[Warpworld] Ch 37 – The Moonpit

« Chapter 36 | Index | Chapter 38 »

            We tracked past a lot of hill and mountain-sized buildings, edifices, monoliths, and utter ruins, including what looked like an orbital elevator, extending clear to the horizon in broken chunks we moved past and through. Explaining that it was a way to ride directly up into the sky and in orbit around the planet without flying kind of blew the mind of the elves and saurids, who were definitely picturing stairways to Heaven and stuff. They had no idea of the importance of satellites and their usefulness, only the Warped Moon that was probably threatening to come back down.

            Everywhere we went, some things spontaneously crumbled down, while others gleamed as if just polished. We did glide past hovercraft earthmovers capable of hauling around small cities, piloted by titans if the size was any indicator, now plowed into the ground with their power cores blown out and sections melted and slagged into ruin and rust. The Warp Storm howled and yet was still pushed back, creating eerie misty silences for these great ruins to come looming out of, the works of the Creators watching as we floated on past on a pile of floating rocks.

            Well, whatever it takes to get the job done, I mused, impressed by the resilience of their technology. It was just so damn tough and so grounded in reality’s laws that the Warp had a tough time trying to mutate and degrade it, defied by the pure excellence and fundamental nature of things so exquisitely wound up with the highest secrets of the universe.

            “Master Aelryinth, your Pyramid… it is turning white.”

            I turned part way around as Master Artlis gestured towards the top of the place, where the altar under where the tornado of solid vivus was pouring down in a nearly-liquid stream of the stuff and being vented in unseen jets beneath us, injected deep into the long-suffering Land like a cool balm on diseased skin, burning away the rot and restoring the needed flavor.

            “The leakage from the Vivic Funnel is crystallizing and purifying the base stone I worked with to make this hunk of rocks. It will slowly spread just based on the volume of energy it is processing, nothing to worry about.”

            Which it wasn’t, truly. The relieved elf nodded as he sat down next to me.

            I didn’t mind talking with him, as long as he talked, too. I particularly liked hearing about the history of his people, which was needlessly complex and stupidly emotional at times, to which he just laughed and agreed. A people whose leaders lived for millennia had difficult times changing and evolving, and the competition for higher places in society could get quite intense… like the throne itself.

            The Dark Elves, such as they were, were following what was ostensibly the royal heir from the previous generation’s monarch, backed by his mother the former queen, a mighty spellcaster whose desire to see her son inherit the Phoenix Throne had led her down some very dark paths, indeed.

            Master Artlis was also a very critical and observant examiner of human behavior and history, having lived hundreds of years, had frequent contact with humans of high social status, and refined human magical traditions to help lead them away from the Warp Gods. The scrappy ability of humans to survive despite the many tribulations laid upon them still quietly impressed him, as they hadn’t inherited any great knowledge of their own to lean on… although their findings in science and alchemy was starting to rival or eclipse that of the dwarves.

            I’d not been startled to find the historical rivals to the elves also existed here, wondering if Tolkien was prescient or tapping into a universal paradigm with how often one side popped up with the other one right there.

            “Do you seek anything specific here the Creators may have left behind?” Master Artlis asked. I noted his Arcane Phoenix, and the Fire and Ice Phoenixes of his troop, tended to inch their way nearer to me if I remained anywhere long.

            Likewise, wherever Feature was coiled up, the dragons of the elven riders under Master Sethanon soon were lounging around underneath his poised and unmoving, regal form, for all that he was likely centuries younger than any of them.

            “Not particularly. The materials are great finds, but the technology operates at scales that are useless to actually comprehend.” I pointed at a great spire looming in the distance, extending up beyond sight and lost in the Warp, but on the ground was a toppled ruin that extended at least four miles. “That’s like a control modulator for the magnetosphere, aligning it into a power source for their Portal, judging by the magnetics I can see writhing around it.

            “Just look at the scale of the thing, yet they probably constructed it with little more time and effort than you and I would put into making a decent compass. What you and I call great works of mighty magic they probably considered Cantrips and minor spells, completely ignoring the foundation all their stuff is built on after all this time. While it is potentially something to aspire to, the resources and knowledge base required to make something like that is simply too far beyond either of us.

            “I imagine they got together in a big circle and spun it into being in a day or two.”

            Master Artlis sighed as his golden eyes followed the spire extending up out of sight of the Warpeater Pyramid’s domain into the storm and whiteness above, then his gaze dropped down to the fallen top of the thing in the distance, a stark counterpoint. “And even such greatness came to ruin.” He shook his head.

            “One of the reasons to have gods and serve gods is to keep a sense of perspective and scale. Once you think you are the equal of gods, well, then you have to be able to deal with things the real gods deal with, and you might say that’s a little difficult for finite beings.”

            “As our surroundings prove so well.” He frowned as he looked at the churning, warring energies of viscous and vicious Warp energies engaged in a feeding contest with the vivus being generated by the Warpeater Pyramid in front of us. “How close do you think we are?”

