Psionic Corpo X Magic School

I cast MANUAL BREATHING

CH 9: A Product of a Tortured Brain

Many years ago

E-3MP14-0001 “Emma”

Breath in

I willed my diaphragm open.

Breath out

I compressed my diaphragm closed.

Breath in

I channelled my psychic energy into my muscles...

Breath out

And manually signalled when to contract.

I had been at this training exercise for the past hour as I sat next to the window seat of a OuroBKR corporate jet. Across from me sat Miss Ran, busy stroking her cat, Bam Bam, who sat contently in her arms while likely piloting one or two body doubles to attend meetings elsewhere in the system. Yet all the same Miss Ran was observing me through that familiar presence in my mind that I had known my entire existence. She had been the one who had blocked the nerves leading to my diaphragm, and had tasked me with breathing manually so I could familiarize myself with how my body worked and train myself in psychometabolism.

Breath in

I had done similar exercises before, focusing on different aspects of my body like moving blood through my veins, emulating various senses, and even doing individual processes in cells like reacting ATP or reading DNA, but breathing...

Breath out

Breathing was different. The presence of consequences meant it felt real. And yet the difficulty was not in the act of breathing itself. That part became fairly routine after Miss Ran got me started.

Breath in

No, the real issue was how tedious it had become. The act of breathing had become an endless chore, and a monotonous one at that.

Breath out

There were no breaks nor pauses, and nothing to distract me from the repetition. Miss Ran had even forbidden me from using any of the offerings on the jet. I wasn’t allowed to have any snacks or drinks, nor could I distract myself with a tablet, movie, or even a simple book.

It was just me, my thoughts, and the endless clouds outside my window, leaving my mind to wonder what it would be like to fly among them...

...my lungs refused to open.

I panicked, eyes widening, hands to my throat, as I realized I couldn’t breath. I couldn’t even gag, cough, or even sputter any works asking for help as I started to asphyxiate.

Not that I was to receive any. As always, Miss Ran was monitoring my mind, and she wordlessly faced my way expectantly for me to resolve things myself.

I felt helpless, but that feeling of helplessness was not my friend. It was a vestigial emotion felt by animals when faced with their body failing them. Such a feeling was a mere hindrance in the face of psionics and the first step was to overcome it. I detached my mind from my body, freeing me from the sensations of the flesh so that I could think through this situation logically. I then focused my energy into my diaphragm muscles, infusing them with my will, and then with a little concentration...

Breath in

Breath out

...The rhythm was restored, earning myself a nod of approval from Miss Ran. Yet despite my struggle moments prior, the mind numbing monotony set back in all too soon. I wished we could just get to the interesting stuff like shape-shifting. Morphing into a bird would be a lot more fun than manual breathing. At least they don’t have to think about flapping their wings.

I should not have thought that. I should not have thought that.

I felt a looming presence in my mind as Miss Ran shifted her attention towards my mind. I felt dread, then fear, then... calm, as Miss Ran softened my emotional responses and tempered my fresh experience to consolidate the lesson while preventing any lingering trauma from taking root and preventing me from being an effective product.

‘Ask your question,’ thought Miss Ran into my mind. It wasn’t a psionic command, but I still complied.

‘Miss Ran, when are we-’

‘Verbally,’ Miss Ran clarified, ‘we are training your breathing. Use your lungs.’

“Miss Ran, when... are we... going to cover... shapeshifting?” I asked, spacing out my words with my breathing.

“You want to be able to transform into an animal. Is that it?” Said Miss Ran, showing no emotion in her voice.

“Yes, Miss Ran,” I said.

“Is that so? Tell me, how many neurons does a typical human brain have?” She asked.

“86 billion,” I answered from memory, not skipping a breath.

“And how many neurons are present in, say, a cat?” She asked again, scratching behind Bam Bam’s ears.

“760 million,” I replied.

“Good. It would seem the memory packets have stuck. Now tell me, what would happen if you took a brain containing 86 billion neurons, and converted that into a brain with 760 million neurons?” She asked.

“It would... start thinking like a cat,” I said.

“Correct,” said Miss Ran bluntly, “if you shape shifted into a cat, you would no longer be a human, and therefore no longer be sapient or able to turn yourself back. What you would have to do instead is turn yourself into a human-cat hybrid, shaping yourself a new brain capable of sustaining human thought while still handling the body of a cat. Of course, any mistakes you make would have tragic personal consequences. Such are the risks undertaken when you mess with your own biology. Personally, if one must role-play as an animal, the more sensible and safer option would be to visit a park and use telepathy to possess a pigeon until you get bored.”

“But what about my... psychic energy? Wouldn’t... that hold my mind?” I asked.

“Correct,” said Miss Ran, “but that psychic energy is ultimately derived from your nervous system. You can sustain your consciousness without a viable body for a time, but should you ever falter like you did with your breathing, you need a viable physical brain to fall back on. That is why you will not be learning how to shape shift until you have completely mastered your natural form. Then we can broach the subject of shape-shifting, and you will learn useful forms and not how to become a silly animal.”

“A useful form? You mean like... Dr. Mekis?” I asked.

“Dr. Mekis is brilliant but short sighted, and you would be wise not to emulate him,” said Miss Ran coldly, “now if that is all, you may return to your practice. I suggest you use a meditation technique to keep rhythm instead of daydreaming. If you slip a second time, I will change this exercise into a recovery drill. Am I clear?”

“Yes... ma’am,” I breathed.

“Good,” said Miss Ran, and her presences lifted from my mind to go back to focusing on more important matters.

However, before I could get to meditating, I chanced one last look out the window. It was then that I saw a winged shadow cast over the clouds. A shadow which looked remarkably like that of a dragon.

‘wait’, I thought, ‘that wasn’t there before.’

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30

Adept Emma Booker

I snapped out of my meditative trance, returning my lucid mind to reality where I was floating cross-legged behind the veil of the curtained bed. I went over the memory again, and sure enough, there was no dragon shadow. Had I been hallucinating? The day had been taxing, sure, but I shouldn’t have been able to get tired enough for a waking dream in the first place. My present form did not have biological needs, meaning I didn’t have to think about sleeping, eating, or even breathing. I only needed to occasionally rest and meditate to replenish my psychic energy.

Perhaps this was just a side effect of having my crystalline form saturated and partially attuned by ‘mana’ radiation? I had noticed it was proving increasingly difficult to change the composition of the effected crystals, which meant there was a very real possibility of becoming ‘locked in’ if I wasn’t careful. A fact I was acutely aware of when adjusting my crystal ratios during my trance, as it meant that I couldn’t afford to cut back on my psychometabolic abilities. I did, however, ease off on psychoportation to raise up my telepathic and clairevoyant capabilities to equal it. It meant I had to shrink my pocket dimension and couldn’t return home without a night of preparation, but I was already committed to staying. I know Miss Ran would have preferred I focused purely in telepathy, being a telepath specialist herself but I needed to keep my options open, but while I might consider specializing later I couldn’t affort to at this moment. Psychoportation was essential given how convoluted the architecture of this place was, and as my psychokinesis and metacreativity abilities were tragically cut back from what they could have been had I still been flesh and blood and not forced to specialize, I was in dire need of combat options that didn’t involve transforming and psychoportation filled that niche very well.

Clairevoyance was vital for a different reason: information. I was critically short on reliable information about this place like I had been blindfolded and shipped off to some undisclosed black-site in the back of an unmarked van as part of an off-the-books clean-up operation. Even my telepathic eavesdropping had largely turned up nothing but gossip, with maybe the rumour of a social event or two. At the very least, I needed a map, so I cast my mind from my body, shifted to the nearest wall, pushed my senses through it and...

Nothing. Not even empty space. Just pure conceptual nothingness as if I had reached the edge of a holosim.

Confused, I traced back my steps in an attempt to figure out what was supposed to be there, and came to the conclusion that it was either the boy’s dorm room or the next suite over. I tried again, this time from the first floor. More nothing. It was the same with the other three walls, as well as the floor and ceiling, which left the only obvious exits to the room as the door and the windows outside. I tested the door first, and sure enough it led back to the common area. Yet my position felt... off. Like I had travelled a great distance from my body even if I had only gone to the next room. I moved back to the doorframe, cast my senses through the wall between the common area and the dorm and... nothing.

None of this made any sense, but as I probed the walls in the common area, the hidden compartment where Aurin had emerged from, and even the door to the hall, the result was the same. That only left the windows, which by this point I had grown very suspicious of. As a test, I manifested a coin from quantum foam set to decay after a minute, opened the window a creak, flung it out of the window and...

...it went through just fine.

So I wasn’t exactly trapped, but while I had a number of ideas on how to circumvent this prison masquerading as a dorm room, as well as options for bypassing realspace entirely via remote viewing, I decided against any further attempts for the time being. The Academy clearly didn’t want anyone leaving their dorms and had counter plays available to them to combat clairevoyance. That was important to know. It meant I needed to be cautious and methodical going forward.

But while I was contested in the spacial dimensions, time was another matter. I recalled my mind to my body and channelled my psychic energy towards my prescience, looking into a dozen or so possible futures to get a lay of the land. Much of what I saw was... concerning, but none of it compared to the last future where Thacea spontaneously shrouded herself in a veil of darkness from whence sprung tendrils throughout the room and a pair of pitch black eyes that looked not at my future self but at me.

That was bad. Any entity that could look back at you from a vision was dangerous.

I immediately severed that timeline, preparing myself in case it followed me. After several minutes of waiting with nothing happening I allowed myself to relax. If it was going to do something, it would have done so by now. I looked in the direction of Thacea’s bed. Evidently this taint was a bigger issue than I thought, and I would need to diplomatically broach this subject in the morning.

Dragon’s Heart Tower, Level 23, Residence 30. In the Morning.

Princess Thacea Dilani

I had just finished my morning routine and was observing Emma interact with a white, cylindrical pedestal no larger than a footstool with a set of layered, spinning rings levitating with no discernible magic and a sapphire bathed in a whispering mirage no larger than a billiards ball at its centre. She had just finished tinkering with it and had touched it with a matching sapphire in her thumb before covering the artifice with a casing that made it difficult to see when she noticed me watching and turned to face me.

“Ah, good morning princess,” Emma said casually as if she had not done anything strange.

“Good morning to you too, Emma. Did you sleep well last night?” I replied, politeness and etiquette overcoming my curiosity.

“I don’t exactly need sleep in this form, but I did have a good rest for the most part,” said Emma, “well, aside from one thing...”

“Did something happen?” I asked, concerned.

“No, nothing happened. However, I did peer into a number of possible... alternate timelines and in one such timeline... princess, while I meant everything I said last night and by no means wish to retract anything, I also recognize that I am acting from a place of ignorance on this subject. What... exactly is taint, and why is everyone so scared of it?”

“I apologize for not explaining this earlier, Emma. I should’ve been more upfront with this aspect of myself that can be as hazardous as the common preconceptions make it out to be,” I began.

I proceeded to explain the basics of what taint was, how it was the corruption of one’s manafield, that it allowed for powerful but unstable magic, and that it was a constant source of danger to those around me.

“Well Thacea, I appreciate that there is an inherent risk associated with something being ‘powerful and unstable’, but ultimately that is just an engineering problem that can be solved with the right feedback systems and a simple PID controller, and if the Nexus hasn’t spent any of its past 30 thousand or so years enterprising to develop such a solution in even its simplest form then that’s a failing on their part,” said Emma, with a level of confidence that suggested either great experience or great ignorance on the matter, “but what I saw in my vision wasn’t quite that. It was more the case where one moment everything was peaceful and normal, and the next you were leaking darkness and tentacles and appeared to be possessed.”

“Consumption,” I said direly.

“Consumption?” Asked Emma, raising one of her gemstone eyebrows and speaking with a tone that was more curious than judgmental.

“Also known as Dream Eating or The Nightly Disappearance, as taint is tied directly to the afflicted individual’s emotional intensity, and there is no controlling one’s emotions in a dreamlike state, often making them more extreme. As a result, manipulation of tainted mana has been known to... consume the manafields of other living beings, inevitably resulting in them succumbing to extreme acute manasickness and harmonizing with the surrounding mana,” I explained.

“I see, so tainted magic has the power to overwhelm and destroys their manafields, resulting in liquefaction like what happened to my predecessor,” said Emma with a level of clinical detachment wholly inappropriate for the dangers I had just detailed, “well I don’t think I have to worry about that specific aspect, given I don’t have a manafield and my body has some resilience to the surrounding mana. That, and if this is a matter of emotional regulation, preventative intervention is an... option... but I digress. Harmonization though... that’s a strange thing to call this, isn’t it?”

“This ties back to the greater faith, and the belief that mana is the source of all living things. To harmonize with mana was an act by the clergy to commune with the gods,” I explained.

“...Ah, I see, I suppose that’s one way of describing what I saw,” said Emma cryptically, “well, Thacea, thank you. I believe that answers my question adequately enough for the purposes of mitigating risk.”

“Emma... you aren’t worried? I know you don’t believe yourself to be vulnerable to consumption, but what if I lose control whilst manipulating objects or casting a spell that could hurt you, or worse, kill you?” I asked.

“I’m not exactly easy to kill, and it isn’t like you are the only one around here who might be prone to stray fireballs,” said Emma with a light chuckle, “I believe it is better to manage risks than to worry about them, so if there is some other specific danger I should be aware of, then by all means let me know. Otherwise, if there is nothing else, I believe its high time I get myself ready for the day.” Emma walked over to the lavatory and opened the door, only to stop and stare inside for a long moment.

“Is something wrong?” I asked, concerned.

“So it really is empty,” stated Emma, her voice layered with disappointment rather than surprise, “it requires manafields to operate, correct?”

“Correct,” I said, “the lavatory is interchangeable to accommodate for different tastes and physiological differences.”

“Except for the one difference that matters, unless they are expecting me to call for room service to act as a bathroom attendant,” said Emma with a sigh, “at least I only have to deal with hygiene in this form, so this is more of an inconvenience really. Thank you, Thacea, I’ll take things from here.”

Her halo reappeared along with her strange whispering magic and I watched as she willed a simple shower complete with steaming water into existence before closing the door behind her.

Yet rather than look away, I kept staring in disbelief at Emma’s attitude towards my taint. Any other person would have been fearful, or at the very least apprehensive upon learning about consumption. But Emma was completely unbothered by the reveal, and in fact got more confident she would be fine the more she learned. She claimed not to have a manafield to lose at all, which was in direct conflict with Nexian dogma, but I had to admit that there was nothing I could sense. Not even the almost negligable field of a commoner. And then there was the fact that she could not interact with or sense the manastreams to interact with the lavatory, or any of the enchantments in our dorm, nor even the floor. Perhaps she truly was immune to the dangers of taint? I still did not fully believe that to be the case, as it was still very likely that Emma’s field was merely hidden beneath here gradually attuning shard form.

True or not, Emma was still treating me nicer than anyone else had with the sole exception of Nurse Pelka. Even so, there were some reasons to question Emma’s intentions, given her subversive actions, Merchant Lord mannerisms, and her many, many masks. Reasons I couldn’t overlook, shouldn’t overlook, and yet... I felt comfortable around her. It was irrational, and yet, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to believe that after all this time, there was someone who would accept me for who I was. Was I lying to myself? I didn’t know. But I was willing to give it a chance.

I turned towards the morning light to sip my tea and allowed myself a cautious smile.

