Jack awoke to the sun not yet up over the horizon, the alarm spell that he had set up last night blaring loudly in his head. Groaning, he stood up causing the noise to cease. While his calls yesterday hadn’t given him any solid data, he had gotten two of the temp companies to agree to him looking at their mission records today so that he could try to find out who Dilacy’s companions were on her last trip outside the city. He had also learned that a number of the ruins outside the city on the north side were remnants of a destroyed interplanar portal. It was the site of one of the few portals that had connected to what became a forbidden dimension.
Out of the many times that interplanar portals had been opened only a few ever received that designation. Even the most inhospitable planets and planes that were discovered were often traveled to with careful preparation for the gathering of resources. Jack would have to make a stop by the library as well, to see what the history books claimed occurred with the portal there. As a plane that had been declared forbidden, certainly spoke of the potential of remnants for which people would pay exorbitant prices. That was one angle that Jack would have to carefully comb through once he found out whom exactly Dilacy had explored with.
Running his hand through his hair Jack shuffled to the bathroom to get himself ready for the day. Looking into the mirror mumbling “It’s going to be a bad few days, you know this Jack. But… it’ll be worth it in the end. If we can’t find the girl, we can at least give closure to her family. That’s worth the pain.” Trying to psych himself up for the misery he was sure to come.
Once fully awake, Jack went out into the city proper. Wrapping his coat tightly around himself he trudged his way northward in the heavy snow that had continued to fall throughout the night. He grunted looking at the offending weather. “Great, even if I can find where she was last seen, not only will any tracks or evidence be days old but it’ll be under half a foot of snow at the very least. Ugh.”
As he complained, there was a loud hissing sound getting steadily closer, turning his head to look he saw a superheated golem with a giant shovel strolling up the middle of the street shoveling huge amounts of snow into an opening on its back. Jack could see a logo on the front of it, Telipar Industries. Seeing how quickly the large golem was making its way through the packed snow in the street, Jack briefly considered checking later to see if they had smaller models that could be used on a personal basis.
Shaking his head to clear himself of distractions Jack continued on his way. His first stop would be the library. At the speed he was going right now, he would make it right as they were opening their doors for the day.
As Jack reached the library, he took a moment to catch his breath, while looking at the massive doors covered in arcane inscriptions. It hammered down the fact that knowledge truly was the most valuable thing in the world. Even most government buildings often didn’t have the sheer amount of security that libraries did. After a short while Jack heard the telltale click of the doors being unlocked and the small crowd that had gathered outside started making their way in.
Jack made his way to the help counter where an older gentleman sat. His slightly pointed ears and metallic tints in his hair told of him having Agier heritage. However, with the age apparent on his face, it was either very diluted or he was extremely old. Trueborn Agier are unageing semi-elemental beings. The children that they had with any of the other species of the Consortium had much longer longevity than others of their kind.
“Excuse me. I was wondering if you could direct me to the part of the archives that have any information on the conflict and what caused that planar portal to be shut down outside the northern end of the city.” Jack inquired.
The fellow behind the desk took out a large tome and began to flip through it. Responding as he did so, “Oh? That old history? Looking at you, you don’t look the normal type to be going out and exploring that kind of environment. So what brings your interest to this particular topic?”
Jack kept himself from shifting back and forth in impatience. “Well, I’m looking into a missing persons case of someone who had just returned from an excursion out into that area. The more information I can find on what they may have found out there the better. Who knows if something that they discovered brought them the wrong kind of attention.”
The archivist nodded his head still flipping through the tome. “Well, if I remember right there is certainly the possibility. I think there had been something that I had read about. Something about a time where there was a rush of folks here to pull out everything they could from the area. Don’t remember what they had been looking for however. Ah, here we are! All right follow me”
He stood up from behind the counter and pulling out a ring of keys lead Jack to a back corner of the library where a stairway going down was located. Heading down the stairs Jack felt a strange almost fluid shimmering sensation first sweep over and then settle onto him. Calling out to the old man Jack asked “Hey what was that I just felt? It felt a bit like when someone had used divination magic on me before, but far more potent. Plus, it feels as if it is still there, just… dormant?”
