Duum wavered back into visibility a good mile out from our destination, leisurely winging his way in, and attracting definite attention with his huge black body, white belly, and the crimson trail he left behind himself.
The Terrestria definitely had Stillflight defenses, a minor addition of Earth-based Wards against airborne beasts and magic that had slowly expanded along every mountain, and largely stayed active all the time.
Omicra had no problems with great flying beasts or dragons. Those creatures couldn’t fly here unless they were allowed to fly, and normally nothing was allowed to fly over Omicra City.
Someone who had helped put those defenses up and had the keys to allay the Wards? Not so much.
So I could totally make a grand entrance, attracting a lot of attention as stunned people on the ground followed my roc-sized mount and the trail he was making towards the Terrestria, some of them panicking in fright, others gaping in awe, and some utterly shocked at how I was doing this.
It wasn’t an attack run, as it was much too slow, but the soldiers scrambling for archery positions as alarms went up weren’t the kind to be reading that. It was fine: the Terrestria was fully capable of defending itself, and its reaction to seeing me coming… was to open both gates fully.
“Stand down, soldiers of Omicra. Lady Edge is Sister to our Lady Jaderose and the most honored of guests,” Chalcedony’s matronly Voice rippled out over the city, and stopped all the frantic running-about quickly.
Duum came in grandly, wings all the way out, under complete control, the only hastiness being in the students racing to see him come in and get in line to greet me. Of course, his jaunty Hat and Monocle always made an impression, although very few of the students now alive would remember him from past visits, as it had been a couple centuries in their time.
Duum glided in serenely, under complete control, and settled down as gently as a feather with not the slightest amount of wing buffets or awkward momentum to deal with. He came down with his dewclaws on all fours, pools of bloody light bubbling around his talons and claws, and artfully inclined his wing for me.
I stepped off, and staying totally upright, slid smoothly down his wing and off to the multi-colored tiles, naturally wrought in many hues of agate and jade to form a complex geometric Seal of startling power and efficacy, enough to blind someone looking at it with magical sight if unprepared.
I’d designed it that way, after all.
Chalcedony looked quite human, with brown hair banded with streaks of white, a lovely but aging face weathered by smiles and hard work over centuries, as appropriate for Omicra’s only Overmagus. First as a Sim, then as a seeming human, she had watched over Omicra for nearly two thousand years now, taking up living status after Jaderose left for Elemental Earth five hundred years ago.
She actually had a dozen children, spaced out over time, and thus had descendants in virtually every noble house in Omicra and almost all influential families, including the wizardly ones.
That she was the quiet de facto ruler of Omicra via Allegiance links and Marks was something that could not be acted on until recently, but was now going to become a bit more obvious. Time was sated and had closed its loop on her, meaning she was now free to do more than use the gentlest of pressures over time to effect change and guide the people.
“Chal,” I greeted her warmly, sweeping her into a pleasant hug. Her brown and gray robe clashed nicely with my bright crimson and blacks, her tanned olive skin very dark against my milk-white hue. “It is good to see you well. Is everything prepared?”
“Vitae has not quite finished the final touches in Iotar,” she replied, turning around and matching my gliding steps with her own precisely grounded ones, each pace of hers reverberating through the earth in sympathy with a Grandmaster Geomancer. Her gaze flicked over those assembled to greet us, and the wizards quickly fell in beside us as we swept inside, leaving Duum to doze in the sun… or maybe not, considering half a dozen children were already peeking out at the giant Bat with the jaunty Hat and Monocle, overcome with curiosity… and maybe some recent tales of a fairy who rode a great black Bat with a top hat and monocle, going around and fighting things that had no business in the mortal world, last magus of an alien kingdom destroyed by the Immortals out of spite…
True tales passed on by word that only now could be put to ink!
Superb sculptures, monuments, and buildings, all part of a greater harmonious whole of Wondrous Architecture, dominated the interior courtyard. The area was Expanded quadruply within to provide more space, with attached extra-dimensional Spaces as was needed for classrooms, living areas, and storage.
We weren’t going far, heading for the old mountain peak on the far side from the gate. The summit of Mount Omicra had long, long ago been made into the linchpin of what we were about to do, with every successive mountain peak carved to resonate with and amplify the effect into something truly mighty and magnificent.
“Feels so good to be out from under it, doesn’t it?” I asked her softly.
“Of course. That stress, of doing something and instantly being banished to a dead timeline, crushed by the weight of events that cannot happen until all existence is collapsing around you, dying to oblivion…” She just sighed and twitched her shoulders, deep green eyes hardening like chipped gemstones.
“It is a good thing fear doesn’t impede us,” I noted with approval. “I have similar periods of time ahead of me on the Other Shore.”
