Present Day - 2020 A.D. (0 A.R.)
I really hadn’t been gone that long, had I? Come on! Give or take two months but it shouldn’t have changed this much!
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 standing at least fifteen stories high. Not only were the buildings tall, but the outer walls of the shiny metropolis could have easily fit a suburban house between the inner and outer edges. It was so wide, it had enough room for people to travel along the top like another road.
And the people! So many people, all kinds of sentient, walking, talking beings were down there, carrying on with life as if this planet hadn’t already been harvested of humanoid, 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. Clearly I didn’t sink it far enough though. My efforts left the gate itself intact when the silty earth of Florida swallowed it up, preserving the structure until the Centauri could dig down and get it back up and running. Now the arcane superstructure sat in what I could only describe as a giant crater.
The Centauri robots had fortified the lip of the crater, probably to enhance security around an important extra-dimensional travelway. The depression of the earth around the gate 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.
With disbelief making me doubt myself, I reviewed my memories of the 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 stole my tree! They grew my stolen 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. According to my lessons, primal energies flowed in different ways. 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 inside of each other 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.]
I couldn’t help but continue to gape at the landscape as we communicated telepathically. [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.
Large rods extended from the city out into the ocean, presumably converting the endless lapping of the waves into energy, converting the kinetic power of the ocean into something they could actually use. The engineering required to create something this magnificent and sustainable, just mind-blowing.
Kraken continued with pointing out their strategic strengths. 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. It varied greatly depending on which part of the multiverse you happened to find yourself in.
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.
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.
It’s the age old argument of pure strength versus pure versatility, the surgeon versus the powerlifter? But what they fail to properly capture with this method of measuring power is that you really need a way to categorize those that have a dragonsized ability to output mana along with the innate mental and physical dexterity to multitask spells.
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 expels a breath attack of ‘twenty thousand mana points per minute’. The system didn’t break down every situation perfectly.
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 yet 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.”
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“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.”
Kraken nodded with me as what he was saying began to sink in. “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, on a different parallel, 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. They invented standardization for enchanted equipment first.”
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 in my mental space 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 regenerate 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 capacity 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 plane 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. Three minutes of accelerated mind time equating to a good thirty 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 sigil shaped as 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.]
My grip on Gungnir tightened. “And I’m not known for weakness.”
********
Confidence. Confidence is key. It’s how you pick up women at a bar, sell someone a car, and even convince a stubborn partner to go to the damn doctor. But confidence is more than just knowing what you’re doing, it’s believing that you’re right, that you know the actions you’re taking possess something inherently valuable. Confidence gives you weight, and if you have enough of it, people get out of the way. But confidence also makes people notice you, makes you stick out, and since discretion is the better part of valor, well.
So I did my best to not look confident, and then mixed that up with a bit of Flesh Sorcery panache so that I wouldn’t be recognized. A quick application of power gave me a deep tan plus some nicely reshaped cheekbones. Daubing on a bit more age, I went with a tiny brow restructure to make myself look much older so that my own damn brother wouldn’t recognize me. Making sure Gungnir was a small knife in my boot and my armor was a dull shade of brown, a marked change from black and silver, I started walking towards Miami.
The walls were even more awe inspiring from down here now that I could get a proper look. This couldn’t have been built by dumb machines and nanobots, there’s just no way. The amount of raw power coming off of it was simply too much for even me to do, let alone the criss-crossing lines of runes on every house-sized block. Dark whorls of obsidian were clearly visible streaking throughout what could only have been some kind of glass-like stone. No person built this, this was made by an elemental.
[You’re not too far off,] Kraken said, answering my thoughts. [Some archmage probably got paid some big bucks to pop in through the gate, work his magic and haul ass away again. Probably made some serious money too.]
[The Centauri have archmages?] I said, careful to make sure that my facial expression what it was.
[Yes, but not many,] he answered. [Some other human dominion probably sent one over. The Centauri aren’t the only human based empire, simply the largest. Academy archmages are actually a tiny bit more common than you’d think and they’re always jonesing for money to fund their research projects. Bet the witches gave him somethin’ good.]
Continuing to walk towards the city, I did my best to hold back a laugh. [Did that sound dirty for a reason?]
Approval thrummed through our mental link. [Oh yeah, witches man. Uber powerful, not only do they know the secrets of wytchfire, but they are not afraid to use it. Sex to them is a weapon, a tool. They’re masters of manipulation and political power and intrigue gets them excited. Pretty much any queen or hot maid is either a witch or a prospective one.]
[And the difference between a witch and a wizard again, other than the sex?]
Kraken’s exasperation was clear. [It’s not about the sex. You know what wizards are. Witches tend to be several steps beyond that. One key trait of most witch covens is that they have a shared pool of ancestral knowledge. They can actually pass down techniques, spells, knowledge, anything they know is imprinted on their soul and can be given to descendants, blood or otherwise.]
[That’s not fucking fair!]
[Look who’s talkin’.] Kraken sent a verbal slap down on our link before his voice got serious. [Focus! They can easily see you now!]
