Millennial Mage

Tala contemplated the Mage in the valley below even as his own magics altered him, transforming him into a fount by unknown processes.

Was it worth it? The price for magic?

One answer came back quickly, as uncharitable as it was.

That is the price for mediocre magic. That is the price for failing to advance.

She knew that wasn’t true even as she thought it.

Mistress Odera, until quite recently, could have matched or beaten Tala, in almost every metric of magical skill, despite having a handicap in her level of advancement.

No, becoming a fount was not a failure in effort.

Some just didn’t have the capacity to advance further, and even so, they had tried; they had aided humanity in their own ways.

Their efforts were fruitful, sometimes nearly doubling the Mage’s life and allowing them to contribute that much more, that much longer.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the first flickers in reality, a precursor to what was to come.

The information that Alat had been able to get from the Archive gave them some markers to watch for, so that they could at least have a rough understanding of where they were in the process at any given time.

Tell Master Simon that it’s about to happen.

-He’s ready.-

Tala quickly set Kit beside herself. The pouch opened briefly, and six small spheres rolled out.

Then, Kit grew upward until she formed a wall with a window in it. Through that window, Tala could see Master Simon and Mistress Petra sitting, prepared to watch from within the safety of the sanctum.

As Kit morphed, Tala picked up the spheres and carefully threw them with enough force to imbed them in the ground surrounding the Mage down below.

They were observation artifacts, feeding information to Master Simon’s Archive slate and through Tala’s connection to the Archive itself.

All of that took less than a handful of seconds. Thus, Tala was still able to give her full attention to the valley as a pulse of power reached outward, reality itself seemingly being bent and twisted to her voidsight.

To her magesight, the man was finally, fully saturated with power.

Even her mundane sight could see a fiery glow beneath the Mage’s skin.

His cells. His body was being stuffed with power, far beyond their safe capacity, in order to…?

And then it hit her, and all the pieces came into place.

Somehow, the nothing was enacting either an attraction or a containment to allow the magic within the man’s body to reach insane levels.

As she considered it, the magic had likely wiped the man’s mind—utterly erasing his personhood—if something else hadn’t done that first.

Is that what allows him to be taken over?

-Whatever eliminates his personage likely does, yes. Whether it’s magical density? I don’t think so; they don’t have that much power when they leave, at least not according to the research we have access to.-

Maybe something else then. But it wouldn’t be detectable if it was focused around their mind, and contained by some means with nothingness.

-That’s not really the best name for something, given that ‘nothing’ literally isn’t something.-

Do you have a better suggestion?

-…no.-

Alright, then. We can ask Master Grediv if there’s a better name for it when we see him.

As they had watched, the Mage had built up power to the point where his entire being matched the magic suffusion of the next world.

Tala leaned forward unnecessarily, witnessing the edges of the man’s gate fade away. Rather than closing, the through-put increased manyfold.

There was a silent impact that rippled outward through reality to her voidsight.

Even her magesight didn’t detect anything but an increase of power, and her mundane sight hadn’t seen anything at all.

The restriction on magical power that had been acting on the man was obliterated, and his power radiated outward on the heels of the ripple in reality, flickers of flame scorching the ground across the whole valley.

The soil directly where the man had been kneeling was almost liquified by the heat.

Tala watched as the sketch vanished to ash and then into nothingness before the initial burst of heat.

-Yeah, we’re authorized to close a flame fount of this flavor.- Alat’s voice faded as she noticed what Tala was staring at. Her focus had been on communicating with Mistress Ingrit, so she hadn’t seen it immediately. -What the rust?-

Tala’s eyes, her voidsight, was locked on the fount.

There was no reason it should have remained.

A gate without a body or other containment should simply slip into the next world. Even the arcanes knew this, being careful to have artifacts prepared to contain and harvest founts. But this natural fount had no vessel. Instead, tendrils of nothingness looped around it, holding it as it clearly tried to move on.

Tala knew that she couldn’t be the first to have seen these, or at least seen evidence of it.

Moreover, she was sure that nothing of the kind had existed in the founts held by arcanes within housings of various kinds. It would have been obvious in the extreme.

Unless it’s only something that’s visible, or that happens at all, right at the time of formation?

It was likely a result of it being ‘exposed’ or having naturally occurred. Even then, it might fade with time.

Regardless, likely because of her experiences in the Doman-Imithe, the tendrils took on a very specific look as her conscious mind struggled to interpret what she saw.

The fount was gripped by an eight-fingered hand, quite obviously from a creature like those she’d seen before. Very likely it was the one that she’d seen echoes of just earlier, when looking closely at the Mage.

It’s not trying to get in. This Mage is specifically at the point where reality is the strongest…

-To destroy Zeme? Is that its goal?-

Maybe? That doesn’t make sense though… right? What would it gain?

-We have no idea what the true nature of these things is. How can we even begin to guess on their motivations?-

Yeah…

Tala’s voidsight was showing her a struggle, like saltwater and fresh fighting at the mouth of a river, the two forces were pushing on each other, each gaining supremacy for a short moment before waning.

