Magic Toxicity Levels

 

“Have you been able to take any readings of ambient magic?” Arkk asked as he and his tethered group walked along a line of lesser servants. They all made sure to keep in physical contact with the servants at all times.

So far, no one had gotten lost in the Maze which, given the scattered lesser servants who felt right next to each other yet couldn’t find one another, seemed more like a miracle than not. Yet it couldn’t be a miracle. Not when the god of this realm was the one pushing them apart.

“You’re really worried about that now?” Zullie asked, using both hands to maintain constant contact. Although she had done something to her vision—even now, Arkk still wasn’t sure of the specifics—she still had occasional moments where she simply couldn’t see what she needed to see. The line of lesser servants was one of those things.

“As long as we’re here, we might as well.”

In truth, Arkk was growing nervous. Beyond the war and beyond the avatars, he had another concern. The Calamity. Neither he nor Vezta knew exactly how to repair the damage to the worlds, so they had mostly been stumbling about. However, somewhere around the time of the Anvil opening and the Burning Forge appearing in his temple, he had started developing theories. Some, he had voiced to Zullie, Vezta, and the others, but with the war taking precedence, proper research on the subject was delayed.

However, with every additional statue in his temple, feelings of foreboding grew. The time between them appearing was shortening and some, like the Fickle Wheel and the Laughing Prince, had appeared mostly spontaneously. As of this moment, there were only four empty spots in his temple. The Bloated Mother, the Veiled Dancer, the Whispering Gale, and Unknown, the Enigma.

“When we reconfigure the portals to return,” Arkk said, “I have a feeling another statue will appear. I don’t know if we’ll pass some critical threshold where the Calamity breaks apart or if we must collect them all, but one way or another, I doubt we have long to figure out what will happen to our world once that barrier falls.”

“Magic will flood into our realm. Can’t say whether it will be a trickle or a tidal wave.”

“Plants will die. People will starve. It’ll become as barren as the Underworld.”

“Probably not overnight,” Zullie said, though she didn’t contradict the inevitability. “Did some research on plants versus people after seeing the state of the Underworld way back when we first opened it. Something about the rigidity of plants makes infusions of magic toxic. Low levels can invigorate or add odd properties—alchemists use magical plants in a lot of their concoctions—but the little parts that make them up can’t stretch and mold around high levels of additional energy, bursting apart and killing them. People are far more squishy and thus more able to contain magic.”

“So in the short term, life will… flourish? Until it hits that point where it starts killing.”

“In a sense.” Zullie continued forward, humming to herself. “Can’t do rituals here, so the best I can give you is a feeling. This place isn’t suffering from high levels. Not that it matters. We have other realms we’ve seen. Either this place, like the Anvil, has managed to conjure up a solution… or it simply is too metaphysically distant from the end-point of the… drain.”

“Drain?”

“Magic flows through the realms. We know this. We have evidence for this. The Calamity is like a massive water dam, blocking magic from entering our world uncontrolled. The Underworld, the next closest realm to ours, has filled up because of that dam. Thus, we can theorize that whatever source of magic exists out there acts like a river flowing through the realms. It is only a trickle here because the next realm on the river’s downstream hasn’t flooded yet.” Zullie looked back over her shoulder, meeting Arkk’s gaze with her glasses. “If you ask me, the Calamity feels more like a response to some other catastrophe than anything malicious. Maybe wherever magic was supposed to drain to from our world, further on the downstream, flooded or erected their own dam.”

“I wonder…”

“Hm? Have you got alternate ideas?”

“Not so much alternate, but… additions?” Arkk thought back, far back. Before the incident at the Duke’s party. “I possessed Vezta one time. She doesn’t see the sky like we do. It’s… shattered. Broken. The Stars beyond that shattering aren’t like our stars. They’re more like… her, I think.”

“You mentioned not wanting to think about that.”

“It was quite shocking. Time and having seen far more insane things since have numbed that sensation quite a bit.”

“Do we know when the sky broke?”

Arkk shook his head. Realizing that Zullie probably wouldn’t be able to tell with her back turned and her sometimes-there-sometimes-not sight, he said a quick, “No.”

“It certainly sounds like a plausible theory. Something clearly happened. Though I don’t know how we might go about fixing it.”

Arkk didn’t have an answer for her. From what Vezta said, not even the god of boundaries and barriers had a solution to the shattered sky beyond the tiny, pinprick-sized holes used to rip servants out of that realm. If a god couldn’t do it, they probably didn’t have much hope.

But the shattered sky wasn’t the only deific-level incident that he was aware of. There was one other idea he had, something he had come across on complete accident during unrelated studies.

“Demons killed their god,” Arkk said. He wasn’t sure that it was true. There was a lot of misinformation, rumors, and outright lies surrounding demons. Yet most of the older sources, those Sylvara had dug up from her time at the Abbey’s archives especially, agreed that demons once had a god and now they didn’t.

