When Hera returned from the Deakoshara, Shane was hyped thinking that she was able to solve the poison issue in no time. But considering the progress, the enchanter was still happy about the situation. Even if it meant she couldn't explore the Naga home right away, they were at least one step closer to it.
The Empress quickly called everyone who she thought could help with the spell circle, even adding Ogryn to the mix, since the dwarf was a very old and very renowned spellcaster. It took a couple of hours to gather everybody. Helena was not in Zaxalam. The mage had returned to an undisclosed room where she was working with the alliance on the wendigo tracking device. But eventually, they were all in a meeting room talking with the holographic versions of Ogryn and Helena. Along with Shane, Bonnie, Viper and Filigree.
Hera had already used that time to rest, and prepare a model scale representation of the altar she saw to show everybody. She had also already started working with some possible solutions including a few proposed by her court. Viper specifically was very eager to help with that kind of thing. And Filigree, using her bladed strings, allowed them to toy with versions of the spell circles without having to worry too much about actually making the spell.
Vulcan and Lurize, instead of helping figure out anything about the altar, were doing something else during that time. They, after giving Hera some time to rest, asked for a royal quest to move around the room without her. Some time later, they returned carrying various pastries and to-go meals that they got from the stores that had set up in Zaxalam. The community here wasn't massive, but it was having a steady growth. Some were lured by the prospect of becoming Ophidianites, while others chased after the new public living here.
The titled blades went after food since they realized that the Empress had forgotten to eat ever since going to Deakoshara. And they were not willing to let her starve just because their Empress kept forgetting that she also needs food.
After they arrived, everybody was ready and had placed the altar hologram in the center of the room so everybody could see what they were dealing with. Hera quickly briefed them all on what she discovered and her ideas. Saying that she was likely able to break the spell by simply disconnecting the main crystal from it or destroying one of the gems that were surrounding it. Or she could just snap the altar in half, letting the poison of the lake flood into the circuit which would break it completely.
But Hera mentioned that would mean it would still take time for the MAZE to recover. Her intention was to speed the process up by reversing what the spell circle was doing. If her hypothesis was correct, that is. If the altar wasn't truly converting water and moisture into poison. And that was the first thing they had to confirm.
Everybody listened to her intently before turning to the altar and doing their own analysis of the structure of the spell. For a couple minutes, no one said anything. All the mages in the room trying to organize their thoughts and use whatever skills they had available to improve and unravel the configuration of this particular spell circle.
Once they were done, they just gave Hera a nod while she gestured for them to wait. Letting everybody finish their deductions before speaking up. In hindsight, maybe she should have sent them the file with the altar hologram sooner so they could speed up this process. Still, just 10 minutes later, everybody had a rough idea of what the spell circle was doing. A lot of details were a mystery to everyone, but each person was able to identify one point or another that the others couldn't.
Even then, there were still a lot of missing details about that spell. For instance, in the middle of the altar, connected to the crystal, there was something no one truly understood. It was a secondary ring around the crystal, almost as a pathway, but it wasn't connecting to anything. By modern standards, that ring would be isolating the energy source from the spell. Meaning that if they wanted to activate it, they would need to place something else to trigger the effect. But surely the spell was still functioning because there was nothing stopping it from working.
Another thing that made all of them very confused was why was this altar made to essentially function permanently. Even if one were to argue that the idea was the altar would never have enough energy to convert the entire lake that was easily debunked. After all, the main crystal was the type that could also absorb energy from the surroundings. It was impossible not to expect this to run forever. Any mage worth their salt would create limitations. Or a way to stop this at some point. It was basic safety of spells. If you were creating something that could theoretically function forever, you had also to make it in a way that it would stop when you reach a certain point. Otherwise, if left alone for too long, things could go sideways really fast.
Which very much seemed to be the case, especially considering the quest. It specifically said that the altar was a source or corruption. Something that shouldn't be there. Still, it was pretty obvious that the poison was just one of the problems in Deakoshara, or maybe everything was about poison, but they were different kinds of poison spread around the room. This wouldn't be something that would be solved in a day. But if they were able to revert to what the altar was doing, maybe it wouldn't be that long before they were able to bring more people to help with search.
The meeting lasted for several hours, with them even having to stop and take a break so everybody could go to the bathroom and get some air. During that discussion, the group of mages broke down the spell circle, even creating minor versions. They remade the spell circles, removing individual parts to test what each of them would do. All in hopes of uncovering more about its function.
Reverse engineering a spell was never an easy thing to do. But between Bonnie having a very useful constellation under the sky of Zaxalam that could briefly interrupt the mana in a specific area. Shane being able to enchant the surrounding mana to only allow a certain amount of it to be used on the spell. And Filigree's control of the strings that they were using to replicate the spell circle they were able to do that more or less effectively.
