It took me quite a while to explain everything, but when I finally left the void and found myself in bed the vague ideas on how to free the Pegasi had congealed into the basic framework of what I felt was a solid plan. I wouldn't know for sure until I had run it over with Ronaldo, however.
The thought of Ronaldo ran through me like a lightning bolt. I had forgotten to check up on him after using our link to defeat the Oathtaking and then borrowing power from him! I sprang out of bed and thundered down the stairs, almost knocking Clemencia over in my haste.
"I'll talk to you later!" I called back at her in what I hoped was an apologetic tone.
"What is going on!" Ronaldo thought at me when I burst into the stables.
"Are you OK!?" I asked out loud, forgetting to use telepathy.
The Pegasus snorted.
"Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because the Oathtaking was yesterday and I also borrowed power from you, don't you remember? I didn't have time to warn you. I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. It wasn't a big deal."
"But you could have been hurt!" I would have been calmer if he had gotten mad at me. I couldn't handle him being flippant about the whole thing.
"Listen, if you think that's the worst thing that could happen, I've got news for you," Ronaldo snorted hotly. "Neither of us is likely to survive this, so I'm not gonna worry about getting tired now and again, as long as it for a good reason."
I nodded.
"Well, I won twenty-five thousand mana, so that's something."
"And I figured out where you were stashing the Glimmerhay, and ate the last bucket."
"Ronaldo! That's not safe! No wonder you didn't feel anything when took that power."
Ronaldo huffed.
"Maybe you should thank me. It might have helped with canceling the Oath."
I sighed.
"Maybe, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. Or that I believe your motivation was entirely selfless."
Ronaldo had no answer to that, so we stood there and looked at each other for a while.
"I guess I'll have to order some more," I said finally. "The trainer said we needed to either increase or decrease the amount you ate gradually or it could cause issues."
Ronaldo did his best imitation of a human smile. It was not very comforting. I sighed again.
"Well, do you want to argue some more, or do you want to hear about my dream last night?" I continued after a moment. "I think I have the basics of a plan hammered out, but I want to hear what you think."
To his credit, Ronaldo dropped the creepy horse grin and gave me his full attention.
"I am all ears. Let's hear it."
"Well," I began, "you're probably not gonna like it."
"Why is that?"
"Because it involves us spending a whole lot of time together."
Ronaldo did not in fact, like the plan that much, but he admitted it was better than anything he had come up with. After a long conversation, he agreed to give it a shot. With Ronaldo's buy-in, I figured that we had a decent chance of pulling off a ritual that affected all Pegasi across the world. It wasn't going to be easy, and the spell would hundreds of thousands, if not millions of mana to cast. Not only that, but we only had about five months to prepare. If we weren't ready by then, we'd have to wait another four years to try again, and neither Ronaldo nor I wanted to wait that long.
As I walked out of the stable in search of Clemencia, I made a mental list of what I needed to accomplish in the next months.
One: Research the spells that would be incorporated into the ritual and test them to make sure the theory was sound.
Two: Gain enough insights to achieve my first epic, which would lower the chances of the ritual failing to a reasonable level. I needed about an insight a day to get there, which at my current pace was more than realistic. With Niraza as my mentor and the insights I'd gain from sparring, I was pretty sure I could average two insights a day, at least for a while.
Three: Gather enough mana to power the ritual. The more I increased my attributes, especially my intelligence and density attributes, the less raw mana the ritual would cost, but the cost would still be immense. What was worse, I needed most of the mana to come from an untracked source. My central mana account was undoubtedly monitored by the Empress.
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Four: Upgrade my Estate's wards to deter prying eyes.
Five: Upgrade my Estate's mana battery to store the mana necessary to power the ritual.
Six: Make sure that I was in the right place at the right time to trigger the ritual. For that, I was going to need Ronaldo's help.
It was a lot, but I was confident that I could pull it off. To be honest, after the previous night's win I felt like I could do anything.
"What can I do for you, Madame Arabella? Are you ready for breakfast?" Clemencia asked as I turned a corner and almost ran into her. Despite my enhanced senses, I had been so deep in thought I hadn't realized she was walking towards me. I quickly recovered from the surprise and smiled at her in lieu of a greeting.
"No breakfast, thanks. I'm still stuffed from last night. I need you to buy me whatever it is I need to play polo. I plan on joining the Junior League."
I could tell that Clemencia was genuinely surprised. She probably didn't expect a bookworm like me to be interested in sports. She was right, of course, but playing polo was an essential part of my plan.
