House Shaiagrazni had vastly superior means of transportation to horses and carriages, but Silenos had been informed that such things would tend to draw unnecessary attention from the world at large were they to use them. It was unfortunate, infuriating, and inconvenient, but there was nothing to be done about it just yet, and so he simply compromised with reality and allowed himself to be transported by the slow, plodding musculature of natural selection and primitive engineering.

Ensharia, apparently an optimist, had seemed pleased enough with the vehicle. Awed, even, by its construction. From what Silenos could recall, there had been times in his own people’s history where such things were a rare commodity, the metal and craftsmanship involved yet to be made common by mass production, and so he perhaps should not have been surprised.

He was, though not enough that he didn’t get a lot of work done.

Silenos read during his journey, and read well, having piled the carriage’s storage with books covering as many subjects as he could and began devouring them at a rate of two or three each day. Boredom was not such a crippling barrier for him, not with hours of mere waiting on the road passing them by, and not with the regions of his brain that registered such sensations having long since been Fleshcrafted to remove the inconvenient flaws

Book learning was not a flawless fountain of knowledge, but it was a start. A theoretical backbone which Silenos was careful to strengthen through questioning and inquiry with his new companion. He read of the world’s Vigour, a curious form of magic that seemed to dwell within muscle and flesh to leave them hardened past physical limits. Somehow without even being identified by the new world’s natives as magic at all.

He learned of the Dark Lord’s historic rise several decades prior, the fractured nations that had been so tragically slow in heeding the call of Paladins to unite against him. The resulting defensive war that was prepared too poorly and fought too hastily, allowing great swathes of territory to be claimed by the enemy before any serious defence could be galvanised against him by the previously warring or rivalling states.

It was not lost on Silenos that his sources of such information were far from unbiased. Without an invented printing press, this new world’s book creation was monopolised and hoarded by those few possessing the greatest wealth, history was recorded only as the people in power wished it to be, and having a Paladin to explain their error in disregarding the Paladins hardly left him more confident that he’d gained a complete picture. Still, as the days progressed, he learned more than nothing.

Of course, a large portion of Silenos’ studies and conversations were directed towards the subject of those phenoms he now rode in pursuit of, and Ensharia was as eager to assist with his learning of them as she was all other things. The nearest, she explained, would be found in the arcane city of Magira, ‘The Great Magus Walriq’. As he understood it the magi were an order of caster native to the new world, whose powers seemed most similar to Silenos’ own, though still prohibiting Necromancy and Fleshcrafting as so many of the savages did. He’d yet to see any considerable magic from any of the new world’s residents, but apparently Elkatin was not famous for its arcane power, only its holiness. That explained the near-extinction he’d arrived in the midst of.

A magus, found in Magira.

Silenos did not comment on the repulsive naming scheme at play coinciding title to city designation, only waited for them to draw nearer their destination. On the seventh day, they came to it. Or rather they came to a small, pristine fountain in the centre of a field, circulating water with a fluidity and smoothness that seemed anachronistic of what Silenos had yet seen of the world’s primitive technologies.

“We’re here.” Ensharia breathed, her words distorted by a face twisted towards frowning rather than smiling. Silenos didn’t need to ask why.

Around the fountain was a field, grassy and flat. It stretched back for miles, occasionally yielding to hills and slopes, dips and dives in the earthy terrain, before finally fading to woodlands at its farthest perimeters. But there was no sign of any city, magical or otherwise.

“Have we got the wrong place?” Ensharia pressed. “We…Surely we can’t have, I don’t understand.”

Silenos did, though. He was not what this world would call a magus- his own world had never used that name to his knowledge- but House Shaiagrazni was an order of arcanists more than anything else. One world or another, one name or another, the magics they bound and the ways they did so were similar in nature. Magic was power.

Magi, sorcerers, wizards, casters. Power brought arrogance, and there were few things the arrogant enjoyed more than inconveniencing their lessers with tedious testing.

He tightened his eyes, took in the sight of the fountain, then sighed. It was practically screaming with magical power.

