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”You just straight up lied. There’s nothing simple about this formation. Even the building blocks of this formation are smaller formations instead of simple runic symbols.” Arjuna protested as he and the Magocracy’s best spatial mages were constructing their half of the pair of gateways. The elves had also sent some of their best, and the two groups were working together relatively well. Not that they were making very fast progress. “The mages are already complaining that this whole thing is going to take forever.”
They currently had the first of the four sections of the gateway gutted and splayed in front of them as they worked on it. The gateway would be built in four parts which would then be joined together to create a complete gate. The sections were roughly diamond-shaped and much longer than they were wide so that they would be joined together from the thickest part while forming almost a tube-like structure. Each section was a massive hunk of various materials that had to be put together just so to accomplish the intended goal. And the superstructure of the gate was actually the easy part, albeit the most expensive. The superstructure was mostly there to gather and direct power to and from the formations, which in turn made the whole thing tick.
"I told you that it would take longer the larger we build the thing. Did you think it was just because of the increased material needs?" Karna's illusionary image asked. They'd brought the communication device from Arjuna's tower to the build site so that she could advise them. "And this is still much easier than it could've been. There are only 128 clusters in this formation, even if every cluster is a separate formation as well. If the mages keep bitching, then remind them that you can draw on the combined magical talent of two empires, while I’m doing both this as well as resource extraction by myself.”
“Hey! We’re helping with the extraction at least!” A male voice on Karna’s side called out. Arjuna was pretty sure that voice belonged to Wolfgang although he couldn’t be sure with how distorted it was due to distance.
He chose to ignore his old friend griping. “Yes, but each section of the gateway requires almost three hundred of these formations! And they together must be placed in a larger spell structure to boot! Even if I could make two of the formations a day, a hard task with all the double and triple-checking I have to do, it’s still going to take me half a year to make just one section!” He complained. Creating the formations didn’t require that much power, and instead relied completely on control and the caster’s ability to handle several complicated concepts at the same time, as such formations often relied on the caster’s intention. It felt like juggling flaming torches while solving three different math equations at the same time.
“But you’re not alone, are you? Besides, the more experience you get, the faster it will go. The first ones will take a while, but once you get a feel for it, you’ll be cranking them out in no time at all. Have others check your work instead. Preferably someone who hates you. You’ll get blind to your mistakes, but someone who hates you will happily tear your work apart. You don’t want the damn thing exploding on you after all that work, right?” Karna advised her father.
“It’s going to explode if there are any mistakes?” He asked with trepidation, and the sudden urge to quadruple check all his work so far.
“I mean, it could. Well, not explode necessarily, but it could collapse into the magical equivalent of a black hole. The risk of that is rather minor though. There’s a certain amount of self-correction built into the system, so as long as you don’t fork up too many things…” Arjuna wasn’t sure if his daughter was joking or not, and he didn’t plan on finding out. He didn’t appreciate the curbing of language though.
“Check everything again and keep checking until we’re 110% sure! We don’t want this thing misfiring!” Arjuna shouted to every mage working on the project, though he didn’t have to, as they’d all been listening in on the conversation and were already doing exactly that. “You know, this didn’t make the whole thing any faster…”
“It wasn’t supposed to. This is a demanding project. It’s not supposed to be complete in a couple of weeks. I warned you, didn’t I?” Karna replied seriously. They’d already been working on the gateways for a month, though most of that had been gathering resources and building the superstructure. “This is the kind of thing you get right the first time instead of doing a half-assed job that you’ll need to fix later.”
"It's great training though," Arjuna admitted after a moment of silence. He was on a break at the moment, so he had time to just chat with his daughter. “I feel like the border towards ranking up is growing closer.”
“Just remember my warning:” Karna reminded him, though she knew it was somewhat wasted. Ascension to the Divine Planes was the dream of every serious cultivator in the Higher Planes. The closer you got to the point, the harder it was to resist the allure of immortality. Her father had agreed to take things slowly and to refine his powers before Ascending, but he could wait for only so long. Probably until his child with Duskclaw had grown up, and no longer.
"I will. How far along are you in your work? As you said, you're doing all the work on your side by yourself. There's no point for us to rush things if we have to wait for you.” Arjuna returned to the earlier topic. The other one was a bit too private for the current surroundings and it was a topic they frequently discussed.
“Oh, I’ve got the first section already enchanted and I’m already working on the second one. I’m mostly being held back by the physical construction of the sections and not the enchanting. We don’t have a surplus of magical engineers after all.” Karna revealed easily. “And while we can just pull the materials out of the ground with earth magic, we have to find them first.”
