A month was a very long time in politics and yet a very short time in Seruatis. The collision of the two one would presume would reach some sort of happy medium, alas this was not to be. A month on from the prophecy, which a melodramatic few were already calling ‘The Last Prophecy’, chaos still reigned over the world’s deadliest retirement home.
The Swordsman had long given up trying to stop people leaving, and accordingly the population had plummeted, almost half what it had been and many houses lay empty. What was newer was that he’d stopped giving aid to the small groups leaving. It wasn’t a sudden callousness or lack of empathy, he’d simply run out of aid to give. The vaults of Seruatis lay bare but for those weapons deemed too dangerous not only to ever be allowed out into the world once more but too dangerous to destroy as well.
Despite all that, and a sudden drop in the quality of food, Seruatis’ leadership, unofficial as it was, was intact. The Eternal Swordsman had faced no challenges to replace him as custodian and the three gods that slumbered there had faced little more than token efforts to remove them; no one knew what would happen if they simply refused, afterall how did one kill a god?
There was one resident who knew the answer to that question, and the echoes of her footsteps haunted the library as Dus locked it for the night. Normally at this point she’d lurk between the shelves, enjoying a few precious hours without her sightless domino mask. It was necessary, even polarising lenses were not proof against a gorgon’s gaze and she had no desire to slaughter her fellow denizens by the dozen every time she took a stroll.
Still she took her mask off, the creatures she was about to treat with she wished she could turn to stone. With determined steps she stalked to the second floor, settling into the small alcove where her three greatest enemies lurked, just an old hardwood table between
“You’re late.” Pheus needled, though there was no heat in it, this was just them going through the motions. It was a familiar, comforting thing.
“Some of us still have duties to the world.” Dus replied icily, face a blank enough mask as the make the real one seem expressive by comparison, “You desired a meeting, speak your part and have done.”
“That could take some time.” The God of Dreams assured her, “Much as it took us much time to settle upon a course of action.”
“You’ve been sending people out to die for a whole month.” She pointed out, trying to stare down the inhumanly beautiful man.
“A low cost and low effort strategy, not even one in ten shall succeed.” Nem replied, matching Dus’ icy tone.
“A lot of people are going to die because of it.” The gorgon pointed out, it wasn’t that she particularly cared but a free barb was a free barb.
“And those that survive it shall be forged anew. And the chains whos locations we revealed are… I suppose you could call them limiting chains. Things designed to stop one people having the strength to just wipe out another.” The God of Vengeance explained, “With what is to come we shall need the extra strength.”
“Presuming this great end of yours comes generations down the line.” She countered.
“Presuming this is so, yes, but we seek not to presume but to ensure.” Jay told her, taking over from Nem. This Dus did take seriously. Though she’d never met Sato she’d have regarded him as a master precognizant. Jay would have run rings around him, and like anyone who could see the future, and intended to live to see it, he held his tongue wherever possible. When Jay spoke, people listened.
“You have a plan. And you need me for it.” The ancient gorgon concluded.
“A plan, and a gift, or a trust.” He told her, a smile on both sides of his face.
“What’s the plan?” Dus demanded, wanting this over with more than she could put into words. Even this short chat with these monsters made her queasy.
“There will come a time, in the near future, where we will request our dear patron lower the shield protecting Seruatis. We need you to side with us on the issue.”
She was almost sad she hadn’t been drinking something just so her surprise could spray it over the god’s smug face. “He would never agree to that.”
“He must. The life of the necromancer depends on it.” Jay told her, the god unusually sincere as he held her gaze.
“Have you got any evidence? Any proof I can present?”
“If we had we would be presenting it.” Pheus butted in, “But we are certain it is necessary, the necromancer is a surprisingly sturdy mortal, and has slain a Sidhe Lord within Avalon, we can thus conclude that it would take a being of incredible power to slay him if trickery is not deployed.”
“And rendering Seruatis defenceless helps how?” Dus snapped, “Or do you really think there won’t be attacks if we lower the barrier even for a moment?”
“Oh there will be attacks.” Nem assured her, showing far too many unnaturally sharp teeth, “but we are not defenceless, The Swordsman is a more than adequate guardian and we are still gods for all we are diminished.”
“And the help?”
“We will cast a spell, the four of us and those mages I trust not to screw it up, a spell of war the likes of which has not been seen since you and I stared across forgotten fields and swore to place our blades in the other’s heart. We will activate weapons left dormant and rain death down from the skies, and if that does not work then we shall take the field. This is our world.” Nemesis told her, and she could have bent adamantium upon the steel in his voice, his face a hideous snarl of conviction turned to madness, “Not even Fate shall take it from us.”
