Immovable Mage

– Era of the Wastes, Cycle 218, Season of the Setting Moon, Day 10 –

Terry decided to descend in a secluded location and then walk the remaining distance to the mana distortion on foot. He would attract less attention and it would keep his aerial movement abilities hidden.

He was really not looking forward to mingling with strangers again.

He checked his equipment. Throwing needles at his sheath belt and leg straps. A pair of inscribed keen daggers. Some easily accessible metal bars to supply metal for his Shape Metal imprints. Cloaking necklace. Magic brooch…

Terry tentatively stepped into the shadow plane to avoid any unpleasant surprises like in some of his past encounters. Fortunately, the path was all clear.

…divine hammer inscriptions. The fingerless glove with multiple inscriptions provided by his aunt Brynn. Storage items. Helmet and armor.

Terry could not help but frown slightly at the state of his armor. He had maintained and repaired it as best as he could. Technically, it was in good enough condition. However, the obvious marks of battle on the armor might invite unwanted attention.

A scene from his travels with Sigille and Matteo appeared in his mind. A scene from when they were traveling to the Preacher’s reception.

‘If you want to avoid the flies, remind them how much trouble you can be. If, on the other hand, you want to catch some flies, then you hide that as much as possible.’

Terry smiled faintly. Perhaps the battle marks could also work in his favor, but it was hard to tell without knowing the situation awaiting him. For now, he decided to go with a compromise. He channeled mana into his magic brooch. Shadow fabric grew and then wrapped itself around him as a velvety black cloak.

Terry adjusted the wide hood to fall over his helmet and hide more of his face and then started walking.

***

A large crowd was gathering in front of a rough-looking circle of stone. This stone structure was the source of the mana distortion that Terry had sensed before.

“Please!”

“I’m begging you!”

“At least the children!”

“This is too much!”

“Have mercy!”

Terry silently stayed in the back and circled around the agitated crowd. He observed the people here and paid attention to the conversations. Most of the people among the crowd looked rather haggard with lots of luggage in tow.

“How can you allow this?!” One woman demanded from a man in uniform. “These portals should be free for use!”

Terry noted the peculiar condition of the uniform. There were threads poking out as if a sewn-on badge had been removed. That did not look like regular wear and tear. The truly peculiar thing was that this exact flaw was shared among many of the city guards that Terry had spotted.

“Listen, ma’am, I’m just doing my job.”

“What job? These prices are extortion! Don’t you work for the government? Isn’t the government supposed to work for the people?”

“Bah!” interjected an old woman that had been handing out pamphlets before. “You’re not our people. You’re foreigners. You have abandoned your country and now you are trying to move further north. Why don’t you go back where you came from?!”

“Shut up, Tamsin!” barked another man from a family standing to the side. “I was born here and their profiteering affects my family as well.”

“You’re just as bad as them,” spat Tamsin. “Abandoning your country. You’re not worthy of calling this place your home.”

“Shut up! In contrast to you vile creature, I cannot just think of myself! I have a family and we have to leave!” The man turned to the guard. “You have to do something! All these refugees. The rich ones are willing to pay anything. How is any normal person supposed to pay these exorbitant prices?!”

“What do you want me to do?” returned the guard tiredly. “It’s their business. They can set the prices.”

“Take it over!” demanded the woman that had opened the conversation with the guard.

“And then what?” The guard rolled his eyes. “The portal doesn’t work without their cooperation.”

Terry involuntarily nodded when he heard that statement. It was evident in his mana sight that this portal was not self-sustaining. It would not activate without the group of people controlling it. Even if Terry was able to memorize the exact activation sequence and supply the required amount of mana, there was nothing he could do about the aspects he lacked or the mana signature lock.

“If it’s too expensive for you, just talk to the ones offering direct transfers without the portal.” The guard pointed towards another group of people. “They’re less expensive.”

“Still too expensive!” Another angry person butted into the conversation.

The local man with his family turned to the recent arrival. “You really shouldn’t use the direct transfers. One of my neighbors relied on them months ago and we still haven’t heard from her or her husband. Who knows what happened to them?”

