Prologue
“Sir, we've done it. We finally figured out the proper permutations as to why the energy is disappearing.”
Finally! I thought whilst trying to maintain my composure. "Good job. Take me to the research project right away.
It has been ten long and mentally strenuous years since our magicians had noticed that their powers were slowly diminishing. Nothing drastic at first, just a few points of damage per spell cast (998 direct damage (dd) instead of 1000 dd). However, over a ten year span that loss in power slowly grew and was soon predicted it would become exponential in loss of power. That's what we have been pursuing over the past decade here at the Royal Academy in Canum (capital city of our main continent).
As I walked into the laboratory, all the wizards, researchers, alchemists, and individuals of learning stood up as was the right due my station as the Grand Master of all Arts. It looks like they have some sort of presentation that they want to ASTOUND me with, hopefully it won't be death by scroll.
“Sir, as you know we have extrapolated the loss of energy in several tests and experiments and have determined that all energy as we know it will disappear in 217 years. This estimate is only correct if the force or entity that is stripping the energy from our world does not accelerate or change. Our theorists expect that we don't have two hundred years; instead it is a probable hundred years at most.” I could tell Theodore was trying not to rush, but I had been briefed this a thousand times.
“I know this already!! Stop reiterating the things we have discussed over the past ten years ad nauseum. Take a breath, calm down and get to the point. Tell me what you have discovered.
“Sir, understood.” Theodore calmed himself down, pausing for a brief moment and then continued “Right now all energy that we know of is a contained within a closed loop or eco-system. All energy is contained within this system; when something dies that energy is returned back into the system. With the entity siphoning that energy even outright destroying the energy the system will run a deficit. If we can break that closed system and bring an outside energy source into our universe, especially to our planet, we can delay this event by a couple hundred years or at least until we find the source.” He paused there and lifted something from a box on the table in front of him “Sir, take a look at this what do you think it is.
I was unsure what I was looking at. The object that was handed to me was a perfectly spherical object, with air spiraling around a central core pulsating with an ethereal inner glow. "I admit that I am unaware of what this is. Wait, is that a faint life force that I detect emanating from within?"
“You are correct sir. What you see but before you is a cat from our testing laboratory. Long story short, we were doing an experiment turning energy from one type to another and little Lucy, Sigmund’s pet cat, got caught in the crosshairs, and turned into this. As everyone learned in their days at the Academy all great discoveries come about with a little bit of luck and little bit of error. Fortunately, nothing disastrous occurred and the apprentice has been reprimanded for letting his familiar run amok in a testing lab. Back to the topic though we looked at “Lucy” with our instruments and combined insights deduced that this single ball of energy is equivalent to 30 minutes of force.”
“How is that beneficial to us?”
“By itself nothing sir, since this cat was part of our world it cannot add to our energy. If this energy were to come from another plane of existence into ours it would delay our doom.”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“How is this energy quantified? How can a being not of this world add energy to ours?”
“Sir, a person is made up of many things not strictly the physical. If I were to use you as an example: your education, your beliefs, your experiences, and those that remember you all combine to generate a series of connections that equate to a force that acts upon the world. We call all these variables combined: Totality. Taking Totality into consideration, the far-seers and scryers have found a viable planet with-in an alternate plane of existence that meets all the factors that will allow us to prevent this catastrophe. One is the overabundance of individuals upon this planet. Our planet only has approximately a billion sentient beings of good or neutral alignment divided amongst the races (humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, and variants thereof). Of the chaotic and evil races we can only imagine the numbers. As for this planet they have an estimate of eight billion citizens covering a world that is approximately one third of ours.”
“I can see that the over population could be an enticement to come to a planet that is still in the stage of exploration and adventure, but why should someone want to come here?”
“Primarily, it would be a second chance at life. You see, sir, the only individuals that we would be accepting for transference would be those over the age of 40 and the terminally ill. We chose the age of forty due to the energy transference from one plane to another. Even if this other planet provides the source of energy, we still need an individual’s own power to overcome the obstacle. Pardon me, but if you remember from your school days, we can set an object in motion, but in order for it to not be affected by the transition from their world to ours they would have to provide the acceleration. A forty year old would have had enough totality to push him over the edge from one reality to another and still provide us with a surplus of potential energy. As for terminally ill individuals, this would be a last lifeline for them, and their totality would come from experiencing the pains, heartaches, and frustrations of their lives.
“I think one of this biggest draws would also be that they will retain all their own memories and predilections, moreover, they will be granted a new body. The mathematicians have found formulae that will allow the best transference into races of this world. We would have to interview them in their world and allow them to choices they want within a strict guideline, of course. Each person will then be born anew into our world, and with each person born approximately 1 day per 10 years of life will be added to the deferment of the energy collapse.”
Things are looking up, I thought. “It seems like we have a good plan to move forward here, but I have some things that we need to take into consideration.”
The planning and organizing went well into the night, and over the next couple months the details were ironed out. For one thing the scryers stated that these people that would arrive here had no concept of magic. So a system had to be applied to the world that would allow them to understand and utilize all the blessings of the Aspects. But, the details are not to be discussed at this point, for this is not the story of the Grand Master, but of an adventurer from a distance place and time.