Magic is Programming

Chapter 17: Dispute

"Well, now that the Enchanters Guild has acquired this dungeon core, I believe it's time to fulfill your side of the contract and pay me."

Tornay turned to look at Darmelkon. "What?"

"You heard me. You have acquired the dungeon core, so the Guild now owes me the agreed payment."

Tornay snorted. "Are you seriously calling this 'acquired'? What nonsense is this?"

"The previous owner denied opposition, and you securely laid hands on it. That is more than enough to qualify as acquisition by normal standards."

"The Guild seeks to acquire a moveable, unanchored dungeon core! One we can take to our labs and study! This one, by all appearances, is anchored and immobile."

Darmelkon smiled. "I don't recall that being specified in the contract. And I would assuredly remember. I wrote the contract."

Tornay drew himself up and took a deep breath. "If we're arguing technicalities of the contract, the Guild employs several expert lawyers who will stall any judgement on that contract for years if we are not satisfied. And besides, the contract clearly states a royal assessor's valuation as a prerequisite to any payment due."

"Ah, I took the liberty of registering a request for a royal assessor already. I'll have one here in no more than a day or two, I expect."

Carlos looked back and forth between the arguing men, and held back a quiet laugh. "Ahem. As the so-called 'previous owner', I think I should clarify that I did not 'deny opposition' to taking the dungeon core. I invited the Enchanter to attempt an action that I knew would fail." Carlos wasn't a lawyer, but if this was going to hinge on loopholes and technicalities, well, those kinds of nitpicking details were something he was good at.

Tornay and Darmelkon turned and stared like they'd forgotten he was there, then Tornay nodded sharply. "Yes! See, the acquisition is contested. The contract terms cannot be considered met until ownership is unambiguously established."

Darmelkon laughed. "Fine, call your acquisition experts. I'm sure you were planning to anyway, and they'll get this little matter cleared up in no time."

Tornay huffed, and walked out.

Carlos leaned over to Amber and whispered. "Not that I'm complaining, but why aren't they just killing us, or at least threatening us?"

She whispered back, "They... might. If they both agree on it. As long as either one wants us alive, though, they can threaten to report murder to the crown."

Enchanter Tornay returned with two younger men in tow, and glared at Carlos and Amber. "You two! You're not going anywhere until this is resolved. Apprentice, guard them." He turned to Darmelkon. "Lord Merchant, you are free to watch if you wish, but I expect it will be rather boring for you."

"I have suffered far worse than boredom in the pursuit of wealth."

Tornay shrugged. "Your choice." He turned back to Carlos and Amber. "And to make certain you don't pull any tricks on us..." He walked over and a pair of handcuffs appeared in his hands. "Amber, hold out your hands. Now."

"Um. Ok." Amber raised her hands in front of herself, her arms shaking slightly, and Tornay fastened the handcuffs on her wrists.

"Carlos, your turn. Hands out."

Amber gasped. "What the-! I can't sense mana anymore. What do these do?"

"They prevent mana use." Tornay fastened a second pair of handcuffs on Carlos. "Including soul structures."

Shit. That was a problem for Carlos, he relied on a soul structure for everyday speech. Wait, how had he even understood that final statement, then?

Carlos noticed he'd felt an odd mental strain when he heard Tornay's last few words, and suddenly his status window popped up unprompted. Except it was flickering unsteadily. He focused attention on it, and it stabilized, but he felt it took some effort. Well, if it told him what was happening, a bit of effort was fine.

Warning: Temporary soul structure forcibly inserted by external source.

Uh. Ok, presumably that was part of how these handcuffs worked, but what did that extra soul structure do, and why was it apparently not fully working on him?

Temporary soul structure:

Mana absorber

Diverts all attempted mana use to itself, and absorbs the diverted mana to develop itself with no other effect.

Mana redistributor is partially counteracting the effect, exerting a competing effort to control where the used mana goes.

Carlos considered this information for a moment, barely noticing as Tornay's apprentice prodded him to go and sit by their tent. This was quite a fortunate potential wildcard surprise he'd stumbled into. Well, maybe. He still didn't have much mana, or many spells to use it for. Tornay seemed to be settling down over by Purple, though, so maybe he had time to do something about that? Hopefully.

He looked over at Amber. She was chewing her lip nervously, hunched over and holding her arms crossed tightly. He wanted to reassure her, but didn't dare say anything aloud in case someone overheard. [Purple, how's your bond making soul structure coming?]

[Done. Bond is made.]

[That's great! Please tell Amber that I'm partially resisting these handcuffs. They work by inserting a bad temporary soul structure, and my mana redistributor is interfering with it.]

A few seconds later, Amber turned toward Carlos and blinked, a stunned look on her face. She quickly schooled her expression back into neutral passivity, and returned to just sitting and staring forward awkwardly, but she wasn't chewing her lip anymore.

[Amber says "That's great. Can you break it, or at least sabotage or weaken it?"]

[I'll try.]

Carlos focused on his soul structures - four of them now, and one decidedly unwanted - and a few more details of the mana absorber appeared in his mental status window. It had a few... levels? Layers? Ranks? Whatever the right term was, it was 3 stages more developed than his own soul structures were and had a couple thousand points of mana absorbed towards the next development threshold. And as for its effect, he was only getting to use about 11% of the mana he was spending, with all the rest being diverted and absorbed.

Well, time to see if he could do something about that. Whatever its source, this thing was a soul structure inside his soul at the moment, and his mana redistributor was made for the express purpose of transferring mana from one soul structure to another, among other things. He focused on the idea of transferring mana from the mana absorber's development to instead develop the mana redistributor.

It took some mental effort to do, and it felt like the mana absorber was resisting it, but after a few seconds he felt a tiny piece of mana flake off of the mana absorber and move to where he wanted it. Except, no, the mana absorber wasn't actually resisting, it was just a natural manifestation of its general absorption effect. It was trying to pull all moving mana to itself, and that included the mana that was being taken from it.

At the same time, he felt mana flowing into the soul structure he was using, fueling the natural course of how soul structures develop, and most of that mana was getting diverted to the mana absorber, replacing some of what he had just taken from it. He checked the numbers, and... Ok, this was going to take a while. He was only just barely taking more away from the mana absorber than it gained from the effort. Hopefully it would speed up as the absorber slowly weakened and his redistributor developed, but he'd have to get to a point where it mattered.

[Purple, you ok over there?]

[Yes. Just examining.]

[Tornay is just examining you?]

[Yes.]

[Ok. Tell me if anything significant changes. I'm going to have to focus on breaking this mana absorber thing.]

[I will.]

Carlos closed his eyes and started meditating, almost like he would for making another soul structure, but focused this time on the soul structures he already had. Slowly, bit by bit, mana moved from one soul structure to another as he willed it.