The other gods winced at that, as he put name to one of the three, and in his harsher aspect as well.
Dus let the words settle a few moments before she let a smile spread across the thin line of her lips, “There you are. I worried you’d forgotten who you are for a long, long time. But it’s still you in there, I’d hate to kill you and stare into the eyes of a stranger as the light fades from them.”
“One of us had to keep their fangs sharp.” Nem assured her, “In case a certain gorgon grew impatient. Now will you support us?”
“I will. You’ve convinced me, and I think you misjudge the fondness our patron has for young Erebus, he might very well be convinced as well if you spoke with the same determination you did just now.”
Jay shook his head, “No better than the flip of a coin. He may respect us, but you he calls friend. Just you now Alisha has left us. We made mistakes there, in many ways she has even more right to hate us than you do. Sometimes I almost wish she did.”
“There’s recrimination enough to use a broad brush where the muses are concerned.” Dus conceded. “You mentioned a trust?”
Pheus nodded, “Yes. Old secrets, even The Swordsman hasn’t been told.” With a flourish he produced a piece of paper, sliding it over to her.
“What’s this?” She asked, curiosity dampening the waspishness she wanted to put into the words. The problem was the gods had never been this forthcoming, this kind or this generous and Dus had seen it before, for all Nem’s talk of fighting for the world this was very much people putting their affairs in order.
The paper was mostly numbers, a set of spherical coordinates, already an oddity, as well as a set of equations and timestamps but the coordinates could not possibly be right, if they were that would mean…
“Orbital equations.” Pheus told her, “For one of our older contingencies. Our very last, last resort, so that if all divinity passed from this world there would be at least one weapon that could harm an imperator or a greater agent of oblivion. It’s a far out orbit to prevent some curious mage discovering it, we maintain it with a telekinetic pulse from the obelisk every solstice.”
“You hid weapons in space.” Dus replied numbly as she stated the obvious. The sheer audacity of it had taken her breath away.
“We hid weapons in space.” The god of dreams confirmed, enjoying the moment, it was delightfully rare they took Dus off-guard with anything and he was certain that his own dreams would be just this moment replied endlessly for weeks to come.
“And you want me to…?”
“Memorize that information then burn it. If something happens to us when the barrier falls then you will be the last line of defence for Reath, or whoever you choose to entrust it to.”
It was a heavy charge, one she desperately wanted to refuse, any weapon that required that kind of effort to hide would be a terrible one indeed. She knew the things that lay in Seruatis’ vault still, some of them made her skin crawl, one could make her skin get up and crawl away. This would be worse.
“How do I activate it… them?” She asked, trying, and just about managing, to keep a tremble out of her voice.
“Them. One on each side of Reath at all times. And just send a standard message spell with a corresponding set of coordinates, use spherical notation centered on the core of Reath. You have a few miles leeway in each direction.”
“A few miles…” Dus echoed, staring down at the piece of paper and realising she wasn’t holding some sort of precision weapon but a city killer in her hands.
The small sheet seemed incredibly heavy all of a sudden.
*
Forsaken Valda was almost picturesque, the town a mostly wooden and thatch affair in the distance. The cobbled path leading from the gateway showed no sign of two hundred years of wear and maintenance, or it would have if there were still a gateway, from inside the death zone there was no wall and thus no arch to step through.
Before they could get started walking there were a few problems that needed sorting, first and foremost Sato. The magician was staring intently at his own hand as he waved it slowly back and forth before his eyes as if he were seeing it for the very first time. “I don’t understand.” He said slowly to himself as Erebus watched on with concern written over his face in large type.
“He’s been like that since the moment he stepped through.” Lana told him, and while the demoness would never go so far as showing concern for a mortal – barring those she was charged to protect - she certainly seemed curious.
The necromancer gave her a slow nod, taking a few more moments to get the lay of the land, there were a couple other surprises in store. Amara had her hood down for example, and he could see the currents of mana well enough to know she wasn’t casting a spell to keep from bursting into flames; which he privately suspected was the reason she’d learned pyromancy in the first place. Susan was running her fingers through the grass, marvelling as it wasn’t consumed; if Erebus were honest that was probably the scariest thing there.
Holly followed after him, at least at first, nearly doubling over in pain. She couldn’t be more than ten metres away from Alec and yet it felt like he was far enough to almost be a dot in the distance. Carefully she clamped down on the pain, not letting it travel across the bond, though it was stretched so thin that she wasn’t even sure it had the bandwidth to accept something as complex as pain and besides she had much more important things to get from it, like the magicka she needed to survive.