Zullie hummed a light agreement. “Two potential inciting incidents for the magic problem. Neither solvable. Though, if you ask me, fixing a broken sky sounds a whole lot easier than reviving a god. Unless it isn’t quite dead. Then maybe even odds for both.”

There was a squawk of surprise from behind Arkk. “You think you can heal a dead god?” Camilla asked, sounding utterly incredulous.

Arkk did a quick headcount, making sure that everyone who was supposed to be behind him actually was. He had kept track of everyone in the back of his mind using the link, but it was good to check with his actual eyes. Luckily, both the tether keeping them together and the line of lesser servants were working as intended.

He gave a light chuckle. “You probably think we’re mad.”

“N-Not really.” Luthor waved a hand around. “This is mad. Can’t even w-walk in a straight line without going in a circle. We are making progress, right? If we wind up where we started, I might cry.”

“There are a limited number of lesser servants,” Arkk said, gesturing forward. “They might look the same to you, but I can tell the difference. We are making progress. We’re about to enter that forest I mentioned, the one with the liquid-like trees. Once there, we’ll have about half the line of servants left to traverse before we reach the portal.”

“I suppose I should explain to you what you’ll need to do to reconfigure the Al-Mir portal,” Zullie said as she fumbled along the line of servants. “I wish we had a Protector with us. It’d be easier.”

With Rekk’ar leading the men, he had felt it more important that their limited number of Protector bodies be with Rekk’ar and the various units in need of rapidly updated orders, leaving only one with Arkk—which had managed to escape their translocation because that Protector had been the furthest from the epicenter. Arkk had been just a little too quick.

It would have been more convenient, he was willing to admit.

Zullie proceeded to provide instructions for the modifications to the portal at Fortress Al-Mir, which Arkk carried out through a lesser servant. She wouldn’t know exactly what needed to be changed, besides carving a new keystone from some of the scraps left over from their efforts to bring Agnete back. Until they reached the portal here in the Maze, she wouldn’t know fully what to do, but experience in modifying portals gave her some ideas to lessen the time spent later.

“Back to our previous discussion,” Arkk said as Zullie ran out of adjustments to make. “I had an idea I wanted to run by you. I don’t know if this is a solution or just something to delay the magic toxicity problem—or if it would work at all—but… could demons solve the problem?”

“Demons?” Zullie said with a funny look on her face. “While true they break a lot of laws of magic if their contract dictates they must… I’m pretty sure there are still rules they have to follow. Just ones we’re unaware of.”

“Not like that,” Arkk quickly affirmed. “I have no intention of summoning demons. That’s wacky nonsense and possibly suicidal.”

There was a small sigh of relief from one of the scrying team.

“No. It happened when that demon got a hold of me. It ate—”

“Sir,” Harvey said, clearing his throat. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’ve kept up scrying. Something odd is going on with the airships around the tower. Bright beams of light keep appearing.”

Arkk stopped abruptly. Everyone else, tethered to him as they were, was forced to stop as well. “Everyone, keep holding onto the servants,” he said as he shimmied around Luthor and Camilla. Harvey was at the tail end of their tether. “Show me.”

The Empress stilled, sensing something amiss. Almost absentmindedly, she reached over and dipped a finger into the shallow bowl at her side, swirling the contents in long, gentle movements. A light flick disturbed the water, shattering its glassy surface.

There was no response.

“Adjutant,” she called out.

A wiry man, his perpetually furrowed brow somehow more furrowed than usual, stepped up. “Empress?”

“Turn one of the observers onto the Evestani army. Locate their leader and inform me of his status.”

“Yes, Empress.” Rather than rush out of the room, he approached a bank of brass pipes mounted on the wall. Depressing a small lever on the underside of one flipped open the cover, tugging on a string in the process. After a moment of waiting—during which a light chime echoed from the pipe—he cupped his mouth and began speaking.

As he worked, she focused inward.

Something had happened. Some shift in the world beyond the dangerous magic the Keeper was employing in his defense.

Things were going well, despite appearances to the contrary. The avatar of flames was an unexpected setback, but she had plans for removing that hurdle. The planar magic employed to defend against her attacks had already failed with no need to lift a finger on her part—evidence of its danger. It was only a matter of time until the Keeper slipped up and let one of the spores bloom or the magic sustaining the tower failed entirely and the whole thing came crashing down. It was an inevitability.

But now…

She wasn’t so sure. It was just a feeling she had. Like something had happened and she didn’t know what.

“We can’t find him,” the adjutant said, turning back to her. “They’re going to keep looking, but—”

A light feminine tone disturbed the liquid in the bowl, interrupting the adjutant. A brilliant white light pulsed in time with the spoken words. “He’s dead.”

