Mana is Order and Magic is Chaos. This saying is the basis for all magical theory and perhaps even for magic itself. Mana tends towards order, like energy seeking out the lowest energy states it can reach, mana too has an ideal state that it is naturally in. Unlike energy, mana exists naturally at its resting ordered state, however when mana of different affinities meet they inevitably cause clashes in one anothers order. Magic, the physical manifestation of mana that defies normal reality, is always the result of the order of mana being disrupted. Thus all of magecraft is about intentionally introducing chaos in order to cause mana to react in the exact way we desire.
Of course these theories are often disputed by those who pose questions as to the nature of how an affinity produces its specific results. After all, if earth mana is at rest within the ground, then how is it that using only that same mana can we make the ground move? The answers can be found when one looks farther into what precisely an affinity is, however that is a discussion requiring a book all of its own.
* An excerpt from “The Origin of Magic” by Queen Violetstar of Telminar
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Guildmaster Tor POV
I let loose a heavy sigh as I slumped down into my chair. I was in my official room as opposed to my office, which meant that the chair I was using was actually comfortable. It had been an exhausting week.
The fight with the bandit group had been enjoyable up until the point that they decided to cut and run, from then on things got more annoying. I let loose an annoyed grumble and a scowl finds its way on my face as I recall the events of that day.
I had been fighting the bandits for half an hour, slowly lowering their mana with each of my attacks. I had just pushed back their front line and was preparing a charged up gravity blast on their mage when all four of them suddenly split apart and scattered. They had managed to preserve enough strength for a full speed escape and while I would catch any of them eventually, my raw speed wasn’t high enough to outspeed them until they drained their mana.
I cursed under my breath as I was forced to give chase to them. I picked the mage since he had already been the focus of my attention and chased after him. It took me five minutes to catch him, but I was forced to use up a sizable portion of my mana to accelerate myself fast enough to outpace him.
Once I caught the mage I suppressed his aura, disabling his magic. He couldn’t resist without his friends backing him up and was forced to the ground. I pulled out a special set of high level restraints and quickly arrested the bandit. I would’ve preferred to just kill him, but killing someone actively fleeing from you was illegal in Vicrost.
With the mage disabled I placed a barrier over him, I would recover him later. I quickly took back to the skies and used my mana sense to pinpoint the location of another one of the fleeing bandits. It took me a quarter of an hour to catch the next one, one of their frontline but not the leader sadly.
I quickly restrained my new prisoner as well and spread out my mana sense again. This time I intentionally looked for the leader of the group, finding her to be the farthest away, likely due to her higher level making her faster than the others. As I start to take off in chase I hear a familiar voice call out to me.
“That’s enough Tor. Let the last two escape” A feminine voice that was gentle and soft, yet laced with power and authority.
I turn around and quickly give the Adventurer’s Guild salute.
“Guild Leader, pleasure to see you ma’am” I greeted her, despite being a foot taller than the Guild Leader she always made me feel like a child when I stood in front of her.
“It’s good to see you too Tiny Tor, serious as always I see” She says with a smile as she starts casually walking towards the Guild outpost
I frown at her use of that nickname but she’s already moving away before I can correct her. I scramble to quickly pick up my prisoner and follow her.
“I’m not a little kid anymore Guild Leader” I say as I catch up to her and match her casual walking pace.
“You will always be a little kid to me Tor. I still remember the first day I saw you in the gutter. A tiny little malnourished thing you were, barely six years old yet so full of determination.” She says with a warm smile. “Oh and the way that you demanded that I bring all your little friends with you when I offered to take you home with me! That fire in your eyes and that deep sense of loyalty is something you’ve always had, it's certainly one of the things that made me reach out to you in the first place.”
I feel an embarrassed blush creep its way onto my face as she continues to reminisce about my childhood.
“And you're always so formal too, you learned manners even faster than I did and I was an adult when I learned! Even now you refuse to call me mother or even Amy, what’s so wrong with using my name? For such an obedient boy you still have your difficulties”
“Ok, Ok, that’s enough, I get it! Can we please talk about why you're here?” I plead, desperate to make her ramblings stop before we get into earshot of the outpost.