Taking deep breaths the dryad centred herself, letting the grass around her take a fraction of the burden, meditative technique dealt with the rest as she crossed over to Sato alongside Erebus. It was like trying to drink from a straw a few sizes too small but it was enough. Barely.
The mage was on closer inspection sweating and on the verge of hyperventilating, in even that short time collapsing to his knees, “I can’t see. I can’t see. I can’t see….” The words came, on and on, faster and faster as panic set in.
“Easy Sato.” Erebus said gently, placing a hand on his shoulder, the mage didn’t react in the slightest. “Sato, can you hear me?”
There was no response at all beyond the magician continuing his new mantra even as Erebus shook him gently by the shoulder before waving his own hand in front of his friend’s eyes. The necromancer frowned, then clapped his hands right next to his ear, again nothing.
With slow, deliberate motions Erebus took a pin out from within his robes, the voluminous depths of his pockets a mystery known only to him it seemed, then stabbed it into the meat of Sato’s right hand. A bead of blood welled as he extracted the pin, yet Sato didn’t react in the slightest.
“This could be a problem.” The necromancer said slowly as he healed the slight wound with a wave of his hand before turning to his gathered companions, all apparently awaiting his verdict, “Does anyone have any ideas?”
“None. But he can’t stay here, we need to put him back through the barrier. You left Alec on the other side?” Alice asked, taking decisive action.
“Yes. Straining the bond between the pair will provide valuable training as well as a lookout.” Erebus told them, “and apparently someone to look after Sato.”
“Did you know this would happen?” Natalya demanded, their previous argument threatening to surface.
“No I did not. Didn’t even suspect it, which is a bad sign.” The necromancer frowned, “But I’m not sure we can send him back, nothing lethally bad has happened and yet no one has ever returned from where we are now.”
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Experimentally Natalya rummaged for a stone from the ground and tossed it at whence they’d come. The stone disappeared as it passed the threshold.
Without having to be told Holly did her part, holding up a hand not to be interrupted as she began sending a mental message through her bond, it was a barebones message, shorn of emotion, tone and inflection but she was just about able to force it through. ‘Alec. Did a stone just come through the gateway.’
It took almost a minute before she got a reply, the words a tinny, monotone whisper, clearly Alec was having a lot more trouble with the bond than she was. ‘No. Hurts.’
She hid a wince, “He says nothing came through.”
“Well that settles that.” Erebus sighed, “We’ll have to carry him with us.”
“Do we though?” Amara asked slowly, “He’ll be a liability and if we’re heading deep into a death zone we might not be doing him any favours.”
“Unless there’s something predatory lurking here, in which case we’d be leaving him defenceless.” Natalya snapped, having to fight hard the urge to talk down to the vampire, it was easy to forget that for all her skill and battle accolades she’d never been part of the more cloak and dagger side of magic, “At least we can protect him if he’s with us.”
“Well I can’t carry him.” Alice pointed out, “and I doubt Holly would be much help here either.”
Erebus’ eyes glittered with calculation, “Amara will carry him.” He concluded. “If this is an attack then we don’t want to reduce our spellpower more than necessary. Though I have to ask Mara, why is your hood down?”
“There’s something wrong with this sunlight.” The vampire told him as she threw Sato over her right shoulder like a sack of spuds, the mage not resisting her in the slightest, his words now inaudible for all his lips were still moving. “It’s normal light, I should be roasting alive but it’s like… I don’t even know what it’s like. The best description I can give you is it feels old. Like its power is already spent.”
“Maybe its supernatural properties have been stripped to power the disintegration field?” Natalya suggested.
“You might be on to something there.” Erebus nodded, “Maybe some kind of general magical dampening, Susan’s not killing things. Holly looks like she’s about to pass out. Sato… what if he’s lost his foresight? I knew he was overreliant on it but what if that’s all he has? All his senses tuned to the future.”
His fellow necromancer’s frown deepened, “We could be in trouble here. We just lost our early warning and Amara’s going to be slow on the draw.”
“I’ll be fine,” Amara protested, “I’m left-handed so it won’t affect my draw, and I’m strong enough it won’t affect my aim either before you raise that as well.”
“It will affect your defence though, a shield of flames is a great thing if you’re fireproof, Sato isn’t.” Alice rumbled, “and that’s not getting into the other problems that arise if it is dampening, like you not being fireproof. That goes double for you Ere, an aegis is a wonderful defence against unknown threats but they’re also the most mana intensive, now imagine if it took twice the effort.”