Terry nodded again. They were talking about unanchored spatial transfers. There was no way to see the destination before going. That was a bad idea unless you trusted the dimensional mage offering it. Wastes, even if you trusted the dimensional mage and even if they were skilled enough to pull off the transfer without problems, there was still the question of how the situation looked at the other end. A group of colossal ostriches waiting for you might be among the least worst scenarios.

“Please, didn’t you all claim to fight for the people?” The woman pleaded with the city guard again.

“You have me confused with someone else,” growled the guard with audible annoyance.

“Didn’t you have a revolution, why are you—?”

“That cowardly worm was not part of the scum rebellion,” scoffed Tamsin with a sneer. “But he and his ilk were sure quick to step aside and abandon their duty to protect the royal family.” She glared at all the people around. “You and everyone like you are the reason this country is going to shit!” She gave the stink eye to a group of people in the distance that were wearing rapiers and fancy hats with white brims and feather ornaments.

Tamsin lifted one of her pamphlets and shouted: “We were ungrateful! Now the cardinal is dead and the king is gone! We are left in shambles! Chaos reigns supreme! Only destruction awaits! All because of the Knights! We have to ask forgiveness! We have to beg our king to return and…”

Terry was blending out the heated speech and instead concentrated on his mana touch scouting of the area. He did not want to miss anyone strong sneaking up on him. He was not surprised when someone snatched the pamphlet from Tamsin’s raised hand.

“Tamsin.” The man with the mustache and goatee folded the paper and placed it next to the rapier at his belt. “Once again tarnishing the reputation of the Knights and harassing the citizenry, I see.” He turned towards the woman and smiled charmingly. “I’m really sorry about that, but even the ignorant have a right to speak in our new country.”

“Bah,” scoffed Tamsin. “That wench is no citizenry and you certainly are no knight. A proper knight would have defended their king instead of overthrowing their sovereign. Even calling you a peasant would be too much. You’re nothing but scum, Alexander. All of you!”

“As so many of your utterances, your accusations of disloyalty are misguided, Tamsin.” Alexander spoke in practiced amiability that instantly caused Terry to think of politicians. “The Knights of Labor don’t stand with a king nor with any single person. We stand with everyone. We stand for democratic cooperation.”

“Chaos is what you and your ilk have brought!” spat Tamsin. “You may not have liked the king, but at least the monarchy provided stability! Do you think the royals liked the single-child rule? Of course not! But they sacrificed for the sake of ensuring a stable line of succession! Stability! No safety without stability! You pathetic traitors cannot even decide on a leader!”

“Have you ever considered that we do not want a leader?” retorted Alexander. “We are equal in the cooperative and we—”

“Waste everyone’s time on the taxpayers dime,” interrupted Tamsin harshly. “Meanwhile, crime is rising and people are suffering.”

“We are working on it,” stressed Alexander testily. “We’ll take care of it.”

“Sure, right after you manage to secure enough votes to tie your shoelaces,” sneered Tamsin. She held up another pamphlet. “We have to beg our king to return! We have to recover! Progress cannot wait!”

“On that last part, we agree,” quipped Alexander and winked at another person that was standing around. “It just so happens that some people wouldn’t be able to spot progress even when it slapped them on their shoulder.” Alexander pointedly put a hand on Tamsin’s shoulder. “Just keep it down, you old grouch. You have the right to speak but not to shout everyone else down.”

“Sir, could you please do something about these horrendous transport prices?” The woman pleaded with the departing Knight of Labor.

“I’ll talk to them immediately, and you can call me Alexander.” He winked and walked away towards one of the people near the portal.

Seeing the woman’s look of relief, Tamsin only sneered. Terry noted that the city guard was rolling his eyes as well.

“Talk is all Alexander will do.” From the family, the wife spoke up. “He made similar promises before. Talking doesn’t help.”

The relief quickly faded from the faces of the newcomers.

“Talking never helps,” grunted Tamsin with a slight hint of self-derision.

After the newcomer’s budding hopes had been killed in their infancy, the woman began pleading with the city guard again.

“Look, what do you want from me?” The guard was getting impatient. “See there!” He pointed. “People are getting through.”

