Millennial Mage

Tala pulled herself out of her contemplations as she took the final step from the Forest Spirit’s woods into the Pack lands.

-Finally decided to rejoin us, eh?-

Tala glared internally, causing Alat to chuckle darkly.

-Hey, Eskau De-arg was my friend too, even if tangentially. But more to the point, I think I figured out what might have happened.-

Tala perked up at that. Oh?

As it turned out, all across allied territory, criminals of all sorts had been dealt with in various ways. In gated human cities and wandering settlements, many had suddenly appeared within cells—incapacitated—detailed descriptions of their crimes and evidence appearing alongside them.

Reports were still coming in, but it seemed that uncounted people who were mid-accident—or who could see danger coming their way—were now safe, or the danger they’d thought they’d seen didn’t manifest.

The only reason it was something that Alat could learn about was because some of those affected had gone to healers for ‘hallucinations’ and things of the like.

More and more data was coming in, and that all pointed to one thing—highly colored by Tala’s own knowledge, of course—humanity and the allied cities had all experienced a ‘perfect’ moment.

It seems he was less restricted than he’d feared if he was able to actually move people.

-Indeed. It seems that doing so cost him though. Seemingly, the more advanced the higher the cost. Hence why no one above Refined was moved anywhere that we’ve gotten information from. In fact, away from our battle, not even Mages—or Mature Arcanes—were moved. In arcane cities, guards were given massive packets of where to find criminals, rather than having most of them directly delivered. Similarly for arcane criminals in wandering settlements. The recipients were so confused that the various guard-forces reached out to the alliance, which is likely the only reason we know about this situation at all.-

Tala grunted. Any word on Eskau De-arg?

Alat sent the impression of a shaking head. -He’s gone.-

Tala hitched, barely keeping from stumbling. Dead?

-No, Tala. Gone. He vanished without a trace.-

She looked behind her, despite it being an odd gesture. Back in that moment, forever.

-Well, until his death, which he likely chose.- Alat tutted. -I do wonder if time could have continued at all, had he not chosen an end.-

If he’d tried to drag it out, I imagine other Sovereign level entities might have begun to be able to oppose him.

-That’s likely true, yes. Regardless, he is gone.-

So, shouldn’t his body… She didn’t know how to finish that sentence.

-Knowing him, he’d have found a way of hiding it or disposing of it. The body of a Sovereign is a potent thing indeed.-

So, you think he actually achieved true Sovereignty?

-Evidence suggests, yes. He broke the Forest Spirit’s hold and did a lot. I don’t think a mere Hallowed could have done the same, no matter how focused their concept became.- Alat chuckled. -Though, it might be precisely that which makes a Sovereign anyway.-

That and unopposed authority. No one had better claim over that moment, nor even time in which to act against him.

-Indeed. Sneaky of the little guy.-

Indeed. She just hoped that a perfect moment would be enough. It had certainly saved them. Rust, it had likely saved a lot of people directly and uncountable numbers indirectly. But would it actually be the foundation of a better future or just a delay to their inevitable failure?

-Well, that’s a useless question. We’ll give it our all, and either succeed, or it won’t matter any more.-

Tala huffed a laugh at that, only then realizing that Rane was walking close beside her, his presence likely contributing to her return from the deeper and more morose contemplations. “Hey.”

He looked her way and smiled. “Hey. So, he did it?”

Tala blinked a few times before realizing that she’d talked with Rane at length about Eskau De-arg’s theories. From there, it wasn’t a large leap. “So it seems, yeah.”

Rane smiled. “I only met him the once. He was…” his smile grew to a broad grin, “balanced.”

Tala rolled her eyes but found herself chuckling. “Indeed. I just hope that he found peace in that frozen moment… though I suppose we’ll never know how it manifested to him. It’s possible that the world simply bent to his will within the limits of his power, and then he was gone. But it is equally possible that he roamed the world for an eternity in a frozen instant, moving and nudging everything manually until he was satisfied.”

Rane shuddered. “I think the second would be torture of a rather extreme kind.”

She gave a sad smile. “For you or me? Likely, yeah, but Eskau De-arg often took lengthy times alone, seeking only the peace of solitude and his own pursuit of balance and perfection.”

He hmmmed at that before nodding. “To each their own, I suppose.”

“Lonely is the path to Sovereignty.” Tala said it like a proverb.

Rane gave a wry smile in return. “I’m glad we’re seeking Transcendence then.”

