Ends of Magic
Chapter 37: Eldest Explanations

Nathan dreamed of himself taking on different forms. In his dreams he chased mages through forests on four backwards-jointed limbs, swam up beneath a boat and used tentacles to pluck victims from the surface. He woke from the dream slowly, turning over the parts of the dream he remembered. sᴇaʀᴄh thᴇ Nʘvᴇl(F)ire.nᴇt website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

I think my musings on developing [Perfected Body] continued into dreams. Grow the claws of a tiger, or gills, or scales, or tentacles. Some of them might be permanent adaptations, some might just be temporary. It's a potential Insight, though I don't think it would be trivial.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as his brain caught up to the idea.

I think I’m still more interested in using Focus to be unkillable. Or being able to incorporate non-biological materials for titanium bones or something. I’d probably need to eat a chunk of titanium for that. Doable.

He was still a little fuzzy from waking up, and finally looked around for what had woken him.

Stella was yawning widely, kicking on her boots. She looked around, seeing that Nathan was awake, then pointed towards the door before gesturing towards the other members of the Heirs. Sarah was stirring, but Aarl and Khachi were both still out of it.

A flame lit in Stella’s fingers, and she examined their sleeping teammates with a mischievous expression. It was pretty clear what the mage was thinking.

Nathan clapped his hands together loudly. “Alright, let’s get up!”

Probably best not to wake them up with a prank before a battle.

Everybody jerked upright, woken by the loud noise. Stella looked mildly but sighed heavily and nodded. The rest of the Heirs shot him dirty looks before rolling out of bed, putting on shoes and grabbing bags with anxious efficiency. Khachi took the longest because he had to put on his armor, though Sarah helped him out with it.

“Food?” Aarl asked as he glanced under his bed in case anything had rolled down there.

Khachi shook his head, tightening buckles on his shoulder before Sarah fit the shoulder-piece into place. “Eat on the trail. I’d rather wake a dungeon than get into position late.”

Soon enough they were out the door. Two new elites were on guard, and Nathan gave them a lazy salute. “Datur, hope you’re having a good night. We’re headed out to take a look at the defenses, get the lay of things.”

The man gave him a nod from beneath bushy eyebrows, his expression mildly suspicious. “When you coming back?”

Nathan pursed his lips. “I don’t think we will. We want to find a good position for the battle tomorrow, be ready if they attack early. Maybe spend some time reinforcing the spot we choose. Thanks for making sure we slept well, go get some of your own. Be ready at dawn.”

The elites exchanged a significant look, then Datur shrugged. “As the hand commands, the finger obeys.” They departed down a different route, heading towards the elite barracks.

Night had fallen, and the courtyard was empty except for a few more sets of guards. The Old Hands were guarding the front gate, and Aarl exchanged a few friendly words with one of the fighters on the team while Neta seemed excited to show Stella a new spell that combined illusion and fire magic to make an invisible flame.

Nathan raised an eyebrow when a heavily muscled woman trailed a hand along Aarl’s wrist as they made their excuses and walked away. “A friend of yours, Aarl?”

He flashed a wide grin. “Yeah. Karo is worth being bold.”

Sarah snorted and shook her head. “She’s also twenty years older than you.”

“I’m not going to marry her!” Aarl protested. “Just stoke my flame.”

The Heirs continued ribbing Aarl as they left the city at a jog, headed south. The terrain was familiar to Nathan, since this was the direction he’d first approached Halsmet from. They followed the road for a little way, crossing into the next valley before breaking to the east.

Nathan pointed out the Kalis conclave tower that was silhouetted against the glowing sky, the thin structure tiny with distance. “That dungeon tried to turn me into a goat.”

“Light shines in my eyes, that’s what changed.” Stella said with a grin, prompting laughter from the other Heirs.

Nathan rolled his eyes in the darkness. “Very funny. It was the most polite dungeon I’ve ever run across. Gave me a warning and everything.”

Khachi grunted his surprise. “That would only ignite my cation.”

