I really hadn’t been gone that long, had I? I mean, two months give or take, but come on. The washed out skeleton of a city that was Miami was gone, replaced with a clean, beautiful, but smallish futuristic looking metropolis that seemed to be birthed from a crazy mashup of Star Wars and Avatar. Slender pyramids with needlelike points topped with blazing diamonds sat in a rigid order forming a square whose points touched a giant wall the color of heat blasted sand that stood at least fifteen stories high. Not only were they tall, but the walls could have easily fit a suburban house between the inner and outer edges, allowing for people to travel along the top like another road. People, all kinds of sentient, walking, talking beings were down there, carrying on with life as if this planet hadn’t already been harvested, nearly stripped clean of the inhabitants that used to be here. I could barely make out Centauri in their gleaming silver suits of nanotech armor, graceful Aelves whose dull green and brown garb stood out in contrast to the colors of civilization surrounding them, and many others I couldn’t make out from this height. The answer to how they even got here lay in the epicenter of the city behind its own set of formidable, yet smaller inner city walls, the gate.
Putting two and two together took me longer than it should as the view was very different than what I expected; when I buried the gate the last time I was here I didn’t actually destroy it, I merely sunk it, apparently not far enough though. The gate itself was intact as the silty earth of Florida swallowed it up, preserving the structure until the Centauri could dig down and get it back up and running. The depression of the earth only served to highlight the interdimensional traveling apparatus from where I sat way up high scouting the area as I flew with SAW’s wings outstretched, using the combination of magitech and runework to keep me up at my strategic vantage point. The warm ocean air constantly rolled in as steady as its waves, the lateral movement providing lift to the slant of my wings giving me the appearance that I was hovering overhead on an updraft like some great metallic bird of prey.
Last time I encountered the gate, the main frame of it was made out of humongous rib bones covered with runes while the base it sat on was a giant block of a building resembling a warehouse. This time the base was the same material as the outer walls of the city and the bones were still the frame of the gate but now they were ornately covered with carved, shiny stone runes that were pressed into the bone so that they were flush with the ivory colored surface. Where the rib bones almost connected at the zenith of the gate, the space there was bridged MY FUCKING TREE! Dear fucking LAWD! They grew my tree, my little sapling of Yggdrasil to form the missing arch of the Gate. Where the rib bones curved upwards but didn’t quite touch to make a circle, somebody forced my beautiful tree to grow up from where it was behind the base of the gate to attach to the back of it, framing the structure up the sides to meet at the space between the tips of the rib bones.
Forcing the irrational spike of anger away, I remembered Kraken telling me in a lesson a while ago that shapes do hold magical significance, general circles are for containment, protection, and space itself while shapes with corners are meant for strategic defense. Apparently it was a universal concept that was so old that actual metaphysical significance was invested in mere simple shapes, making it an primal instinct for magic users to weave their craft in such ways.
Thinking back, there had to be something to it. My cavern that made up the space in the Lab was almost perfectly circular, the Sunstone castle was a square within two staggered circles and even the runes on all of my gear either were at right angles to each other or in a beautiful looping curve.
“I don’t get it.” That was all I could really muster at the moment. A city like this would have taken decades for humanity to build, and that’s not considering the sheer beauty of it as well. The view was art, a landscape drawn by a soldier obsessed with art along with the talent to make it happen. The walls were perfect in terms of total security, tall enough so that giants would have a hard time assaulting it and thick enough to make battering rams of any kind completely useless. The main ingress of the city could almost be considered a tunnel as it was a small tunnel from all the way up here. There were no giant doors on those fifteen story high walls to let people in but there was a little door, which, putting it in perspective, was probably big enough to fit a couple semi-trucks through side by side. Smaller walls surrounded the Gate in the center of the city, a precaution against someone getting control of the other side and trying to invade. Smart.
It’s times like this that I’m glad that I cultivated a proper sense of caution. Some people might call it overblown paranoia but since I’m still alive and kickin’ then who gives a fuck. Instead of traveling from my splinter of Yggdrasil directly to the one in Miami, I hitched an interdimensional ride to a dense copse of trees about thirty miles away and flew in and boy was I happy that I did so. I was even happier that I took the time back home to make sure that my stores of power were completely full, even the extra ones in Gungnir.
[Don’t be so surprised,] Kraken said, using SAW to boost the range of our magical senses as we tried to get a better picture from up here. [The Centauri have had plenty of time to fix this place up. With nanotech carving the runes and drones doing the heavy lifting with the soldiers, I’m surprised this is all they’ve managed to do. By now they should’ve had most of this continent mapped out for the harvesters.]
[It’s one thing to know it but, man, it’s a whole ‘nother thing to see it.]
Highlighting the city in the visor of my helmet like a sci-fi headset, Kraken began pointing out the different buildings and their purpose. The slender pyramids were a dual purpose power sink, capable of converting solar energy from the sky into mana as well as converting heat from the earth into mana and combining the two. The square formation of the pyramids fed mana into the overly large walls creating a veritable ‘river’ of available mana that flowed around the city and through every building. Since they didn’t have any way of storing their power, they simply had a current to do it for them.