A dwarf in extravagant robes led a small caravan through the dimensional portal. From what Terry could make out, the caravan was transporting trading goods as well as people.

“Why don’t you speak to the mages in charge instead of wasting your time with me?” asked the guard.

“I… Are you serious?!” Tears were brimming at the edge of the woman’s eyes. “I cannot afford the same price as those rich merchants!”

“And I cannot do anything about that,” retorted the city guard. “You’re barking up the wrong tree. There are limited spots for getting through. What makes you think that you deserve it more than others? What makes you think your life is worth more than others?”

Terry had the growing suspicion that the guard was not really talking about the situation with the portal anymore. The man’s eyes were too distant for that. As if he was looking through the woman he was talking to instead of at her.

“Damn it.” The city guard grimaced. “Always asking others to put their neck out for you. To casually expect others to lay their lives down for you. I’ve had it…” The guards outpost had silenced the crowd for a moment and he finished with a glare. “Now keep walking damn it!” The man flared his mana, which cowed the manaless woman and family.

Meanwhile, Tamsin had started shouting again. “We cannot rely on cowards and traitors to protect us! We need our king back! We need protection! We need stability! No rule of law without stability! We have to…”

Terry had heard enough and moved further along to get a glimpse of the signs in front of the dimensional mages or whatever they were. He had seen plenty of dimensional gates in Arcana but this portal appeared to be based on different principles than orthodox spellwork. There were sequences of large characters in mana spread around the stone and even in the rock underneath the ground. The symbols were connected with mana lines and at several connecting points, they had placed what looked like special flags.

Terry sidestepped the crowd and pushed forward until his mana-enhanced eyes could read the signs. They listed the prices for services offered. He skimmed the list while intentionally skipping all the different versions representing unanchored transfers.

Portal use – Single Person: 20 large gold coins.

Terry maintained a completely blank expression.

Unbeknownst to Terry, there were many eyes paying attention to his expression as well as to all the others that were seeing the sign for the first time. These observers noted that the man with his magic cloak did not so much as bat an eye when staring at the exorbitant price list. An obvious tell of a man with a heavy purse.

Unbeknownst to them, Terry’s reaction, or rather his lack of a strong reaction was rooted in his lack of understanding of the local currency.

What the Wastes is a ‘large gold coin’? Is that meant to be literal? How large is ‘large’? Why gold? Can I just look around for a clump of gold and then divide it up? Do I still have some of the golden nails from the aspect being culling in Tiv? Can I use them? I wonder if the Circle of the Bright Lady can use their summoned gold to pay for things? Wouldn’t that be ridiculous? Seriously though, why gold?

During his initial scanning of the city, Terry had noted several mana signatures that looked and felt like the followers of the Bright Lady as well as other faithful groups he was familiar with. It was obvious that he was not in Thanatos anymore with all the cultists walking around freely.

The last follower of the Bright Lady whom Terry had met was an elven woman that had attempted to kill him in the Proving Grounds, only to be killed by the overseer for the crime of being a realm traitor instead.

Terry knew that not all followers of the Bright Lady were bad. He still remembered the missions with Harrison before they had fought on opposing sides. He still remembered that Cadence had refused the order of a Bright in order to follow her own conscience. The battle in the Libra Outpost had shown many different sides of one single faith. He would not forget that.

Nevertheless, the Circle of the Bright Lady had been one of the main sponsors behind a bounty that had been placed on Terry’s head after the battle. He did not know if the bounty was still active, or how much weight it would hold in this region, but the presence of faithful channelers in the area did not ease his anxiety about engaging with this city-state and its transparently tumultuous political situation.

Aside from politicians and the strong cult presence, Terry also spotted another group he was wary of. Several individuals in the city were wearing the familiar crimson uniform of Thanatos soldiers.

They really are everywhere outside Arcana. Terry clicked his tongue. He had heard Thanatos called the Mad Empire before. The creator of that moniker might have been alluding to the Warlord’s Inquiries, or their aggressive uncompromising cultural practices, but the more well-known characteristic were their expansionary politics of conquest.

Both Tiv and Arcana shared their national motto in Magic Obliges – even though the specific interpretations were near opposites. If Thanatos had a declared national motto, then it would be: Respect strength and conquer weakness.