They passed by some of the same hardscrabble farms that Nathan had stolen his disguise from on the way into the city. The fields looked abandoned, though everything was ramshackle enough it was hard to tell.

I wonder what Halsmet is going to do for food. They need somebody to work these farms, though hopefully with more resources and better protection than they got under Giantsrest. They need a paradigm that doesn't treats farmers as a high-turnover resource.

They soon left the flat farmland behind, climbing a loosely forested hillside under the full light of the world overhead. Nathan was keeping his senses tuned, ensuring he’d pick up on the faintest sign of a magical sensor or a hostile group of mages - or monsters. One party being detected might be passed off as standard guerrilla tactics, but two might cause an alarm that would disrupt the upcoming attack.

It was a cold night, and high winds made him shiver. Nathan frowned up at the completely cloudless sky, reaching up with his senses. He couldn’t detect magic up in the heavens, but he swore he could feel the faintest traces of spellwork woven into the wind.

The magic wasn’t oppressively powerful, but it seemed to extend off into the distance. The traces of mana got stronger as they continued to trek across the mountainous terrain and ascend in elevation. The spell, if it was a spell, seemed to be guiding and focusing the winds. It prevented different gusts of wind from interfering with one another, and Nathan focused on teasing out the different kinds of mana. He found traces of air and water, but also some kind of fire component that stumped Nathan until he realized it was about heat gradients.

That’s a weather spell of some kind. It’s not from the traditions of either Gemore or Giantsrest. It’s being very efficient in order to cover a vast area, but is still monstrously powerful. Gotta be Badud making sure the weather is clear. I can’t hope to break magic on that scale. Not for a long time.

Magical Perception 9 achieved!

Nathan’s voice was loud in the darkness, breaking through the sound of deep breathing as the Heirs summited another pass lit only by the world overhead. “There’s weather magic going on. That’s why the sky is so clear. I guess the Giantsrest army really doesn’t want to get rained on?”

“Or give us fog or darkness to hide in.” Sarah responded, looking up worriedly. “Intimidating, that our enemies can change the weather itself.”

Aarl shrugged, unphased by Nathan’s pronouncement. “We’ll make our own weather. That's the plan.

They again lapsed into silence, crossing another series of ridges before coming into a low valley. Various dungeons were scattered across the terrain, but the Heirs had used Giantsrest maps to plot a path that threaded between them.

Sarah pointed up ahead and to the left, towards a blocky shape halfway up the hill on the other side. “There’s the Quazian monastery. We follow this valley up to the Sklian monument, then climb the mountain and we should be above the Giantsrest camp.”

At least the dungeons make good landmarks.

A dense strip of trees clustered around the stream running along the base of the valley, which would let the Heirs move under cover for most of the distance towards the army. They ran into a pack of wood stalkers, but Nathan spotted the monsters first and waved Aarl forward to kill them quietly.

The black-armored fighter got close and then broke into a sprint, hurling his new invisible ax ahead of him. It sunk into the patriarch’s skull and the enormous six-legged reptilian monster dropped like a marionette with its strings cut. Then Aarl was among them, bisecting the creatures easily with the disintegration greatsword.

The slaughter was almost completely silent, and a dozen stalkers died in instants. Two tried to flee and Aarl killed them both before they could exit the trees. He walked over to the corpse of the patriarch, yanking his new weapon free before turning and returning to the Heirs. “Not going to raise it as an undead right now. Not stealthy enough.”

They continued moving quickly, determined to get into position. There should be plenty of time, but nobody wanted to be late to a battle.

Nathan spotted the monument that was their next landmark, but he also heard something crunching rhythmically in front of them of them. “Hold here, I’ll be back in a second. Need to scout a strange sound.”

He snuck forward through a dense cluster of trees to find an enormous hulk that had been obscured by the foliage. It was a huge boulder of a shape that was closer in size to a three-story building than to a monster. Its snout was buried in the side of a siegeboar, and the noise had been the crunching of ribs in enormous teeth.

