Once we finished the setup, it was time for the main event. We all retreated to the edges of the formation, except the people that were actively involved. We left the defensive emplacements up as cover, but our advance team booked it out of the tundra at top speed. When we finally reached the edge, we found Moravian standing near one of the connections that hooked the formation up to the rest of the world.
“Is everything in place?” He asked me solemnly. When I nodded, he smiled. “Excellent. Begin the rite.”
The signal went out, hitting multiple scan rings, and the pockets of Ascendants situated along the path of the formation began their work. Everything affected the formation, people, places, things. Moravian had put all of his considerable skill calculating this construct, and I could FEEL the world shift beneath my feet as it came alive.
First was Abel, closest to the edge. He raised his hands above his head, and between them a small cloud of warped space flickered into existence. Not his normal spatial lubrication, but the inverted form of it that he’d created through his own ingenious experimentation.
Nearby, in their subcircles, the others assigned to boost him closed their eyes and began the invocation. The powers of their souls and wills flooded out into him. I expected him to stagger at the sheer mass of it, but it landed on the formation instead of him. In my Eye of Revelation I watched it drop down like a train car onto tracks, entering the cloud of space without pressuring its master.
It was hard to conceive, really, processing what was going on was strange. My Eye of Revelation was a visual sense, but I was using it for something else now. Like it was boosting my sense of Impact, and the sight and tough feedbacks in my brain were mixing into something I couldn’t define.
The train departed, carrying that impact forward. As it moved, it changed, between one inch and the next. Not in any obvious way, it was like…the sound of the way color smelled? I was extremely confused, but I COULD track it.
Spatial energy grew, but more than that, it shifted. The first pass took it by some shrubs, then a shack, and the ambient energy of the objects were sucked up into the wake of the thing, melding with and changing it, and speeding it up as they went. All along the line, key figures manifested their power, and others poured in their Impact. Even I was doing it, standing on the edge of the formation where I’d been told.
Momentum gathered, thundering along the formation, building up speed and force as it absorbed more, not just our power, but the ambient energy, twisted by all the seemingly random elements we’d taken into account.
My mind…expanded. I could sense not just the parts we’d put in place, but the external too, the stars in the sky, the mountains around us, the heartbeat of the very world of Callus, all being sucked into the formation, a gathering storm of significance and meaning as the train made it back to the station and then…burst.
That bomb of still mutating energy exploded, set off at just the right time, and it rode the lines of the formation, funneling all that power, even now changing as its path was altered by the trappings of the working we’d all built.
In front of me, a translucent film began to rise from the ground, creeping upwards as a circle of blue flashed, creating a shield around the formation that I knew couldn’t be passed through by anyone aside from the people who had helped create it.
Everyone had been involved, had been given a part to play, because that was how they left. Watching the formation come up was…transformative. The way the energy shifted and moved and transformed, it was poetry. I had no idea how it was happening, it wasn’t like an enchantment, or an invention, or any of those things.
The way it happened was so subtle and natural. Like an accident. A flow of power running out of momentum just short of another as it crossed its path. It was like watching a series of marbles someone had spilled flow over a slick surface and perfectly stop in the pattern of a beautiful work of art.
This was all just part of the will of the world, and I was so mesmerized I almost missed the rising bubble of space closing above us as it reached its apex. As soon as that happened, the next step initiated, and I realized all of our people were gone. They’d run as soon as the train detonated, and we were all watching the power expand together.
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At the center of the working (not exactly above wintervale, more adjacent), a spark of something glinted in the sky. Ice, a prism of crystalline winter that hung heavy on the air, somehow larger and more profound than the simple cage of clear stone it appeared to be. Silver flickered, flashing through facets, cold lightning and starlight caught in amber, mixing together into a howling cacophony of sensation.
The feeling became bigger and bigger until finally it burst, overflowing the stone and exploding out, shattering the crystal and letting loose a cloud of silvery snow that blanketed the inside of the bubble, melding into the warped space like water leaching into thirsty dirt.
Cold. All I saw and felt was cold. Not the same cold as the Heart though. That cold was a wicked and pervasive cold. The suffering chill of eternal silence and the death of self. This was something new, a cold of cessation, not of endings but of a complete lack of motion, a single leaf balanced on a precipice over and endless ravine forevermore, never falling, caught like the last gleam of light across a-
I rocked back. Callie had smacked me upside the head, and I blinked, taking long, shallow breaths. “You back with us?” She said worriedly.
Nodding, I closed my eyes, trying not to think about what I’d just been watching. Moravian chuckled. “It can be quite overwhelming, watching the full majesty of the natural world work its will with unlimited resources. Had I known your intention to watch the proceedings, I may have warned you of such an outcome.”
