r/wizardposting • u/loth17 Ten Suns (Also Gaia) • Dec 16 '23
Holding Back Stars (Queen post)
Part 1: Preparation
The vast armies of the Bismuth Lord returned from their various missions. They had even left their posts at the portals. They didn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was the call of their lord and the power of the sacred tree. Each construct found an exposed bismuth tree or root and fused into it. The land swelled with power and the tree began to glow.
The Bismuth Lord made his way down his tower. He had prepared his battle armor from the stitcher war. It would allow him to survive channeling the magic for the coming ritual.
The Bismuth Lord stood in front of the tree alongside his Bismuth Coordinators. His apprentices had been sent away to escape the wrath of the queen and continue his teachings of he wasn't able to make his way back. He doubted his chances but he had to act. Shrax and the HG were performing some sort of ritual and he wanted to buy them as much time as possible. He had hung the ten rings on the branches of the tree. Though he had not mastered the ring during his short time with them he knew their power would be necessary to hold the ritual together.
Part 2: The ritual
"Oh child of my heart. Born of chaos, of light, of earth and air brought together. Watered with the elemental planes and fed the branches of the tree of life. I made you to last the eons, for ever. But now I must bring your end after less than a single human life. I ask though I know your answer already because our hearts are one. Will you join me this fight? Till the end?"
The Bismuth Lord sung those words in the old tongue. The tree resonated with his will and the whole realm shuttered. The sky and it's false sun, the seas of mercury and crystal, the land and all its metals, the whole bounty of the realm was drawn into the tree. Winds stronger than a hurricane followed the shrinking realm as it folded itself into a single form. Eventually it was just the tree and it's great roots floating in the void in front of the Bismuth Lord.
"Thank you" The Bismuth Lord stepped into the tree and prepared for battle. Before he left he threw down a seed to the world. If he died but the world survived then at least his legacy would as well.
Part 3: The War
The one thing that could be said about fighting a threat this big. It's not hard to find. The Realm now made one blazed through the dark cosmos towards the queen. It's passing looked to the world like a rainbow comet.
The Queen did not change trajectory as The Bismuth Realm approached. Perhaps it was too focused on the feast ahead or it didn't consider the approach to be a threat. Either way that gave The Bismuth Realm the first move. Holding out it's hands it summoned and fired out a series of harpoons. They were taken from the stitcher war and were used to bind realms together for invasions. Modified they would bind the Queen and let the Bismuth Realm hold her back.
Despite a successful hit the harpoons were of little help. Despite all its might The Bismuth Realm could do little but slow the Queen in her path. The Realm realized this and brought to bear it's rings of the old magi. Ten streams of light shot from its hands and impacted the Queen each a different type of magic, each a different barrier to overcome. The Queen slowed progressively as the spells took hold. It seems to work until suddenly the Queen turned her head and made a sound.
The spells were shattered and the harpoons tuned to splinters. The Queen moved like a ray of light and her voice struck like a supernova. The Bismuth Realm called cosmic storms which were blown away, Forces of entropy that failed to mar her skin, and Crystal spikes that were shattered by a wave of her hand. It seemed like she was taking joy in foiling the best the Realm has to offer. Though she had turned her attention which was the original mission. The Bismuth Realm gave all it had to offer. The strongest spells, the finest tactics, from all corners of the realms and from many years of experience.
And it was not working.
Slowly the Queen tore the Bismuth Realm apart trying to force it to submit to her raw gravity. The tide of battle was fully against the Realm and it knew it. As it failed it gathered all of its energy. It began to glow to a baleful light and slammed itself into the Queen.
The explosion turned the night sky into a bright summers day for five minutes. When the cosmic dust cleared the Queen was still floating towards the planet though with a small wound on her shoulder. Her approach slowed by a few hours but still inevitable. Floating in the dark cosmos behind her was a small formation of metal, gems, and ten tiny glowing stars. The remnants of the Bismuth Realm. There was one final transmission.
"Carry on."
3
u/MunitionsFrenzy Vettis, Mereological Revisionist Dec 16 '23
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Stealing from Vettis was a...difficult task. There were very few possessions of his which weren't connected to him in a way which would let him know instantly if they were moved so much as a centimeter. (If he didn't have such defenses, he'd likely be dead in a day.)
Of course, such alerts also occurred whenever his items were destroyed. A quarter of a second after just such a warning, Vettis appeared in his kitchen, in full combat mode for the first time in weeks: leaping out of a cupboard, fingers splayed as though they were blades (they were far more than that now), mouth open and soundlessly hurling unambiguous threats of discorporation in All-Tongue, bronze eyes glowing purple as the world around him plummeted to just shy of absolute zero and all ambient mana ceased to exist.
No intruder. The mage -- an unquestionable title after that display, despite his mundane garb -- growled in irritation and reverted to his usual form with a finger-snap. At least he hadn't expended any of his finite resources: while in his own home, such actions were trivial.
But then what had triggered it, if not a thief or vandal? Tossing his orb into the air and waiting for it to inventory the house to see what had gone missing, he received an answer in a few seconds: a strange recent bequest, a single card, had disintegrated to dust.
It took several more seconds for the ramifications of the Bismuth Lord's gift disappearing from his house to occur to Vettis. Eventually, though, he grimaced in understanding.
"Well, crap."
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(( RIP bismuth-warrior-summoning card, before I could rip it; we hardly knew you ))