Millennial Mage

Chapter 500: Deeper in We Go

Tala and Rane shared a look before following after Anatalis. Terry didn’t leave Tala’s shoulder, but his eyes were flicking all around, despite them both maintaining their standard clouds of bloodstars, giving threefold sight and perception respectively.

The trees grew larger as the four continued, the place starting to feel more and more like the Leshkin woods to the south. One major difference, however, was that the trees were of mixed varieties, and the overall result was less uniform in appearance.

Where the Leshkin woods seemed almost like a great hall—immense beyond reason, made using a forest as its foundation and trees as its living pillars—this was simply an ancient forest, still in the primacy of its power.

Yet, despite the surrounding distractions, Tala couldn’t get her mind off of two things.

First, her three-fold sight was acting… oddly. She could still see just as well as ever—and through the physical to the same degree—but it somehow felt… off.

If she were relying on her mundane sight, she’d say that everything was color shifted.

Second, Kit was pulling at her soul… oddly.

For some reason, Kit seemed to be starward of her now, rather than stoneward, so it seemed like they’d been flipped around somehow?

Is this place upside down or something?

Yeah… I guess so.

Rane was the first to speak as they worked their way between the great trees. “Are we right in understanding that this is a sovereign domain?”

Anatalis glanced back their way. “Yes, and no. When the world was young and I hunted in the wild-magic storms of old—dipping between levels of existence—I was alone of my own kind. I gained power through means I will not share, and most of which are no longer available, even if I did. That left me with immortality and a fully realized soul.”

Tala was taken aback by the mini flood of information, most of which she had really no context for, but she was very careful not to interject.

“After years beyond my reckoning, I found another like me, though not of my kind. She and I were both alone in the vastness of existence, and we found comfort and companionship in one another. We grew in power together until we could grow no further. This form, here, is my most common form, but not my only one.”

She understood an instant before he said the next part, but let him continue uninterrupted

“This domain is her most common form, but not her only one. Our descendants are the Pack, and we draw other wolves to us to aid them at need.”

As if a veil had been pulled back, Tala’s threefold sight suddenly saw the superficial… starward of where she was. Starward even of where Kit awaited her.

Well… rust. How did I miss that?

-Obscuring magics? Kit in the way? Dealing with Sovereign level entities, here, Tala. There are quite literally infinite possible explanations. But we’re missing the critical piece, here. ...Anatalis’ mate is a voidling?-

Right, right. Focus. If she’s not a voidling, whatever voidlings grow into if they achieve advancement on their own at the very least… Tala felt through her connection to Kit, and found the voidling utterly still, as if trying not to draw attention to herself.

-And we’re now inside her.- Alat poked at Kit, getting no response.

Like being inside Kit, yeah. Alat poked again, and Tala mentally smacked the alternate interface. Stop that. Leave Kit alone.

-...fine. I’ll leave her be. But, will you please ask him if we are right? Could a sufficiently powerful voidling fix Zeme?-

Tala sighed, then nodded. I will, but after something else. She cleared her throat. “What may we call your mate, and how shall we address her?”

“Vidarra. Though, she hears all within our domain regardless of address.”

“Thank you for the introduction, and thank you, Vidarra, for hosting us.”

Anatalis huffed but didn’t respond elsewise. There was a slight uptick in the wind, causing the trees to sway a bit more noticeably for a moment.

It was lovely and relaxing, so Tala took that as a good sign. “Now, if I may ask, with so much power at your disposal, why did you not absorb the whole of Zeme and the Doman-Imithe and put it back as it should have been?”

Anatalis stopped then, turning to regard her. “You assume much, young one, and presume more.”

Tala felt a tension in the air.

Still, the wolf didn’t seem angry. “I will first state that in order to do so without risking my beloved, I would have to slay all such as you with gated souls. I would also have to destroy any similarly mobile sources of magic. Doing so—assuming such is possible, which is a large assumption—would radically change Zeme, and I fear in ways not entirely for the better. I quite like you humans, and a cleansing would be… distasteful.”

