A short set of stairs brought her to an underground hallway, and at its end lay a broad rotunda with runes set in floor and ceiling alike, glowing softly as Morgan approached. This area was the focus of her efforts, encompassing more space than the house above it. It was a project in constant evolution, supported by magically reinforced stone and made larger through application of her spatial enchantments. Three arches to her left opened into more rooms, and the suggestions of doorways ringed the edges of the space, as if inviting her to complete them.
The three finished rooms were inset with multiple [Glacis Runes], and cold mists eddied around her feet as she stepped through the curtain of Air magic that kept the warmth of the main space out of the chamber. The shelves in this chamber held leaf-wrapped portions of meat harvested from the creatures she’d faced, and what Morgan lacked in butchery skills, she more than made up for in sheer volume. What would have once appeared as a macabre display to a city girl and waitress now looked like security and preparation to the wilderness-tested Sorceress. She pulled more such portions from her storage runes, setting them among her current stockpile as she did every time she returned.
Enough for several months, she decided, unless I have to fight for my life! Nothing burned through her Mana reserves quite like running combat, and while most of the monsters she’d been fighting were simple to deal with, she never let herself drop her guard outside her domain. She’d learned the dear lesson that in the Wildlands, there was always something bigger and meaner to fight—and it would find you if you weren’t careful.
The next room she entered wasn’t as cold, kept at just above freezing. The stone shelves in this chamber were packed with piles of roots, tubers, and other things she had no name for; she called them what they appeared to be from Earth. Potatoes with purple skin and a fluffy texture when baked; giant carrots with skin and flesh the color of radishes; piles of nuts that bore stronger resemblances to their analogues from Earth; and one of her personal favorites, bulbs that resembled onions, but which were larger than watermelons, with a distinctly rich, savory aroma. Everything here was as outsized as everything else in the Wildlands.
Morgan’s attempts to preserve the greens and flowers she found had failed miserably, the plants wilting and growing slimy no matter what she did to adjust the enchantments. She thought, perhaps, that some kind of stasis or time-acceleration enchantment might be possible, as her own [Acceleration] skill was definitely temporal in nature; unfortunately, she’d had no success yet. Maybe when I find people , she thought ruefully as she emptied the rest of her storage runes. After that, only the honeycomb remained. Lulu, who had kept by her heels this entire time, seemed very excited by the sweet stuff, and Morgan hastily fashioned a lidded crock of stone to keep the curious loofah out. Transferring the chunk, however, left Morgan’s hands covered in the golden substance, as well as scattering some on the floor, so Lulu wasn’t as displeased as she might have been.
After a brief pass through the third chamber to empty the rest of her storage runes, and a quick swim in her pond to relax and clean herself on her own, Morgan finally made her way back down to the lake. The spire, a spike of grey and brown stone inset with glittering crystal veins that formed spiraling geometric patterns, reached into the sky over a hundred times taller than the Sorceress stood. She hadn’t gained any spells or skills over the course of its construction, though it was laced throughout with thousands of reinforcing enchantments and a dense lattice of [Mana Link] runes. Despite her lack of advancement, Morgan couldn’t be displeased with it, given what it allowed her to accomplish.
Within her domain, Morgan’s personal Mana expenditure for her spellcraft approached zero, and dwindled more the closer she got to the spire. A stone path led from the lakeshore to a small island, its appearance cast so as to put Morgan in mind of a wooden bridge. Another such bridge led from that first island to a second; from that, however, no bridge issued forth toward the center. Instead she froze the water under her feet, and made her way across a bridge of ice. Her [Frost Resistance] meant the ice was comfortably cool against her bare soles, rather than bringing the sensation of biting cold.
The air grew thicker with Mana as she approached the spire, clinging to her skin and bringing a cloying scent. Once, it had made her light-headed and dizzy to come so close, but she was long accustomed to the sensation. She could no longer remember what it was like to wear clothes, but she imagined the sensation of Mana pressed against her body was similar; oddly comforting in its own way, as if the Mana was giving her a hug. A very energetic, very tingly hug. Static built up through her hair and along her skin, wreathing her in crackling power by the time she reached the steps carved into the spire’s side.