That got a dry wheezing laugh out of the old man. “Not been down in the archives before then have you, Sonny? That’s the ward that checks you have the proper permissions to be down here and that you don’t try to abscond with any of the records. If you came down here on your own you would have been locked down tight until one of the security automatons came and collected you for questioning.”
Jack nodded his head in understanding. Most of the archives were completely mundane other than some of the knowledge they contained. There were likely some records of lost magics or other fragments of dangerous knowledge that was kept on hand for research. The older institutions often held onto some of those bits and pieces. While Desval was a fairly small city, this library was a branch of the prestigious Grand Arcanist Librarium. That organization had stood now for several centuries as a powerhouse of information.
Following the library employee through the stacks of the archive, Jack had to constantly refocus his attention. He found his eyes wandering off, pulled towards different sections of information without thinking. As he brought himself back to following the man for the third time he realized that something had to be at play here. Perhaps it was part of the ward to test knowledge seekers commitment, or perhaps it was some of the information itself, subtly trying to cause those who pass by to read it and take the information out into the world. Jack always reminded himself, magic was a dangerous business, and some things were better left unknown or forgotten.
After what seemed like a combination of a short stroll and an eternity, they stopped at one of the many seemingly unlabeled shelves. “All right, here we are!” Exclaimed the old archivist. As he took the bunch of keys and flipped through them until stopping on one and tapping it onto what at first glance was empty air between the shelves. There was a small flash of light and the librarian gestured for Jack to enter.
“You’ve got two and a half hours that you can look through the records here. I’ll be back at that time. If you would like me to come sooner just tap this glyph here.” He said indicating a small blue glowing sigil on the end of the unit. “And finally, don’t go wandering off. The wards are much stronger here than they were at the stairs. Enjoy your reading, I hope what you find helps you in some way.” As he finished talking, he nodded his head at Jack who entered the section. Tapping the key on the air again he headed back the way they came. Jack nodded his head, took out his notebook, and got to work.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Looking around, most of the items in this section appeared to be newspaper articles from around the time that the portal was opened. There also were at least two different books and a few broken pieces of some kind of item that Jack couldn’t identify. He jotted brief descriptions of what the fragments that he could see looked like. They were a strange semi-metallic looking material that seemed solid but when Jack touched it, it molded to the shape of his finger. As soon as his finger was removed, it sprang back into its previous shape.
Picking up one of the pieces Jack suddenly got a headache as he began to see something strange. It appeared to be some kind of bright blue glowing box filled with a jumble of random assorted letters and symbols. Some he knew, and many others he had no idea about. As he continued to hold the fragment it started emitting a sound as well, a strange screeching ringing inside of his head. Hurriedly Jack set it down and to his relief both the box and the noise disappeared as if they had never been there, with only the headache remaining to prove that it hadn’t just been his imagination.
Edging away from the fragments Jack looked at the newspaper dates to see when the event took place. After a brief moment, Jack paused in shock. It seemed that this happened only about 60 years ago. For him not to have heard about it during his schooling, there must have been something about the plane they connected to that was considered a major hazard to the people of this world. This did mean that there was a higher likelihood of artifacts or other informational fragments remaining that collectors and researchers would be interested in. Glancing again at the strange fragments near him, Jack thought to himself “Potentially very dangerous information and artifacts at that.”
He started going through the books first checking to see if either had any listing in the table of contents about an enemy or an unusual term. Finding a spot that looked like it may have what he was looking for Jack turned to the chapter and began to read.
“The insidious nature of the opponent can in no way be overstated. These people were more dangerous in peace than they ever would have been in a direct conflict. When the planer connection was first established and the first exploratory spells were cast through, nothing seemed out of place or problematic. The plane was rich in saturated mana, the ecosystems that could be seen were vibrant and diverse, and the atmosphere read as perfect for most of the species of the Consortium. All signs pointed to an excellent outcome and the divinations that were cast came back clean other than variation of planer rules which was well within the standard deviations.
