Trying to see if I can write a planeswalker story. Your criticism is welcome.
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Impossible Journey (Planeswalker Multicross)
- Thread starter Acolyte
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Impossible Journey(Planeswalker Multicross)
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Chapter 1
I am walking down the street, eating chips and playing one of those auto clicker games. It was a quiet night the buzz of mosquitoes was absent as the chill of winter had driven them away. The streetlights are flickering, poorly maintained electronics struggling to illuminate the dark street that is adjacent to the park. The park is sparsely populated, most families have left well before the darkness of the evening hours.
I am distracted from games and chips by a screech of brakes failing to stop a truck. A child crossing the street looks up and is frozen in fear, unable to move before a truck barreling down towards him. My body moves before I give it the command, sprinting across the 10 meters that separates me from the frozen kid.
I am too late in the best way, a teenager jumps in before even I can, pushing the child away from the path of the runaway vehicle. I don't stop, the teenager was mid and could change direction, so he couldn't get out of the way in time. I barely make it and the teenager is surprised, my substantial figure blurring as I rush to push the teenager away.
I think I shouldn't have done that to myself when the truck hits. There is an explosion of pain as my bones are shattered and my sinews torn. I try to move my body, to get up from the pavement where the hit has thrown me but I can't move, the best I do is twitch as warm blood flows from veins into the cold earth.
I desperately want to me and in that manic strength of dying man, something clicks and the world around me disappears. My battered body floats in the middle of an infinite expanse of destructive energy dotted with bubbles of stability. I instinctively know those are worlds, planes with different rules and systems. New knowledge blossoms in my unconscious, I know somehow that I can't stay in this liminal non-existence for long and that I must go to a plane.
I didn't know what I am doing, so I just do what worked before, I will be somewhere that could heal me and protect me. It doesn't work, So I randomly pick a plane and will my new power to go there. The next moment I am dropped in the middle of a bustling square, I don't have the time to take in the surroundings before a bunch of people teleport around me. A little girl dressed in armour with silver hair, a similarly silvered hair man with an aura of power around him and a smile on his lips, a knight in dark metallic armour with a green blazing sword, a raven-haired woman with a nimbus of colours surrounding her hands.
The next moment there is almost a glitch in the world as the people are in different locations than they were in the previous second, the square is empty, the knight is standing near my head as my battered body is lying on the floor, his blade ready to leap into action. The silver-haired man waves his hand and a golden glow suffices my body and I feel my wounds close and my bones knit themselves together.
I don't move, my mind unable to handle the shock the last 30 seconds and I pass out, my mind retreating into a state where the world is a distant worry so I can piece together a functioning psyche after these events.
I wake up completely refreshed, the bed is soft, the sheet made of silk. It was a pleasant surprise, waking up like this I wasn't used to these luxurious beds, the sleep I had on them was divine. I thought about getting one and then I realised I couldn't afford that at a college student's income. The thought brought me up short, the last day's memories came to me in a flood of sensations and confusion.
I open my eyes to get a view of where I was, those fantasy-esque that had teleported in are probably going to be there when I open them.
My prediction turn out to be incorrect, In front of me stands a steel winged angelic beauty with a bow that oozed with a magical aura. Her feathers are streaked with a dull red like dried blood and she is the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. In fact, I usually wasn't a creep that objectified women so this reaction was a bit uncharacteristic.
"You are awake, I will inform the healer and the emperor." the angel says and vanishes in a burst of light and a smell of brimstone.
I get up and look out the window that was beside my bed. The city outside was breathtaking, white marble buildings adorned with statues and splashes of colours, the style was neoclassical but with touches of different styles that I can't place. The city is laid out in a geometric shape, It appears to be properly planned which was unusual but I imagine it was an empire's capital, indicated from the reference to an emperor.
The tech level was bizarre with a bunch of flying ships and a giant flying whale that is on fire. But there were no vehicles in the city, the people were dressed in early modern styles at best and the myriad of soldiers and troopers are carrying blades and other archaic weapons, but there is an odd amount of fully plate armoured soldiers, which was surprising since plate armour is expensive. The people looked happy and content but I was careful not to be too impressed maybe they have slavery here or it was built on oppressed outer provinces' backs. Empires were seldom benevolent so I had to be careful not to buy into the hype of a single great city.
Although a thought occurred to me, I don't know if I can do the leaving existence thing again, It was instinctive the first time but I was too scared to try, the nonexistence had been scary, it wasn't empty space or anything like that, it was an active non existence of things. Concepts like distance and space didn't exist there. So I am feeling anxious, What if I am stuck here??!!
Before I can spiral into anxiety fuelled panic attack, there is a knock on my door before the silvered haired man from before entering, flanked by the black armoured knight and the steel winged angel.
He wears an extremely ostentatious golden cloak and a blade is tied to his hip. He is also the most attractive man I have ever seen, every step he takes oozes grace and poise, his face the perfectly symmetrical unsymmtery that made him feel human yet perfect at the same time. He exuded confidence and a surety that was reassuring without being annoying and he had an affable smile almost designed to disarm someone socially.
This was most likely the emperor, the golden cloak and the sheer raw charisma of the man was indicator enough, If he wasn't the emperor then I feared for my sanity if the king was even more charismatic.
"Hello, I am glad that you woke up. We had feared that the magic had reacted badly to you but it was just exhaustion according to the best healers in the imperium. I would have waited by your bedside for you to wake but alas the call of paperwork drives even the emperor." The silver-haired man says, then almost as If reading my mind he continues "Oh, how rude of me, my name is Viserys Targaryen, with a thousand titles that I am sure don't mean anything to you. The important thing that you need to know is that I am the leader of the people that have built this city. So I welcome you to my domain."
The man finishes with a flourish, slightly nodding as to punctuate his words in the end. I consider what I want to say for a second before I reply.
"I want to thank you for healing me, I had the most atrocious day ever, So learning that magic is real and it can heal people is not the weirdest thing I say that day. But I must say that I admire your response time, you and your retinue were there in seconds." I really was curious about that, and it was a distraction to consider whether I wanted to give my real name to a wizard, if magic was real then I had to be careful about the old superstition regarding names and the power they Hold over people. The knowing look in the man's eyes indicated he knew I was playing a gambit and that he was happy to play along for now.
"It was all thanks to the divination department and the prophecy that you would arrive on that exact date, but we are unable to locate where you would insert so that group you saw is a quick reaction force that was ready to find you." The man said with relative mirth but I don't miss the implication of the competence of this emperor and his force.
"Well, A prophecy eh. That's a bit surprising, It usually denotes heroes or villains or demigods. So I am a bit surprised that there is a prophecy about me and that it was deemed important enough that you personally saved me, thanks again for that by the way, can I know what the prophecy was about." That last bit had more tremble in my voice than I would have liked but the trepidation I was feeling was genuine, prophecies rarely had happy endings from what I know about the myths.
"Nothing ominous like that. We have regularly scheduled divination passes from the house of mirrors and it isn't something ominous. It only said there would be a traveller exiled for their world. We thought we should be helping someone that was going through something like that." His words brought down my anxiety and I relaxed a bit but then the exiled bit wormed its way in my head and a yawning pit opened to swallow my good mood.
Viserys must have noticed because he smiles and asks "So, tell me about yourself and how you got here.
So I tell him my story, average college student, truck accident, accidental plane hoping. Then I explain the concept of a college to him and the kind of things that are taught there, then I explain what trucks are and how the modern logistical network works and how it feeds into globalisation and the economic dependency and specialisation. The talk goes on for quite a few hours and my 4 years of business and economics degree knowledge is being tested, Viserys asks questions that show his deeply insightful he is. Like as a modern person I know exactly the benefits of a standardized shipping crate but for an early renaissance monarch who has never even seen a modern port is very impressive.
Viserys has to leave after a few hours, his schedule too busy to spend the entire day talking to someone. But it was refreshing and gave me the time to harden my resolve, I won't give in to despair so easily. It is important to live and learn if I wanted to get back because magic was real and apparently anyone can learn it.
So, Before I jumped myself out of the universe, I was going to learn some magic so I don't accidentally land in a random plane and die from starvation or something stupid like that. I recalled that there wasn't anything that Identified a plane to be different from other ones, So it very well could be that it takes a while for me to get back home.
A shout out to @DragonParadox for giving his permission to use his wonder-full quest as a starting off point for the story. Thank you for creating a great world.
I am distracted from games and chips by a screech of brakes failing to stop a truck. A child crossing the street looks up and is frozen in fear, unable to move before a truck barreling down towards him. My body moves before I give it the command, sprinting across the 10 meters that separates me from the frozen kid.
I am too late in the best way, a teenager jumps in before even I can, pushing the child away from the path of the runaway vehicle. I don't stop, the teenager was mid and could change direction, so he couldn't get out of the way in time. I barely make it and the teenager is surprised, my substantial figure blurring as I rush to push the teenager away.
I think I shouldn't have done that to myself when the truck hits. There is an explosion of pain as my bones are shattered and my sinews torn. I try to move my body, to get up from the pavement where the hit has thrown me but I can't move, the best I do is twitch as warm blood flows from veins into the cold earth.
I desperately want to me and in that manic strength of dying man, something clicks and the world around me disappears. My battered body floats in the middle of an infinite expanse of destructive energy dotted with bubbles of stability. I instinctively know those are worlds, planes with different rules and systems. New knowledge blossoms in my unconscious, I know somehow that I can't stay in this liminal non-existence for long and that I must go to a plane.
I didn't know what I am doing, so I just do what worked before, I will be somewhere that could heal me and protect me. It doesn't work, So I randomly pick a plane and will my new power to go there. The next moment I am dropped in the middle of a bustling square, I don't have the time to take in the surroundings before a bunch of people teleport around me. A little girl dressed in armour with silver hair, a similarly silvered hair man with an aura of power around him and a smile on his lips, a knight in dark metallic armour with a green blazing sword, a raven-haired woman with a nimbus of colours surrounding her hands.
The next moment there is almost a glitch in the world as the people are in different locations than they were in the previous second, the square is empty, the knight is standing near my head as my battered body is lying on the floor, his blade ready to leap into action. The silver-haired man waves his hand and a golden glow suffices my body and I feel my wounds close and my bones knit themselves together.
I don't move, my mind unable to handle the shock the last 30 seconds and I pass out, my mind retreating into a state where the world is a distant worry so I can piece together a functioning psyche after these events.
I wake up completely refreshed, the bed is soft, the sheet made of silk. It was a pleasant surprise, waking up like this I wasn't used to these luxurious beds, the sleep I had on them was divine. I thought about getting one and then I realised I couldn't afford that at a college student's income. The thought brought me up short, the last day's memories came to me in a flood of sensations and confusion.
I open my eyes to get a view of where I was, those fantasy-esque that had teleported in are probably going to be there when I open them.
My prediction turn out to be incorrect, In front of me stands a steel winged angelic beauty with a bow that oozed with a magical aura. Her feathers are streaked with a dull red like dried blood and she is the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. In fact, I usually wasn't a creep that objectified women so this reaction was a bit uncharacteristic.
"You are awake, I will inform the healer and the emperor." the angel says and vanishes in a burst of light and a smell of brimstone.
I get up and look out the window that was beside my bed. The city outside was breathtaking, white marble buildings adorned with statues and splashes of colours, the style was neoclassical but with touches of different styles that I can't place. The city is laid out in a geometric shape, It appears to be properly planned which was unusual but I imagine it was an empire's capital, indicated from the reference to an emperor.
The tech level was bizarre with a bunch of flying ships and a giant flying whale that is on fire. But there were no vehicles in the city, the people were dressed in early modern styles at best and the myriad of soldiers and troopers are carrying blades and other archaic weapons, but there is an odd amount of fully plate armoured soldiers, which was surprising since plate armour is expensive. The people looked happy and content but I was careful not to be too impressed maybe they have slavery here or it was built on oppressed outer provinces' backs. Empires were seldom benevolent so I had to be careful not to buy into the hype of a single great city.
Although a thought occurred to me, I don't know if I can do the leaving existence thing again, It was instinctive the first time but I was too scared to try, the nonexistence had been scary, it wasn't empty space or anything like that, it was an active non existence of things. Concepts like distance and space didn't exist there. So I am feeling anxious, What if I am stuck here??!!
Before I can spiral into anxiety fuelled panic attack, there is a knock on my door before the silvered haired man from before entering, flanked by the black armoured knight and the steel winged angel.
He wears an extremely ostentatious golden cloak and a blade is tied to his hip. He is also the most attractive man I have ever seen, every step he takes oozes grace and poise, his face the perfectly symmetrical unsymmtery that made him feel human yet perfect at the same time. He exuded confidence and a surety that was reassuring without being annoying and he had an affable smile almost designed to disarm someone socially.
This was most likely the emperor, the golden cloak and the sheer raw charisma of the man was indicator enough, If he wasn't the emperor then I feared for my sanity if the king was even more charismatic.
"Hello, I am glad that you woke up. We had feared that the magic had reacted badly to you but it was just exhaustion according to the best healers in the imperium. I would have waited by your bedside for you to wake but alas the call of paperwork drives even the emperor." The silver-haired man says, then almost as If reading my mind he continues "Oh, how rude of me, my name is Viserys Targaryen, with a thousand titles that I am sure don't mean anything to you. The important thing that you need to know is that I am the leader of the people that have built this city. So I welcome you to my domain."
The man finishes with a flourish, slightly nodding as to punctuate his words in the end. I consider what I want to say for a second before I reply.
"I want to thank you for healing me, I had the most atrocious day ever, So learning that magic is real and it can heal people is not the weirdest thing I say that day. But I must say that I admire your response time, you and your retinue were there in seconds." I really was curious about that, and it was a distraction to consider whether I wanted to give my real name to a wizard, if magic was real then I had to be careful about the old superstition regarding names and the power they Hold over people. The knowing look in the man's eyes indicated he knew I was playing a gambit and that he was happy to play along for now.
"It was all thanks to the divination department and the prophecy that you would arrive on that exact date, but we are unable to locate where you would insert so that group you saw is a quick reaction force that was ready to find you." The man said with relative mirth but I don't miss the implication of the competence of this emperor and his force.
"Well, A prophecy eh. That's a bit surprising, It usually denotes heroes or villains or demigods. So I am a bit surprised that there is a prophecy about me and that it was deemed important enough that you personally saved me, thanks again for that by the way, can I know what the prophecy was about." That last bit had more tremble in my voice than I would have liked but the trepidation I was feeling was genuine, prophecies rarely had happy endings from what I know about the myths.
"Nothing ominous like that. We have regularly scheduled divination passes from the house of mirrors and it isn't something ominous. It only said there would be a traveller exiled for their world. We thought we should be helping someone that was going through something like that." His words brought down my anxiety and I relaxed a bit but then the exiled bit wormed its way in my head and a yawning pit opened to swallow my good mood.
Viserys must have noticed because he smiles and asks "So, tell me about yourself and how you got here.
So I tell him my story, average college student, truck accident, accidental plane hoping. Then I explain the concept of a college to him and the kind of things that are taught there, then I explain what trucks are and how the modern logistical network works and how it feeds into globalisation and the economic dependency and specialisation. The talk goes on for quite a few hours and my 4 years of business and economics degree knowledge is being tested, Viserys asks questions that show his deeply insightful he is. Like as a modern person I know exactly the benefits of a standardized shipping crate but for an early renaissance monarch who has never even seen a modern port is very impressive.
Viserys has to leave after a few hours, his schedule too busy to spend the entire day talking to someone. But it was refreshing and gave me the time to harden my resolve, I won't give in to despair so easily. It is important to live and learn if I wanted to get back because magic was real and apparently anyone can learn it.
So, Before I jumped myself out of the universe, I was going to learn some magic so I don't accidentally land in a random plane and die from starvation or something stupid like that. I recalled that there wasn't anything that Identified a plane to be different from other ones, So it very well could be that it takes a while for me to get back home.
A shout out to @DragonParadox for giving his permission to use his wonder-full quest as a starting off point for the story. Thank you for creating a great world.
Chapter 2
Turns out that they had a magical school I could go to learn magic. I even talked to Viserys and his sister Dany and Lya the empress and they all recommended that I practice some magical skills so I can navigate my way home.
The problem was that training mages was expensive, it took a lot of imperial marks, the local currency, to take the unformed clay of a muggle and shape it into the the magical artillery that is the battle mages or the magewrights.
Viserys offered to waive it for me, perks of being a guest of the emperor but I decided to decline that offer, I didn't want to depend on the generosity of a stranger for my future. I mean he was a nice guy but I have only known him for a few days so I had to figure out a way of making money.
So I am going out into the city to see if I can find some gainful employment. I leave my chambers in the palace and ask the servants to guide me to the market so I can see if I could spot an opportunity. The servants here were proud of their jobs, proud to be working for their liberator and secure in knowing that every Imperial subject was guaranteed their rights. It was a surprising amount of equity for a society of this level, but then again, real life didn't have a tech tree. Societies could independently invent complex social concepts that may not have happened in my world at this level of tech development.
I had been studying the empires history last night, and it was by and large a nice story od slave liberations and fuedal lords order being shuffeled and a lot more rquity being introduced.
But one thing didn't seem right to me still, The imperium had legal blood magics from the depth of the most paranoid preacher's fears. It was regulated and I found that there were some pretty strict requirements, you had to essentially be declared an enemy of humanity, someone whose action would harm the stability of humanity on this plane. But I am still wary, that's exactly the kind of justification that most fascist regimes used to brand the enemies of the state. There was also the matter of a confirmed, if battered and broken, afterlife system existing. The sacrifised soul did go to a better place than normal. That was a horrible realization, that heaven was real and it was broken by an extra dimensional horror and the only thing fighting them back was the literal devil and his horde of evil creatures.
That was another painful revelation, the angel guarding me when I had awoken had been a Erinyes, a fallen angel and a former devil that had defected to the imperium. Speaking of the devil, I had walked till the market lost in my thoughts and one of the erinyes was haggling with a vendor that was selling chickens. That is a bit of a one sided argument, the devil had a millennia of on the vendor but credit to the man he isn't being cowed.
"That chicken could barely feed a mice let alone the god snake, be thankful that I am buying it from you, I should report you to an Inspector for selling diseased chickens." She says to the vendor with a passive cruelty that only comes from a lifetime's worth of sadism.
"I assure you that my chickens are in perfect health. Hundreds of people take these to the Holy Yss every day, none have had a single instance of a divination being refused. I would never in my faith cheat the god with a defective chicken." The man has a jade amulet shaped like a coiled snake on his neck and from the context appear to be a faithful of the serpent god.
I am going to ignore it for now, it's likely a regular occurrence. None of the people browsing appear to be all that alarmed.
The market square is bustling, sapient monkeys clamber over rooftops as bull people carry heavy loads, the plant people as varied as the amazon rainforest. I was moved by the multiculturalism shown here, there was no hate or fear in any of these peoples eyes. It was somewhat amazing even from a modern world, especially knowing that half of these species hadn't even existed 10 years ago. It was a vindication of my belief in the inherent goodness of people.
Then something strange happens, there is a yearning in my soul, the same space where I felt a spark when I jumped worlds. It was like my soul is parched, lacking something it needed to be healthy. And that yearning was reacting to my strong emotional outburst and a phantom limb reaches put from my spark and plunges into the ground, it takes a second for me to realise that I did it one instinct. Then the Land respond, a burst of mana slams into my soul and it laps it up like a parched desert accepting rain.
Motes of white and green energy nestle in my soul, ready to be used and fuel magic. I finally let out a metaphorical breath that I have been holding ever since I came to this world, this even confirmed that I could do magic; it was validation that I have agency in deciding my own fate. That made me really happy.
I decide to forgoe looking for revenue sources later, I was too excited in being a wizard.
The problem was that training mages was expensive, it took a lot of imperial marks, the local currency, to take the unformed clay of a muggle and shape it into the the magical artillery that is the battle mages or the magewrights.
Viserys offered to waive it for me, perks of being a guest of the emperor but I decided to decline that offer, I didn't want to depend on the generosity of a stranger for my future. I mean he was a nice guy but I have only known him for a few days so I had to figure out a way of making money.
So I am going out into the city to see if I can find some gainful employment. I leave my chambers in the palace and ask the servants to guide me to the market so I can see if I could spot an opportunity. The servants here were proud of their jobs, proud to be working for their liberator and secure in knowing that every Imperial subject was guaranteed their rights. It was a surprising amount of equity for a society of this level, but then again, real life didn't have a tech tree. Societies could independently invent complex social concepts that may not have happened in my world at this level of tech development.
I had been studying the empires history last night, and it was by and large a nice story od slave liberations and fuedal lords order being shuffeled and a lot more rquity being introduced.
But one thing didn't seem right to me still, The imperium had legal blood magics from the depth of the most paranoid preacher's fears. It was regulated and I found that there were some pretty strict requirements, you had to essentially be declared an enemy of humanity, someone whose action would harm the stability of humanity on this plane. But I am still wary, that's exactly the kind of justification that most fascist regimes used to brand the enemies of the state. There was also the matter of a confirmed, if battered and broken, afterlife system existing. The sacrifised soul did go to a better place than normal. That was a horrible realization, that heaven was real and it was broken by an extra dimensional horror and the only thing fighting them back was the literal devil and his horde of evil creatures.
That was another painful revelation, the angel guarding me when I had awoken had been a Erinyes, a fallen angel and a former devil that had defected to the imperium. Speaking of the devil, I had walked till the market lost in my thoughts and one of the erinyes was haggling with a vendor that was selling chickens. That is a bit of a one sided argument, the devil had a millennia of on the vendor but credit to the man he isn't being cowed.
"That chicken could barely feed a mice let alone the god snake, be thankful that I am buying it from you, I should report you to an Inspector for selling diseased chickens." She says to the vendor with a passive cruelty that only comes from a lifetime's worth of sadism.
"I assure you that my chickens are in perfect health. Hundreds of people take these to the Holy Yss every day, none have had a single instance of a divination being refused. I would never in my faith cheat the god with a defective chicken." The man has a jade amulet shaped like a coiled snake on his neck and from the context appear to be a faithful of the serpent god.
I am going to ignore it for now, it's likely a regular occurrence. None of the people browsing appear to be all that alarmed.
The market square is bustling, sapient monkeys clamber over rooftops as bull people carry heavy loads, the plant people as varied as the amazon rainforest. I was moved by the multiculturalism shown here, there was no hate or fear in any of these peoples eyes. It was somewhat amazing even from a modern world, especially knowing that half of these species hadn't even existed 10 years ago. It was a vindication of my belief in the inherent goodness of people.
Then something strange happens, there is a yearning in my soul, the same space where I felt a spark when I jumped worlds. It was like my soul is parched, lacking something it needed to be healthy. And that yearning was reacting to my strong emotional outburst and a phantom limb reaches put from my spark and plunges into the ground, it takes a second for me to realise that I did it one instinct. Then the Land respond, a burst of mana slams into my soul and it laps it up like a parched desert accepting rain.
Motes of white and green energy nestle in my soul, ready to be used and fuel magic. I finally let out a metaphorical breath that I have been holding ever since I came to this world, this even confirmed that I could do magic; it was validation that I have agency in deciding my own fate. That made me really happy.
I decide to forgoe looking for revenue sources later, I was too excited in being a wizard.
Chapter 3
It was an exhilarating feeling, the magical energy nestled in my soul. As I walk back to the palace, there is a new sense that I notice as I look at the giant tree in the middle of the capital.
According to the history book I was given, the tree was a part of the old gods of the north, a collection of the gods that inhabited the bone-white trees with blood-red leaves. I am not that clear on the exact theology so maybe the tree were gods or were they only the vessels but they are intrinsically linked so the argument is academic at best.
But my new sense is weird, it's part sight, part imagination and part hallucination. Everything appears to be wreathed in five colours. But calling them colour is a misnomer, they are more like an aura of conceptual association and mystical polarity. It was only my limited human understanding that was forcing me to describe them as colours, we haven't invented a language mystically complex enough to describe what they are.
The tree bleeds white and black, divinity and sacrifice weaved together in an intricate matrix that propagated enhancements across the entire capital city, no one was negatively affected by their old age as long as they lived in the city and more. It is the culmination of a massive ritual and it has revied the worship of the old gods after millennia of prosecution. It shows the faith that the gods have in Viserys while at the same it was an immense gesture of goodwill towards the old gods in a way that was massively visible to the general populace.
I walk back to the fallen angel guarding me and say to her.
"I need to talk to Viserys, I may have figured out something important."
She gives me an unimpressed look and flys away, the palace being warded against teleportation.
I pass the time till Viserys comes by examining what I can do with the energy. I can feel the bond with the market was still there, a part of my metaphysical makeup. It has been strengthening again, the strain it has taken when I had pulled energy thought it was repairing. I can feel that I can pull on the energy again in about an hour. The green and white motes in my soul were vibrant, balls of potential that can do anything.