Such a motto might have been an inspiring personal goal to work towards with respect to yourselves, but it carried a very different undertone when applied to foreign policy. The Mad Empire was constantly probing their neighbors for weakness. Wherever weakness was encountered, conquest would follow.

Given the few bits of this country’s recent history that Terry had picked up already, it came as no surprise that Thanatos forces would linger around in this area. As far as he knew, there was only a single country that Thanatos did not dare to touch: Arcana. Although the Lich Kingdoms were powerful enough to inspire a degree of respect, even they were not spared from Thanatos probing.

Thanatos’s hostile relationship with the Lich Kingdoms was probably the oldest of all their ongoing conflicts, dating back to the Valkyrie’s alliance. When Tiv and the Free Factions Union had signed treaties with the Lich Kingdoms, Thanatos had done no such thing. They had stopped pressing the war, but they had never accepted peace, even after the Valkyrie’s disappearance.

There was nothing special about that. For Thanatos, peace was always the outlier. After the alliance had disbanded, they had immediately started probing their former alliance members for weakness, as if the alliance had never existed.

Politics. Dimensional mages. Cults. Martialists. Thanatos soldiers. This city-state was like an amalgamation of all folks Terry was wary of. All kinds of folks he would not want to meet or deal with. There were even a few mana signatures for which he would bet that they belonged to necromancers.

Lovely.

Terry closed his eyes and took a deep breath. There was one more group of people he was not looking forward to dealing with, but it did not look as if he had a choice. He did not have to rely on mana sight to realize that someone was probing his storage items. He did not have to open his eyes to know what was going on.

The would-be thief was staring with wide eyes when her arm was grasped tightly by Terry’s hand. She tried to pull away but the man’s hand did not budge so much as a millimeter. His eyes opened and the intense glow of mana use in them was terrifying, even more so because she failed to sense it. Even now, she failed to sense the mana the man was using.

“Bad idea,” muttered Terry carelessly.

“Don’t make a scene.” A tall man who had been standing close to Terry turned around and tried to calm him down. “Listen now, you see this— run!” The man attempted to push Terry away and free his companion. “...what?” He gulped when their mark did not move even though he had used his whole weight and strength in the surprise maneuver.

“Are you locals?” inquired Terry.

The duo did not reply immediately, but the man eventually made another attempt at persuasion. “Look, man, we got to do what we got to do. Don’t make a scene. It would cause more trouble for you than it would trouble us. No harm has been done and also, you should consider how this looks like. You look like the villain here, so you should really—”

“Can you stop talking, please?” grunted Terry. He was already tired of this conversation. “I don’t really care what you have to say unless it’s pointing me towards an inn and someplace where I can sell some stuff.” He needed money. He wanted to use that portal and for that he needed money. From the previous conversations, the portal fee of twenty large gold coins appeared to be a sizable amount.

A long time ago, his family had been sitting at the dinner table and his aunt Brynn had recounted some of her past experiences, which all boiled down to two lessons when dealing with dimensional mages: Never antagonize them and don’t haggle.

Hence, Terry had no intention of joining the agitated crowd in harassing the people operating the portal. He would get the money. He would pay them. He would leave. Simple as that. Or so he hoped.

Unfortunately, Terry did not have so much as a single piece of the local currency. Like so often, all his cash was either gone or useless.

Why am I always broke?

He shrugged inwardly and stared at the two criminals with an unspoken order veiled in a question. “Where to?”

“Ehm…” They glanced at each other with uncertainty.

“Shop first,” added Terry. He noticed a strange expression flicker over the man’s face but decided to wait.

“That way!” The man pointed.

Terry noted the fleeting shift in the woman’s gaze before she could avert her eyes. He sighed and before the man realized his mistake, he had already been pulled towards Terry by the bidirectional attraction glove and his throat was being pressed by the strong fingers of Terry’s other hand.

“On the off-chance that I wasn’t clear before,” started Terry. “I want to be pointed towards a shop that doesn’t try to scam strangers. I do not want to be pointed towards the local crime alley either.”