She sighed but couldn’t hold back a small smile at the teasing. “I suppose so.”

Regardless, Tala looked around, truly taking in her surroundings and seeing all of the people she’d led into the southern forest just hours earlier.

She could also see the reality splinters deeply embedded in essentially all of them once again.

Thankfully, these seemed to be the non-growing kind, or they’d have yet another problem on their hands.

Healers were already hard at work both in her expanded spaces and on the superficial.

Surprisingly, despite the numerous casualties, no one had died in this clash. In all honesty, that had likely been at least partly because the battle had just been too short, barely lasting a half hour, though it had felt much shorter.

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It had helped that they’d been the instigators of this fight, and they’d come in with a very solid plan.

Rust, the plan had basically worked flawlessly.

-Except where it failed in the end.-

Deus ex machina is hardly a flaw in the plan.

-I mean… fair? If the Sovereigns decree failure, who are we to say otherwise?-

Tala felt her back straighten, shoulders sinking and pulling down and back, a smile growing across her features even as her armor melted away. “The Iron Matriarch.”

Rane turned her way, a confused look on his face.

“What?” She frowned at him.

“You just randomly said ‘The Iron Matriarch.’ Why?”

Tala blinked a few times then flushed. He was absolutely correct.

Alat started cackling.

Jerk.

-Worth it!-

Tala cleared her throat and briefly explained to Rane.

The man grunted. “Yeah, the alternate interfaces can be like that. Funny that they are us, isn’t it?”

“Indeed.”

Something very interesting caught her attention then, pulling her focus from Alat’s oddities. The various forces of the alliance weren’t separating. Instead, they were staying together, a familiarity and comradery already forged in the single, short battle.

Well, some fought together at Bandfast too, and a few at the escarpment. Was that seed really enough? It seemed so.

Regardless, Tala knew that something rather important was sitting on the table, the residue in the flask as it were. “So, that’s full confirmation that the Leshkin spawning trees are now Black Legion factories, not that we really needed such confirmation, but we have it.”

Rane grunted. “Yeah, they’ve been turned back quite effectively, seemingly taking some of the ‘best’ parts of the Leshkin designs.”

“None of the pillar hearts were here, so either they’ve been fully turned into soul-cores, or…”

He nodded. “Or they are somewhere else.” He paused and shook his head then. “But that’s not really important. We can’t do anything with a Sovereign in the way.”

Tala grimaced again. “Yeah…” Her head slowly tilted to the side. “Though, if the stag is involved.” A grin spread across her features. “Then, maybe…?”

Rane’s features shifted to match hers. “The Pack.”

“Indeed.”

Tala looked around at the forest around them. “Well, we’re in the right forest, and we know that they monitor the border, so it shouldn’t be that hard to get in contact.”

“Contact whom, exactly?” A deeply resonant voice filled the clearing around them, but didn’t spread beyond the isolated spot where the pair had stopped, the others in their army not seeming to have heard.

Though, Tala’s perception did detect an odd twitch in Eskau Meallain a couple of hundred yards away.

Lea was safe with the Talons as they worked through the aftermath, and Eskau Pallaun… He was missing, which meant he’d likely sensed something as well.

All this flicked through Tala’s mind as she turned to regard the new being in the clearing beside them.

It was a wolf-pup, missing one leg, and clearly crippled in other regards as well. Not that it mattered, Tala could see the physical body slowly degrading under the sheer power using it as a proxy.

Anatalis had chosen a runt with no chance of survival to relay his mind for this.

Tala… didn’t really like that, but she also knew that wolves thought differently than people. She also wasn’t about to reprimand and argue with the Sovereign most likely to assist them when they were in such desperate need.

“Anatalis.” She dipped her head just slightly, feeling the twangs of authority at the action.

The pup dipped its head in turn. “Eskau of War.” It gave a happy pant, its tongue lolling out. “Iron Matriarch. It seems you have a problem.”

Rane arched an eyebrow, but as he hadn’t been acknowledged, he kept his thoughts to himself for the moment.

Tala wished that he’d been included, but once again, the Pack was odd in many ways, and there seemed to be a chance they could get assistance.

“We do. The Forest Spirit is harboring the Black Legion, either assisting in—or at the very least allowing—their merging with the Leshkin toward the reshaping of Zeme under reality’s sway.”