I coax out the white mote and then I realize I have no idea what I want to do with it. The mote was held in between my hands, a ball of white light, a mini sun in my hand. I don't know how I am controlling the energy, the same instinct that has guided me so far allows me to have a modicum of control but it isn't offering any spells or something like that. So, that's the limit of my instinct, it is going to show me how to do the bare minimum that I need to survive, like a baby that knows how to breathe and blink. But a bay couldn't give a PhD dissertation and my instincts can't help me become an archmage.
So I pull the energy back into my soul, the white light disintegrating and flowing into my body and through it, into my soul.
It takes about 4 hours for Viserys to come, I do realize that he is an emperor with a busy schedule as I wait for him, drawing in more mana from my bond. I play with the energy, trying to form it into shapes. If I can't cast spells I could at least gain some actual skill in manipulating mana instead of just relying on my instincts.
"I have to say, you have caught onto magic a lot quicker than I expected, it's been a day and you are already wielding and experimenting with magic," Viserys says from the door, he enters with a swish of his golden cloak and sits beside me, in the manner of an old friend, completely comfortable with the physical proximity, it was probably helped by the fact that he can turn into a gigantic dragon and sorcerer of the 9th valance.
"It's just instinct not any skill. It's just something I can do with my eyes closed, but I can't do anything with it, magic is hard"
"I am sure the shadow tower can teach you everything you need. But I wanted to talk about how you awakened your magic. It usually takes a lot more practice and danger to awaken magic."
"I just went for a walk and saw the market square, it was pretty inspiring seeing the diverse people working together and I don't know what I did, but my soul reached out and linked to the land and I can draw power from the land and use it."
Viserys mouth is a thin line now, the first sign of any negative emotions I have seen on him. It paradoxically makes me like him more, he was human enough to feel perturbed.
He makes a hand gesture, golden-red light tracing a rune of power in the air and my new senses scream at me. I instinctively jump away from the plane, the amount of mana that answered his call almost blinding my mana sight.
I am hanging in that not space again, an infinite amount of planes just a flicker of my will away. But something is different this time, the bond I made with that imperial market stays strong, letting me trace my way back to the plane that I was just on.
This improved navigation allows me to take a closer look at the plane I am jumping towards and what I see terrifies me, almost making me consider just jumping away and severing my bond.
The metaphysical plane that I have just jumped from is a complex cluster of infinitely large planes aligned with different colours of mana and philosophical concepts arranged around a similarly infinitely large universe made up of a balanced proportion of mana and concepts.
But that would be the planes in an ideal form, the different planes are rent with rifts and wounds that leak energy into each other and one of the "good" white planes is almost inundated with black and white mana mixed "evil" realm. The overall structure of the planes feels unbalanced, the interrelational rifts pulling them from their natural place into unnatural and unsustainable orbits. Metaphysically, of course, there was no space to be located in and everything was a single point.
There is a massive entity of completely colourless mana that is trying to invade the plane, a sort of portion of the not-space animating itself and battering against the planar barrier that separates the universes from non-existence.
I look back at the place where I have jumped from, and notice that not a lot of time has passed, it seems time is weird in non-existence.
A massive reservoir of power, a mix of all types of mana, reaches across the planar barrier and connects to Visery's crown. I jumped back to the room before more than a second passes.
His crown wards protect him from the massive amount of power that had crossed the planar barrier from the quasi plane that bordered the prime material. It was like a second skin layer adjacent to the prime material.
He closes his eye for a second and then he opens them and I realize that there is more than just Viserys behind those eyes.
"Ah, I see. The leylines in the area have reported no disruption and there isn't any loss of energy from the theo-tech infrastructure. So, you aren't pulling magic from the ground or the location. This calls for some testing, I wouldn't want you to siphon off power allocated for projects. Lya is going to love this."
I pull the energy through the bond, the motes of mana settling in an orbit inside my soul, ready to be used.
I have been doing this all day so my reserves are sitting at a pretty healthy 20 mana of green and white. I wave my hand and a mote of white mana leaves and twists in arcane sigil before dissipating into a white mist and cleansing me of the sweat I have worked up in my magical training. Presdigation was an amazingly useful spell and some of the first ones that an imperial mage is taught. It was fairly easy as well, a sorcerer can cast it by instinct from the first time they awakened their magic and a wizard could learn it in a day. It is just simple imprinting of your desire on the mana and using the arcane semantics to guide it.
It has taken me a day to learn the spell, enough time that the empress, Lya, had time to set up her experiments and find the time in their very very busy schedule. When I arrived here I didn't realise how big a deal viserys spending a few hours making me settle in is. The man was a machine working most of the day and night and teleported around the imperium to troubleshoot any problem that came up.
The empress, Lya, was also just as busy, she is the pioneer in the arcane and thaumaturgical sciences. She invented the modern imperial wizardry program and has designed and crafted some of the greatest arcane marvels of the imperium, like the planar nexus and the antigravity engines that powered their flying warships.
"I sense no fluctuation in the etheric currents, the dream and astral realms and there is no far realm with influence. The ley lines are stable and the fey wild is not crossing over. I am calculating if you are drawing in energy from some sort of celestial alignment or earthbound mana well but the preliminary test is negative. So, as far as my instruments and I can detect, you are pulling in mana from nowhere."
"It doesn't feel like it but maybe it's linked to my ability to jump outside reality. Because I can't think of any other place I can be drawing energy from. There is this principle in my world called Occam's razor, it posits that the explanation with the least variables is the most likely to be the correct one, so, deferring to your experience, of course, I think we should look it into the possibility that I am pulling in energy from the nothingness between the universe. But it isn't definitely not the entity that is trying to destroy your reality, hopefully."
I really hope I am not a puppet for an omnicidal entity. But It was going to take more than a few tests to figure out my powers. But I have done something that was going to take care of all my funding needs. After casting mending on my broken cellphone and I sold it to the imperial university. They are apparently going to try to recreate the tech inside but It's probably going to take them a long time. Even fabrication magic couldn't match the accuracy of modern semiconductor productions and programming the entire OS. But they understood the concept of the electromagnetic field well enough, their clearly supernatural intelligence inferring things that I only vaguely remember from school.
But it was time for me to go to magic school now.
According to the history book I was given, the tree was a part of the old gods of the north, a collection of the gods that inhabited the bone-white trees with blood-red leaves. I am not that clear on the exact theology so maybe the tree were gods or were they only the vessels but they are intrinsically linked so the argument is academic at best.
But my new sense is weird, it's part sight, part imagination and part hallucination. Everything appears to be wreathed in five colours. But calling them colour is a misnomer, they are more like an aura of conceptual association and mystical polarity. It was only my limited human understanding that was forcing me to describe them as colours, we haven't invented a language mystically complex enough to describe what they are.
The tree bleeds white and black, divinity and sacrifice weaved together in an intricate matrix that propagated enhancements across the entire capital city, no one was negatively affected by their old age as long as they lived in the city and more. It is the culmination of a massive ritual and it has revied the worship of the old gods after millennia of prosecution. It shows the faith that the gods have in Viserys while at the same it was an immense gesture of goodwill towards the old gods in a way that was massively visible to the general populace.
I walk back to the fallen angel guarding me and say to her.
"I need to talk to Viserys, I may have figured out something important."
She gives me an unimpressed look and flys away, the palace being warded against teleportation.
I pass the time till Viserys comes by examining what I can do with the energy. I can feel the bond with the market was still there, a part of my metaphysical makeup. It has been strengthening again, the strain it has taken when I had pulled energy thought it was repairing. I can feel that I can pull on the energy again in about an hour. The green and white motes in my soul were vibrant, balls of potential that can do anything.
I coax out the white mote and then I realize I have no idea what I want to do with it. The mote was held in between my hands, a ball of white light, a mini sun in my hand. I don't know how I am controlling the energy, the same instinct that has guided me so far allows me to have a modicum of control but it isn't offering any spells or something like that. So, that's the limit of my instinct, it is going to show me how to do the bare minimum that I need to survive, like a baby that knows how to breathe and blink. But a bay couldn't give a PhD dissertation and my instincts can't help me become an archmage.
So I pull the energy back into my soul, the white light disintegrating and flowing into my body and through it, into my soul.
It takes about 4 hours for Viserys to come, I do realize that he is an emperor with a busy schedule as I wait for him, drawing in more mana from my bond. I play with the energy, trying to form it into shapes. If I can't cast spells I could at least gain some actual skill in manipulating mana instead of just relying on my instincts.
"I have to say, you have caught onto magic a lot quicker than I expected, it's been a day and you are already wielding and experimenting with magic," Viserys says from the door, he enters with a swish of his golden cloak and sits beside me, in the manner of an old friend, completely comfortable with the physical proximity, it was probably helped by the fact that he can turn into a gigantic dragon and sorcerer of the 9th valance.
"It's just instinct not any skill. It's just something I can do with my eyes closed, but I can't do anything with it, magic is hard"
"I am sure the shadow tower can teach you everything you need. But I wanted to talk about how you awakened your magic. It usually takes a lot more practice and danger to awaken magic."
"I just went for a walk and saw the market square, it was pretty inspiring seeing the diverse people working together and I don't know what I did, but my soul reached out and linked to the land and I can draw power from the land and use it."
Viserys mouth is a thin line now, the first sign of any negative emotions I have seen on him. It paradoxically makes me like him more, he was human enough to feel perturbed.
He makes a hand gesture, golden-red light tracing a rune of power in the air and my new senses scream at me. I instinctively jump away from the plane, the amount of mana that answered his call almost blinding my mana sight.
I am hanging in that not space again, an infinite amount of planes just a flicker of my will away. But something is different this time, the bond I made with that imperial market stays strong, letting me trace my way back to the plane that I was just on.
This improved navigation allows me to take a closer look at the plane I am jumping towards and what I see terrifies me, almost making me consider just jumping away and severing my bond.
The metaphysical plane that I have just jumped from is a complex cluster of infinitely large planes aligned with different colours of mana and philosophical concepts arranged around a similarly infinitely large universe made up of a balanced proportion of mana and concepts.
But that would be the planes in an ideal form, the different planes are rent with rifts and wounds that leak energy into each other and one of the "good" white planes is almost inundated with black and white mana mixed "evil" realm. The overall structure of the planes feels unbalanced, the interrelational rifts pulling them from their natural place into unnatural and unsustainable orbits. Metaphysically, of course, there was no space to be located in and everything was a single point.
There is a massive entity of completely colourless mana that is trying to invade the plane, a sort of portion of the not-space animating itself and battering against the planar barrier that separates the universes from non-existence.
I look back at the place where I have jumped from, and notice that not a lot of time has passed, it seems time is weird in non-existence.
A massive reservoir of power, a mix of all types of mana, reaches across the planar barrier and connects to Visery's crown. I jumped back to the room before more than a second passes.
His crown wards protect him from the massive amount of power that had crossed the planar barrier from the quasi plane that bordered the prime material. It was like a second skin layer adjacent to the prime material.
He closes his eye for a second and then he opens them and I realize that there is more than just Viserys behind those eyes.
"Ah, I see. The leylines in the area have reported no disruption and there isn't any loss of energy from the theo-tech infrastructure. So, you aren't pulling magic from the ground or the location. This calls for some testing, I wouldn't want you to siphon off power allocated for projects. Lya is going to love this."
I pull the energy through the bond, the motes of mana settling in an orbit inside my soul, ready to be used.
I have been doing this all day so my reserves are sitting at a pretty healthy 20 mana of green and white. I wave my hand and a mote of white mana leaves and twists in arcane sigil before dissipating into a white mist and cleansing me of the sweat I have worked up in my magical training. Presdigation was an amazingly useful spell and some of the first ones that an imperial mage is taught. It was fairly easy as well, a sorcerer can cast it by instinct from the first time they awakened their magic and a wizard could learn it in a day. It is just simple imprinting of your desire on the mana and using the arcane semantics to guide it.
It has taken me a day to learn the spell, enough time that the empress, Lya, had time to set up her experiments and find the time in their very very busy schedule. When I arrived here I didn't realise how big a deal viserys spending a few hours making me settle in is. The man was a machine working most of the day and night and teleported around the imperium to troubleshoot any problem that came up.
The empress, Lya, was also just as busy, she is the pioneer in the arcane and thaumaturgical sciences. She invented the modern imperial wizardry program and has designed and crafted some of the greatest arcane marvels of the imperium, like the planar nexus and the antigravity engines that powered their flying warships.
"I sense no fluctuation in the etheric currents, the dream and astral realms and there is no far realm with influence. The ley lines are stable and the fey wild is not crossing over. I am calculating if you are drawing in energy from some sort of celestial alignment or earthbound mana well but the preliminary test is negative. So, as far as my instruments and I can detect, you are pulling in mana from nowhere."
"It doesn't feel like it but maybe it's linked to my ability to jump outside reality. Because I can't think of any other place I can be drawing energy from. There is this principle in my world called Occam's razor, it posits that the explanation with the least variables is the most likely to be the correct one, so, deferring to your experience, of course, I think we should look it into the possibility that I am pulling in energy from the nothingness between the universe. But it isn't definitely not the entity that is trying to destroy your reality, hopefully."
I really hope I am not a puppet for an omnicidal entity. But It was going to take more than a few tests to figure out my powers. But I have done something that was going to take care of all my funding needs. After casting mending on my broken cellphone and I sold it to the imperial university. They are apparently going to try to recreate the tech inside but It's probably going to take them a long time. Even fabrication magic couldn't match the accuracy of modern semiconductor productions and programming the entire OS. But they understood the concept of the electromagnetic field well enough, their clearly supernatural intelligence inferring things that I only vaguely remember from school.
But it was time for me to go to magic school now.
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Chapter 4
"Focus your magic; force is the purest element there is; It will never fail you. Use the Asiri's first mandala to shape the magic into the spell." The instructor hovers over the batch of mages, his words bringing the arcane symbol into my mind's eye. It took me days to memorise the thing, but it is worth it.
The mote of white mana fills in the magical diagram, and a blowing armour made from planes of silvery force forms on my body. My mage armour spell is just another oddity I have noticed ever since I have started learning magic. I am learning much quicker than the others, my instincts helping me learn magic faster than most people.
"Your cohort is lucky; we have Sir Richard, who has made some time for cross-training with some pretorians. His personnel students, in fact. So, we will have a little exercise here today, and you can see how well you have learned your lessons in Battle Magic." The instructor says with a clear case of hero-worship.
It was well deserved; the King's sworn sword was probably the most popular companion of the emperor, tied with Ser Waymar Royce. The tales of his exploits were things you heard about in legends, fighting gods and slaying devils.
"Well, let's see how the emperor's coin is being used. Today your opponents are the mailed fists of the emperor, the pretorians. You are the future battle mages that will fight with them to protect the imperium. So, we are here to learn to work together and learn to cover each other's weaknesses." The Knights' voice was low but rang with the quiet confidence that came with being the deadliest thing in the room.
" Luckily for you guys, we have the perfect training exercise. A group of wyld fae, specifically red caps, will attack a small village in the western imperial provinces. The house of mirrors has divined that they will attack in a day, in a group of about 10. Usually, the legion assigned to the area will deal with it, but we have kept them in reserve and given you a chance to deal with the threat to the innocent villagers."
I blanched at the prospect of fighting fae monsters; I didn't know a lot of spells; my repertoire was only five spells, mage armour being the latest. Magic missile was useful, but I don't know if it can punch through the flesh of a potent magical murderer.
"You guys won't be in life-threatening danger, the legion detachment will be nearby, and I will be fighting beside you. But that's not to say there is no danger. Their blades will be sharp, and they will thirst to dip their caps in your blood." He pauses a bit and looks around at all of us, looking each of us in the eyes. I feel his gaze on me, and I feel myself stand straighter. "We will deploy in a mixed unit; I will leave you to get acquainted with your fellow imperials before you get some time to prepare."
He leaves, and everyone in the room relaxes; they start mingling with each other, the giant slabs of muscles that are the pretorians standing out like islands in the sea of mages that swarm around them. The first generation of pretorians have made a lot of stories about them, leading the charge into mind flayer bases and genie fortress, so it was fair that the mages would be interested in talking to new ones.
I walk up to one that is closest to me, a minotaur with fur shaded white as snow. His fur was streaked with red stripes, a clear mark of the old god's favour. His tunic is decorated with his clan symbol, the main unit of society that the minotaurs organised themselves. The pretorians are relaxed, shedding their armour and weapons properly to be more approachable.
"Hey, I am glad to meet you. It's nice to know who we will be fighting alongside."
He turns to me and gives me a warrior's handshake.
"It is indeed important to be familiar with your allies. It is how the emperor was able to form our empire, and that's how we will defend it." He rumbles invoice like a stampede trying to stay quiet.
He is way more intense than I expected, but I guess it makes sense, the pretorians were the most loyal followers of Viserys, and it fostered a particular intensity of personality.
"So, can you tell me about the foe we are going to be facing tomorrow, I have read about them in stories and books of lore, but fae has never been my focus," I ask, hoping his experience could enlighten me to the hobs.
"Redcaps are first and foremost treacherous creatures, fae cunning turned to the purpose of murder and carnage. They like to strike from the shadows, but this band will be overconfident, hoping their numbers and surprise let them slake their bloodlust. But they will find the fist of the emperor waiting for them, and that should unbalance them; that is the optimal time to strike."
I spent the rest of the day talking to various people in the class who had fought faes and learned their moves.
The mass cursing thing Viserys has done doesn't sit right with me, but it was in the past, and they had been at war, I couldn't judge without more information that was classified at higher than my level.
Before the fight, I prepare one last spell before turning in for the night. My hands make a wiggling motion, and the mandala shifts and a burst of energy knocks me on my ass.
This was the third time I had failed to cast the summon monster spell. It is a classic spell that has been refined over millennia, and I am doing everything right. I worked with the conjuring department to make sure I was casting the spell correctly, but it wasn't working.
It is a simple enough concept, draw upon a dream copy of the creature you wish to summon and create a magical shell so it can fight for you.
I couldn't figure out how to connect to the dreamlands to draw the creatures' facsimile. Lya has theorised that since my world didn't have dream dimensions, I don't have an innate connection that most beings have.
So, my next step is to adapt the spell if they were drawing on a dream copy of a creature. My dreams exist, they aren't superimposed in a different direction, but they do exist. So I try to target that, a memory from a long time ago.
The mandala spins up, the golden and green circle filled with arcane symbols shaped with my motes of mana, a complex array of quantifiers that will guide my magic to form the creature I am summoning.
The two motes of green mana flow from my soul into the spell form and into the world. A grizzly bear takes form, a figment of my memory, dredged up from a long-ago memory.
When I was a little boy, I wandered off a camping trick with my school and encountered a grizzly bear. It had terrified my little brain; the visible sheer size and power had made me paralysed in fear. The park rangers with the group had made it in time and chased away the animal. But that bear has etched itself in my psyche; I have had nightmares for years and a primal fascination with the bears.
So when the bear is standing in front of me, it is a bit disconcerting, I shrink back in fear a bit, but the bear just shuffles like it's waiting for some command, which I suppose was accurate given the spell.
I walk up to it and pet it on its head. The bear leans into my but and makes a chuffing noise that shakes my entire body. It seems exposure therapy can't cure my fear that easily but I persist. It was just something I summoned; it wouldn't hurt me. I take a deep breath and start giving the bear commands. The tests reveal that the bear is about as smart as your average one and mostly autonomous, but it was possible to make it do things that a normal bear wouldn't do, like letting a human ride it; what can I say? I am going to keep trying till I overcome my fear.
The Fae's target was a small hamlet hidden in the foothills of the vale. The enemies we faced were good at hiding, hidden hunters of men that could slip between the fae wilds and the material plane. So the legion has dispatched some leshy support for us.
Leshys are plant people forged in the flesh forges of the empire; old nature spirits have given physical forms crafted to channel their natural abilities. They were natural druids, the nature spirits and fragments of green seers of the old gods showing an aptitude for dealing with the fae, in both senses of the word.
We were hidden in a copse of trees that were on the village's border, hidden behind the druidic magic of the leshy's, plants curling around us, hiding any traces of our presence.
The redcaps arrive like the first wind of a dark winter. A bone-chilling wind is blowing in from wicked places.
They appear just as night falls, using the period of dusk to hide their approach. This side of the hamlet was being approached by six redcaps.
I wait for the signal to engage, drawing the mandala in my mind, ready to push mana into it and make the spell a reality.
The pretorians around me ready their launchers and lob their explosive payload at the hobgoblins. There is a flash of light and a booming explosion. Two redcaps lie dead, and the others rush towards our location.
The leshy raises its petals, and bramble grows around their feet, hindering their movements.
I finish the spell in the split second it has taken for the actions to start. The summoning spell blooms into reality in front of the redcaps, and the grizzly charges them, the bear mauling its face and dragging it to the ground.
The last remaining redcap raises a hunting horn, and a shrill call echos across the hamlet. The hollering mob of red caps chitters, and I feel the planar fabric bend; my hand lashes out, and a ray of light fueled by my white mana burns the offending fae's head off, but the spell is cast.
Something massive lumbers in from the fae wilds, the walls of reality shuddering as massive figure steps through the fae wilds. It was the size of a large house, with ten heads and fifty hands, a grotesque human body suffused with the energies of the fae power. It swings a dozen hands, and the pretorians jump back from the flails made of bramble thorns that rip troughs in the ground where they strike.
The pretorians turn on a dime and blast it with their launchers; the Danava walks through the explosions with a blazing aura of healing energy billowing out around him, healing his wounds.
This is happening in a single split second, I am trying to cast a spell, but the creature is deceptively quicker than anything its size should.
My spell matric forms, and a beam of green energy shoots and strikes the giant; the beam washes off his skin, the innately magical nature of the creature shrugging off my acid spray without a thought.
I begin casting a second summoning spell as the grizzly rushes the foe and is pasted by an errant passing swing of the dozens of flails.
But the next moment reassures me as the knight of skulls teleports in, his sword gleaming as he carves into the giant's supernaturally tough body. The blade slashes and swings, parrying dozens of attacks and scoring hundreds of hits as both combatants move as blurs.
I change my second spell to a buff, my white mana mage armour draping over Sir Richard, the ghostly white armour deflecting the glancing blows that have been hitting him.
The fight continues for a few more seconds before the giant's head is cleaved in twain from an overhead strike from Sir Richard.
Then there is only defining silence and the cooling bodies of monsters. I feel the same click as in the market square; this village is the site of my first fight, the fire life I have taken. I feel the meaning of the land settle in my mind, and I throw up. The shock is wearing off, and the adrenaline is wearing off. My hands are shaking, and I sit down just to gain a semblance of balance. A pretorian sits down next to me, claps me on the back, and starts laughing.
That's the first time I realise the imperium might not be the best fit for me.
The village gives me green and black mana, letting me practice the imperium's more dark blood and necromantic magic. The constructs were figures of solid black mana to my mage sight despite having no soul, so it is pretty clear I can learn it given enough time.
But I am not in a good space after that fight; the terror and chaos of the battlefield, even minimised, really made me aware of my mortality. So I have made a decision. I will live my best life so I can't be bound by a single empire, not when a potentially infinite number of universes are available to me. It has also dawned on me that the imperium, for all its progressiveness, was a nation built around war, maybe for a good reason, but I want more from life, so I am going to learn all they can teach me and explore the multiverse, but it wasn't like I am going to never be back, but it just can't be my home.
So, that's my plan for the future, learn everything I need to explore possibly hostile planes and find my way back to earth, or maybe a new home if that's not an option.
In a blur, the next few months pass by, my magical training increasing by leaps and bounds. Once the basics of magic and spellcraft became known to me, I advanced much faster than most people. I focused on conjuration, clerical and druidic magic and necromancy. It was the magics most suited for my mana types, so I focused on getting better at what I needed to explore. Learning planar theory and advanced spellcraft was the most significant effort I made; it will let me make my own spell and adapt to any situation.
Now I just have to say goodbye.
The mote of white mana fills in the magical diagram, and a blowing armour made from planes of silvery force forms on my body. My mage armour spell is just another oddity I have noticed ever since I have started learning magic. I am learning much quicker than the others, my instincts helping me learn magic faster than most people.
"Your cohort is lucky; we have Sir Richard, who has made some time for cross-training with some pretorians. His personnel students, in fact. So, we will have a little exercise here today, and you can see how well you have learned your lessons in Battle Magic." The instructor says with a clear case of hero-worship.
It was well deserved; the King's sworn sword was probably the most popular companion of the emperor, tied with Ser Waymar Royce. The tales of his exploits were things you heard about in legends, fighting gods and slaying devils.
"Well, let's see how the emperor's coin is being used. Today your opponents are the mailed fists of the emperor, the pretorians. You are the future battle mages that will fight with them to protect the imperium. So, we are here to learn to work together and learn to cover each other's weaknesses." The Knights' voice was low but rang with the quiet confidence that came with being the deadliest thing in the room.