The benefits of mana touch scouting included a general awareness of the layout in addition to mana signatures of folks and items alike. None of the buildings in the direction that the man had pointed out could possibly host a proper shop. The item signatures in that direction were mostly cloaked, carried as side-arms, and with aspects of the more shady varieties.

Terry sensed one of the city guards turning her head towards him and his two captive acquaintances. He let go of the two thieves and smiled mirthlessly. “You can try to run if you believe I won’t be able to catch you.” His casual tone would have convinced anyone that there was no doubt in his mind that they would not make it far.

When he still saw hesitation in their eyes, Terry got annoyed. “I think I’ve been quite… polite considering the circumstances. You’re still breathing. I haven’t snapped any bones. We’re just talking. I haven’t even called the guards on you. All I want is for you to show me around and give me the run-down of the city. Then you’re free to go your way. You’re beasts, but I’m just passing through anyway.”

Remembering a passage from the Warlord’s Inquiries about aligning incentives, Terry added: “Whatever I sell today, you’ll get two percent of the sales price.” The better the price I get, the better for you too.

A short while later, Terry was finally carrying some local money in his pockets. To his relief, the incentive seemed to have worked and the two thieves were haggling with the merchant like his dwarven siblings over how to split up desserts. In the end, he had received eighteen percent more than the initial offer, which made the whole incentive alignment through profit sharing worth the cost.

The bad news was that Terry didn’t have that much to sell. The merchant did not care for jade tokens and all the other items he had looted from the three Halls in the folded space were practically gone.

Terry had offered the cultivation resources to the martialists to strengthen or bribe them for the battle against the invaders. He had also handed out nearly all the weapons and defensive artifacts. Unsurprisingly, the martialists had not volunteered to return them after the battle. Consequently, the only item from the bunch he could still sell was a soft sword he had abused as a flamethrower.

Terry could not help but sigh inwardly when he remembered the dungeon rewards he had been unable to collect, even though he had definitely been the main contributor to the dungeon’s defense. At least when ignoring the dungeon itself.

Aside from the soft sword, Terry still had some equipment he had won in the Proving Grounds, but those were nowhere near the quality of the artifacts from the Hall of Power.

The trip to the merchant had also given Terry a crash course in the local currency. Taken together with the price of the inn, he had a good idea of what was required to get through that portal.

From the sale of the magic sword, Terry would be able to stay nearly four years at the inn and that included two basic meals a day. Unfortunately, he would have to find more than a dozen comparable magic items to sell if he wanted to pay the portal fee.

That was a price completely beyond the means of average manaless folks. Wealthy manaless people might be able to afford one or two tickets if they sacrificed all their life savings.

Terry judged that the local prices for magic items ranged somewhere above Thanatos and below the black market in Tiv. They were definitely more expensive than in Arcana. The sword he had sold was valuable and in demand by the local martialists. If that kind of money was only a fraction of what he needed, then there was little chance of regular manaless people getting their hands on it.

Terry needed money and would have to figure out how to get it in this place. He had been surprised to learn that there was no Guardian presence in this city-state. Apparently, the previous ruler was not fond of the Guardians as an institution. However, there was an outpost for the Guild and Terry intended to visit it the next day.

For now, however, Terry wanted to take his dinner into his room and get out his notebook. He had spent months running on layers of divine mana. Of course, he had made sure to practice his disruption discharge variations and parallel casting in a ranged mana bubble while running. He had also been wearing the concealment necklace that constantly trained his mana regeneration even while sleeping.

Nevertheless, his main time investment had undoubtedly been the divine hammer inscription because the inscription was the natural combination with his aerial running. That kind of practice was different from his training in the mental simulation of the dao chamber. The continued and unceasing movement with the help of the divine hammer inscription had whacked something loose in his mind.

The memories of the liquid mana in his veins and the way the unending mana rolled off in waves from his body when acting as the dungeon’s defender were knocking on his consciousness and trying to tell him something.

Terry knew that there was something. Something he was missing in how he was using the divine hammer inscription. He did not know how his aunt Sigille had succeeded in wielding the inscription, but he was not his aunt and he was convinced he was getting close to figuring something out.

***