If they needed to actually defend the city from an attack, the Centauri battlesuits would drop silvery cords from the nodes on their backs which would connect to any structure linked to the city’s mana river. The diamonds on top of the pyramids could also project power outward in the form of a city-wide shield or as a beam of raw destruction. One line of crystal sheathed in stone connected to the side of the Yggdrasil opposite the portal, using the World Tree as a siphon for power as well. All in all the setup was pretty ingenious for lacking basic battery technology.
[Just to reiterate since we’re thinking this over,] Kraken said, trying to instill a proper sense of caution since my own personal paranoia somehow wasn’t enough. [Don’t underestimate the Centauri soldiers, and least of all their veteran battle wizards. One of the hallmarks of their training is their soul-capacity program. Over time, they learn how to force their bodies to produce and hold more mana, or it might be their soul, we’re not really sure. But it does allow them to function as their own battery.]
[So compared to me, how much power can they hold?] I asked, genuinely curious. An education in magic is something that I’m clearly lacking but the rest of the universe has already quantified this and moved on. Universities and academies for those with power are not uncommon and they have already gone through the process of creating metrics for power. The ‘thaum’ was a common unit given to a bit of mana whereas some races go even further and use ‘points’ of mana, rating on a number scale as opposed to an effect scale.
According to Kraken’s long winded answer that ended up being very informative, the way power within magic is measured is as varied as there are races in the expanded multiverse. It can be as simple as, I feel that I have enough power to do an action and the will to see it through. Or, one unit or point of magic power is sufficient to generate a flicker of fire like a lit candle and keep it going for one second. Humans tend to use the base of fire as we’re so close to it, the flicker of life that allowed us to leave the caves and tame the world around us.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
A significant portion of the magical community tends to use thaums as a metric of power instead as it’s a more general approximation of power. The thaum in its base form is enough to complete an action of simple magic such as generating a flame or conjuring a basic element, or to pull a small object to oneself. But putting thaums together is to describe power in terms of a multiplicative reality such as keeping a magic shield going to protect your body while also conjuring fireballs at an enemy. The approximation description of power being used at that moment would be at least four thaums of power as each action requires the conjuration of a magical act, the shield and the fire, and then each requires another thaum for either maintaining that act or manipulating that act. The shield must be made and then maintained, and the fireball must be conjured and then flung.
Most humanoid users of magic tend to fall into the ‘four thaum’ realm of power as using multiple magics at the same time directly increases the power of that user. To describe the same output of power with the ‘point’ metric, based off of skill, a wizard who has the equipment to help him keep track of his power might say a mana shield takes fifty points of mana to conjure and ten a minute to maintain, while the fireball is a hundred points of mana that would require another fifty to hurl. But even if you have a million points of mana but can only do those actions, you would still have roughly ‘four thaums’ of power as that’s the max complexity of the actions you could do.
The Centauri try to get around this the typical way, by using magic implements to shoulder the burden of multicasting, which is what I do as Kraken and Gungnir have some capacity of working independently. But it’s all up for interpretation as the metrics of measuring magic power tend to break down when dragons enter the fray. A fire dragon will breathe fire with the power to melt through a fortress, which technically is one action, but no one is going to say that was ‘one thaum of power’. The other way of looking at it would be that a dragon expelled a breath attack of ‘twenty thousand mana points per minute’.
Digesting all of this was enlightening and confusing all at the same time as it still didn’t answer my fucking question. Taking advantage of my mental sorcery to allow for faster conversation, I pulled Kraken into my mindspace where we could talk while SAW kept a vigil.
“Compare me to a typical Centauri warrior and then to a Centauri battle wizard and to Merlin. Is that a more clear question?” I asked, my tone similar to a dad begrudgingly asking for directions.
“It’s not that simple!” Kraken said, pulling out the trusty big screen tvs as I sat down in the comfort of my own mind. “You break all the rules with your batteries, which is fine because I like the saying I found in your head, ‘If you ain’t cheatin, you ain’t competin’. Yes both systems of measuring have their flaws but think of it this way. A typical Centauri warrior uses magic to enhance their body and power their weapons, which they can do all day before they run outta steam. A Centauri battle wizard can power their suit, their weapons, and all of the rune tattoos for about half a day at full power which makes them able to take on at least ten lesser warriors if the skill levels are roughly the same.”
“And Merlin?”
“Let’s just say Merlin has about ten thousand years of practice on you, not just counting the unstoppable nature of the sorcery he has. Wild magic can’t be mastered and he did it, so, there’s really no point in using him as an example at all. But without your gear and your weird tactics, you can easily take down a platoon of Centauri warriors and probably two of their battle wizards. With your gear, well, it’s just not fair.”
Resting my chin in my hand, I pondered the mess that I was tiptoeing around. “Ok,fine, so don’t even think about Merlin because he’s not just outta reach but off the freaking planet.”
“Yup.”
“What about the minotaur shamans? Where do they stand in all this, comparatively?”
