[Warpworld] Ch 5 – Some Final Words to the Freed

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            This could perpetuate misunderstandings again. What did it cost for me to talk to them and at least set some of their fears at ease?

            Again, that wisp of conflict seemed to hiss and jerk in my thoughts, caught again. I took another deep breath, shaking my head.

            Astral Ward at V+4, and that effect was still sneaking in with just the tiniest suggestions of pride, power, and distrust, mixed in with urgency in resolving this problem and belief that I was the only one who could do it. Ignore politeness, wave away a friendly exchange of information, just focus on getting the job done and don’t worry about these primitives.

            I sighed as Feature looked at me.

            “This place has some nasty subtle effects woven into it to stir up dissension and unrest, Feature.” I reached out, pulled him in, and put my head to his scaly skull. “I suspect it’s going to start working on our relationship, too, especially if you get further away from me, and all the thoughts will seem like your own, too.”

            Feature hissed softly, picturing that kind of thing. I had given him lots of time to consider our relationship and going free, and he had spent a lot of time in thought and meditation over it.

            He was here because he wanted to be!

            “I’m going to have to add Protection from Chaos to my Perma-buffs,” I mused, shaking my head, “so stay close so I can share them with you.”

            -Yes,- he nodded, as I swung up onto his head.

            “Let’s go see those elves over there and reassure them that nothing horrendous has happened.”

---

            The elves trapped inside the Vortex for all that time were visibly (to me) more powerful than any of the elves who’d tried to accost me. They all watched as Feature came gliding across the broken ground and chasms between us, undulating softly, more serpentine than dragon as he flew. Their wary expressions said it all as he came gliding in just a foot above the Waystone’s black surface, and halted precisely to hover ten yards away from them so I could step down, all jet and silver Goodness, that was him.

            Hah, all of them were still taller than me, and most of them wore those idiotic high caps, too.

            It was easy to see who was in charge; a tall, dark-haired warrior-mage with piercing eyes and the most robust magical Aura of the lot of them, albeit chased by a lot of shadows after being trapped inside a spell of his own making for the past few millennia. I straightened up, bowed to him formally, and introduced myself.

“I am Aelryinth of Terra-Luna, Human, Magos, Heavenbound, and Ringlord, Monarch of The Steel and over ten million citizens who have given me their Oaths, and that is Truth,” I recited for him, and watched his slanted eyes pop a bit at the hints of the watered-down Word. “May I ask who I am addressing?”

I had him wrongfooted, especially given what he had just stepped out of. I gathered the last thing he was expecting to see was a human riding a serpentine dragon, so he just shook his head in bemusement, taking the situation for what it was. “I am Sethanon Dragonspeaker,” he replied, also in Draconic, “High Wizard and former High Master of the great White Tower of Sindalphin. I understand I and my comrades have you to thank for our freedom?”

There were many uneven notes in his voice. I moved to address them.

“Banish your fears that the work you sacrificed so much time and will towards has been undone,” I replied calmly, his emerald eyes flickering at my insight. “The Vortex spell you wrought was crude but effective for the time it lasted, but its time was rapidly approaching. I managed to use your Ritual to bootstrap a somewhat more elegant situation into place that does not place the same level of stress upon the Waystones that support the Formation you used.”

The sheer novelty of a barbaric human calling their magic ‘crude but effective’ had them all staring at me as if I’d grown an extra TWO heads. They also really wanted to find fault with my ‘elegant solution’. Perhaps it was too simple, too easy?

“The key to this particular solution was the vivic fire making it fairly painless to implement. Without it, I would have had to have gotten much more, ah, inventive in how to purify the incoming Mana, as opposed to you just venting it and feeding that Mana Moon up above.”

All the elves turned to look at the greenish-white ghoul-rock winding its way across the sky. “The Chaos Moon was being fed by the Vortex?” Lord Sethanon repeated slowly.

“Slowly but surely, just as the flow of Twisted Mana was just as inexorably weakening these Waystones about us as it passed through them. After studying the two effects, I deemed it best to stop feeding that Moon and arrest the decay of the Waystones. Removing the harmful elements of the Mana and feeding them back into the Land to buttress it, instead of corrupt it, seemed the best path forward.” I indicated the falling umbrella of vivus all around us. “As I told your descendants here, you should see grass growing in areas within a day, and this island will likely be covered in green within a week, with trees rising along the shores in a month.”

“May I see the magic you used to alter the Formation, Master Aelryinth?” Lord Sethanon asked warily, taking no chances with a fellow dragon-tamer, such as it were. I was watching all of them like a hawk, of course, aware they might succumb to the lure of creating conflict that seemed to swirl in the air, and by their expressions of superiority and disbelief, racism was probably a good part of it.

“Of course!” I flicked up a Holo of his spell first, making him blink as I laid out the entire enormous Formation of what he had done in excruciating detail. His lips pursed in chagrin, as it was plain I had beheld, deciphered, and understood it all!

“I didn’t change much of anything, merely adding on top the application of vivic energy. Since the Formation you wrought only gathers and expels corrupted energy, its primary purpose dissipates as soon as there is none of either. Getting it to spin off the pure vivus was simplicity at that point, merely adding an extra function to what you did there, there, there, and there.”

He stared at the additions; his large emerald eyes went from the Holo to the Burning pillar of vivus, to the many Vivic Eternal Lights sending their streams of Burning mana into said pillar, to me, and then back to the Holo, all in some disbelief.

Well, all the other elves were gawking, too. Seeing a masterpiece of a Formation like that one getting laid out right in front of them like that was not something that happened at just any time.