            “Ten miles to approximately where magnetic north was back when all this happened. Given the size of the Warp Moon up there, we should hit the edge of its pit around then.”

            “If the turtles do not beat us there first, and send you home in shame?” he asked lightly.

            “To face the sloths there? No, no, I will be continuing on even if I lose the race!” I beat my chest in stalwart determination. We watched more nitzl saurids sprinting ahead of us on their hands, tails providing counterbalance as they raced back and forth on the sides and in front of us.

            “Could the Creators have left ancient defenses, traps for us?” he wondered.

            “I discount nothing absolutely, but I doubt it highly. The Vivic Domain of the Pyramid is actually restoring reality in this area, reversing any perversion that might have occurred due to the Warp. Any systems able to sense us will also note we are the center of the reality-restoration, and thus paint us as ‘friendly’. Also, do not forget you and the saurids are both recognized servant races of the Creators. It is serendipitous that you are along for the ride, even if the nature of the magic I am using here is native to neither of you.”

            His golden eyes flashed in appreciation. “You anticipated we might be useful that way, so you allowed us along, even though you did not truly need us.”

            “I estimate the odds are under a percent, but it was harmless to do so,” I acknowledged with a slight smile. “You don’t weigh enough to slow the Pyramid down appreciably.”

            His short, sharp laugh was unfeigned. “And when we do get there?”

            “We shall see at that time. But if you thought we were moving slowly now, just wait!” I half-grinned, and the elf just shook his head and sat back patiently.

--------

            Ten miles, five hours. It was almost an eyeblink, but the tenor, the sound of the Warp ahead of and around us, had changed.

            Everyone noticed it was brighter ahead, like detonations of energy were taking place in the Warp before us. Furthermore, the Domain was being pushed back, pushed in, and I was letting it do so, the rumbling of the contact points like weird, sussurant thunder in the air as I condensed the feeding size of the Domain down to absolute protection and intensity step by step.

            Ahead of us, the ground vanished, and all was Chaos.

            I stopped the Pyramid a hundred paces from that gaping edge. The edge of the Domain field was a mere quarter-mile radius at this, but despite the smaller size and less contact area, the whirlwind funnel from above was now basically a waterfall, so primal and furious was the energy being consumed.

            I headed down to walk on foot, Feature gliding just above the ground next to me, the elves and saurid officers pacing me, as did the more curious of the dragons and phoenixes.

            It was sheer and smooth, impossibly so, a layer of reality just severed and scooped away, the absolute boundary between a mortal realm and something beyond. Even looking at the swirls of energy down there could have been maddening, except vivus was dancing over everything, and we could literally see the revealed stone and ice crystallizing, roughening, even growing as it was painted white, little eruptions of gemlike crystalline protrusions jutting forth suddenly in organic proliferation, like the stone was in flowering season, or something.

            Ahead of us was seething madness hidden by devouring unwhite mists, extending off into nowhere.

            Literally. I looked at the path Burned through it by two Ranthas, extending out of nowhere to our world, seemingly disguised by the Warp itself, but proving one great thing.

            The Warp was anything but absolute here.

            I bent down to examine the edge more closely, ignoring the way a host of glittering quartz crystals erupted under my fingertips, growing out rapidly as they did.

            “It is closing,” I reported to everyone listening, bipeds and beasts alike. “It should actually be visibly extending out into the Warp in front of us, reforging reality out of the Warp and pressing it back. But the Warp is forcing the growth out to the sides, dispersing it around the circle so it is almost imperceptible. Perhaps an inch an hour.”

            “You were not joking when you said our progress would slow!” Master Artlis remarked. “That is indeed very slow, although it is still progress. How long will we be at this, then?”

            At the very least, he was not considering leaving out of hand, probably because I didn’t look worried in the slightest. Instead, I looked darkly amused.

            “It’s fine. The rate will double every day at Renewal.” I got up, dusting off my fingertips, even as more crystals erupted along the facing of the pit that dropped away into emptiness in front of us, basically a horizontal Gate upon the face of the Land. “The crystals are materializations of Reality fighting back against this wound. Every day at Dawn, the weight of the world behind us will press in harder than before. The Warp is using this method instead of allowing a bulge to buy time, as the perfect sphere minimizes the area they have to expend energy on.”

            “How big is the Rift?” Artlis asked alertly, looking right and left.

            “Judging by the arc, I’d say a radius of approximately 16.2 miles.”

            The two elves shared a look that I was able to deduce that without actually measuring. “Six days to a pace. Ten more days to a thousand paces. Two thousand, four thousand, eight thousand paces... twenty days, top?”

            “Well, that’s assuming we sit here and do absolutely nothing but wait, and that would be kind of stupid, wouldn’t it?” The flames and sparks on my Helm were twinkling now. “Nothing says we can’t do some idle things like, oh, Portal-Sealing Rituals, or Interdictions, or Abjurations to disrupt planar boundaries, or just plain introducing a whole lot of violent reality to the edges and really disrupting what they are trying to do, right?”

« Chapter 36 | Index | Chapter 38 »