“I can see through your idiot illusion.” Silenos called out, letting his displeasure show. “I am Silenos Shaiagrazni, Senior of House Shaiagrazni, master of the arcane arts. Arcane arts more complex and potent than your civilisation has yet to discover, that is. Reveal yourselves this instant before I grow bored and start destroying things to motivate you.”

Fortunately, it did not take long for his calls to be heeded.

The illusion went watery, first, physical world distorted. Losing form, as if it were moulded wax suddenly left melting under the sun. Within moments it fell away, revealing a hard stone ground leading to a tall metal gate, two men looking down from atop it. Both held crossbows, cocked and readied. Built with gears and pulleys, each one had clearly been engineered to multiply the strength of its wielder, storing tension built by drawing it with the turning of a wheel rather than brute force. Mathematics turned into death.

Silenos resisted his urge to mock the savages for their weaponry.

“Identify.” One called, and Silenos affixed him with a look that he could only hope conveyed the true, transcendent stupidity of levelling such a demand at him mere moments after his declarations of name, rank and loyalties. Ensharia spoke before he could decide on how best to articulate the man’s mental deficiencies.

“We are here on the business of King-”

“A woman!?” Another one snapped. “There are no women allowed in Magira, girl, begone with you.”

“-Or are you one of the new whores travelling with your master?” The first added, thoughtful. Silenos suddenly got the impression that, despite the plate armour encasing her, Ensharia’s body was being examined and weighed. Apparently she shared his impression, because her disgust was palpable.

“I have a letter of introduction.” Ensharia replied, quickly, fishing around her person and producing it with a demonstrable haste. It was the genuine article, signed by the King’s own hand to both explain their presence and request entry on his behalf. With their altitude atop the gate, both men took a moment to shuffle down and reach through an opening in the metal to seize it, reading it quickly once they had. Apparently they’d been selected for literacy, or else Magira simply allowed more of its populace to read than Elkatin, because they soon understood the contents and acted accordingly.

“Alright.” A voice came, at last. “Fine, you can enter, but stick with the man.”

A rumble, a rattle, and the gate’s mechanisms began to turn as the letter was handed back. Silenos and Ensharia both stepped past the threshold and into the city together, moving fully past the illusion at last.

Everything shifted, photonic trickery breaking down as Silenos bypassed the angles at which it had been woven to work. Illusory magic was a difficult thing to do right, few even among House Shaiagrazni could cast it precisely enough to be truly indistinguishable by close scrutiny, and so Silenos was not surprised as the city unfurled before him. Buildings reaching high, streets wide and scarcely occupied, everything presenting itself clean, smooth, glinting under the sun and wafting currents of magically sterilised air in all directions.

To his side, Ensharia gasped. He turned to see her eyes wide, face a mask of awe and amazement.

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“Incredible.” She breathed, staring out at the sights. “I’d heard stories, ridiculous stories, but…God, it’s like a city of angels.”

Magira was a city of magic casters, not an uncommon sight in the lands of House Shaiagrazni. But Silenos could understand the sheer incredulity with which it might be beheld, seen from eyes that were as unused to the arcane as hers. Magic almost invariably found use in architecture first within nations that had access to it. Clearly Magira was no exception. One could build higher with magic by shaping materials more accurately, or else just working harder ones.

Which begged the question of what exactly had been used for this city’s construction.

“Diabase.” He noted, identifying the stone with a glance. It was one of the preferred materials of a puerile magical society, harder than other stones, not wholly uncommon, and quite workable with the sorts of energy and force that might be mustered by modest power. Ideal for those who wanted to feel as though they’d somehow transcended ordinary rock.

Evidently, his lack of respect for the choice was clear to Ensharia.

“You don’t approve?” She prodded. Silenos shrugged as they made their way into the city, still examining it while he spoke.

“Magira is three centuries old, yes?” He asked. She nodded. “Double my own age then, and easily six or seven of your generations. Diabase is acceptable for beginners in the art of magically-aided architecture, but I fear its continued use here after so long, even in the outskirts of the city, which must surely have been made most recently, betrays a lack of…Innovation.”