Tala felt herself pale. She hadn’t even considered that. Well, she had, but she’d assumed that a god-beast would have some way around the abrasion that gates and similar sources of magic created in their wake. “Well, thank you for that.”

Anatalis chuckled, the sound just as predatory as ever. “But of course.”

As he truly didn’t seem mad, she decided to press a bit further. “So, the main difficulty is the abrasion that the passages from the next world cause as they move about?”

The wolf tilted his head to the side. “That is like asking if the main reason you get wet in the ocean is all the water.”

“So… yes?”

“That is the primary hindrance, yes. But if you were swimming in the ocean and all the water vanished, you’d plummet quite a distance. Splattering on bedrock beside myriad other creatures causes a different sort of wetness, but wetness all the same.”

Tala frowned. “You’ve lost me with that analogy.”

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The wolf sighed, and the trees swayed as if in the breeze from that sigh. “It wasn’t meant to be perfect, just to demonstrate that sometimes the paths we take to avoid a thing have unconsidered consequences.”

“I can understand that. I imagine that the Sovereigns and other god-beasts would object to someone gobbling up all of Zeme.”

Anatalis chuckled, and Tala and Rane shared another look, both shivering at the sensation that came along with the sound. “Yes, and no. Most do not have authority over any dimensionality, thus the reworking of the foundations of the world would affect them very little.” He regarded her for a long moment. “I will tell you one more reason, then the subject will be complete for the present time.”

After a moment’s silence, Tala realized that he was waiting for her to state her agreement. “Understood and agreed.”

He regarded her for a long moment before huffing once and continuing, “To do so would invest our power and authority into the very bedrock of Zeme. We wouldn’t be vulnerable, per se—not as even immortals consider such things—but we would not be able to do much else with our power while we maintained such. Our Pack would be vulnerable as never before.”

That tickled the back of Tala’s mind, and it only took a moment to figure out why. Master Grediv warned that if we made Kit too big, we’d likely stretch our control and our power thin.

-And to stretch it over a whole world…-

Exactly, yeah…Tala nodded slowly. “I think I understand. Thank you.”

Anatalis huffed, then turned and continued northward, maintaining a steady, ground-eating pace, Tala, Rane, and Terry just behind.

* * *

They weren’t really sure how long they traveled north.

Tala and Alat’s sense of time was distorted somehow, and while Alat could still reliably check the Archive, something about the time information that she received in return didn’t quite line up in ways that made sense.

After a while, the alternate interface stopped trying to make sense of it.

Apparently, Rane and Enar were having the same difficulty, and Alat and Enar were especially frustrated and thrown off by the phenomenon.

Terry… was asleep. As such, he obviously didn't care one way or the other.

When Alat checked in with Lyn in Irondale, the Fused responded that everything seemed fine on her end. Though it was night within Irondale and everyone was either asleep or moving that way. Even Lyn had been near going to bed when Alat had contacted her.

Overall, she wasn't a helpful touchpoint.

I thought it was morning when we came to the forest. Has it been that long?

-I suppose so?-

Tala agreed as the alternatives were worse than a lost day.

All in all, it was a bit of a surreal experience, running through a seemingly unending, never repeating forest.

The plant and animal life was abundant and pervasive, and most of it seemed to be utterly uncaring of their passage.

Rane asked after the oddity, and Anatalis seemingly happily explained that the various animals had few natural predators.

Those animals weren’t enjoyable to hunt, so the wolves left them alone, and no other apex predators were allowed within the Lunar Hunt.

So, as funny as it was, the smaller prey animals were living in a sort of paradise in this domain.

That made Tala think of Walden, and she wondered how the elk was doing. A quick, mental check revealed that he seemed just as always, content in finally growing woods.