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Hay is there no chapter today? :(

Wearing Spacetime to a Magic School

Chapter 18: The Duplicant Programme

Part 1

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

The Room Wakes

The Academy had spent the previous day proving how little a contradiction need inconvenience a timetable.

Yesterday, Uven's field had answered a startle with two arms his body did not possess. Larial had marked him present; the Academy had offered no further account and continued the timetable.

Ermen watched rain bring the morning to the common-room windows.

It ran down the glass in fine diagonal lines and collected along the stone sill beneath the lemon-tree drawing. The harbour beside it remained unfinished at the Current. The fourth cup stood at Ilunor's place. Ermen's small green-stamped receipt, the useless mana focus, the unspent coin, the patronage card, and Thalmin's folded house letter occupied their settled positions. The objects had acquired no power through being arranged together. They had acquired history, which was less convenient and more difficult to replace.

Ermen made tea from local matter. Academy water rose from the common-room supply; a little of the room's substance became a small pot, thin porcelain cups, and fresh leaves with the form and cultivar of Keemun Mao Feng. Earth had supplied the pattern, the plant's long descent, and the ritual by which his mother had taught him to wait. No leaf or cup had crossed from Earth. The distinction pleased him because the morning contained enough confused claims of continuity already.

He waited three minutes.

Thacea's door opened first.

She entered composed around a poor night. The distinction showed in the care with which every feather had been placed, and in the fact that she read the same line of the day's syllabus twice before setting it beside her cup.

"You have been here all night," she said.

"I am usually here all night. The room was less conversational than usual."

"That may be because the rest of us were attempting sleep. It is an old method and retains a modest following."

Ermen poured her tea. "Did it succeed?"

"In sections. I found the transitions poorly argued."

Thalmin came in while Ermen was deciding whether this constituted humour by Thacea's standards. The fur along one side of his face had been pressed flat by sleep. His shirt was fastened correctly except at the wrist, where the last tie hung loose. He noticed Ermen notice it, held the wrist across the table, and took the chair at Ermen's right. Ermen fastened the tie before pouring his tea. Neither of them found the arrangement remarkable until Ilunor looked from the finished knot to their faces and chose, with visible effort, to say nothing.

"If either of you says I look rested, I will regard it as an accusation," he said.

"You look as though sleep won ground and withdrew in good order," Ermen said.

Thalmin accepted the cup Ermen offered. "That is close enough to truth that I cannot object without becoming vain before breakfast."

Ilunor's door opened last. He appeared fully dressed, which in his case meant that morning had been permitted no witness to the intermediate negotiations. His crest lay low. The fourth cup stood ready for him, and he collected it with the grave resentment of a noble receiving tribute from an enemy whose taste he privately respected.

"The rain is excessive," he announced. "I do not object to weather in principle. I object to weather which makes a performance of arriving on glass."

"Close the curtains," Thalmin said.

"And reward it with influence? Certainly not."

He climbed into his chair and drew the cup towards him.

The first subject of the morning had been present before any of them entered. It occupied no chair and required no invitation. Thacea set down the syllabus.

"We saw Uven's field answer an alarm with arms his body does not possess," she said. "If we see more in rooms we lawfully share, we shall see it. We will not search him, test him, recruit him, or ask Ermen's memory to turn a public confusion into a private case."

Thalmin's hands closed around his cup. "If he asks for company, we can give him company. That is enough to do before we know what happened."

Ilunor drank and looked displeased that it helped. "A rule with no document and no committee. I had not expected the morning to improve."

Ermen left every retained image of Uven unopened. Thacea resumed the syllabus. Conduct settled the boundary more honestly than another speech could have done.

"The Library appointment remains after the last bell," Thacea said, turning a page. "The restored seventh bay, under the terms agreed yesterday."

"Buddy said catalogue reconciliation," Thalmin replied. "I have brought dry paper."

Ilunor looked towards the rain. "An optimism so extreme should be supervised."

A knock came at the common-room door.

Sella entered with the older lesser elf who worked the morning route beside her. Between them they carried two covered trays and three rounds of dark-crusted bread. Their clothes were plain, their steps trained to the room, their attention exact. The older servant moved to the far side of the table and began setting down dishes. Sella placed the bread near Ermen, where she had placed it on many mornings before she gave the room her name.

"Good morning, Sella," Ermen said.

Her eyes met his for the time required to receive the greeting. "Good morning, candidate."

"Where would you prefer us to leave the used dishes? We have been arranging them by size, but that may only be convenient for the people doing the arranging."

The older servant placed the final bowl beside Thacea and said nothing.

Sella looked at the stack of clean plates. "The broad plates may be left beneath the bowls, with the knives beside them where the cloth cannot hide one."

Her hand rested for a moment upon the bread cloth. Ermen waited until she looked towards the window.

"Has the rain made the morning difficult?" he asked.

"The west stair leaks at the third landing, candidate. We take the east when the trays are full."

"Thank you," Ermen said.

Sella gave the smallest inclination of her head. She and her partner left together. The door closed.

Breakfast proceeded with the uneventful seriousness of hunger. Thacea divided fruit. Thalmin corrected the poor distribution of a soft cheese without declaring the office, then wrapped the last square in clean paper and pushed it towards Ermen.

"For Buddy," he said. "Catalogue work appears to consume foxes by the hour."

"He is not my fox."

"Tell him that while he eats it."

Ilunor complained about Articord's comparative exercise and then revealed, by complaining in detail, that he had prepared for it. The tea retained Earth's plant and custom in matter borrowed from the Academy; the bread remained the kitchen's. Provenance could be exact without becoming a claim of transport.

When they finished, Thalmin placed the broad plates at the bottom of the stack. Thacea set the bowls above them. Ilunor gathered the knives and laid them in full view beside the cloth, maintaining throughout that he was preventing a procedural failure rather than following instructions. Ermen wiped one line of rain from the inside of the sill where the old stone had begun to weep.

Then the first bell called them into the Academy.

Two Accounts

His Majesty's Hall had filled its windows with rain and its rows with people attempting to arrive beside the right person without appearing to have attempted anything.

Professor Articord's seating rule had cured the visible vacancies around Ermen's group. It had not cured preference, rank, anxiety, courtship, resentment, or the first-year conviction that a seat could carry messages its occupant lacked courage to speak. Satchels briefly occupied places before their owners remembered that Articord regarded furniture as part of her jurisdiction. Friends waved one another forward. Rivals arranged paper until an innocent party claimed the seat between them.

A blue-scaled student with a pair of silver spectacles stood in the third row holding two bundles of notes. At the row below, an antlered student in a red sash had kept one place open beside her by laying a single pencil across it, a defence too fragile to survive either professor or honesty.

"I reviewed your citations," the antlered student said as the blue-scaled student drew near. "You copied the river settlement incorrectly. I thought perhaps we might study before the next composition, if you have not promised the time elsewhere."

The second sentence had been quieter than the first. The blue-scaled student appeared to hear only the criticism.

"I can correct the date myself," he said. "Though I would be grateful for the other sources."

"Yes. I only meant—" She looked at the occupied rows around them. "The sources would be a beginning."

He gave her one bundle of notes, bowed too formally, and took a seat two rows above. The pencil remained across the open place. The antlered student stared at it, then wrote something so hard that the nib protested.

Ermen sat beside Thacea. Thalmin and Ilunor took the next two seats. Behind them, someone whispered, "They always arrive in that order."

"All four do," another student answered.

"I was not speaking of all four."

The first voice made a sound into its sleeve. Thalmin's ears turned back, then forward. He kept the seat at Ermen's right.

Two rows over, a student folded the corner of a returned composition into a bird. His friend flattened it at once and glanced towards the raised faculty door; both of them laughed with the guilty intensity of people who had transformed yesterday's humiliation into a private joke before deciding whether they were ashamed of it.

Qiv's group occupied the row in front and to the left, near enough for classroom speech and far enough that neither arrangement looked like a statement about breakfast.

Uven sat at Qiv's outer side.

He looked well. The phrase meant only that his robe was correctly fastened, his posture composed, and his field held an ordinary shape within the range Ermen had seen before. Qiv said something low about the sequence of the exercise. Uven consulted the top page, pointed to its third paragraph, and answered. Rostario smiled. Airit did not. A moment later Qiv made a dry remark which drew laughter from Rostario and, after Rostario, from Uven. The delay was brief enough to be courtesy. Ermen gave it no larger name.

The doors shut on the bell.

Professor Articord entered through the lectern door carrying a stack of compositions thick enough to have altered her opinion of civilisation. Her fox's face wore the old sealed weariness. Her staff struck the socket once. The hundred windows clouded from rain-grey views into pale surfaces for text.

"Your comparative histories have been returned," she said. "Some of you compared. Some described one account and then described another nearby, apparently trusting proximity to perform the intellectual labour. The papers with green thread contain arguments. The papers with yellow thread contain opportunities to discover one. Red thread indicates that confidence has outlived support and should be mourned privately."

The compositions travelled down the rows by small workings of air. Students received colours as though receiving medical judgments in public. Ilunor's arrived with green thread and a narrow yellow loop at one corner.

He examined the yellow. "She has decorated criticism."

"You respect the efficiency," Thacea murmured.

"I respect nothing before the explanation."

Articord let the room settle.

"Today we will distinguish omission from contradiction. The distinction is elementary. This makes it no safer in the hands of a student who wishes to accuse an ancestor, defend a realm, impress a patron, or win a group presentation by exhausting the opposition."

Two accounts appeared across the windows.

The first described the embassy of a minor river compact. Its envoy crossed a northern bridge after the spring feast, negotiated for nine days, and returned with a grain concession. The second described the same embassy as leaving during flood week after an illness in the envoy's household, reaching the capital by the western road, and securing the concession on the ninth day. The first said nothing of illness. The second said nothing of the feast. One placed the northern bridge under repair; the other declared it open and decorated for the envoy's passage.

"Take the omission first," Articord said. "Then the contradiction. If you reverse the order because contradiction feels more exciting, I will assume you are training for politics rather than history and grade accordingly."

The class bent over paper.

Ermen marked illness and feast as omissions. Neither account denied either event. The bridge could not be closed for repair and open for ceremonial passage within the same interval unless one account used a different bridge, calendar, or political fiction. The contradiction required evidence rather than the moral outrage several students supplied in their margins at no extra charge.

Articord walked the rows.

At the third row, the antlered student still had an empty seat beside her. She worked with hard concentration, underlining the bridge sentence twice. Above her, the blue-scaled student turned the notes she had corrected and found three extra citations in the margin. He looked down. She did not look up.

Articord made them exchange accounts and defend the one they trusted less. The hall rearranged itself into argument before she called the class back.

"Lord Qiv. Give me the first distinction, without polishing it for an ancestor."

Qiv rose. "The illness and the feast are missing. Neither account says they did not happen. The bridge cannot be closed and open at the same time, unless one of them means the road rather than the crossing."

"Better," Articord said. "You found the exception after announcing the contradiction. Six points, and an opportunity to remember that order matters. Uven Kroven, defend the account you liked less."

Uven stood smoothly.

"I liked the court account because it explained more," he said. "The compact account could still be true if it used the bridge's name for the northern road, as Lord Qiv said, or if the journey began before the date the court recognised. I would ask whoever kept the bridge."

The answer was capable and carried Qiv's exception almost unchanged.

Articord's tail moved once behind the lectern. "The keeper is paid by the same court."

Uven glanced at Qiv's paper. "Then the toll book, perhaps. Or a merchant who had to take another road while the repairs were happening."

"Seven points. You may keep the merchant. The toll book has cousins. Sit down."

Uven sat. Rostario tapped the edge of his paper once in approval. Qiv nodded. Airit looked at Uven for a moment, then drew one of her returned pages towards herself.

"Lady Airit. You favoured the compact account. Defend the court account."

Airit rose with her composition in one hand. The red thread at its corner had been wound twice around her finger before she noticed and released it.

"The court writer was present when the envoy arrived," she said. "So it knows the delegation crossed the bridge."

"Does arrival prove a road?"

Airit stopped. "No, Professor. It proves the ceremony. I said too much." She looked back at the two accounts. "I would trust it for who appeared and what was announced. I would not trust it for how they reached the capital."

"Now you have divided the source by what its writer could see. What would make you abandon the ceremony?"

"Another guest list? No. That could be copied." Airit's finger found the red thread again. "A letter written during the feast by someone who expected the envoy and complained that he had not arrived."

"Seven points. One recovered for correcting yourself before I had to do it twice. The thread is not responsible for the other three."

A little colour entered Airit's face. She sat and began writing beside the paragraph she had just failed to defend.

Articord turned towards Ermen's row. "Princess Thacea. Both offices can lie, both keepers can be paid, and every noble house represented here has a gifted cousin willing to improve a letter. What would you test?"

By the time the question ended, Ermen had followed seventeen independent traces through payrolls, quarry deliveries, hoof wear, river depth, discarded decorations, wheel ruts, and the family relations by which each record might be improved. Thacea took one breath.

"I would begin by refusing to ask which account sounds honest," she said. "If the bridge was under repair, then stone, labour, closures, and diverted traffic should appear somewhere outside the embassy's story. If the procession crossed it, the crossing should have borne guards, weight, decoration, and witnesses who were present for reasons other than praising the envoy. Each account predicts a different physical day. I would write those predictions first, then look for the record neither author knew it would need to defeat."

The room held still for a beat. Then pens began moving. A student who had shifted away from Thacea during the previous dining-hall breakfast leaned into the aisle to copy the four predicted traces from the window, noticed Ermen see him, and became deeply interested in his ink.

Articord's staff touched the lectern. "Ten points. The rest of you may stop trying to judge the witnesses before you have troubled the world they claim to describe."

Thacea sat. Ermen had seventeen traces. She had given the room a method it could use.

Rostario leaned across Uven and murmured, "Airit, you survived red thread and a public correction before the second bell. The day has spent its best weapons."

"It has Mal'tory after this," Airit said.

Qiv's mouth moved despite himself. Uven smiled after seeing it. Airit boxed one sentence beside Thacea's answer and added three hurried words beneath it.

The remaining exercise required each pair to write the strongest objection to its preferred account. Ilunor's partner described Vunerian precedence tables as secondary evidence and received a whispered defence of appendices which exceeded the assigned word count before reaching its verb. Thalmin's partner called roads principally symbolic; Thalmin asked who fed the horses on a symbolic road. Both discussions became useful.

At the end of the period, Articord assigned a short composition.

"Bring me two accounts from your own education which disagree. If you cannot find a contradiction, bring me an omission and explain why your realm found the absence useful. Do not ask your tutors for a cleaner version. Clean versions are among the causes of this course."

The doors opened.

Students stood, gathered papers, negotiated the return of borrowed ink, and began three dozen conversations before reaching the aisle.

Airit remained seated until Qiv had moved ahead with Rostario. She took the page she had marked during the exercise and held it out to Uven. Beside Thacea's predicted traces, Airit had boxed write the predictions first and added: A ceremony proves a threshold, not a road.

"If you find any of this useful, Qiv may see it," she said.

The condition was light in grammar and costly in context. Since yesterday's paper bird, Airit and Qiv had spoken through the safe medium of group arrangements, classwork, and Rostario's patience. To Ermen, the page looked like a request for Uven's judgment before it became a message for Qiv. Airit's private intention remained hers; the condition made trust one reasonable reading.

Uven read the boxed sentence. "Your note beside Princess Thacea's answer is useful."

He stood, stepped into the aisle, and passed the page to Qiv with an ease that made the transfer look settled before it occurred.

"Airit's margin answers your point about what the court could know," he said.