The steps jutted out between lines of crystal carving complex fractal patterns around the structure, neatly avoiding them while still being traversable. The thickness of the Mana in the air dissipated as she ascended, covering a circle nearly fifty paces across at the widest point. A dozen or so paces from the top of the spire, an archway opened into its interior, directly above where she began her climb. Inside, the magic was constrained and confined, no longer playing like eager lightning through the air. Morgan made her way deeper into the interior, through a narrow hallway of stone leading to a hollow sphere.
This is where the Mana in the air had gone; in this space, the Mana was clearly visible and tangible. The sensation of Mana against her skin and through her body was something Morgan had no words to describe. It was almost alive, and she swam through it to reach the center of the space. It hung in the air in lazy, green streams, eddying this way and that. She breathed it, felt it through every centimeter of her being. The spire reached over three hundred paces beneath her feet, down to brush against the nexus of power she’d felt from the very first day she swam in the spring-fed pond by her house. For all the enchantments and latticework layered into her spire, she didn’t have to pull ; quite the opposite. The wild magic beneath her was eager for an outlet, and her spellwork served to regulate it, to keep the magic smooth and in control. The confluence of power deep underground pulsed in great beats, like the heart of some tremendous organism, and those pulses would crush even one such as her, were she exposed to them without her spire to act as a filter.
Morgan floated toward the center of the room, drawing the magic into her lungs, and relaxed, casting herself adrift in the great sea.
This was how she’d been planning her excursions. She couldn’t actually see nor explain what she felt to anyone who wasn’t plugged in like she was. If she were ever asked, the closest she might be able to come would be sonar, radar, or something between the two. Magic lay over the valley and through the Wildlands like a net, and those that lived, grew, walked, crawled, or flew disturbed that net, and allowed her to feel the different flavors of magic and energy flowing around her. The highest mountaintops felt dead to her, and her [Primal Instinct] screamed at her when she focused too long thereon.
This had become a daily routine for her, usually in the evenings before she turned in. She would make note of which direction held the densest signs of life and movement that didn’t register as a threat, or what her instincts told her would be beneficial, and that would be where she foraged the following day.
But for the past three weeks or so, ever since she’d constructed the spire, she could sense that something was coming. It was too distant for her to feel anything but a presence , but she knew it must be big, to feel it from that range. Each day it drew closer, but not on a straight-line path: whatever it was, it followed the same ley lines she herself was tapped into.
Whatever it was, the strangest thing about it was that its magical presence, its signature upon Anfealt, felt oddly familiar. She couldn’t explain why or how, but the waves of Earth magic that preceded it felt like her own, only much stronger, as if her own magic were being amplified and reflected back at her from a far distant point.
Inside the spire, at its apex, suspended in her own bastion of power, Morgan ordinari
ly felt invincible. This approaching presence, however, dwarfed her utterly, and she imagined it could snuff her out with ease. This was an odd realization, because still, even now, her [Primal Instinct] looked at it and felt like….
Home.
So she floated, there in the magic, and relaxed to let her senses expand, diffusing her presence across her valley. What she felt at that moment first baffled her, and then took her to confusion to hope to wild excitement, because in addition to the approaching presence, she felt and heard something new. The sound was so strange, so unexpected, that it took her a few moments to place it, but once she did, it was unmistakable.
The presence was still there; indeed, it had grown yet closer. And something was in its way, standing on the ley line it was following. Many somethings, many small somethings that left tiny, pattering footfalls that she felt through her connection to the valley, as though people were running in the distance. She also felt the creaking, groaning sensation of what had to be wagon wheels rolling across a cobblestone roadbed.
But what sent her heart racing, what had her clawing her way back to her body, what sent her soaring out the window with [Acceleration] so fast she nearly made it back to the shore before plowing into the water and beach, was a sound only someone from Earth could know.
