Early morning atop a mountain shrouded in a grey haze, two figures can be seen looking over what is now know as the valley of Meggido, contemplating the fate of its former residents and the implications of what has happened these past few months.

The larger of the two, “Luck”, used to live down in the former plains at the foot of the mountain. She also happens to be the only Ancient Dragon of the two and aptly lives up to her nickname. Continuing to survey the new geography before her, she speaks to her companion, an apparently humanoid being dressed heavily in cloth and a mask.

“I had heard of something like this happening aeons before my time, and I am not quite young anymore. And you are positive nothing was done to accelerate this? In all the years I’ve known you I would not be surprised if this was your doing, especially since this particular explosion benefitted you greatly.”

The Other, slightly muffled due to the mask, replies while looking solemnly out towards the horizon.

“Entirely. I will admit I had considered causing something similar years and years ago, but circumstances surrounding the project hit a snag and plans changed. So instead of blowing up part of a country I started looking for the largest calderas I could find. Eventually, I found Meggido.”

The valley below still shows signs of activity, extreme heat radiating from the rocks in the valley floor and walls. No living plant or creature can be seen, in part due to the ash lingering in the air, as well as the magnitude of destruction, extending a fair distance to where the horizon should be, with the mountain view being significantly higher than the former plains.

“It is a shame about those few villages towards the edge,” Luck says. “They generally didn’t bother me and the girl that visited me in recent years seemed happy enough. It is too bad the elders refused to listen to her when I told them they need to move, after you told me. I think that was a decade ago?”

“It is a shame. Which is why the failsafes were put into place, and now they have to figure out which evil wizard teleported their entire clan to a different continent.”

“Oh really?” Luck responds, actually turning her head to look at the Other, before returning her gaze to the valley. “Part of me would like them to be brought back here in a couple of years to see the destruction.”

“And what would that accomplish? It would convince some of their errors, but not all. But if it makes you feel better, we’ve been working on something I call Mindscape Printing. One moment, just stay there.”

The Other moves back from the Ancient Dragon and digs around in his spacial bag for a piece of cloth suitable in size for an Ancient Dragon. This ends up being an absurdly large piece of purified Satansheep cloth, reaching half the height of Luck and twice that in width. Looking at the dragon and the decimated plains, the Other spreads it over the rocks and begins the spell.

Looking at the completed image, the other twirls his hands to float the image into the air and flatten the wrinkles. He walks back with the image floating behind him.

“Here you go,” the Other says. “Still working on getting the cost down, this took as much mana as the valley’s teleportation circles. Take this as well, it’s a storage device I’ve been working on that doesn’t require hands.”

While Luck is genuinely admiring the image, the Other takes another look at the dragon and decides the ruby set in gold, making up the storage device, should be put on a chain. Weighing his options, he settles on an obscene length of mithril-wolfram light chain, rather than adamantine, in part due to the magic conductivity needed as well as the potential safety hazards since adamantine is nigh-indestructible whereas the alloy is only mostly indestructible. Floating up to Luck’s neck, he continues speaking.

“Do you want me to send you to your woman or do you want to fly?”

“I think I’ll take another day to fly around here. I was going to stay longer and look for survivors and wildlife, but you mentioned an evil wizard. How did you manage to do that anyway? And how do I run this thing?”

“I had a hundred and fifty years to lay them down while putting all of the Dust into the ground around the plains, I just had to make sure things overlapped enough to not miss someone. Closest I could estimate to set off the Doom Bell to scare off the wildlife was about a month. Though it doesn’t make sound so perhaps I should rename it…”

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“And the storage device?”

“Ah, yes. While touching the object, connect the storage device to the object with a small amount of magic, the bigger the object the more magic you need. If you can roll that up though before putting it in, it may be easier to take out. For that, connect another thread of magic as it were from where you want the object to appear to the device, thinking of it as you make the connection. Should be easy enough for you.”

“Intriguing,” Luck says while simultaneously looking at the image and placing boulders in the device and removing them, sometimes in normal places such as her claws, sometimes not, pushing the limits of what is possible. Narrowing her eyes, she successfully manages to take out a relatively large boulder mid-air, making no contact with it.

“There’s a reason why I said touching, but yes, if you use enough magic you can do that as well. As far as your human goes, there’s a continent to the west if you remember it, and about in the middle of it there’s a mountain range with a decent sized lake in the middle of them. Similar but different to what they had here.”

Sighing in the way dragons do when not trying to light things on fire, Luck magically rolls up the Mindscape Printing and places it in the now-storage-necklace. “My human indeed. How much room do I have in this anyway?”

“Hmm, well let’s put it this way, if you die there would barely be enough room to store your corpse, so don’t do that.”

“Cheeky simian. Or are you even that? I’ve been wondering ever since we met all those millennia ago.”

