While waiting in the teleport room for the delegation from Hennings to arrive, City-Lord Cosgrave finally had enough time to get her thoughts in order. It had been a hectic past few hours, but she’d managed to get everything handled… mostly. With barely any more warning than ‘Dwarves Are Coming!’, she’d had to organize everything in a rush while having the situation summarized for her by the few people who knew what was going on.
Ambasidorial quarters had needed to be arranged, servants and liaisons chosen, and a dedicated guard force assigned, along with a hundred other things.
She was bound to have missed something.
Which of course was why she found herself struggling to maintain her regal expression as she listened to her aid, Jessica Chandler, once again going over the most recent updates on the ‘situation’ she needed to address.
“As we were already made aware, the dwarves had chosen our city for the experimental region-sharing program. But, we’ve finally heard back from Lord Bennings, and I can confirm that the paperwork was fast-tracked through the Capital’s Tower of Law along with the Department of Expansion in the Royal Palace.”
Trying and failing to keep her tone calm and collected, City-lord Cosgrave snarled, “And nobody saw fit to alert us to the timetable changing?”
Wincing, Ms. Chandler replied, “Well, they did… technically. However, it seems the ambassador our people were in contact with has been replaced as the head of the dwarven colonization team. In his place, the dwarven kings have chosen to appoint one of their fallen kings rather than raise up a new one. From what little we know, he’s the one who pushed the project forward, and also the reason why we won’t have to temporarily house the dwarves in the city, other than the upper echelons that is. Even then, they don’t plan to stay long. From what I understand, they plan to head directly to their mountain and begin setting up their version of our astra-teleporters. I believe that’s what all those supplies they requested will be for, but that is merely supposition.”
City-lord Cosgrave could just imagine the headaches the people in the capital were putting up with having to deal with the overly-impulsive dwarves. Taking a deep breath to cover the sigh she almost let escape, she couldn’t help but worry about the upcoming headaches she would have now that they were coming here.
Realizing that Ms. Chandler had mentioned that she’d been in contact with Lord Bennings, City-lord Cosgrave turned to her and asked curiously, “How did they end up dealing with the fact that the mountain in question is currently housing the remains of what is now Lord Walker’s mining town?”
After coughing nervously into her hand to clear her throat, Ms. Chandler replied, “Well, they didn’t.” Seeing the City-lord staring at her in confusion, she clarified, “What I mean to say is that the reason Lord Bennings took so long to get back to us was because she was trying to find the paperwork that she’d assumed had been misplaced. Unfortunately, it seems that no one from the capital bothered to check who currently owns the mountain, as they just assumed that now that the line of Dorchen is gone, the mountain would have been returned to the city. She was… unhappy, and made it clear that the matter needs to be addressed as soon as possible.”
Before the City Lord could dig into that delightful complication, she felt the ether in the room begin to quake.
Forcing herself to pay attention to the moment, she half-listened to the transportation room operators calling out their checks while they coordinated with Hennings to stabilize the connection.
She felt the rest of the attending nobles alongside her tense, none of them ever having met a dwarf and therefore not knowing what to expect. Not that she was faring any better, the one experience she’d had with dwarves was seeing them from a distance while she’d been studying in Hennings.
Everything she knew about dwarves she’d read in a book.
She let herself feel the stable presence of Guard Dalton and the Dorchester forces here to act as an honor guard for their distinguished guests. The man’s essence field was a calming presence she’d grown used to relying on.
Blinking away the flash of the teleporter, she saw the delegation already stepping down from the platform. At the head of the group were several humans whom she assumed were here to act as official representatives of the kingdom. Luckily, they didn’t seem to have brought along any guards or, heavens forbid, Populators.
As she met the eyes of the man she assumed was in charge, she was about to offer her greetings when he was awkwardly shoved aside by a four-foot-tall, fully armored, and heavily bearded, what she could only assume was a dwarf. Being able to easily see over his head, she noticed several other dwarves dressed in everything from robes to full plate, each one demonstrating varying examples of how to successfully scowl.
“You City-lord Cosgrave, the human in charge of this city?” the small but ridiculously wide dwarf barked as if he wanted confirmation.
Right as she was about to respond, he continued, “Greetings to ya. Always nice to meet the neighbors. I’m sure we’ll get along well enough. My clan will soon be welcoming you as a trading partner, offering metalworks and bound enchantments in exchange for food and supplies to get us going.
Now, that’s the pleasantries out of the way. I’m sure you’ll want to talk more later… you humans always do. But, there will be plenty of time for that after I get my clan settled. For now, how’s about you show me my mountain so I can get started.”
Struggling to contain the frown at the little dwarf’s tone, she instead managed to settle for a grimace when she said, “Yes, well… about that…”
—--
Nero turned to Nick and offered him the blankest expression he could while stating incredulously, “They built… a road… an actual, real, multiple lane road… up a mountain… through the wilds… in less than a week.”
Nick kept walking, ignoring Nero’s tone with a wry smile on his face. “Yes. They did.”
