MAGUS INFINITE

You know the name of my continent, Aelmar, and Vothar, the home of the Conclave of Ysmar, and then there were Khoreshen, Draekhold, Aurim, Tlaen, and Verdwyn.

In a hundred years, I would never have guessed that the continents were named after dragons, but I never knew that dragons had names before now.

Looking at the map of the world, each continent was equal to the size of the entire world as I knew it, and since this map showed me the world as it was before the System arrived, I was in awe of its size and beauty.

The four continents that were gone entirely were Ghorrun, Ossyra, Thanneth, and Anhal.

I don’t know; these sounded like the names of places... I mean, who sees a massive, nearly unkillable creature with scales and wings and calls it Thanneth or Tlaen?

I closed my eyes and pushed away this crazy side of my personality, knowing it was just a stress response from my brain. I found myself smiling because I knew that this was a sign that my soul was healing, and somehow, against all odds, I was returning to baseline.

The world was crazy and messed up, and I dealt with it as it came.

Looking back at the map, I was still in awe at the size of this world the more I delved into it, and if I chose to believe this tablet when it went in-depth about the size of Terra, this world, when properly measured from pole to pole, was nearing 250,000 miles.

A mortal would never be able to leave the continent of their birth without magical means, and what was amazing was that this size could not really represent the true shape of this world, as there were many areas in this world that were filled with spatial anomalies, where a single cave could contain an entire world, and not even the gods could be said to have seen every part of this world.

Earth gave birth to earth, and water gave birth to water. This was a line I came back to, trying to explain this mystery. Terra seemed to always be expanding, even without the addition of more worlds, as the fusion of so many worlds created both wonders and horrors.

And as much as I was amazed by the size and depth of Terra, the intelligent species on it were even more amazing. Some were ancient, older than the gods themselves, as their worlds existed even before Terra was born, and others were young, born from the chaos of Terra’s growth.

Another tablet introduced all twenty-two species, and I did not bother delving too deep even though I wanted to; it would take me weeks, if not years, to fully go through the history of each species, and some of them stretched into antiquity.

I skimmed through most of these, but I was able to know all the names of all the species on Terra. They were Dragons, the first inhabitants of Terra. Humans, who were the most numerous and mostly unremarkable... I noted that humans were not seen as important and were one of the youngest races.

Ah, no one in this time would ever believe that in the future, this one unremarkable species would be the one ruling what was left.

Then there were the Stoneborn, like Dorrik, and the Frost giants, Goblins, the pests of Terra who multiplied faster than they could be killed, and there was this notion that even if the world ended, only goblins would remain.

Technically, you could say they were correct, but even the survival of the goblins was just for the amusement of several powerful mages. These species were all the ones I recognized; the rest were unknown to me,

There were Beastkin, a powerful race with many gods. Deep folks, Trolls, Merfolk, Orcs, Elves, Sylphs, Centaurs, Dwarves, Gnolls, Naga, Wyrms, Harpies, Golems, Shades, the Unnamed of the Third Depth, and the Anhalim.

Every species was complex, and the politics, wars, and intrigues that bound them all together would take decades to unravel.

By all the light in heaven, we had lost so much to this endless war and strife, and glimpsing the rich culture that was gone, that had not even left a name behind, hurt.

It was at this point that I stopped digging deeper; I would become stuck on a random objective that would swallow me entirely. Terra was too big, and her waters were too deep. If I wasn’t careful, I would lose myself trying to pursue everything in front of me.

My goal was to understand the System and how it ties to me and the loop, so that meant that I needed to go back home.

I came up for air and found Dorrik sitting in front of his forge and staring into the eternal fire. Something told me that he was on the verge of making a great decision, and I almost did not want to disturb him, but I had spent too long in his hall, and it was time for me to leave.

From the maps I read, I could infer that I was on Ghorrun, that this continent was on the other side of the world from Aelmar, and that I had a grand journey to make if I was going to see the golden pyramid.

The problem was that my target was Aelmar, the home of dragons and the seat of the Dragon God. There was a war ongoing that was sweeping across the entire world, and without the aid of all my powers, I wondered if I would even be able to reach my destination.

Dorrik sighed, and I saw him reach into the flames. He began speaking, ”I will need to do something I swore I would never do with my forge... make weapons.”

Something in his voice held my attention; it was sadness, of a sort that I think I understood, because I have felt it a lot as I saw everything I know turn to ash.

A war was going on, and Dorrik, even without telling me directly, had to be a god, and I did not ask why he was inside his hall alone, because he did not push me for information, and I could respect his desire for privacy.

But I had seen his hammer, and this forge, and my eyes had traced the shape of this hall, and I saw how the line that had raised this mountain out of the earth was connected to this hammer.

I believe I was seeing the nature of Dorrik’s power, and he should be a forgemaster, and his words were only the confirmation I needed.

I set the tablet down and walked toward the forge. The invisible fire cast shadows across Dorrik’s stone-carved face, and I saw the ghost inside his skin shift and settle, pressing against the edges of his form like something that wanted to be free.

”You never wanted to make weapons?” I asked.

He did not look at me. His hands were moving over the forge, and I could see the lines of power flowing through his fingers, shaping something that I could not yet see.

”Yes, Stoneborn are beings of nature, and we were meant to endure. Death and life were just a single door that goes both ways. Wars and disasters are natural, and are the ways of things, but what is happening is not a war... it’s extermination.”