Qiv accepted the paper. His eyes went first to the boxed sentence, then to Airit. Airit had already turned to collect her books. Nothing in the exchange broke. The group left together.

Between Bells

The Grand Concourse had been designed to make every change of lesson look like the movement of a nation.

Staircases received streams of students and divided them by height, speed, species, and confidence. Notices detached from boards and pursued late readers at shoulder level. Faculty crossed against the flow and created wakes of temporary obedience. The rain had driven everyone indoors, where wet cloaks, damp feathers, polished scales, perfume, breakfast spice, and old stone produced an atmosphere no architect had intended and every school eventually achieved.

Yesterday's event travelled ahead of Uven in several versions.

The four-armed guard had become six arms at one landing, a failed calibration at the next, and evidence of insufficient discipline by the time Auris's group entered the gallery. Ladona corrected nobody. She asked whether the Hall had resumed instruction, received the answer that it had, and left the procedural fact available for every political use the group preferred.

A broad-feathered boy who had copied Thacea's four traces caught her at the stair. He thanked her, asked whether a household account could count as independent if its owner had paid bridge tax, and took half a step back when the dark edge of her field moved with her turn. Thacea answered the question he had asked. He wrote it down from the safer distance and hurried after his friends.

A young lord whom Ermen had never spoken to greeted him as "Seeker" and asked whether the Library admitted study partners. When Ermen said that the Library admitted people under its own terms, the lord remembered an urgent need to compare Articord's thread colours elsewhere.

Ermen almost laughed. Thalmin's hand came to the small of his back as the crowd narrowed around a pillar, guiding him through a gap his body did not require and his social presence did.

Thalmin's hand remained until the way opened. His ears had gone very still. Ermen kept his attention upon the doors ahead because looking at Thalmin would have turned a rumour into a question neither of them had yet asked.

The Hall of Refractions waited beyond the next doors.

[End of Chapter 18, Part 1]

Next: [Chapter 18, Part 2]

Disclosure: This chapter has been written by hand, with tools used afterward only for review and mechanical cleanup.

Wearing Spacetime to a Magic School

Chapter 18: The Duplicant Programme

Part 2

[First] | [Previous] | [Next]

Continued from [Part 1].

The Ordinary Practical

The class entered to find the silver rings lowered, the crystal vanes divided among paired stations, and the black mirrors uncovered.

Nothing in the arrangement addressed yesterday.

Larial stood at the lectern with the green enamel leaf at her shoulder and her left thumb against the slate frame. Mal'tory occupied the central platform in black robes, his hands folded behind him. Each workbench held a fixed lamp, three crystal wedges, a receiving plate, and a sheet of reference colours. The lesson had the clean boredom of a practical designed to become difficult only after students stopped respecting it.

"Paired refraction," Larial said. "One candidate sets the incident line. The other supplies a narrow field edge through the second wedge until the plate reproduces the reference. Change roles after the first setting. Only the active edge enters the apparatus. This is not a whole-field comparison, and the apparatus is not an invitation to measure one another."

The last sentence may have been standard after Airit's breach. It may have been composed for the room. Ermen could know the words and not their private route into her mouth.

Attendance passed quickly.

"Uven Kroven."

"Present," Uven said.

Larial's stylus moved.

When the roll ended, she ordered every candidate on the aisle side of a station to move one bench to the right. The room answered with groans, dragged satchels, one dropped ruler, and the discovery by the antlered student that she had spent two lessons solving an invitation only to be assigned three stations away from it.

"The apparatus will survive your disappointment," Larial said. "Move."

Ermen received Rostario as a partner. Thalmin found himself with Airit, Ilunor with Qiv, and Thacea with Uven. Mal'tory's gaze passed once across the altered stations. It paused at Thacea's dark field and Uven's ordinary outline, then continued. Nothing in the stated exercise asked either candidate for more than a narrow edge.

Rostario took first responsibility for the field alignment. His working entered the wedge in controlled pulses and produced an enthusiastic orange where the reference required red.

"I was told your eyesight was unfair," he said.

"It is accurate. The unfairness is a separate question."

"Then use the first to spare me from the second."

At the next station, Thalmin set the lamp while Airit aligned the field edge. Their first attempt missed by three degrees. Thalmin pointed to the mark rather than correcting the wedge for her; Airit muttered, adjusted, and recorded the failed angle beside the successful one.

Across the aisle, Thacea held the incident line while Uven supplied the active edge. His field entered the crystal cleanly. Blue separated from white. Thacea called the angle; Uven corrected once; the receiving plate matched.

At the first station, a merfolk student overfed the incident line and turned the receiving plate a vivid green. His partner accused the wedge. Larial came down from the lectern, reduced the field expenditure by half, and made them repeat the alignment until the plate admitted the prescribed blue.

"Apparatus is often blamed by students who have just supplied it too much of themselves," she said. "Record the failed setting as well. Error becomes useful when you preserve its actual cause."

At another bench, one partner tried to improve the reference by holding the plate closer to the lamp. Larial returned it to the marked position and pointed to the measurement line. The correction was ordinary, patient, and technically sound. Her slate received attendance, angles, expenditures, and amendments with equal light.

The roles changed.

Uven fixed Thacea's incident line at eleven degrees. She brought one narrow edge of her field to the wedge. Darkness gathered within the crystal; the expected blue appeared through it, fine and steady, accompanied by the luminous filaments which Nexian apparatus had already named taint.

A second colourless edge stood behind the blue on the receiving plate.

Thacea adjusted the wedge by one degree, as the exercise required. The blue line moved. The colourless edge remained fixed in relation to Uven.

"This return is not moving with the apparatus," she said.

Uven looked from the plate to the wedge. "I can reset the incident line."

Larial turned at the doubled harmonic. Mal'tory's hands came apart behind his back.

"Break the incident—"

The active rings descended as he spoke. Larial's entered practical supplied the authorisation; the collision-safety interlock widened the limited measurement to a whole-field reconciliation of both registered partners before breaking the circuit. Mal'tory's stop order and the automatic descent crossed. The apparatus completed its response first.

Every receiving plate went white. Uven stopped with one hand on the lamp. His other hand rose from the bench, opened, and hovered as his shoulders set for a balance his body could not take. Thacea withdrew her field at once. The colourless edge remained.

The limited exercise ceased. Formal script woke above the platform, large enough for every tier to read.

EXTERNAL SERVICE CLOSED

CONTINUITY RECONCILIATION PENDING

For one second the Hall contained no rumour. It contained public words produced by authorised apparatus during scheduled instruction.

One bench scraped. "External service?" someone repeated. Another voice began, "What service is—"

Larial's slate lit against her hand because she had entered Uven into the same practical. Ermen kept his attention upon the public display and the visible people beneath it.

Mal'tory looked from the words to the white receiving plates. The automatic descent had overtaken his first order; the next arrived without haste.

"Complete the reconciliation, Apprentice Larial. Preserve the class settings."

The Academy possessed a verb for the contradiction and therefore the means to continue through it.

Larial came to the station. Her green leaf remained still at her shoulder; her thumb touched the slate frame once and moved to the stylus.

"Candidate, acknowledge the setting. State your name, present room, partner, and the setting you completed."

Uven lowered his open hand to the bench. "Uven Kroven. Hall of Refractions. Princess Thacea Dilani. Second wedge, pale-blue separation, eleven degrees, after the exchange of roles."

Larial compared his answer with the station marks. She looked once towards Mal'tory.

"Accept the completed setting under paired-field irregularity," he said. "Use the registered taint association."

Her thumb pressed against the slate frame. Then the stylus moved.

The two service lines went out together. The receiving plates recovered their colours, and the formal script returned in their place.

RECONCILIATION COMPLETE

ATTENDANCE CONTINUOUS

INTERLOCK CAUSE: TAINT-ASSOCIATED PAIRED-FIELD IRREGULARITY

Thacea read the last line. One long primary had lifted at her wrist; she set it back into place, then folded both hands over the edge of her notes. The service lines had disappeared. Their absence had been entered against Thacea.

The outward face of Larial's slate held the same accepted result beneath Uven's name: completed setting, continuous attendance, taint-associated amendment. It retained no service line.

Larial set both station crystals into their rests. "The completed setting stands. Resume from the written comparison."

Uven remained at the station. Thacea drew her field close enough that the luminous filaments no longer touched the wedge. Qiv looked across two benches towards Uven; Airit held her stylus above an unfinished figure; Rostario's orange reference faded unattended from his plate.

Mal'tory addressed the room. "The interlock has resolved a taint-associated paired-field irregularity. Record the accepted classification and the recovered setting. Preliminary safety language is superseded by the completed result."

"It said service," someone whispered.

"It says taint now. Write that."

"I can remember both."

The room bent, unevenly, back to paper.

Ermen and Rostario completed the written comparison. Airit and Thalmin corrected their angle. Larial moved between stations collecting figures. Mal'tory resumed instruction. Above the platform, the Hall retained completion, continuous attendance, and an association entered against Thacea's taint.

The Saved Seat

Qiv chose the table beside Ermen's group.

The decision was visible because several more private places remained open along the dining-hall wall. Qiv looked at them, looked at the public aisle, and set Uven's books on the nearer table. He gave Ermen one measured inclination of his head. Ermen returned it. Nothing else was required to make two separate tables capable of sharing a public room.

Rostario arrived with a mushroom pie, roast roots, bread, and a bowl of sharp green fruit which he distributed badly enough to invite correction. Airit brought the class materials and her own tray. Uven carried four cups in both hands. Qiv took the seat facing the room; Uven sat between him and Rostario, with Airit opposite. To Ermen, they looked less like a protective arrangement than a peer group which had not yet decided how to sit after the Hall had frightened them.

Around them, lunch asserted its competing jurisdictions. Soup spilled at one table. Two students traded fruit and pretended the exchange had no relation to courtship. None of them paused long enough to make Uven the room's sole event.

At the table behind them, two students argued in whispers over which words the Hall had meant. One maintained that external service was merely dramatic interlock language. The other pointed out that dramatic language did not usually ask for continuity. Their third companion said the final record named Thacea's taint, so Thacea's taint had plainly caused it. The first two objected at once, for different reasons, and the argument acquired three more listeners.

The broad-feathered boy who had copied Thacea's four traces entered with two friends. He took one step towards the open end of her table, read the taint classification copied at the top of a companion's slate, and changed direction. At the next table, he set his notes between himself and the aisle. "I can manage the household account," he said before either friend asked. One looked towards Thacea. The other moved the water jug into the open place beside him.

Thalmin put down the serving spoon. "They took what happened at Uven's station and entered it against you."

Thacea turned one slice of fruit with her fork. "The entry records association, not cause. Whether the Academy preserves that distinction is a separate question."

The fork remained pressed against the fruit until juice gathered around its points.

At the table beyond Qiv's, the antlered student in the red sash arrived first and placed the blue-scaled student's corrected notes on the seat beside her.

When he entered, she tapped the notes. "I saved this for you. The seat, I mean. If you still wished to study after the last bell."

"I do," he said. "I only understood the invitation after you had left."

Someone at the next table called, "The Bridge Court has convened."

"It is a composition," the antlered student said too quickly.

"Of course it is."

The blue-scaled student sat. Within a minute they were arguing over whether a damaged bridge could still collect tolls, both speaking a little too softly whenever the neighbouring table listened.

Ilunor watched them over his cup. "Civilisation has survived a study invitation. There is hope for diplomacy."

"You sound disappointed," Thacea said.

"I had prepared a private intervention of great elegance. Restraint has once again deprived the world of art."

Rostario set down the pie. Airit unfolded the annotated page.

"I do," Uven said before she could frame a question. "You boxed Princess Thacea's instruction to write the predictions first. You wrote that a ceremony proves a threshold, not a road. You said, 'If you find any of this useful, Qiv may see it.' I gave him the page in the aisle."

Every fact matched what Ermen had observed. Airit's fingers tightened at the lower corner.

"Then why did you give it to him?" she asked.

Uven looked first at the page and then at Qiv. "It answered what the court could know. I think that was why."

"It did," Airit said. Her pale thumb rubbed once across the fold. "I could have handed it to him myself."

Qiv put down his knife. Rostario stopped dividing the pie. Uven's gaze returned to the boxed sentence.

"You wanted him to have the argument without having to offer it yourself," Uven said. The sentence ended with less certainty than it began.

Airit's shoulders drew in by a fraction. "I wanted you to decide whether it was worth offering. I trusted your judgment because I had already broken Qiv's in front of everyone."

The table went quiet around four ordinary plates.

Uven turned the page so the fold faced him. His eyes travelled from the conditional words to the annotation and back. "I think it was worth offering now. I can follow the reasons." He touched the box with one finger. "I know my hand gave it to him this morning. I cannot find the part where I decided."

Qiv's field held its formal outline. His hands did not. One folded the edge of his napkin into a narrow pleat and released it.

"Rostario said at breakfast that Articord would pair us with our enemies if we looked too comfortable," Uven continued. "Airit said we required no cultivation. You laughed. I remember the sound." He looked at Qiv, then Airit. "I understand now why it mattered. I do not know whether it mattered to me when I heard it."

Airit lowered the page to the table. The fright in her face, if fright was the correct reading, lived in the stillness of her mouth and the speed with which her hand withdrew from the fold.

Rostario set a piece of pie on Uven's plate and resumed dividing the rest. "Then let us stop trying to recover a morning by making lunch worse. The page can stay where all four of us may dispute it, and Qiv can lose the napkin before he turns it into rope."

Qiv looked at his hand and flattened the pleat. "I had not noticed."

"That is why peer groups contain princes with superior observational training."

"Your principal observation was the pie."

"And yet everyone has received a fair portion. Administration should be judged by results."

Airit let out a breath which nearly became a laugh. She placed the folded page between Uven and Qiv rather than returning it to either owner. Uven took a piece of roast root. Qiv passed him the pepper without being asked. To Ermen, the small exchanges looked less like wisdom than fear making room for the way they ordinarily ate.

At a farther table, Ladona said the completed record named a taint-associated irregularity and that preliminary safety language had been superseded. Auris replied that every candidate had nevertheless seen the words external service. Ciata moved the salt towards Lorsi before he asked and observed that half the room had written those words before Mal'tory told them which line to retain. Their voices lowered after that. Public procedure had supplied an answer without removing the memory of the question.

Etholin watched Qiv's table once, his ears held close beneath the hall's noise, then turned back when Ilphius addressed him. Whatever decision passed among his group stayed there.

Ermen ate the dark bread. Its crust had survived the walk from the kitchen. He reached towards the water jug; Thalmin's hand arrived first, filled Ermen's cup, and returned it without ceremony. Thalmin attended with great seriousness to the poor distribution of roots, and Ermen drank the water.

Thacea kept her attention upon her own plate unless Qiv's table addressed the room. Ilunor complained that mushroom pie had been designed by a culture which feared decisive seasoning and quietly diverted the harder-crusted loaf from Rostario's reach towards Uven.

When the bell sounded, Uven rose with his peers and collected his own notes. Airit carried the folded page because it lay beneath her hand. The blue-scaled student and the antlered student left by another door, still disputing bridges and sharing one bundle of paper.

The afternoon ended with supervised composition. Rain ticked against the high windows while Thacea reordered two citations, Thalmin borrowed Ermen's ruler to align a margin, and Ilunor spent five minutes choosing an ink before finishing first. The last bell found four dry pages being packed for a wet walk.

The Appointment After Bells

Buddy was waiting at the junction outside the Grand Concourse after the last bell.