“It appears I have been gone longer than I thought, if Humans have advanced to such understanding of magic,” he murmured to me in a neutral tone.

“Quick learning is a trait of my species,” I replied in an equally neutral voice; no animosity, no judgment.

“My Lord Sethanon, the current High Mage of the Kingdom undertook to teach the Humans of magic some few hundred years ago...” the Elder of the local wardens spoke up from the side.

“But that... is not our magic?” Lord Sethanon replied, glancing at the elder, who could only purse his lips in astonishment when he focused on what I’d done, and compared it to what he knew and the rest of the Formation.

“Different species understand magic differently. Attempting to use the elven style of magic would probably be somewhat successful for a human, but ultimately limiting and doubtless dangerous in other ways. For humans to truly wield magic, they must do so as humans do, not as elves do,” I said calmly. “Likewise, I doubt our Tradition would be of much use for you, as you’ve demonstrated truly advanced mastery in your own style and manner.”

The fact I was judging their tradition of magic, despite mine supposedly being only a couple of centuries old, was irking some of them visibly. I wondered what they’d say if I told them I and my people had only been practicing a bit over ten years in real time? Would they faint from shock?

“Would you be willing to accompany us to the Tower of Sindalphin?” Lord Sethanon asked carefully, staring at my dark glasses. “I am sure my colleagues there would be eager to speak with you, Master Aelryinth.”

“That will be unnecessary. The source of this corrupted Mana has to be dealt with, and they will be far too busy celebrating your return to see me as little more than a passing curiosity, I am sure.” I watched the elves tense at my refusal, the invitation plainly not meant to be something that I could turn down.

But before they could act, I added, “I came in goodwill, and I leave in the same. Take care and fare thee well, Elders.” I bowed again, and as they tensed, ready to spin spells and draw weapons to take me down, I laid a hand on Feature’s head and Linejumped for the horizon.

It was simply too fast, and the waiting spells meant to entrap me closed on empty air as I materialized a few thousand feet up in the air over an unfriendly sea many miles in the distance, with the lines of the mountains of this circular island-continent barely visible on the horizon.

Still, exploring this place was not my ambition. I had a good idea of the layout of at least one hemisphere, and ultimately my ambition was in the north, so I needed to go that way. I’d probably need to take a short jaunt into orbit and come back down, but those were the breaks...

-------

            -Filth in the air.-

            Feature had a much better sense of smell than I did, but even I could make out the sickening stench of something corrupt in the air, laden on the manafield.

            Mortus Dius burst into vivus, and Feature opened his mouth to display his burning fangs fully for the same purpose. There was an instant poof as the vivic-fed flames doubled in size, reacting to the contamination on the wind.

            The air was bitterly cold, which was no surprise when one was this far north and a few thousand feet up a blowing mountainside of black rock. The cold didn’t bother either of us, of course.

            Protection from Chaos tingled just above my skin, hissing at some sort of reality-altering power in this alien stuff. Feature shared my Buffs, staying in contact with me and regarding the blowing crap now all around us suspiciously. His wings from Dracoform stayed tight, not wanting to get caught in the wind, although all but a slight breeze bent about us, courtesy of the Air Elemental Command from Primus, my second ring gleaming on my finger.

            The Ceremony of the Frozen Soul made me a Scion of Ice, so I found the environment bracing and my Snowcasting Magic all the easier to use.

            “The planar opening is leaking a LOT of otherworldly material infused with the energies of it. No wonder there’s so much Wild Mana on the planet that needs to be disposed of. If I wanted to, I could probably even find the buried Waystones that were shunting so much of the stuff away.” A lot of it was simply dispersing and fading away, being otherplanar and unable to endure here, but obviously enough of it was surviving that it had to be shunted away.

            -More north?- Feature /asked, looking up the mountain speculatively.

            “Stuff up there?” I asked archly, feeling his disquiet.

            -Yes. Also unclean.-

            “Which has what name to the likes of us?” I had to sigh, flicking up an open flight of Greater Shards on my hand. With my effective Caster Level reaching as high as it did, it made sense to graduate to Greater Shards from Raised normal Shards. Even with Delimit, my Shards topped out at twenty maximum, unless I went to Valence V, which took it to twenty-five, the absolute limit.

            Greater Shards had no count cap. The difference was that instead of one per two levels, they started with one at Five, and added one per FOUR Levels. So, I got about half the Shards I did with the lesser Spell per Caster Level, and even the benefits of being a Shardcaster were halved to a single additional missile.

            But with Spell Perfection now boosting all fixed Feat effects on my Shards, my Casting Level was over 100 for Shards now, an utterly terrifying number. I got as many Greater Shards as I did Delimited Raised normal ones, so there was no reason NOT to change over.      

            The higher base damage and built-in knockback effect were both winners, especially doubled up with Toppling Spell. Stack on the modifiers and Caster Level, Int vs Strength opposed check, and even if they lived, my targets would get pounded from their feet like running into a lawnmower.

            Flechette was going to be so annoyed with me. Master Archtheurge of the Seven Traditions and Six Star Mage ftw, that was me!

            -Karma!- Feature /replied swiftly, wariness getting replaced with eagerness. He’d been able to really test out how powerful he’d become on the Jade Empire world, messing with oni of all shapes and sizes, and had a much better idea what he could and couldn’t handle... and what I could help him really handle.

            That was especially true if he stayed close enough to me to share in my spell defenses!

            “We just accumulated some Karma for a Good Deed, unappreciated as it might have been. Let’s go get some Karma for something that’ll probably involve violence and Bad Things.”

            Crystalline teeth gleamed, long fangs Burning and ready as Feature headed up the slopes towards the valley between the nearest peaks.

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