A castlebear. The first one I’ve seen. Damn, that thing’s enormous.

He returned to the Heirs, gesturing them back before whispering. “Castlebear ahead of us. Do we kill it?”

Khachi shook his head decisively. “A castlebear is not an easy opponent, and that fight would risk drawing the attention of Giantsrest. I am surprised they allow this monster to roam so close.”

“Doesn’t matter, does it? We’re going around.” Aarl said, shrugging faintly in the darkness. “Killing it quiet would be risky. Nathan and I stay close, you swing around. We’re sneakier and are better in close. Sarah, do you have any enchanted penetrators left?”

She frowned. “Three. I need to get more from the Bhos, they’re a gem to the glass of the explosive rounds. Too many things with thick skulls or enchanted armor.”

“It’s worth it.” Nathan said, picking up on Aarl’s plan. “One shot to the head is going to attract less attention than a full-on fight. Be ready if it notices us.”

With that, Khachi, Sarah and Stella crept wide, going around the far side of the strip of trees. Nathan and Aarl stuck to the woods, passing within forty feet of the gigantic beast.

Nathan was quieter than Aarl, but he had stealth and perception skills. But Aarl had superhuman grace and night vision from his armor, so they both passed by the giant bear without making a sound.

He took the chance to study the monster. It was hunched low to the ground, shoulders heavy with ludicrous slabs of muscle. The shape overall looked a lot like a normal earth bear, if you ignored the scale of the thing. But there were a few key differences that he’d learned about from the Adventurer training. The fur was formed of sharp but flexible tendrils that twisted together before sticking out like a hedgehog. From a distance it looked like a gentle fuzz, but anybody getting close would risk cutting themselves against the creature’s blade-resistant fur.

The ears were sharp and pointed, almost like a wolf’s. The tail was short and stubby, and concealed the source of the most disgusting of the castlebear’s weapons. They were known to fart when moving quickly, and the smell was reputed to be horrifically stinky. Nothing dangerous on its own, just enough to make you hurl when you really needed to be trying not to get eaten by a bear large enough to eat elephants in couple of bites.

I’m glad the wind is strong tonight. I think it blew away any scent leftover from the hunt.

Nathan had spoken too soon, and as they passed downwind he picked up the faintest whiff of the truly terrible smell. He tried to ignore it with [Battlefield Meditation], but his enhanced senses helpfully informed him of every subtlety of the terrible scent.

I’m pretty vulnerable to stink-based weaponry. Good to know.

Nathan spent Focus to center. He still clenched his jaw, barely suppressing a gag and picking up the pace. Aarl hurried and caught up as they left the bear behind.

His eyes were watering as he stopped farther along, waiting for the other Heirs to join back up from their detour. Aarl’s helmet retracted and he raised an eyebrow. “What? Did you smell it?”

Nathan just nodded, inhaling deeply to try to cleanse his taste buds. “You didn’t?”

The black-armored warrior shook his head. “This armor really is a treasure of a dragon’s hoard.”

Khachi rolled up, armor clanking loudly in the night. “We go?” He gestured up the slope, past the Sklian monument that was their next landmark.

“We go.” Nathan agreed, and they started climbing the mountain, taking a wide path around the giant stone cobra, poised to strike. Just past the statue he felt the first traces of detection magic. There was a wide cordon of subtle magic stretched across the ground that would send an alert if anything living passed through it.

I bet that gets false-positives all the time from monsters and wildlife.

“Sensor spell, give me a minute.” Nathan examined the magic for a second, figuring out if he could break the flow without disrupting the spell so much that somebody on the other side would notice.

No. If I break the link, it snaps back to the caster. The only way across is to fly or tunnel. Or reshape the spell.

Nathan used his aura to tease up the spell, carefully drawing it out of the ground and making an arch that the Heirs could safely walk through. “Single file, after me.”