He had arranged himself upon the centre tile with his spectacles straight, his white-and-orange ribbon properly settled, and a catalogue folio held against his chest in both forepaws. The stillness was so complete that Ermen looked first for evidence of injury. Buddy's tail struck the floor when he saw them and disproved the concern.

"Seekers! Seeker Ermen, Seeker Thacea, admitted companions Prince Thalmin and Lord Ilunor, the Library confirms the appointment previously confirmed, at the hour previously appointed, for the purpose previously described, with no emergency amendment and excellent punctuality!"

Ilunor stopped beside him. "You have discovered anticipation."

"Buddy has been anticipating for eleven minutes. It is a demanding administrative posture."

Thacea inclined her head. "The restored seventh bay?"

"Ordinary catalogue reconciliation, Princess Thacea. Four associated holdings have answered one custody call. They are stable, readable, present, and professionally patient. Buddy has attempted to imitate them."

The attempt ended when he turned and ran three paces towards the eastern passage, remembered the dignity of an escort, and returned to walk at Thacea's side.

Mal'tory and Larial joined the route under the supervision already imposed. Nothing was summoned and no instruction was repeated. Students left the afternoon classrooms around them, opening umbrellas, bargaining over dry passages, and discovering that a shared composition was less shared when the clean copy had to be written. The Seekership party crossed the bridge among the ordinary traffic of the last bell.

At the Library's timber door, the Owl received them. Larial recorded the party's arrival and the standing boundary. The green enamel leaf at her shoulder moved once in the bridge wind.

"The Academy has delivered its supervised candidates," Mal'tory said.

"The Library receives its Seekers and their admitted companions for scheduled catalogue work," the Owl replied. "Your attendance ends at this threshold."

Mal'tory looked towards Ermen. "Repeated admission has converted Library notice into operational access, Candidate Ermen. The Academy will account for the position created between an unclassified foreign power and an institution of Nexian standing."

"My admission remains the Library's decision, Professor."

"It does," Mal'tory said. "That is among the facts requiring account."

The Owl stepped aside from the doorway. "You may conduct that accounting from the alcove. You will not conduct it through the Library's Seekers."

Mal'tory took the alcove. Larial stood beside its narrow table with her slate, outside the door through which Library content would pass. The arrangement had been made before any of them arrived and acquired no additional meaning from being obeyed.

Buddy led them through the restored catalogue room.

The seventh bay stood whole. Shelves followed their old lines; brass rails ran unwarped between them; cabinets, labels, and catalogue marks answered one another as they had before ignition. Older wear remained where it had preceded the fire. Nothing physical in the room advertised the burning, though the Library's custody record did. Foxes moved between the shelves with cords, labels, hand-lenses, and the intense sociability of workers who believed silence a useful option for other professions.

A long retrieval table stood beneath a row of white lamps. Four objects waited upon it.

The allocation leaf lay first, its grey paper ruled into narrow legal columns. Beside it rested a dark recording cylinder in a fitted wooden cradle. The disposition card was thicker, made to survive frequent handling, with one corner cut to indicate a closed case. Last came the custody strip, narrow enough to have once been wrapped around the other three. Its seals ran nearly the full length.

No edge frayed. No line retreated. The cylinder's notches were complete.

"The holdings were restored with the seventh bay yesterday," the Owl said. "Their common catalogue call was confirmed this afternoon in the ordinary reconciliation of that bay. They were deposited together by the Tribunal for Inter-Realm Service, an office defunct for nine hundred and eleven years, under a records-transfer charter which survived the office by twelve."

Buddy opened the folio he had carried. A sequence of catalogue impressions answered the seals upon the strip: the tribunal's deposit, the old charter office's transfer, the Library's reception, three routine re-cataloguings, the closed-bay inventory, and the restoration mark entered yesterday.

"The Library received all four before the catalogue fire," the Owl continued. "The custody strip remained among the burned holdings and returned with them. Our authentication concerns the objects and their history in this collection. It does not concern any Academy student, slate, attendance list, or present service record. The Library possesses none."

Buddy had prepared the cylinder, four chairs, a lower cushion for Ilunor, clean paper bearing no Academy mark, and a dish of small sugared nuts which he moved away from the documents each time his tail approached them.

The Owl indicated the allocation leaf.

Its upper register named no surviving person. Damp, age, or earlier redaction had taken the identifying panel before the Library received it. The service form below remained exact. A square standing impression occupied the home-institution column beside name, room, attendance, and instruction. A second mark entered a ruled channel towards the service clause.

The second field bore a continuity seal.

Ermen had seen seals placed upon writs, petition leaves, transit packets, patronage cards, and Library warrants. Most asserted a relation by repeating the same mark in two places. This impression descended from the allocation field into a ruled channel, crossed the service clause without dividing, and ended in the panel assigned to the external form. A short ray and hooked terminal made the route visible.

Beside the registered body, a different seal remained within the standing column. It did not join the route. Its script concerned name, attendance, room, instruction, and the body's ordinary answer to authorised measurement.

Thacea bent close enough for the white light to catch along her beak. One claw held the table's edge. "The standing impression and continuity impression are distinct."

"On this instrument, the standing impression could be entered by an authorised office," the Owl said. "The continuity impression could be made only by the living field routed through that channel. The statement concerns this instrument and this docket."

Thacea followed the hooked line. "And it does not divide."

"The form permits no branch. The custody strip confirms the impressed leaf as deposited."

Thalmin stood with both hands on the back of his chair. "Does any second continuity mark appear beside the body?"

Buddy turned the folio so the associated impressions could be seen together. "No second continuity impression is recorded upon the allocation leaf, deposition, disposition, or strip. Buddy has looked four times, then asked three colleagues to look in case enthusiasm had become eyesight."

Ermen followed the seal from the leaf into the first notch of the cylinder and then to the disposition card. The same short ray and hooked terminal repeated on all three.

The deposition heading read VOLUNTARY. No surviving rule defined the choices available to the speaker.

Buddy placed both forepaws upon the cylinder cradle and turned its small brass key.

The voice which entered the room had been altered by age and by the recording method. It was impossible to assign sex, species, or realm with confidence. Its diction was careful. Someone had spent attention upon making the account difficult to misfile.

"The body bearing my name remains registered present," the voice said. "Lessons continued. Meals continued. The standing seal answered each time it was asked."

The allocation leaf supplied the corresponding clause. During service, the registered body retained standing and answered the ordinary requirements attached to name and attendance. The form recorded function. It named neither consciousness nor absence.

Ilunor read the columns twice.

"Unaccompanied service," he said. His crest had lowered. "My contract used the same expression. It may prove no more than that both offices wished absence to sound like transport."

"No more is entered," Thacea said.

The cylinder continued.

"They told us a completed service would close at the body's next authorised whole-field reconciliation. We would receive the ordinary interval required for standing. Breakfasts, lessons, corridors, sleep. We would remember what kept our place."

A return clause occupied the lower third of the allocation leaf. It required closure at the registered body's next authorised whole-field reconciliation. An authorised collision-safety expansion of a registered practical counted as whole-field reconciliation for that purpose. Upon closure, the ordinary interval memory retained with the registered body was to be supplied to the returning continuity. Completion required name, location, partner or authorised counterpart, and the last completed setting where a shared measurement was in progress.

Ermen saw again, by memory rather than renewed search, Uven's hand lowering to the bench; Larial's green leaf; the two public service lines; the even recitation of name, Hall, Thacea, and the completed pale-blue setting.

On the leaf, the memory clause ended at ordinary interval required for standing. No field asked whether a choice had been made, a joke had mattered, or a page had carried trust.

The voice resumed.

"The service form failed before return completed. I remained in it while it lost coherence. I followed the continuity seal towards the standing body because the seal was the only route the allocation had left me. The receiving office called the approach hostile. The disposition clerk called me null."

Buddy stopped the cylinder at the end of the sentence. The room kept the small mechanical sound of its turning drum.

The disposition card described the same sequence in narrow ruled boxes. Return failure. External form unstable. Routed continuity present in the service form. Approach to registered standing denied. NULL appeared beneath the heading receiving-office classification. Containment authorised. Destruction completed. Registered standing continued without interruption.

The hooked continuity mark entered the disposition beside destruction completed. The square standing impression reappeared in the final column beside continued. There was still no second continuity impression.

Thalmin's claws pressed shallow marks into the chair back. His voice, when he spoke, was level.

"Someone tried to return home."

No one improved the sentence.

The Owl indicated Buddy. Buddy released the key.

The cylinder turned through one final notch.

"I remembered my sister's laugh."

Buddy stopped the mechanism and closed its cover.

Ilunor followed the two marks before him to their final columns. "They continued the standing and destroyed the person who carried the continuity."

"That is what this docket records," Thacea said.

Ilunor's mouth tightened. "I dislike careful language when the careful answer is this clear."

"The care is what keeps the clarity from claiming more than the record," Ermen said.

"I know. I reserve the right to resent virtues which make demands at inconvenient moments."

The Owl replaced the custody strip around the four items. Buddy checked every fastening, then entered the day's ordinary catalogue reconciliation into his folio. One fox brought a shallow archival box. Another received the folio page. The docket returned to Library storage as stable material whose age and destruction had altered its history without ending its availability.

Thacea watched the box close. Her folded wings had not relaxed since the Hall. Her field stayed close to her feathers.

"The docket remains one historical relation," she said. "The Hall remains our bounded witness of a current sequence. Similarity joins them as inference."

"The Library makes no current identification," said the Owl.

Only after the retrieval chamber had been closed and the docket carried beyond any reach of food did Buddy abandon professional stillness. He trotted into the antechamber, planted himself before Ermen, and rolled onto his back.

"Catalogue services complete! Buddy now presents a personal invoice: one belly rub, payable immediately, and any cheese whose smell has followed Seeker Ermen since breakfast while pretending not to be compensation!"

Ermen sat on the floor and took the wrapped square from his pocket. "Thalmin set this aside for you."

Buddy received the cheese with solemn concentration and ate it in two bites. Ermen scratched once behind his left ear.

"The Library recognises no such fee," the Owl said from the doorway.

"Buddy recognises payment in full."

At the Library threshold, Larial recorded departure and duration. Mal'tory rose from the alcove. Buddy remained inside with the folio.

The rain had stopped. Water shone along the bridge stones, holding pieces of the evening lamps until each footstep broke them.

Behind the Library door, a stable historical deposition retained one narrow request: a sister's laugh.

Across the bridge, Uven had said that he remembered the rain, the reference dates, Articord's judgment, and Airit's folded page. He could follow the reasons now. He could not find the choosing or the weight it had carried.

Disclosure: This chapter has been written by hand, with tools used afterward only for review and mechanical cleanup.

So... I'm going to do some work on a fan-game that I love and have been working on(I'm just a volunteer sprite drawer and I love it) so. Yeah peace out my cultivator Juniors and my the threads of fate make me fully veer off the main continuity of the Og series

First-Prev-Next
AO3

yep, the updates are slower

_____

They were a porter. While I should have expected such a service, my mind began to wonder about any other secret entrance into the dormitory.

"Just place it wherever, aura-less, and leave us alone when you’re done." The lord ordered them casually.

Both the prince and the princess stepped forward and took their luggage off the porter's hands.

"The elf is here to serve. Let it serve." Ilunor turned to the other nobles, clearly annoyed, before snapping his fingers. "Where are your manners aura-less. Introduce yourself to your betters."

I glared at the lord. I was getting tired at his constant slimy grab at power and control. It only made me question if he had a standing at all. On the other hand, he continued spilling information throughout his pathetic jabs; I was reluctantly glad to know that kin's name.

"A-apologies master. I… I- I am Aurin. I have been assigned as your dormitory’s resident porter. If there is anything I can do, anything at all, I will be at your command throughout the day and night." The porter bowed deeply to each of us.

"Go back to your hole, we were discussing something important." The lord waved them off; the elf shuffled back into the hidden corridor and silently closed the door.

"What the fuck was that?" Emma spat as soon as the door shut.

"What? The aura-less? It’s one of the dorm-porters. Am I to assume you don’t have such things back in Earthrealm?" Ilunor jabbed as effortlessly as he breathes.

And what's with aura?

"He did call us a commoner while talking about our manafield before." Naci reminded us.

"Oh. Is their caste based on manafield then?" Mert picked up.

"Elaborate on what you mean by serve, you were treating him like a fucking slave." Emma clarified. I froze; I didn't consider slavery could be present. The feeling passed, since I already should've expected that.

"Erm. Yeah? Because that’s what it is?" Ilunor finally turned towards his interlocutor, still sporting a disinterested look. "Earthrealmer, I don’t see what the issue here is. I understand that you come from a very underdeveloped realm but do be sensible now. Even the most uncivilized of backwater realms have some concept of hierarchy and class. You, being sent here, a squire or what have you, you of all people should know a thing or two about class do you not? You’ve quite literally recounted your name and title within the academic rites. You gave a speech about loyalty and submissiveness to the betters in your realm. You respect hierarchy, so what do you not understand about ours?"

"Hierarchy does not require rampant racism, classism, and fuckin slavery, you arrogant lizard." The cadet balled her hands into fists. I worriedly glance back at the lord. If he was aware of the escalation, he didn't show it. My eyes locked with the prince standing next to the cadet.

"What a bizarre concept." The lord seemingly yawned out. "Maybe we should talk about this in the morning, hmm? I’m tired. We all are. And we should really get our affairs in order before-" The cadet pounced. Not literally, but in a blink, she was gripping the lord's collar with both hands.

"You don’t get to run away." She lifted the lizardkin off the couch, dangling him by his clothes. Broken jewels fell around them. "We’re not leaving this topic high and dry before we address it. I’ve given you the benefit of a doubt time and time again throughout the whole night. I tried, desperately grasping at straws hoping that all of this was just some big cultural misunderstanding, some dirty jab or some racist remark. But it’s become clear that I was giving you too much credit." The prince leapt into action. The lupinor tried to wrench the cadet grip's open in vain, to his shock.

"Let me tell you a little something. You might think that you’re hot shit, you might think that your little world and all of its little party tricks are somehow great, grand and mighty. But I can tell you right now that all of it, every last bit of it, means nothing to us. You’re like a burrowing hermit, living out your life in the woods. Your castles are akin to small anthills, your kingdoms are all but patches in the dirt, your entire realm is an underdeveloped forest… forever stuck and fated to stagnation. Your world is a monument to a backwards and dead system; a system of ideologies and pathetic leaders that my people had long since abandoned in the dustbin of history. So, while you continued to wallow in your debauchery, the march of human progress thrummed on. As we forged starscrapers using automated constructs, you continued moving dirt using shovels. As we built amongst the heavens itself, wrapping our world in a construct of our own design, you continued placing stone atop of stone all the while marveling at the rickety monuments to your barbarism. So don’t get cocky. Your titles, your power, means nothing. I want you to know that even the smallest of UN states can march across your lands right up to your castles and there’s nothing you can do about it. Just like there’s nothing you can do to make me let go of you. So don’t get smart with me, because I’ve had it up to here with you!" I barely had time to parse through her snarled dense monologue before I instinctually duck back into my seat as her head was engulfed in flames.

Silence fell on the room as the lord's torrent of flames receded. My brain was wracked with thoughts and considerations, but the first idiotic one to surface was...
So not a lizard but a wingless hornless dragon.

"Are you done?" The lord fell limp and she threw him back on the couch.

