Bella didn't exactly have the sharpest eye for detail. She cleared her throat, and under the collective gaze of the gathered dwarves, laid the map flat on the table. Then she gave the center of it a sharp rap with her staff and released an Identify spell.
"Reveal your secrets!"
Identify was a second-circle spell. Its function was exactly what the name suggested—identification—and like the first-circle Comprehend Languages, it tended to bulldoze through resistances more often than not.
Psionic energy sank into the grain of the parchment. The paper trembled for a couple of seconds as though it resented being forced open, and then, right at the center, rows of glowing script bloomed into view.
Thorin's face lit up. He leaned in close, memorizing the strange characters for all he was worth.
Bella couldn't read the script either—it looked like some form of ancient Elvish—but Comprehend Languages let her read it regardless.
"Mm. This line reads, 'Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks, and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the keyhole.' That's all it says."
"Thrush? Durin's Day?" Most of the dwarves looked baffled. Only a handful recognized the terms.
Thorin, at least, got the gist. "We need to reach the Lonely Mountain before autumn."
His word was final. Vanaheim was still deep in winter, which gave them more than half a year before next autumn rolled around.
Not a breakneck pace. But no time to dawdle either.
...
Between coaxing, temptation, and Bilbo Baggins's own hunger for adventure, the hobbit was hurrying after the company the very next morning, just before they set out.
He rode a little pony and kept trying to strike up conversation with the dwarves around him, hungry for any news of the wider world.
Fifteen people was a small party, but even small parties have hierarchy. Thorin Oakenshield, with his permanent deadpan expression, and Bella, who spent most of her time on horseback with her nose buried in a book, made up the top tier—the decision-makers.
Old Balin, his brother Dwalin, and Thorin's two nephews Kíli and Fíli formed the second tier. Among the four you had fighters, an advisor to the king, and the ones handling scouting and camp duty.
The rest of the dwarves were the third tier.
Bilbo Baggins held no voice in this arrangement at all. For now he was stuck chatting with the chubby dwarf Bombur, and with Bofur and Bifur.
Bella didn't particularly understand the hobbit's enthusiasm for adventure, but she didn't try to talk him out of it either. If he wanted to come, he could come.
Hobbits had a freakish kind of luck about them, and that luck was exactly what Thorin's company needed most.
A combat-zero stat line wasn't always dead weight. Consider this: Bilbo Baggins would end up chatting with Smaug himself for a solid half hour, spraying enough flattering nonsense to buy the main force precious time to move.
Part of that was luck—catching the dragon in a good mood. Part of it was simply that Bilbo was too pathetically weak to register as a threat. Smaug never for a second believed a hobbit could actually hurt him.
Why didn't Smaug chat with Thorin? With Bard? Because those people were dangerous—even a sliver of a chance was a chance.
The dwarves had long since stopped being startled when Bella pulled books out of thin air. Bilbo, on the other hand, was dying of curiosity and didn't dare ask.
What the hobbit didn't know was that Bella's mind was anything but calm.
Dragon, dragon, dragon. The word hung over her head like a dead weight. Yes, in the original storyline Bard put the Black Arrow through Smaug and ended him—but what if something went wrong this time?
The first night after they left the Shire, she told Thorin Oakenshield, "I need to find a way to kill the dragon Smaug. I'm going to consult my teacher. Go on ahead. Once I have an answer, I'll catch up to you."
It was a perfectly reasonable excuse. Thorin Oakenshield knew full well she couldn't beat Smaug. No one alive could.
His expression stayed flat. "Understood. Don't take too long."
"Take care of my horse for me, Mr. Baggins." Bella pointed at the hobbit, who was pretending to be asleep, then raised her hand and traced a ring of silver light in the air. She stepped through it and vanished in front of all of them.
"...She... where did she go?" Bilbo Baggins looked left, looked right, then looked up at the sky. He couldn't begin to understand how she'd disappeared, or where to.
Thorin Oakenshield had little patience for this hobbit—a creature who couldn't lift a weapon or carry a pack and had zero combat value. His answer was clipped. "None of your business."
...
Bella's logic was simple: if you can't beat the monster, go find the bodhisattva. She identified the coordinates back to Earth, took one step forward, and landed inside Kamar-Taj.
"Ah, Miss Bella. You're back later than I expected. Did you run into something interesting?"
The Ancient One greeted her in a light, easy tone.
I got into a messy brawl with your evil twin! A brawl so ugly I can't even bring myself to talk about it!
Bella felt a flicker of embarrassment. Still, she'd won. That counted for something.
She considered asking what the connection was between the Ancient One and the White Witch, but in the end she bit it back. Sometimes it paid to play dumb.
She stated her business. "Teacher, if you ran into a dragon—an evil one, specifically—what would you do?"
The Ancient One watched her with a half-smile. "I could run."
A figure Bella had mentally filed under "practically invincible" answered "I could run" without hesitation. That shook her a little. The Ancient One genuinely didn't care about saving face. And Bella? Bella still cared about hers, at least a bit.
"Um...the thing is, running would be kind of a bad look for me right now..."
The Ancient One considered. "The dragon you're talking about—how old is it? A young dragon? An adult dragon? It isn't an ancient dragon, is it? At the ancient tier, no dragon is an opponent you can match, Miss Bella."
Bella genuinely didn't know how old Smaug was. Thorin and the others certainly didn't either. All they had was some dwarven proverb about "blotting out the sun" to describe his size—but the actual dimensions? No one knew.
"So you don't really understand your enemy at all, Miss Bella. To an ordinary person, you're already a powerful spellcaster. To a dragon, you're still as weak as an ant."
The Ancient One's words were blunt. Bella agreed. That was exactly why she'd come home asking for help.
"I don't know how big or how strong this dragon you're fighting is, but as your teacher, I can teach you a spell: the Eye of Agamotto. It lets you glimpse the past and future of a given area."
The Ancient One crossed her hands in front of her chest, middle fingers and thumbs pinched together in an orchid-hand mudra. The magic inside her began to circulate backward in a strange, impossible pattern. No spell formation. No mana nodes. Just the purest manipulation of raw magic.
Bella had half-expected her to draw on the Time Stone, but soon realized this was a separate spell that merely shared the name. She shoved every other thought out of her head, locked into deep focus, and traced the path of the Ancient One's magic with everything she had.