Chapter 257 - Shooting for the Moon

Late in the month of Merisheth, Mirian finished her calculations. She double checked her numbers, comparing them to Sio Jherica’s, then against Song Jei’s calculations.

She frowned. Even with all the extra time they would be getting from the Jidanzhi Gate being open, it seemed unlikely they would be able to construct something of the scale they needed.

Jei looked over her shoulder. “This is significantly larger than those other designs you showed me.”

“Yes. I hadn’t accounted for how much mass the Mausoleum was adding.” It had taken her two weeks to finish mapping out and measuring the inside of it.

“What will the other Prophets think?”

“Gabriel, Ibrahim, and Luan will say it’s impossible. I’m already assuming Xecatl’s research on spirit constructs will allow us to grow part of the device. Zhuan… I don’t know.”

“She’ll try,” Jei said.

Mirian nodded. “Based on leyline stability, we only have a few days left this cycle. We’ll make it into the month of Berosan, but the Torrviol link isn’t the most efficient one. Not because the Jiandzhi is saturated, but because the Gate can only move so much energy, and too much has flowed south of us. I’ve already come up with a more efficient scheme, but I’m done with research this cycle. I’d like you to report back to Zhuan.”

Jei turned red.

Mirian looked at her. “Did she ask you to spy on me? So you already reported back.”

Jei swallowed. “I was… put in a difficult position.”

“No doubt.” Mirian didn’t see it as a betrayal, but an opportunity. “Should I trust Zhuan Li?”

“As best I can tell, yes,” her old math professor said.

“Then there’s no issue. Tell her what you will about me. I’ll fly us from the Gate to Benansuo.” Besides, it wasn’t purely benevolence. She’d had Gaius watching Zhuan and Gabriel, and needed to talk with him before the cycle ended.

“…You aren’t going to ask what I’m going to tell her?”

“No,” Mirian said. “I know you will tell her the truth, and truth is what I value. Prepare what you need. I need to finish memorizing some notes, then we’ll depart.”

***

In Benansuo, Mirian dropped Jei off in the palace. Gaius found her quickly enough, and brought her back to his quarters. They made sure his wards were secure, checked for eavesdroppers, looked for soul traces, then created a zone of silence before talking.

“Zhuan spent most of her time thwarting an Akanan coup attempt. She asked I not interfere so that her ‘experiment’ was more rigorous. Gabriel, to his credit, seems to have been helping her, even if they did have about twenty arguments about politics. But he did what he said he would, and talked with just about every important person he could get in the same room with. Both of them are developing long-term strategies that will be useful in future cycles.”

“Nothing unexpected, then.”

Gaius nodded. “Zhuan also spent a great deal of time surveying the productive capacities of factories and seeing how fast they could be retooled, as well as sending letters to Saising. She had me visit the city and do an ‘observational survey.’ I obliged.”

“I told her my estimations for the leyline regulator though the dream. Presumably, she figured out Benansuo alone won’t be able to build what we need, and is looking to cement a larger area of control. Now, we have the time to think bigger.”

“A reasonable assessment.” Gaius smiled at her, then couldn’t hold back. He drew her into a hug. “Naluri, you’ve grown so much. She’d be proud. She’d be so proud of you.”

***

Moonfall occurred three days after the end of Merisheth. Mirian immediately sent out letters asking the Prophets to convene on an island in the Tlaxhuacan archipelago for another Council for the following cycle, loop 242. Then she set about connecting Gates in a new configuration.

Energy was primarily moving from Akana Praediar eastward, then moved southeast towards Mayat Shadr. The longer she could delay the saturation of that region and the leyline eruptions, the better. Palendurio, she connected to the Jiandzhi Gate, using the Torrviol Gate to jump down to the jungle, then emerge from the cavern below Palendurio with her drilling spell. There, she left instructions for Zhuan on how to leave the Palendurio cavern without flooding the whole thing in case the Zhighuan Prophet felt like exploring.

Next, she flew back up to Torrviol and connected its Gate to Mahatan. That would allow leyline energy that bypassed the Palendurio Gate to flow back up north, giving it both another chance to be caught and sent south to the leyline void in Zhighua. That would also balance out the flows, so that instead of a strong leyline force hitting the northwest side of Mayat Shadr with nothing to counter it, there’d instead be a strong southeastern force.

That left the Alkazaria Gate unpaired. Hopefully, Xecatl would find the theorized Tlaxhuacan Gate soon.