Erebus looked thoughtful for a moment before resuming his morose brooding, “That’s assuming I’m right. If it is a dampener then it’s the strangest I’ve ever seen, loads of mana in the air and I’m not picking up any strange currents to indicate a siphon.”
Holly decided this was her moment to contribute, “The land isn’t picking up anything strange, and it doesn’t feel like I’m having magicka stolen, just that I’m having to draw it from a great distance.”
“A true mystery then.” Erebus concluded solemnly, “Unless someone has anything they want to try and tell us about we should get moving.”
It took a few moments for Lana to speak, and for the first time since they’d met her the pride demon sounded uncertain, “I might have something… it’s just a feeling but- but this place reminds me of home.” She stopped, noticing that all eyes were waiting on her to continue, “There’s a presence, it’s barely there, but it’s like this place belongs to someone, as if it dances to their whims. Which is impossible, Reath can’t attune to an individual like that.”
“Noted.” Natalya said with all the seriousness of an open grave.
“She’s not quite right there.” Amara corrected quietly, “The strongest elementals can do that, not much, but they can, and it takes an age, but if they stay in one place too long it begins to reflect their personality. Just don’t ever let anyone know I told you.”
“A dryad of the forest has a similar effect.” Erebus added, “though I think we’d notice a forest.”
“Do you think the ground Valda was built upon might be an earth elemental?” Natalya asked, her gaze darting back and forth across the grassy earth.
“If it were we’d already be dead.” Erebus assured her, which wasn’t perhaps as reassuring as he’d intended it.
“The town then.” The elder necromancer concluded, “Something in the town.”
“Or someone.” The demoness added with unnecessary melodrama.
The walk to the town was probably even more silent than the initial trek through Avalon. For all the realm of the fae had been as deadly as it was beautiful they hadn’t been carrying wounded, the death zone of Forsaken Valda had already taken one of them out of the fight without even trying, and possibly without even noticing.
Surly didn’t even begin to describe the motley crew as they approached the town. Lana already had her sword drawn, and the three mages still standing made sure their staves were held ahead of them and their arm free of any obstructions their travelling cloaks and robes might present. Holly and Alice were in the middle of the group, given they’d contribute little to a fight and, while Alice was her usual gruff but chirpy self, Holly was so jumpy she was practically spinning trying to watch their flanks.
Whatever they’d been expecting of the town, abandoned for centuries, it was not what they found, the buildings were not just in good repair but apparently pristine, untouched by the ravages of time, no vegetation overgrew them, even the path remained unmarred by moss and gross.
Just as they got close to town they heard it, voices in the distance, amongst the buildings, they weren’t especially loud, two men arguing passionately but not with rage.
The mages wouldn’t have been mages if they hadn’t slowed their pace enough to quiet their steps and eavesdrop.
“I’m sorry Evan, but I can’t justify a search party.” One man was saying, as placating as he could be but resolute all the same.
“You don’t understand John, he’s never late and he’s two days past when he was supposed to return. What if he’s gotten hurt out there? I hear there’s a colony of arach out past Evergale Ridge.” The other man, presumably Evan, replied, deep worry in his voice.
“Cal’s smart, he’ll be fine. He probably just decided to spend the night in Evergale with Abigail.”
“What if he hasn’t, John?” Evan pressed, “What if he’s out there bleeding in the dirt in need of help?”
“Look if he isn’t back by tonight I’ll arrange a search in the morning.” John promised, the advancing group pausing as they got to the nearest house, whoever was talking was just around the corner.
“He might be dead by morning!”
Erebus looked back at his friends, giving them a somewhat bemused looked before he handed his staff off to Natalya, “Play along.” He mouthed silently, before stepping out in sight of the two chatting people.
They were a pair of mages, one a balding dark-skinned gentleman in the pale, dull brown of a geomancer, no staff to speak off but there were two wands, one either side of his belt. One of them a standard caster’s aid and multitool, much like Erebus’ own favoured stave, the other was a more specialized combat tool, a storm sapphire in steel and copper, a decent tool for lightning spells and little else, and an oddity by any measure given the lack of wood.
Wands in that style had fallen out of favour a long, long time ago, though they resurfaced now on then in small towns like this where family heirlooms ran rife and funding was negligible. Still it had probably cost the owner a pretty penny unless the necromancer missed his guess, the fast cast and near-instant burst of energy of a lightning wand covered a lot of the weaknesses common to geomancy and the mage had probably sought it out.