Then they were through, and climbing the slope in earnest. A few more sensor magics looped across the slopes, many bearing some similarities to the first but each with their own twist. Nathan guided his team carefully through the magical obstacles, avoiding triggering any alarms by careful manipulation of his antimagic. A few of the giant spell-circles weren’t even geared towards detecting attackers, instead focused on simply deterring monsters from approaching. Nathan left those alone.

Magical Intuition 9 achieved!

I wonder how the other teams get around this stuff? Probably stealth skills and magic. It's not so simple as flight, some of these detect anything overhead too.

The mountain grew rocky and bare as they climbed, and Nathan found himself appreciating the beauty of Davrar once more. The clear sky allowed the world above to cast a green and blue glow on the mountains around him, and the majesty of the rugged terrain calmed him as he focused on navigating magical tripwires that would bring an army down on their heads. The Heirs were silent, letting him focus on his task.

A few of the sensors were vision-based, and felt like cameras to his [Noticeability], with mages occasionally observing through the spells. His stealth skills helped out, but Nathan used [Noticability] to help him map out a safe path through the visual sensors when nobody was looking.

Mid-tier Noticeability 9 achieved!

Eventually they grew close to the peak, but stopped a few hundred feet from the summit. They’d gotten here a few hours early, and they needed to hunker down and wait until it was time. The Giantsrest army was in the valley on the other side of the mountain, and the Heirs were going to wait to summit the peak until it was time for the attack. They stayed quiet, despite it being pretty unlikely that anybody would hear them from this high up. The night was cold, but instead of lighting a fire Stella pulled out blankets. Nathan took two, wrapping himself in a cocoon of fluff to stay warm.

There was a bit of talking, but everybody was too tense to talk about anything other than the upcoming battle. They had a brief discussion on when to look over the ridge at the enemy camp and make final preparations. After that they just sat in a circle, keeping eyes out in all directions while they waited, though Stella kept doing time-checks.

It was an awkward hour, but right about when it was time to start making their way up the rest of the mountain, Nathan’s eyes caught a blur heading towards them.

Oh no…

A particularly strong gust of wind blew over them, accompanied by a blast of dust and grit.

“By the Endings, it’s a surprise to meet you here.” Brox said, his arms as wide as his toothy grin.

Nathan stood up, offhandedly tossing the blankets back to Stella as his eyes flicked down the mountain to track Brox’s path. “Did you set off the alarms?”

The Questor snorted. “The light of your presence shines in my eyes as well, Nathan Lark.” He shook his head and trapped a torc wrapped around his right bicep. “This shields me from detection magic. It was a gift from the Ulzir Khanate, and will fool better magic than that of Giantsrest.”

Nathan could feel his friends watching him with apprehension, wary of the confrontation. He took a deep breath, stepping on his dislike of the Questor. “Sorry. I’m… this battle needs to go well. I appreciate you coming to fight with us.”

The corner of Brox’s mouth twisted in wry amusement, and he tilted his head to the side. “What words.” He turned his gaze skywards, tapping his lips thoughtfully, as if deciding what to say.

Then he looked down, meeting Nathan’s gaze. “We do not see the same battle before us. In Giantsrest I find a grand adventure, and the chance to spite a foe. I desire Badud’s humiliation, and to see his empire ruined by his arrogance."

The Questor’s purple eyes were dark and serious. “Beyond that target, I desire to enjoy myself. I’ve been on Davrar for many thousands of years. I have shepherded civilization through eight Endings. Between those times of smoke and blood I play many roles, from benevolent king to wandering master of the mountain.”

He pulled out one of his swords, breaking eye contact to examine the length of enchanted metal. “I enjoy the role of the popular hero who grasps at the pleasure before him. It gives me freedom from duty, a release from having to consider every action.”

Brox paused, seeming to invite an interruption.

The man seemed to be on a roll, and Nathan wasn’t about to say anything to stop this moment of self-reflection, or risk pissing Brox off when he held a sword that bore an enchantment beyond anything Nathan had felt before.