With that done and leyline detectors set up to map out the flows, that left Mirian several uninterrupted months to work on her prototype. For a month, she worked on fabrication, which involved heading down to Palendurio to access the myrvites in the Jiandzhi so she could turn their souls into mythril. This gave her less than she needed for the final design, but enough to test the proof of concept. Then, she needed to test the Elder relics she was planning to incorporate.

And, she still needed more relicarium.

That meant plunging back into the Labyrinth.

She already knew she could retrieve the cube of relicarium in the depths of the Torrviol Labyrinth. She knew Gabriel had discovered a cube in the fourth level Vault near Urubandar. There was a second entrance further north of Urubandar, as well as another entrace just east of Alatishad, both of which Gabriel had only half-assedly explored, so she Gated down to Mahatan and flew southeast.

Gabriel’s description of the area wasn’t perfect, but a few divination spells narrowed down the location. The first three levels were barren of anything useful. The fourth level contained two different econodes, both containing creatures and plants she’d never seen before. One had rainbow colored birds that were too large to fly, more lizard-like than most avians she’d seen. Another had strange creatures made of root-like appendages. Selkus Viridian would have been fascinated by them, but Mirian could see no use for the odd organisms, so she moved on.

She found a Vault entrance on the fifth level, then another on the sixth. When a swarm of centicerators attempted to surround her on the seventh level, she retreated, then began working on the Vaults.

The Vault on the sixth level had another cube of relicarium. The one on the fifth level didn’t. She noted it down in her soulbound book, collected the Elder relics for study, then flew on to Urubandar.

Mirian was relieved to see the Vault Gabriel had discovered still had its relicarium intact. She also discovered another Vault some three miles away from the entrance on the sixth level. This one had two of the cubes, the tantalizing liquid swirling in violet and orange.

As the month of Merisheth turned to Berosan, Mirian continued her exploration, heading to the northern Labyrinth. She discovered yet another Vault on the fourth level. This one had an antimagic area, but her practice in the Frostland’s Vault and her training with Ibrahim let her make short work of the swarm of labyrinthine horrors that attacked her. As Berosan turned to Nerevain, Mirian finished opening the Vault and found one more container of relicarium. 

That gave her six cubes of relicarium to work with. She only needed five for the current design. That could let me keep the one beneath Torrviol in reserve, she thought. None of the other Prophets knew about that entrance.

Mirian made her way back up to Torrviol, stopping first in Palendurio and using the Gate to check her leyline readings. She ignored the political situation in the First Capital, which had devolved into a full-blown civil war. She could deal with it all some other cycle. Instead, she resumed testing the parts of her prototype regulator armor that incorporated Elder relics, while investigating the other unknown devices she’d found in the Labyrinth. By now, the work was rote.

Liuan Var had sent her a letter complaining about the location of the Council. No one else cared much. Mirian reiterated that Xecatl had a legitimate concern of being attacked if she passed through Akana, unless Liuan had, perhaps, finished dealing with Scebur?

She apparently hadn’t.

Zhuan was able to assure Mirian that she’d found enough focuses to bring for everyone. She was taking notes on Baracueli politics with great fervor. Gabriel seemed to be taking the extra time to relax, and Ibrahim was likely still in contemplation. Xecatl was able to relay a message through Jherica that they’d both received the instructions for the Council.

As the month of Nerevain turned to Plenith, large parts of Baracuel were engulfed in war, but Mirian ignored it. Instead, she took a break from her research to experience the first Spring she’d seen in two decades. One afternoon, she found herself drifting through a field of flowers, an extended hand gently brushing the petals, thinking, this place….

For years, she had told herself that there was a way to save Enteria. 

Now, as she watched flowers bloom across Baracuel, she was beginning to believe it.

Then, the ground shook, and she saw a leyline burst up several miles off. Her data implied the end would come soon.

She took the Gate down to Mahatan and set off east.

***

Plan 1 - Interception prior to descent

Getting a modified Baracueli airship skiff transported across the continent had taken a bit of doing, but she’d set up the delivery long before the chaotic mess of the recent months. However, when Mirian arrived at Mayat Shadr, it still hadn’t been fully reassembled from the crates it had been packed in. Mirian had assumed several months to move the smuggled device would be enough, but she’d clearly grown detached from how long it took ordinary people to move around or assemble devices.