Pulling up an image of a minotaur shaman on one tv, Kraken had the other two display a battle wizard and me. “Shamans are different due to the kinds of magic they wield, generally related to ‘pack’ or ‘herd’ magic. Werewolf or shapeshifter shamans fall into this category as well. The very nature of their magic means that it has a small multiplicative effect, like two minotaur shamans are twice as deadly as two battle wizards because they instinctively know how to mesh their power together, they know what their partner is thinking and what they’re gonna do.”
“Gotcha, like two good friends on a basketball team versus two strangers.”
“Yes, exactly, but now start adding in more shamans on the same level of teamwork with minotaur soldiers to share the burden of mana and injury and the danger level skyrockets. The dwarves kind of achieve the same scale of ability as they have a culture of combat based on solid crafting and enchanting. For example, each one of their tower shields does the exact same thing and their shield wall is nigh impregnable.”
Replaying the fight of the minotaurs and the dwarves in my head, I remembered the flows of mana jostling back and forth differently between the groups. Pointing out what I hadn’t noticed in the first place, I threw the scene of the battle up on the roof of the room like a projector.
“So the minotaurs use each other as batteries for mana and the dwarves primarily pull it from the ground right?” I said, talking fast as my excitement grew. “So what do the Aelves do? And are the elementals completely different from everything else?”
Chuckling as he made more tvs full of different races, Kraken answered, “Yes, you’re correct on the dwarves and minotaurs. The minotaurs share mana regeneration between the members of their herd and channel it to the one needing it the most, usually the shamans. The dwarves do pull from the earth but due to the unusual amount of metal in their blood, dwarves gain and lose mana faster than most. Their mana capacities tend to be small but they regen it very fast. They taught the Centauri the trick of using mana flows to substitute as storage for power.”
“So lemme guess, the Aelves tend to have very large internal mana capacities but regenerate that incredibly slowly.”
“Correct. More than any other race, they use meditation to speed up how fast they produce and gather mana while Elementals have an internal line feeding them power from whatever Elemental plain they came from. It sustains them but they only grow in overall strength from mana given from a mortal, however flimsy the term ‘mortal’ actually is. Summoners, if they know the tricks, can be as powerful as dragons in terms of power due to the unique nature of elementals.”
The images on the screens were replaced with the memory of the minotaurs fighting the dwarves as Kraken removed the projection I had of it on the ceiling. Separating the most powerful individuals in that fight to their own screens, Kraken began pointing out the racial differences of the battle.
“The minotaurs’ overall strategy is to tank and bash,” he explained as red lines linked minotaur, the thickest of which were directly connected to the shamans. Wire thin green lines overlay the red mana lines to show the different spells being channeled. “They use their overwhelming lifeforce, their health pool magnified by the herd blood-links, to weather the storm and their strength, size, and numbers to mow down their enemies. Dwarves tend to favor the defense game.” Brown lines speared down from their armor into the earth and looped back up, feeding into the enchantments and weaponry. “See here, with their high mana regeneration with earth mana siphoning, it combines with their well crafted armor and siege weaponry allow them to fight from a defensible position forever.”
Following the logic, I chimed in. “So I’m guessing that Aelves favor woodsy terrain and like either long distance combat or a mix of nature based ambush techniques.”
“Yup.”
Wiping one screen clean, I brought up the image of new Miami. “And cities of mixed races with magitech and a big fucking wall are not meant to be assaulted?”
“Not by you.”
“Joy.”
Leaving the mindspace and returning my awareness to where it belongs, I consulted SAW to see how long the impromptu lesson was. Two minutes of accelerated mind time equating to a good twenty minute conversation is pretty good, which means in terms of planning that I can look at problems ten times longer than anyone else. That realization set off my inner villain, complete with the overblown maniacal laugh that promises a really long, boring monologue.
Now that we were back to reality, Kraken spoke to me mentally. [Assaulting the city is NOT a smart course of action!]
Agreed. The Scion correctly recommends action in line with self-preservation protocol.
[See? Even the nanobots agree with me? Don’t do it!]
I fired back with just a hint of irritation. [I wasn’t going to do that! I’m not a complete idiot.] Shaking my head at the lack of faith, I continued looking at the city. [Besides, witches remember?]
Putting about a mile's worth of distance between Miami and myself gave me plenty of space to land and examine my gear. I had to make sure that my armor didn’t give off too much of a magical signature. I didn’t know what else to do about the city other than walk up and see if I could get in. With the increased population, the chances of me randomly running into people who remember me from the last time is incredibly low, which still isn’t good enough for my paranoia.
Taking my time, I worked with SAW to cover up the ‘leaky’ parts of my gear with platinum and anti-discernment runes. I used a closed eye to signify someone just overlooking my armor, hopefully achieving the effect of making one’s eye slide over without actually seeing much. [It’s good enough,] Kraken said, wringing his tentacles nervously. [It’s already suspicious enough that you’re gonna just walk up and say hi. You need a story, some reason or backdrop to give you a bit of legitimacy, otherwise they may just waste you. Centauri aren’t known for forgiveness.]
“And I’m not known for weakness.”