Reality and the void were clashing, both also fighting against the magic of the fount.

All the while, the whole process was being stabilized by a darker-than-black hand of nothingness.

Tala watched as the fount solidified, moving towards a balance similar to that which she’d seen once before.

Though, that was lightning, not fire.

Even with the obvious differences, it was plain to see that this fount was also far more volatile.

The lightning fount that she had seen seemed to almost infuse all the surrounding plant and animal life, filling the area with power and a tint towards that type of magic.

This was literally scorched earth.

Maybe it would balance out, if we gave it time.

-But we won’t.-

No, we won’t. In the worst case, it could unbalance the whole region, calling down magical creatures and starting quite the upheaval.

-Mistress Ingrit just informed us that when she contacted the powers that be, they thanked us for our prompt response, and indicated that the standard bounty would apply for closing such a fount.-

Standard bounty?

-Apparently, the Archons with the ability to close founts are generally notified when a fount is discovered that needs to be removed for one reason or another. This falls under an environmental hazard fount. They’ll need data to verify, but if it checks out, the bounty is one hundred gold.-

Tala hesitated. That seems… is this that dangerous?

-Well, yes. For you? I don’t know. I think the Archons range in advancement, the key being access in some form to void-magics. You probably have a greater control and range in that department than most.-

She hesitated for just a moment more. I can do this. I’ll see him on to the next world.

Tala walked forward, her elk-leathers growing a layer of white metal to completely encapsulate her against the hot air and flame.

She could probably have withstood the magics directly, but it would have required at least some healing, and the white metal would lessen that at virtually no cost.

-So, all that we need to do is surround the fount with void, just beneath the surface. That should force it to lose connection to Zeme and move on.-

You mean just beneath the nothingness-hand?

-They did not specify that, no, but it does stand to reason.-

Alright.

The hand did seem to be stabilizing the fount somehow, and the nothingness did seem to be fading as it did its work. That said, it was almost like it was leaving behind a residue, a filter of sorts between the fount and the rest of Zeme.

But it’s not a fast process.

-Not at all. I’d guess that it won’t fully stabilize for another couple of days.-

And at that point, the whole area will be a burned husk of what it is now, or something else will have gone sideways.

As if to prove the point, a blast of fire shot out in all directions.

Tala’s white metal exterior heated up to an extreme degree, and Tala cycled the metal, replacing the hot material with other metal held merged with her elk-leathers.

-That’s… huh. I wonder if that will work long term? Will the metal you removed cool back down? Remain the same temperature?-

No idea, but it would be interesting to test. The metal on her left arm shifted slightly as she returned the previous material to that spot. It cooled off nearly instantly.

Another pulse of fire radiated outward.

This time, instead of exchanging the metal, Tala just flexed her will for it to cool down.

It took quite a bit of power, though less than fully exchanging the metal, and it worked. The white metal returned to below her body temperature, feeling cool against her skin once more.

That… that is incredibly useful to know. It also reminded her that she hadn’t recoated herself in iron, and with a minor act of will, the skin-covering layer flowed forth to encase her.

-The iron is probably a wise choice. As to the temperature control—or at least suppression—I suppose it makes sense. If we can move the white metal at our will, with applications of power, that should mean altering its internal kinetic state, which is just its temperature.-

True enough, yeah.

It was a bit more complicated than that, obviously.

Tala knew she couldn’t jump into a volcano and simply keep her armor from getting hot.

That said, since she could bleed the heat away at an incredible rate, if there wasn’t too much power behind an external source continuing to try to melt the metal, she should be able to keep it intact and herself at a bearable temperature.

All it cost was power.

You know… maybe I could drop into a volcano? She was quite durable, so the margin for error would be rather high…

-No. Just no, Tala.-

You’re right… not until we can sufficiently map out the rates of change we can bring about.

-…can you focus?-

Oh, right. She could consider harsh-environment exploration later.

Tala felt the solemnity of the situation settle back on her shoulders—her attempt to distract herself having backfired—as she stood before the fount which was all that remained of the Mage.

The shape was incredibly odd.

One moment, it was like that of the kneeling man, but the next it was a small ball, seemingly the size of a human gate.

It was in the fractional instants between the two where the nothingness was the most clear.

Alright, I don’t have a fount-breaking tool, so I’ll have to get creative.

-Should I warn the nearby cities?- Alat’s tone was dry enough that Tala wasn’t sure if the alternate interface was joking.

That was—Tala sighed as she considered some of her other more eclectic experiments—hurtfully accurate…

Alat snorted a laugh within Tala’s head. -Your idea is a good one. I was mostly teasing.-

Tala shook her head, smiling despite the tenseness of the situation.

With a flexing of will, she brought the void-magics in her elk-leathers to the forefront, enhancing and focusing them around her white-armored hands.

The white metal receded everywhere else, to allow her full focus to orient on the task before her.

The fount flickered back to the size of a small ball, and Tala lunged forward, closing her void-coated hands around it.