The other mage was in the pristine white of a healer, or rather it had once been, the robe was in a mild state of disrepair and dust and dirt clung to the hem. The healer themselves didn’t look much better, his face was sallow and dirty blonde hair was beginning to mix with grey as it hung down past his shoulders. Two days stubble also clung to his face, scratchy enough to make Erebus have to avoid scratching his own hairless chin in sympathy.
“Good morning gentlemen. I am Erebus, First Response Squad Leader, I’m here as part of an emergency message sent out five hours ago, my credentials are in my left breast pocket, with your permission I will levitate them over to you now.”
The two mages stopped their argument, whatever their differences they were presenting a united front in the face of the stranger, the healer accepting the crystal as it was levitated over, allowing the geomancer to keep his hands near his wands.
“It’s real.” The healer said after a couple seconds, throwing the crystal back for Erebus to catch. That was interesting, levitating such a small object should have been child’s play for even a half-trained mage.
“Well” The geomancer drawled, “we have a problem then, cause no message was sent to my knowledge and I’m the only person in this town with the authority to send it.”
Erebus scowled, “We certainly have a problem. Message said there’d been a wave of disappearances, folks just vanishing, blink and you miss it.”
“Pretty sure I’d know about something like that.” The geomancer declared, hands inching closer to his wands, “Sounds to me like the Council just wants to stick its nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“And just who might you be?” The necromancer asked with a sweetness that, upon further inspection, would be revealed to be mostly vinegar.
“John Mill, Geomancer Second Class and Guardian of Valda.” The mage declared, “And this is Evan, Healer First Class.”
“Well Magus Mill, from my perspective there’s a mystery here. Mind showing me your own crystal, cause if you’re telling the truth about who you are then someone’s playing silly buggers and I think we would both benefit from finding out who.”
“I concur.” John replied, still clearly one twitch from violence as he slowly took out his primary wand and levitated his crystal over. Erebus did check it, just in case, sending a small pulse of mana through it and the crystal responded, sending information back to him.
As expected it was indeed the crystal of John Mill, Geomancer Second Class, the crystal including an image of the mage in question that matched the man before him and, after a second slightly more in depth check, showed no signs of tampering. In a way that was good, in another more important way it was bad, a shapeshifter or other supernatural heavyweight pretending to be the town Guardian would have made things a lot simpler. For one it would have provided grounds for seizing control of the town.
Erebus decided to be a little bit cheeky, teleporting the crystal back to John’s waiting hand, very nearly getting blasted for his troubles. “Give me a moment to confer with my team then I suggest we go to your house and check your message crystal for tampering.”
“I’ll meet you there. Evan do you mind showing these nice people the way.” Somehow he managed to make ‘nice people’ sound like a particularly venomous expletive.
“Sure thing John, though if there are disappearances then maybe that search party isn’t such a bad idea…?” Evan suggested hesitantly.
“Let me confirm there’s actually a problem first.” John told him sternly as he stalked off.
“He seems friendly.” The necromancer quipped once he was sure that the aging geomancer was out of range.
“Don’t be too quick to judge, it’s been a hard couple of years.” The healer replied, quick to defend his friend.
The black robed mage gave him his friendliest smile, “Want to tell me about it?”
“I’m sure you fine Council folks would know better than I would.” Evan told him evenly, trying to stare him down.
Erebus however had been stared down by professionals, still he decided to hazard a guess, “Taxes?”
“Of course it’s bloody taxes. I’m all for peace but this stupid idea the Council’s got about a joint task force is going to beggar us.” The healer snapped, “That and constantly poking your noses where they don’t belong. We’re not harbouring any cultists, we aren’t harbouring them this time, we weren’t harbouring them last time, we weren’t harbouring them the last ten times and we won’t be harbouring them the next either!”
“Huh.” Erebus said slowly, “That wasn’t in the file I read.” Which was true enough.
Evan rolled his eyes, “Of course it wasn’t. That’s what the last guy said, and the guy before that, and-“
“I think I get the picture.” The necromancer replied dryly. “What cult do we think you’re harbouring?”
Evan gave him a look that doubtful barely covered, “You’re actually being serious? The Order of the Shattered Shield!” When that barely got a glimmer of interest the healer’s gaze narrowed, “You really aren’t here for that huh?”
Erebus shrugged, “If I stumble across a member, then I’ll handle it, but other than that no, not even slightly.”