Further exploration found evidence of civilization with the surprise of not just a single intelligent species but rather a varied and diverse population. Most of the sapient species found on the other side coincided with many of those already known from other planes, most were humanoid but some held other forms. The assumption was made that it was likely similar to the reason that Surdyl was now home to many species besides those that are indigenous. Either this was a plane that currently had contact with other planes or had some kind of planer crossover event in the past.
The portal was used to study the new world for a period of about five years via spells and minor automatons before it was declared safe enough to have live explorers go through. This would be a major undertaking as it would be the first step to establishing contact between the planes and hopefully, would lead to good relations allowing for a new trade partner or even a new member nation of the Consortium.
The governmental system from what could be ascertained appeared to be a monarchy with a noble caste system. There did not seem to be large-scale discrimination against those of a lower class. Instead, it looked to be more fluid than some of the caste systems that had occurred in nations on our own world in the past. With those who were either personally powerful or had done deeds for the nation rising in rank.
While the level of industrialization was lower on the new plane than it was in Surdyl that was not too surprising as our industrialization had not taken off until we met the Formorians and joined the Consortium as a planet ourselves. It seemed likely that the civilizations there labored under the same misunderstanding that we did in the past. Why would you need to create tools to do a job when you can just make a spell to do the same? As seen by our own advancements after overcoming this bias, leading to revolutionary changes in understanding the very nature of mana and magic itself, benefiting all members of the Consortium. It was thought, that the magical traditions and different ideas that would come forth from a new ally, would likely once again do the same.
The first explorers were tasked with capturing a few live specimens of local flora and fauna and after securing those they were to go to the nearest village to see what the response to outsiders would be. By all accounts, the initial assignment went exceedingly well. The team brought back an abundance of not only specimen but also several inorganic materials that looked to be potentially unique to that plane. In addition, when the exploratory party made contact with the locals, they seemed to be happy and welcoming. After meeting the village chief, the team leader came back with a much clearer description of how the government in the kingdom worked. They were also given a written recommendation to the local earl who ruled over the territory where the village was located.
The committee that was running the portal experiment decided to send an envoy to begin peace and trade talks with that noble. The hope being, with how positive the reaction to outsiders was and how upbeat the villagers were, that the earl would be an excellent first major contact. The talks took several months to complete but everything went well. The local earl proved to be an excellent source of knowledge for materials that would be of interest for trade between the planes. It was soon after the first stage of talks was completed that the fact something was wrong was discovered.
Telipar Industries had gotten a message from the wife of one of the members of the envoy’s party. She was asking why they had not notified her of her husband’s death and if it was possible to recover his body from the other plane. This caused some confusion as according to all reports, everyone that had been sent as part of the delegation had returned without issue. The correspondence stated that the wife cast a slew of divination magics as part of a routine she did every time her husband had been to another plane. This time however all of the spells that she cast were unable to find her target. Her initial thought was that perhaps the delegation had been delayed. But with her continued persistence of casting the spells every day without response, it seemed that something had happened to him in the other world and Telipar had chosen not to inform her of his passing.
This was an unusual enough claim that the company decided to put it to the test. They had already been doing the standard slew of examination spells on employees returning from the other plane so one more test would not hurt. They found siblings of several of the members of the delegation and used them as mediums to divine how the returnees were. To their shock, only a few of those that they attempted to divine returned a response to the spells, for the rest it was either as if they didn’t exist or were entirely different people. This fact set off numerous alarms as something able to replace people or change them so fundamentally without anyone noticing the difference was a major breach in security.”
Jack paused for a moment, eyes glancing back over at the strange fragments on the shelf. He shivered at the thought that those could have been trying to alter him into something or someone else, and likely could have succeeded if they weren’t just broken remnants of whatever they had been originally. There was something about the last two paragraphs in particular that was bothering him. Jack rubbed his temples, wracking his brain trying to figure out what exactly was setting him off. After a short moment, he gasped. The divinations! The Fawlers last night had spoken about how all of their attempts to divine on their daughter and what had happened to her were returning nothing not even if she was dead. This combined with what the book spoke of suggested that Dilacy had indeed come across or been affected by some kind of remnant that was in the ruins. Quickly writing down his conjecture and underlining it Jack turned back to the book to continue his reading.