Rise of the Godking

They waited for an hour after everyone left to make sure that no one was watching.

The elf dispersed the spell, and they quickly made their way back to the matrix. Before they reached it, they all checked their weapons as they weren't sure whether it would be guarded, but thankfully, it lay empty.

The problem arrived when Alex just couldn't find a good island to camp on. He claimed that any island under the command of the family, where mining was taking place was regularly checked to make sure that no one was doing exactly such a thing. Apparently, there had once been a problem where brigands set up camps in this manner, and attacked the town to steal away resources or even slaves.

The checking was actually done by the teleportation matrixes, themselves. They had already been set up so that they would scan an island every day, periodically, and if someone stayed on the edges for a long time, they would directly send a message to the caretakers.

Alex shuddered when he mentioned them. His reaction made Daneel wonder whether they were the same as the inspectors that had carried out that massacre that had been witnessed by Noraldin, but he didn't ask to make sure.

He assured the man that they only needed for a few hours, though, so they finally found a place that was a bit peculiar in the way that the dome that surrounded it was almost pushing on the edge of the island, leaving behind only the tiniest scraps of land for anyone traversing it to walk on. The place they chose was in front of a natural stone formation that had been smoothed by centuries of mist striking it from the sea below, and after eating a quick meal of dried meat taken from Alex's and the elf's stores, they went to sleep on the soft, grassy ground, minds filled with thoughts about what they had just seen.

His mind was extremely troubled, all kinds of plans revolving around it again and again, trying to be refined but failing as he just didn't have enough information. After trying futilely for ten minutes, he finally resorted to tasking the system with knocking him out so that he could rest, and in that way, seven hours passed with him dreaming occasionally of being sold off at a very cheap price.

When he awoke, he saw that the others seemed to have had the same trouble as him. Feeling truly blessed that he had found like-minded companions once again, he suggested that they break their fast while traveling back to the target island. 

The place they were in was a couple of hours away, so Alex agreed. They had the same thing they had had for dinner, and Daneel realised that he was already getting sick of the stringy meet and hard cheese. He hadn't really been a foodie even on Angaria, but at the moment, he wished that he could have something hot and filling.

All such thoughts were replaced by memories of the auction the moment they arrived back on the island, and saw that the reddish ground on which those chairs and that long block had been set up on was now empty. There was even no sign of them to be seen anywhere, and if they hadn't seen the auction for themselves, they might even have doubted that such a horrific thing had happened.

They had discussed, beforehand, that this would merely be a scouting mission. With a nod to each other, the three of them split to go in three different directions.

The plan was that they would look from afar and glean as much information as possible before meeting back at the mountain. Mors had suggested the split, in the first place, making clear that he intended to use spells that he needed to keep hidden from Daneel to carry out the scouting, and understanding this, Daneel had been more than happy to let him do as he wished. Alex, too, had made a show of being able to act effectively only if he was alone, and under their tones, Daneel had detected a faint hint of competition.

'It's interesting, for sure. No one knows who the most powerful among us is. We might be companions, but who can completely leave behind that urge to know whether they are the strongest in a group? I don't know if I'll compete…but hey, if I can find more information than them, then they will have only themselves to blame for starting it in the first place.'

Despite this thought he had had, he found himself hurrying forward for a few moments before catching himself, calling himself a fool, and adopting a slower pace. Then, deciding that it was probably best to use his merits, Daneel asked the system to completely take over. 

While he watched as it made him crawl on all fours quickly, like a lizard, to evade detection and still maintain speed, he got a certain idea. There was definitely no chance that the three of them would meet during this mission…so, he said to the system, "Adopt the spell that was used before to keep us hidden so that it'll work even while I move. And try to keep energy consumption low."

The system had already learned enough from magic to find out that using the energy from crystals as an intermediary to cast spells was a crude method. Someone who was more trained in the art would be able to use the energy within themselves, thereby decreasing wastage and increasing efficiency, but at that moment, he had no other choice.

[Affirmative. Using 'vajram' as energy source. Casting spell.]

He hadn't told it to slow down so that he could observe, so the speed at which it cast the spell was almost dizzying. He gave up trying to watch when he felt the first signs of his head spinning, and soon, he was able to stand up and walk along as casually as if he was taking a stroll in a park.

Vajrams. From the system's analysis, they were crystals that had been somehow processed so that they held as much energy as a hundred processed crystals. If the crystals were like batteries, then vajrams were higher grade objects that held more energy and had perhaps been manufactured in some sort of secret way, and apparently, there was even a slight improvement in the quality of energy available in them when compared to processed crystals.

This meant that less energy could be used to cast greater spells. He could feel his mind and body drawing on the energy from that diamond-like object while holding the dots of light that had been attracted by drawing on it through his 'frae', as the elf had called it, in the pattern around him, and sure enough, compared to the speed at which that unprocessed crystal had melted away when he had cast his first spell, this was much slower. 

Daneel emptied his mind the closer he got to the town, which looked almost the same as Graiton, except for the fact that the gaudiness of the buildings was even greater than everything that had been built there. Everyone, useless flowing lines and wavy patterns could be seen, built with the only intention to splurge and give the false image of grandness. Even the crimson crystal formation was present, here, that led to the Pit below where mining took place. This was an island focused only on mining, so only one such formation was present.

Choosing a quadrant of the town for himself, Daneel stayed there, not intending to go anywhere near the elf who would see what he had done, and grow even more secretive. For an entire day, he kept to the shadows and eavesdropped as much as he could, and when he saw the sun setting on the horizon, he made his way back to the mountain.

He dispelled the spell the moment he was out of sight of the town to be safe, and it looked like this had been a good decision as the other two were waiting for him by the time he reached the rendezvous.

They stayed silent while they made their way back to the teleportation matrix, but after that, they began discussing everything they had seen on the journey back to their camp. As a result, by the time they reached, they had shared all the information they had found between each other…and curiously, they were all tied in respect to what they had found.

After reaching the shaded part of the island behind that rounded rock where they had camped before, Daneel let out a deep breath and spoke to conclude everything they had talked about until then.

"So this is the important stuff: all of the hoarded crystals are under lock and key in a place that is so secretive that it is even talked about in whispers. The beggar king's data was up-to-date; the Pits will be empty in a month, so everything that we saw was just a scam to earn crystals one last time before those in charge of the island disappeared. They have a well-equipped security force, with even a human mage in residence who has been hired to secure their vault. With just the three of us…planning to steal from them seems absurd."

Mors and Alex both nodded gravely, as it seemed to them that they had hit a roadblock.

With a grin, though, Daneel spoke again, and this time, he had a twinkle in his eye that neither of them could understand.

"Well…then its settled. More things can go wrong in this method, but because we have no option, anyway…it's time to scam. They really pride themselves on being great scammers…but often, it is such people who find themselves on the receiving end much more than anyone else. Gentleman… worry not, because I have a plan. So… Let's begin!"