I glared at him for a minute…but he wasn’t wrong. Staring at a massive working of Ascendant power as it went off with my super special energy vision cranked up to eleven by my crown was maybe not my smartest plan.
Since I had Eye of Revelation off, I turned to take in the completed formation, and my breath caught in my throat all over again. Even without peering into the deeper mysteries, it was an amazing sight. A colossal bubble of warped space with silver snow flowing to and fro like cold syrup sliding over ice.
The aurora was inside the bubble, which was a shame, but Moravian had been adamant it was necessary. Apparently the thing was already hooked up to the entire planet’s energy. He hadn’t managed to actually crack it, but after studying the way it interacted with the surroundings he’d been at least capable of mitigating its influence on OUR formation.
“So.” I said as I stared up at it. “Time is paused inside? I saw…something like that. Hard to describe. The cold is strange, a complete stop but not an end.”
He nodded. “An end is not complete cessation. Entropy is a force, and by definition that which degrades is not truly still. For the true ceasing of all motion, even the motion itself must be halted. Stored for a later date. When the cold thaws, motion will resume. Of course, we don’t have the strength to stop time inside of a bubble that large. But even the slowing we’ve invoked has afterimages of true stillness.”
“It worries me that the first half of that explanation made sense.” I said slowly. “I think watching that fried my brain." No wonder formation masters were so hard to talk to. Conceptualizing the entirety of the energy ecosystem of even a small area was mindblowing, I couldn’t imagine how Moravian stayed in that headspace for centuries, mapping the pathways and patterns of a whole world.
Without him, this wouldn’t have been possible. His knowledge and understanding of this world was second to none. Not only was he a Grandmaster, he was THE Grandmaster of this world. A pseudo D-rank planet he’d religiously mapped out over generations.
Keeping my face calm, I bowed to him at the waist. “Thank you, Grandmaster Moravian. For helping us. I realize this wouldn’t have been possible without your expertise. I know I’ve been a bit…impatient with your methods, but know that you have my utmost gratitude and respect for everything you’re doing to help save our planet.”
He smiled warmly. “I am humbled by your praise. I hold no ill feelings toward your impatience. It is the prerogative of youth to cast their gaze on the more immediate, forgoing the longer view, and it is the prerogative of old age to understand and teach that which their eyes do not take note of.”
“I’m glad you think so.” I said with a wry chuckle. “Because talking to you still kind of gives me a headache. But now I understand a bit more why that is. Your words and actions are in tune with nature. You’re part of the tapestry of the world, and all of the things you do moves you through that tapestry to your desired outcome.”
He barked out a laugh. “We are all part of the tapestry of the world, and I think perhaps you give me too much credit in regards to the scope of my grasp on it. But I appreciate your understanding all the same. I hope the things you’ve learned today will aid you in your journey.”
I was sure they would, though I wasn’t sure HOW. I considered the possibilities of a form or Skill that harmonized with the world, but it would be a lot of effort for something that could only work under very important circumstances. By their very nature formations were an abstruse and hard to conceive discipline at the best of times.
Maybe something about my divination could help? Only time would tell. I turned back to the bubble as the others surrounded me. “Damn.” Said Benny in admiration. “That was really cool. If it hadn’t taken over a hundred E-rankers working together and tapping the resources of an entire planet to pull it off I’d be so down to learn more about formations.”
“It’s certainly not for the faint of heart.” Said Celine slowly. “But I wonder if it might be just what we need on Stratholme.” She turned to Moravian. “I don’t suppose you have any plans after you push the planet to D-rank and Ascend yourself. If you’re looking for a new place to build a temple and explore the mysteries, I happen to have a very old C-rank planet with endless mysteries that would love to host you.”
“Well, you have a territory.” I corrected with a laugh. “But yeah, any place would be lucky to have a Legendary Formation master.”
He looked intrigued. “I think…I may take you up on that. I suspect after this incident, I may have completely plumbed the depths of what Callus has to offer. Though I would like to study that cold storage formation. That might be the push I need to truly reach the Legendary sphere once I Ascend.”
I laughed as Chelsea started chatting to him about formations, putting an arm around Callie as I grinned at our grand work. This would hold for the month we needed, let us get closer to D-rank, and then head in to attack on our terms. Travis couldn’t possibly have seen it coming. I wasn’t counting on an easy fight, once we entered again we’d be under similar restrictions and their slowed state would seem normal to us, but one thing at a time. For now, we had our reprieve. The first thing we needed to do? Help put right some of the damage these bastards had done to our planet.