And here's a reaction:
Hunger followed her gaze. "This thing is supposed to surround the entire Realm. Why is it most visible from the center?"
The edge of the Realm is in the center, but if you leave the Realm then you can examine it via spaceship from the outside.
I tried to write a bunch of stuff here but this is melting my poor brain.
They arrived at last at the Walls of Myth which encircled their destination realm. The Walls seemed a nigh-impassible barrier: semi-translucent battlements reaching limitlessly skywards and spanning to the horizon, their wavering distortion-surface thick with runes of golden azure. Raw magic, sheer conceptual weight seeped from the surface of the walls, a heady denseness of reality that stultified mind and spirit, Pressure more comprehensive than even that of Astral Rank.
We haven't even reached Rank 10 and Rank is already called out as being for scrubs, oh boy. Perhaps if we reinforced our Rank with runes the same way this wall was, like runes of golden Acrodross and deep blue Praxis? Just need to find a way to alter the fundamental nature of our Rank to incorporate more powerful concepts than mere infinite strength. Maybe this is what a shroud looks like, and once we manifest our own we can carve runes into it?
"What's the purpose of your entry here?" The guard-captain stared him down with astute eyes.
"Tourism," Hunger replied, without so much as blinking.
...
"And you," Hunger nodded, and the party made their way through. Surprisingly the portcullis was accommodating enough even for an entrant of Verschlengorge's stature, high enough that even the Armament strode through with headroom to spare.
This is not the first Armament to come visiting here for tourism, they built the gates big enough to accomodate him and let him in with no issue. They almost certainly recognize Versch, he's absolutely ancient and has a long history.
No requirement to disable his weapons. No concern or care about bringing him in. These guys are absurdly confident and it's making me very, very nervious.
Each of the common infantry here could be hero or mercenary in the outer realms, and well-respected for their weaponry and magical skills. Even the least captains among them could be as kings outside, carving out lives of splendor and luxury with their martial agility alone. Was it discipline or condescension that caused them to stay their post? Or was life here, even as one soldier of millions, still truly preferable to the comparative desolation outside?
I was thinking it was fear that kept them at their posts, fear of the tower.
Towers have a long lineage in fantasy. Sauron's tower. Steven King's Dark tower. The Tarot Tower card. Rapunzel in her tower. Wizards and towers and power and magic and princesses are all things that go back a long way to human prehistory, to stories like the heaven-defying tower of Babel. Given the depth and complexity the most that I can say about this tower is that it's trouble.
The Opalescent Tower itself could be seen faintly on the horizon, a shimmering speck of sky-folded stone plunging upwards as if in challenge to the Walls themselves.
Normally this is where I'd ask if the walls are meant to keep the tower safe from the world, or the world safe from the tower. But given how casually the guards let in a (potentially) Rank 10 Armament who knows. What even is the point of walls if you let Rank 10 dudes just wander right in?
Please don't tell me the walls are here to keep us escaping and it's another trap, after the Temple my heart just can't take it.
The people were cheerful enough, their markets prosperous and brimming with exotics, yet there was a slight tinge of fear to their interactions, plastic smiles imperceptibly strained. But far eclipsing that fear was a quiet pride, the deep-seated confidence of a people that had been lord and master of all they surveyed since time immemorial. Here, the Voyaging Realm itself had been tamed and brought to heel.
I was wondering if the Tyrant here was a well-meaning Cursebearer with the Geas of the Wretched. Well maybe it is a Cursebearer with that Curse, but it would seem that they're also a regular asshole and tyrant as well, independent from any curses that may or may not exist.
"Holy shit," Aobaru said breathlessly. "There must be billions living here. Tens of billions, maybe."
Hunger nodded grimly. "Let's hope that Tower isn't critical to their way of life."
"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators".
...
It's the Temple 2.0, bigger and better in every possible way. Instead of a couple of Fairbrights it's a nation of them. Instead of a handful of lazy immortals it's active armies training endlessly with superhuman skill. Instead of temple walls we can cut through it's these magical rune-enhanced walls. Instead of a nation that kills all comers they're so confident in their strength that they welcome in anyone who shows up. And to make it even worse, I'm sure that at some point the Apocrphal will start contributing as well.
Interesting times ahead.