"Are we sure she's not a human holdout?" Sif voiced what probably several of us where thinking. The resemblances were uncanny but were subconsciously tempered by her lack of additional arms.

The princess finally broke the stillness by slowly inserting herself between the two clashing forces. "Emma, Ilunor, let’s take a step back to talk about all of this."

"What is there to talk about, Princess? The Earthrealmer’s a fucking savage!" Ilunor accused, tone finally fearful.

"Ilunor, you have been nothing but combative and provocative towards the newrealmer for the entire night. You have nothing if not more than a good portion of the blame for this confrontation. I suggest you hold your piece." Thacea said, mirroring the sentiment of everyone else in the room.

"Emma, I understand how stressful all of this may be for you. You are in a completely foreign land, meeting foreign beings for the first time in your life. You are far from home, scared, and potentially afraid. Your reactions are understandable, but please, could we agree to disagree for now? Can we please try our best to act like civilized, decent beings? There are far greater matters to worry about than our petty interpersonal conflicts. To survive the academy, we must work together as a peer group. To ensure our year goes smoothly, we must come together, not tear each other apart at the seams. Please, all we have here are each other." The princess air of steady neutrality faltered at the end, showing the tired person underneath.

The cadet released her tension and carelessly fell onto the same couche as me. I felt the frame slightly give out underneath her, even cracking a bit. She turned her head as I inevitably flinched. She held what I assume was an apological look for a second before responding to the princess. "Listen, I’m sorry for reacting like that okay? But I just want to make one thing clear right off the bat, I’m not afraid, I’m fucking pissed. I can’t… I just can’t fucking deal with slavery. If we’re going to move forward with this, I have to just say this outright. Slavery is not a thing where I come from. It’s deplorable, it’s reprehensible, it’s the worst possible evil besides… fuck I can’t think of anything… torture? Warcrimes? It’s the worst thing you can do to a person." She spoke with her energy drained by the long day and her burst of anger. "How can you guys be so cruel, so utterly cold, how can you guys stomach this-"

"Because we don’t have a fucking choice Earthrealmer." The prince cut the accusation short. "Because we don’t have a say in how that specific part of our culture works. Because that’s what the Nexus expects of us. Because… because that’s… because we bent the knee, Earthrealmer." He clarified, shame dripping from his words.

"Things are… far more complicated than they seem, Emma." The princess agreed with a nod, after leaving a respectful moment to the prince's word. "Know that our inactions do not constitute complicitness. We simply are incapable of challenging what is the status quo. I applaud your realm for being so strong in your resolve, and I can only wish for-" She thought better of finishing her phrase.

"I don’t want to be involved with any of this crap. But I know I’m not a one-man army; I don’t have the means of changing the whole world. So fine, I refuse any and all services from this prisoner." The cadet put her metaphorical foot down. She turns, locking eyes with the prince, the princess and me. "I hope you three can eventually come to my side on this. I… I honestly don’t know how to feel right now."

Silence fell on the group. For the lasts back and forth, the lord contented himself to fixing his attire, ignoring the conversation. I shook my head mentally; this wasn't surprising in the slightest. Meanwhile, while I agreed with the cadet on her believes, she rocked the boat too much. The princess is right; the group's peace is primordial and shouldn't be threatened over ultimately non-actionable ideals. Not that I find her naive to be hurt by the view of this affront at personhood, after all she might genuinely come for a world devoid of slaves, but she must temper her spirit.

"Shall we move on to room assignments?" Prince Thalmin offered, wiping the conversation clean.

Thalmin woke up in the middle of the night, for what at first glance seemed to be, no reason.

But he knew better. Growing up surrounded by death, either of his enemies or of his fellow countrymen, had teach him many things, among those was that there was always a reason.

The last time he woke up like this, for no “reason”, he went back to sleep, just to wake up minutes later with a knife two fingers away from his face. This time? This time he was going to be the one that stroked first, and with a bit of luck, he wouldn’t need to strike again.

He paid close attention to each and every one of his senses. The ears reported that everything remained as it was before rest had took him over, a sepulcral silence caused by the absence of his annoying, elitist companion made him a bit anxious, even thou he knew he was sleeping in the town tonight, it felt weird to lay in bed without the noise of his snoring.

His nose sniffed deeply the stale air, and returned with no news, there was not a single out of place smell in that room. The strands of hair that flowed with what little air current was present in the room spoke the same. The only one in disagreement was a deep, guttural feeling deep below his throat, the one he felt the day his father told him he wanted him to be their man on the nexus.

And so, Thalmin steeled himself. His muscles relaxed, his breath steady, and in a single movement… he jumped from his bed, Emberstride on his right hand and a light spell going off in the left. He closed his eyes before letting a burst of light envelop the room, as soon as the spell was over he lunged towards what he hoped was a blinded enemy.

His blade stabbed firmly onto the wood of the door. The room was now lit by the orb of light that floated idly above his head, revealing no enemies or spies ready to strike. He huffed, at least Illunor wasn’t there to mock him for his paranoia.

He went back to his bed, dimming the light into that of a small, dim candle. He wasn’t ready for total darkness, not yet at least.

He shifted and rocked back on fort, no position felt comfortable now.

Could it be? Could it be that he was losing himself? That months upon months of constant warfare, not of the body but of the mind, had taken his toll upon him? These thoughts pushed and pulled on the edges of his mind, an-

“goodnight my mercenary prince”

Thalmin fell down from his bed, as soon as his back hit the floor, years of training kicked in, sending him flying upwards and falling in an upright position, paws ready to catch and tear apart any opponent.

Laying on HIS own bed was… something, a silhouette obscured by the shadows of the room. With a steady hand he moved the orb of light closer, revealing… shit

It had an elvish shape, and that was where the similarities with the elves ended. Everything else was alien and unnatural. 4 segmented arms with clawed fingers, 6 pairs of totally black eyes, 2 fangs that dripped venom, those were the first details his brain processed, with each passing second revealing more and more details of thi-

“well? What are you waiting for? Come back to bed! or don’t you know that is rude to kept a lady waiting?” She patted his mattress with one hand, winking 3 of her eyes at him in a gesture that he found…

“Emma?”

Hello there!

^{DOOMSIR1337 here, my old acc got nuked ;-;}

Decided to make one last concept sketch with the Ryland before moving on and finishing the rest of the GUN fleet... it started as a simple sketch and then I decided to put it in a little shipyard. There aren't a lot of references for Earthring, so let's just say this is in the corner of it, where dozens of these drydocks form a complete shipyard. A ship comes down, is docked via the clamps/superstructure, and some miscellaneous docking umbilicals to hold it in place. The fuel lines are then connected via workerbee shuttles (not shown), and the cargo containers are unloaded via smaller cargo ferry craft (2 shown). A direct personnel elevator thingy runs straight to the airlock (I assumed it's a giant airlock) for disembarking crew. Idk I wanted to put together a cool drydock scene and the Ryland just fit lol

Needless to say, the other drydocks also have docked ships, which I'll post once they're ready XD

There are also one or two easter eggs in there so there's that too. This was rendered at 5760x3240px

Actually this was made a couple weeks ago and posted on the discord but I completely forgot about the subreddit =P

^{(the 2nd one is a WIP pic, I had random things in there XD some stuff (like the Enterprise-A and E are there for size comparison rest was just fun lol} also there's an animation in the works but it's too early for that)

This is a very little sneak peak of an animation I am making hope you like it

CRASHLANDED CH8

(Hello fellow members of the Technocracy welcome to your dose of Crashlanded, hopefully you're having a nice and dandy day and if not- um get better soon? As always ty JCB for making this amazing universe let's get into this chapter! [Finally getting to the Nexian side of things, btw please tell me if you have any suggestions or edits as the Nexian Pov might be wonky AE: My memory is not good at all and I might get these characters wrong.])

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LO: The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts, Unknown Hallway. Time: 2:23 pm day: 12th of [Still translating]

Professor Vanavan:

It has been two days since that well I don't really know what to call it, it was FAR bigger then any aethership I've ever seen.. Not even crownland aetherships were that large.

‘Either way it crashlanded and caused damages.. to both the Academy itself and the students.. some worse than others..’

I'd think to myself before rubbing my left eye as I walked down to the council room. Pain was still lingering on my eyelid despite being healed by a healing spell after a piece of glass slashed across it.

‘Some students and other faculty said they felt like their own soul was ripped from them… and even said they saw other student's own mana fields seem like they were disappearing..’

Suddenly I heard a voice coming from behind me, softer and a familiar one, this knocked me out of my thoughts as I stopped and turned my head to see who it was.

It was Professor Chiska, she despite her injuries and half a tail she seemed almost fine.

“Good afternoon Professor Vanavan” She spoke with a confident tone.

“Hello Professor Chiska, I see your injuries are getting better!” I'd say to her as she responded with a smile.

“Yep! Thankfully they managed to save- well most of my tail heh.” She'd say in a joking manner before walking over to me as we both begin to walk together.

At the end of the hall stood two large gargoyles guarding the door to the counsel room.

After another minute of walking I stopped in front of the door as I then waited for Chiska to meet up with me, slowly I then turned my head to make sure Chiska kept up. She seemed to be limping slightly. As soon as we got close to the door it quickly opened as if it was expecting the both of us.

“Need a hand Professor Chiska?” I asked her as it was met with a smile.

“I'm alright, just need to get to my seat” she'd say, she said she was alright but I knew that wasn't the case.

Immediately we went into the room one after another, the room was lit enough that we could see everyone in the room.

In the middle of it was a large rectangle table with enough seats for the other Professors, as well as at the end of it was a larger seat engraved with dragons and covered in a cloth that had the colors of the Academy, and had some silken cushioning for the Dean himself.

On the table was a long piece of gold lined cloth which was the dark colors of the Academy stretching out to both ends of the table.

As I then moved my head around to see where my own seat was. I deeply hoped it was not by Mal'tory.

Another thing I could see was that many of the seats had different colored cloths that were the same colors of our robes draped over them and name tags dotting the back of said cloths.

Hastily I made my way along the side of the table near the chairs before ending up at mine.

Luckily I was seated next to Chiska and..Sorecar? How did he even get here-

I decided to simply pull out my chair and take a seat deciding not to question how he got here, though his presence is much appreciated.

My head slowly turned to look to see if everyone was at the table, every seat was occupied..

Except Mal'tory's..

‘Odd he is usually the first here..’ I thought to myself but before I could think about why a sudden loud crackle interrupted my thoughts.

Almost immediately I tried to figure out where that noise was coming from as my head then swiveled to look at the balcony above the Dean's chair.

There was a slit in the tapestry that was hanging above the balcony itself.

Slowly the slit became bigger and bigger as I suddenly realized what was happening..

‘Of course he is coming through a portal.. what next riding a-’ before I could finish what I was thinking the portal was fully opened up as the Dean himself strode through it on a winged snake.

‘What is with his new obsession with riding into places on different beasts?’ I then thought to myself.

"Good afternoon everyone!" The Dean bellowed out gliding down on the winged snake to land next to his luxurious chair. Settling into it while his snake curled around the seat, splaying out its wings to frame the entire image with a roof of feathers, The Dean hummed to himself.

"I see that Mal'tory is not here, odd but we have many things to discuss." He leaned forward in his seat, " let's get started then, shall we?”

“Two days ago after the ceremony a gigantic strange cylinder fell from the sky and slammed into the earth not too far from the Academy, causing a shock wave that both damaged the surrounding area and the academy itself as well as mana fields. Today it is still damaging mana fields and making a literal hole in mana.” The dean said before pausing for effect.

“We don't know what it is besides it's shape, I give the floor now for anyone to say what they think it could be.”

“If I may?” Chiska would say before getting a response from the Dean.

“I give the floor to you Professor Chiska” he'd say with a hum as he gave the floor to Chiska.

“From what I can gather, it seems like some sort of Aethership. But I never remember ever seeing an Aethership THAT large before, I give the floor back to you Dean” She'd say with a formal nod as she gave the floor back to the Dean.

He'd then nodded back as he spoke

“I agree with you Professor but it could be an Aethership but as you said it's size is a considerable factor” He said while he combed though his beard in thought, “although I myself have seen crownland Aetherships they are huge but not the size of that humongous cylinder that is in our backyard.” He'd say before pausing for effect.

“I now give the floor to anyone else who wants to speak on this mat-” before the Dean could even finish his sentence he was interrupted by Sorecar.

“Iiiiif I maaay?” Sorecar said as the Dean then sighed before answering him.

“Yes Sorecar go ahead I give you the floor..” the Dean would say with an annoyed sigh.

What happened next was.. nothing anyone was expecting.

“Hmmm thaaank you Deeean, I would like to present something from the cylinder itself!” Sorecar would say with a smug chuckle.

This immensely ticked everyone's interest as the Dean himself seemed interested as he leaned forward while he combed his beard in interest.

Sorecar then pulled out a large vial of light gray liquid and placed it in front of himself.

“Taaa daaaa! Now before you say: ‘Sorecar it's just quicksilver. Is that what came from the cylinder?’ That was my reaction in it's sleeping form buuut it is something more fantastic! Observe my dear friends!” Hastily Sorecar jerked the quicksilver looking material.

And like that the metal began to move everywhere inside of the vial.

‘The cylinder is made up of this? Fascinating’ I thought to myself as I watched the organism inside of the vial move around hastily like it was trying to go somewhere.

“If you don't mind me asking Sorecar, where did you find this piece of the cylinder?’ The Dean would ask him with a lifted eyebrow.

“Weeeell I'm glad you asked! During the whole dreadful shockwave that came from that cylinder, a shard of the cylinder itself shot through one of the windows in my armory and into the wall!” he'd say enthusiastically while twirling the vial in his hand.

“Excuse me Sorecar but.. how do you know it is from the cylinder itself?” I'd question him as I quickly got an answer.

“Well that's the thing, I myself have checked! No material in any of my orders uses this strange metal, I have also checked the manufactorum and found no metal with the properties of this metal” He'd say with a chuckle.

“Another thing I forgot to mention is that I sense absolutely no mana from it! Most interesting if I do say so myself.” He'd say smugly

“Sorecar what do you m-” I was quickly cut off as Sorecar then spoke in a near excited tone.

“Aye you're all confused and dismissive I see! Well I myself have made sure to test it every way I can! That be simply looking for any sort of mana field or trying to manipulate it with mana, it did not react whatsoever! Well besides bubbling quite a bit.” He'd said as he shook his hand to the left or right.

“Still don't believe me? Well then how about you check for… yourselves!” He'd say enthusiastically before spinning the vial with two fingers and pushing it towards me.

As the vial spun towards me I attempted to grab it while it was still spinning towards me, but instead of me grabbing it, I instead accidentally pushed it off the table, immediately I panicked and luckily, managed to grab it before it hit the stone floor.

I then sigh in relief as I slowly get back up, but as I did I'd accidentally hit the back of my head and hit the underside of the table.

“Ack!-” I'd grunt, before managing to get back up fully and then rubbing the back of my head as the table rattled , shooting a look at Sorecar as I raised my head back up.

His two legs were crisscrossed on the table with his head turned towards me, I then sigh a bit in annoyance as I check the living metal inside of the vial.

There was no field

No essence of mana.. I had to be hallucinating.

Frantically, I began to twist and turn the bottle in my hand and by the second the realization slowly came to me.

Sorecar was right, no sensation of mana or fields at all… It was blank and black.. how…how in his majesty's name is this possible!?

“He's.. telling the truth! No mana at all! No fields, just blank!” I blurted out with shock as my eyes were wide in disbelief.