“Oi! We’re doing the best we can!” Wolfgang protested again.
“How?” Arjuna asked, echoing the thoughts of all the mages around him.
“I developed the formations father. Of course I have a nuanced understanding of all the details and can create it quickly. Also, I do have Amaranthine here to help me. Despite everything, she’s still quite skilled as a mage.” Karna explained with a tone that implied she was talking to a slow child.
“What do you mean despite everything?” A female voice asked this time. Arjuna was pretty sure this one belonged to the elven queen. “And quite skilled? I’ll have you know that I’m an excellent mage.”
“Not a spatial magic expert though.” Karna shot the queen down. “You said you had something serious to talk about as well.”
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“Yes. The Emissary and his entourage have left towards you. They got some reinforcements from the Divine Planes before they left as well.” Arjuna didn’t want to go into details with others listening in.
“The Emissary? What are they coming here for?” Karna frowned a bit. One of the reasons she’d made her new home on the new world, aside from the abundant power, was because there was little reason for immortals to show up.
"Apparently they're going there to make contact with the Travelers," Arjuna explained. The people thrown here by the Expansion still didn't have a single established name.
“And they decided this was the place to do it from? Huh. They might know more than we give them credit for. I’ll keep their arrival in mind and afford them all the necessary courtesies.” She didn’t want to reveal too much either. “Now get back to work you lazy bum of a father!”
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“I was given this mission with slight haste, so they weren’t entirely clear on the details. How exactly are we supposed to make contact with this group of Outsiders? The world we’re going to is supposed to be in their sphere of influence, but…” Prince Tethrine asked the new arrivals from the Divine Planes.
Three people had come down, two of which wore the armor of a Golden Immortal. They obviously acted as bodyguards for the third person, which by itself signaled that the woman was someone in a high position. Tethrine himself was a prince, and all he got was a single Silver Immortal, though one that was especially skilled. The woman wore a dark scale mail that covered most of her body, long dark gloves, and a dark grey hood that she kept pulled up shadowing her face. You could still see the obvious divine heritage in her appearance, although she tended more towards mysterious than attractive, a quality highlighted by her softly glowing eyes. A few strands of her dark hair also peeked from the hood.
The woman looked at the prince for a moment, as if considering if she should reply. “If I was in your place, I’d make contact with the local representatives of the Magocracy, as they might have the information you seek. If they don’t, try the local powers. The Outsiders as you call them tend to work through such groups. Aside from that, you could wait for them to make contact. Your opposite party will find out about our arrival at some point anyway.” Her voice implied she didn’t really much care what method he chose.
“You speak as if it doesn’t concern you.” Tethrine pointed out, trying to keep his unhappiness from his voice.
“That’s because it doesn’t. You have your mission, while I’m here for a different reason. We may be spending some time together for appearances sakes, but we can barely qualify as allies.” The woman stated rather bluntly. It was almost refreshing considering the complex politics of the Divines.
The woman clearly had some Titan blood in her, judging by her height that stood at almost 2,5 meters, and her skin tone which tended towards greyish. Tall people were not rare in the Divine Planes. Most of those that had achieved some level of Divinity or at least had a divine heritage were larger in stature when compared to normal mortals. The woman was actually showing quite a bit of restraint in keeping her height to what it was. The skin tone and her armor were stronger hints of her heritage.
The most annoying part was that he had no idea how strong she was because she was able to hide her strength somehow. A rather admirable talent considering Tethrine’s own skills and knowledge as a reincarnator, which helped him to counter such things specifically. “Even if so, I would think it beneficial if my mission succeeds as well.”
“True, which is why I gave the advice that I did. And I might offer some slight assistance in the future as well, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my own plans.” She responded.
“We’re about to arrive.” The Silver immortal piloting the ship they were traveling on reported from the cockpit. Even if Tethrine had been given just a single bodyguard, as a military commander, he could commandeer the participation of several others. He’d decided against bringing a large number of immortals along, as this was supposed to be a diplomatic mission, and the presence of two Golden Immortals along with whatever power the woman had was already a bit of a provocation.
Their group was currently traveling with a ship borrowed from the Magocracy. As immortals with great power, they could’ve just created their own path through the turbulent space and flown to their destination with greater speed than the ship was capable of. Such forceful methods usually had negative consequences to the space lanes in the area though, and while their mission wasn’t a stealth one, there was no point in announcing their presence to every hostile force in the vicinity either. That and they’d promised to deliver some supplies to their destination as a favor for the Magocracy. There was no point in denying the favor as they were going in that direction anyway.