Once they returned from the break, Helena asked if she could have someone else join the conversation. There was another mage working with her, a beastmen that was working on something that could really prove beneficial. Helena was being a bit cryptic about what this project was, which was more out of a desire to prop up her colleague. She really saw the benefits of what he was doing and wanted to help him share with other students.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is an explorer who focuses on the mage, the crafter, and the researcher roles and he's going to explain what his device can do," Helena said and stepped to the side, allowing this new person to enter.
He was a dog beastman with flappy ears coming from the side of his head and a black spot in front of his right eye. That really gave him the face of a dog, even if his nose and mouth were more human-like.
"Hey everyone, I'm Bob or Robert, but you can call me Bob anyway," he greeted. "Helena didn't tell me exactly what you were working on, but she said that my device can help. So can I explain? Or should I go?"
"We would like to hear what you have to say. We trust Lena, and if she is vouching for you, it might help," Bonnie said with a kind smile.
"Okay then, this is what I created," he put a cube-like case in front of him which appeared in the hologram, but no one had any reactions. People couldn't actually use their [Observe] or anything of the sort unless the hologram used in the conversation was specific for that kind of thing. And that was generally only used for training sessions or for large collaborative works between mages. Meaning that only very specific places had that kind of device and the meeting room they were using wasn't one of those places.
Helena whispered something to Bob.
"Oh, right. Sorry. I-I-I'm just so used to everybody having the right… stuff… and the observe..." Bob looked around and picked up the cube, "Anyway, this is the Cube of Reversal, as I'm calling it."
"Cube of reversal?" Bonnie frowned. "Is it what it sounds like?"
Bob nodded, "It's a cube that if you put in any, or at least most, closed circuit spells, will reverse its effects."
"How much mana does it cost to reverse the effects of the spell?" Viper asked.
"You don't have to worry about that. It's the whole point. Like, if you're trying to make something like an air conditioning unit. You start and then figure out that heating up an area is much less mana costly than it is to cool it down. With this, you take the heat spell and makes it cool off," Bob explained."
"So this reversal thing doesn't cost any mana?" Shane asked
Bob shook his head, "No. It just changes the spell. No cost. Well aside from the materials to make this. Which is not super cheap."
"That's why it's so good. We can change a spell to do the exact opposite of what it's supposed to do, using the same amount of mana to fuel it," Helena smiled.
"It functions very much like a rune or a sigil you're going to use on a regular spell," Bob added.
"That sounds kind of amazing," Bonnie told the beastmen. "Why have I never heard about this before?"
"Well, I'm having some trouble making it smaller. And something this big doesn't really function well unless the spell circle is also big. So while I have a functioning version of it and I have proven this works on many occasions, I'm still unable to sell it to people. Or to have anyone using it."
"I thought that the people working on this black sight that you and Helena are were all working for the alliance," Shane asked.
"Being here basically means that our project would be first offered to the alliance and then to anyone else. In his case, the alliance would get some extra benefits when ordering from him. Things like cheaper price and stuff like that. But he's still able to sell to the general public. Same thing with what I'm doing. Although what I'm doing is going to be fully backed by the alliance, since it's something more necessary for everyone's safety," Helena explained.
"Okay then, this might work, but before we ask you to make another one of those and sent our way, let us explain what's going on," Hera spoke up and gave Bob the rundown of the altar.
She didn't really care about hiding that information after Deakoshara wasn't supposed to be a secret. It was just a place that people needed to go, eventually. In addition, unless there was another person with an incredibly powerful poison resistance skill, no one else was going to be able to try to fix all that mess. And if that all wasn't enough, she was an aspirant hero. There was a degree of respect that came with it. If she was trying to do something, people would be more than happy to help her. No one was likely to go try to steal her thunder, so to speak.
Bob nodded after hearing the explanation and said, "Yeah, I think that would work. Maybe if you replace one of those gems with this, it would just revert whatever the spell circle was doing. But I'm not entirely sure if that really was the case, since I don't know a lot of the symbols on the spell."
"Neither do we," Shane said with a shrug. "We don't know why they're there. But it's pretty much the best option we have right now. How long would it take you to make another one?"
Bob looked at the altar in front of Helena, the holographic version, and asked, "Are those measurements correct?"
Hera double-checked and then nodded. "Yep."
"Then I already have one that could fit one of those gem spaces if that's okay."
"That would be great. Can you send it our way, or do we need to go get it?" Hera asked.
"I think I can send it, but it's going to take a couple of days. Unless you can expedite the process," Bob added.
Hera just smiled. "I might be able to do something."
"You can?" Bonnie turned to the Empress.
"Maybe. I mean, I am an aspirant hero so I do have some leeway on things. Besides, technically speaking. I didn't get any bonus for everything I did in the war. One option I have is to just ask this as part of it. I'm sure Typhera is going to laugh at the request, but hey, it's going to help us. So I'm going to check on that. Can you all do the necessary tests and everything we need to make sure this is going to work?"
The group nodded, including Ogryn and Helena, just before Hera left the room. She was going to make a call to the harpy queen, asking for a favor. While her team was working on solving a problem so she could continue her exploration. Maybe being an aspirant hero wasn't all bad as she was thinking it would be.