" Luckily for you guys, we have the perfect training exercise. A group of wyld fae, specifically red caps, will attack a small village in the western imperial provinces. The house of mirrors has divined that they will attack in a day, in a group of about 10. Usually, the legion assigned to the area will deal with it, but we have kept them in reserve and given you a chance to deal with the threat to the innocent villagers."
I blanched at the prospect of fighting fae monsters; I didn't know a lot of spells; my repertoire was only five spells, mage armour being the latest. Magic missile was useful, but I don't know if it can punch through the flesh of a potent magical murderer.
"You guys won't be in life-threatening danger, the legion detachment will be nearby, and I will be fighting beside you. But that's not to say there is no danger. Their blades will be sharp, and they will thirst to dip their caps in your blood." He pauses a bit and looks around at all of us, looking each of us in the eyes. I feel his gaze on me, and I feel myself stand straighter. "We will deploy in a mixed unit; I will leave you to get acquainted with your fellow imperials before you get some time to prepare."
He leaves, and everyone in the room relaxes; they start mingling with each other, the giant slabs of muscles that are the pretorians standing out like islands in the sea of mages that swarm around them. The first generation of pretorians have made a lot of stories about them, leading the charge into mind flayer bases and genie fortress, so it was fair that the mages would be interested in talking to new ones.
I walk up to one that is closest to me, a minotaur with fur shaded white as snow. His fur was streaked with red stripes, a clear mark of the old god's favour. His tunic is decorated with his clan symbol, the main unit of society that the minotaurs organised themselves. The pretorians are relaxed, shedding their armour and weapons properly to be more approachable.
"Hey, I am glad to meet you. It's nice to know who we will be fighting alongside."
He turns to me and gives me a warrior's handshake.
"It is indeed important to be familiar with your allies. It is how the emperor was able to form our empire, and that's how we will defend it." He rumbles invoice like a stampede trying to stay quiet.
He is way more intense than I expected, but I guess it makes sense, the pretorians were the most loyal followers of Viserys, and it fostered a particular intensity of personality.
"So, can you tell me about the foe we are going to be facing tomorrow, I have read about them in stories and books of lore, but fae has never been my focus," I ask, hoping his experience could enlighten me to the hobs.
"Redcaps are first and foremost treacherous creatures, fae cunning turned to the purpose of murder and carnage. They like to strike from the shadows, but this band will be overconfident, hoping their numbers and surprise let them slake their bloodlust. But they will find the fist of the emperor waiting for them, and that should unbalance them; that is the optimal time to strike."
I spent the rest of the day talking to various people in the class who had fought faes and learned their moves.
The mass cursing thing Viserys has done doesn't sit right with me, but it was in the past, and they had been at war, I couldn't judge without more information that was classified at higher than my level.
Before the fight, I prepare one last spell before turning in for the night. My hands make a wiggling motion, and the mandala shifts and a burst of energy knocks me on my ass.
This was the third time I had failed to cast the summon monster spell. It is a classic spell that has been refined over millennia, and I am doing everything right. I worked with the conjuring department to make sure I was casting the spell correctly, but it wasn't working.
It is a simple enough concept, draw upon a dream copy of the creature you wish to summon and create a magical shell so it can fight for you.
I couldn't figure out how to connect to the dreamlands to draw the creatures' facsimile. Lya has theorised that since my world didn't have dream dimensions, I don't have an innate connection that most beings have.
So, my next step is to adapt the spell if they were drawing on a dream copy of a creature. My dreams exist, they aren't superimposed in a different direction, but they do exist. So I try to target that, a memory from a long time ago.
The mandala spins up, the golden and green circle filled with arcane symbols shaped with my motes of mana, a complex array of quantifiers that will guide my magic to form the creature I am summoning.
The two motes of green mana flow from my soul into the spell form and into the world. A grizzly bear takes form, a figment of my memory, dredged up from a long-ago memory.
When I was a little boy, I wandered off a camping trick with my school and encountered a grizzly bear. It had terrified my little brain; the visible sheer size and power had made me paralysed in fear. The park rangers with the group had made it in time and chased away the animal. But that bear has etched itself in my psyche; I have had nightmares for years and a primal fascination with the bears.
So when the bear is standing in front of me, it is a bit disconcerting, I shrink back in fear a bit, but the bear just shuffles like it's waiting for some command, which I suppose was accurate given the spell.
I walk up to it and pet it on its head. The bear leans into my but and makes a chuffing noise that shakes my entire body. It seems exposure therapy can't cure my fear that easily but I persist. It was just something I summoned; it wouldn't hurt me. I take a deep breath and start giving the bear commands. The tests reveal that the bear is about as smart as your average one and mostly autonomous, but it was possible to make it do things that a normal bear wouldn't do, like letting a human ride it; what can I say? I am going to keep trying till I overcome my fear.
The Fae's target was a small hamlet hidden in the foothills of the vale. The enemies we faced were good at hiding, hidden hunters of men that could slip between the fae wilds and the material plane. So the legion has dispatched some leshy support for us.
Leshys are plant people forged in the flesh forges of the empire; old nature spirits have given physical forms crafted to channel their natural abilities. They were natural druids, the nature spirits and fragments of green seers of the old gods showing an aptitude for dealing with the fae, in both senses of the word.
We were hidden in a copse of trees that were on the village's border, hidden behind the druidic magic of the leshy's, plants curling around us, hiding any traces of our presence.
The redcaps arrive like the first wind of a dark winter. A bone-chilling wind is blowing in from wicked places.
They appear just as night falls, using the period of dusk to hide their approach. This side of the hamlet was being approached by six redcaps.
I wait for the signal to engage, drawing the mandala in my mind, ready to push mana into it and make the spell a reality.
The pretorians around me ready their launchers and lob their explosive payload at the hobgoblins. There is a flash of light and a booming explosion. Two redcaps lie dead, and the others rush towards our location.
The leshy raises its petals, and bramble grows around their feet, hindering their movements.
I finish the spell in the split second it has taken for the actions to start. The summoning spell blooms into reality in front of the redcaps, and the grizzly charges them, the bear mauling its face and dragging it to the ground.
The last remaining redcap raises a hunting horn, and a shrill call echos across the hamlet. The hollering mob of red caps chitters, and I feel the planar fabric bend; my hand lashes out, and a ray of light fueled by my white mana burns the offending fae's head off, but the spell is cast.
Something massive lumbers in from the fae wilds, the walls of reality shuddering as massive figure steps through the fae wilds. It was the size of a large house, with ten heads and fifty hands, a grotesque human body suffused with the energies of the fae power. It swings a dozen hands, and the pretorians jump back from the flails made of bramble thorns that rip troughs in the ground where they strike.
The pretorians turn on a dime and blast it with their launchers; the Danava walks through the explosions with a blazing aura of healing energy billowing out around him, healing his wounds.
This is happening in a single split second, I am trying to cast a spell, but the creature is deceptively quicker than anything its size should.
My spell matric forms, and a beam of green energy shoots and strikes the giant; the beam washes off his skin, the innately magical nature of the creature shrugging off my acid spray without a thought.
I begin casting a second summoning spell as the grizzly rushes the foe and is pasted by an errant passing swing of the dozens of flails.
But the next moment reassures me as the knight of skulls teleports in, his sword gleaming as he carves into the giant's supernaturally tough body. The blade slashes and swings, parrying dozens of attacks and scoring hundreds of hits as both combatants move as blurs.
I change my second spell to a buff, my white mana mage armour draping over Sir Richard, the ghostly white armour deflecting the glancing blows that have been hitting him.
The fight continues for a few more seconds before the giant's head is cleaved in twain from an overhead strike from Sir Richard.
Then there is only defining silence and the cooling bodies of monsters. I feel the same click as in the market square; this village is the site of my first fight, the fire life I have taken. I feel the meaning of the land settle in my mind, and I throw up. The shock is wearing off, and the adrenaline is wearing off. My hands are shaking, and I sit down just to gain a semblance of balance. A pretorian sits down next to me, claps me on the back, and starts laughing.
That's the first time I realise the imperium might not be the best fit for me.
The village gives me green and black mana, letting me practice the imperium's more dark blood and necromantic magic. The constructs were figures of solid black mana to my mage sight despite having no soul, so it is pretty clear I can learn it given enough time.
But I am not in a good space after that fight; the terror and chaos of the battlefield, even minimised, really made me aware of my mortality. So I have made a decision. I will live my best life so I can't be bound by a single empire, not when a potentially infinite number of universes are available to me. It has also dawned on me that the imperium, for all its progressiveness, was a nation built around war, maybe for a good reason, but I want more from life, so I am going to learn all they can teach me and explore the multiverse, but it wasn't like I am going to never be back, but it just can't be my home.
So, that's my plan for the future, learn everything I need to explore possibly hostile planes and find my way back to earth, or maybe a new home if that's not an option.
In a blur, the next few months pass by, my magical training increasing by leaps and bounds. Once the basics of magic and spellcraft became known to me, I advanced much faster than most people. I focused on conjuration, clerical and druidic magic and necromancy. It was the magics most suited for my mana types, so I focused on getting better at what I needed to explore. Learning planar theory and advanced spellcraft was the most significant effort I made; it will let me make my own spell and adapt to any situation.
Now I just have to say goodbye.
Chapter 5
"So this is it, huh? It is too much to ask someone not to look for a home they have lost. But I want to thank you, the ideas for commercial organisation and the technology from your cellphone will continue to inspire my people; we have figured out how to receive and send radio waves last week." Viserys says as the gathered companions were here for sending me off.
"I am glad that I can help improve people's lives. I must thank you and your imperium for the hospitality you guys have shown me. But I can't stay; I love this place, and I will always have fond memories, but it isn't home." I say as I give everyone there a hug. I haven't gotten that close to most of them, but it was still stung a bit to leave behind whatever acquaintances I have made.
"Let's see if I learned the spell properly." I saw while casting the first in the array of spells that I have prepared to allow me to overcome most likely things that I and Lya had theorised.
I cast, and the spell circle appears beneath my feet for a second before the azure energy coats my form. Then the next spell with a golden array and then the next. By the end of the session, half a dozen spells protect me. I had tried to cover every base, from the spell of planar adaption to prevent different physical laws from killing me to a life bubble to save me if I appeared in the middle of an ocean. I also had my mind blank up, just in case there were any more abominations like the void trying to eat this universe. It would suck if an abomination mind controlled me and doomed countless universes. So I am preparing for all contingencies.
I had my soulbond bag of holding ready, it being the only thing that I could take into the void without getting destroyed. It was full of tomes of spellcraft and teachings, the basics of runic wards, and many healing potions and scrolls for a few useful spells I haven't learned yet.
Before I initiate the jump, I feel one last bond form with this grove of the old gods that I was using as my launching point, a bond with green and blue, the colour of the connections I had made and the sense of exploration I was feeling. It was great to get a new colour, but I will practice its spells later. Now was the time to go out into the world.
The jump is just like the first one, the unreality and nonexistence ripping at my soul, and I am looking desperately around for a new world to go.
I think that one looks good and jumps to a randomly chosen world. It is completely and absolutely empty where I landed, floating in empty space. My spell of planar adaptation is screaming at me. The laws of physics in this universe are not conducive to matter existing, so before my spell is unravelled by the force of physics, I jump back to unreality.
Then I choose a new world and jump there. This universe is filled absolutely to the brim with stars; I can see with just my eyes a thousand suns rotating around a single massive superstar that should have become a black hole by what my simple measuring spell is saying. This was clearly artificial, and I don't want to deal with whatever is capable of doing it with the rules of physics that are the same as my universe. So I jump away again and choose a new world.
Before I can even think as I appear in the new world, It is filled with a bunch of giant koi fishes that float through a giant water current floating in space. The Koi radiate enough magic to drown worlds, and I don't want to mess with a universe where the creatures could crush me like a bug.
So I jump back into a new world. This one is too hot; the next one is too cold; the one after that is a plant dimension where psychic plants tried to pry open my mind blank spell before I jumped away. After that, the one I jump to looks like a world made of cheese and other dairy products.
I jump again and again and again until worlds start flowing into one another. Was it the 100th world with the cannibalistic mountains, or was it the 400th one that was just a little girl's dream? Now that one had been weird. About a 1000 jumps in, I find the first world that looks like it will be safe enough to live in and wasn't a mindfuck dimension.
Comparatively, the giant floating mountains and the glowing trees are much more normal. I cast a spell of mage armour to give myself some more martial protection and do a green spell to gather some food and water from the environment, the highlighted fruit turning out to be tasty and nutritious and full of juice that quenched my thirst. The spell that lya has designed that lets me detect if something is edible for me shows its worth; it is named in the classic scheme, detect food.
I could have just conjured some real food, but I wanted to test if this is a world I can survive on that doesn't completely rely on me having to use mana for every little thing. I had a few dozens of motes stored, but I have already gone through 10% of my stockpile. With a rate of 6 motes per hour total, it wasn't a very quick mana accumulation rate. I didn't want to run out into an unknown new world.
The fluorescent plants tower over me, their glowing leaves and massive trunks like a supercharged tropical jungle. The ecosystem was fascinating, where the smallest herbivores were the size of dogs, little Wyvern-Esque four-winged pests.
I cast my green invisibility and pass without trace spells, the green version of invisibility was much more naturalistic, letting me blend into nature like a super chameleon and hiding things like smells. It was hard to convert a spell from its natural colour; invisibility was a blue spell, but lya had worked hard on me, and we have developed the spell to a green mana spell. Its mechanism had changed, and so had its effectiveness, but I haven't learned the standard invisibility yet, so it is my best option.
Once my spells were set up, I set out to explore more of the ecosystem; there was no sign of civilisation to explore yet, so I am just going to study the wildlife to see if it was dangerous in a more subtle way, unlike the previous worlds which were overtly dangerous.
I climb over the massive roots of the trees and come upon a clearing, an area occupied by 12 foot tall purple coned plants. As I approach them, the plants shrink and retreat into the ground with the sound of a vacuum firing.
It was delightful and I start popping them like bubble wrap. It's delightful and helps me take the edge of the stress built up from jumping to hundreds of different worlds. But I get a rude shock when an arrow lands in front of me, burying itself in the ground. Calling it an arrow was an understatement; it was the size of a javelin, and it looked to have been buried a few feet into the ground. The strength of the bow that launched that shot must be insane. Then a voice in an unknown language.
"Hey, be careful; you don't want to piss off the herd." A giant blue person says as he is sneaking along the boughs of the massive trees, his catlike tread utterly silent.
First, I check that my invisibility is still up, so he must have tracked me by the pattern of retreating flowers. Then I take a second, more considerate look at the blue person. He looked to be male, at least had human male proportions, although on the lanky side. His skin was a bright blue that blended in nicely with the fluorescent purples and blues of the tree leaves. He was about 10 feet tall and muscled from a lifetime of hunting. His ears ended in tapered points like a cat, and the patterns on his face and eyes conveyed the same impression.
I immediately cast a green and white spell; the modified tongues spell will allow me to speak their language. It drew upon the communal nature of green and white mana and used white to give the language structure in my mind. I need to practice blue; it will be so much easier to cast these kinds of divinatory and mind magic spells. It was the colour of knowledge, so It makes sense it has the easiest time casting these spells; it says a lot about me that I didn't get it till the very last moment.
The hunter creeps closers to me and says, "You need to come with me; you can't be here."
"What??"
He looks around and focuses on my voice.
"Whatever you are, I need you to leave, the thantor is hunting the titanthropes and a stampede is nigh." He whistles and a six-legged horse-like creature rushes to the hunter; he offers me his hand. "Get on.".
I shut off my invisibility, and the hunter's eyes widen, and his nostrils flare. But he doesn't withdraw his hand; I grab it and feel him pull me behind him just as the ground rumbles and a stampede of gigantic creatures run behind us.
I can probably stop them with a few spells, but it will take most of my green mana to calm so many and such large creatures; they were the size of small houses. So I grab onto to the dire horse with my legs and cast a green spell that pushes the horse's speed to manifold heights. The trees blur as the hunter guides us through them without missing a beat.
I look behind as a hammerhead titanthorpe falls to a gigantic lizard tiger thing and shudder; now that was an apex predator.
I end up in prison at the end of the ride with the hunter, the honeycombed structure in the massive home tree was much more heavily built than the other houses I can see. The three blue people guarding me are wary but not tense, so they don't significantly fear me but are cautious enough that I don't try anything funny.
These guys were better equipped than the hunter; a radio is strapped to their shoulder, and they carried spears designed more for war than used for hunting. These javelins are serrated and poisoned to take down any foe they manage to nick.
I am kept in prison for a few hours, and I am working on translating the spells that I have kludged together from other mana types to blue mana. I have changed back true strike spell, and I was working through the dimension door spell, so I have the option to escape. But my work is interrupted by the arrival of blue people and what's clearly their leader and war chief.
He has more elaborate jewellery, and his markings are more colourful. There is an honour guards with him that are carrying massive guns; belt-fed machineguns carried like a human carrying assault rifles.
It was a bit odd seeing the divergent level of tech these people are displaying, but I can explore that later. Now I have to deal with the chief coming to interrogate me. Hopefully, they aren't of the stupid school of thought that believes torture is useful for information extraction.
I was redying to recast the Tongues spell, but to my surprise, the chief speaks English, his accent a very stereotypical American accent completely at odds with the alien environment and species.
"Who are you?? How are you here on pandora??" His tone was curious, and his expression was wary, his tail swaying agitatedly. The tongues spell helps interpret the physical cues that are part of the language for the aliens.
"It's a funny story and a bit unbelievable, but I am a multiversal traveller that got lost and is looking for my home universe. By your words, you have a history with humans; I am not from this universe's version of them." I say with complete sincerity.
"Oh good, our prisoner is a terrible liar or insane." The chief throws up his hands in a very human gesture.
"I can prove it; by my mana sight's reckoning, this world doesn't have magic, so doing something impossible should be proof enough right," I say and begin casting a spell; I briefly consider what spell to cast and decide that summoning will be the easiest and the least non-destructive.
I form the spell matrix for the spell of summoning and focus on one of my patterns, that of a druid leshy. The leshy I had copied it off was called spring, an imperial healer and legion attache. It was a generic lotus leshy druid; copying exact people was much harder than getting the general idea of a person and randomising the particular traits possible in that space. So every summon will have different colours and patterns befitting the wide variety of Leshys. But they were all part of the same pattern, something I can summon many copies but the same generic thing.
I had tested it out, and all of them were fully sapient people, as far as I can tell, with the caveat that they lacked any sort of aversion to dangerous or tedious tasks as when they got unsummoned or destroyed, their knowledge went back to my pattern, and they can incarnate themselves again along with being able to access the memories of any other summons. It was staggering in its philosophical implication. I can create real permanent sapient creatures, just as real as any person born and just as permanent as my mana was at least as stable as matter and energy are, so my summons bodies were real with identifiable biological processes and such and even DNA, but just made with mana instead of matter.
The leshy appears in a burst of green mist, and the flower person waves at my captors, the petal covered hand hiding razor-sharp thorns. It takes a lot for me to summon a full spellcaster; the need to give them the ontological weight to use magic is expensive at the start; a single druid leshy costs a dozen motes of green mana, most of my stockpile.
The Navi's, thanks to tongues, the reaction is remarkably quick. The honour guards push the chief back and point their guns at the leshy. The chief's eyes widen in a split second, and he says.
"Don't shoot" He pushes down the lead machine gun and continues "We secured the prison; there are no tunnels or mirrors there, no hologram projectors have been installed. We can't afford to do something rash if what he says is true; the enormity of that discovery would be immense, and, more importantly, it may be the key to securing our home."
A Navi woman in traditional garb but with a lab coat over it approaches from an angle that I couldn't have observed here.
"You can't be seriously entertaining this absurd notion; a multiverse wizard is what we believe now." Her tail swishes with the indignity of that thought, her face a clear belief.
"Grace, we have to look at things as they are; you taught me that."
I also chime in, hopefully, not get executed for being a spy.
"I have other proof as well; let me show you. I am still working on making the spell work, but it should be sufficient. Please don't shoot me." I say and flash cast dimension door with blue mana, the spell is inefficient, costing me all my blue mana, but it should become cheaper as I migrate it properly. There is a flash of light, and I am standing next to the honour guards who have already pivoted to face me, their reaction much faster than a human.
"I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for it." The scientist Navi says, and I laughed; you had to admire her stubbornness.
"So after sending all of the company workers home, you took over the base for the RDA and are using their manufacturing stuff to keep your equipment maintained," I say through the mouthful of the incredibly tasty fruit marinated meat I was devouring.
I have learned that the atmosphere of Pandora is toxic, so the life bubble is staying up indefinitely. It was really easy to make the spell last longer. The white green spell form was invisible as it hung in my expansive aura, the soul's expression that interacted with spells and the world on metaphysical levels. My aura was expansive, and it has only gotten stronger and deeper the more I have jumped, the adverse unreality acting as a stress band for my soul, making it grow stronger and denser. It had become obvious after my dozenth jump looking for a suitable plane. A soul could handle only so much magic before the aura was filled. Most people can only maintain one or two of these aura spells, but I had some thoughts on how I could expand that, but that was for later testing.
"It is mostly for the radios; the single is only good for a kilometre or two before the ambient interference scrambles the signal, so we have set up a few hundred repeaters to communicate with the other clans. The guns are just an easy project for training the few interested people in learning how to use the machining tools. God, if those RDA assholes hadn't massacred those children going to school, we could have well-trained engineers by now. The Navi know how to listen to their elders a lot more than humans, at least." Grace yells. It is her third mug of mead, but Navi's mead is hard. I have taken a single sip, but I am getting woozy just from that.
The casual reminders of the RDA's atrocities don't endear them to me; those fuckers were lucky that I haven't learned greater teleport cause if I knew it, those board members would get what's coming to them. I am seriously considering raising this Quaritch guy, but I don't want to break the ethics of necromancy I have learned on the first chance I get; no eternal torture chambers here. Also, his soul will most likely not answer the call.
Anyway, the feast lasts well into the night, and then the topic of magic comes up and the beginning of my journey.
"So there I am, clearly able to do magic in a way that an entire empire of magic users isn't able to do, but rather than dissecting me like a typical god-king will, the dragon emperor is smart enough to teach me and explore the limits of my magic. They haven't figured out how to do magic as I do, but my spells are templates that allow their own magic research to improve much more quickly, just from knowing what things are possible."
Sully nods at this, take a swig from his drink, and says.
"So this magic, you said, is teachable. I have realised if even minor ritual magic, as you call it, is so helpful to civilians; I think Navi as a people can benefit a lot from it. So, will you teach us? By now, it's fairly obvious that anything we do can't contain you from just going to a different universe. So it's your choice.".
I consider it for a moment and weigh my options. But the threat of the cultural and real genocide that hangs over the Navi people moves me, and there is only one possible answer.
"Alright, let's get hammered tonight and tomorrow; the lessons start."
"I am glad that I can help improve people's lives. I must thank you and your imperium for the hospitality you guys have shown me. But I can't stay; I love this place, and I will always have fond memories, but it isn't home." I say as I give everyone there a hug. I haven't gotten that close to most of them, but it was still stung a bit to leave behind whatever acquaintances I have made.
"Let's see if I learned the spell properly." I saw while casting the first in the array of spells that I have prepared to allow me to overcome most likely things that I and Lya had theorised.
I cast, and the spell circle appears beneath my feet for a second before the azure energy coats my form. Then the next spell with a golden array and then the next. By the end of the session, half a dozen spells protect me. I had tried to cover every base, from the spell of planar adaption to prevent different physical laws from killing me to a life bubble to save me if I appeared in the middle of an ocean. I also had my mind blank up, just in case there were any more abominations like the void trying to eat this universe. It would suck if an abomination mind controlled me and doomed countless universes. So I am preparing for all contingencies.
I had my soulbond bag of holding ready, it being the only thing that I could take into the void without getting destroyed. It was full of tomes of spellcraft and teachings, the basics of runic wards, and many healing potions and scrolls for a few useful spells I haven't learned yet.
Before I initiate the jump, I feel one last bond form with this grove of the old gods that I was using as my launching point, a bond with green and blue, the colour of the connections I had made and the sense of exploration I was feeling. It was great to get a new colour, but I will practice its spells later. Now was the time to go out into the world.
The jump is just like the first one, the unreality and nonexistence ripping at my soul, and I am looking desperately around for a new world to go.
I think that one looks good and jumps to a randomly chosen world. It is completely and absolutely empty where I landed, floating in empty space. My spell of planar adaptation is screaming at me. The laws of physics in this universe are not conducive to matter existing, so before my spell is unravelled by the force of physics, I jump back to unreality.
Then I choose a new world and jump there. This universe is filled absolutely to the brim with stars; I can see with just my eyes a thousand suns rotating around a single massive superstar that should have become a black hole by what my simple measuring spell is saying. This was clearly artificial, and I don't want to deal with whatever is capable of doing it with the rules of physics that are the same as my universe. So I jump away again and choose a new world.
Before I can even think as I appear in the new world, It is filled with a bunch of giant koi fishes that float through a giant water current floating in space. The Koi radiate enough magic to drown worlds, and I don't want to mess with a universe where the creatures could crush me like a bug.