"Finally," Tethrine muttered. Having spent weeks in the company of the strange Godling, he was looking forward to some more pleasant conversations. The woman had been stonewalling him the entire time, and he hadn't even managed to squeeze her name out of the reticent woman.
“They seem to be building another gateway here as well.” The woman commented. They’d been given directions to this place on the new world as the most likely place to find the people they were looking for. “A rather elegant system from what I can see.”
"Not as good as the gates of the Host," Tethrine stated dismissively.
"Of course not. But they don't have the resources or power of the Host either. Nor are we in the Divine Planes. They're making the most of what they have. I can respect that." The woman seemed to disagree with everything he said, almost on principle.
“Let’s find a place to land. There are no cities here yet.” Tethrine decided against arguing further. His words were also correct. The lack of cities was the reason they needed directions to this place.
It looked like the construction on the gate had halted for the moment, though from what he could see, they were ahead of the team in Magocracy, which was somewhat expected since Tethrine’s group had left weeks ago. The break was likely due to lack of personnel and materials, some of which they’d brought along. “Who’s in charge here?” He asked loud enough to be heard over the din of conversation and work.
A familiar elven woman walked closer, and it took a moment for Tethrine to recognize her as usually the woman was wearing royal garb while at the moment she was wearing simple but relatively elegant clothing more suited for work. "I suppose that would be me at the moment, Your Grace."
“You suppose Queen Amaranthine?” He inquired further with a raised eyebrow.
“Well, this is a joint project between the Magocracy and my people, and while I might be the ranking person on the elven side, I’m not the one in charge of this project. However, both Wolfgang and Lady Karna are currently out gathering materials though, so by process of elimination, I’m in charge.” The queen explained.
"That'll do I suppose. I was asked to bring a shipment of materials while I traveled here, which you'll find onboard the ship." The prince decided to get the formalities out of the way first.
“Great, some of those we haven’t found on this world yet, though we suspect we will eventually. Now, what brings you here, Your Grace?” Amaranthine knew well that the Emissary didn’t come here just to make a delivery. She also glanced behind him at the large woman wearing full armor and a hood that obscured most of her face. Something about the woman was strange, making Amaranthine feel the need to kneel and supplicate in front of her. an instinct she was barely managing. It wasn’t hard to guess she was the reason they were here.
“We want to make contact with the Outsiders dominating this region. You wouldn’t happen to know of a way?” Tethrine noted the discomfort in the queen’s posture and filed that away for future use. His companion had a different effect on mortals apparently. ‘Almost as if…no that couldn’t be.’
“I can’t say anything for sure, but I’d try to reach out to the Sentinels guarding this world. We have certain suspicions about their origin. For that, as well as for lodgings, you should probably aim for the continent currently controlled by the vampires. Very imaginatively they named the place Noctis. We still haven’t started on any permanent lodgings, so the only real accommodations are those made for the tournament, which means Noctis City.” Amaranthine knew Karna would be happy to see these immortals gone, so she was happy to do this little favor and act as the face of the project. She owed the girl a lot after all. Besides, they really did need more materials.
“As we suspected.” The large woman spoke simply, and just her voice was almost enough to send Amaranthine kneeling. She couldn’t quite suppress a small wince, which the prince also noted. Clearly mortals reacted very differently to her than anyone from the Divine Planes.
“You wouldn’t happen to have a map? This world is still almost entirely unclaimed, so we’d rather not waste time looking for directions.” Tethrine asked while lost in thought, staring at the hooded woman. They could always scan the entire world with a quick spell, but that was considered quite impolite.
"Of course." Amaranthine seemed to have expected the request as she pulled out a map from her sleeve and handed it to the guard standing next to the prince.
"Shall we then?" The prince asked, half expecting her to go her own way, but to his surprise, she just nodded in agreement.
As soon as they were out of earshot and flying towards their destination, Tethrine couldn’t help but take a longer look at the woman traveling with him. For some reason she seemed much more energetic after having arrived at this world, adding another suspicion to the growing pile. Had House Titannica sent an actual goddess to the Higher Planes? That would explain a lot. It was also risky beyond belief. Gods were extremely powerful in their own way, but not necessarily in direct combat. The Scourges would stop at nothing to strike at an exposed Goddess protected by only a pair of Golden Immortals. And the loss of a goddess in battle would be a major blow to House Titannica, even if they had more gods than most other Houses. Why would they risk something like that? What could be so important?