Ends of Magic

Nathan strolled over to the sheer rock wall, inspecting the gate that blocked access to the tunnel that spiraled up to the peak of the mountain. Out of habit he checked the lock. It was enchanted, but beyond that it was three inches of solid steel. It wouldn’t be impossible for him to break, but it would be loud, painful and slow.

But unlike past locks, this time I can just ask.

The guards on the front of the council chambers were openly watching him, and stiffened unconsciously when he turned towards them and jerked his thumb at the gate. “Can you let me through?”

The older guard had an answer ready. “We need orders to unlock the gate from a Guildmaster or an Elite Adventurer.”

The other guard rolled her eyes. “Sil, you know who this is. He may not officially be an elite yet, but he killed the Endings-damned Academy. He was just alone with the council. Let him through the blasphemous gate.”

The first guard was unconvinced, and Nathan sighed. “I can fly up if I need to. It’s just tiring.” He started walking straight up into the air.

The older guard relented. “Harpy’s tits, fine. Don’t be burned by your own fire, and don’t break the seal. I've heard about what you can do.”

Nathan watched as the guard walked over to unlock the gate with a large key. “I won’t. But do you know why? What would happen if somebody does break the Seal? Why do the Adventurers defend it every Solstice?”

The guard shrugged, yanking open the heavy gate with the whine of unlubricated hinges. “It’s a rule of the Guilds. Defend the seal over all else. Cantila, do youknow?”

The woman’s dark brows creased in thought. “The Book says it was a rule established by a Questor. “If the Seal is broken or captured by monsters then Gemore will share its fate.’ That’s the only light I know.”

Nathan gave a small bow. “Thank you. You can lock the gate behind me, I’ll come down another way.”

The older guard sighed again, re-locking the gate. “You certainly act as an elite Adventurer.” He glared at Nathan. “Don’t break it.”

Nathan held his hands up defensively. “I won’t!”

Probably. I just want to try to understand it. And if I think I can open it safely… well, I should probably grab the Heirs and their parents before I do that.

He jogged up the steps, remembering the other two times he’d climbed this passage. The first had been the night of the Solstice, when he’d been forced to duel Simla in order to prove himself worthy of swearing the Adventurer’s Oath.

And I ended up swearing a different Oath than normal. Instead of merely swearing to protect Gemore against all comers, I swore to fight the Endings themselves. To change things, not just maintain the status quo.

That felt like so long ago. He’d been level 52 in [Spellbreaker Juggernaut] back then, and so much less powerful than he was now. But it had marked a turning point in his life. The secret of Earth had been revealed to all of gemore, and he’d found acceptance here regardless.

The second time had been shortly thereafter, when Kia had dragged him to the top of the mountain to give him the [Airwalking] Insight. He hadn’t known at the time that she’d kick him off the mountain, but it had granted him the [Slow Fall] Talent which had Developed into [Airwalking] to complete his build. That had been the moment Nathan had really started to become an Elite Adventurer. Directly afterwards Kia had impressed upon him the exact magnitude of the Oath he’d sworn, and made Nathan understand how deadly Davrar was by showing him the majesty and power of Old Gemore in its heyday.

So much has happened. I didn’t truly know what I was getting myself into back then, in swearing to fight Giantsrest. I’d been in a few fights, but I hadn’t killed anybody yet. If I knew the path I would walk back then, would I have climbed this mountain?

He considered the question as he climbed through the darkened tunnel, repeating his long-ago pilgrimages.

I’ve changed since then. Grown harder. More willing to do bad things for good reasons. But I've seen those good things follow, too. Halsmet is free, and Giantsrest along with it. I took down an empire of Slavers, and the cost was lower than I could have expected. I would do it all again, and that's really all you can ask.

Though I would have tried to save Nornan from that Ashblood Cobra. He and his team would have benefited so much from the Adventurer’s Archive. And - I wouldn’t have killed some of those mages in Halsmet. They didn’t all deserve to die. Not every mage was evil, most of them were just living in the system until I broke it. Death isn't always the answer.

What about now? Nathan was about to embark on a journey full of unknown perils with yet another impossible goal. Was there anything he should be thinking about, any preparations he needed to make?

I need to understand more about the games of the Questors, and the Seal is part of that. It doesn’t usually get attacked on the Solstice, but when it does a Questor arrives to help defend it. Maybe I can find out why.

He emerged from the tunnel into the sunlight atop the empty mountain. There were no railings or platforms, just an expanse of uneven rock that dropped off in all directions towards the ruined city of old Gemore that surrounded the lonely mountain. The only examples of worked stone were the tunnel Nathan had just emerged from, the plinth of stone that served as the stage for the ceremony, and the Seal.

The Seal itself was a forty-foot wide stone circle that looked like a giant vault door. It had seams where different pieces of rock joined together, and the stone surface was covered with spidery symbols. On the night of the Solstice those symbols would be glowing, and a pillar of magic would reach upwards from the Seal.

It sure looked like it was recharging the sun.