So I jump back into a new world. This one is too hot; the next one is too cold; the one after that is a plant dimension where psychic plants tried to pry open my mind blank spell before I jumped away. After that, the one I jump to looks like a world made of cheese and other dairy products.
I jump again and again and again until worlds start flowing into one another. Was it the 100th world with the cannibalistic mountains, or was it the 400th one that was just a little girl's dream? Now that one had been weird. About a 1000 jumps in, I find the first world that looks like it will be safe enough to live in and wasn't a mindfuck dimension.
Comparatively, the giant floating mountains and the glowing trees are much more normal. I cast a spell of mage armour to give myself some more martial protection and do a green spell to gather some food and water from the environment, the highlighted fruit turning out to be tasty and nutritious and full of juice that quenched my thirst. The spell that lya has designed that lets me detect if something is edible for me shows its worth; it is named in the classic scheme, detect food.
I could have just conjured some real food, but I wanted to test if this is a world I can survive on that doesn't completely rely on me having to use mana for every little thing. I had a few dozens of motes stored, but I have already gone through 10% of my stockpile. With a rate of 6 motes per hour total, it wasn't a very quick mana accumulation rate. I didn't want to run out into an unknown new world.
The fluorescent plants tower over me, their glowing leaves and massive trunks like a supercharged tropical jungle. The ecosystem was fascinating, where the smallest herbivores were the size of dogs, little Wyvern-Esque four-winged pests.
I cast my green invisibility and pass without trace spells, the green version of invisibility was much more naturalistic, letting me blend into nature like a super chameleon and hiding things like smells. It was hard to convert a spell from its natural colour; invisibility was a blue spell, but lya had worked hard on me, and we have developed the spell to a green mana spell. Its mechanism had changed, and so had its effectiveness, but I haven't learned the standard invisibility yet, so it is my best option.
Once my spells were set up, I set out to explore more of the ecosystem; there was no sign of civilisation to explore yet, so I am just going to study the wildlife to see if it was dangerous in a more subtle way, unlike the previous worlds which were overtly dangerous.
I climb over the massive roots of the trees and come upon a clearing, an area occupied by 12 foot tall purple coned plants. As I approach them, the plants shrink and retreat into the ground with the sound of a vacuum firing.
It was delightful and I start popping them like bubble wrap. It's delightful and helps me take the edge of the stress built up from jumping to hundreds of different worlds. But I get a rude shock when an arrow lands in front of me, burying itself in the ground. Calling it an arrow was an understatement; it was the size of a javelin, and it looked to have been buried a few feet into the ground. The strength of the bow that launched that shot must be insane. Then a voice in an unknown language.
"
First, I check that my invisibility is still up, so he must have tracked me by the pattern of retreating flowers. Then I take a second, more considerate look at the blue person. He looked to be male, at least had human male proportions, although on the lanky side. His skin was a bright blue that blended in nicely with the fluorescent purples and blues of the tree leaves. He was about 10 feet tall and muscled from a lifetime of hunting. His ears ended in tapered points like a cat, and the patterns on his face and eyes conveyed the same impression.
I immediately cast a green and white spell; the modified tongues spell will allow me to speak their language. It drew upon the communal nature of green and white mana and used white to give the language structure in my mind. I need to practice blue; it will be so much easier to cast these kinds of divinatory and mind magic spells. It was the colour of knowledge, so It makes sense it has the easiest time casting these spells; it says a lot about me that I didn't get it till the very last moment.
The hunter creeps closers to me and says, "You need to come with me; you can't be here."
"What??"
He looks around and focuses on my voice.
"Whatever you are, I need you to leave, the thantor is hunting the titanthropes and a stampede is nigh." He whistles and a six-legged horse-like creature rushes to the hunter; he offers me his hand. "Get on.".
I shut off my invisibility, and the hunter's eyes widen, and his nostrils flare. But he doesn't withdraw his hand; I grab it and feel him pull me behind him just as the ground rumbles and a stampede of gigantic creatures run behind us.
I can probably stop them with a few spells, but it will take most of my green mana to calm so many and such large creatures; they were the size of small houses. So I grab onto to the dire horse with my legs and cast a green spell that pushes the horse's speed to manifold heights. The trees blur as the hunter guides us through them without missing a beat.
I look behind as a hammerhead titanthorpe falls to a gigantic lizard tiger thing and shudder; now that was an apex predator.
I end up in prison at the end of the ride with the hunter, the honeycombed structure in the massive home tree was much more heavily built than the other houses I can see. The three blue people guarding me are wary but not tense, so they don't significantly fear me but are cautious enough that I don't try anything funny.
These guys were better equipped than the hunter; a radio is strapped to their shoulder, and they carried spears designed more for war than used for hunting. These javelins are serrated and poisoned to take down any foe they manage to nick.
I am kept in prison for a few hours, and I am working on translating the spells that I have kludged together from other mana types to blue mana. I have changed back true strike spell, and I was working through the dimension door spell, so I have the option to escape. But my work is interrupted by the arrival of blue people and what's clearly their leader and war chief.
He has more elaborate jewellery, and his markings are more colourful. There is an honour guards with him that are carrying massive guns; belt-fed machineguns carried like a human carrying assault rifles.
It was a bit odd seeing the divergent level of tech these people are displaying, but I can explore that later. Now I have to deal with the chief coming to interrogate me. Hopefully, they aren't of the stupid school of thought that believes torture is useful for information extraction.
I was redying to recast the Tongues spell, but to my surprise, the chief speaks English, his accent a very stereotypical American accent completely at odds with the alien environment and species.
"Who are you?? How are you here on pandora??" His tone was curious, and his expression was wary, his tail swaying agitatedly. The tongues spell helps interpret the physical cues that are part of the language for the aliens.
"It's a funny story and a bit unbelievable, but I am a multiversal traveller that got lost and is looking for my home universe. By your words, you have a history with humans; I am not from this universe's version of them." I say with complete sincerity.
"Oh good, our prisoner is a terrible liar or insane." The chief throws up his hands in a very human gesture.
"I can prove it; by my mana sight's reckoning, this world doesn't have magic, so doing something impossible should be proof enough right," I say and begin casting a spell; I briefly consider what spell to cast and decide that summoning will be the easiest and the least non-destructive.
I form the spell matrix for the spell of summoning and focus on one of my patterns, that of a druid leshy. The leshy I had copied it off was called spring, an imperial healer and legion attache. It was a generic lotus leshy druid; copying exact people was much harder than getting the general idea of a person and randomising the particular traits possible in that space. So every summon will have different colours and patterns befitting the wide variety of Leshys. But they were all part of the same pattern, something I can summon many copies but the same generic thing.
I had tested it out, and all of them were fully sapient people, as far as I can tell, with the caveat that they lacked any sort of aversion to dangerous or tedious tasks as when they got unsummoned or destroyed, their knowledge went back to my pattern, and they can incarnate themselves again along with being able to access the memories of any other summons. It was staggering in its philosophical implication. I can create real permanent sapient creatures, just as real as any person born and just as permanent as my mana was at least as stable as matter and energy are, so my summons bodies were real with identifiable biological processes and such and even DNA, but just made with mana instead of matter.
The leshy appears in a burst of green mist, and the flower person waves at my captors, the petal covered hand hiding razor-sharp thorns. It takes a lot for me to summon a full spellcaster; the need to give them the ontological weight to use magic is expensive at the start; a single druid leshy costs a dozen motes of green mana, most of my stockpile.
The Navi's, thanks to tongues, the reaction is remarkably quick. The honour guards push the chief back and point their guns at the leshy. The chief's eyes widen in a split second, and he says.
"Don't shoot" He pushes down the lead machine gun and continues "We secured the prison; there are no tunnels or mirrors there, no hologram projectors have been installed. We can't afford to do something rash if what he says is true; the enormity of that discovery would be immense, and, more importantly, it may be the key to securing our home."
A Navi woman in traditional garb but with a lab coat over it approaches from an angle that I couldn't have observed here.
"You can't be seriously entertaining this absurd notion; a multiverse wizard is what we believe now." Her tail swishes with the indignity of that thought, her face a clear belief.
"Grace, we have to look at things as they are; you taught me that."
I also chime in, hopefully, not get executed for being a spy.
"I have other proof as well; let me show you. I am still working on making the spell work, but it should be sufficient. Please don't shoot me." I say and flash cast dimension door with blue mana, the spell is inefficient, costing me all my blue mana, but it should become cheaper as I migrate it properly. There is a flash of light, and I am standing next to the honour guards who have already pivoted to face me, their reaction much faster than a human.
"I am sure there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for it." The scientist Navi says, and I laughed; you had to admire her stubbornness.
"So after sending all of the company workers home, you took over the base for the RDA and are using their manufacturing stuff to keep your equipment maintained," I say through the mouthful of the incredibly tasty fruit marinated meat I was devouring.
I have learned that the atmosphere of Pandora is toxic, so the life bubble is staying up indefinitely. It was really easy to make the spell last longer. The white green spell form was invisible as it hung in my expansive aura, the soul's expression that interacted with spells and the world on metaphysical levels. My aura was expansive, and it has only gotten stronger and deeper the more I have jumped, the adverse unreality acting as a stress band for my soul, making it grow stronger and denser. It had become obvious after my dozenth jump looking for a suitable plane. A soul could handle only so much magic before the aura was filled. Most people can only maintain one or two of these aura spells, but I had some thoughts on how I could expand that, but that was for later testing.
"It is mostly for the radios; the single is only good for a kilometre or two before the ambient interference scrambles the signal, so we have set up a few hundred repeaters to communicate with the other clans. The guns are just an easy project for training the few interested people in learning how to use the machining tools. God, if those RDA assholes hadn't massacred those children going to school, we could have well-trained engineers by now. The Navi know how to listen to their elders a lot more than humans, at least." Grace yells. It is her third mug of mead, but Navi's mead is hard. I have taken a single sip, but I am getting woozy just from that.
The casual reminders of the RDA's atrocities don't endear them to me; those fuckers were lucky that I haven't learned greater teleport cause if I knew it, those board members would get what's coming to them. I am seriously considering raising this Quaritch guy, but I don't want to break the ethics of necromancy I have learned on the first chance I get; no eternal torture chambers here. Also, his soul will most likely not answer the call.
Anyway, the feast lasts well into the night, and then the topic of magic comes up and the beginning of my journey.
"So there I am, clearly able to do magic in a way that an entire empire of magic users isn't able to do, but rather than dissecting me like a typical god-king will, the dragon emperor is smart enough to teach me and explore the limits of my magic. They haven't figured out how to do magic as I do, but my spells are templates that allow their own magic research to improve much more quickly, just from knowing what things are possible."
Sully nods at this, take a swig from his drink, and says.
"So this magic, you said, is teachable. I have realised if even minor ritual magic, as you call it, is so helpful to civilians; I think Navi as a people can benefit a lot from it. So, will you teach us? By now, it's fairly obvious that anything we do can't contain you from just going to a different universe. So it's your choice.".
I consider it for a moment and weigh my options. But the threat of the cultural and real genocide that hangs over the Navi people moves me, and there is only one possible answer.
"Alright, let's get hammered tonight and tomorrow; the lessons start."
Chapter 6
I bring the knife up, the obsidian like material glints in the sun, and then I bring it down. The point digs into the soft flesh, and a spurt of blood covers the shield floating in front of my face.
I feel the life force of the struumbeast leave its body and into the etched in the rock around its sacrifice sight.
The mandala glows a bright red, and the energy coalesces into a blessing, the energy imbuing the ten warriors of the Navi that stand in the outer circle of the spell form. They remain physically the same, but an unending vitality floods their form. They are stronger and tougher and can heal wounds that would kill them in hours.
I cast quick prestidigitation to clean myself and walk out of the circle. The alchemist-shaman walks into the circle alongside his assistants. The other students draw away the struumbeasts corpse to butcher it and prepare it for the feast. They trace the symbols I etched into the home tree's bark.
It was the final ritual before they will be considered learned enough to start doing magic on their own. It has taken me a month to rebuild ritual blood magic from what scraps of knowledge my training in necromancy with Qyburn has given me. It was a bit difficult due to my ethical concern about magic, but it was necessary if I wanted to protect them from the predation of an interstellar megacorp.
The warriors enchanted with magic fan out, going to the testing arena that grace has had built to test the enhancement. The first warrior starts by lifting a rock the size of me and then using it as a free weight. Another one of them does a standing high jump 25 feet high.
I was leery of blood magic, but it was undoubtedly effective for people who didn't have innate magic. That was the first difficulty that I realised when I had promised to teach them magic. The Navi, in specific, and the planet, in general, could not use magic. They had souls, and as such, they had the capability to interact with magic, but they lacked the metaphysical organs to access the nature magic that inundated the world.
Neither could their goddess, and that was a pleasant surprise.
I had to use leshy druids as intermediaries; the giant plant mind that covered the planet wasn't used to talking to tiny specks on its surface. But the Leshy's have conversed with it over the months it has taken me to figure out blood magic and showed it the magic. The nature magic of the druids is perfect for demonstration; the plant mind can feel its trees moving in a way that its mastery of biology knows is impossible. So, we have agreed to awaken the planet's ability to do magic. I have wracked my brain over it, and I had an inkling of what to do, but it was a long term thing; it has to start with teaching the Navi magic, so blood magic for now.
So, my next challenge is establishing an ethical culture to regulate that magic is being used ethically. Luckily for me, the Navi is already in tune with their very real and viscous nature. As such, it isn't taking much to establish the druidic blood magic.
So my next step is to create a way to help these people actually touch magic on their own.
I have a solution for that, but I want to test it first. It's an experimental bit of magic I want to try. It's based on the pretorians of visery's Imperium. They have manufactured law spirits blended into their souls and that gives them myriad benefits. I haven't scanned pretorians due to being a state secret, but lea has taught me the theory in the months I spent learning under her. Spirits were essentially masses of aspected energy given a mind and will. It's absurdly complex to create them in practice and I haven't even started on the project.
But there is another type of spirit that I was intimately familiar with, the spirits of the wild. Everything from mighty faes to magical beasts spontaneously created by wild magic. This world is drenched in wild magic, its abundant and terrifying ecosystem a veritable sun in comparison to an ordinary world. It should have been awash with spirits, but the magic was latent, unable to express itself due to the lack of any ontological framework for it to channel itself through.
No by creating spirits, no that would lead to war and displacement and just worldwide conflict. No, I am going to channel that magic through the existing animals, using their life force as a template to form the natural magic in pseudo spirits, ephemeral beings that lack a body to affect the world. This will be the first part of the ritual, the second part will be binding these spirits to the soul of the Navi that hunted the creature, using the mythic resonance of the dance of hunter and prey to form a bridge between the spirit and the body and melding them. It will let Navi access nature magic and improve their already massively superhuman physique.
"They found it" The Navi brave brings me the news is huffing, clearly rushing here on his dire horse from where they spotted their target.
"It's time then. Bring the apprentices." I say with a flick of my wrist, summoning leshy to gather my apprentices. While that's happening, I strip myself and cast quick prestidigitation. Then I cast a tree stride spell and teleport through the hometrees' roots to the ritual site that I have been preparing for a few months now.
My apprentices came in quickly in small clumps, it was a healthy cross-section of Navi society, everyone from old to the young, those that want to learn magic and those who have goals that magic will help them achieve.
The ritual circle is pristine, days of apprentices' time spent carving sigils in the wood of the tree. It looked to be an organic pattern, a Fibonacci spiral flecked with drawings representing the planet's animals. At the centre of the spiral was the totem made of obsidian, carved into the shape of a thanator, the physical representation of the creature that is supposed to be the target of the hunt.
The apprentices paint swirling diagrams on my body, in magical pain made from blood, to act as a channel for the energy of the hunted creature. Then comes the ritual, a slash from a knife, and I hold my bloody palm above the thanator totem, forming a bond.
Then I start laying on the buff spells, from giant strength to barkskin to mage armour to stone skin to entropic shield to surge of fortune. Almost half a dozen spells gird my flesh and I feel energy surge through my body and a white armour made of force covers my rack hard skin. A shimmering shield of probability manipulation shimmers outward, and a floating shield of force protects my blind spots. It's almost unfair to hunt a creature with this much magical protection, but a thanator is a super predator able to rend stone with its claws; I can't have too much protection.
Then with a simple teleport, I am beside the hunting party stalking the thanator, their beacon letting me locate them with basic divination. The magic muffles my tread, my forming blending into invisibility.
"Mage, the thanator has hunted a struumbeast. A pack of viperwolf tried to surround it but we chased them off before it got disturbed.
"Great work Satu, this is a great moment for the Navi, if this works, you might be looking at the first spirit born on this planet." I say and then jump into the dense copse of trees that was the hunting ground for the thanator.
I spot it immediately; its massive tawny from a precise death machine. Its glistening black flesh is tough enough to bounce .50 cal bullets. Its claws were razor-sharp, able to rend the hide of the toughest prey and mechs alike.
I sneak up on it, a spear of light manifesting in my hand. A simple conjuration spell but pumped full of white mana, it is humming with the deadly energy-enhancing it.
With a yell, I leap onto the beast. It turns like liquid lightning given form, its spiked tail flicking towards my face; it deflects off my force shield, the floating pane of force shattering from the power of the blow. Then its front pair of claws rip towards me, one of them missing my head by a single hair's breadth, the wind rippling on my face. The entropic shield makes the superhuman dexterity of the beast miss. The second claw rips through my side, claws ripping through stone-hard magic skin, the only reason I am not disembowelled being the false life spell filling my body with artificial vitality.
Then I am beneath the creature's range, its second front pair steadying its stance. My spear rips through its breast, striking its twin heart, and the energy is discharged, scouring holy power and smiting the thanator.
It falls on me, its heart blood flowing freely and splashing into my mouth. I gulped it down; it was part of the ritual. I feel a growing knot of energy pooling in my stomach and from their spread through my body. A green aura surrounds me, the nature magic coalescing into spirit flesh. The aura forms into a thanator made from green mana, my reserve is flowing into the spirit that I can feel connected to me now, a lot like my summons but much more intimate. The spirit manifests as a gigantic specimen of its species. I feel the connection with the spirit, the wild nature of the creature tempered by my sapience.
I pet it, it was a bit hard since it was taller than even on my tiptoes, but after a bit, the thanator kneels a bit and then I pet it, it was a giant cat after all.
I had gained a pattern for summoning a thanator now, bonding with its spirit enough to give the intimate knowledge needed to summon something.
The tree of the soul is pulsing, great flashes of lightning racing down bioluminescent trees, from the half a dozen shamans of the different tribes linked with their hairs. Their Spirit companions pacing around them, channelling the nature magic through the shamans' bodies into the tree of souls.
It's one of half a dozen rituals going on around the planet, the Navi I have trained conducting massive rituals of rebirth and renewal. Eywa has made her preference clear, as old beasts travel thousands of miles to die at the foot of the trees of souls, their lives perfect sacrifices to fuel the birth of eywa. Thousands and thousands of sacrifices over a month of rituals, enough power to burn down countries or, in this case, awaken the magic of a goddess.
It is my third year on the planet. My apprentices trained enough that they have spread and trained disciples of their own.
I am acting as the lynchpin of the ritual, months of green and blue and black and white mana gathered just for this situation. I am chanting naked, covered in ritual tattoos designed to resonate with ewya as my leshys form a root connection at all ritual spots to push my magic through them into all major ritual spots. My spirit companion guards my form as I get lost in the wild power of magic flowing through me.
The wild planet feels like a massive single system, from the smallest arthropod and to the largest sea whales. I could each of them connect to the plants and the whole planet holding its breath in anticipation.
Just as the planets align, I channel the gathered mana and signal the shamans to finish their rituals. The energy rushes through the roots of the entire planet, green mana leading the others to fill the spots dictated by the ritual.
In an eternal moment, there is a heartbeat that everything on the planet feels before an aura of power covers the entire planet, and everything goes back to normal. Still, now everything can feel the mother goddess in the back of their heads, no need for the crude matter to serve as conduits of her will.
Thousands of wood sprites gather in front of, me and there is a twist of magic and a being of immense stands. It was 30 feet tall, it was bipedal, its legs that of a thanator, It has four arms and the head of a titanthrope. The hammerhead was crested with the colourful crest of a banshee. Its wings spanned 50 feet and were that a toruk.
Its voice rings in my head, a manifest goddess brushing aside the simple protection spells I have active.
"Hail son of terra, Our bargain stands complete. Name the boon you will ask of me. It is as we agreed." it shifts a bit. "It will take a while to learn to wield this power and get used to my ned form, but I will abide by our bargain."
"My desire is simple, I have come to admire the beauty of your creations, Navi are the perfect society to exist in balance with nature, your animals can be the envy of many a world and your microbiology has cured every viral disease. I wish to have the skill and vast repository of knowledge that made it be available to me in future worlds."
It purrs at the well-deserved compliments on its skills and says, "It is something well within my grasp. But how will you take this gift with you? It is knowledge I have gained over billions of years, you can't carry it in your head, and as you have told me, you cannot carry anything across the void of non-existence."
I think I have spent time considering my request for a minute, but I haven't thought of a solution. I have an idea, but I haven't done it before; I could try it, it should work in theory, but I hope it wouldn't hurt to try.
"One of your tree of souls. They are the repository minds of Navi and nodes for your mind. I request that I be allowed to copy it, and the knowledge contained within. It will be beneficial for both of us, as it will ensure at least a version of you will exist across the multiverse, and I will have something that can act as a magical infrastructure. I haven't figured out how to make machines do magic yet, but I have enough knowledge of life-shaping and necromancy and druidic magic that I should be able to use your tree of souls as giant magical conductors and repositories. The unobtanium laced neurotransmitters are perfect for channeling magical energy. Not to mention the bootleg afterlife if I need to protect the souls of some people I meet in the future, just like the Old gods I told you about."
Ewya considers it for a few minutes and then replies "Then it is agreed, for the boon of awakening my magic, you shall copy a tree of souls and carry it around, along with the copies with souls of the best of Navi People that I have in my possession, along with copies of your friend grace. She shall be the conduit you can access my knowledge."
I was surprised by the generosity, getting my pick of the souls is not something I expected to happen but I imagine it must be grateful for being able to use magic.
But her next words shocked me.
"Now, once you are done with that, I wish for you to leave my world, I am a newborn goddess, I will not abide a pretender, no matter your intention, to my claims. The Navi are my people and I have seen the reverent looks the shamans give you. You will not be defied here, it is not your world. So let us part as friends."
It was a blow, I had so many more things I wanted to do here, I am so close to figuring out the greater teleport spell, as a ritual admittedly, but I guess I don't have the time to go to earth and copy a few engineers to steal earth's knowledge. But It will not be a problem, I have just bonded with the ritual site, and I can come to this universe whenever I want to, stealthily of course.
So I started finishing up my business, scanning the tree took quite a bit of mana, but I have my reserves building up again.
Then after saying goodbye to the Navi friends, I jump to a new universe. Then a new one and then a new one. That continues for a bit as most of them are voids, aside from the ones that are flesh dimensions and the ones that are empty because their physical constants are different.
Then I land in a survival one, a barren desert meeting towering mountains, each tall enough to have clouds on its slopes.
Closer to hand, I hear a war cry as a bunch of ramshackled green skinned creature are charging a caravan of armoured dwarves.
"WAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH" Shout the orcs.
"Dreng them" shout the dwarves.
I feel the life force of the struumbeast leave its body and into the etched in the rock around its sacrifice sight.
The mandala glows a bright red, and the energy coalesces into a blessing, the energy imbuing the ten warriors of the Navi that stand in the outer circle of the spell form. They remain physically the same, but an unending vitality floods their form. They are stronger and tougher and can heal wounds that would kill them in hours.
I cast quick prestidigitation to clean myself and walk out of the circle. The alchemist-shaman walks into the circle alongside his assistants. The other students draw away the struumbeasts corpse to butcher it and prepare it for the feast. They trace the symbols I etched into the home tree's bark.
It was the final ritual before they will be considered learned enough to start doing magic on their own. It has taken me a month to rebuild ritual blood magic from what scraps of knowledge my training in necromancy with Qyburn has given me. It was a bit difficult due to my ethical concern about magic, but it was necessary if I wanted to protect them from the predation of an interstellar megacorp.
The warriors enchanted with magic fan out, going to the testing arena that grace has had built to test the enhancement. The first warrior starts by lifting a rock the size of me and then using it as a free weight. Another one of them does a standing high jump 25 feet high.
I was leery of blood magic, but it was undoubtedly effective for people who didn't have innate magic. That was the first difficulty that I realised when I had promised to teach them magic. The Navi, in specific, and the planet, in general, could not use magic. They had souls, and as such, they had the capability to interact with magic, but they lacked the metaphysical organs to access the nature magic that inundated the world.
Neither could their goddess, and that was a pleasant surprise.