Nero found himself unable to simply let it go. “Fine… let’s set aside that they build a road to the middle of nowhere, just so that they could cut down the travel time for their supply train by a single day. How about instead you explain to me how they built it so quickly.”
Academian Quincy, who had been walking alongside Nero opposite Nick, replied, “They enchanted it.”
Nero turned his head to give the academian a good ‘old-fashioned death stare. “No shit… but maybe you can elaborate a little?”
While they were chatting, Nero was focusing about half his brainpower on probing the road underneath his feet. With his improved ability to see and understand the essence flows through the ether, he found the road utterly and completely fascinating… completely illogical and nonsensical, but nonetheless fascinating.
The last time he’d been on one, he hadn’t noticed how freakin’ weird they were. He’d thought they were just roads… not… whatever this is.
Back when his forces finally broke camp and began heading back toward Dorchester, he’d already known about the ‘road’ the army had built. But, he’d expected a trail at best. Maybe a cleared and flattened path to make travel easier for the soldiers and supplies. What he hadn’t expected was a full-fledged road that was every bit as well-made as the road he’d found himself waking up on those many months ago. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken, this road may be a bit bigger than the one he remembered.
Having it abruptly begin at the edge of the army’s encampment had nearly had him questioning his senses. It took seeing multiple people interacting with it before he decided to believe his eyes and accept the reality of it actually existing.
Easily slipping into his lecture mode, Academian Quincy said, “Well, roads are essential for travel between cities, towns, and villages. They are quite literally the veins that allow the heartblood of our kingdom to flow. Without them, caravans carrying essence crystals would be constantly under threat of assault from the monsters and beasts in the wilds, and travel would require so many resources that it would be counterproductive.”
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From the other side of Nero, Nick added, “Without roads, civilization would be limited to the regional resources they had available. That’s why the first cities were so isolationist, and why warlords were so intent on fighting amongst themselves.”
Nero, not remotely caring about hearing the Oglivarchian edition of ‘The History of Roads’, was about to sarcastically demand them to answer his question rather than provide more useless information nobody but them would appreciate. But luckily, Academian Quincy cut him off before he could.
“Roads were developed so long ago that there is actually no clear answer as to who truly came up with the idea. You see, roads are complicated demonstrations of the earliest efforts of group-casting, or more accurately, team-enchanting,” he said proudly.
Taking up the explanation, Nick said, “While the enchantment itself isn’t all that powerful, it’s the way it interacts with the ether that is ingenious. If you take some time, you’ll probably be able to sense the essence flows adapting to the road structure. A well-made road has many features, namely easing localized essence distribution, preventing animal and mons-”
Seeing where this was going, Nero interrupted Nick before he could really get going. “Yeah, yeah. I read all about that. Roads are safe to travel because they are enchanted to help deter monsters and disentivise local wildlife. I’ve already chosen to call bullshit on that considering the first thing I saw when I woke up on a road was a pack of wolves chowing down on the dead bodies of this body’s former caravan members the former me was traveling with.
Besides, that’s not what I was asking anyway. I wanted to know how it was made. Nothing in the books I read mentioned anything about roads being built this quickly. Granted, I didn’t exactly understand the spell form at the end of the chapter, but I would have probably paid more attention if it had mentioned that I could build an entire damn road in a week!”
Nick scoffed and began to reply, “The wolves were affected by the enchantment on the road. It was just that the availability of fresh meat was suffic-”
Academian Quincy spoke over what Nick was saying, “Don’t bother. I doubt he’ll take your word for it.”
Addressing Nero once again, he continued, “Roads can be created by an individual, but it’s not recommended or practical. It takes an enormous amount of center to imbue them with an identity that will last, and for that reason, team enchanting is the preferred method of their creation.
You see, enchanting at its core, is a form of spell casting so powerful that the world starts to ‘believe’ that the spell is, and always has been, how the world works. It’s for that reason that lower-level regions like Dorchester tend not to have many high-level enchanted items.”
Nero, sort of following what he was saying, asked, “I’m not seeing the connection. I get that overpowering a spell with so much center could ‘create’ an identity in an object, but what does that have to do with essence density?”
Nick replied, “It has everything to do with essence density! In high essence areas, it’s easier to convince the world that spell effects aren’t uncommon.” Gesturing at the satchel Nero had gotten from Jennings, he said, “Take that enchanted bag the archmage gave you, do you know how much center someone had to infuse into that thing for its identity to be strong enough to survive in a region like this? Of course you don’t, because you haven’t even started studying the basics.” As he finished, he facepalmed himself, fed up with the contradictory nature of Nero’s totally uninformed mastery over magic.
Furrowing his brow so hard his face hurt, Nero asked, “Shouldn’t that work the other way? Wouldn’t it be easier to overpower reality in an area with less essence?”
Academian replied, “Well, yes… but no. Temporary effects like casting are much easier in high essence areas, as the essence is practically begging to be of use. However, in order for reality to maintain its cohesion, those areas are much more firm in their identities. So, once overpowered, or rewritten, the ambient essence can be altered quite easily into whatever form a caster wishes. In less dense areas, the world is much more ‘loose’ with its physical formations, and therefore much more difficult to convince.”