“I know what you wish of me. A cautious, careful ally. A serious man who treats you with respect.” Brox sighed, sheathing his weapon and looking out over the blue-lit landscape with a mournful expression. “I know that role. I cannot do it forever. Your choice is between a fool who courts every challenge, who does not consider his allies' needs. Or a hero who will one day break upon his own worries, and fail to arrive when he is needed.”

Brox was silent again, as the Heirs absorbed his words. Nathan watched the man, seeing his tired smile.

It’s a reminder I don’t know much about him. I'm not going to forgive him everything, but right now he's here, with us. He's our ally, fighting against people that need to be fought.

Brox’s gaze continued to pan around the mountains, lowering by degrees until it found the Heirs. He looked at them like a man asked to inspire others when he had no hope of his own to share.

“Wake the flame inside, and feed it your doubt.” Khachi’s voice resonated across the mountaintop, and the holy blessings within all but Nathan woke once more. Brox’s was a bare ember, barely flickering with life.

“We stand before a worthy battle, called by prophecy and valor.” The divine presence was back, mana spilling out from the fabric of Davrar to fill the air around them once more.

Khachi continued speaking, his words echoing back from the world around them. “All that remains is to stare the ghoul in the eye. The battle awaits, and we will answer the call with courage.” The air began glowing golden as the mana seemed to activate, awaiting the wolfman’s benediction.

His eyes were portals to a realm of energy and emotion, a place where ideas conjured forth limitless power. “By my faith, be blessed to fight valiantly in battle most righteous.”

Nathan felt the divine magic inside each of his companions pulse with the words, quickly building to a crescendo. At his final word the blessings blazed to life and drew in the ambient energy floating in the air, like a fire sucking in oxygen. Brox and each of the Heirs inhaled deeply, like they’d just been injected with adrenaline. Their bodies took on a faint glow.

There was a short period of quiet, and then Khachi spoke in shocked surprise. “I just Developed [Divine Connection] and gained nine levels.” The reverb had mostly faded from his voice, but not entirely.

Brox laughed, and blurred to appear next to the wolfman, clapping him on the shoulder. Every one of his motions trailed the golden light of the divine blessing. “Well earned, for you have accomplished a deed worthy of a dragon. I feel hope beating in my chest once more!”

The Questor stepped back, standing before them again. But now his posture was resolute and unshakable instead of strutting and demonstrative. He’d struck grand poses before, but this time it didn’t seem performative. It was real. His hair blew in the wind and his eyes glowed with resolve, his very posture that of a hero.

Brox bowed his head respectfully to them. “Truly, you will steal the fire of the gods. Hah! Khachi has already done so. I am glad to fight beside you.”

He turned his head towards Nathan, giving a shallow nod. “I hope I have not offended you beyond resolution, Antimage. Once you have cast down Giantsrest, go to Keihona and seek out Sarya Pamaris. She will direct you to more slave-empires that should be destroyed.”

Nathan returned the gesture “I’m glad to have you with us.”

The Questor’s smile blazed in the night before he spun on his heel, facing towards the summit of the mountain and the army that lay beyond. “Then let us challenge this blasphemous foe!”

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Aura of Antimagic 7

Permanent Talent 2: Perfected Body 8

Talent 3: High-tier Slow Fall 10

Class: Implacable Antimage level237

Deepened Stamina:7378/7410

Antimage’s Impassivity

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Implacable Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Improved Antimagic

Strenuous Agility

Hand-to-hand Expertise

Class: Magekiller level 89

Regenerative Focus: 990/990

Catastrophic Blows

Battle Stealth

Mage Infiltration

Forgettable

Unsuspecting Strike

Antimagic Stealth

Spell Redirection

Lethal Index

Utility skills:

Battle Meditation 9

Leadership 6

High-tier Sprinting 8

Magical Perception 9

Alertness 2

Magical Intuition 9

High-tier Dodging Footwork 10

Mental Fortress 4

High-tier Lecturing 7

High-tier Tumbling 8

Mid-tier Noticeability 9

Low-tier Quiet Movement 4

Low-tier Disguise 4

Mid-tier Battle Cry 3

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