I had to use leshy druids as intermediaries; the giant plant mind that covered the planet wasn't used to talking to tiny specks on its surface. But the Leshy's have conversed with it over the months it has taken me to figure out blood magic and showed it the magic. The nature magic of the druids is perfect for demonstration; the plant mind can feel its trees moving in a way that its mastery of biology knows is impossible. So, we have agreed to awaken the planet's ability to do magic. I have wracked my brain over it, and I had an inkling of what to do, but it was a long term thing; it has to start with teaching the Navi magic, so blood magic for now.
So, my next challenge is establishing an ethical culture to regulate that magic is being used ethically. Luckily for me, the Navi is already in tune with their very real and viscous nature. As such, it isn't taking much to establish the druidic blood magic.
So my next step is to create a way to help these people actually touch magic on their own.
I have a solution for that, but I want to test it first. It's an experimental bit of magic I want to try. It's based on the pretorians of visery's Imperium. They have manufactured law spirits blended into their souls and that gives them myriad benefits. I haven't scanned pretorians due to being a state secret, but lea has taught me the theory in the months I spent learning under her. Spirits were essentially masses of aspected energy given a mind and will. It's absurdly complex to create them in practice and I haven't even started on the project.
But there is another type of spirit that I was intimately familiar with, the spirits of the wild. Everything from mighty faes to magical beasts spontaneously created by wild magic. This world is drenched in wild magic, its abundant and terrifying ecosystem a veritable sun in comparison to an ordinary world. It should have been awash with spirits, but the magic was latent, unable to express itself due to the lack of any ontological framework for it to channel itself through.
No by creating spirits, no that would lead to war and displacement and just worldwide conflict. No, I am going to channel that magic through the existing animals, using their life force as a template to form the natural magic in pseudo spirits, ephemeral beings that lack a body to affect the world. This will be the first part of the ritual, the second part will be binding these spirits to the soul of the Navi that hunted the creature, using the mythic resonance of the dance of hunter and prey to form a bridge between the spirit and the body and melding them. It will let Navi access nature magic and improve their already massively superhuman physique.
"They found it" The Navi brave brings me the news is huffing, clearly rushing here on his dire horse from where they spotted their target.
"It's time then. Bring the apprentices." I say with a flick of my wrist, summoning leshy to gather my apprentices. While that's happening, I strip myself and cast quick prestidigitation. Then I cast a tree stride spell and teleport through the hometrees' roots to the ritual site that I have been preparing for a few months now.
My apprentices came in quickly in small clumps, it was a healthy cross-section of Navi society, everyone from old to the young, those that want to learn magic and those who have goals that magic will help them achieve.
The ritual circle is pristine, days of apprentices' time spent carving sigils in the wood of the tree. It looked to be an organic pattern, a Fibonacci spiral flecked with drawings representing the planet's animals. At the centre of the spiral was the totem made of obsidian, carved into the shape of a thanator, the physical representation of the creature that is supposed to be the target of the hunt.
The apprentices paint swirling diagrams on my body, in magical pain made from blood, to act as a channel for the energy of the hunted creature. Then comes the ritual, a slash from a knife, and I hold my bloody palm above the thanator totem, forming a bond.
Then I start laying on the buff spells, from giant strength to barkskin to mage armour to stone skin to entropic shield to surge of fortune. Almost half a dozen spells gird my flesh and I feel energy surge through my body and a white armour made of force covers my rack hard skin. A shimmering shield of probability manipulation shimmers outward, and a floating shield of force protects my blind spots. It's almost unfair to hunt a creature with this much magical protection, but a thanator is a super predator able to rend stone with its claws; I can't have too much protection.
Then with a simple teleport, I am beside the hunting party stalking the thanator, their beacon letting me locate them with basic divination. The magic muffles my tread, my forming blending into invisibility.
"Mage, the thanator has hunted a struumbeast. A pack of viperwolf tried to surround it but we chased them off before it got disturbed.
"Great work Satu, this is a great moment for the Navi, if this works, you might be looking at the first spirit born on this planet." I say and then jump into the dense copse of trees that was the hunting ground for the thanator.
I spot it immediately; its massive tawny from a precise death machine. Its glistening black flesh is tough enough to bounce .50 cal bullets. Its claws were razor-sharp, able to rend the hide of the toughest prey and mechs alike.
I sneak up on it, a spear of light manifesting in my hand. A simple conjuration spell but pumped full of white mana, it is humming with the deadly energy-enhancing it.
With a yell, I leap onto the beast. It turns like liquid lightning given form, its spiked tail flicking towards my face; it deflects off my force shield, the floating pane of force shattering from the power of the blow. Then its front pair of claws rip towards me, one of them missing my head by a single hair's breadth, the wind rippling on my face. The entropic shield makes the superhuman dexterity of the beast miss. The second claw rips through my side, claws ripping through stone-hard magic skin, the only reason I am not disembowelled being the false life spell filling my body with artificial vitality.
Then I am beneath the creature's range, its second front pair steadying its stance. My spear rips through its breast, striking its twin heart, and the energy is discharged, scouring holy power and smiting the thanator.
It falls on me, its heart blood flowing freely and splashing into my mouth. I gulped it down; it was part of the ritual. I feel a growing knot of energy pooling in my stomach and from their spread through my body. A green aura surrounds me, the nature magic coalescing into spirit flesh. The aura forms into a thanator made from green mana, my reserve is flowing into the spirit that I can feel connected to me now, a lot like my summons but much more intimate. The spirit manifests as a gigantic specimen of its species. I feel the connection with the spirit, the wild nature of the creature tempered by my sapience.
I pet it, it was a bit hard since it was taller than even on my tiptoes, but after a bit, the thanator kneels a bit and then I pet it, it was a giant cat after all.
I had gained a pattern for summoning a thanator now, bonding with its spirit enough to give the intimate knowledge needed to summon something.
The tree of the soul is pulsing, great flashes of lightning racing down bioluminescent trees, from the half a dozen shamans of the different tribes linked with their hairs. Their Spirit companions pacing around them, channelling the nature magic through the shamans' bodies into the tree of souls.
It's one of half a dozen rituals going on around the planet, the Navi I have trained conducting massive rituals of rebirth and renewal. Eywa has made her preference clear, as old beasts travel thousands of miles to die at the foot of the trees of souls, their lives perfect sacrifices to fuel the birth of eywa. Thousands and thousands of sacrifices over a month of rituals, enough power to burn down countries or, in this case, awaken the magic of a goddess.
It is my third year on the planet. My apprentices trained enough that they have spread and trained disciples of their own.
I am acting as the lynchpin of the ritual, months of green and blue and black and white mana gathered just for this situation. I am chanting naked, covered in ritual tattoos designed to resonate with ewya as my leshys form a root connection at all ritual spots to push my magic through them into all major ritual spots. My spirit companion guards my form as I get lost in the wild power of magic flowing through me.
The wild planet feels like a massive single system, from the smallest arthropod and to the largest sea whales. I could each of them connect to the plants and the whole planet holding its breath in anticipation.
Just as the planets align, I channel the gathered mana and signal the shamans to finish their rituals. The energy rushes through the roots of the entire planet, green mana leading the others to fill the spots dictated by the ritual.
In an eternal moment, there is a heartbeat that everything on the planet feels before an aura of power covers the entire planet, and everything goes back to normal. Still, now everything can feel the mother goddess in the back of their heads, no need for the crude matter to serve as conduits of her will.
Thousands of wood sprites gather in front of, me and there is a twist of magic and a being of immense stands. It was 30 feet tall, it was bipedal, its legs that of a thanator, It has four arms and the head of a titanthrope. The hammerhead was crested with the colourful crest of a banshee. Its wings spanned 50 feet and were that a toruk.
Its voice rings in my head, a manifest goddess brushing aside the simple protection spells I have active.
"Hail son of terra, Our bargain stands complete. Name the boon you will ask of me. It is as we agreed." it shifts a bit. "It will take a while to learn to wield this power and get used to my ned form, but I will abide by our bargain."
"My desire is simple, I have come to admire the beauty of your creations, Navi are the perfect society to exist in balance with nature, your animals can be the envy of many a world and your microbiology has cured every viral disease. I wish to have the skill and vast repository of knowledge that made it be available to me in future worlds."
It purrs at the well-deserved compliments on its skills and says, "It is something well within my grasp. But how will you take this gift with you? It is knowledge I have gained over billions of years, you can't carry it in your head, and as you have told me, you cannot carry anything across the void of non-existence."
I think I have spent time considering my request for a minute, but I haven't thought of a solution. I have an idea, but I haven't done it before; I could try it, it should work in theory, but I hope it wouldn't hurt to try.
"One of your tree of souls. They are the repository minds of Navi and nodes for your mind. I request that I be allowed to copy it, and the knowledge contained within. It will be beneficial for both of us, as it will ensure at least a version of you will exist across the multiverse, and I will have something that can act as a magical infrastructure. I haven't figured out how to make machines do magic yet, but I have enough knowledge of life-shaping and necromancy and druidic magic that I should be able to use your tree of souls as giant magical conductors and repositories. The unobtanium laced neurotransmitters are perfect for channeling magical energy. Not to mention the bootleg afterlife if I need to protect the souls of some people I meet in the future, just like the Old gods I told you about."
Ewya considers it for a few minutes and then replies "Then it is agreed, for the boon of awakening my magic, you shall copy a tree of souls and carry it around, along with the copies with souls of the best of Navi People that I have in my possession, along with copies of your friend grace. She shall be the conduit you can access my knowledge."
I was surprised by the generosity, getting my pick of the souls is not something I expected to happen but I imagine it must be grateful for being able to use magic.
But her next words shocked me.
"Now, once you are done with that, I wish for you to leave my world, I am a newborn goddess, I will not abide a pretender, no matter your intention, to my claims. The Navi are my people and I have seen the reverent looks the shamans give you. You will not be defied here, it is not your world. So let us part as friends."
It was a blow, I had so many more things I wanted to do here, I am so close to figuring out the greater teleport spell, as a ritual admittedly, but I guess I don't have the time to go to earth and copy a few engineers to steal earth's knowledge. But It will not be a problem, I have just bonded with the ritual site, and I can come to this universe whenever I want to, stealthily of course.
So I started finishing up my business, scanning the tree took quite a bit of mana, but I have my reserves building up again.
Then after saying goodbye to the Navi friends, I jump to a new universe. Then a new one and then a new one. That continues for a bit as most of them are voids, aside from the ones that are flesh dimensions and the ones that are empty because their physical constants are different.
Then I land in a survival one, a barren desert meeting towering mountains, each tall enough to have clouds on its slopes.
Closer to hand, I hear a war cry as a bunch of ramshackled green skinned creature are charging a caravan of armoured dwarves.
"WAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHH" Shout the orcs.
"Dreng them" shout the dwarves.
Chapter 7
The charging orcs were each a hulking mass of muscle and armour hanging on by threads. Cunning and cruel goblins ran underfoot, brandishing poisoned blades and a slavering expression on their faces as they hungered for dwarven blood.
The dwarfs stand resolute; their wagons are moving with remarkable alacrity to form a defensive barricade. The wagons interlock together, their construction flawless and sturdy, forming a wall of wood and banded steel between the dwarfs. The entire caravans up in arms, each armoured in steel with an axe and shield in hand. Some hooded dwarfs stand on specifically prepared platforms that rise from the wagon fort, crossbows spooling and shooting quickly, scything down the lead orcs and snarling the charge, the precision of their counterattack indicating that they have endured these before, their response polished and practised.
I activate my mage site and see the magic flowing into the charging orcs. It was a fascinating structure, the gathered mass of orcs generating energy and it is channelling into a magic caster in the back, a bone topped staff giving it away. It channels the energy back into them, a more "structured" form boosting their toughness in exchange for looser control but it doesn't seem like that's a problem for the orcs.
I stop gawking around and cast my first spell, a white spell forming its mandala in front of my hand before a single incandescent beam of light lances out and vaporises the orc shaman's head, the surprise attack not letting it react, and the 5 motes of mana I put into the spell letting it burn through the green shield that surged up to protect it. Its magic goes out of control, the green energy twisting and inverting in a stomach-turning manner before in a surge of random magic the orcs are strengthened and bolstered, the spell burning their biology in a magical suicide charge. They will be dead in about ten minutes, but I doubt it's a solace to the dwarfs whose crossbow bolts are barely sinking into orc flesh.
I push mana into my familiar spirit and the thanator appears next to me, it rushes towards the orc and crashes into their front line, it's a massive rhino sized bulk knocking over half a dozen orcs while it's twin pair of claws slice through 4 more orcs. Its tail takes off the head of a goblin, and the orcs look astounded by their charge being stymied.
The orc charge is halting, the ones still running halting as they see their compatriots turn to face the giant apex predator in the middle of their tribe. The dwarfs take the opportunity as more bolts launch out. Then in a surprising move, a ballista has been assembled in the 2 minutes it takes for the attack, it bites into the orc's formation and skewers through 4 of them, and it is already being reloaded.
I cast my next spells in that interval as my thanator slaughters another half a dozen orcs. The spells of enlarge and giant's strength intertwine as they flow through my bond with the familiar and it flows into my familiar. A rush of green mana suffuses its body and it surges in size, quickly becoming the size of a house. The dwarfs are startled enough that some of the younger ones shoot the thanator but the bolts ping off the rock hard hide. Its claw strikes are now raking the Warband, killing dozens in a single strike and just like that, after a minute of rampage the hundreds-strong orc band lies dead. I dismiss the familiar and the mana construct that is its body flows back into my body.
A dwarf in a green and yellow hood walks out from the wagon fort and slowly ambles over to me and hails me in an unknown language. I quickly cast the tongues to spell and greet him back.
"You saved our beards there Umgi. Many precious dawi lives would have been lost. Pardon me, I won't invite you to travel with us, chaos has tricked many young dawi with their staged attacks. But here, I will showcase our gratitude in a way that you can appreciate more."
I reply, unconcerned with the slight distrust and insult. It was a new world and I don't want to start any fights if I don't need to.
The Dwarf draws a hand into his cloak and takes out some coin pouch and throws them at me. I catch the pouch with surprise, it was solid gold, and heavy too. I don't check it inside, aside from a subtle break curse spell, just in case.
"Thank you. I am lost, my caravan just ambushed like yours but I wasn't able to save them. Can you point me towards the nearest major port? So I can find some news from my homeland."
The dwarf makes a surprised face.
"You speak Khazalid. The nearest city is Myrmidens. The biggest city on the border princess." The dwarf was more distrustful than ever, but I don't push, it is a tense encounter, so I let it go.
"Thank you for that information, I will make my way there at the earliest. I can't keep fighting orc bands, they never end."
The dwarf makes a commiserating noise.
"The grobi never end."
I am flying across the ocean, to the direction the dwarfs indicated the city is. I am sheathed in protective and concealing spells. I wanted to stop and rest but this world is pretty hostile, or at least the area I am in is hostile. Unless you hunt the massive boars that roamed the desert, there is no water or food. There is a disconcerting number of bones from dozens of species. Not to mention the thousands of orcs I have seen marauding and fighting each other.
I have no flying summons so I can't summon something to ride while resting on it but my flight spell didn't require any effort once cast. So it was more like floating through the sky on a bed.
I did get attacked by a wyvern on the way once, a hold monster spell had taken care of that, my experience with banshees let me dodge out of the way when it dived on me from the sunward angle.
I was a bit more worried about flying over the sea, it's filled with giant shadows and what has to be an unnatural number of sharks. My mage sight can even see masses of magic swimming in the deep ocean.
I wish I have some red mana right about now, haste would have been amazing. But I will refrain myself by casting gusts of winds to propel my flying speed.
It takes about an hour for me to cross the narrow bit of the sea that separates me from civilization. The city that shows itself to my divination and scrying spells is big,, it probably contains a few tens of thousands of people, its walls are well built and worn, and massive curtains of stone envelop the city from land-based attacks—a compulsory thing for a city that is often attacked by orcs.
Its harbour is teeming with trading ships in a dozen different styles, speaking a dozen different languages, even the tongues spell struggling to compensate before I pump more mana into the spell so it has more power to understand the people here.
The babble becomes coherent after a few seconds and it seems the news is good. The waagh of orcs that had been forming in the badlands(the desert) is defeated. Some brave dwarven king has retaken someplace called Karak 8 peaks and now the trade is flowing, long-hidden treasures pouring out of the dwarven kingdom as they secure their borders, an outflow of adventures going to the kingdom to help clear out remaining orc infestations.
That's an opportunity for the future but right now I fly in low and land invisibly in front of the nearest in. The clothes people wear in this world are very renaissance era Italian. Lots of fluffy shirts and colourful embellishments on fairly drab coloured clothes. I rummage around my bag of holding and draw a dark blue cloak, to obscure the weird clothes I am wearing by comparison. Blue jeans, another thing I sold Viserys, along with a simple white cotton shirt that I had made. The cloak covers from shoulder to floor and I quickly locate the shadier inn where a lot more people are wearing cloaks than the weather would suggest. I am sure I will just be another suspicious stranger passing through on a strange errand.
The inside is well lit, the open windows letting in streams of light and the food smelled quite good. I go up to the counter and order their best food for the entire inn. It is still not worth a single full gold coin, but the owner was more than happy to change trusty dwarven gold into the silver that most people in the city used.
I am a bit interested in what the city looked like, so I book myself a room, put magical wards against intrusion and set out to explore the city,
The crowd in the marketplace looks happy, money was flowing in as raw materials flowed out to the new kingdom. I actually buy a few things, Cathyan halberds coming from a new caravan, some indish cloth armour, a shield with a wolf head drawn on it from the empire and a Long Bow made in Bretonia. It was mostly so I got information chatting with the venus. These were some of the stronger human countries and I got a bit of information about them.
There is war brewing on the continent, an orc warlord is uniting the orcs into a massive waaagh. Some sort of corruptive religion called chaos has elected a chosen saviour and he is gathering his forces for war. It's a bit daunting but I do want to set up in a place and do some research. I have a few avenues of magic I want to explore.
Since my trial with binding spirits to the Navi to awaken their magic, I want to see if I can do the same thing to give people superhuman capabilities that will grow with them, instead of just loading them full of buff spells and letting them go hog wild. An individual sapients soul was flexible and as they become more, whether, through experience that enriched their soul or tribulation, their soul becomes stronger. That makes their magical aura denser and larger, letting me place more magical enhancements before their souls poped under the pressure. Incidentally, that is why my soul is much stronger than when I started, Travelling through the vid was harrowing and it makes my soul ballon in strength very quickly.
I am not perfect of course, that's just what I have figured out with my experiment on pandora, trying to see if the spirit binding thing will work. It showed how the spirits of the familiars reinforced the user and allowed them to channel more power and that in turn makes the spirit stronger.
So that's my plan for the future, set up a base of operation and learn more about the magic of this world and do my experiments. I need a defensible location and worthy allies, some on whom I can feel good about helping out and being helped in turn. Someone dependable and someone who is at least willing to accept some of my experimentation.
So I am going to learn more about the world before I make the decision. I duck into an alleyway to look for the best option.
I gather blue mana and cast divination, my eyes glow blue and a phantasmal eye appears on my forehead. The future in this world is chaotic and I immediately notice that there are multiple competing forces trying to read and manipulate the future. The future is fragmenting as the malevolence notices my magic and scrambles the future I can see.
I shut down the spell, dispelling my mana to leave no trace of my magic here. Then I grab green mana and cast weal and woe, a much shorter ranged divination spell. It only looked 30 minutes in the future and only answered whether the action is positive or negative. But since it's so simple that the manipulation of other seers has no effect on it. I wished I can figure out a way of casting divination through mind blank but that spell was too good at its job of preventing any future involving me being read.
The question I asked is simple, shall I go to the local library and look for information there. The answer was weal, so it is a positive action. Now I have to look for where a pre-renaissance town keeps their books?
But this hostile fate manipulation is concerning. This whole world is drenched in magic and even the lowest commoner was steeped in enough power that they can fight an orc almost twice their size with just a spear and some training. So this massive amount of magic meant that the energy required to have so many competing magic sights be a nightmare. Because even a petty hedge mage could look into the skeins of futures with a bit of knowledge. The malevolent attention I felt is concerned, the malice in that being is palpable. That's why I removed my magical signatures.
But I am not unprepared for such attacks, the world of the imperium used to be frequently involved in future sight wars before the advent of large scale theo-magical infrastructure made it too hard for mortal spell casters.
Additionally, my different mana types have different ways of doing divinations so it was even more variety to protect myself and attack my foes.
Blue mana can see potential futures and probabilities; it generally excels at gaining information both past and present. Green mana is all about dream visions and looking for patterns in nature to decipher the future. Black was necromancy of the old sort, raising beings beyond death to ask them about the future and death curses and prophecies. White is focused on making declarations about what the future will be, imposing order on the everchanging future. It was the most energy-intensive and it was fallible but it was great for getting other people's things done. It also has limitations like the things being possible however unlikely.
But I hope my variety of abilities and defence gives me enough time to raise my fortress and let me set up so I can do some actual research without being hounded by foes. It wasn't unreasonable to expect mind blank to hold up for a few months before it is breached.
The library is a temple to some goddess, my mage sight can see the subtle concentration that suffices the edifice. It is a white romanesque temple bedecked with symbols of their goddess, fighting a battle, hunting monsters, reading books and in a scene that showcase her being killed by treachery by some kind of ratfolk ninjas. That does surprise me a little, if ninjas exist in this world, and especially ninjas that kill what looks to be an avatar of a goddess, maybe I should be more care full. I recheck my contingency heal and restoration spells just in case, ninjas are known for being poison experts.
I walk into the temple, noticing the armoured and armed templars standing guard. The library was open to all in its capacity as a temple, but the atrium does not contain any books, a quick invisibility spell and a locate object spell let me locate that the books are hidden from the public. I am running a bit low on blue mana, it is the most utility-focused magic, other colours can imitate these spells but blue was the best and the most efficient per mote of mana.
The invisibility spell shields me as I sneak through the backrooms of the temple, there is more security than I expect. There were barred doors and patrolling guards, the tripwires and traps. It was a veritable fortress and it was not even the biggest temple to this goddess in the city. This world was paranoid but I imagine it becomes necessary if there are rat ninjas killing gods. It is a bit easier for me, because a spell-like knock and detect trap allow me to walk through the defences and an additional spell of silence let me invisibly sneak through the templars patrolling the temple. I am not a ninja myself but I have learned a thing or two about sneaking when hunting with the Navi braves, it's much more important to be silent when a super predator that can hear you from 100 meters away.
The library is well preserved, hidden alcoves lined with shelves holding books to almost bursting. It must have cost them a fortune to have this many books written, it didn't look like they have developed the printing press yet so it is expensive to have this many books. But the goddess is claiming the domain of knowledge so it makes sense that a lot of patrons will try to earn favours through donating books.
Now, I don't have a lot of time, the library was mostly empty besides the few acolytes tending to books and arranging and preserving them. I don't have the time to draw and read each book, it's too obvious since I am invincible and it will take too long. But fortunately, there is a spell for that, the spell of scholars' touch is amazing as it gives you a comprehensive jist of a book. But I don't want to use too many spells here, I don't know what sort of magic senses these people have, and while mage sight isn't showing any surveillance spells, I am not knowledgeable about these worlds' magic can do.
So I peruse through what section contains what book and quickly find the travels and bestiary section. Here I cast the spell and tap the spines of the thickest ones. The knowledge rushes into my head and I nod, this world has a lot of monsters and many of them are corrupted or abominations against nature.
Then I quickly scoot over to the atlas, and another tap gives me the information about the geography and political maps of the world.
In the last spell that I am willing to risk I cast on the book titled a world history. This gives me the information I need to know and puts the previous knowledge into proper context. Now I understand the war between the elves and dawi, the formation of the empires and countries of man, the blight of chaos on this world and even some information about lustria and the far east Cathay and Ind.
The information security in my head, I cast dimension door and teleport out of the library, appearing in my room by overcharging the spell with mana in a little ritual.
I ponder the knowledge and digest it for a few hours, the innkeeper sending my supper to my room. It is some hearty stew and piece of meat, along with fresh bread, nothing special to my palette but filling and hearty nonetheless.
There is no real choice except for the dwarves and the elves in the end. The dwarves were trustworthy and kept their words but their trust is hard to earn and they are a most contentious race.
Meanwhile, the ulthani elves were the magical powerhouse of the worlds that bleed every day to protect the world. Their problem was that earning their trust was just as hard and no one is allowed on ulthuan without that trust. So maybe I can ask one of their colonies and some for some land. But maybe the easiest way isn't to hitch me to a faction. I do have a third option, carve out a domain from the many wildlands in this world and make an alliance with those that will come. If nothing else I will kill a lot of nasty creatures and make the world more secure.
Yes, that seems to be the best option, form my own piece of land, which I won't rule of course I don't have that kind of time. Maybe I can put down a copy of the tree of souls and introduce the Navi to this world. It is a bit unethical to create a race just so I can have a safe and quiet lab space. But the Navi are all volunteers, to explore new worlds and take risks since they are essentially immortal. It's a bit dubious but I can just ask them once I summon them from their pattern, I can just desummon them if need be.