After all, the daughter of a retired Marine who had spent many of her formative years living on a military base, knew very, very well what the rhythmic slamming thumps of heavy machine gun fire sounded like.
Chapter 30: Entrenchment
Terisa Aras stood atop the western gate of an ancient stone fort, watching the last few wagons of the Expedition’s caravan finish their journey across an equally ancient bridge. The fort was named Castra Pristis , and the bridge spanning the three-mile-long gorge was known as Pontem Praetor . Nobody could remember where those names came from, not even Terisa’s mentor. The old Ma’akan Badger had known many legends, but she’d told Terisa more stories about the beast tribes than she had about the Wildlands. The [Oracle] could probably tell her, Terisa knew, but she would never consider asking for an audience for a matter of personal curiosity. The Worldwalker Dana Pierce, however, seemed to be at least passingly familiar, though; she’d been inordinately interested in the Old Road they’d followed from the pass into the wilds, and the sight of the bridge itself had sent her into a frenzy, crawling all over the columns and arches holding the structure in place.
The Engineer had spent hours inspecting various points along the bridge’s span, closely examining the hand-hewn stones and ancient mortar. Ominous mists obscured the rushing waters and jagged rocks almost a mile below, yet Dana was heedless of the danger, confidently working her way across the undersides of the arches and up and down the support columns. The Worldwalker had long since repaired her suit from the punishment it had undergone, and went about on six or eight legs as often as two. Her aptitude for means of locomotion other than the bipedal was something many in her group found unsettling.
“Repaired” was, perhaps, a too-modest description; it might be more accurate to say that the woman had “remade” her suit. Most of the materials remained the same; just as increased levels had altered and hardened Dana’s muscles and body, however, so too had her new skills honed her capabilities. Terisa understood her new friend still had a lot to learn, but the sheer speed at which the otherworlder did so was a frightening thing to behold. Not simply her skills and the leveling system, either; Dana brought her scientific mind to bear on everything Anfealt had to teach her, based on her remembered knowledge from her homeworld.
“What a hell her world must be,” she mused, “to have learned such things with no magecraft in her lands.”
“Scary, innit?” a man’s voice responded. Turning her head, Terisa saw Kojeg, who had joined her on the tower’s roof. His warhammer was resting head-down on the masonry, and he leaned against it with casual ease. “The things the lass builds in her workshop, only to destroy them afore anyone else can see…” He shook his head. “Almost enough to curl me beard.”
“Is it true she threatened the Thane of Thun’Kadrass at his own table?” she asked, intrigued.
“T’wasn’t a threat, Teri,” the man denied. “She simply told old Kadra she was nae gonna give any of the Thuns her service or knowledge. Claimed it may end us as a people, to make war in the ways of her home. He called his Earthspeaker and Stonecallers, but they agreed she wasn’t lying. What they saw in her spirit shook them badly.”
Terisa leaned against the parapet, running one hand along the grip of her bow in a seemingly unconscious gesture. “Yet she gave you better powders for your cannon…”
“Aye, that she did,” he agreed, stroking his beard. “But that was summat we already had, an’ she just made it better. Too, ‘twas nary a thing a mage cannae do on their own; I be no alchemer, but I was told there was much tugging of beards when she spoke to the Cannonry mages.”
The Huntress turned back to the parapet, letting her eyes drift away from the ancient bridge to the fort behind them. The ancient, moldering bones of a city long abandoned could be seen peeking through the abundant greenery slowly reclaiming the land. The walls of the fort, however, had been built of sterner stuff, withstanding the ravages of uncountable centuries much better than what it had protected. Far below, the subject of their conversation had begun directing the placement of her mobile workshop, laying aside her sketching paper. The odd shapes and lines of the rearmost section of her carriage now made sense to Terisa, after witnessing it in action. The legs of the massive walker were folded up against the body like a set of great ribs, and the terrifying cannons had retracted almost completely, leaving the barest suggestion of their shape to evoke memories of the carnage.