There was no point scolding a bunch of incompetent artificers who didn’t know their ass from a mana conduit, so she simply took command of the situation, either directing her hired artificers to fix mistakes or doing it herself. By then, the leyline eruptions were occurring every hour, but the fortifications she’d hired another team to build in the ruins were holding. Even though she knew why the team was losing their nerve, she found herself annoyed at them. It was a single doomed path on the fields of time—nothing to worry about. However, explaining to them that they’d died hundreds of times already and only now were they helping her actually solve the apocalypse did little to assuage them.

Three hours before she expected moonfall to occur, Mirian took off in the skiff, the spell engines modified to quintuple the anti-gravity spell, sacrificing any ability to guide the airship for more power to its gravity repulsion.

A moment after hitting the glyph on the spell engine, she felt intense pressure as the ship accelerated, and blacked out.

She came to a moment later, already gasping for breath as the frigid air shocked her out of unconsciousness. Mirian embraced the Lone Pine stance, then stumbled over to the controls to lessen the acceleration. The atmosphere had thinned far faster than she’d anticipated, and she felt pain stabbing through her body as she continued to have trouble breathing. Quickly, she cast warmth and gather air, forming a thick bubble around herself. She sucked in a desperate breath, then steadied herself on the control panel of the skiff. Below, another leyline burst from the desert. A moment later, the skiff shook. Mirian hit glyphs to stabilize it.

She could feel the ship creaking beneath her feet. A chunk of the hull fell off, spiraling down. Then a piece of railing.

The skiff was shaking itself apart.

Mirian used force skein to put firm pressure on the ship, estimating that holding the ship together was still more efficient than beginning her new levitation spell. She looked down.

The world looked so different. From up high, the world flattened, the mountains not seeming so tall. The desert blurred, like the indistinct brush strokes of a painting. Cities became small blotches of color; there were no people or animals to be seen at all.

She looked up. The light of Divir was brighter now, but it was still so far away.

Mirian grimaced, feeling more pressure on her air bubble as it tried to escape her spell. She glanced down at the fossilized myrvite reserves. The dial was moving, spinning counter-clockwise. One eighth. One sixteenth. She wasn’t as high as she’d calculated.

Below, another leyline erupted, flickering like distant lightning. The only sound she could hear was the airship rattling apart.

Empty.

Mirian cast supreme levitation, and the skiff fell away below her as she rocketed up.

Mirian found that the specialized anti-gravity spell didn’t have as much force as she’d hoped. Something about the distance from the planet had weakened it. She flipped a page in her spellbook, using force glyphs to add to the spell.

As she rose higher, she gasped, watching as the atmosphere faded into a backdrop of stars.

But Divir was still so small, so far away.

Below, there were more bright flashes. By her initial estimation, she’d calculated she had another hour or so before the moon began to move, but now she could see it was starting to tilt slightly, drifting into a new position. She cursed as she realized it wasn’t directly above her anymore—something had knocked her off course too.

There was no avoiding it. She needed more power for her spell.

Mirian gritted her teeth and switched stances from Lone Pine to Burning Tempest. By now, it wasn’t acceleration she needed to worry about, but the massive amount of auric mana she was churning through. She poured more and more into her spell, but she was still moving too slowly. She felt the burn of it as the torrents of mana spun across the surface of her soul, moving like lines of fire.

Something was wrong. She still had enough auric mana, but the spell was getting harder and harder to hold. She’d done the math, and she should be able to reach Divir, even given the problems with the skiff. It was hard to tell, so distant from everything, but the pressure of the acceleration didn’t feel like as much as it should. She was straining to maintain the mana flows—straining even to control them.

She saw the harsh glare of the unfiltered sun, and the endless veil of stars beyond. Below, Enteria seemed not to be moving. Above, Divir taunted her. 

It was still so far, that circle of dark rock glittering in the light.

She reached for it, then shuddered as her spell gutted out. The feeling was alien to her—she hadn’t had a spell fail like that in years. The mana had been torn away, like there was a scouring wind ripping it from her. The bubble of air she’d been breathing dissipated. A chill settled over her, though not as biting and harsh as she’d expected. Mirian floated there, holding her breath, watching the moon. Too far. It was still too far.

She knocked her temporal anchor against her soul and reset the loop.

Notes: Rapid acceleration can cause blackouts. Design flaws in skiff. Insufficient ability to sustain high intensity spells for duration needed. Suspect magical anomaly with Divir. Related to its suspension by the leylines?

Plan 1 Result: Failure.