Chapter 94: Results and news

Rushing towards the nearest door I could find, I couldn't shake the bad feeling I had. While honestly speaking, I had great doubts about anything wrong happening with the stones carved on earth, I didn't want to become a victim to a lack of confidence in my own projects.

In the end, I had no clue what the underlying rules behind magic stones and runes were. While I could explain why everything dropped would fall to the ground because I knew the physics of it, I was still stuck at the earliest phase of testing with nearly anything magic-related.

That's why I wasn't going to risk it. Even if I preferred to be rather pessimistic about the results of my tests, it was nothing more but a way to trick my own mind. By not expecting any results, in any other case than the worst, I would be met with pleasant surprises, encouraging me to work even harder. But right now, there was no time for that. While I never saw what an overcharged magical stone could do, I would rather keep it that way!

Reaching the nearest building that I could find, I was about to crack through the doors when my body froze. Only then did I realise how I was about to haphazardly reveal my ability to cross between worlds right in the open of the street. Lowering my hand and taking a few steps back from the doors to some random building, I shook my head before redirecting my legs towards the Inn I was staying at with Ayda so far.

At least I didn't need to pretend I wasn't in the hurry. Instead of watching my step and just strolling through the street, I was outright running towards the place. Whatever the locals or Ayda followers would think, didn't matter at all. Not when compared to the damage that would go off right in the very core of my system!

Finally reaching the Inn, I hurried towards the room I slept with Ayda last night. Compared to the devastated chamber on the first floor where we suffered an attack before, the well-kept bedroom on the floor level seemed like a much better choice for lodging.

And as I opened the doors, I realised that I wasn't the only one who preferred to remain here instead of returning to the room upstairs.

"Krist? What happened?"

Turning her head away from a pile of papers that she was reading through, Ayda looked at me with her eyes opened wide.

"Sorry, the stones!"

Now, safely hidden away from the public eye, I couldn't waste even a single more second. Quickly throwing a few words in the air while hoping that Ayda would catch their meaning, I slammed the door to the room closed, before opening it and charging right through it. 

Returning to my basement, I instantly breathed a sigh of relief. Be it the insufficient time, lacking power of my basement or the things like quality of the stones, not a single one of them lit up yet. While only about half an hour passed since I left them on the table, I now had no other choice but to spend at least my next few moments just guarding those pieces.

But even this soon proved to be impossible. Within less than a single minute, since I appeared back in the basement, a pocket in my pants started to wildly vibrate. This time, it wasn't a short buzz announcing a message or notification, but consistent annoyance signalling that someone was calling.

And there were only a selected few who had my number.

"Pavlo? What's wrong?"

Picking the call, I asked. Most of the time, the young master of the Baskar family would limit himself to just the messages, tolerating how I disliked being disturbed in the time I was away. For him to call, something big had to happen.

"Why aren't you picking your phone? There is something insanely big going on right now so hurry up to the open office!"

Instantly swarming me with his words, Pavlo's tone was full of anxiety and energy alike. Just from it alone I could tell how fired up he was… But there was absolutely no way for me to leave the stones alone now. With Huskarl confirming that there was no safety within the rune I used to fuel them, no matter how big the matter Pavlo wanted to talk about was, I couldn't risk any damage to the basement.

"I'm sorry, but I can't right now. In a few words, what's going on?"

Contrary to how I expected Pavlo to instantly jump at the opportunity to explain everything, the young man on the other end of the call suddenly went silent. Only after a few moments did his voice appear in the speaker of my phone once again.

"Don't tell me… Are you inside one right now? Is that what you have been hiding in the core of this place for the entire time?"

In contrast to the meaning behind his words, Pavlo's tone turned soft, almost as if he was relieved to ask this question. As if the answer that he appeared to guess put him at ease.

"I have literally no idea what you are speaking about. I'm watching over those stones, making sure they won't explode. The first batch almost did. Want to switch to the video-call?"

I was inside what? Rather than bothering to answer this question, I decided to settle the problem of my basement bringing other's attention first. While it was true that I held in secret that this part of the old mansion survived, it wasn't actually the part that was problematic. While it wasn't something I would do happily and readily, if I could push aside all guesses of something being wrong about this place, I wouldn't hesitate even for a second. 

"Okay…"

Once again taking a moment to respond, Pavlo bested me to the button of changing the type of call. After accepting the change, a small diode at the head of my phone lit up, all the while two pictures appeared on my phone's screen.

One I was pretty familiar with. Even with the several minute changes that I made to my appearance, I still had no doubt about one of the pictures perfectly outlining my face. But it was the other part of the screen that actually managed to shock me.

Instead of portraying just Pavlo in his room, the second screen was an image from Pavlo's phone. And instead of showing his room, it was depicting the entire cream of the top of the Baskar family in the conference room, with several important guests awaiting behind a glass-panelled door. 

"Everyone is waiting for you. We really would use your help right now." 

Now, Pavlo's tone returned to its previous anxious sound. But there was no denying one thing, just the video feed of that conference room managed to get me up the speed regarding the importance of the matter. 

But just as I was about to ask what was actually going on, a sudden flash of light brought my attention away from the screen of the phone. Then my entire vision wavered, as a multicoloured rainbow nearly forced me to close my eyes to avoid losing my sight.

Nearly all at once, the stones carved by Sander suddenly lit up! There was hardly any better news than what I just heard!

"Listen… While we are not exactly sure what is going on either, I will take the liberty to describe it in the words that people of our age will understand."

Split between two insanely important things, I turned off the video-call, switching it back to the voice-only version. With Pavlo on the loudspeaker, I quickly brought all the shiny stones together, sweeping them all into a small plastic bag that just happened to be around. Now that they were shining, I had to bring them out of this place as soon as possible.

"It seems that dungeons started appearing all over the world."