“I am here, because this is exactly where I need to be.” she says, causing me to groan in response. Stupid fate magic. She never explains her reasoning to anyone unless it’ll somehow fulfill whatever twenty step plan she has in motion.
“Can you at least tell me why I had to let the last two go?” I ask
“They need to report back to their master so that our opponent makes the appropriate response. He’s the cautious sort that would rather overdo than underdo, which means that acting without information is more dangerous than when he acts with it.” She says, surprising me. That was one of the most direct responses I’ve ever gotten, I suppose that means that her telling me this is somehow a part of the plan.
I push thoughts of the Guild Leaders scheming out of my head and instead focus on what she said. She gave me enough character traits that I might be able to narrow down who sent the bandits here in the first place. If I can figure that out then I can plan around whatever their next move might be.
I get lost in my thoughts for the rest of the walk, barely noticing when the Guild Leader stops by my other prisoner and makes me carry him. I’m only brought out of my train of thought by the shouts of my subordinates as we finally reach the outpost.
As I look up I see the sad state that my Guild was left in. While not as bad as the last time I was attacked in a Guild Outpost 30 years ago, the damage is still substantial. The walls had been reduced from 20 foot high stone barriers to a three foot high step capable only of stopping undetermined wildlife. Every building excluding the main office and my personal home had some form of damage on it from the battle and the damage was often extensive. We would likely be doing more replacing than rebuilding considering how far gone many of the structures were.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Luckily despite the extreme damage to the infrastructure the actual casualties were quite low, a trade I would gladly take any day. I could already see many of the more earth aligned adventurers starting to piece back together what they could so that everyone would have a place to sleep tonight. I also suspected that the offices normal functions would be placed on hold and turned into an impromptu inn to house the portion of the population that wouldn’t have makeshift shelters ready. I was debating just giving everyone a few nights stay in the dungeons inn as a reward, but I didn’t want to stress test the dungeons current capacity for people at the moment.
“Everyone, gather around quickly!” I shouted as I approached what was left of the front gate.
Everyone who heard me quickly dropped what they were doing and started to form a small crowd in front of me. Most of them were currently staring at the Guild Leader who made no efforts to conceal her female elven form, maybe some of the members would be less lecherous if they knew how old she was.
“I have managed to capture two of the two star leaders of the group that attacked us. Anyone else who managed to capture an assailant should leave them in the central plaza. We’ll have a public interrogation, followed by a Guild execution.” I said, my voice going lower as I spoke.
Everyone nodded their heads with grim yet determined faces. We all knew what a Guild execution meant, we refused to allow a single death to go to waste. A Guild execution would inevitably result in an increase in the level of the dungeon. Despite this dungeon showing a tendency towards being a training dungeon, the speed leveling of several high-level deaths had a chance to change that.
The only reason I was going through with it anyways was because of two factors. One, it was a legacy dungeon that likely already had its first dozen floors premade. Two, the Guild Leader had yet to say anything in disagreement. With her fate magic I was inclined to believe that she would know if anything would go wrong as a result of my actions and stop me. Although I also wouldn’t put it above her to let me make a mistake just so I can learn from it.
I cleared my head of useless thoughts and moved on to introduce the Guild Leader before anyone tried to hit on her.
“Now then, I’m sure many of you are wondering who the woman next to me is. I’m happy to introduce all of you to the founder of the Adventurers Guild and our wise leader, Amy Evergreen.” I said in the same manner one would hype up a product, I could see the amused smile of my adoptive mother as I turned to the side to let her speak.
“As Little Tor so graciously introduced me, I am Amy Evergreen. Before any of you can ask the obvious, yes I am a Telminar Elf; and while the rumors and stereotypes of my kind may be true about the younger ones, I am old enough to be an exception to them. I will now be taking questions.” She said, her voice soft yet filled with the power that all mythical beings had.
Every guild member in the audience opened and then closed their mouths as she easily answered any question they might have asked. I enjoyed watching the astonishment and awe on the Guild members' faces as she easily plied her fate magic into predicting exactly what any of them would say. I wasn’t even sure if she was using her magic sometimes, it could’ve just been her highly refined intuition as well.