She glanced back at Kojeg, her expression worried. “You should have talked her out of coming, Kojeg. I have…concerns about the wild magic here. For all it does to us…she’s a Worldwalker. She’ll adapt to it instead of resisting.”
The old dwarf shook his head, expression grim. “Might ‘ave worked were she stuck in her chair, but not for long, not even then.” He nods toward a point on the horizon. “Her workshop opens to the north face of the Kadral Valley. If you’d forbidden her again, she would have come on her own.”
Terisa scoffed, shaking her head. “Drakengard would never have let her through, Worldwalker or not. Especially not a golemist Worldwalker. They still remember the Steel Crusade, and none too fondly.”
“They don’t leave the peaks very often,” Kojeg pointed out, “except to scout their old lands. The Silent City has lived up to its name for almost half a century.”
Terisa’s fingers caressed the glowing jewel set above her bow’s grip, soothing the agitated emotions she felt from within. “Tch,” she scoffed again. “Even Althenea disagrees with you. You know the metalmen will come again, someday. All we can do is pray it’s not in our lifetimes.”
Kojeg laughed grimly. “And when they do, the Thuns stand ready. We remember, as the Drakengard do. Those lessons were hard-learned, indeed.”
“Hard lessons,” she echoed, sighing. “I’m also worried about the migrating beasts…if the Wanderer’s come too early, or too far—”
“Nae,” the dwarf said, shaking his head. “The Thun’s Lorekeepers say he follows the ley lines. So long as we don’t disturb those, we just have to stay out of his way.”
“Still,” Terisa insisted, “something feels different.” She looked back over the bridge, leaning over the parapet. “I don’t know what or why, Kojeg. It’s…more than just Dana. Althenea is unusually agitated.” She shakes her head. “The Purple Night, the Worldwalkers, the Worldstorm…all has me on edge, Kojeg. And you know my instincts are good.”
Kojeg lifted his warhammer, hefting it across his broad shoulders as he stepped beside Terisa. “Well, the lass will certainly be a boon to Castra Pristis’ defenses this year, at any rate.” He nodded to the other towers dotting the wall, where dwarven crews were winching their cannons to set up the stronghold’s de
fenses. The cannons themselves were fantastically heavy, but the dwarves managed the blocks and tackles with practiced efficiency.
“That’s another thing,” she mused. “We’ve never managed to gather so much crystal this early before. All of it in one place, unprocessed, is going to draw more beasts than we’ve ever seen. We should have had a lot of it processed and put away, but Dana damaged so much of it, even I can feel the Mana leaking out.”
“Don’t worry so much,” came a worn-out voice from behind the pair. Turning, Terisa saw the mage, Nessara, stopping to catch her breath after climbing the tower. “I’m working on it, same as the Guild mages from Swift Waters’ delegation. We have the Expedition’s take stabilized for the most part, sealed up in storage.”
Terisa raised an eyebrow. “And Dana’s half?”
Nessara shrugged. “She claimed mostly the broken pieces, and only a handful of intact crystals. Nobody knows why; the broken bits are only good for alchemy if you can liquefy them, but we don’t have the right equipment. I don’t think she knows what she’s doing.”
Kojeg chuckled with wry amusement. “Never make the mistake of underestimating that woman. May it be she cannae liquefy them, but I don’t doubt she can use them as they are.”
As if summoned by her mention in conversation, an insectile leg hooked itself over the parapet, quickly followed by one of its mates, and then the rest of them. Dana’s suit reconfigured itself back to normal-seeming legs, helmet already retracted. While the three on the roof tried to recover their composure, Dana vibrated in place before exploding into a proclamation.
“This is a Roman fort !” she exclaimed, an eager grin dominating her face. “The Lost Legion from my world must have ended up here!” She forced herself to pause and take half a breath, hopping on her feet. “The road? Down there? Definitely an imperial highway. The bridge, too! I wasn’t sure at first, but when we got here, the fort is laid out exactly like the ones the legions used to build back on Earth! The barracks, storage, armory…even the walls! Sure, there’s magic laced through every brick and joint, but…the design is there if you know where to look!”
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