“If it makes you feel better, you can call this mortal habitation whatever you like. I don’t mind, especially since you are like a human teenager compared to me.”

“Alright grandpa. I have not seen you breathe fire so at least I’m pretty sure you aren’t a dragon.”

Silence ensues as the Other continues to watch the ash and volatile environment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Near twilight that same day, a group of street sweepers see someone stepping through a rip in spacetime. The Other closes it behind him, arriving at the gates of the Hellspring mansion, on another continent far to the southeast of the Valley of Meggido. Without caring for the plight of street sweepers, the Other shakes off the ash from his clothing before storing the outer layers.

Walking up to the gates, the Other shows the guard on the other side of the gate his sigil. Without missing a step, the Other strides through the now-open door and proceeds to the mansion’s front entrance, where an elderly dragonewt opens the rightward of the doors with exquisite timing.

The entrance hall is well polished stone and hardwood, with twin red-carpeted black-iron staircases leading towards the second level, and another set of doors straight ahead on the ground level. The Other makes his way past various statues, wall hangings, and flora, heading up the right staircase. Down the right hallway, after making a few turns towards the back of the mansion, he goes up another set of stairs to the observatory.

Duke Hellspring can be seen looking up at the first stars of night, standing as straight as he can, as a matter of pride more than anything. After all, as the thirty-third oldest Devil on the continent, there are few that could possibly claim seniority over him. Hearing steps behind him, he turns while griping his cane moderately.

“I’ve been expecting you,” Hellspring begins. “We all heard the warnings. Though I must say I thought your plans could have changed or you forgot about us considering how long it has been.”

“178 years is perhaps too long for some, I will admit,” the Other concedes. “After all, for most people they care more for the history they have lived through than the warnings of their elders. And while I believe I was supposed to give you three years heads up, the planet had other plans. I do hope the extra seven years didn’t cause too many issues. I felt no need to speed up the process.”

“Naturally, but deniers will arise no matter what we do. It did give us time to update and upgrade warehouses, grain towers, and the like. And it has been unseasonably cold this month, so more are taking it seriously. We finished developing cold weather crops about a hundred years ago, so that should help.”

The Other sends a humph through his nostrils at that. “Perhaps for a couple of years. It’s been a very long time since I’ve seen a volcanic explosion nearing this size, so I hope you have plenty of food stores.”

Quirking an eyebrow, Hellspring places both hands on his cane at this revelation.

“A volcano caused this?” he says, incredulously. “And with all of the magic we’ve been developing for storage, we’re somewhere between 10-12 years ahead and rotating through. We’ve had droughts every decade or thereabouts, so we have some practice. The biggest issue we’ve faced is banditry, but I think my son and grandson have something figured out on that end.”

The Other walks towards the edge of the observatory and stares blankly at the sky for a few moments, tracking both moons as they slowly go about their orbits. Sighing, he walks over to a workbench and takes out two bits of canvas, each able to be comfortably held open. Placing one directly over the other and adding three cuboid lumps of wolfram on the left border, he motions for Hellspring to walk over and see.

Hellspring looks at the canvas, noting it is made of similar material as most warehouse workers’ trousers, but quite a bit more colorful due to the image on them. While finding the exquisite realism of the scene fascinating, he focuses on the scene in front of him, showing the gentle slopes of mountains and a verdant plain.

“And what is this?” Hellspring asks, tapping the canvas with his unoccupied hand.

“Mindscape Printing of what the area around the volcano used to look like when the warning went out ten years ago. And this is what it looks like from that same spot as of a few hours ago,” the Other says gently pulling the top canvas from right to left.

A clatter is heard as Hellspring drops his cane and grips the bench with both hands. Eyes wide, heart racing, he frenetically looks over the second canvas before reaching towards the top canvas to flip it back over. In consideration for the geriatric devil, the Other pulls a nearby stool behind him before strength leaves his legs. Wordlessly, Hellspring sits and flips the canvas back and forth for several minutes.

“It’s all just, gone,” Hellspring finally says, still flipping back and forth. “The plains are no more, and I’m sure there’s at least a mountain or two that are missing now. I’ve never seen such extensive destruction in my life.”

The Other, in an attempt to ground Hellspring back in Fluria, interjects. “Not active destruction perhaps, but nearly daily you see aftermath of the same magnitude. Look to the sky old friend. There are craters on the moon that size and larger. The only worry you should have is whether your people can feed themselves for the next several years, a concern you’ve always had even without a catastrophic disaster.”

Hellspring places his hands on the table and looks towards the sky. Another few moments pass as he contemplates life as he knows it. Realizing that there is truly nothing more he can do besides worry about things beyond his control, he sighs and places the canvases back together. Picking up one of the cuboid objects, he rolls it around his hand.

“I suppose you are right, at least a bit. And this is heavier than I was expecting,” Hellspring says, realizing as the last words leave his mouth that he is speaking about more than just the physical object in his hand.