After several minutes of what would appear to be one sided conversation to any onlooker, the Guild Leader stopped taking questions and followed Tor back to his office for a deeper debrief. As he reached his office he noticed a strangely out of place sealed envelope on the top of his desk. The magical signature and coat of arms on the stamp wasn’t one he recognized.
He was about to call for a specialist when Amy moved past him and picked up the envelope, tearing it open and beginning to read it. I quickly moved to look over her shoulder, trusting her to have disabled any magical attacks.
My face went through a range of emotions as I read a letter addressed to both myself and the Adventurers Guild, a letter supposedly written by the very dungeon below my office. As I got to the end of the letter and looked up I could see that the Guild Leader was already looking at me with an amused smile on her face.
“How fun, we get to talk with a dungeon!” She said as her eyes quickly flashed gold and green with her otherworldly magic before returning to normal.
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The City States of Stolm
East of the Farza mountains and within the capital city of Skol, the council of lords was currently meeting. Their discussion unified for once as the predictions of their late seer came to fruition. The troops stationed all along the mountains had found a group of undeclared origin leaving from a hidden passage. The group attempted to flee when found and were quickly captured by the elites that had been sent to watch the mountains.
“Are we certain that they aren’t Vicrost agents?” Lord Lyct questioned
“Indeed we actually got confirmation from Vicrost themselves confirming them as the bandit group that had recently plagued their eastern lands. Not only that but the Adventurers Guild is calling for their heads due to an attack they did on one of their outposts” The Lord of Skol replied
“Excellent, my fellow Lords, this presents a great opportunity for us. We can gain favor with both the Guild and our neighbor to the west in one move.” Lord Oxra says excitedly.
“What good are either? Vicrost is cut off by the Impassible Wall and the Adventurers Guild stays out of political conflict unless directly threatened.” Lord Mirv says in an annoyed tone.
“Not so fast, Mirv. I have more good news. The bandit group traveled not by waygate, but by a previously undiscovered underpass.” Lord Skol says with a smug grin.
Two of the lords grin while another two frown. A new underpass with their Western neighbors was certain to concentrate more wealth into the lands of the Western Lords.
“Now, now, Lord Skol. It is not the time for gloating.” Lord Traj begins turning to the two less than pleased Lords.
“My friends, this is a boon to all of us. With a connection to the west, we may be able to finally ally ourselves against the common enemy at our doorstep.” Lord Traj says before sitting back down.
A short speech that would’ve drawn scorn and annoyance from the nobles of other countries, was met with quiet nods of agreement from the Ursanian Lords. The men of Stolm were of action over words and they all respected one another's intelligence enough to trust in them to draw the same conclusions.
The southern empires were slowly reaching a stalemate. Soon they would turn their gaze outward in search of some form of advantage over the other. Neither empire would tolerate the other's existence, the long and bloody wars they waged had left too many scars in the hearts of their people. The two nations would never reconcile, a lucky thing for the smaller countries that shared their continent.
The Lords of the north spoke no further words and the meeting was soon concluded. A round of more private deals would determine which of the Lords would get the first go at making allies of their western neighbors. Hopefully they had enough time to nurture an economic relationship before a militaristic one would be needed, it would all depend on when the stalemate was officially declared by the fighting empires.
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Arleen Switchback POV
She had barely managed to escape the Ursanian ambush. The people of Stolm were strong and resilient, something that their warriors took to the extreme. She had only escaped thanks to a luckily timed use of her innate stealth ability, something she hated using due to the cost on her mana veins.
However she wasn’t worried for once about how she was going to heal them. With the information she had taken from the last memories of her subordinates' deaths, she was certain that her employer would be more than pleased. He may even finally consider taking her in as a proper vassal now that her entire gang was dead.
She also wouldn't mind being given enough money to retire on. She was starting to get old after all, and after seeing the mana signature of the strongest woman on the continent her resolve to beat her was destroyed. There was no way she would ever be able to match the Adventurers Guild Founder, she would settle for killing all the other bandit lords though. Some ambition was better than nothing after all.
Checking the stars above herself she readjusted her course and made way for the hidden waystone that would return her back to the west. Farther west than even her job, all the way to Limra.