Now where to set up my base. Oh, I know where to do it, just have to talk to my neighbours.
The dwarfs stand resolute; their wagons are moving with remarkable alacrity to form a defensive barricade. The wagons interlock together, their construction flawless and sturdy, forming a wall of wood and banded steel between the dwarfs. The entire caravans up in arms, each armoured in steel with an axe and shield in hand. Some hooded dwarfs stand on specifically prepared platforms that rise from the wagon fort, crossbows spooling and shooting quickly, scything down the lead orcs and snarling the charge, the precision of their counterattack indicating that they have endured these before, their response polished and practised.
I activate my mage site and see the magic flowing into the charging orcs. It was a fascinating structure, the gathered mass of orcs generating energy and it is channelling into a magic caster in the back, a bone topped staff giving it away. It channels the energy back into them, a more "structured" form boosting their toughness in exchange for looser control but it doesn't seem like that's a problem for the orcs.
I stop gawking around and cast my first spell, a white spell forming its mandala in front of my hand before a single incandescent beam of light lances out and vaporises the orc shaman's head, the surprise attack not letting it react, and the 5 motes of mana I put into the spell letting it burn through the green shield that surged up to protect it. Its magic goes out of control, the green energy twisting and inverting in a stomach-turning manner before in a surge of random magic the orcs are strengthened and bolstered, the spell burning their biology in a magical suicide charge. They will be dead in about ten minutes, but I doubt it's a solace to the dwarfs whose crossbow bolts are barely sinking into orc flesh.
I push mana into my familiar spirit and the thanator appears next to me, it rushes towards the orc and crashes into their front line, it's a massive rhino sized bulk knocking over half a dozen orcs while it's twin pair of claws slice through 4 more orcs. Its tail takes off the head of a goblin, and the orcs look astounded by their charge being stymied.
The orc charge is halting, the ones still running halting as they see their compatriots turn to face the giant apex predator in the middle of their tribe. The dwarfs take the opportunity as more bolts launch out. Then in a surprising move, a ballista has been assembled in the 2 minutes it takes for the attack, it bites into the orc's formation and skewers through 4 of them, and it is already being reloaded.
I cast my next spells in that interval as my thanator slaughters another half a dozen orcs. The spells of enlarge and giant's strength intertwine as they flow through my bond with the familiar and it flows into my familiar. A rush of green mana suffuses its body and it surges in size, quickly becoming the size of a house. The dwarfs are startled enough that some of the younger ones shoot the thanator but the bolts ping off the rock hard hide. Its claw strikes are now raking the Warband, killing dozens in a single strike and just like that, after a minute of rampage the hundreds-strong orc band lies dead. I dismiss the familiar and the mana construct that is its body flows back into my body.
A dwarf in a green and yellow hood walks out from the wagon fort and slowly ambles over to me and hails me in an unknown language. I quickly cast the tongues to spell and greet him back.
"You saved our beards there Umgi. Many precious dawi lives would have been lost. Pardon me, I won't invite you to travel with us, chaos has tricked many young dawi with their staged attacks. But here, I will showcase our gratitude in a way that you can appreciate more."
I reply, unconcerned with the slight distrust and insult. It was a new world and I don't want to start any fights if I don't need to.
The Dwarf draws a hand into his cloak and takes out some coin pouch and throws them at me. I catch the pouch with surprise, it was solid gold, and heavy too. I don't check it inside, aside from a subtle break curse spell, just in case.
"Thank you. I am lost, my caravan just ambushed like yours but I wasn't able to save them. Can you point me towards the nearest major port? So I can find some news from my homeland."
The dwarf makes a surprised face.
"You speak Khazalid. The nearest city is Myrmidens. The biggest city on the border princess." The dwarf was more distrustful than ever, but I don't push, it is a tense encounter, so I let it go.
"Thank you for that information, I will make my way there at the earliest. I can't keep fighting orc bands, they never end."
The dwarf makes a commiserating noise.
"The grobi never end."
I am flying across the ocean, to the direction the dwarfs indicated the city is. I am sheathed in protective and concealing spells. I wanted to stop and rest but this world is pretty hostile, or at least the area I am in is hostile. Unless you hunt the massive boars that roamed the desert, there is no water or food. There is a disconcerting number of bones from dozens of species. Not to mention the thousands of orcs I have seen marauding and fighting each other.
I have no flying summons so I can't summon something to ride while resting on it but my flight spell didn't require any effort once cast. So it was more like floating through the sky on a bed.
I did get attacked by a wyvern on the way once, a hold monster spell had taken care of that, my experience with banshees let me dodge out of the way when it dived on me from the sunward angle.
I was a bit more worried about flying over the sea, it's filled with giant shadows and what has to be an unnatural number of sharks. My mage sight can even see masses of magic swimming in the deep ocean.
I wish I have some red mana right about now, haste would have been amazing. But I will refrain myself by casting gusts of winds to propel my flying speed.
It takes about an hour for me to cross the narrow bit of the sea that separates me from civilization. The city that shows itself to my divination and scrying spells is big,, it probably contains a few tens of thousands of people, its walls are well built and worn, and massive curtains of stone envelop the city from land-based attacks—a compulsory thing for a city that is often attacked by orcs.
Its harbour is teeming with trading ships in a dozen different styles, speaking a dozen different languages, even the tongues spell struggling to compensate before I pump more mana into the spell so it has more power to understand the people here.
The babble becomes coherent after a few seconds and it seems the news is good. The waagh of orcs that had been forming in the badlands(the desert) is defeated. Some brave dwarven king has retaken someplace called Karak 8 peaks and now the trade is flowing, long-hidden treasures pouring out of the dwarven kingdom as they secure their borders, an outflow of adventures going to the kingdom to help clear out remaining orc infestations.
That's an opportunity for the future but right now I fly in low and land invisibly in front of the nearest in. The clothes people wear in this world are very renaissance era Italian. Lots of fluffy shirts and colourful embellishments on fairly drab coloured clothes. I rummage around my bag of holding and draw a dark blue cloak, to obscure the weird clothes I am wearing by comparison. Blue jeans, another thing I sold Viserys, along with a simple white cotton shirt that I had made. The cloak covers from shoulder to floor and I quickly locate the shadier inn where a lot more people are wearing cloaks than the weather would suggest. I am sure I will just be another suspicious stranger passing through on a strange errand.
The inside is well lit, the open windows letting in streams of light and the food smelled quite good. I go up to the counter and order their best food for the entire inn. It is still not worth a single full gold coin, but the owner was more than happy to change trusty dwarven gold into the silver that most people in the city used.
I am a bit interested in what the city looked like, so I book myself a room, put magical wards against intrusion and set out to explore the city,
The crowd in the marketplace looks happy, money was flowing in as raw materials flowed out to the new kingdom. I actually buy a few things, Cathyan halberds coming from a new caravan, some indish cloth armour, a shield with a wolf head drawn on it from the empire and a Long Bow made in Bretonia. It was mostly so I got information chatting with the venus. These were some of the stronger human countries and I got a bit of information about them.
There is war brewing on the continent, an orc warlord is uniting the orcs into a massive waaagh. Some sort of corruptive religion called chaos has elected a chosen saviour and he is gathering his forces for war. It's a bit daunting but I do want to set up in a place and do some research. I have a few avenues of magic I want to explore.
Since my trial with binding spirits to the Navi to awaken their magic, I want to see if I can do the same thing to give people superhuman capabilities that will grow with them, instead of just loading them full of buff spells and letting them go hog wild. An individual sapients soul was flexible and as they become more, whether, through experience that enriched their soul or tribulation, their soul becomes stronger. That makes their magical aura denser and larger, letting me place more magical enhancements before their souls poped under the pressure. Incidentally, that is why my soul is much stronger than when I started, Travelling through the vid was harrowing and it makes my soul ballon in strength very quickly.
I am not perfect of course, that's just what I have figured out with my experiment on pandora, trying to see if the spirit binding thing will work. It showed how the spirits of the familiars reinforced the user and allowed them to channel more power and that in turn makes the spirit stronger.
So that's my plan for the future, set up a base of operation and learn more about the magic of this world and do my experiments. I need a defensible location and worthy allies, some on whom I can feel good about helping out and being helped in turn. Someone dependable and someone who is at least willing to accept some of my experimentation.
So I am going to learn more about the world before I make the decision. I duck into an alleyway to look for the best option.
I gather blue mana and cast divination, my eyes glow blue and a phantasmal eye appears on my forehead. The future in this world is chaotic and I immediately notice that there are multiple competing forces trying to read and manipulate the future. The future is fragmenting as the malevolence notices my magic and scrambles the future I can see.
I shut down the spell, dispelling my mana to leave no trace of my magic here. Then I grab green mana and cast weal and woe, a much shorter ranged divination spell. It only looked 30 minutes in the future and only answered whether the action is positive or negative. But since it's so simple that the manipulation of other seers has no effect on it. I wished I can figure out a way of casting divination through mind blank but that spell was too good at its job of preventing any future involving me being read.
The question I asked is simple, shall I go to the local library and look for information there. The answer was weal, so it is a positive action. Now I have to look for where a pre-renaissance town keeps their books?
But this hostile fate manipulation is concerning. This whole world is drenched in magic and even the lowest commoner was steeped in enough power that they can fight an orc almost twice their size with just a spear and some training. So this massive amount of magic meant that the energy required to have so many competing magic sights be a nightmare. Because even a petty hedge mage could look into the skeins of futures with a bit of knowledge. The malevolent attention I felt is concerned, the malice in that being is palpable. That's why I removed my magical signatures.
But I am not unprepared for such attacks, the world of the imperium used to be frequently involved in future sight wars before the advent of large scale theo-magical infrastructure made it too hard for mortal spell casters.
Additionally, my different mana types have different ways of doing divinations so it was even more variety to protect myself and attack my foes.
Blue mana can see potential futures and probabilities; it generally excels at gaining information both past and present. Green mana is all about dream visions and looking for patterns in nature to decipher the future. Black was necromancy of the old sort, raising beings beyond death to ask them about the future and death curses and prophecies. White is focused on making declarations about what the future will be, imposing order on the everchanging future. It was the most energy-intensive and it was fallible but it was great for getting other people's things done. It also has limitations like the things being possible however unlikely.
But I hope my variety of abilities and defence gives me enough time to raise my fortress and let me set up so I can do some actual research without being hounded by foes. It wasn't unreasonable to expect mind blank to hold up for a few months before it is breached.
The library is a temple to some goddess, my mage sight can see the subtle concentration that suffices the edifice. It is a white romanesque temple bedecked with symbols of their goddess, fighting a battle, hunting monsters, reading books and in a scene that showcase her being killed by treachery by some kind of ratfolk ninjas. That does surprise me a little, if ninjas exist in this world, and especially ninjas that kill what looks to be an avatar of a goddess, maybe I should be more care full. I recheck my contingency heal and restoration spells just in case, ninjas are known for being poison experts.
I walk into the temple, noticing the armoured and armed templars standing guard. The library was open to all in its capacity as a temple, but the atrium does not contain any books, a quick invisibility spell and a locate object spell let me locate that the books are hidden from the public. I am running a bit low on blue mana, it is the most utility-focused magic, other colours can imitate these spells but blue was the best and the most efficient per mote of mana.
The invisibility spell shields me as I sneak through the backrooms of the temple, there is more security than I expect. There were barred doors and patrolling guards, the tripwires and traps. It was a veritable fortress and it was not even the biggest temple to this goddess in the city. This world was paranoid but I imagine it becomes necessary if there are rat ninjas killing gods. It is a bit easier for me, because a spell-like knock and detect trap allow me to walk through the defences and an additional spell of silence let me invisibly sneak through the templars patrolling the temple. I am not a ninja myself but I have learned a thing or two about sneaking when hunting with the Navi braves, it's much more important to be silent when a super predator that can hear you from 100 meters away.
The library is well preserved, hidden alcoves lined with shelves holding books to almost bursting. It must have cost them a fortune to have this many books written, it didn't look like they have developed the printing press yet so it is expensive to have this many books. But the goddess is claiming the domain of knowledge so it makes sense that a lot of patrons will try to earn favours through donating books.
Now, I don't have a lot of time, the library was mostly empty besides the few acolytes tending to books and arranging and preserving them. I don't have the time to draw and read each book, it's too obvious since I am invincible and it will take too long. But fortunately, there is a spell for that, the spell of scholars' touch is amazing as it gives you a comprehensive jist of a book. But I don't want to use too many spells here, I don't know what sort of magic senses these people have, and while mage sight isn't showing any surveillance spells, I am not knowledgeable about these worlds' magic can do.
So I peruse through what section contains what book and quickly find the travels and bestiary section. Here I cast the spell and tap the spines of the thickest ones. The knowledge rushes into my head and I nod, this world has a lot of monsters and many of them are corrupted or abominations against nature.
Then I quickly scoot over to the atlas, and another tap gives me the information about the geography and political maps of the world.
In the last spell that I am willing to risk I cast on the book titled a world history. This gives me the information I need to know and puts the previous knowledge into proper context. Now I understand the war between the elves and dawi, the formation of the empires and countries of man, the blight of chaos on this world and even some information about lustria and the far east Cathay and Ind.
The information security in my head, I cast dimension door and teleport out of the library, appearing in my room by overcharging the spell with mana in a little ritual.
I ponder the knowledge and digest it for a few hours, the innkeeper sending my supper to my room. It is some hearty stew and piece of meat, along with fresh bread, nothing special to my palette but filling and hearty nonetheless.
There is no real choice except for the dwarves and the elves in the end. The dwarves were trustworthy and kept their words but their trust is hard to earn and they are a most contentious race.
Meanwhile, the ulthani elves were the magical powerhouse of the worlds that bleed every day to protect the world. Their problem was that earning their trust was just as hard and no one is allowed on ulthuan without that trust. So maybe I can ask one of their colonies and some for some land. But maybe the easiest way isn't to hitch me to a faction. I do have a third option, carve out a domain from the many wildlands in this world and make an alliance with those that will come. If nothing else I will kill a lot of nasty creatures and make the world more secure.
Yes, that seems to be the best option, form my own piece of land, which I won't rule of course I don't have that kind of time. Maybe I can put down a copy of the tree of souls and introduce the Navi to this world. It is a bit unethical to create a race just so I can have a safe and quiet lab space. But the Navi are all volunteers, to explore new worlds and take risks since they are essentially immortal. It's a bit dubious but I can just ask them once I summon them from their pattern, I can just desummon them if need be.
Now where to set up my base. Oh, I know where to do it, just have to talk to my neighbours.
Chapter 8
I disembark from the barge as it docks along the stone piers carved into the mountainside of Barak Varr. It's one of the many, many secondary docking facilities of the busy port city.
The port is bustling with traffic, with hundreds of ships from around the world loading and unloading goods from across the world. The Karak is built into a mountain at the end of a natural harbour. But the dawi have shaped and carved the natural harbour into a perfect trading hub. GIgantic cannon batteries provide overlapping fields of fire from the bay's many redoubts. The hundreds of berths provide enough thorough put for even the busiest periods, and canny dwarven harbour masters ensure no one is cheated, the famed dawi honour and meticulousness enough insurance to make even the most shifty trader feel fairly treated.
Barak Varr is also the home of the main dwarven fleets, so it is constantly patrolled by ironclads and massive dreadnaughts. Ensuring no pirate can sail within hundreds of kilometres of the hold.
I wander into the open market, the main thoroughfare owned by Merchant's guilds. Each stall is perfectly measured and allocated to each merchant who paid the fees. Both humans and dwarfs are selling goods; I walk past the wafting aromas of wild spices and exotic foods. Well, exotic to this world, I can identify most of the spices due to having grown up in a modern world.
The dwarven tools on sale look precise, the inhuman skill of the dwarfs creating tools well outside this world's human capability. Rows and rows of engraved hammers and chisels.
I walk further into the hold and come up to the limit of traders allowed in the temple quarters. Massive carved temples to the Dawi gods form a defensive square, inward-facing entrance creating a mini citadel for the dwarfs to retreat to in case of any incursion.
The opulence of dwarven temples is astounding; each inch of rock is engraved with stories from tier mythology and embossed with gold and jewels. The stern faces of Grimnir, Grungi and Valaya overlook the intersection, judging each person as they walk by and invariably failing to live up to the Elders' standards.
I pay my request with a small deposit of dwarven gold, and my mana sight detects a small silver of the gods. Pay attention. It seems I am not unobserved as I walk the Dwarven realm.
As I leave, I feel the motherly presence of Valaya reach out to me, and I reach back to meet her halfway.
The dwarven matriarch towered over, her presence filling the feast hall I find myself in. There is no feasting going on; the Dawi paragons sitting around the round table are all massive, metaphorically speaking; each is armed and armoured in the finest magical artefacts I have ever seen. Runes glitter with golden light, and their white beards and braids denote their age.
"Well, come to the glittering realms. You are the first Umgi to have been graced with knowledge of this realm." Valaya says, handing me a hearty soup, grabbing her spear and laying it next to her seat at the head of the table.
"I am honoured by invitation. I must say I didn't expect to be invited to meet the Dawi ancestor while I was just paying respect while passing through," I say while biting into the divinely made bread soaked in the broth.
"It is no coincidence. We the gods have been watching you since you saved one of the children's caravan." She says while the other gods grumble, " a traveller from another plane can't go unnoticed for long, but we shielded your arrival."
She nods to the dwarf with even more runes than the others present.
"I thank you for shielding me, although my spells will protect me from any scrying," I say a bit defiantly; I don't want to be in debt to the gods; Dawi take it very seriously.]
"Your mere existence has shaken the very foundation of this world's fate; the ordained doom is broken, and with it is a chance to change the world. No matter how small the rock, it can bring down the toughest walls. Your arrival was hidden but not breaking the prophecy of the world's fall. Even now, the dark god's servants scour the world looking for who has snatched their fated victory from their grasp." She says before pausing for a drink of her beer stein.
"Hmm, that is concerning, I do not wish to be hunted for all of my existence in this world. Maybe I should leave it altogether." I consider that I have no attachments yet to this world and can just leave. It seems that I have already made the world a better place by merely entering it.
"We have a proposal for your consideration. After a lot of arguments and a few bashed heads. As the matriarch of this family, I offer you a deal." Valaya says, and the majesty of the warrior queen of the dwarves is on full display.
"Our children bleed every day just to keep going, mere babes of a hundred years thrust into the crucible of war that should by all rights be concerned for their elders. We left them because they needed to make their own paths, and they have made us proud for what they have become, for it has withstood calamity after calamity and remained unbowed. We wish to ensure that at least the Dawi and their culture exist somewhere out there, separate but sharing our children's spirit. So this is our pact with you, world walker. We will give you this pattern for every type of Dawi required for them and their culture to survive. In return for the promise of doing your best in never letting the dawi die out as long as you live. In return, We will shroud you from all scrying magic and other such malefic methods the dark ones use against you."
What could I say to that? The other gods glared at m, waiting for my answer; it was clear from their behaviours that none of them trusted me outside of Valaya, but she was the matriarch, and according to my information, any decision regarding the childcare is a mother's choice, and she is the mother of all dwarven kind. They could not gainsay her without going against tradition, and besides, she would kick their asses if they tried, for just as she is the mother figure, she is also Valaya the Valkyrie, the guardian of the hearth.
"I will ask for a boon if I agree to this deal." More grumbling from the dwarfs, and even Valaya frowns, "I have read the history of your people, and they will face trouble if I leave them in worlds well beyond their capabilities as they are now. The last world I was on had gunships the size of a dwarven hold that can lay waste to the entire armies in seconds. Their guns and technology are ahead of the dwarfs as they are ahead of the world. I do not wish to see your people be exploited and left behind. Please choose ones that can survive such immense paradigm shifts and choose those able to survive in foreign cultures and still maintain their own social norms. Maybe some of those imperial dwarfs, living in a human city must have made them adaptive by sheer necessity."
The gods grumble more at this and at this morgrim speaks, each of his words measured and precise.
"It has ever been my children that have been the most daring and innovative of all dwarven people. I shall choose some that would revel in the new technology in bringing safety and wealth to the dwarven nations."
In response, thungni speaks in a lyrical tone more befitting a dwarven skald than a runesmith.
"My children have become stagnant and fetid in their pursuit of old glories, finding the current generation unworthy but refusing to teach them so that they become worthy. It is a noxious idea that shall not hinder the new enkindling of the dwarven people."
After that, each of the gods mutter their approval, and the deal is struck. I grasp Valaya's hand in a warrior's handshake, and I feel the patterns carve onto my soul, adamant with a core of honour, pride, and duty. It is the encapsulation of dwarfs that makes me understand them on an instinctive level, with none of the human biases and thought processes leading me astray whenever I interact with dwarves. It also makes me a fluent speaker of khazalid, aside from my language spells. I shake off that feeling of anemoia and join the gods in drinking and feasting; they are reluctant at first but mellow out when the beer starts flowing.
When I get back to my body, I am surrounded by heavily armoured dwarfs. I look around and notice a veritable throng of warriors forming a cordon around me, and hundreds of dwarven laypeople are gathered around them. I look up at the glowing constellation of khazlid runes floating around my head, the name of each god radiating their presence, and the symbols persist for a second and then melt like summer snow as I try and look at them directly.
The Warriors open a path for a thane to walk up to me and give me a hand to stand up.
"We had to set up a cordon to prevent you from getting mobbed when the temple guardians called us that a human had passed out in Valaya's temple. When we tried to move you, the signs of the ancestors warded us off." the thane says as he leads me down the secret tunnels to avoid the thrumming crowd that was still standing outside the temple. He is leading me to see the king, the clear favour of the gods enough to bypass most of the security to lead to the chamber where the king of hold meets delegates.
"I am grateful for the help. The god's feast was rowdy. I will never try to out-drink a god again; how did grungi's body hold that much alcohol, but the food was very good, even the stone cakes." I give a companionable chuckle.
"You are lucky, Umgi. Dwarven kings would give the weight of a mammoth in oath gold to even sip the beer brewed by Valaya. But at least you had enough courage to challenge the Ancestor to a drinking contest, nothing more hubristic but admirable." The dwarf says with a jealous tinge that morphs into a bit of respect in the end.
We approach the chamber, and the banned door of ironwood opens, guarded by a pair of mythic Ironbreakers, the gromril-clad elite of the dwarfs. They glare at me as I pass them, clearly not pleased by the direct access I have given to the king.
The inside of the diplomatic chambers is lavishly decorated, the dwarven woven cushions lining comfortable divans, and the low chamber is lit with rune lights, the display of wealth of one of the richest dwarf holds.
"Welcome, It is an honour to meet one of the blessed of the gods in person. The first human to be so marked as well. I am King Byrrnoth Grundadrakk, the lord of this hold and its dominions."
I give a shallow bow; I am humble enough to give a king some face for their rank.
"Hail Great King, I am called the John Walker, a mage of some accomplishment. It is an honour to be granted this audience."
I decide that I don't want to spread my real name, so I change it a bit; I knew how dangerous sympathetic magic can be; its a risk. and I still don't know the limit of this world's magic. The gods implied that there are gods of sorceries out there, so I am not risking that.
"Hmm, no need to bow. You are blessed by the ancestors; the high priests have spoken how the blessings are authentic, not a trick of magic. It's a dark time, but the enemies of the dawi are canny foes. We have our rune priest check you over already, so you are an honoured friend now. I am curious, what did the gods wish of you? Are you going to be their priest among the Umgi? Are you to guide us on an expedition to recapture a hold. What do the gods demand.??"
There is manic energy in the king as he grabs me by the shoulders and sits me down to ask this question. It seems the dwarf's obsessive nature is shining through here.
"The deal is already done; I am entrusted with a duty that I cannot disclose lest the enemies hear them even from here. Rest assured, the Ancestor gods are well, and their mission is important. But I can tell you that I personally have several things I can do to aid you and your people."
So I told him my plan.
My Leshy Druid summons was crucial in magical up-teching and experimentation on pandora. I had to summon thousands of them to spread the knowledge across the planet and help with researching spirit magic and blood magic-based theotech rituals.
This has had an unforeseen effect that is a welcome one nonetheless.
My summons have grown in that time, honed their skills, learned new magics and communed with newborn spirits. Their minds go back to the pattern inside my soul when they are unsummoned, and while most of them stayed back on pandora to serve as guides and servants to the Newborn goddess, hundreds more came with me.
That has created their own patterns, new iterations of the same base creatures separated not by biology but by skill in magic and knowledge. They have split into the ArchDruids, Leshys that deepened their connection to magic and are casters of the 7th circle; the life shapers, druids who have learned from Ewya and the Fleshforges of the imperium to shape and create life using magic; this also makes them excellent shapeshifters and last but not the least into leshy shamans, they forged connections with spirits and dreams, making them the intercessors between spirits and mortals, they are also masters of theotech, for the imperial god crafting is based on their research in controlling the dream realms. The dream realms don't exist in most worlds I have visited, but they can use magic to compensate.