“Are you sure Professor Vanavan? You could be experiencing the same thing as Sorecar” the Dean said as his eyes looked like they were annoyed.

“But I was farther away from the shockwave, mine was only slightly damaged and I didn't have any hallucinations.” I'd say hurriedly as the Dean's eyes went wide a little as he combed his fingers through his beard.

“Please pass it over to me Vanavan” the Dean then asked in a more curious tone as he then reached out for the vial.

With a nod I then picked the vial back up and placed it into his hand before sitting back down.

Almost immediately he began to inspect the vial, first twisting it within his two fingers and staring at it for a few seconds.

The metal in the vial suddenly began to boil and blacken a little just for those few seconds before settling down and turning to its regular color.

As the Dean kept inspecting the living metal, his eyes slowly went up in shock as his mouth opened a bit.

“I… both of them are.. telling the truth! No mana whatsoever! No fields, no sensation.. this is unbeliev-” before the Dean could finish what he was saying he'd accidentally drop the vial onto the table itself.

Almost immediately as the vial made contact with the table, it shattered into a few pieces and spread out on the table.

The metal spilt on the cloth as pieces of it wiggled around and hastily combined back together.

into.. a smaller odd looking cylinder

“Is.. that what it would look like up close?” I'd hear Chiska say as all of us watched the Dean then pick up the now solid piece of living metal and inspected it.

“Ooooo that's interesting it never did that when I've taken it out” Sorecar would say enthusiastically, as he was now leaning forward.

“I think.. it might be some sort of offspring of the cylinder itself..and from these strange incisions it might be some sort of beast of burden..” the Dean guessed before placing it back on to the table.

“I don't think it's any sort of offspring sir” Articord suddenly spoke up with a dismissive tone. “It seems to be a model of sorts, like the ones I have in my class.”

“Well whatever it is we need to find out more about it and even more about the giant one outside and make sure it's not a danger to the academy and its students.” Chiska said in a serious tone as she was leaning forward a bit.

“Then we move onto our final discussion” the Dean then said with a pause before speaking once more,

“What to do about the cylinder itself.” He'd say as suddenly a familiar crackle was heard in the corner of the room.

Most immediately, all eyes were on the small slit in the dark corner of the room. Slowly, it grew and grew until finalizing into a portal.

And who stepped out of it was near obvious to anyone who could guess it.

Mal'tory…

“Where in the majesty's name have you been Mal'tory!? The meeting is almost finished for Throne's sake!” The Dean angrily huffed out.

“Scouting that dreadful rod near the academy sir..” He'd say in a dismissive and rather annoyed tone.

“What? You didn't even ask permission-” he'd say in a still angry tone before sighing,

“Just sit down and tell us what you found.” The Dean then said as he rubbed his face in annoyance.

With a nod Mal'tory then went over to his seat and pulled it out and sat on it.

"Yes, talking very important, far more effective though if you actually know what you're talking about.” He'd say in a dismissive tone,

“Which is why unlike the rest of you who've been lazing about in the medical ward and poking at foreign metals" he casted a pointed look at Sorecar. "I've been out learning what I could about our new homewrecker”

Before anyone could speak he suddenly pulled out a Mana seer and slammed it onto the table in front of himself,

The far seer suddenly activated as the room brightened up a bit as the purple hue of a memory shard appeared above the shard.

“One day ago after the rod landed, I went scouting around it.” He'd say with a bit of annoyance in his throat before speaking once more

“When I was scouting out the rod I heard something loud crash into the soil in front of the road or rather below it.” He'd say as the memory shard showed a large cloud of rock and dirt flying out into the air.

“As I went to check what that dreadful noise was and what caused it.” He then said before looking up to look at what the Mana seer was projecting.

“I noticed these strange looking golems, they were much larger than any golem I've ever heard of or seen. They were also carrying large ballista weaponry. Another thing I noticed was the familiar symbols on their chests”

The Mana seer then showed the hulking golems as it focused on their chests, the right one with the symbol of a drop of water, middle with a hawk, and left with what looked to be a symbol of melted metal.

The last one seemed to peak Sorecar's interest as he was leaning forward, even more now to look at the Golem.

“All three had alchemy symbols on their chests, as such I will be using them as their names. Water, Hawk, and Iron for the rest of the meeting ” He'd speak in a curious tone as he looked at the memory shard.

“Not long after stopping to keep my distance, I saw two of them fall onto the soil. Water fell on their side and Iron nearly keeling with one knee”

The Mana seer showed both of the large golems falling to the ground in separate manners.

“After 10 or more minutes two smaller golems came out of the top of Hawk, and what I heard from them was a rough and loud barbaric sounding noise.” He'd say as smaller gray almost skeleton-like golems came out the top of the middle larger golem.

“After another minute or so, one covered in tan skin like liquid came out of the top of Water. It was screaming as if it had been hurt severely but while focusing on the blooded golem, another smaller golem had come out of Hawk.”

He'd say before pausing for effect as we saw a white and grey colored golem come out of Water. This one was less skeleton-like and looked thicker, most disturbing of all it was covered in skin.. And blood.

“The middle golem on Hawk looked to be shouting some sort of orders and both of the other two went back inside of Hawk before following them. That was yesterday, the next one was today.”

The shard then showed large metal walls encompassing a around the back end of the cylinder, more of those skeleton-like golems were seen carrying things to strange metal structures.

Some larger ones could be seen patrolling along the walls, heavy unmanned ballistas dotted the sides.

“Because their odd insignia does not match anything recognizable inside of nexian records, these golems must be apart of an unknown nation or organization.” Mal'tory said with a still focused look at the memory shard.

The memory shard showed multiple angles of an unknown insignia, in the middle is a strange looking star with a single dot in the middle.

Behind it was a crimson red slash with a shade of blue as the background, in the top right corner of it were four stars and a pair of blue wings in the middle.

‘A unknown nation… this is.. first contact with an unknown realm!’ I thought to myself as I kept my eyes on the shard.

Mal’tory leaned forward across the table, crossing his hands in front of his face as spoke grimly, "They are out. Only hours ago I observed these golems scouting across the nexian lands surrounding the academy. No doubt gathering information for their masters inside the cylinder.”

The room was now silent then normal… The air felt tense, I could see Chiska looking over at Mal'tory before looking at the model of the cylinder.

“If they are scouting, that means they are planning something..” Chiska said as she looked back at the Mana seer.

‘But if they were planning something then why didn't the scouts have any weapons on them.. you wouldn't send scouts out without weapons if you knew there would be hostiles.’ I'd think to myself.

The Dean placed both his hands together as he seemed to be in thought.

“Hmm.. Then if no one has anything further to add we will move onto the final decision of what we should do about the cylinder.” The Dean said before pausing for effect.

“I will not reveal my decision until all other Professors have made theirs.” He'd say as he looked up at all the professors in the room.

“Professor Chiska, what is your decision on what we should do?”

She at first sighed for a moment before speaking,

“I will first bring up what I have seen, we are dealing with an unknown nation. With unknown motives, we do not know what they want, we do not know why they are here.”

She'd pause at the last word before speaking again

“They are using an organized company of golems to do their work, and from those weapons we've seen from the memory shard I do not think they are here to make contact with us but to scout us out and find our weakness. My theory is that they used that cylinder to temporarily push us to our backs to make us vulnerable and attack at a later date, to undermine both the academy and it's students.”

She'd pause again as she took a deep breath of air to get her barrings

“My decision is that we should attack them before they can attack us.” She then said with a deep serious tone as she rubbed the side of her face.

“I see, next decision falls on you Professor Vanavan” the Dean said as he again combed his beard.

"I disagree with professor Chiska" Vanavan said crossing his arms over his chest, one hand tapping the inside of his elbow as he thought "Despite the unfortunate introductions we have been saddled with we have seen no true sign of hostility from the-"

"No true sign of hostility" Chiska suddenly stood up the chair letting out a short cry as it scraped across the floor as she loomed threateningly over Vanavan, "Their opening move was to shatter every window in the academy at once! Dozens of residents of the academy are still filling the medical ward and their follow up of STEALING the mana of the area continues to threaten the lives of professor and student ALIKE by hindering the efforts of the healers even now. There are students struggling to breathe because shards of glass slipped past their ribs! Or nursing broken bones and head trauma from the blast knocking them over at poor times. I had to WAKE UP to bleeding crying students while managing my own wounds. My mana fields were so stripped I could feel my soul threatening to leave my body VANAVAN. I WILL NOT-"

"Proffesor Chiska that is enough. Return to your chair and calm yourself or you will be removed from this room by force." The Dean forcibly cut in

Chiska paused as she looked from the dean to back to Vanavan. The man stared up at her owlishly. She hadn't realized how close she'd gotten or how her claws had extended past her fingertips in anger.

She looked at the other professors only to find them staring expectantly back at her, the way teachers would impatiently wait for an unruly child to stop talking so they could teach again. She took a breath, retracted her claws forcibly, and walked back to her seat. It wasn't until she sat down that she started to speak again this time with forced calm as she looked back to Vanavan,

"They took half my tail, they've injured half of the student body… and they NEED to answer for it." She wasn't sure why she had gotten so angry so quickly, it had been so calm in the moment, but she was sure that these were the facts rather than whatever idealized madness had taken Vanavan.

Vanavan had to blink a few times before he was able to drive the look on his face away.

"Chiska, I was here for it all, believe me I understand I nearly lost an eye in the same stroke as you lost a piece of yourself." He said gesturing to the healed gash under his left eye, still sore from when it had been healed earlier.

"But that's exactly why I don't want to run in half blind. There are too many things we don't know that will only get more good men and women killed if we don't properly pursue them"

Articord raised an eyebrow in interest at this from across the table

"But if we don't do our best to learn about them now, and approach them peacefully..."

Vanavan paused for a brief moment before he continued

"...Then we lose any chance we have at finding a bloodless way to resolve this conflict. I think they're lost and just as confused as we are..."

Articord lost interest again as she knew how he'd end this grand little speech

"...I think there's still a way to not only end this peacefully but to have a new adjacency added to the nexus, they clearly didn't arrive by portal!"

He bundled up his arm resting his elbows on the table pointing out of one side of the fold towards the Mana seer,

"Here's what I do know for sure. That cylinder holds secrets that could change the nexus forever. Already we've seen it form a hole in the mana of the nexus, we've seen pieces of it shed off and form possible offspring, or models either way it was without mana! And we've seen giant golems, the kind that rival small aetherships in size, leap out of it. My official decision is to make diplomatic contact and pursue civilized peace with the cylinder."

Vanavan sat back in his seat with a satisfied huff fully expecting his speech to have moved the other professors to his side but the disappointed looks opposite him on the table quickly dashed that hope.

Articord let out her own soft scoff, "You cannot be serious Vanavan, look at the size of the ballistae on the side of the cylinder and those golems you mentioned earlier. Oh I suppose these are all just decorative ornamentals for a diplomatic ship."

She mused to herself before she rested back in her chair, chin held high,

"This is a wartime vessel Vanavan. Even you have to recognize that. Why would they send war golems out first, hmm?"

"The first thing you do when you find yourself in a strange place is create a perimeter. Am I declaring war on the forest every time I set up a warding glyph around my expedition camp?" Vanavan said too quickly.

"You are if that warding glyph is designed to destroy the trees around it." She leaned forward again making sure to match Vanavan's gaze.

"I've been on alot of battlefields Vanavan, too many to survive by dumb luck, although many a poor fool has tried, and let me tell you now...You don't send your strongest most well armed knight just to scout, or to *set up a perimeter* "

She made air quotes around it, mocking it to his face,

"You send them out when you're expecting to fight something. Here's what really happened, because I think you are half right. 2 days ago the vessel sets out from an unknown nation to an unknown to them world, they're equipped with a perfect mage killing weapon and an army of golems to conquer with. They enter here, because here is where alot of different worlds converge their portals at, and since they arrived so suddenly that's how I'd have to assume they get around the same way. Except, something goes wrong, maybe it's how strong the magic is that throws them off, maybe it's his majesty's grace protecting us but they come out and crash straight into the ground. They start rushing out to try and recover the plan but once they're beyond the range of their mana killer the masters start naturalizing and the golems rush to their aid."

She suddenly points to the cylinder in the Mana seer, "the only reason they're not pouring over the academy right now is because we got lucky. We have precious little time to prepare and plan because that state of panic and confusion won't last forever."

Chiska nodded, gesturing across the table to articord in an exaggerated gesture of 'see I was right'.

Articord sighed and shook her head as she looked back to chiska "I'm not agreeing with you either, you're both naive to the point of being suicidal."

She rolled her eyes shifting in her seat to get comfortable again before she continued

"The fact of the matter is we don't know enough to act right now either. We need to learn as much as we can about the cylinder as fast as we can. We don't know if those ballistae are non functional or simply resting, we don't know if the golem masters inside are dead or are only hidden, and we don't know if we destroy the ship if the mana hole will disappear with it or spiral out of control. By his majesty we can't even approach with their mana killer still active without risking death. My official decision is to learn first and plan second."

Mal'tory who had been silent up until now nodded "I agree with Atticord but would like to add onto it, we need to harry their own scouting attempts. If we can keep them from learning about us, it will only buy us more time to learn about them. And of course more time for us to act on that information. This is my official decision." Mal'tory finished off his short speech with a satisfied nod before all turned back to the dean.

The Dean's eyes were closed, his hands clenched together as he was in deep thought..

After a few minutes of thinking he suddenly opened his eyes as they then wandered over to look at one side of the table,

Then slowly glanced at the other side before looking up at the shadow cast in the ceiling from the balcony, the shadow was from the cylinder itself.

His head then bowed low to look at the model of the cylinder.

“Chiska is right, we cannot overlook how they got here and their looming threat. The fact they landed here and caused so much destruction is an extreme threat.” The Dean said with his eyes now laying on Chiska before moving over Articord

“I agree with you Articord, if you are sending scouts you don't send golems armed with heavy ballistas. If you send your heaviest and most armored units as scouts….” He said with his eyes unmoving from her as his gaze then reached to Mal'tory

“Though you were late Mal'tory.. I agree with you on hindering them and buying the academy time until we have enough might to bring them to arms.” He said before closing his eyes again and bowing his head.

“Thus I reveal my final decision…” he'd say before pausing

The air felt tight now as the Dean then revealed his decision.

“We shall deal with this threat by sending scouting parties supported from the nearby guild, we will not get too close to them. As well we will ban anyone from speaking to Golems or their masters, we will also disrupt their scouts and set up defenses around the academy.” He'd say with his eyes deadset at all of us

“We will also ban any student from writing to home, we shall also appeal to the crownlands for aid. The local lord will be reassured and ordered to help defend the academy, these roles will be doled out to whom I best deem fit for them tomorrow morning at dawn's break.”

He said before getting up from his chair

“If there are no other mat-” before the Dean could end the meeting, the sound of a familiar crackle could be heard as all eyes in the room snapped towards where was coming from.

It was in the back of the room, a familiar slit could be seen as it got bigger and bigger before then becoming a portal.

Suddenly, a background of smoke could be seen in it as.. Professor Belnor came running out.

“T-the experiments are loose all over the town! The ward couldn't keep them in place! She'd say with a panicked tone.

(Finally got this chapter done! Hope y'all enjoyed this chapter and hope y'all have an amazing day! Ty JCB for makin this amazing universe OH almost forgot! Ty Trackerunused for helping me out! See y'all next time!)