Anatalis chuckled, far, far too deeply for the pup, the trees shivering overhead. “No, little one. That is not your problem.” Its tiny face shifted into a predatory snarl that was fierce enough for Tala to marginally flinch back, despite the diminutive source. “The problem you have is what to do with the stag’s gathered authority and manifest power after the beast itself has been run down and consumed.”

Tala opened her mouth to respond, but after a long pause, she closed it again.

Rane cleared his throat, clearly deciding it was worth interjecting uninvited. “Are you saying you will kill the Sovereign by yourself? Or at least the Pack will?”

The pup shook his head. “Were he just a Sovereign, he’d have been dealt with ages hence, but he is also the god-beast of this region, and that confluence of power means he will be difficult to overcome. He has managed to combine what I and my mate have in one being.” He then regarded Tala directly before he continued. “You have experience in what happens when magical beasts are slain, yes? More direct than even most of your kind?”

Tala’s mind flicked back to the mole, deep underground, and she suppressed an upwelling of anger. The beast that had killed her sister before being slain, only to reconstitute due to its ties to the magic of the region. She growled. “No… That will make this so much…”

The pup bobbed its head, puffs of fur starting to fall free. “Yes. Were the Forest Spirit to be simply slain, it would return. In fact, I have slain him on six occasions, when he thought to press his borders outward through various means. I haven’t ever slain him within his own domain, which is why we are at an impasse. Now, though?”

Tala shuddered as the pup continued to degrade. “Can you use another proxy? I don’t enjoy watching the pup suffer.”

It tilted its head to the side before Anatalis responded. “Ahh, there is a misunderstanding. The spirit of this pup passed earlier today. I simply fill the gap, keeping the body from falling into biological death for means of this conversation. There is nothing here besides me, though I am gratified at your desire to not see me suffer needlessly.”

Tala… still didn’t like it, but that was better than the young wolf being trapped in a degrading form. “Very well… Will you be joining us then?”

A laugh rippled through the trees. “Assuming we can solve the issue? Yes, the Pack will finally join humanity in this.” The lupine eyes flicked over toward one of the nearby groups. “I did not suspect it would also be alongside arcanes, but the ally of an ally…” It gave an inhuman shrug. “We will not turn away might nor power in our pursuit of this prey. Not this time.”

Tala tutted. “Is that enough? Will it be enough?”

“If the issue is solved, it should be. Though, the Black Legion has power that will make it more even than ideal. But toward the core problem, one that is expounded by the presence of the automata. Do you have confidence in manipulating the reality threads binding the elk?”

Rane’s eyes widened, and Tala groaned. “You’re implying that you think the Black Legion could supplant the Forest Spirit’s place. How would that even work? They are creatures of reality and…” She sighed. “It would make soul-cores unnecessary, at least for some of their number. It would give them another source of legionnaires.”

The pup yipped, the sound not quite right. “Precisely. Though, that would be the least that they could do. In all likelihood, the entire region would immediately flip to resemble that plateau you assaulted, backed by the full weight of an enlarged legion.”

Rane grimaced. “So, don’t kill the Forest Spirit until we have a solution.”

“Rust…” Tala willed a mug of coffee to her hand and drained it in one long pull.

Terry chose that moment to rejoin them, flickering into their clearing and focusing on the pup. He squawked loudly in obvious annoyance before flickering to Tala’s shoulder, headbutting her cheek.

He’d sensed her frustration and come to assist if he could.

Tala absently reached up and scratched his favorite spot. “Want to become a god-beast, buddy?”

Anatalis’s laugh filled the clearing again. “Were it that easy, I’d have taken the power for myself, or granted it to one of my kin. Even if you could force the connection onto your bonded or a wolf, it would be as this body.” He shook himself, the too loose skin sliding around unnaturally to emphasize the point. “It would be a death sentence at the very least. It might even trickle back through the connection to kill those connected to the temporary host.”

She sighed. “Then what? Find a Sovereign who wants to become a god-beast?”

“It is not just a question of power, Eskau of War, but compatibility, and just as you might be the only being currently able to work with reality connections—save the unnatural abominations—you also have the only being currently living who might take the place of the Forest Spirit. His other offspring were specifically designed by him to be unable to ever advance, and no other has solid claim or alignment.”

Rane huffed, obviously understanding. “Walden? The Immortal Elk?”

The lupine grin grew, the mouth tearing open at the edges to allow a greater number of teeth to be exposed. “Just so.”