“Not for long, I expect. Those puppets he uses are numerous.” The Empress snapped her wrist, waving away the adjutant. He departed the chamber, leaving her alone without complaint. “And you… You’re back, are you? Had enough fun annoying us?”

“You don’t understand. He is dead.”

“I do have functional ears.”

“But not a functioning brain. It isn’t his puppets that are dead. He is deceased. Bereft of life. He is no more. He has ceased to be. There is no current avatar of the Heart of Gold on this plane.”

Resting her elbows on the armrests of her chair, the Empress interlaced her fingers, mind running over possibilities. The first and foremost was the possibility that the Holy Light’s avatar was spreading falsehoods. It was the most obvious answer, given her recent duplicity and treachery. Yet, something about the situation rang true. As the avatar of knowledge and wisdom, she wasn’t one to outright lie. Twist words, agree to the letter rather than the spirit, and otherwise perform the bare minimum expected, perhaps, but not lie.

As further evidence, she always spoke with a hint of humor in her tone. Like she knew something that nobody else did and wasn’t about to bring them in on the joke. That humor was missing. That, more than anything, convinced the Empress that the sensation she felt had indeed been the avatar’s death.

Quite the surprise, given how much care he gave toward protecting his true body.

“How?”

Though often silent when she found ignorance amusing, the avatar of the Holy Light truly enjoyed showing off her knowledge. When suitably enticed, getting her to stop speaking was the challenge. Now, however, the Empress was met with nothing but silence.

A particularly damning silence.

“Your doing, I surmise?”

The light in the pool flickered before steadying out. “You are aware of my experiments with the avatars of other gods?”

“Vaguely. Continue.”

“The resources necessary to construct a restraining device for our golden counterpart may have found their way into the Keeper’s hands.”

The Empress could only sigh, shaking her head in light disappointment. “The Holy Light must be in tears over the wisdom of your decision.”

“This was no error in wisdom.” The light in the basin pulsed in anger that matched the spoken tone. “I’m not even upset he is dead. I don’t yet understand how he is dead—you know what he was like, so paranoid and careful. But if you think I’m going to shed tears, you’re insane. He wouldn’t have stopped at the Keeper. Unleashing his powers, showing off, and digging out weaponry like those golden arrows of his despite the treaty, he would have marched to Chernlock to take my head. The only thing that concerns me now is…”

“Our vigil is weakened.”

“Yes. The Calamity—”

“Solution.”

“Whatever you want to call it. It was threatened even before, but I presumed I would be able to deal with it after sending our greedy friend home with his tail tucked between his legs. I’ve built up a rapport with the Keeper, one I intended to use to convince him to cease his destructive efforts…”

“But with one of us dead—”

“I may not have the luxury of time,” the avatar of the Holy Light said, her tone firm and solemn “The Calamity is weakened by a third. Things are more precarious than they likely seem to you. I’m not entirely sure we can stop it anymore.”

The Empress turned a stern look onto the basin and, when she spoke, she spoke slowly and clear. “I hope, for your sake, you will find yourself incorrect for once in—”

The door to the chamber slammed open. “Empress! I am deeply sorry for disturbing—”

“On with it,” she interrupted, not caring in the slightest about her adjutant’s platitudes.

“Our armada, it’s under attack. Rays of light that penetrate the metal armor are shining forth from the tower, too fast to dodge and cannot be deflected.” He cowered back, faltering under the severity of her gaze. Even still, he pushed forward with his report. “They’re thin and narrow. Not enough to do significant damage. But if they hit the wrong spot—or you…”

The Empress leaned forward, gripping the ends of the chair’s armrests hard enough to bend the metal. Slowly, her gaze turned to the basin. “Avatar…”

“Oh. Sorry. Maybe should have mentioned this sooner.” A tinge of that irritating humor returned with the pulsing light in the basin. “I might have taught a few of the Keeper’s minions how to wield a sliver of power to get you off his back.”

“You…”

“Well! I’ll leave you to it. I need to get into contact with the Keeper and explain exactly why he needs to stop doing whatever he is doing before things really do end up out of control. Good luck!” The light in the bottom of the basin winked out, leaving the Empress glaring at a simple bowl of water.

“My Empress?”

A wave of her hand threw a sudden gust of air at the adjutant, knocking him aside as she strode out of the room. A greater well of power swept up as she moved, building beneath the airships momentarily before she hurtled them away from the tower. With the damage to her construction yards, the existing ships were irreplicable in the short term. She would need them alive if she intended to end this today.

“Damn her,” she snarled as she marched forward, moving to the observation room to see the trouble for herself.

With the Heart of Gold’s avatar gone and the thinning of the barrier, dispatching with the Holy Light’s avatar would be an ill-conceived plan. Once this irritant of a Keeper was gone and the proper Solution returned to strength, ridding herself of that menace would be far less of a detriment.

Until then, she had to grin and bear with the avatar’s machinations.

“Damn it all.”