Chương 505: AF Chapter 504 – The Center of all of Our Troubles

Both of the masters of their professions sighed in understanding.

"Any time on this, Lady Magos?" Master Oswald asked quietly.

"When our Faith is enough, the gods can move. Even they have rules, else there would rapidly be nothing left between them to strive over."

"So even the gods have conflicts…" Master Ben Ten sighed.

"If there is such a thing as conflicting ideas, then yes, even the gods are not beyond such. It might be the whole point, in the end. And guess who gets to tip the scale?" I spread my hands wide to encompass us all.

"Mortal free will choosing which ideas to embrace, and which to fight against."

"So we are fighting an idea at this point?" Ten looked intrigued.

"We are fighting something in service to an idea. Something that treats mortal lives as disposable coins, caring for nothing else than its ultimate objective. Probably of Axiom, by my guess. The greater cause is everything, and it has the greatest cause, meaning ours are irrelevant."

"Its ultimate goal?" Master Oswald asked, surreptitiously pointing down. I inclined my head.

"My guess? Bleeding out energy, harvesting the energy of conflict, and sacrificing the powerful regularly." Both men went white.

"Not dogs for the hunt, but pigs to the slaughter!" Ten cursed darkly.

"The undead wear no magic Gear, or very little beyond Robes and Weapons. Likewise the shades," Master Oswald observed softly.

"That is illogical on the face of it. Likewise, they don't keep themselves Buffed with magic all the time, despite the extraordinary edge it would give them in combat." He met Ten's eyes.

"They knew," the swordmaster stated quietly.

"Something to make Gear explode. We did not see the spells explode, but we know that such is possible…" Both of them had seen my Spellflares.

"Tools of mass slaughter, when the time was right?"

"For the latter, perhaps simply that Mana Renewal rates that we experienced were not standard, and relying on being able to keep your Buffs up all the time was a fool's effort. It certainly is not a practice we can do easily now, yet it was basically standard practice before the Fall. Is it any wonder they rarely bothered to attack us? They are quite aware of the difference in power versus someone who is fully Buffed up."

I blinked as I looked ahead, held up my hand to stop the discussion, glancing inside at my Detect Location.

"Kris, Briggs, there is some dimensional instability a mile ahead of us." Everyone naturally heard me, and resting and reclining warriors of all types straightened up alertly." We'll be heading right in. Weapons at parade rest, but in hand," Briggs growled back. Steel hissed and wood creaked as Weapons came to ready hands. Archers and Melees stepped to their positions, the Casters moved to the center of the Wagon roofs, and the distance to the mists ahead of us narrowed quickly.

It didn't even look like fog, it was too wispy. However, in Raised Arcane Sight, it was a wall of dimensional instability wrapped in a whole lot of illusion magic, for all that it looked like just more sea ahead of us. I couldn't help but brace as Kris and Briggs plunged into the unseen Veiling without even slowing. I saw the magic get pushed out of the way and Burned apart around the two of them, but that protection extended only around them.

The next second it closed down like a great unseen weight on the soul, and I winced as it crashed upon us. The magic scattered across my Astral Ward at XI+1, a full XIII effect trying to get at my mind and soul, and was not only stopped from doing so, but fooled into thinking it had succeeded. Kris and Briggs stopped running, Skating ahead silently as they looked at what was ahead of us. The visual part of the illusion was at the Veiling we'd just gone past, obviously not going to be used internally like this.

Inside, the air was swimming with enchantment and phantasmal effects going right to the mind, and time and space were moving a bit strangely. Visible ahead of us now were scattered islands of black stone jutting out of the water, most of them festooned with thick greenery and vegetation, like tropical paradises begging to be investigated. The exception was a more conical island that was very obviously a volcano of some sort, huge and sprawling out for a good five miles and easily three thousand feet high.

It should have been clearly visible from Yaraq and the western shore. It stood at the middle of the satellite islands, a single plume of dark vapor peeling up from it, spreading out, and falling to the ashen slopes in a constant rain of smoldering particles. Visibility was incredibly sharp and clear relative to a moment ago. I glanced left and right, then slowly turned around. Everyone else was frozen in place, sometimes in mid-blink.

They looked tense and expectant, ready to do something, but were absolutely motionless, not even breathing. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Full mental and physical stasis effect," I reported to the two of them as they glanced back at me.

"They can't see or experience anything in here."

"And relative time might not even be passing." Briggs nodded and resumed a slower and steadier pace.

"We're looking for a base of operations or anything. Seeing anything?" I looked at the gloriously bizarre, warped, and channeled magic about this place, all of it at Eternal Levels.

"I can tell you the magic Binding that volcano ahead of us is at XV. The control Formations around the satellite islands are at XIV. We're moving through a XIII defensive Warding."

"Caster Level?" Kris asked.

"50."

"So, in two more Sorcerer Levels, you might be able to do this?" she grinned back at me slyly. I looked around thoughtfully, my brains churning at what might be possible here.