At the same instant, she caused the white metal to flow over the fount, fully encasing it with metal and void-magics, simultaneously locking her hands together.

The power fought to try to escape, but it couldn’t.

She outweighed the departed Mage—magically speaking—many, many times over.

You know, I most likely out weighed him physically, too.

-Focus, Tala.-

Right!

Additionally, the void was specifically suited for the containment and consumption of… well everything else.

The man’s power, his flame, was pouring into her elk-leathers, but it wasn’t nearly of sufficient quantity to cause any sort of substantive change.

But her mind was not focused on that, not really.

As soon as her hands had wrapped around the fount, she had been faced with something across from her, something that was seemingly also holding onto the fount and only visible to her voidsight.

As soon as she noticed the figure from the Doman-Imithe, the world began to flicker between three places.

What? This is not how the instructions described the dispersal of a fount.

Her three forms of vision showed her the valley in which the Mage had knelt.

Then her surroundings changed to a place that was clearly in the Doman-Imithe.

The threads of reality called to her voidsight, and while, blessedly, she couldn’t see any other too-smiley creatures, the distorted and entirely alien landscape could only exist within the Doman-Imithe.

Trees grew out of one another, holding up the ground which she was somehow hanging from.

The leaves each had a single nostril which gave off the sense of desperately trying to catch a whiff of the scent of prey.

The bark of the trees looked more like diseased, encrusted blisters than anything resembling wood.

Even in the Doman-Imithe, this place was twisted to the extreme.

It looks like one of the floating cages I saw when I first entered with Thron.

Before she could do more than barely register what she was seeing, her environment changed again, and she was slammed by a tidal wave of magical power that, blessedly, crashed against her iron covering and was rebuffed, at least temporarily.

Unfortunately, even in the brief instant of exposure, the magical power flooded through breaches in her iron covering, mainly her eyes, ears, and nose. As it entered, it began burning everything it came in contact with.

Her every cell was anathema to the pure power that flooded into her, even the magic within her body was being seared away, the impurity of her unique aspects enough to taint the whole of her power in the face of the clarity of the next world.

Because that’s what this place was, the next world.

It was entirely forged of magic.

The zeme was so complex that it was hard to see the vague shapes of objects in the power, everything she could perceive was seemingly entirely composed of pure magic.

As stunning as it was, if she hadn’t moved back to the valley, Tala had no doubt that she would have died in seconds. Blessedly, as soon as she was back in the valley, the pure power was instantly aspected to match her, becoming hers and refilling the reserves of power that had been burned away.

Nope! Not dealing with that as I am. Iron covered her entirely, thickening as much as she could make it.

Her elk-leathers and Flow guzzled power as they tried to recover from their own damage, sustained in those bare fractions of a second, and Tala did her best to cover it all in iron.

Her bloodstars perspectives—floating a short distance away from the fount—were not changing. So with her eyes closed, she couldn’t see the changing enviroments, or she shouldn’t have been able to.

From the outside, from the perspectives mirrored to her bloodstars, she didn’t appear to be moving, though different magics were washing over her, seeming to be spilling out of the fount clutched and sealed between her hands and within her metal and void-magics.

That’s a frustrating result.

-Which shouldn’t be happening…-

From the inside, she could still see, even with her eyes sealed behind iron. She had no ready explanation as to how, but she could.

In the Doman-Imithe, the grinning creature didn’t seem to move, even as it also somehow seemed to be fighting to keep the fount where it was.

In the next world, the fount seemed to be in the form of the Mage, now standing and looking at her with fond… pity? Gratitude? Anger?

She had no idea. He was basically a three-dimensional outline, and she wasn’t great at reading people at the best of times.

This was not among the best of times.

In the valley, flames wreathed the whole area, now a nearly constant deluge seemingly spewing forth.

It only pauses when I can perceive the valley first hand. Is the seal on the fount somehow rotating, along with my perception?

Throughout, she stubbornly held onto the round gate, hands locked in place by void-magic-filled metal.

Her iron was beginning to warm and bend under the heat in Zeme, even under the white-steel, and the oddly pure power of the next world was somehow beginning to affect the iron as well.

Her soul-bound items were beginning to recover, hidden away in their pockets, but Tala had only barely gotten them fully sealed in iron, and they’d each endured at least a half-dozen cycles exposed.

I am so glad that Kit is up on that hill. She would have survived, but that would have been a power-drain that I don’t need right now.

The only thing that was spared were her white-steel gloves.

Why are the gloves fine?

She forced her focus onto them and saw the obvious, void-magic.

That wasn’t surprising, but what was surprising was that they seemed to take longer in transit, transitioning between the three locations, and in between it almost seemed to pause before being dragged onward.

The perception of that one fact was so odd and counter to reality as she knew it that Tala felt her mind fuzz for a brief moment before she was able to reclaim her own thoughts.

The gloves are pausing, in the void?

-It is the buffer between worlds, right? It absorbs the disruptive aspects. Well, it absorbs everything it can, really.-

Void it is!