have one in an hour and another in three, vile mother.”
The old woman nodded. “Sending you one at a time should mitigate a bit of the risk, but I make no promises that you’ll arrive in one piece.”
Alison smirked. “I doubt you’ll care either way. We’ll be gone.”
The vile mother nodded and didn’t meet Alison’s fierce gaze. “Perhaps.”
“Charles, you’ll go first.” Alison announced to her trembling companion.
Charles swallowed hard. “You know, I think I’m good. I’d really rather not have anything spliced into my body thank you very much.”
“That won't be a problem if we get sent alone, right?” Alison asked the old woman.
The old woman cursed. Alison could tell she had been hoping to scare them off and not miss out on any potential shipments.
“Sending you alone will mitigate the risk.” The vile mother admitted bitterly. “But there’s still a chance of your body arriving in the wrong place and being spliced into a wall or into the floor, but the chances of that are much smaller.”
Charles groaned but didn’t complain further. Alison leaned against a nearby crate and watched the workers scurry around them like ants. She could feel it. The moment of reuniting with her husband was closer now than it had been a few minutes ago. Hope returned to her clouded mind and helped stave off insanity for a little while longer.