She eyed him, seeming more concerned with Silenos than the city, now.

“What are your people like?” Ensharia asked, after a moment. “The entire time I’ve known you, even when bringing you to the greatest wonders I know, you’ve never so much as arched an eyebrow. Are your people really so unrivalled by this world? Are… Are you…Unrivalled, among your people?”

He cracked a smile, and for once the display was sincere.

“I am not, in House Shaiagrazni, my order, there are perhaps a dozen who exceed me in magical mastery and knowledge, and many more who are my betters in raw power. I am not the oldest, most studied, not the wisest nor, even, am I the cleverest or most cunning. I will never rule my people.”

She seemed surprised.

“That…You always seemed so…Certain, so demanding of others.”

“I am.” He nodded. “Of my inferiors, just as my superiors are demanding of me. My people achieved wonders to dwarf those of this world specifically because we believe in elevating the greatest minds and powers to the greatest positions. This world, it would seem, has…Other criteria.”

Ensharia looked at her feet.

“Many magi believe women to be inferior, ill suited for magic. Too emotional, lacking the discipline needed to control it.”

“Hm.” Silenos noted. “Imbeciles.”

Misogyny, the word was, if he recalled. An archaic thing long since dispelled from his own people. What mattered was not that flesh found between a person’s legs, he knew. It was the firing of synapses between their neurons. How he loathed the idiocy of a civilisation that would halve its own potential so arbitrarily. No wonder they were still crawling around with mud bricks.

“Let us continue, we have searching to do.” He declared.

Their search was a tedious thing, not least because, despite her clear disapproval of the city’s view regarding her sex, Ensharia simply refused to demonstrate any real perspective in seeing the displays around them. Every moment, it felt, he had to remind her to keep focus and not allow herself the distraction of gawping at one thing or another.

Silenos himself hardly saw the appeal. Magic was being used brazenly, indulgent, as it might by the hands of some infant community who had yet to even realise the potential of their own powers. Toys being sold, petty conveniences for warming beds or blocking unwanted noise, massaging devices or servitor golems. It was all so dull.

“Is this not a city of research?” Silenos asked his companion, who looked distractedly back to him, and considered.

“They say so, but the magi say lots of things. It’s a city of secrets, certainly, the Arcane Council has seen to that.”

The Arcane Council, dictatorship split between a dozen. House Shaiagrazni actually used rather similar means in many cases, though was ultimately ruled by a single autocrat. Silenos had heard little of the magus rulers of Magira thus far, and everything he’d seen of their work left him certain they needed oversight just as much as the Dark Lord.

Something bothered Silenos, and it bothered him more the farther they moved into the city. He realised it before long. There were no corpses, at all. He could smell corpses, or feel them rather, and that sensation was entirely absent.

Cremation, he imagined. Not an uncommon practice in his world- the enemies of House Shaiagrazni had long since learned not to leave their cities filled with potential soldiers should they war with the Necromancers- but an inconvenience nonetheless. He stifled his irritation and pressed on.

As they drew closer to the city’s centre, Silenos expected to see an increase in guards, soldiers, defences. He expected, perhaps, to find refugees, given that he had seen none anywhere else. When he did not, he consulted Ensharia once more.

“Magira tends to remain neutral and apolitical.” She explained. “Unconcerned with the outside world.”

“Including matters of someone attempting to rule and conquer everything in the world?” He asked, not entirely shocked, just finding himself in need of certainty. She nodded.

Imbeciles, as he’d thought. Silenos almost wished he could watch them all invaded and crushed by their own mistakes.

By far the largest of Magira’s buildings was its university. That, Silenos had to admit, was a mark to the credit of its savage governors. It was guarded, though not in any way that might have impeded the movements of those frequenting it, and Silenos found himself stopped near the door by yet more gatekeepers. The letter appeared just as effective at granting passage as it had been to the city himself.