While what they were saying sounded logical, Nero still thought that their theory was incredibly backward. And worse yet, he still hadn’t gotten his damned question answered.
Nick and Academian Quincy shared a look with each other over Nero’s head, silently agreeing to let him mentally work through what they’d just told him.
Meanwhile, Nero’s brain was practically overheating as he’d decided that the easiest way for him to understand enchanting was to just study the freakin’ giant enchanted road he was currently walking on.
Much like the mud walls the kobalds had made, he could tell that it was a construct. Actually, it was more like the massive building they’d made… all one piece… kinda. He could see stutters and imperfections as he walked further and further along the road. It was like the construct wasn’t intended to be uniform, or perhaps it was just poorly made.
His senses probed deeper into the essence making up the road’s stone, giving him the impression of multiple robed men and women walking together as the road formed behind them. He could feel the memory of them working together to cast the spell, funneling their centers, imbuing their ‘belief’ that the road was real.
He didn’t stumble, or outwardly display any change of expression, but on the inside, his mind was reeling. He knew he was delving, and considering how poorly his last attempt had gone, he knew he had to be careful.
It took more effort than he thought it would to stop himself from going any deeper. Somehow, he just knew that if he tried, he could easily follow the road's identity back to each one of the mages who’d created it. It was like they’d left part of themselves behind, giving something of themselves to permanently trick the world into believing the road had always been here.
He even got to see the spell they were using… a simple tier 1, basic spell. Most of the functions that made it up, he didn’t recognize, but he did see some elemental aspects that looked familiar. But it was the way the spell was held together in a series that really caught his attention. It was like seeing another demonstration of the community shield spell, but at the same time different.
Yet, in the aftermath of their casting, the road existed. He could see it. It was real. They’d worked together, and now it was here. When he compared what it looked like in the ether with the ground underneath it and around it, he couldn’t tell the difference.
Suddenly, he understood. The world made stuff with essence. People could use their essence to make stuff. If there is a lot of essence in the ether, the world has to use more essence to make its stuff stable, and so people in those regions had more solid ‘world’ stuff already there to work with.
It was just like people. Higher level people had more center, or more to the point, their identity was made up of more essence than lower level people. That’s why it was harder to alter them with outside spells. But, it’s also why higher-level people were better able to alter the world around them than lower-level people.
Granted, he hadn’t figured everything out. He didn’t suddenly create a unified theorem of essence or anything, there were many questions he still didn’t have answers to.
Like, since enchanting a permanent spell into something made from matter from a high-essence area was easier, then why didn’t they just create stuff and then export it? Would the lower-density area leach essence away from it, thereby ruining the enchantment? Is that why the bag Jennings had given him was so impressive?
Also, how does this realization affect enchantments that make stuff out of nothing? Both the roads and that one example Jennings had shown him were examples of mages pulling matter out of the ether and ‘making’ something. Was that easier or harder to do in high-essence areas? What would happen if you made something in one place, and then took it somewhere else? Would it fall apart? Could you just be riding your wagon on the way to the capital and have the damn thing break back down into essence, leaving you sitting on your ass in the middle of the road being mocked by the incredulous stare your horse was giving you?
Nero was absolutely positive that there was some philosophical or ‘self-helpy’ way to look at it, but he did his best not to think about it. Having mentally wrapped his head around what little of the concept he understood was more than enough. Yet, despite his best efforts, and probably due to how long he’d been living alongside the locals, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about it.
‘If enchanting is no different than spell casting, and spell casting is nothing more than changing the world by giving something of yourself, then knowledge and opportunity only reduce the costs. In the end, it’s your ‘will’ and ‘commitment’ that make up the deciding factor. Higher level areas are like 1st world countries, filled with opportunity, a place easy to leave your mark. But, in lower-level areas, it takes more of yourself to change the world when that opportunity isn’t there,’ he thought to himself.
Immediately, he slapped his cheeks a few times with both of his hands, both to punish himself for sounding like a tool and to snap himself out of it.
Feeling the shock at his abrupt self-abuse from both Academian Quincy and Nick, Nero explained, “Sorry, don’t mind me. I just figured out that life is just a spell cast by your soul on the world, and your level is basically just an insanely slow enchantment your experiences are powering… you know, reinforcing your identity until you’re finally complete. I’m sure you guys already have a clever and pointlessly complicated metaphor for it, but yeah, I’m just now getting it. The world is just a suggestion, and how we live our lives is the proof of who we are. Right? Something like that?… the literal definition of ‘experience’ applies to who we are as we develop. It’s kinda obvious when you think about it… God damn this world is dumb.”
Not understanding that the shock and confusion Nick and Academian Quincy were feeling was no longer about his outburst, Nero ignored them and silently continued contemplating how whoever created this world took metaphors way too seriously.
Meanwhile, the two older mages were deep in thought, contemplating what Nero had said and subsequently questioning their understanding of reality as a result.