Chapter 2: Archmage in a New World

Arthur awakened to the songs of birds.

It was confusing going from unconscious to awake. His body hurt in many places, so many that he believed he may have been out cold for days or weeks. His mouth tasted like copper and ash. And every muscle complained when he tried to get up.

He was lying on top of grass. That was the first tangible detail that his brain could comprehend. Grass, not the stone floor of his laboratory. Trees overhead cast dappled sunlight through leaves that Arthur did not recognize. The air smelled wrong, or at least, the air smelled right in a way that made him realize that the smell of chalk dust and Resonance Anchor ozone had always dominated the air inside his laboratory.

This was clean air. Forest air. Air that had never smelled of human civilization.

Arthur looked down to find his robes were ripped and stained with blood. His blood, he noted clinically. The nosebleed clearly had been pretty enthusiastic.

That wasn’t even his main concern.

Where was he?

But more importantly, what had happened to his Cadence?

Arthur took a cautious breath and attempted Attunement. His awareness spread gradually and hesitantly, but it did expand. Relief swept over him. His Cadence was severely damaged, but it was still functioning. He could still sense the Harmonics. He could still attempt to access them if needed.

However, the damage was significant. He could feel the scarring, scars that would take years to fully heal. He estimated he was now operating at around 600 points, half of what he had previously.

Years of careful refinement of his Cadence, destroyed in a single catastrophic failure.

The truly disturbing revelation occurred when he attempted to sense the surrounding area via Attunement. He had expected to locate the normal patterns of Harmonic resonance throughout the surrounding area. Ember located near volcanic activity, Torrent near oceans, Bedrock in mountainous areas.

Instead, he found all seven Harmonics present in the area simultaneously at extremely high levels.

Arthur's eyes snapped open. That was impossible. Harmonics didn’t simply exist freely in the ambient environment. They could only be found at specific locations and could only be accessed through precise Attunement and Synchronization. You could not simply walk outside and find all seven Harmonics existing simultaneously in the air.

Except here, apparently, you could.

He stumbled to his feet, struggling with dizziness.

The current Dissonance levels were approximately 3200 points, which should have resulted in instant death due to his reduced threshold. However, it appeared the damage to his Cadence had also altered the rate at which he accumulated Dissonance. His body was slowly processing the excess Dissonance, however, it would likely take hours to dissipate completely.

Arthur examined the area more closely. Dense forest existed in every direction.

There was no evidence of his laboratory or the Symphonic Spire.

There was no evidence of humanity at all.

The Void Anchor had created a tear in the dimensional space. He had hypothesized that it was theoretically possible to create tears in parallel realities if you possessed sufficient power and lost sufficient control, because the Void Harmonic's existence as pure negation allowed for it.

Turns out he had been correct. He had also been catastrophically reckless.

He hated admitting it, but the Resonance Council was correct to forbid his experiment.

Arthur patted his robes to assess the contents of his belt pouches.

The pouches had remained securely attached to his waistband throughout the world-walking and contained some basic items: Flint and Steel, a small bag of dried rations, several water purification tablets, and a journal that he kept in an inner pocket.The journal's leather binding was water-stained, but otherwise intact. The stylus that he used for writing in the journal was still secured to his robe collar.

As for everything else: his laboratory, his research, two years' worth of calculations, and all seven Resonance Anchors were gone.

Given that the Anchors were the source of the dimensional tear that had brought him here, he had no method of recreating the event. He had no method of reversing it. Which meant he was stranded here. Wherever "here" was.

As soon as he realized this, the scholarly part of his mind, the part that had led him into this predicament in the first place, began to list the observations he had made.

Seven Harmonics present simultaneously in the ambient environment. Frequency values were slightly different than those he had seen in his previous experiments. Alternate tuning of the Prime Voice. Implications for...

He cut the thought off. The implications for his ability to survive were greater than the implications for the theoretical Resonance physics.

First priority: he needed to stabilize his condition.

The lingering Dissonance was causing confusion in his thinking, and he had to assess the damage to his Cadence.

Arthur spotted a fallen log and sat down. He then cautiously opened himself to Attunement once again. All seven Harmonics existed in his awareness, and they were blazing brightly. He reached for Ember, the Harmonic he was most familiar with, and attempted Surface Synchronization.

The connection was easier than he had anticipated.

With the Harmonics so highly concentrated in the ambient environment, achieving synchronization was significantly simpler than it had been back in the world he had left. That was...interesting. That was potentially very valuable.

Back in his world, learning to perform advanced Synchronization techniques was often dependent upon traveling to sites specifically designed to contain a higher concentration of Harmonics or requisitioning Anchors at great expense.