Inside, the place was a monument constructed to spellcaster egotism. Everything was either large, or absurd. Its ceilings dozens of feet high, its walls littered with relics no doubt pilfered from the past conquests of its owners. The people were similarly…Absurd.

Robed men, no women. Most elderly, some ancient, all bearing the sharp, straight postures of individuals who were confident in their own power, all bearing the flitting eyes of those surrounded by others they considered just as rightful in being likewise. Silenos recognised the demeanours instantaneously, they really were similar to those of his own people.

Ensharia seemed cowed as they passed magi, despite the limited numbers. Silenos was merely curious. He found a few glances turned his way as they made a path through the university, eyes scrutinous and considering. His features, he had learned, were foreign to Ensharia’s people, but here there was a blend of ethnicity almost as varied as House Shaiagrazni. Pale, olive, copper and ebon skin, curly, straight and wavy hairs. Eyes of brown, of blue, of green or even of red and black. It was a population clearly extracted from a continental mass, and perhaps even beyond.

That was a good sign, it at the very least implied a sample size large enough that, through sheer weight of statistics, there ought to be at least one or two semi-talented individuals amongst them.

Finally their trek through the ridiculous university reached its culmination, and he and Ensharia stepped into a voluminous chamber with walls of carved obsidian, lit from the centre by a great, towering pillar of light. A leyline, he knew.

A crease in the world, where reality’s skin was thinner and less separated from the hot magical blood pumping under the surface. Of course the magi had built their university around it, such things were powerful.

But more dangerous. The Entities swam as bacteria in the veins of the world, and it was ever so easy to bring one forth when extracting the fluid in which they bred.

There stood a group of men beside the leyline, who Silenos recognised instantly as among the most important around. Their magic betrayed that much, considerable in its volume as he studied it with his arcane gaze. Bonfires of power, perhaps small things compared to the scale he might have expected from his peers in House Shaiagrazni, but certainly greater than the spitting hearths that fuelled spellwork in most he’d passed.

He hadn’t taken so much as a step towards them before another came into step ahead, barring Silenos’ way with his body, and eying him coolly.

“Do you have an appointment to meet the Councillors?” He asked, gruff.

“Your tiny bureaucracy is but a writhing insect compared to the unfathomable might and import of my powers.” Silenos replied, diplomatically. “Step aside now or I shall obliterate you like the semi-sapient bacterium you are.”

Ensharia was hasty in adding her own voice to the mix, presenting their letter of introduction for the third time.

“Elkatin.” The guard read, lip curling with distaste. “You’re not pilgrims, are you?”

Silenos had yet to teach himself the new world’s languages, not even that of Elkatin itself, but he’d been practising with the letter. Aside from merely memorising their alphabet and phonetics, he had come to intimately know that their purpose had been made very clear in its wording.

Which told him that this man was merely antagonising them.

“Step aside.” He repeated. “Or I shall move you.”

A sneering grin plucked at the man’s lips, and he’d just barely opened his mouth when Silenos’ thoughts touched his nerves.

It would be politically inconvenient to destroy him entirely, and Silenos’ magics were ill-suited for physical displays even in a world where their practice was not illegal. He was ever creative, however.

Fleshcrafting sorceries seeped into the guard’s muscles, forcibly convulsing them in the exact sequence needed to send him flying one way under his own strength. Silenos was careful to exert the full range of power available to the targeted tissues, ensuring that the obstacle was displaced a full ten feet by the time he finally stopped sliding on the smooth stone.

All eyes were upon him and Ensharia, now, which suited him perfectly well. He stepped past the crumpled, groaning man and closed in on the magi. All were on edge, preparing magic, suspicious, ready for battle. Politely, he refrained from laughing at them.

“I am here to speak with the magus Walriq.” He told the group. “Show me to him and I shall be on my way.”

The catching of breath told Silenos that these men, at least, possessed the magical prowess needed to observe his own power. That was good, a dash of fear often helped to move conversation along in his experience.

“Walriq is dead.” One of the magi replied, gruffly. “You’re here a week late.”