Nathan found himself apprehensive about approach the Seal and instead wandered around the peak for a few minutes. He found the spot where Kia had kicked him off the edge and glanced downwards. He’d completely lost any fear of heights with [Airwalking], but it was still an impressive drop. Next was the divot in the mountaintop that marked the place where he’d dueled Simla. The other Adventurer had set off a magical grenade after calling Nathan out for not being native to Davrar.

I wish Simla had survived the Fortress foundry. He seemed like he was starting to rethink the party line of the traditionalist Adventurers. Though they stopped mattering much once Halsmet was liberated and Kozar died. I’m not as sad about Kozar getting killed. That man was an abusive asshole who wanted me dead.

Finally, Nathan approached the stage set next to the Seal. It was the central focus of the ceremonies on the Solstice, where the Adventurers spoke eulogies for those fallen before the Guildmistress told the Tale of Endings.

Committing the Tale of Endings to memory is what Developed [Enhanced Memory] to high-tier. Let’s see, how did that go?

He could see Sudraiel in his mind’s eye with perfect clarity, reciting the ancient warning.

“The Tale of Endings is not something written. It is for times when writing is lost, times when civilization dies, when there is no priority but survival. Remember the Endings when cities die and the land breaks. If you lose all else, if nothing else will survive, preserve yourselves, and preserve the Tale of Endings! This is the story of how the world Ends. We record not what was lost, but how it was lost. The Prophecy will allow survival of the Endings. The world has ended before, and will end again! The order of the Endings is the only part of the story that truly matters!

“Magic

Gods

Monsters

Undeath

Wrath

Storm

Deicide

Elements

History

Spite

Silence.”

There’d been a bit more, but it seemed like the order of the Endings was the most important part of the Tale of Endings. The last Ending had been the Ending of Elements, and the next was the Ending of History. Brox had made reference to participating in the Ending of Deicide. But most of what Nathan had gotten from the story was that the Endings were effectively the end of the world, and he’d sworn to do his best to stop them. That memory was clear as Nathan ascended the steps to stand in the very place he’d sworn the oath.

By the Endings of Davrar and the wonders of Earth, I vow to fight the Endings themselves. I will prevent them from happening at all, if it can be done. May my class be stripped from me if I forswear. I will protect the people of Gemore from that which would assail them, be it monster, person or Ending!

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

He considered those words. He hadn’t known if it was possible to stop the Endings when he’d sworn the Oath. But that hadn’t stopped the Heirs from swearing it right alongside him. Now they were all committed to going out into Davrar to find Questors and get some answers. But it would be nice to learn as much as he could before he left. Nathan looked down at the stone of the Seal and sat down on the stage to study it from up-close.

Time to see if I can find any more clues about the Endings.

He focused his magical senses onto the ancient stone. He’d noticed as he approached that the Seal wasn’t emitting any blatant magic , which tracked with what he’d heard earlier. If normal magic senses could understand what was going on with the Seal then it wouldn’t be nearly so mysterious to the Adventurers of Gemore.

There was certainly wizardry going on, and a lot of it. The first layer appeared to be some kind of shielding enchantment that blocked magical perception. It was subtle but effective, creating a wizardly distortion that blocked magical signals.

Nathan didn’t want to try and break any part of the Seal's magic. He didn't understand what it did, but knew that any damage could jeopardize Gemore. But he didn't have to break it. He’d defeated ten-layer locks inside the Ascendent Academy, and half of the challenge had been seeing what lay past the first few layers. He closed his eyes and started spending Focus while concentrating on the Seal, tuning out the interference from the shield. After what must have been nearly half an hour of concentration, he found himself able to see the structures beyond.

Wizard’s Detection 10 achieved!

The next layer was powerful reinforcement magic that made the seal itself nearly impervious to damage. Nathan was pretty sure a [Disintegrate] spell wouldn't do a thing, and the only weapon he’d seen that could scratch the enchantment and the stone it protected was the black-bladed sword Brox had dropped when he’d died.

Unless I stripped the wizardry with my antimagic. Then it’s just normal stone and Stella could mold it with her earth mana.

Past that was where it got complicated. Nathan had gotten used to detecting mages by sensing their mana pools - which lay in a kind of metaphysical dimension that paralleled the physical one. Unless he was mistaken, underneath the Seal was a massive construct that lay primarily on the other side of that barrier, made of wizardry and mana.

He frowned as he started mapping out the machine. It was enormous, and there were parts here and there that appeared blank. It was like the parts of the mana pools Nathan couldn’t sense, where there was something there, but he couldn’t get a feel for it.

Only about half of the giant mechanism was actually active, with power flowing through in the form of both mana and wizardry. He followed the flows farther into the mountain and then felt his mouth go dry. There was a colossal mana pool down there, buried deep within the stone. He’d been hanging out Stella for a while now, and had gotten used to being near enough mana to shatter a mountain. Some of the archmages he'd run into had also possessed enormous mana pools. But this power dwarfed all of them, and it wasn’t even full.