These new summons are more expensive than the basic druid leshy, but the increased metaphysical might required to wield their magic makes that almost inevitable. I have been thinking about ways to offload some of those costs, but that's a project for another day.
I am awakened from my musings when the wagon stops, my dwarven guards, knocking on my doors in a specific pattern to signal to me that it's okay to come out now.
I walk out and shade my eyes with the new classic wizard hat I got from the dwarves. It is pointy, and it covers the eyes. I just wanted something classic, but it has grown on me; maybe I will enchant it. Oh, that's a good thought. I should drape myself in magical items. It wasn't a school of magic I am proficient in, but I think I can make it work with a bit of research, but that's for later.
The forest of gloom looms before me, the camp only a few miles away from the forest's boundary and still well within goblin raiding range. That forest was home to hundreds of thousands of beastmen, goblins and spiders that have devastated a lot of the local area. It was home to the spider cult of the orkoids, and even the beastmen here were more cunning than normal. So it is an astoundingly dangerous location to be traipsing around in.
But for a location of a new base, it is ideal. It is located adjacent to the Blackfire pass and is a potential trading hub between Karaz a Karak, the empire, border princes and Barak Varr. The mountains at my back will allow me to have a safe location to raise my wizard's tower and do my experiments.
Now I only just need to clear an entire forest of the worst kind of griblies this world has to offer; it shouldn't be hard, at least unless they have some serious magical oomph.
I start summoning life shapers, the leshys appearing in bursts of green mana. They are even more different in looks than the average summons, each with a different size and type of plant making up their body.
The neat thing about life shapers is that they change the magical nature of their subject, which means that when they change into a creature can often simulate its magical properties. This isn't without limit, of course; some magic can be too powerful or too complex or require things like being a thousand years old that can't be replicated by these guys, but most simpler magical abilities can be copied.
This is pertinent because I send them a mental command and then a dozen of them shape shift into the creature I want. The flesh bubbles and grows before hardening into bark-flesh. They tower over me, their amber blood giving them warm-hued eyes and vines draped over their forms, acting as hair. These creatures are treants, tree men that serve nature as guardians and protectors.
They have a unique ability that the imperium was trying to develop more, the ability to animate plants and have them fight for you. My life shapers have been working on increasing the range and number of plants that can be animated, and they are successful; each treant can control plants for miles around them, with hundreds of trees controlled by each one.
There are similar beings in this world as well, called ancient treemen; they can purportedly awaken the spirit of plants in their magical forests and raise them to fight any invaders. I will look into them for a later while, but for now, it is cleaning time.
I order the advance, and thousands of trees groan as magic fills their trunks and they begin moving. The few scattered goblin bands in the vicinity notice the march of the trees and promptly run away, but that's all right. It's not like I expected it to be a surprise.
My summoned thanes and rangers follow as I mount my familiar and leap into the forest, a dozen spells of protection and warding girding me from any ambushes
The port is bustling with traffic, with hundreds of ships from around the world loading and unloading goods from across the world. The Karak is built into a mountain at the end of a natural harbour. But the dawi have shaped and carved the natural harbour into a perfect trading hub. GIgantic cannon batteries provide overlapping fields of fire from the bay's many redoubts. The hundreds of berths provide enough thorough put for even the busiest periods, and canny dwarven harbour masters ensure no one is cheated, the famed dawi honour and meticulousness enough insurance to make even the most shifty trader feel fairly treated.
Barak Varr is also the home of the main dwarven fleets, so it is constantly patrolled by ironclads and massive dreadnaughts. Ensuring no pirate can sail within hundreds of kilometres of the hold.
I wander into the open market, the main thoroughfare owned by Merchant's guilds. Each stall is perfectly measured and allocated to each merchant who paid the fees. Both humans and dwarfs are selling goods; I walk past the wafting aromas of wild spices and exotic foods. Well, exotic to this world, I can identify most of the spices due to having grown up in a modern world.
The dwarven tools on sale look precise, the inhuman skill of the dwarfs creating tools well outside this world's human capability. Rows and rows of engraved hammers and chisels.
I walk further into the hold and come up to the limit of traders allowed in the temple quarters. Massive carved temples to the Dawi gods form a defensive square, inward-facing entrance creating a mini citadel for the dwarfs to retreat to in case of any incursion.
The opulence of dwarven temples is astounding; each inch of rock is engraved with stories from tier mythology and embossed with gold and jewels. The stern faces of Grimnir, Grungi and Valaya overlook the intersection, judging each person as they walk by and invariably failing to live up to the Elders' standards.
I pay my request with a small deposit of dwarven gold, and my mana sight detects a small silver of the gods. Pay attention. It seems I am not unobserved as I walk the Dwarven realm.
As I leave, I feel the motherly presence of Valaya reach out to me, and I reach back to meet her halfway.
The dwarven matriarch towered over, her presence filling the feast hall I find myself in. There is no feasting going on; the Dawi paragons sitting around the round table are all massive, metaphorically speaking; each is armed and armoured in the finest magical artefacts I have ever seen. Runes glitter with golden light, and their white beards and braids denote their age.
"Well, come to the glittering realms. You are the first Umgi to have been graced with knowledge of this realm." Valaya says, handing me a hearty soup, grabbing her spear and laying it next to her seat at the head of the table.
"I am honoured by invitation. I must say I didn't expect to be invited to meet the Dawi ancestor while I was just paying respect while passing through," I say while biting into the divinely made bread soaked in the broth.
"It is no coincidence. We the gods have been watching you since you saved one of the children's caravan." She says while the other gods grumble, " a traveller from another plane can't go unnoticed for long, but we shielded your arrival."
She nods to the dwarf with even more runes than the others present.
"I thank you for shielding me, although my spells will protect me from any scrying," I say a bit defiantly; I don't want to be in debt to the gods; Dawi take it very seriously.]
"Your mere existence has shaken the very foundation of this world's fate; the ordained doom is broken, and with it is a chance to change the world. No matter how small the rock, it can bring down the toughest walls. Your arrival was hidden but not breaking the prophecy of the world's fall. Even now, the dark god's servants scour the world looking for who has snatched their fated victory from their grasp." She says before pausing for a drink of her beer stein.
"Hmm, that is concerning, I do not wish to be hunted for all of my existence in this world. Maybe I should leave it altogether." I consider that I have no attachments yet to this world and can just leave. It seems that I have already made the world a better place by merely entering it.
"We have a proposal for your consideration. After a lot of arguments and a few bashed heads. As the matriarch of this family, I offer you a deal." Valaya says, and the majesty of the warrior queen of the dwarves is on full display.
"Our children bleed every day just to keep going, mere babes of a hundred years thrust into the crucible of war that should by all rights be concerned for their elders. We left them because they needed to make their own paths, and they have made us proud for what they have become, for it has withstood calamity after calamity and remained unbowed. We wish to ensure that at least the Dawi and their culture exist somewhere out there, separate but sharing our children's spirit. So this is our pact with you, world walker. We will give you this pattern for every type of Dawi required for them and their culture to survive. In return for the promise of doing your best in never letting the dawi die out as long as you live. In return, We will shroud you from all scrying magic and other such malefic methods the dark ones use against you."
What could I say to that? The other gods glared at m, waiting for my answer; it was clear from their behaviours that none of them trusted me outside of Valaya, but she was the matriarch, and according to my information, any decision regarding the childcare is a mother's choice, and she is the mother of all dwarven kind. They could not gainsay her without going against tradition, and besides, she would kick their asses if they tried, for just as she is the mother figure, she is also Valaya the Valkyrie, the guardian of the hearth.
"I will ask for a boon if I agree to this deal." More grumbling from the dwarfs, and even Valaya frowns, "I have read the history of your people, and they will face trouble if I leave them in worlds well beyond their capabilities as they are now. The last world I was on had gunships the size of a dwarven hold that can lay waste to the entire armies in seconds. Their guns and technology are ahead of the dwarfs as they are ahead of the world. I do not wish to see your people be exploited and left behind. Please choose ones that can survive such immense paradigm shifts and choose those able to survive in foreign cultures and still maintain their own social norms. Maybe some of those imperial dwarfs, living in a human city must have made them adaptive by sheer necessity."
The gods grumble more at this and at this morgrim speaks, each of his words measured and precise.
"It has ever been my children that have been the most daring and innovative of all dwarven people. I shall choose some that would revel in the new technology in bringing safety and wealth to the dwarven nations."
In response, thungni speaks in a lyrical tone more befitting a dwarven skald than a runesmith.
"My children have become stagnant and fetid in their pursuit of old glories, finding the current generation unworthy but refusing to teach them so that they become worthy. It is a noxious idea that shall not hinder the new enkindling of the dwarven people."
After that, each of the gods mutter their approval, and the deal is struck. I grasp Valaya's hand in a warrior's handshake, and I feel the patterns carve onto my soul, adamant with a core of honour, pride, and duty. It is the encapsulation of dwarfs that makes me understand them on an instinctive level, with none of the human biases and thought processes leading me astray whenever I interact with dwarves. It also makes me a fluent speaker of khazalid, aside from my language spells. I shake off that feeling of anemoia and join the gods in drinking and feasting; they are reluctant at first but mellow out when the beer starts flowing.
When I get back to my body, I am surrounded by heavily armoured dwarfs. I look around and notice a veritable throng of warriors forming a cordon around me, and hundreds of dwarven laypeople are gathered around them. I look up at the glowing constellation of khazlid runes floating around my head, the name of each god radiating their presence, and the symbols persist for a second and then melt like summer snow as I try and look at them directly.
The Warriors open a path for a thane to walk up to me and give me a hand to stand up.
"We had to set up a cordon to prevent you from getting mobbed when the temple guardians called us that a human had passed out in Valaya's temple. When we tried to move you, the signs of the ancestors warded us off." the thane says as he leads me down the secret tunnels to avoid the thrumming crowd that was still standing outside the temple. He is leading me to see the king, the clear favour of the gods enough to bypass most of the security to lead to the chamber where the king of hold meets delegates.
"I am grateful for the help. The god's feast was rowdy. I will never try to out-drink a god again; how did grungi's body hold that much alcohol, but the food was very good, even the stone cakes." I give a companionable chuckle.
"You are lucky, Umgi. Dwarven kings would give the weight of a mammoth in oath gold to even sip the beer brewed by Valaya. But at least you had enough courage to challenge the Ancestor to a drinking contest, nothing more hubristic but admirable." The dwarf says with a jealous tinge that morphs into a bit of respect in the end.
We approach the chamber, and the banned door of ironwood opens, guarded by a pair of mythic Ironbreakers, the gromril-clad elite of the dwarfs. They glare at me as I pass them, clearly not pleased by the direct access I have given to the king.
The inside of the diplomatic chambers is lavishly decorated, the dwarven woven cushions lining comfortable divans, and the low chamber is lit with rune lights, the display of wealth of one of the richest dwarf holds.
"Welcome, It is an honour to meet one of the blessed of the gods in person. The first human to be so marked as well. I am King Byrrnoth Grundadrakk, the lord of this hold and its dominions."
I give a shallow bow; I am humble enough to give a king some face for their rank.
"Hail Great King, I am called the John Walker, a mage of some accomplishment. It is an honour to be granted this audience."
I decide that I don't want to spread my real name, so I change it a bit; I knew how dangerous sympathetic magic can be; its a risk. and I still don't know the limit of this world's magic. The gods implied that there are gods of sorceries out there, so I am not risking that.
"Hmm, no need to bow. You are blessed by the ancestors; the high priests have spoken how the blessings are authentic, not a trick of magic. It's a dark time, but the enemies of the dawi are canny foes. We have our rune priest check you over already, so you are an honoured friend now. I am curious, what did the gods wish of you? Are you going to be their priest among the Umgi? Are you to guide us on an expedition to recapture a hold. What do the gods demand.??"
There is manic energy in the king as he grabs me by the shoulders and sits me down to ask this question. It seems the dwarf's obsessive nature is shining through here.
"The deal is already done; I am entrusted with a duty that I cannot disclose lest the enemies hear them even from here. Rest assured, the Ancestor gods are well, and their mission is important. But I can tell you that I personally have several things I can do to aid you and your people."
So I told him my plan.
My Leshy Druid summons was crucial in magical up-teching and experimentation on pandora. I had to summon thousands of them to spread the knowledge across the planet and help with researching spirit magic and blood magic-based theotech rituals.
This has had an unforeseen effect that is a welcome one nonetheless.
My summons have grown in that time, honed their skills, learned new magics and communed with newborn spirits. Their minds go back to the pattern inside my soul when they are unsummoned, and while most of them stayed back on pandora to serve as guides and servants to the Newborn goddess, hundreds more came with me.
That has created their own patterns, new iterations of the same base creatures separated not by biology but by skill in magic and knowledge. They have split into the ArchDruids, Leshys that deepened their connection to magic and are casters of the 7th circle; the life shapers, druids who have learned from Ewya and the Fleshforges of the imperium to shape and create life using magic; this also makes them excellent shapeshifters and last but not the least into leshy shamans, they forged connections with spirits and dreams, making them the intercessors between spirits and mortals, they are also masters of theotech, for the imperial god crafting is based on their research in controlling the dream realms. The dream realms don't exist in most worlds I have visited, but they can use magic to compensate.
These new summons are more expensive than the basic druid leshy, but the increased metaphysical might required to wield their magic makes that almost inevitable. I have been thinking about ways to offload some of those costs, but that's a project for another day.
I am awakened from my musings when the wagon stops, my dwarven guards, knocking on my doors in a specific pattern to signal to me that it's okay to come out now.
I walk out and shade my eyes with the new classic wizard hat I got from the dwarves. It is pointy, and it covers the eyes. I just wanted something classic, but it has grown on me; maybe I will enchant it. Oh, that's a good thought. I should drape myself in magical items. It wasn't a school of magic I am proficient in, but I think I can make it work with a bit of research, but that's for later.
The forest of gloom looms before me, the camp only a few miles away from the forest's boundary and still well within goblin raiding range. That forest was home to hundreds of thousands of beastmen, goblins and spiders that have devastated a lot of the local area. It was home to the spider cult of the orkoids, and even the beastmen here were more cunning than normal. So it is an astoundingly dangerous location to be traipsing around in.
But for a location of a new base, it is ideal. It is located adjacent to the Blackfire pass and is a potential trading hub between Karaz a Karak, the empire, border princes and Barak Varr. The mountains at my back will allow me to have a safe location to raise my wizard's tower and do my experiments.
Now I only just need to clear an entire forest of the worst kind of griblies this world has to offer; it shouldn't be hard, at least unless they have some serious magical oomph.
I start summoning life shapers, the leshys appearing in bursts of green mana. They are even more different in looks than the average summons, each with a different size and type of plant making up their body.
The neat thing about life shapers is that they change the magical nature of their subject, which means that when they change into a creature can often simulate its magical properties. This isn't without limit, of course; some magic can be too powerful or too complex or require things like being a thousand years old that can't be replicated by these guys, but most simpler magical abilities can be copied.
This is pertinent because I send them a mental command and then a dozen of them shape shift into the creature I want. The flesh bubbles and grows before hardening into bark-flesh. They tower over me, their amber blood giving them warm-hued eyes and vines draped over their forms, acting as hair. These creatures are treants, tree men that serve nature as guardians and protectors.
They have a unique ability that the imperium was trying to develop more, the ability to animate plants and have them fight for you. My life shapers have been working on increasing the range and number of plants that can be animated, and they are successful; each treant can control plants for miles around them, with hundreds of trees controlled by each one.
There are similar beings in this world as well, called ancient treemen; they can purportedly awaken the spirit of plants in their magical forests and raise them to fight any invaders. I will look into them for a later while, but for now, it is cleaning time.
I order the advance, and thousands of trees groan as magic fills their trunks and they begin moving. The few scattered goblin bands in the vicinity notice the march of the trees and promptly run away, but that's all right. It's not like I expected it to be a surprise.
My summoned thanes and rangers follow as I mount my familiar and leap into the forest, a dozen spells of protection and warding girding me from any ambushes
Chapter 9
The dwarf summons move in a cordon around me. They are much different from my other summons, made of red and white creatures of passion and structure. I have bonded with the temple, finally netting me access to red mana. I am pretty happy about that; now, I can do the main evocative magics like a fireball, lightning bolt and haste. It's pretty impressive how much fun magic is red mana.
My dwarven retinue is made up of the elites of the dwarven race; thanes decked out in runed gromil gear and rune smiths to deal with hostile magic and buffing the thanes, letting them keep up with the galloping thanotor that is my familiar. I am excited about their future possibilities, but they are just muscle for now.
The cordon was ringed by a further layer of life-shaped treants, forming the core of my army of animated trees. The trees on the edge of the forest are scraggly and weak, so the treants are replacing them with stronger plants as we march in deeper; it takes a few seconds to shift the magic between trees, but the rolling march of the trees is slow enough that it didn't delay us.
Our first sign of resistance came from a band of goblins rushing the tress from the undergrowth. These goblins are equipped in tattered clothes and wield stone tools. They jump onto the threes and hack at them, using their nimbleness to dodge the branches of the trees. The nearest trees scrape off the goblins.
The onslaught slows down as more and more goblins rush out, better-armed ones with axes and blades, thousands of the creatures swarming around my troops. The front lines buckle, hundreds of goblins pushing to hack away at the mobile trees as they swarm around the trees. Each blow is a minor wound, and the sheer bulk of the trees kills dozen but soon, the impacts start adding up, the magic animating them struggling and sputtering before failing entirely.
The grind continues for hours, the green skin's number is just as unending as my trees. My life-shapers are getting worn down, animating more and more trees as attrition chips away at my numbers. The battle is going reasonably well, but I have realised. I am not good at war; my best idea is to gather troops and rush into entrenched enemy territory without any preparation. In hindsight, that's a fucking dumb move; why didn't I think it through? I have played enough strategy games to know that encirclement and logistics exist, yet I have been heedless of those things in my plans.
I order a fighting retreat to the edge of the forest and summon some archdruids to earth shape a fort for us. As the nature magic seeps into the earth and liquid stone flows into the massive walls of a single hill fort, I summon more troops to patrol and settle down for a bit of intro section.
I take up a crosslegged stance and begin to meditate, the simple technique to clear my mind and look into my mind for any discrepancies.
I think of my actions these past few months and realize something was wrong with me, I am not the scared boy from earth who was terrified of any danger and cried for his first kill. Ever since I left the imperium, I have been callous and uncaring these past few months.
I cast a basic soul sight spell, look at myself in more detail than I have in a while, and notice that the problem is immediate. It's honestly pretty simple, something I should have expected to know about how my magic works.
So, as I have travelled to different planes and strengthened myself, I got into the habit of keeping more and more mana stockpiled in my soul. Now, mana is not just free energy; each colour represents philosophical and emotional aspects of reality as well. White is the quiet need for control and order, green is for rampant growth and unchecked pursuit of goals, black is callousness yet obsession, and blue is the cold detachment of a sociopath. These are the worst facets of each of those colours, and I didn't realise that holding so much unbalanced mana inside my very soul will change my actions. Only when I have gained access to red mana and its empathy and Joy-Di-Vivre is my mana balanced and I can think properly.
In hindsight, I have been acting like an idiot; I took the responsibility of ensuring an entire race's survival; that's insane; I couldn't even cast magic just a few months ago. I am not some wizard saviour of all the multiverse, and I have been acting like I can solve all problems with magic, I haven't been even using it long and already, I am using it as a crutch instead of learning new things in an organic manner. If I had just stolen those bestiaries instead of using a spell, I would have probably been able to put together just how many goblins there are in this forsaken forest.
I need to get better, I can't just skate by on magic that I barely have explored and on my ability to run away from problems if things get hard. It is real people's lives that I am playing with and it's not good to be callous.
I have a new priority now, bond with some more red mana sources so that my mana levels remain balanced, I don't want to become an arrogant, stupid mage again; it is deeply unpleasant losing who you are because your magic enhanced its chosen traits and turned me into a sociopath.
I come out of my meditative trance slowly; my newly regain sanity lets me know it's okay to relax and not rush to my next objective. I summon a cup of tea and walk up to one of my life-shaper leshys as they are resting between the waves of goblins that are still streaming in greater numbers to siege the crude hill fort I have made.
"Hey," I say casually and take a sip of my sweetened tea "I just realised something, I haven't talked to you guys before."
While I have exchanged words but it has always been curt and perfunctory.
"Well, what would you like to talk about a summoner. It's a bit of a bad time for your epiphany. I am tired from puppeting hundreds of trees all day, and the nasty little goblins aren't stopping to let me rest properly. So, I am hoping I can have my daily intake of water/mineral solution and bask in the few hours of sunlight we have left."
I am a bit taken aback, my leshys were always polite to me, but I assume that the first combat has a way of unsettling people and revealing new facets of their existence. I look into their pattern and realise they have learned completely non-magical biochemistry and gene engineering from grace; maybe her brusque attitude has rubbed off on them.
It makes sense in a way, I can't rectify the mistakes of months of neglect in a single conversation. Hopefully, I don't fuck up again.
But I am tired today, the introspection consumed a lot of mental focus, I am going to sleep for the night.
I summon some shamans to have some spirits patrol the perimeter that is still being tested by goblin raiders riding horse-sized spiders.
The spirits that the shamans bind are called spites in the bestiary, minor nature spirits fond of preying on lost travellers.
Then I fall asleep, worried if I will wake up the same man as the one that went to sleep.
I am woken from my nightmares of green and blue and black and white by a massive surge of magic, my mage sight bleeding through to my sleeping mind.
It's likely the following explosions that shake our redoubt would have awoken me anyway but I am not complaining about a chance to brace myself.
I fly over to the bastions where my dawi rune smiths are manning the wall. I see the runes on their talisman glow as incoming bolts of green magic are dispelled before they can bowl into the front line of animate trees. But it's not enough, dozens of shamans are gathered at a hill opposite our fort, and there are hundreds of thousands of goblins fueling their magics, so they are launching constant magical bombardments, fanatical zeal making sure they disregard all risk of death or miscasts even as I look a gigantic green moon forms over the concentration of trees and rips them apart, the pale reflection of the malevolent moon downing dozens of trees before it vanishes into the ether.
The front line is buckling under the onslaught of grobi, as they bring up their gigantic spiders from deep inside the forest to scythe through the trees as dozens' of foot-tall spiders tower over them and bowl them over.
Upon the hills that the shamans have set up is the biggest spider specimen; it is to an archnarok spider what they are to normal giant spiders. It is the size of a small hill and hundreds of goblins clamber over the howdah they have placed upon it. In that howdah is a shrine that radiates the power of their strange spider god. The creature is blessed with the same touch of divinity as it bolsters its fellows with its mere presence and resists magic through the sheer metaphysical weight.
I am not going to lie, it is terrifying to watch an army of hundreds of thousands of creatures bear down on you. I can already see that my life shapers are struggling with so many trees, and the amount available in our area was being steadily cut down.
This is not a good situation; while I have figured out how to teleport away, I don't want to risk it in the immediate presence of a god's avatar, it could likely interdict my magic if it wanted, and I feel the palpable hate it has for me. I think someone told it my plan was to eradicate its followers and children, and I don't think it approves. Besides, I feel indignant at even having to run away from goblins of all things, the weakest species of their kind and a minor god at best.
My magic has birthed a stronger goddess, and I have learned at the feet of people that have slain more than one major god. So I am going to take a stand and fight, to show myself that I am not a coward and that all this power and knowledge I have been blessed with is not just a fluke of fate but something I am worthy of using. I want to make the world a better place and if a goblin army stands in my way, well fuck me, either they die today or I do.
My dwarven retinue is made up of the elites of the dwarven race; thanes decked out in runed gromil gear and rune smiths to deal with hostile magic and buffing the thanes, letting them keep up with the galloping thanotor that is my familiar. I am excited about their future possibilities, but they are just muscle for now.
The cordon was ringed by a further layer of life-shaped treants, forming the core of my army of animated trees. The trees on the edge of the forest are scraggly and weak, so the treants are replacing them with stronger plants as we march in deeper; it takes a few seconds to shift the magic between trees, but the rolling march of the trees is slow enough that it didn't delay us.
Our first sign of resistance came from a band of goblins rushing the tress from the undergrowth. These goblins are equipped in tattered clothes and wield stone tools. They jump onto the threes and hack at them, using their nimbleness to dodge the branches of the trees. The nearest trees scrape off the goblins.
The onslaught slows down as more and more goblins rush out, better-armed ones with axes and blades, thousands of the creatures swarming around my troops. The front lines buckle, hundreds of goblins pushing to hack away at the mobile trees as they swarm around the trees. Each blow is a minor wound, and the sheer bulk of the trees kills dozen but soon, the impacts start adding up, the magic animating them struggling and sputtering before failing entirely.