"No. There's Source Code magic embedded in this, stuff that relies on needing to be a 21 spiritually, as you're messing with the core Rules of Reality. The Valence structure is on top to, uh, simplify the demands of the underlying code. Like taking pre-made modules and installing them on top of custom parts and programming below."

"Four Levels higher, then," she modified. I nodded, slowly.

"If I'm working in Elemental energies. I don't have the pure Caster Level to hit 50 except in narrow bands."

"Empyrean magic?" she continued as the two of them Skated up between the two nearest of the six islands placed around the volcano, gliding over the almost waveless waters here. The force of the waves were distorted by the Veiling and transferred smoothly through the area without stirring the waters. The waters below me didn't have anything living over a couple feet long. Hostile to larger life forms with the temporal distortions? No wonder the intelligent creatures would all leave."

Empyrean Magic might be a small subset of what I'm seeing here. We're talking a Caster Skill of 1000 or higher across multiple disciplines that don't break down into Isparian Magic easily. Isparian Magic doesn't cover all the potential specialties that Matrix magic does, especially the Enchantments and Illusions we're seeing around us. This is truly drawing on a wider array of things than the Isparian system.

"But not the Empyrean. Concealment is definitely part of that System, and potentially domination," Kris said, eyes narrowed as she studied the island to our left.

"I'm not seeing anything over here, Fuzzy."

"We'd have to wander over it to be sure, but likely most of whatever they are doing is buried and entrenched into the stone. They are definitely linked, right, Ryin?" he responded, the two of them matching up and Skating forward in perfect rhythm.

"Correct. There are bonds between them at multiple levels and dimensional tiers."

"But no obvious control Formation?" Kris asked.

"There are three islands I cannot see clearly," I pointed out.

"Then we take a tour around the inner island there," Briggs nodded.

"Around the clock we go." I said nothing as we smoothly glided between two of the hidden islands of the Inner Sea, heading for the volcano before us.

"Well, well, well." Kris' voice was full of expectant schadenfreude. I leaned over the edge of the Wagon and stared at the dark sail on the water perhaps five miles away, Mask of Clarity picking it out easily. It was the only other thing on the surface of the water, after all.

"I think we done found Nuhmudira," Briggs rumbled approvingly.

"How about on your end, Ryin?"

"I think that island at two o'clock there is the control island. There's a level to the magical flow the other islands do not possess, and there's more stone exposed at the top than the others have. That is probably from the mana burn from the additional flow wearing away any natural growth."

"So she sailed right past it, without even knowing it. And she's going to emerge from the other side, doubtless with false memories that there was nothing there!" Kris chortled.

"She's still making progress, I see." Her own Mask was up, and she could see the full sail on the small ship.

"There's likely a telekinetic component to the Veiling here, allowing them to shuffle something coming in from one side of the effect to the other. It could also be hydrokinesis at work. They look to be moving quickly, but they have almost no wake, as if they are also being trundled along by the water."

"How do you want to handle this, Fuzzy?" Kris asked pointedly.

"Confirm that the System doesn't know we are bilking it, Ryin?" Briggs asked calmly.

"It can sense the Wagons, but there's enough disruption with the two of you that I doubt it realizes it is not the one pulling the Wagons along." Briggs nodded.

"Okay. We follow Nuhmudira out and we put an end to her. Then we turn around and come back in here to do what we have to do, while the Mick leads everyone else away."

"Ryin, any problems with that?" Kris asked shortly.

"As long as they are finally dealt with, I have no issues. The System will literally wait forever for us."

"Then let's go give her a final escort," Briggs smiled grimly, and we closed in on the ship.

Her ship was designed like a fishing vessel, which was logical given the resources available. It had one square-masted sail, a squarish bottom for stability more than speed, and was about sixty feet long, enough for a small crew and passenger. All of said crew seemed to be up on the deck, staring out into the waters with grim expressions, yet not a hair was moving or cloak fluttering as they were drawn along the top of the waters with impressive speed.

Their sail was frozen with what had likely been magical wind blowing, barely making a wake as the waters shuffled them along towards their destination. The darker skin of Nuhmudira and her daughter, my/Shamira's erstwhile teacher Xunidara, stood out among the paler skin of what were likely the last Raven Hands, while the four fully-masked forms of her bodyguards, hopefully the last of the corrupted Zharalim, stood behind the two as they looked out over the prow of their ship.

Briggs and Kris Skated smoothly into position behind the ship and paced it without effort. Our people had been prepared to enter a fight as soon as we breached the Veiling, so coming out of it should give us the advantage, especially if we were behind them. Vengeance was coming, and I really hoped there wouldn't be any last minute reprieves or sudden revelations that forced us to spare her. She was a master of Blood Magic and had broken through to Empyrean levels of understanding.

She could have revolutionized magic for all Isparians, but instead had clutched it close to her chest for her own power, and preyed upon those who followed her, believing in words which did not match the reality of her deeds. If we lost all the knowledge, oh well. Save the head, and we could learn some key things from her regardless. She certainly wasn't going to reveal anything of her own free will, that was truth.

Like sharks following prey, we followed silently in the wake of our target, waiting for the moment to strike.