Short Story 4: The Spy's Ring (Part 2)
A few days later, word spread around the Ultros that the Keledone on board, representing Volkan, was now in possession of some of the master craftsman's completed item commissions--including Langlicia's Spy's Ring. When Langlicia heard the news, she immediately dropped what she was doing at the time and went to speak to the golem personally.
"It is you, the Unseen One. I am returning your item to you." the golem said with recognition, and a small ring with a jet-black gem on it appeared at the top of the golem's trans-dimensional Bag of Holding.
As Langlicia took the ring and put it back on her finger, she looked up and asked, "So were you able to unlock the mind-protecting abilities of the ring at last?"
"One moment..." the golem replied. "Volkan wishes to speak to you himself."
After a few moments of silence and complete stillness, the golem once again came to life and spoke.
"Unseen One, I have news that I must relay to you. After a thorough reexamination, I went to the length of consulting with an enchanter from the Kingdom of Aresia and confirmed that this ring, as it is now and as it was before you recently sent it to me, requires no further enchantment for you to fully use its capabilities."
Langlicia paused for a moment. This is not what she expected to hear. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I'm a bit confused. You're saying you've done nothing?"
"I have done nothing but re-inspect the item and confer with its makers. There is, undoubtedly, no issue with the ring itself. If anything, it is a bit more capable than others like it because its protections against divination magic no longer automatically accept the Aresian Intelligence Directorate's magical code which would otherwise allow them to bypass those protections and peer through it whenever they see fit. The enchanter from Aresia with whom I spoke was not happy to learn this, incidentally."
"...which means they probably haven't tried to scry on me since I acquired the ring, which is good news for me and my future dealings with Aresia." Langlicia thought to herself.
"So then . . . why is it not working as intended?" she asked.
"According to my contact, the fault lies squarely with you. By having me tamper with its available capabilities previously, you've inadvertently skipped past some of its normal protections against premature access but not all of them, and now those that remain in place can no longer be bypassed or removed without destroying the ring itself, and apparently this is by design. Since I did not believe you would want the ring destroyed, I chose not to tamper with its enchantments any further."
"So . . . where does that leave me? How do I acquire complete access?"
"My contact would only give me this message, and he sounded quite confident--smugly confident even--that you would understand it: 'The Shadow Master says that you must go beyond merely using the weapon, you must become the weapon.' That is the entire message, word-for-word. He refused to say any more, citing 'state security' as his reason."
Langlicia stood for a moment and thought about the message she'd been given, but nothing from her previous training came to mind to explain these cryptic instructions. The message was not composed using any code that she recognized, nor would it make any sense for them to send a message intended for her ears using a code she didn't know. "I'm . . . afraid I don't understand." she finally said, hesitantly.
"Then that is a problem that you must face on your own. There is nothing more I can do for you that I have not already done. Also, thank you for the coin. It was instrumental in facilitating contact with Aresian Intelligence." After that, the golem went silent.
"Well, that IS where it originally came from, after all." she thought to herself while walking away. "Now, . . . what exactly does it mean to 'become the weapon' . . . ?"
TO BE CONTINUED