All told, as interesting as traveling was, Tala felt herself becoming a bit irritated. She knew that, if Vidarra was anything like Kit, they likely could have all been moved directly to wherever they were going, but as hospitable and welcoming as Anatalis had been, she didn’t want to test his patience by questioning his methods overmuch… at least not out loud.

-And it’s very possible that different members of Kit's species—or whatever we should call it—have differing abilities.-

That... actually makes some sense… Huh. Tala felt her irritation fade, now that she had a potential alternative explanation.

-You don't have to sound so surprised. I often have very sensible ideas.-

You're right. Thank you for the idea.

-You are most welcome.-

After an indeterminable length of time, Tala, Rane, and Terry found themselves loping out into a large, round clearing, surrounded by short cliffs on every side, save where they had entered and the space directly opposite.

On that far side the cliffs went down instead of up. Through that break, they could see a massive rolling forest laid out before them, mountains rising up here and there in the distance, as individual spires of rock, save for one range that was off to their left, leading away toward the far horizon.

Tala wondered what the large, flat, circular space was used for, but the thought was pushed aside, her eyes widening as she made a connection to what she was, and had been, feeling. “This… this is a true fragment, like the House of Blood has in Croi.”

Just like when she’d realized that they were no longer on the superficial, she felt like a veil was pulled back from her threefold sight, and she took a look at how Zeme should be with that sight for the first time.

The true fragment was… overwhelming in its simplicity.

It wasn’t one, unified reality-node, but there was a connectedness to the individual parts that Tala hadn’t really seen before.

We’ve been ‘fixing’ a skeleton by fusing the bones to one another…

-It’s… It’s beautiful.-

There was void there—between the nodes—and there was magic as well, dancing throughout, seemingly uncaring of void or reality.

It was harmony.

It was a well oiled machine, where Tala had thought a statue should be resting.

Anatalis’ response pulled her focus away from her threefold sight. The wolf huffed even as he laid down. “Those… arcanes could only wish to have a fragment as large and as stable as this.”

She swallowed, shaking her head in wonder. “I thought that the chances of another were… astronomical.”

The wolf gave a lupine shrug. “We fished it from the void. It was barely hanging on, with almost no connection to even the Doman-Imithe. Vidarra drew it into herself, and…” He shook his head, glanced toward Tala with a critical eye. “I will say no more.”

We’ve been doing it wrong, but I… I don’t know how to get this result.

-I know… It would be more susceptible to magical effects, but that’s part of the point, isn’t it? What we’ve been doing is magically making Reality supreme… somehow.-

And that’s what makes magic so much weaker within the space.

At least, that’s what they’d done in her sparring ring and artificial lung. Thankfully, they hadn’t done the same at the old Marliweather city site.

They… they had a lot to consider.

-I’ll flag this for Mistress Ingrit. I’m sure she’ll know who to bring in on this.-

Tala sent her agreement, even as she continued to allow the newly revealed sights to pour through her.

Rane sat a respectful distance from the wolf, and Tala joined him just before her husband spoke, “You invited us here… Well, you invited Tala and Terry here. To what end?”

Eyes that shone like the moon that still hung close overhead regarded Rane for a moment. “I would test you as well, so that you may receive the same boons that your mate does.”

Rane nodded slowly, seemingly noticing that the wolf hadn't really answered but willing to be diverted by what was offered. “I appreciate the invitation to prove myself. Would such a test be similar to Tala’s fight with your sireling?”

Anatalis’ deep, rumbling laugh rolled forth once more. “Indeed, save your soulbound mate—and her companion—will not be allowed to join you. The pup learned much from his defeat at the hands of your mate, and I wish him to continue to learn from your kind, not repeat the lesson at a starker disadvantage.”

“Very well. I accept. When would be best?”

“How about now?”

Tala jerked back from her reverie, fully processing what Rane had been saying even as she felt dozens of massive wolves seemingly come from nowhere, each laying on the top of the cliffs, all looking down on the wide, unnaturally flat space.

Oh… it’s an arena. And her husband was about to fight in it.