“It does feel strange to be technically far older than you,” she admitted in some sly amusement. “Have you made any progress on Confluence?”
I shook my head slowly. “And likely I won’t until after the Crimson Cataclysm there. We need the betathaumic radiation, and there are very, very few means I might be able to use to make it, all of which might attract Immortal attention.” I smirked just a bit. “I must say that using the Hollow World to prevent the destruction of some of the survivors was a fine notion. Even if the Immortals find them, they won’t be able to do much about them in the short term. In the long term, they’ll try to destroy the technology, of course…”
“And substitute custom magic for it, of course. Just like the elves they moved down there from Herriatar,” she nodded.
Darkmoor hadn’t been the only culture to delve into technology. Elves had actually done so on the other side of the world afterwards, inspired by what Darkmoor had achieved. This had ended up in disaster when Immortals naturally opposed it, various catastrophes and cataclysms assailing them until their society collapsed and was going to be wiped out.
What survivors remained were moved into the Hollow World in the interests of ‘preserving their culture’, except all their tech was changed to run on magic that could only be found in their own isolated valley, and didn’t work outside of it.
They were a ridiculous satire of their own culture now, unable to understand the technology they used, yet completely dependent on it. The Hollow World’s magic made it extremely difficult for them to leave their chosen land and way of life and strike out for something new and better. They were a mockery of their ancestors, songbirds in a cage whose knowledge was as worthless to them as technology was in the eyes of the Immortals who’d put them there.
It was not any way for elves to live, and yet one more thing I had to do in this timeline.
Busy, busy, busy, that was me. It was a good thing I had so many Sims to help carry the load.
“I think taking a firmer hand in the remnants of Delpha is a good thing. The hard thing will be keeping it on course and not forgetting the lessons of the past.”
“Well, I think Vitae and I, along with Jade and Hyd, can do a fair job of that.” Creating Sims whose mindsets wouldn’t change over the centuries would help immensely, of course. All mortal minds got weary. “What of stepping to Eternity?” she asked even more softly.
“I do not know, Chal. We both know you have your own soul, and you’ve certainly earned the right based on your achievements here. But you’d have to go to the Other Shore and see, hoping that your resonance and origin as a Sim doesn’t hold you back. That’s why it was so important to earn all of your Karma for your Levels back, even if you didn’t need to.”
She just nodded. A Sim getting to skip all of the early Levels because they inherited sixty percent of my Levels was totally a cheat and a weakness in their foundation. Earning all of that back over two thousand years wasn’t all that hard, of course…
The plaza back here was very old and only used for Rituals and Ceremonies requiring multiple Casters. Students and faculty had been streaming here during our walk, advancing in ahead of us with great energy and excitement in the air.
Today, we would do the first part of changing the world.
In the center of the plaza was a pyramidal stone, wrought of sheerest white marble with many Runes upon it and niches carved into it and through it, where items of magic and power were often placed to enchant them, and slumbering fires from ancient depths waited as needed. It also happened to absorb any lightning that occured within a few miles, absorbing and storing the power for later use.
It all hummed to life as I stepped into the plaza, and the Circles within Circles of the plaza all came to life with shimmering metallic power, startling everyone but Chal and I.
“To your places, everyone!” Chalcedony stated with the voice of a mother’s absolute authority. “Kirk, Uhura, to Wind and Water.”
Two of her children, white and blue of hair respectively, straightened up proudly, hastening to get to those two cardinal points, while I took Fire and Chal stepped next to me on Earth.
“Lady Edge will be taking lead, and starting the cycle of power!” she announced, and if they were a bit surprised, they had the wisdom to say nothing. “As the cycle advances, you will be dropping Valences into the Circles beneath you and raising the spell!” she repeated for their benefit, although they’d probably done similar things many, many times, thousands of times for the senior mages here. “Now, attune your Circles, we begin!”
Cantrips flared, magic cycled, and the metallic gold began to shine with inner lights. Slumbering magic long stored below began to rise.
This wasn’t just a Pyramidal stone, of course. It was the tip of a fifty-step Pyramid, going down a thousand feet into the mountain!
This was also the moment it was built for. I began to weave Runes about me, let Valences spark, and instantly Fire blazed up from the Circles, so hard and pure that all of the wizards present were completely encircled by them, startling more than a few of them. Dancing skulls began to coalesce out of the flames, burning roses in their eyes, drifting up and turning around, dark robes growing out of them in styles that grew older and older as they began to fill up above us, stacking three layers high in the attire of Terrestria wizards long dead.
The students could feel their power there, echoes of the magic and teachings of their School, and realized that the old masters of the School had come back one final time to join them in this effort!
The smarter among them would eventually realize that if the masters of old had come back, just how long this Ritual had been in the making…