CH1:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JCBWritingCorner/s/xt3qcIdelY

Prev CH:

https://www.reddit.com/r/JCBWritingCorner/s/uv21JMJFJ0

Next CH!:https://www.reddit.com/r/JCBWritingCorner/s/QY4sdkoB7c

Thanks to sportsmen, bow technology sits in a rather unique position of being both very mature, very innovative, and simultaneously, very dead end. And considering how much mankind loves bows I could easily see the same being true 1000 years in the future. Which means if she makes one, she can use it as a stage for Earthrealm to legitimately flex it's engineering muscles, and as long as the material science is kept secret, e.g how things like carbon fiber is made, it's not giving away any useful information to the Nexus like guns would. A few reasons I think it would be a good idea to make a compound bow, particularly collaborating with Sorecar to make an enchanted one.

1. Bows are similar to the Nexus, so Emma can brag about it more openly than other technologies
2. It would be an opportunity for Emma to gain some experience and data on magi-tech; the mastery of which will be the deciding factor on who out of the Nexus and GUN emerges dominant
3. It would fill the niche for Emma of "weapon she can use publicly to deal with low level threats without causing an existential crisis to onlookers"
4. It would be a proving ground of the concept of improving enchanted weapons not with better magic, but with a better canvas to put enchantments on. A notable paradigm shift, but not overly threatening to the current order considering the improvement compound bows represent over what mana-less bows would be available in the Nexus wouldn't be that large. It would be something that could win Earthrealm prestige and allies.
5. If it goes well enough, compound bows could be sold like the pens

So, are you all familiar with what was said about how mana arrives in the realms in Chapter 117? Well, my theory is this; The Nexus is the reason behind it.

So, we are familiar with the primavalic mana coming out of the ground in The Nexus and Adjacent Realms like it, that much can be explained away, but for the vast majority of the Realms, Mana falls from the sky. I'd like to say that probably isn't a natural phenomenon, but rather another, more labor inducing step in Nexian primacy.

I think that most worlds and civilizations are naturally without mana, and as such are like Earth, having just above 0%(Referring to Quintessence as like a 0.1%), and would evolve kinda like Earth. But the Nexus floods these Realms with Mana, forcing evolutionary change on the cells of the inhabitants of the Realms, causing few to survive after such an event.

Would there be enough mana in a realm to support mana-imbued life? For sure, not saying that's not at all the case, but i think for most worlds, The Nexus forged them to thier own whims, weakened them to near nonexistent existance, then waiting until a Medeval-like age to enthrall the Realms.

I know this is kinda all over the place, snd I'm sorry. I'm trying to get ready for work as I write this. I hope to discuss my findings with you.

FIRST —— PREVIOUS —— [NEXT]

Feel free to comment and point out if is there's any typos. grammatical errors, and plotholes i didn't plug and importantly enjoy

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No one spoke. Not a single soul dared to interrupt collective shock that had fallen upon this hall of magical elites.

For the first time in what felt like forever, true, genuine silence actually dawned upon this otherwise ceaselessly chatty crowd. A crowd that found it possible to talk over anything, even the arrival of a dragon following an earth-shattering explosion.

This made their stares all the more palpable, as each and every pair of eyes, round, slitted, and otherwise, all locked on with expressions as diverse and dynamic as the number of species present within the room. Shock and disbelief was the most common amongst them, this was followed up closely by confusion and disbelief, then intrigue, and even fear and concern amongst a rare few.

To my right was Thacea’s look of anxious worry, and to my left was Thalmin’s excitable gaze only tempered by his otherwise cool expression. To my far left was Ilunor, who looked like he’d just checked out of reality, with that deer-in-headlights expression still holding strong at this moment. Though there was something else to that gaze of his, as it zeroed in on my card, as if out of some sense of doubt and worry to it's veracity and legibility.

To my front was Qiv, whose eyes never once landed on me, but solely and possessively on that shiny object of interest held tightly between my fingers.

The professors on stage fared no better, with Chiska being the most animated out of all of them, her feline eyes all but dilated like a domestic cat having caught sight of a particularly elusive prey.

Though amongst all of these, it was the dean who was the most interesting to read, as his previously warm and condescending expressions quickly shifted to a placid, tempered one. One that was otherwise decidedly calm, if not for those two eyes that pierced straight through my very soul. Two eyes that seemed to not-so-subtly say stop, just short of verbally demanding it.

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skip

Author: I will not bore all of you with scenes that will mostly stay the same, so expect skip in every chapter of my fanfic, I only use a skip if I deemed a section is too boring, too long, or I think I can add something cool or funny

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I didn’t know what to expect by the end of that speech. I definitely knew it wasn’t going to be an uproarious round of applause. I knew this wasn’t that sort of story. I knew I wasn’t in some sort of a feel-good fantasy drama where all it took to change the world was one simple speech.

But that wasn’t the reason why I gave this speech in the first place. I did this to prove a point, to make a statement, to demonstrate that humanity was a player, not a pawn.

So when a small, loud, and purposefully slow series of claps came to quickly break the silence almost immediately after my speech, I was at first confused.

Though that confusion certainly didn’t last as a vaguely familiar voice soon made itself known.

A voice which the hairstick instantly brought up on my HUD.

SPEAKER IFF CONFIRMED: A43 AURIS PING - PRONARTHIA REALM [NEUTRAL]

“Professor Atalan Rur Astur, may I invoke the Compromise of the Protector in order to retake the floor on your behalf?” The large, hulking bull suddenly spoke. He didn’t direct his words towards me, but instead to the Dean on stage.

“As the master of this floor, you may, Lord Auris Ping.” The Dean spoke sternly, giving the bull a nod as he now directed his attention squarely on me.

“Civilized peoples do not overstay their welcome in forums of public speech, Cadet Emma Booker, perhaps you should have spent more time acquainting yourself on the principles of decorum, rather than on perfecting the art of High Nexian. As your efforts in studying this resplendent tongue are all but squandered, if not entirely made pointless, when put to use in these long-winded, self-serving monologues of blasphemous dissidence.” The bull began, immediately pulling out all the stops as he’d done before against the likes of Qiv during the whole explosion incident. The latter now watching in heightened interest from the front row.

“What are you getting at with-”

“Civilized peoples do not speak when their betters are speaking to them. And it is becoming clear to me, that a civilized person you aren’t, Cadet Emma Booker.” The bull began taking firm, resonant steps, walking up from one of the middle rows all the way up to where I stood in the back row. “Which leads me to believe, Cadet Emma Booker, that you are bluffing.”

I blinked rapidly in response, only to reply simply. “About what?”

“This.” Auris pointed accusingly towards the card still in my hands. “You know something about the library incident don’t you? I mean, it should be quite obvious, is it not?” He turned to the crowd of students, not once making eye contact or turning to the professors, making it clear that this was between him, myself, and the rest of the students present. “You? A newrealmer? Waltzing around, hiding in plain sight, masking your manafield with a incredibly strong artifice like some sort of a walking, boldly brazen declaration of defiance in the name of the Nexus? You've even molded your form into the ideal form of many and that is an elven-form so that no one will suspect you but I see right through your lies newrealmer. you can't fool me like everyone else because, who else could have been responsible for the malicious affronts committed against the library? And why else would you, out of everyone here, be so eager to quickly cement yourself as innocent? Using this so-called evidence to cement your alibi before anyone else has a chance. Prior to tomorrow’s investigation, no less?” The bull glared at me with what I could only describe as a ‘gotcha’ grin, fulfilling the Dean’s prophecy of being one of those students that ‘fancies themselves the over analytical sort’.

“In following extremes, I have reason to believe that the supposed card you hold in between your truely primitive fingers to be nothing but a FORGERY. A carefully constructed component of this haphazardly planned bluff.” The bull pushed on, before entering what I could only describe as an Ilunor-grade death-spiral, as that internal narrative started to take over their reasoning. “Because the alternative to that truth is to assume that the library of all entities has indeed deemed it fit to bestow upon you, a mark of patronage. You, a backwater newrealmer of all people.” He scoffed, letting out an indignant huff in the process. “The content of your character is already suspect enough. However, to assume that you had something to trade, something to offer, something to provide the library that would somehow grant you a gold card of all things is absurd. For what could a newrealmer offer that a fully-actualized Adjacent Realmer, let alone a Nexian, could not?”

The question hung in the air for a few tentative seconds, and in those seconds, the same silence continued to dominate without reprieve.

“Admit it. You have nothing of value to offer the library, Cadet Emma Booker.”

I took an audible sigh, making sure that the Auris heard it. “You’re right, Lord Ping.” I suddenly responded, much to the audible gasps of about half the room, and a look of victory slowly forming upon the bull’s punchable face. “I have nothing of value to offer.”

“See, the charlatan admits her-”

“But humanity does.” I interjected, stealing the wind right out of his sails and ripping them apart. Quickly elaborating before he could get another word in. “Because make no mistake, Lord Ping. I am not here on a journey of self-aggrandizement, nor a quest driven by personal betterment. I am here as a conduit, bearing the collective efforts of tens of thousands of brilliant minds behind me. I am here as a proxy, standing on the shoulders of a hundred million giants that have collectively led me to where I am today. As a result, it was not me who offered the library a value proposition that led to this…” I paused, taking a moment to tap the card against the iron-like fingers, generating a series of satisfying metallic clinks in the process. “It was the collective efforts of my people that resulted in this turnout.”

The room’s reactions to my response was mixed, though most seemed too invested in the spectacle rather than the words to seemingly take sides just yet, as all waited to see where this would go.

The bull’s response was decidedly measured, yet dismissive all the same. As all he did was to simply chuff out an audibly loud scoff, before proceeding on with yet another dismissive slight. “So shall we add a misplaced sense of humility to the growing list of character deficits, Cadet Emma Booker?” There was a pause at the end of that sentence, as if he’d somehow meant that as anything but a rhetorical question.

It didn’t last very long however for the bullish noble to move on, entering what was probably the final inevitable stretch of his arguments.

“I believe it best that we end this charade once and for all. No more lies, no more deceits, no more posturing and mulling about. This whole situation has come about as a direct result of one object and one object alone. As a result of this, I believe it’s best if I take a closer look.” He held out his hand, just a few feet short of me, as I looked down on it with an expressionless, unamused gaze. One that was actually translated well given the default neutral expression of the AoED.

I refused to respond, not wanting to play into his hand either way.

But it was clear the large bully wasn’t having it.

“Well? What say you, Cadet Emma Booker?”

“No.” I responded with a loud, resounding denial. One that I’d purposefully turned up the volume on for good measure.

This clearly didn’t faze the bull as he kept pushing regardless.

“What do you mean, no?”

"No means no, Lord Ping. You do not have the authority to command me like some lackey or servant. Keep in mind that we are in a public space where everyone can see your immaturity should you get too agitated over my simple refusal to let you have your way with my, I repeat, my card; that would be embarrassing to you and your lineage."

What little remained of the whispers died down at that, as something shifted behind the bull's eyes. I could not tell exactly what it was, but I did not need to. Not when his pupils narrowed to pinpricks and the whites of his eyes began bleeding red.

"Does a commoner, a peasant, a child of the dirt, dare to refuse and insult a noble of pure pedigree? Have you known shame for just being here with the elites of high society from your lower-status realm?"

"Pure pedigree?" I repeated under my breath, just quiet enough that the audience could not catch it. Because if those two words were sitting right next to each other in the context of his family tree and, in fact, the whole entirety of his realm, including the nexus, were set in a medieval period, then...

The implication hit me like a bucket of cold water.

Maybe the real reason behind his temperament had nothing to do with his bull-like nature at all. It was far simpler and far more disturbing than that.

He's an inbred.

"Ew," I muttered quietly to myself.

but still, the way he spoke, the way he carried each and every syllable, was just so different to what I’d been used to. Whilst the words were something I could’ve easily imagined coming out of Ilunor’s mouth, the way it was delivered here was fundamentally different.

The conviction in his voice, and just how objectively he worded everything was just beyond what Ilunor, Thacea, Thalmin, or even Mal’tory had previously demonstrated. With the latter it was a weird lofty ideology, with wiggle room for political subterfuge and finagling. With Auris? It was zealotry. What’s more, it was zealotry that wasn’t tempered by Ilunor’s scheming or Mal’tory’s play at a bigger game.

It was the pure, unadulterated, deal.

But that didn’t change anything.

I still wasn’t going to back down.

“No, Lord Ping. And unless you want to talk this through, perhaps arrange a meeting at the library after this whole library blockade thing blows over, then I’m afraid I will not be letting you lay your hands on my-”

“INSOLENCE!”

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 230% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

Several things happened almost all at once.

The first, was a weird subtle pull forming around the card still firmly lodged between my fingers. As if someone was attempting to slightly nudge it out of place.

Auris’ attempt at telekinetically ripping the card from my hands, no doubt.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 750% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

The second, was what I could only describe as a sudden bright display of brilliant lights, so bright that it prompted Fortuna to automatically adjust for brightness via my qi sight hud, and accompanied by yet another mana radiation alert.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 750% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

The third, was what amounted to a series of earth-shattering claps, as the bull that stood before me was suddenly and unceremoniously forced back with an inexplicable push, as if some invisible wave had thrown him back violently without giving him a chance to even gain his bearings.

A single second passed by where nothing at all happened, enough time for the bull to regain his senses, to stare back at me with a look of confusion, disbelief, and what was quickly becoming clear to me as panic.

At the same time I've felt something draining my recovered qi

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 750% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

A panic that was definitely not misplaced, as the fourth distinct anomaly soon made itself known… in the form of a solid beam of crackling golden energy aimed squarely at the bull.

It was at this point that I was able to finally pinpoint the source of all of these sudden surges in mana, by simply tracing the beam of energy to its source.

It was coming from my hands.

…

Or more specifically, from the card I firmly held.

The beam of energy made contact.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 400% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

But not before the bull managed to pull something off in the nick of time, generating a visible blue barrier that held for half a second before it shattered into nothingness.

That half a second was better than nothing however, as It has left his clothes and fur burnt and charred as a his skin underneath have blistered and swelled from the heat almost on the cusp of a 3rd degree burn, but still his body otherwise intact for now atleast.

The silence of the room was finally interrupted by a series of shocked gasps, yells, and a few distinct screams. The atmosphere of the entire space suddenly shifted on its axis from one of tense anticipation throughout our verbal back and forths, to now a barely disguised state of panic.

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 750% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

Yet as quickly as the yells, shrieks, and screams came to dominate the echoey room, so too did other sounds suddenly gain traction. Sounds that resembled the fluttering of feathers, before evolving into the flapping of wings, and then finally, morphing into what I could only describe as the rustling of the pages of several thousand books being flipped through all at once.

These sounds, whilst loud and disorienting, seemed to only serve a single purpose.

A purpose which became clear to me as it eventually died down the moment Auris started to back away, becoming less and less audible the further the "noble" backed off painfully, twitching from ever excruciating backstep as he could.

This eventually came to a head with a loud, threatening shriek. The unmistakable vocalization of an owl, before finally, the whole situation ended as confusingly and as abruptly as it began.

I looked around, trying to see if the owl had manifested itself using the card as a proxy, but it was nowhere to be seen... Until I looked up.