Here, it appeared, he could perform Synchronization with any Harmonic, regardless of location.

That was a life-changing advantage.

Well, only if he survived long enough to take exploit it.

Arthur released Ember and reached for Vitae, attempting a diagnostic technique that he had studied in his second year at the Academy.

Vitae responded quickly and allowed him to assess his physical condition. He was fatigued beyond measure, dehydrated, and sustained several minor internal injuries from the Dissonance backlash. None of these issues posed an immediate threat to his life. His Cadence showed signs of significant damage: scarring that would take years to repair, diminished capacity, and slower rates of recovery.

However, he could continue to utilize Resonance techniques.

He was still a functioning practitioner.

Just significantly weaker one than he had been twelve hours ago.

Arthur spent the next hour performing basic stabilization techniques using shallow Synchronization with Vitae and Torrent to speed up his body's natural healing processes.

The Dissonance decreased rapidly, eventually reaching the point that it was no longer life-threatening, it only felt uncomfortable. By the time the afternoon sun had moved notably toward the west, he was down to approximately 400 points, which was still pretty high, but manageable.

Arthur turned and looked around more carefully at his new surroundings.

The forest continued on indefinitely in every direction. However, there was a gentle decline to the west. Water flowed downhill. Settlements were usually built near sources of water. If there was a civilization anywhere in this world, following the slope would be his best chance to discover it.

Of course, there may not be settlements.

This could be an uninhabited world, or one in which humans have never evolved, or one in which humans went extinct thousands of years ago. That would be disappointing.

He started walking, keeping passive Attunement active to remain aware of his surroundings. The enhanced awareness allowed him to perceive heat signatures, air currents, and vibrations in the ground. There was nothing immediately hazardous. Simply forest, sunlight, and an overwhelming feeling of isolation.

After fifteen minutes of careful travel through the dense underbrush, Arthur became aware of something. A spike in local Dissonance readings. He froze and extended his awareness.

That was not possible. Dissonance does not radiate. Dissonance is an internal phenomenon, a result of the cumulative cost of Synchronization that builds within a practitioner's Cadence. It cannot be detected at range.

But despite knowing this, he felt something ahead of him creating Dissonance. Or something very similar to it, in quantities large enough to affect the ambient Harmonics.

Arthur heard shouting. Human voices. Speaking a language he did not recognize. Then animal sounds. Guttural growls, certainly not friendly. The sound of something crashing through the underbrush at a frantic pace.

He should avoid becoming involved in this mess. He was injured. Weakened. In an alien world with rules that were unfamiliar. Becoming entangled in an incident he did not understand would be incredibly foolish.

Arthur moved stealthily, utilizing shallow Synchronization with Prismatic to bend the light around him. The technique would not render him invisible, but it would make him easily overlooked. Two years of conducting illicit experiments, and two years of dodging the Resonance Council, had prepared him to be extremely difficult to notice.

He reached the edge of a road. a genuine dirt road, and cautiously surveyed the chaos unfolding before him.

A wagon careened along the road, pulled by two panicked draft animals. Supplies spilled from the bed of the wagon. The driver, a rotund individual wearing gaudy robes, shouted at the top of his lungs as he clutched the reins. Chasing him were two creatures that made Arthur's mind immediately start cataloging details while his survival instincts screamed warnings.

They resembled tigers but were approximately the size of bears. Their fur emitted energy that Arthur's Cadence interpreted as weaponized Dissonance. That was impossible, based on every established principle of Resonance theory, yet Arthur was beginning to accept that "impossible" may not carry the same weight in this world.

Their bodies radiated Dissonance as if they were not simply employing it, but actually producing it. Channeling it. Enhancing themselves with it. Their muscles quivered with unnatural strength. Their eyes glowed. As they growled, the sound vibrated with overtones that made Arthur's Cadence shudder unpleasantly.

Spirit Beasts. The term arose in his mind without prompting, perhaps drawn from some form of ambient knowledge that resided in this world's Harmonic frequencies? Perhaps it was related to the visions that he experienced during his failed experiment? Arthur had no idea, but the name fit what he saw.

The wagon crashed into a deep rut.

The axle snapped.

The entire wagon tipped sideways, sending the driver tumbling to the road.

The draft animals broke free and ran, showing more sence than their former master.

The driver leapt to his feet and tried to flee.

The Spirit Beasts trailed behind the fleeing driver with a casual, almost lazy, gait.

They knew he could not escape.

Arthur observed from his concealed position. The wise course of action was to do nothing. He was wounded. Alone. He had no real understanding of the level of threat represented by the Spirit Beasts.

The man was already dead. Interfering would be suicidal.

But Arthur couldn’t just watch someone die.