Feels a bit over half full actually. Which makes sense, we’re a bit over halfway to the next Solstice. This thing is storing power for that event. I suppose it takes a lot of mana to keep the sun ticking.

But there was more to it than that. The mechanism was both absorbing and releasing ambient magic into the world around it, seeming to store away a portion of what passed through. The mechanisms that split the mana were the portions Nathan couldn't sense, and he was puzzling what they did. Hooked directly to them was a fairly obvious switch on this side of the metaphysical barrier, right on the other side of the stone doors of the Seal. He didn’t know if the wizardry he was feeling had a physical counterpart, but he was guessing that it did.

The switch had three positions, and was currently set to the middle one. It felt like the only control object on the entire system, but he couldn’t figure out what it did any more than he knew what the entire machine did. It changed something about the mana splitting portion of the Seal, but he didn't know what. Whatever it did, the amount of power going through it was ludicrous, on the scale of megatons of explosives.

The only thing I can think of that would use that amount of power is the Ending. Maybe one side makes it happen sooner, the other later?

Nathan tried to map out what would happen for each of the potential switch positions and ran into a wall. Each of them seemed to provide inputs into mana splitters as well as the rest of the mechanism, and he quickly lost track of all of the connections in the bowels of the magic. He let out a frustrated breath.

I should be able to figure this out. I’ve got the skills. But what does the Seal as a whole do? It’s more complicated than it needs to be to just control what happens on the Solstice.

He considered activating the switch, pushing it one direction or the other. It wouldn’t be particularly hard with his Aura. He could do it from here, and if something bad happened then he could just switch it back.

Let’s hold off on that. I can infer the parts I can’t feel from what’s around them. Most of them seem to be for interacting with the ambient mana, processing it somehow.What are the rest?

Nathan spent some time and Focus trying to suss out the details of each invisible section of the machine. He made some progress - some of the blank sections seemed to swap the type of mana that went into them, since the mana conduits were specialized differently on the inputs and the outputs. But that didn’t help him understand the machine as a whole. It was just too big, too much detail for him to fully hold in his head. It was like looking at a computer model of a tokamak fusion reactor and trying to figure out what it did from first principles.

He was growing more and more frustrated. He reached out with his aura to flip the switch to the left. He kept his attention on the machine below, anticipating how it would change when he adjusted the controls. Then he froze. His eyes opened, and he exhaled and reeled his antimagic back in slowly.

I really shouldn't poke this. I don’t think I'll mess it up, but the risk is significantly higher than zero, and I'm just here to assuage my curiosity. That's not sufficient justification to risk killing everybody on this continent.

He took a mental step back, pulling his attention back from the details. He was missing the forest for the trees. He needed to hold the entire machine in his head, but not necessarily to the highest level of detail. He wanted to know the purpose of what it did, not the exact details of how it happened. That could come later. The shape solidified in his mind, a teardrop of metaphysical archiecture wrapped around the largest mana pool he’d ever seen. Ambient magic flowed into it from the world and was emitted back out once again, like the breath of a god.

But that mana was altered slightly. The ambient mana that flowed in was a mix of everything around Gemore, with life and stone and air and fire and every other component of Davrar. But what flowed back out had a different profile, cleansed of something. All scraps of death mana were scrubbed away, along with crystal and a few other kinds Nathan couldn’t name. He would never have noticed it without his recent encounter with the Grave Tangle and its corruptive death magic.

It’s a filter. It’s filtering out the death mana and anything else inimical to life.

Congratulations, you have developed the [Wizard’s Meditation] utility skill into [Tranquility].

Utility skill: [Tranquility]

Your mind will be calm and focused under all conditions, and your mind’s eye is expanded.

Utility skill: [Wizard’s Meditation]

This skill will allow you to remain focused and undistracted both on the battlefield and as you understand new magic. It will make it easier to predict and understand both wizardry and mana-based spells.

Utility skill: [Tranquility]

Your mind will be calm and focused under all conditions, and your mind’s eye is expanded.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Arcane Nullfield 7

Permanent Talent 2: Immortal Body 5

Permanent Talent 3: Airwalking 7

Class: Void of Magic level 718

Deepened Stamina: 21429/21840

Void of Feeling

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Implacable Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Magic Anathema

Airborne Agility

Hand-to-hand Expertise

Voluminous Aura

Denial of Wizardry

Mana Severance

Class: Spellslayer level 504

Regenerative Focus: 3431/5140

Catastrophic Blows

Battle Stealth

Mage Infiltration

Forgettable

Sneaky Blow

Antimagic Stealth

Magical Manipulation

Lethal Index

Wizard Resistance

Magic Jammer

Controlled Failure

Utility skills:

Tranquility 1

Inspiration 8

Acceleration 10

Wizard’s Detection 10

Alertness 10

Wizard’s Understanding 10

Effortless Dodge 10

Mental Vault 5

Tutoring 6

Parkour 8

Visibility Control 4

High-tier Disguise 4

High-tier Battle Cry 2

Aura Control 3