"Of course," she answered almost immediately while bowing. "And may I extend congratulations on placing first at the Oathtaking. Your prize mana has been deposited into your central account. The animated chair has been placed in the library since you sit there often. I can have it moved if you'd prefer it elsewhere."
"How much is it worth?" I asked.
"I thought you might ask that, Mistress Arabella," she replied. "It's worth about five thousand mana, but I think you will find it useful, especially if you're taking up sports."
Although it was well hidden, I thought I detected a bit of sass from my steward, and it bothered me more than it should have. Which I admit was no excuse for boasting, but I couldn't help myself.
"Well, I suppose I am a little sore from defeating all the other new Citizens in hand-to-hand combat at the Oathtaking. Maybe I'll give the chair a whirl and see if it helps."
Not one muscle on Clemencia's face twitched. Not a single one.
"Well," I said, realizing I wasn't going to get a rise out of my steward, "unless there is anything else that needs my attention, I'm going to head to the laboratory. I have a lot of research to do today."
"Of course, Madame Arabella. There are just a few items that require your attention."
"A few?" I laughed. "How many exactly?"
Clemencia consulted the notebook that she usually carried around.
"Fifteen."
Resisting the urge to wrap my fingers around Clemencia's slender neck, I took a deep calming breath instead.
"What's item one?"
It was almost an hour later when I dismissed Clemencia and finally made it into the laboratory. The first thing I was going to do was test out a few warding spells that I had created. They were simple spells, child's play really, but they were of my own design. If I was going to prevent the Empress' minions from spying on me, I couldn't trust anyone else to cast and maintain the wards.
My first goal was to hide an object that was in plain sight. I placed an apple on my workbench and then took a small agate. I took a moment to feel the orderly structure within as I held it between the palms of my hands before filling the stone with mana. When the gem was about halfway full, I set it down and began to cast a spell that would alter the frequency of any light within the area of effect. This would make the light pass directly through any solid object before returning to normal as it exited the warded area.
"Spectral Cloak!"
The apple, the gemstone, and a good chunk of the table disappeared. I balled up my hands and waved them around like a little kid, giddy with excitement. It was good to know I was on solid theoretical footing. The even better news was that I had gained another insight.
It was time to try the second part of the experiment. I walked over to the table and stuck out my hand. My fingers vanished. I laughed and wiggled them around a bit to see if I could detect the movement. The air shimmered a bit and I caught flashes of skin. That was okay, I hadn't expected to get the camouflage effect perfect on the first try. Everything was still going according to plan.
The next part of the experiment involved adding additional mana to the agate. After canceling the invisibility spell, I picked it up with my right hand and focused again on the spaces within the stone where the crystalline form was most regular. Being careful not to overload the agate, I slowly poured more mana in. Once the gem was nearly full, I put it back on the table and cast the spell again.
The apple, gemstone, and most of the table disappeared again. In fact, the spell's diameter was the exact same size as before. I frowned, wondering where I had messed up. Adding more mana should have made the spell affect a larger area. Just to be sure, I stepped forward again and waved my hand over the seemingly empty space in the middle of the table. The air shimmered.
Since the spell neither increased in diameter nor in effectiveness after adding more mana, the only thing I could think of was that the additional mana would get slowly used up to continue powering the spell. I would have to make modifications to the spell's parameters to see if I could increase the area covered and eliminate traces of movement without making the spell impossibly expensive to maintain.
While I waited for the mana in the agate to run out, I moved on to my next experiment. I wanted to see if I could increase the mana capacity of a very poor quality turquoise by repeatedly introducing and removing mana. I would need to cycle the mana in and out of a stone at least a few hundred times before checking to see if there was any noticeable improvement.
It was tedious work, but I enjoyed feeling the mana surge out from my body and into the gemstone before reversing course and circulating back into my hand. I lost track of time for a bit as the mana ebbed and flowed until suddenly I realized that the apple was visible again.
"Mia, was that how long we expected the apple to remain invisible?"
"Correct. Confirmation may be obtained by verifying that the gemstone powering the spell is empty."
I put down the turquoise, which didn't seem to have been affected by my treatment, and checked out the agate. It was entirely drained of mana.
"Well, at least adding more mana helped the spell run longer. I would have been really mad if the extra mana had done nothing. By the way, did you detect any changes in the structure of the turquoise?"
"None," Mia responded simply.
"Yeah, me too. Guess I'll have to try something else."
I didn't expect a response to that, nor did I get one. Mia seldom spoke unless I asked her a direct question or gave her an order.
"Encourage me to try something else, Mia."
"I encourage you to try something else," she responded dutifully.
I shook my head in disappointment at setting myself up like that, then got back to work. There was still a lot that needed to be done before lunch.