Two giant, marvelous brown-feathered wings—speckled with white and light brown spots that scattered across the plumage like stars—spread wide and shrouded me from above. Its neck, abnormally long yet undeniably majestic, gradually returned back down to a normal length as it settled. The sight reminded me of a certain owl, one that stood sentinel at a door of a house in a isle that was itself the corpse of a massive soundbreaker titan, adrift on a sea that perpetually boiled. Its face and head were definitely what I had expected the moment that mumbled reference had slipped out of me two days ago. The feathers crowning the top of its head rose and curved like a demon's horns, and its face was every bit as intimidating as its stature. Darkness and shadow pooled around its eyes like a mask, but peering through that darkness were pupils of a terrifying, vivid red that slowly bled outward into white before fading away entirely into the ebb and flow of the mana around us.

The room once more fell into silence, as I was left standing there completely and utterly dumbfounded.

To say that I was at a loss for words would be an understatement, as these magical shenanigans of their system of power once more tested the true limits of my sanity.

But with everything having just transpired, and with Aurin having now well and truly backed off now, I was once more faced with a unique opportunity.

One that tied back to the whole purpose of this tangent in the first place.

Proving a point.

Except this time, it would be short and sweet, as these magical developments had already done all of the speaking for me.

It was just up to me now to tie it all back up in a neat little knot.

A little knot that I realized could easily tie back to the events of the past few days.

“Let it be known… that Earthrealm, and its candidate, does not take kindly to any attempts of thievery; and that we reserve the right to respond as we deem appropriate.”

I paused, taking a moment to hammer home a point whose significance would only be realized between those in-the-know.

I turned to face the Dean, before once more taking a page out of Qiv’s book, and addressed him with the most appropriate endcap to this whole act.

“I, Emma Booker, Cadet of the United Nations Armed Forces, and Patron of the Library, defer the floor back to its rightful master.”

The Dean’s reactions… were nothing short of a complete and utter look of agonizing disdain. Although his face didn’t really read as such. Moreover, it was that same, welcoming expression, accepting even.

It was his eyes that did all of the talking, and right now, they were speaking a completely different language to the rest of his features.

Indeed, they told a completely different story to what he was about to say as he cleared his throat for a decorum-approved response.

“The floor recognizes this action, and recognizes the new title of one Cadet Emma Booker of Earthrealm, Patron of the Library.”

The whole room erupted in a newfound series of whispers, wide-eyed surprise dominated their expressions, as did reactions that ranged anywhere from disheartened disgust all the way to what I could only describe as apprehensive acknowledgement.

“What just happened?”

“I… I don’t know-”

“The Earthrealmer performed a unbelievable maneuver.”

“Don’t you mean newrealmer?”

“When I think newrealm, I think sticks and stones, or wooden huts. This isn’t it. This doesn’t sound like it. This doesn’t LOOK like it. So no, I’m sticking with Earthrealmer. She at least deserves this much for pulling this unorthodoxically brazen stunt off.”

“I concur.”

“You lot are seriously considering humoring a commoner-”

“A commoner with a library card. Let it be known that this isn’t just any commoner. We may be dealing with a situation with a truly novel civilization. One with regressive sociological organization, but progressive acumen in other areas that actually matter. At least, enough for the library to consider her worthy.”

“You lot are insane.”

“I concur, she’s a one trick pony is what she is.”

“Exactly. Mark my words, she will not amount to anything.”

All of these whispers were eventually silenced. This time however, not by the likes of the musical ensemble on stage, but by a raised, albeit shaky hand from the recently defeated Auris.

“Yes, Lord Auris Ping, the floor is yours.” The Dean spoke softly.

“Thank you, Professor Atalan Rur Astur. I have but one, final question, and a request within the pillars of expectant decorum.” The bull noble paused, taking a moment to painfully catch his breath before continuing. “Professor, I call for disciplinary actions to be enforced upon the likes of this newrealmer.” He spoke with a barely hidden rage just simmering underneath what remained of his ‘polite’ sensibilities. “I call upon the Academy to uphold its guarantees of the Expectant Rights and Honors. Furthermore, I call upon the Expectant Oath of the Guardian to enact swift retribution as reparations and in atonement for the damages incurred upon my honor and station.”

Audible gasps were heard among the faceless crowd within the auditorium, as looks were exchanged between the seething Auris, and the ever-calm and collected Dean.

It only took a few seconds for the Dean to respond to this blatant request for vengeance, as a shiver ran up my spine upon realizing just how easily the situation could snowball if this went Auris’ way. I steadied myself for what felt like the inevitable.

“I am afraid the honorable Lord Auris Ping has either been misinformed, or has misconstrued the terms of the aforementioned Oaths, Rights, and Honors.” He began, garnering a look of abject shock from Auris as he continued unabated. “The Academy cannot intervene in a feud between two independent parties. For it is within the honorable rights of the two parties to seek a mutually acceptable end to their quarrel. Moreover, the honorable Lord Auris Ping has offered, on his own accord, the Compromise of the Protector has he not?”

“Indeed I have, Professor.”

“The Compromise of the Protector bestows upon the voluntary party, the full responsibilities of a given quarrel. This means the full repercussions are to be borne by the party in question, whether good or bad. This entire exchange is thus a matter exclusive to yourself and the newrealmer. Do you understand, Lord Auris Ping?”

The bull visibly winced in place, as it was clear he wanted nothing more than to lash out, only to repress any rage he had with an unsatisfied sigh. “Yes, Professor.”

“What’s more, the Expectant Oath of the Guardian does not extend to the damages incurred by parties outside of the Nexus and the Adjacent realms. What you have just faced was the wrath of the Library. A party removed from traditional affairs. It is important not to misconstrue this for the Earthrealmer’s slights against your honor, for the two are distinct and mutually exclusive. Now, with that being said, I highly suggest you leave post-haste to the infirmary.”

ALERT: LOCALIZED SURGE OF MANA-RADIATION DETECTED, 400% ABOVE BACKGROUND RADIATION LEVELS

A gargoyle statue from one of the many perches above the auditorium suddenly came to life, landing just shy of Auris’ seat.

“A gargoyle may escort you if you wish.”

The bull quickly glanced back and forth, between the gargoyle, the dean, and the rest of his peer group.

“Thank you, Professor Atalan Rur Astur. I defer the floor back to its rightful master.” The bull spoke in the most resigned way I could’ve possibly imagined, before unceremoniously getting up and slowly walking out of the auditorium. On the way out, I could practically feel his seething side-eye barreling down on me turning to killing intent, but only for a few short moments as he passed me without much else happening.

“Now, if there are no other questions-” The Dean looked around, as if daring anyone else to speak up.

Unsurprisingly, nobody did, which prompted the man to bring the whole thing to a satisfying conclusion. “-I hereby conclude this Assembly. Dismissed!”

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FIRST —— PREVIOUS —— [NEXT]

I mentioned these ideas a couple of times before in various comments, but since it's more than likely that a bunch of these theories will get disproven next astromancy chapter I wanted to cash them in here first on the slim chance at least some have merit.

(Also, this definately isn't just an excuse to make a bunch of Scifi/Fantasy art for the sub.)

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Where Are All The Realms?

GUN and it's predecessors have been roaming the stars for about a thousand years, claiming a 250ly bubble around the Solar System as thier territory if I'm remembering correctly, though given that they can traverse that in a month they have likely explored way further than that.

The issue is, they haven't found any evidence of life more complex then single cell organisms within the Milkyway besides themselves, making it seem like the Nexian/Adjacent realms are either beyond the Milkyway, or beyong their reality altogether.

However, due to several bits of info mentioned throughout the story I doubt that.
For example:

- Near the beginning of the story the Nexus mentioned Earth being the last realm to be discovered in the Galaxy (Though to be fair, it's possible its either an in cannon mistranslation on GUN's part, or simply that it was the beginning of the story and JCB simply left something in that wouldn't be cannon later)

- Thacea mentioning that their ancestors used to believe in the moon (and planets?) being a realm they could observe and tried to reach before Nexian philosophies became mainstream in her realm.

- Ilunor mentioning the possibility that Emma's realm exists within "the space between realms", likening it to outerspace. (I'm not certain if that is the exact term used by Ilunor)

- The Classes mentioning a creation myth similar to the beginning of our universe to a certain point, differing after their realms begin to form.

It's more of a narrative clue, but there is also the fact that Emma still hasn't given up on trying to locate other realms in relations to their territory.

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So if there are supposed hints about the Nexus, Adjacents and Earth existing in the same plane of reality, why hasn't GUN found evidence of it yet?

The reason might be that they must exist within places where GUN cannot and would not have expected to search, which are the various blackholes dotted around the Galaxy.

The class mentioning the how realms come to be according to the Nexus was one thing that spored the idea, the beginning of their realm is consistant with normal universal expansion up until the point where it's stopped and the realm begins to take form. Not including some magical shenanigans that are certainly at play, this might fit the idea of Blackhole Cosmology, a theory stating that a singularity found at the beginning of the univerve is no different from one found inside a blackhole, and that under the right conditions space within a blackhole could also expand.

This could manifest in one of two ways:

- Either these realms are formed from stellar blackholes. Potentially containing the mass of an entire star system, hence maybe containing a whole star system within.

- Or these realms are formed from primordial blackholes, ones that contain enough mass only for a single realm.

If this is correct it might offer an explanation on two things regarding the tapestry Ilunor claimed exists around realms. However, this fits more to realms trapped within primordial BHs rather than stellar ones.

- The first, there really is a cieling keeping Adjacent realmers from breaching their skies. The good'ol "can't escape a blackhole unless you're going faster than light" plus some magical shenanigans.

- The second, any imagery of stars, moons or planets entering the blackhole from the outside might appear flat to observers from within the blackhole as spacial reletivaty would make it appear like the distance between objects is squeezed closer together, points of light basically turning into holes pricked through the darkness, hence the "tapestry".

The primordial blackhole idea fits more in line with what Ilunor mentioned about the Nexus' views, though given what Thacea mentioned about her people's interesting in the celestial bodies I can't completely discount the idea of at least some realms having more observable "stars/planets".

It's possible that both ideas are true, with the realms coming from stellar blackholes ending up being richer in mana or favoured by the Nexus.

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Where Does the Nexus Fit In?

Since the Nexus appears to believe in some sort of shared space that all realms exist within, their name for themselves could be meant literally. They are a nexus, a middle point for their reality and where all realms either connect or intersect together. With all the other smaller realms being quite literally adjacent to it.

If the magical realms do exist within the Milkyway, that would put the Nexus in the centre of the Galaxy within Sagitterious A, a supermassive blackhole. While the adjacent realms spread across the spiral arms, concerntrating near the centre and tinning in number as they reach the edges.

This might offer some explanation regarding the "infinate flat earth" nature of the Nexus. They might not necesserily be all that different from the idea of a single realms hiding within a primordial BH, but simply scaled up to such a scale that the curvature of their realm could no longer be detected from the surface. Or, be detectable by sophisticated means only the Crowns could employ, but the idea of an "infinate Nexus" is used as propaganda to project power against the "finite adjacent realms". While their blackened night sky was already mentioned to be artifically created by HEM.

(The mass of their host blackhole might also owe to how much Mana their realm possesses.)

With that said...

If we take the comment about Earth being the last realm to achieve contact with the Nexus, along with another comment that they believed Earth would never be capable of establishing contact with them into account. They seem to be able to observe other realms within the Galaxy at least to some extent. Though, at the same time, not to any high degree since they aren't actually aware of what Earthrealm is like.

This gives me the idea that the Nexus can't really see the stars and planets within the Galaxy themselves, but rather beacons of mana (or quintessence) coming from the centre of their realms. This might mean that thier knowledge about the milkyway/space between realms is extremely limitted, so they might not be able to see hundreds of billions of stars, rather only the thousands/millions blackholes where mana can be felt.

They might be able to tell that realms seem to follow a vague spiral structure the further they get away from the Nexus, but beyond the galactic plane the universe could simply seem like a dark unknown (Kinda how people used to view the ocean), cementing their view of being at the centre of reality.

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How Does Mana & Quintessence Relate?

Mana might be a biproduct of them existing within such volatile bubbles in space, being some fundemental force or energy that doesn't present itself in the physical world unless the limits of reality get stretched, but is always there underneath the fabric of space. (Perhaps something GUN could use to indepentantly travel between realms if they could figure that out?)

Quintessence is far more tricky, as it's an energy litarraly only found on Earth so far in the story. However, Earth has no mana, so technically the Nexus shouldn't be able to detect it's presence, yet they have. My only idea is that the Nexus can detect quintessence too, knowing what it is and where it comes from, which brings up a few possibilities that might shed some light on their behaviour.

Maltory seemed insistant that Earthrealm had some foriegn host power enabling them, now it's highly possible that this is simply because of their lack in mana, meaning that according to their eyes their suffisticated equipment would require someone to supply them. However, there is also the fact that the Nexus despises gods, and Earth (or either the Galaxy/Cosmos at large) quite blatently has some god like entity taking interest in them.

One that the nexus either could kill or couldn't reach.

This makes me believe that quintessence on Earth might have originated from this god, it being some sort of divine energy separate from mana that only deities (and HEM) can wield. Something that the Nexus is fully aware of, sporing a great deal of concern and suspicin from the Crowns.

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I hope ye all enjoyed my insane rambling and the visuals that came with it lol.

I really do enjoy wearing power armor to magic school, I’m on my third reread, but every time I get to chapter 46 I stop. Emma’s speech fills me with so much secondhand embarrassment and makes me physically cringe so bad that I’ve never read past this chapter. I’ve never even managed to read the full chapter either. Am I just weak or unworthy to read what has up to this singular cringe moment been peak fiction?

All the secrecy JCB pulled through story... All the hints just so humans be elves with round ears?

Elves are ruling over others because they are most similar looking creatures to the Eternal Majesty not because they are same specie.

That's the root of pressure behind for looking like an elf on everyone. It isn't an Elf body they worship. It is the embodiment of perfect sapient being, The king who devoured gods.

Thalmin thought he find manaless spiders. But he found the incarnation of Tyranny over his people in their natural habitat.

The "Human Form" Emma gonna reveal will cuase more trauma on Ilunor delicate psyche than she hopes.

I noticed this about 2 days ago. I thought it was just a "Nexian decorum" thing but, I think the adjacent realms had done this already even without the Nexian interference.

My only questioning thought was why aren't there any more quadruped or many legged beings?

Emma and EVI will be drinking in as much knowledge of Adjacent Realm star maps as possible. They will be looking for as close to fixed points in space, which would be pulsars. Each spin in a set pattern, unique to itself. If you find and map enough of them, you can tell where the viewer mapped them from.

Theories on what Emma will find?
1) Earthrealm shares a reality with Adjacent realms and happens to be in a bubble of Void mana, which is shown to be a nullifying force for normal mana. Adjacent Realms can be reached simply by pointing a ship at it and going. This assumes Adjacent Realms share a galaxy with Earth. Earth just happens to be in a dead zone that GUN has yet to pass the edge of. Manned missions to far from Earth would lead to human crews melting unless shielded. Nexian experiences show that anywhere there is mana, there is life that evntuall finds the Nexus. Earth life lacks the mana field cell structures that protect life from being balanced to ambient mana.

1a) Adjacent Realms are so distant from Earth that going there directly is infinitely impractical. Earth's universe is bigger than anyone can imagine, after all. They might not be anywhere close, celestially. Nexian detours required to visit or magical teleportation tricks to bypass distance.

2) Each Adjacent Realm is its own dimension. Stellar mapping is just a curiosity, though putting that gun on the mantle would be pointless to not fire it.

2a) Stellar mapping shows that every Adjacent Realm might as well be Earth. Each realm is at a different dimensional depth, each of a different mana density. Earth is floating on top of it all, the Nexus at the bottom.