The healer relaxed visibly, “Where in all the hells did the Council dig you up?”
“Some of us take the job seriously.” He said lightly, “Now give me a moment to confer with my colleagues.”
He walked back around the corner, aware Evan would almost certainly try to listen in and putting up a privacy ward, a slight blurring in the air to prevent lip-reading and static crackle directed outward. He didn’t get a chance to even open his mouth before Natalya started in on him.
“What, in the name of the Forgotten Martyr, was that all about? Why do we even need a cover story?”
“Because the truth would make us sound like lunatics of the highest order.” Erebus explained, “Did nothing about that strike you as odd?”
“The mere existence of survivors struck me as odd.” Nat replied, “and they certainly don’t seem to be struggling, which is all sorts of weird given there’s no way this little land can support a town of this size.”
Alice laughed darkly, “My dear, dear friend, you’re missing the obvious. Healer First Class. Geomancer Second Class. These people have been trapped in just a couple square miles if that, when exactly did they get the chance to attend a mage academy?”
“I think we’re reliving the day this place became a death zone.” Erebus concluded, “Some sort of chronomancy definitely.”
“That’s hardly definitive.”
“There’s one more thing, you have to remember I’ve been considering cracking this zone open for a long while, just never had enough serious talent with me to risk the attempt, so I’ve read the files. Evergale was wiped out a couple years after the death zone was declared, massive surge of arach just took the town off the map.”
“Then the healer’s son…?” Holly began her question but couldn’t bring herself to finish it.
“If he’s not here then he’s several hundred years dead in Evergale most likely. Keep it to yourself. If this is some variant on looped time then there’s little point telling him until we break the loop, it’ll just cause pain.”
Natalya frowned, “Chronomancy. I’d rather stick my head in the Vault unwarded than fight a chronomancer. Still I suppose it explains the state Sato is in, trying to see five seconds into the future whilst his body is trapped in the past.”
There was a gasp from Alice, and an expert on her moods, of which several were present, would see surprise in those rheumy eyes, “We have to find them first. They could easily just avoid us until the loop resets. We weren’t here when the loops began, we entered from outside it, so what happens to us when it resets?”
“Exactly what you’re thinking happens.” Erebus confirmed, “Well at least we now know what happened to all the other mages that tried their luck here over the years.”
“When did you become an expert on time magic?” Natalya asked him, there was an edge to it. Just knowing how chronomancy worked carried a death sentence, one of the very few branches of magic that did.
“In the hells. Temporal acceleration and deceleration is a standard tactic between fighting devils and my master insisted I had a grounding in the more complex areas of the art. Time looping is about as advanced as you can manage on Reath, outright moving back and forth through time is simply impossible, but it is possible to unmoor a small area from the surrounding flow of time.”
Erebus glanced around to make sure he was still bringing his audience with him as he explained just how bad the situation was. “The groundwork you’d have to lay would be immense, and the mana to power it… well I couldn’t do it, I doubt Lana could either. If shapeshifters could use any other type of magic then Alice just might but it would be close. And that’s just to power it for a day, I have no idea how the mage behind this has kept it running for centuries.”
“Maybe they haven’t.” Natalya pointed out, “A skilled illusionist could produce a perfect facsimilie of the town, they wouldn’t even have to keep it working all the time, only when someone got close to the gate.”
“That’s certainly possible,” Erebus had to agree, “Add in a magical dampener and it would explain the rest of the weirdness. Then you’ve got the opposite problem of the time loops theory, instead of where is the power coming from, where is the power going, either way you’re looking at something with so much mana that it should be like Valda has its own personal sun.”
“Maybe it does?” Amara suggested, “This sunlight is really weird. And the power could all be going into the disintegration field on the edge of town.”
The necromancer nodded, “So that’s two competing theories, now how do we test them?”
“The same way. We split up and look for clues.” The vampire suggested only to look thoroughly affronted as everyone but Holly began laughing. “What? I’m serious.”
“There’s another term for splitting up, it’s called dying. This place has eaten up and spat out hundreds of people, some of them every bit as good as we are.” Natalya told her sternly.
“Nat’s right… but so is Amara. Splitting up works well, if it’s an illusionist then the extra work of having to accurately reproduce such a large area and so many people will strain them to breaking point, if it’s a chronomancer then their best defence is anonymity, the more people we’re watching the more likely they are to slip up in front of us. But if you do spot something you don’t confront it, you quietly find a friend and we all then link up to handle it together.” Erebus instructed, this time there wasn’t any arguing. For all the distrust this really was what the mage did best.