Generational knowledge functions in a similar way that compound interest used to make retirement accounts so attractive. Having lives that were limited to roughly eighty years is such a limiting factor on the productivity and creativity of humanity, but if you could break through that barrier then there’s no telling what could be accomplished. And if you can’t find a way to live forever, then passing on literal memories and skills would be the next best thing, and compounding that over and over could in fact give a person, a witch, multiple lifetimes or generations of skill and knowledge that a normal magic user simply couldn’t compare to. I bet one of them or even more than one of them probably have the answer to magic batteries locked away in one of their memories and don’t even know it!
Recentering my mind from the distracting mental tangents as I was within a football field of the entrance to the city, I began coaxing my Consciousness Sorcery to extrude outwardly from me, subtly influencing the area around to make people view me as less of a threat. My goal of entering that city peacefully hinged on trying something brand spanking new. Ten well-armed soldiers stood at the opening of the tunnel, their guard hounds behind them sleeping. Even from here I could see bony spikes sticking out of their spines and shoulders.
Not having planned for the dogs, I grasped at my Flesh Sorcery, forcing my sweat glands to temporarily give off the scent of someone way younger, weaker. Assuming that Centauri hounds work similarly to Earth dogs, not only would this change put them at ease but it might even make them completely disregard me.
“Ho to the gate!” I called, slowing my walk as I approached. Four soldiers kept their hands on their weapons as the rest of them kept lounging. Two were petting the dogs. Hamming it up real good, I played the part of a lost traveler, desperate for civilization. “It’s true, it’s really true! A city, here!”
[Yup, Johnny and Reeanth aren’t out here to greet you. I knew we should’ve sent them a message.] Kraken whispered, even though nobody could eavesdrop on our mental link.
[I know! I know, but we might be able to make contact with them in the city. Just gonna take a bit of time.]
The Centauri closest to me said something garbled and then his buddy smacked him on the arm. Reaching up to his helmet near his ear, the first one touched a rune that glowed softly. Looking back at me, he tried again, this time clear English came out. “Stay where you are! Corporal, search him!”
Two soldiers stood to the lead man’s left and right, their rifles pointed at my feet as the Corporal snapped his fingers at a hound. Walking up to me, the hound followed at his heels. “Hands out to the side, spread your feet!” It was weird to see his mouth move while his helmet clearly produced different syllables.
[Translation spell built into the helmet.] Kraken explained. [It has an auto-detect function built in and as long as the language is there it will go ahead and translate. Pretty useful for occupying the area.]
Keeping my face perfectly still as I complied, different scenarios kept playing out in my head. Assaulting the city head on did not appeal to me but that’s what kept coming up. The smartest option that presented itself was succeeding at convincing them that I was a harmless individual, one not worthy of notice. The large canine languidly sniffed at my boot as his handler began patting me down. Giving a snuff at my boot, the spiky hound turned around and rejoined his pack, curling up near the wall.
“What’s your business here?” Looking at the one guy with the translation spell capability, I carefully worked a small tremor into my demeanor, further creating the impression that I was frail, weak, at least enough to not be considered a threat to anyone.
“The city! I haven’t seen one in so long? Are there people there? Humans, anything?” I begged, my knees knocking together. “There’s monsters out there!”
[You’re too good at this.]
[Fuck off Squid!] I shot back at Kraken, making sure that my face didn’t betray my internal dialogue.
“We know there are monsters out there, that’s why we built this city,” he growled. “Most of the refugees were gathered a long time ago. How’d you manage to survive for so long?”
“The birds!” I gasped out, right as one of the soldiers searching me pushed way too hard on my gut. “They talk to me, letting me know when anything is near!”
All of the soldiers froze, then slowly backed off. One of them near the sleeping hounds yelled something I couldn’t understand then threw a small device to the lead soldier. Taking her helmet off, a lush mane of blonde hair framed the most aesthetically pleasing face an artist could design. Miss Gorgeous caught it and pointed it at me while muttering something about ‘damn sorcerers’, a small but insistent beeping sound grew louder. Touching the side of her helmet, she activated her own translation spell.
“Show us your true face shapeshifter,” she said, her voice way too warm for how imperiously cold she was acting. Every soldier had their shields out and planted at her words, their rifles pointed directly at my face. None of the hounds had moved a muscle though, still content to sleep in a humongous pile near the entrance to the city. “I don’t ask twice and we haven’t had a lot of action lately so I suggest you get to it.”
[That’s an aura scanner.] Kraken clarified. [One of your brother’s friends must’ve scanned you at some point last time you were here. Unless you know how to intrinsically change how your soul gives off power, fooling that device is not possible for you. I thought those were outlawed a long time ago, too many royals kept sneaking around on their wives and blaming it on shapeshifters or facethieves.]
Keeping my body still, I allowed my Flesh Sorcery to slowly put my face back to normalcy. “Well, if it isn’t the sorcerer Benjamin Jones, brother of Lieutenant Andrew Jones, wanted for the murder of Captain Casparai of the Marauders, 2nd Legion of the Reclamation fleet. Arrest him.”