The grind continues for hours, the green skin's number is just as unending as my trees. My life-shapers are getting worn down, animating more and more trees as attrition chips away at my numbers. The battle is going reasonably well, but I have realised. I am not good at war; my best idea is to gather troops and rush into entrenched enemy territory without any preparation. In hindsight, that's a fucking dumb move; why didn't I think it through? I have played enough strategy games to know that encirclement and logistics exist, yet I have been heedless of those things in my plans.
I order a fighting retreat to the edge of the forest and summon some archdruids to earth shape a fort for us. As the nature magic seeps into the earth and liquid stone flows into the massive walls of a single hill fort, I summon more troops to patrol and settle down for a bit of intro section.
I take up a crosslegged stance and begin to meditate, the simple technique to clear my mind and look into my mind for any discrepancies.
I think of my actions these past few months and realize something was wrong with me, I am not the scared boy from earth who was terrified of any danger and cried for his first kill. Ever since I left the imperium, I have been callous and uncaring these past few months.
I cast a basic soul sight spell, look at myself in more detail than I have in a while, and notice that the problem is immediate. It's honestly pretty simple, something I should have expected to know about how my magic works.
So, as I have travelled to different planes and strengthened myself, I got into the habit of keeping more and more mana stockpiled in my soul. Now, mana is not just free energy; each colour represents philosophical and emotional aspects of reality as well. White is the quiet need for control and order, green is for rampant growth and unchecked pursuit of goals, black is callousness yet obsession, and blue is the cold detachment of a sociopath. These are the worst facets of each of those colours, and I didn't realise that holding so much unbalanced mana inside my very soul will change my actions. Only when I have gained access to red mana and its empathy and Joy-Di-Vivre is my mana balanced and I can think properly.
In hindsight, I have been acting like an idiot; I took the responsibility of ensuring an entire race's survival; that's insane; I couldn't even cast magic just a few months ago. I am not some wizard saviour of all the multiverse, and I have been acting like I can solve all problems with magic, I haven't been even using it long and already, I am using it as a crutch instead of learning new things in an organic manner. If I had just stolen those bestiaries instead of using a spell, I would have probably been able to put together just how many goblins there are in this forsaken forest.
I need to get better, I can't just skate by on magic that I barely have explored and on my ability to run away from problems if things get hard. It is real people's lives that I am playing with and it's not good to be callous.
I have a new priority now, bond with some more red mana sources so that my mana levels remain balanced, I don't want to become an arrogant, stupid mage again; it is deeply unpleasant losing who you are because your magic enhanced its chosen traits and turned me into a sociopath.
I come out of my meditative trance slowly; my newly regain sanity lets me know it's okay to relax and not rush to my next objective. I summon a cup of tea and walk up to one of my life-shaper leshys as they are resting between the waves of goblins that are still streaming in greater numbers to siege the crude hill fort I have made.
"Hey," I say casually and take a sip of my sweetened tea "I just realised something, I haven't talked to you guys before."
While I have exchanged words but it has always been curt and perfunctory.
"Well, what would you like to talk about a summoner. It's a bit of a bad time for your epiphany. I am tired from puppeting hundreds of trees all day, and the nasty little goblins aren't stopping to let me rest properly. So, I am hoping I can have my daily intake of water/mineral solution and bask in the few hours of sunlight we have left."
I am a bit taken aback, my leshys were always polite to me, but I assume that the first combat has a way of unsettling people and revealing new facets of their existence. I look into their pattern and realise they have learned completely non-magical biochemistry and gene engineering from grace; maybe her brusque attitude has rubbed off on them.
It makes sense in a way, I can't rectify the mistakes of months of neglect in a single conversation. Hopefully, I don't fuck up again.
But I am tired today, the introspection consumed a lot of mental focus, I am going to sleep for the night.
I summon some shamans to have some spirits patrol the perimeter that is still being tested by goblin raiders riding horse-sized spiders.
The spirits that the shamans bind are called spites in the bestiary, minor nature spirits fond of preying on lost travellers.
Then I fall asleep, worried if I will wake up the same man as the one that went to sleep.
I am woken from my nightmares of green and blue and black and white by a massive surge of magic, my mage sight bleeding through to my sleeping mind.
It's likely the following explosions that shake our redoubt would have awoken me anyway but I am not complaining about a chance to brace myself.
I fly over to the bastions where my dawi rune smiths are manning the wall. I see the runes on their talisman glow as incoming bolts of green magic are dispelled before they can bowl into the front line of animate trees. But it's not enough, dozens of shamans are gathered at a hill opposite our fort, and there are hundreds of thousands of goblins fueling their magics, so they are launching constant magical bombardments, fanatical zeal making sure they disregard all risk of death or miscasts even as I look a gigantic green moon forms over the concentration of trees and rips them apart, the pale reflection of the malevolent moon downing dozens of trees before it vanishes into the ether.
The front line is buckling under the onslaught of grobi, as they bring up their gigantic spiders from deep inside the forest to scythe through the trees as dozens' of foot-tall spiders tower over them and bowl them over.
Upon the hills that the shamans have set up is the biggest spider specimen; it is to an archnarok spider what they are to normal giant spiders. It is the size of a small hill and hundreds of goblins clamber over the howdah they have placed upon it. In that howdah is a shrine that radiates the power of their strange spider god. The creature is blessed with the same touch of divinity as it bolsters its fellows with its mere presence and resists magic through the sheer metaphysical weight.
I am not going to lie, it is terrifying to watch an army of hundreds of thousands of creatures bear down on you. I can already see that my life shapers are struggling with so many trees, and the amount available in our area was being steadily cut down.
This is not a good situation; while I have figured out how to teleport away, I don't want to risk it in the immediate presence of a god's avatar, it could likely interdict my magic if it wanted, and I feel the palpable hate it has for me. I think someone told it my plan was to eradicate its followers and children, and I don't think it approves. Besides, I feel indignant at even having to run away from goblins of all things, the weakest species of their kind and a minor god at best.
My magic has birthed a stronger goddess, and I have learned at the feet of people that have slain more than one major god. So I am going to take a stand and fight, to show myself that I am not a coward and that all this power and knowledge I have been blessed with is not just a fluke of fate but something I am worthy of using. I want to make the world a better place and if a goblin army stands in my way, well fuck me, either they die today or I do.
Chapter 10
I have to make a plan; all classical military theory predicates that strategy can overcome resources to an extent, and right now, they outnumber me., I don't know much about their abilities or psychology; I needed someone with the experience and whose society has fought these guys to know them like the back of their hands. So I beckon over one of the thanes that are manning the wall, and the biggest one walks up to me.
"I know you were based on some of the greatest dwarven thanes; I am in need of your aid and advice." I say to him when he reaches me.
"Aye, I was wondering if you were going to ask for our aid. No offence, umgi, but your plan is the shoddy human work that shames any commander." He brushes his beard with his hand " I owe some of the others some ale now. But let's get down to the forging of a plan."
He paused after saying that and turned to the wall, he gestured for me to accompany him, and I do, walking demurely behind him, I know I am a neonate before his experience, and his skill deserved respect.
He points towards the slavering hordes of goblins and begins speaking.
"The grobi usually outnumber most foes, each grobi may not be worth much but they put ten fighters on the field for everyone that the enemy has fielded. That's what's happening to us right now. A bulk of the goblins in this forest have been driven by their Skaz god to fight us, and so they have come on a holy waaagh. The grobi will fight till death now unless your fear magic overtakes their shamans at least." He says and points out all the forces he has mentioned "So the usual strategy of headhunting their leadership is nonviable. So, what do you think we should do??"
"I see two ways to deal with them, well three if I just unsummon all of you and fly away nut that's a coward's way out" The dwarf nods with a bit more respect at that. "So, we have to either kill the chaff in the way before killing the god's avatar. Or I can use most of my stored mana and cast a massive ritual to burn everything on the field. I don't know the meteor shower spell, but I can compensate with a massive amount of mana to fill in the holes."
"I will be honest with you, Umgi, I was going to suggest you summon more arch druids until they can overcome the aura of the gods, and we can summon more troops. Your unique magic eventually allows us to overcome the enemy's numerical advantage eventually. But I have another plan, something more suited to your kind or maybe some rangers." He considers for a second and continues, "So, tell me you are adept at making creatures stronger and bigger and tougher. Also, tell me about these spells of greater invisibility. How big a thing can you hide."
There is a massive grin on his face as he says it.
I raise a resilient sphere just as the giant foot of gork crashes down on my location; the shockwave from the attack pulps the swarming goblins and the animated trees that were hedging them out. I dismiss the sphere, and a burst of acid erupts from my hand, a deluge of corrosive vitriol that gushes out like a river. The acid eats into the front line of the goblins for a dozen feet, and the whole push of their line is disrupted as hundreds of their fellows melt into a slurry. I wince a bit at the acid, but it has proved the most effective at dealing with the unarmoured goblins. I already threw up once I cast the spell for the first time, but my stomach is empty after hours of fighting, and I feel a bit numb.
I take a bit to breathe as more goblins rush into the gap in their lines to continue pushing us, but their feet start melting as well; the acid has made that section untraversable. A nearby dwarf orders a copse of trees forward, and they march through the acid; this cuts the goblin battleline in half, and the slavering horde starts getting pushed back.
I fly back to the fortress and rest before I have to sortie out again. My magic has been slowly turning the tide; the shamans are too busy duelling with my arch druids and rune smiths to dispel my magic, and the dwarven thanes have been guiding me where to strike for most effect. So far, my attacks have massively reduced the pressure on the front line, and my life shapers have gotten some time to rest more between deployments.
I turn to watch the duel that's taking place between the shamans from my vantage point. The sky overhead is darkening slowly, the nature magic of the druids slowly pushing through nature's wrath into the protective aura of the spider god. Javelins of magically enhanced wood infused with venom and balls of the lightning arc through the skies to crash into the shaman's strong point. The shamans respond by summoning more spiders from their gods' realm, wolf-sized spider swarms trying to climb over the trees as green magic suffuses them to unheard-of heights. Missiles of green magick fly towards us, their corkscrewing patterns reminiscent of fireworks filled with hate and a lust for battle. The rune priests brandish their talisman and rune staves to disrupt the goblin magic structure. Some of their colleagues eat that free-floating energy and redirect them into runic spells that harden the flesh of enchanted trees into iron-hard bark.
I want to interfere with the fight; the weight of my magic might be enough to tip over the balance of the fight, but I control myself; I got to stick to the plan; it can't work if they realise the strength of the magic they face. But it won't be long for now.
The wait is well worth it when the gigantic figure crashes into the spider avatar. A titanic Dawi in full runed armour, his az the size of a tree and his shield a bulwark of metal and wood the size of a castle wall.
The first strike is devastating, my magic propelling his strength to even more than his size would suggest. The blow cleaves the avatar's head in twain; its green ichor spills from the wound in surging rivulets, drawing the shamans underfoot. The magically enchanted axe swings as the remaining shamans turn in horror and let loose a barrage of magic into the dawi. His armour weathering the hits, runes flaring and damning magic and the metal ablating the damage.
The second attack takes down the nearest shamans, and then I am there, the scintillating energy of the dimensional door washing over my mage armour as I cast a scouring spell, white mana shaped into an imitation of a god's wrath. A pillar of castigating holy flames spilt from my hands to sear the goblins from existence.
I teleport us back to the fort as the archdruids bring their wrath, a thousand bolts of lightning crashing amidst their armies as the goblin's morale breaks, the death of their god's avatar driving what courage they had gained and turning it into soul-rending terror.
I cast waves of enchantments through the sympathetic link of life shapers into my armies of animated trees. The spells coil around them like corded muscles made of magic and armour forged from the force; they move faster and hit harder. The tide turns slowly, and then all at once, the goblins route; tens of thousands flee as even more of their comrades are crushed and pulped.
It's a victory for my forces.
So, why do I feel it's hollow. I look over the carnage I have wrought, and I don't think I have the stomach to do it again. Even battle-crazed fanatics like the goblins felt pain as I melted them with acid and crushed them. I can't grow used to this slaughter, or else I fear too many people will die. I will be smarter in the future, more surgical and precise. I could have scouted out the jungle, and it would have ensured the slaughter wasn't even needed.
I nod and make an oath to myself, with the dwarven gods as my witness. I will be better in the future and solve problems in ways that cause the least harm, but I will never shirk what needs to be done.
But I don't think I can deal with this world; the memories of slaughter and being an emotionless sociopath are too strong here. But this world needs help, so I can't leave it alone.
I need some advice, and it's good that I have some advisors now; I am honestly getting lonely.
So after hours of cleaning up and further strengthening the fortification, I am seated at a bed of sculpted moss and carved wood, courtesy of the life shapers after they rested from their marathon defence of the fort.
Their leader is sitting in front of me, the one who proved himself the strongest in the battle and supported his brothers the most. Chosen by a congress as they soaked under the sun in their leshy forms.
He is still wearing that form, a brilliant orchid-based leshy that was half my height, but its body was thrumming with nature magic, a testament to his growth throughout this fight.
He called himself The Flower Blooms in Adversity, but he is happy to be called Bloom for short.
Next, he sits the thane that had planned and executed the alpha strike that allowed us to win the battle. His armour is pockmarked with rents caused by hostile magic, but runesmiths stood ready just waiting for our meeting to finish to repair and enhance it. A guilds moot had elected him the King of Dwarves, which will serve under me, and I had to specifically summon representatives of all the guilds that I had the pattern for, and they had debated for a few hours before electing him for his very impressive dead of killing a demigod in a single blow, no matter how much magic he had been cloaked in.
He called himself Thror, First of his name and Clan, High-King of the Second Chance. That's what the dwarves decided to name their polity, for it was a second chance for the gods to prove themselves to their gods and the world.
The Other Leshys hadn't felt the need to elect a leader for now, for each archdruid and shaman is much more individualistic, for they prefered to wander the wilds and the dream realms by themselves.
"Leaving a foreign goddess right next to the Karak-a-Karaz, a goddess who is callous by your own stories, does not sit well with me. She may shape a new life and command nature, but chaos has corrupted and eaten many a god before her; how are you sure she will survive and be worth anything other than a threat." Thror says while he downs a mug of ale; the brewers came with a barrel when summoned, the beer just as much part of their pattern as the soul.
"I know I can't talk about thinking things through just after what I did, but even my addled self had a good idea. Ewya is a goddess who has ruled her people for millions of years and carries an afterlife with millions of followers. The fact that she is situated in the tree of souls instead of the warp should shield her from the majority of the demons and their god's attention. They will have to get to her the hard way, and we will leave her with plenty of defences when we leave. She carries within her a repository of life forms that can give the strongest beings of this world a run for their money; She should be fine." I say and pet the Thanator as it lay on the bed beside me with affection. It has protected me well, and its future brothers should have a grand old time hunting chaos.
"I remember interacting with her priests; she is not a nice goddess; she is the personification of the wild places. So even though she may be loyal to you due to the nature of her existence as your summon. She will still not value people's lives as you seem to do." Bloom comments as he sips water from a mug and munches on some honey.
"Look, I know it is risky. I know she is a bit untamed and unchallenged in her previous life. But this will be different here. She does not control the entire planet and has many competitors, which she will understand; as you said, she is nature and knows exactly how she could be out-competed." I argue back.
"Look, you asked for our advice, and we gave it to you. It's pretty clear we can't change your mind; at least let us help you minimize the risks." Thror harumphs in anger and slams his mug before continuing "Make her understand the difficulties she will face now and the advantage of an alliance with the civilised races."
"I can see how that will help her bet better and not a scourge." I consider while I stroke the beard that I have just started growing out, I need to live up to a stereotypical image after all. "Yes, that seems wise; we will educate her in the ways of this world and only give her access to life shapers if she agrees to bind herself to the civilised races. The threat of having re-evolve her followers and creatures the slow way should work"
"I know you were based on some of the greatest dwarven thanes; I am in need of your aid and advice." I say to him when he reaches me.
"Aye, I was wondering if you were going to ask for our aid. No offence, umgi, but your plan is the shoddy human work that shames any commander." He brushes his beard with his hand " I owe some of the others some ale now. But let's get down to the forging of a plan."
He paused after saying that and turned to the wall, he gestured for me to accompany him, and I do, walking demurely behind him, I know I am a neonate before his experience, and his skill deserved respect.
He points towards the slavering hordes of goblins and begins speaking.
"The grobi usually outnumber most foes, each grobi may not be worth much but they put ten fighters on the field for everyone that the enemy has fielded. That's what's happening to us right now. A bulk of the goblins in this forest have been driven by their Skaz god to fight us, and so they have come on a holy waaagh. The grobi will fight till death now unless your fear magic overtakes their shamans at least." He says and points out all the forces he has mentioned "So the usual strategy of headhunting their leadership is nonviable. So, what do you think we should do??"
"I see two ways to deal with them, well three if I just unsummon all of you and fly away nut that's a coward's way out" The dwarf nods with a bit more respect at that. "So, we have to either kill the chaff in the way before killing the god's avatar. Or I can use most of my stored mana and cast a massive ritual to burn everything on the field. I don't know the meteor shower spell, but I can compensate with a massive amount of mana to fill in the holes."
"I will be honest with you, Umgi, I was going to suggest you summon more arch druids until they can overcome the aura of the gods, and we can summon more troops. Your unique magic eventually allows us to overcome the enemy's numerical advantage eventually. But I have another plan, something more suited to your kind or maybe some rangers." He considers for a second and continues, "So, tell me you are adept at making creatures stronger and bigger and tougher. Also, tell me about these spells of greater invisibility. How big a thing can you hide."
There is a massive grin on his face as he says it.
I raise a resilient sphere just as the giant foot of gork crashes down on my location; the shockwave from the attack pulps the swarming goblins and the animated trees that were hedging them out. I dismiss the sphere, and a burst of acid erupts from my hand, a deluge of corrosive vitriol that gushes out like a river. The acid eats into the front line of the goblins for a dozen feet, and the whole push of their line is disrupted as hundreds of their fellows melt into a slurry. I wince a bit at the acid, but it has proved the most effective at dealing with the unarmoured goblins. I already threw up once I cast the spell for the first time, but my stomach is empty after hours of fighting, and I feel a bit numb.
I take a bit to breathe as more goblins rush into the gap in their lines to continue pushing us, but their feet start melting as well; the acid has made that section untraversable. A nearby dwarf orders a copse of trees forward, and they march through the acid; this cuts the goblin battleline in half, and the slavering horde starts getting pushed back.
I fly back to the fortress and rest before I have to sortie out again. My magic has been slowly turning the tide; the shamans are too busy duelling with my arch druids and rune smiths to dispel my magic, and the dwarven thanes have been guiding me where to strike for most effect. So far, my attacks have massively reduced the pressure on the front line, and my life shapers have gotten some time to rest more between deployments.
I turn to watch the duel that's taking place between the shamans from my vantage point. The sky overhead is darkening slowly, the nature magic of the druids slowly pushing through nature's wrath into the protective aura of the spider god. Javelins of magically enhanced wood infused with venom and balls of the lightning arc through the skies to crash into the shaman's strong point. The shamans respond by summoning more spiders from their gods' realm, wolf-sized spider swarms trying to climb over the trees as green magic suffuses them to unheard-of heights. Missiles of green magick fly towards us, their corkscrewing patterns reminiscent of fireworks filled with hate and a lust for battle. The rune priests brandish their talisman and rune staves to disrupt the goblin magic structure. Some of their colleagues eat that free-floating energy and redirect them into runic spells that harden the flesh of enchanted trees into iron-hard bark.
I want to interfere with the fight; the weight of my magic might be enough to tip over the balance of the fight, but I control myself; I got to stick to the plan; it can't work if they realise the strength of the magic they face. But it won't be long for now.
The wait is well worth it when the gigantic figure crashes into the spider avatar. A titanic Dawi in full runed armour, his az the size of a tree and his shield a bulwark of metal and wood the size of a castle wall.
The first strike is devastating, my magic propelling his strength to even more than his size would suggest. The blow cleaves the avatar's head in twain; its green ichor spills from the wound in surging rivulets, drawing the shamans underfoot. The magically enchanted axe swings as the remaining shamans turn in horror and let loose a barrage of magic into the dawi. His armour weathering the hits, runes flaring and damning magic and the metal ablating the damage.
The second attack takes down the nearest shamans, and then I am there, the scintillating energy of the dimensional door washing over my mage armour as I cast a scouring spell, white mana shaped into an imitation of a god's wrath. A pillar of castigating holy flames spilt from my hands to sear the goblins from existence.
I teleport us back to the fort as the archdruids bring their wrath, a thousand bolts of lightning crashing amidst their armies as the goblin's morale breaks, the death of their god's avatar driving what courage they had gained and turning it into soul-rending terror.
I cast waves of enchantments through the sympathetic link of life shapers into my armies of animated trees. The spells coil around them like corded muscles made of magic and armour forged from the force; they move faster and hit harder. The tide turns slowly, and then all at once, the goblins route; tens of thousands flee as even more of their comrades are crushed and pulped.
It's a victory for my forces.
So, why do I feel it's hollow. I look over the carnage I have wrought, and I don't think I have the stomach to do it again. Even battle-crazed fanatics like the goblins felt pain as I melted them with acid and crushed them. I can't grow used to this slaughter, or else I fear too many people will die. I will be smarter in the future, more surgical and precise. I could have scouted out the jungle, and it would have ensured the slaughter wasn't even needed.
I nod and make an oath to myself, with the dwarven gods as my witness. I will be better in the future and solve problems in ways that cause the least harm, but I will never shirk what needs to be done.
But I don't think I can deal with this world; the memories of slaughter and being an emotionless sociopath are too strong here. But this world needs help, so I can't leave it alone.
I need some advice, and it's good that I have some advisors now; I am honestly getting lonely.
So after hours of cleaning up and further strengthening the fortification, I am seated at a bed of sculpted moss and carved wood, courtesy of the life shapers after they rested from their marathon defence of the fort.
Their leader is sitting in front of me, the one who proved himself the strongest in the battle and supported his brothers the most. Chosen by a congress as they soaked under the sun in their leshy forms.
He is still wearing that form, a brilliant orchid-based leshy that was half my height, but its body was thrumming with nature magic, a testament to his growth throughout this fight.
He called himself The Flower Blooms in Adversity, but he is happy to be called Bloom for short.
Next, he sits the thane that had planned and executed the alpha strike that allowed us to win the battle. His armour is pockmarked with rents caused by hostile magic, but runesmiths stood ready just waiting for our meeting to finish to repair and enhance it. A guilds moot had elected him the King of Dwarves, which will serve under me, and I had to specifically summon representatives of all the guilds that I had the pattern for, and they had debated for a few hours before electing him for his very impressive dead of killing a demigod in a single blow, no matter how much magic he had been cloaked in.
He called himself Thror, First of his name and Clan, High-King of the Second Chance. That's what the dwarves decided to name their polity, for it was a second chance for the gods to prove themselves to their gods and the world.
The Other Leshys hadn't felt the need to elect a leader for now, for each archdruid and shaman is much more individualistic, for they prefered to wander the wilds and the dream realms by themselves.
"Leaving a foreign goddess right next to the Karak-a-Karaz, a goddess who is callous by your own stories, does not sit well with me. She may shape a new life and command nature, but chaos has corrupted and eaten many a god before her; how are you sure she will survive and be worth anything other than a threat." Thror says while he downs a mug of ale; the brewers came with a barrel when summoned, the beer just as much part of their pattern as the soul.
"I know I can't talk about thinking things through just after what I did, but even my addled self had a good idea. Ewya is a goddess who has ruled her people for millions of years and carries an afterlife with millions of followers. The fact that she is situated in the tree of souls instead of the warp should shield her from the majority of the demons and their god's attention. They will have to get to her the hard way, and we will leave her with plenty of defences when we leave. She carries within her a repository of life forms that can give the strongest beings of this world a run for their money; She should be fine." I say and pet the Thanator as it lay on the bed beside me with affection. It has protected me well, and its future brothers should have a grand old time hunting chaos.
"I remember interacting with her priests; she is not a nice goddess; she is the personification of the wild places. So even though she may be loyal to you due to the nature of her existence as your summon. She will still not value people's lives as you seem to do." Bloom comments as he sips water from a mug and munches on some honey.
"Look, I know it is risky. I know she is a bit untamed and unchallenged in her previous life. But this will be different here. She does not control the entire planet and has many competitors, which she will understand; as you said, she is nature and knows exactly how she could be out-competed." I argue back.
"Look, you asked for our advice, and we gave it to you. It's pretty clear we can't change your mind; at least let us help you minimize the risks." Thror harumphs in anger and slams his mug before continuing "Make her understand the difficulties she will face now and the advantage of an alliance with the civilised races."
"I can see how that will help her bet better and not a scourge." I consider while I stroke the beard that I have just started growing out, I need to live up to a stereotypical image after all. "Yes, that seems wise; we will educate her in the ways of this world and only give her access to life shapers if she agrees to bind herself to the civilised races. The threat of having re-evolve her followers and creatures the slow way should work"
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