271, 1/2

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From the desk of Knowledge Mage #Charme-B-789

Topics: Angels, Demons, WoB, Avandrasolaro, Thoughts on the War, Time Shelter, Greensoil.

Dated: 15d/4m/1453y Year of Stillness, middle of the 4th month of the Unending Year (tentative name).

The Angels left on the seventeenth day of the second month of the Year of Stillness. Many humans went with them. Everyone who wanted to leave was encouraged to leave, and told that if they left, they could not come back, and also that Margleknot was not a wholly pleasant place. People escaped anyway, through mass relocation magics set up by Yggdrasil. The Sovereign Cities were desolated by the Flight of the Angels, but we remain strong. I have heard that Greensoil fared far worse, and that demons are partying in the capital of Greendale.

Odaali is the new capital for all who remained, and the WoB is helping to fix them up to be the new center of their fractured empire, and also ensuring that the desecration remains minimal. For all his power, though, there are still desecrations.

The Demons are still celebrating as I write this, and they will continue to celebrate for the foreseeable future. They have invited every single human land to join them for feasts and every other thing that they got up to. It was an attempt at reconciliation of some sort.

There had been an official peace treaty and ending of animosities, but this Knowledge Mage does not believe it could last forever. The Angels went to Margleknot to fight for Good, and the Old Demons there are all Evil. When we reconnect, there will be difficulty, I am sure.

The Time Shelter held strong the whole time.

When the Time Shelter goes down, the collective belief is that the War will begin in earnest.

Due to the way time works between here and Margleknot* there was absolutely no way the Angels could be back for the War, and this Knowledge Mage hopes that they never come back at all, and also that we win the war. According to this Knowledge Mage’s inquiries, Veird is filled with more power on an individual level than that which exists on Margleknot, and Veird is only getting stronger.

Avandrasolaro officially took up the Crown of Angelic Divinity on the Seventh Sphere on the last day of the third month of the Year of Stillness. He took his crown in a holy white city that was built brand new for him by the Wizard of Benevolence. The city was mostly empty, for only 750,000 angels remained, out of the original 2,109,000,000 that went to Margleknot.

This Knowledge Mage can only speculate on what is to come, and all my speculations are poorly received, for I am rather pessimistic.

*Time is relatively frozen on Margleknot, compared to how we move here on Veird.

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From the desk of Knowledge Mage #Charme-B-789

Dated: 29d/4m/1453y Year of Stillness, end of the 4th month of the Unending Year (tentative name).

Topics: WoB, Thoughts on the War, Sundering, To Sunder, Impossible Dreams

Due to recent events, this Knowledge Mage desires to put down for posterity what is happening now.

What is ‘sundering’?

Some would say it is taking something and breaking that thing down further than particles, and souls, and thought, and action. ‘To sunder a soul’, or a person, results in a massive release of energy, after all. You can only really sunder disembodied souls, too, so that could tell you a lot about a lot.

Doesn’t tell me much.

In fact, no one really knows what ‘sundering’ really is but it’s remarkably easy to do, and the effects of a sundering are easily seen during a sundering.

The Songli Highlands use a particularly easy-to-make sundering tool that is used to execute the highest of criminals. Their method is perhaps the most well documented way to sunder. You take a crystal, about the size of a fist, and you take a grand rad, also about the size of a fist, and you put them together. Literally just together. The grand rad is usually carved to have a flat spot on it, and so is the crystal, while the crystal has a purposeful point on it.

You put the flat spots together then you aim the crystal point at the disembodied soul to be sundered.

Grand rads naturally draw in ambient mana to keep themselves stable. The crystal focuses this action in a direction. The sucking-inward draws the soul into a ‘sundering area’ that exists in the joining of grand rad and crystal and in the cutting facets of the crystal, and when the soul falls into the sunderer, the soul is ripped apart, sundered, and thick air fills the area, as the soul is turned into mana. Some of that mana goes into the grand rad, but not much at all, according to what I have managed to discover.

There is no recovery from this action.

The soul is gone forever. [Reincarnation] can’t bring it back, because it is ‘sundered’. Even if you don’t sunder the full soul, and you target the remains of the victim of the sundering with a [Reincarnation], the person who comes out of the [Reincarnation] isn’t the original person, because the sundering also destroyed all the memories of the person it sundered.

This is known.

And now we come to the missives handed out by House Benevolence these past two days. I will include the text in its entirety; it is not overlong.

~

What do you know about Sundering? Report your collected findings to House Benevolence, and you might be rewarded by the Wizard of Benevolence himself. Normal information will be paid for in a normal manner.

~

And that’s it.

We all know of the generosity of the Wizard of Benevolence, and that when he sets his mind to something, that something is soon solved.

And yet, this Knowledge Mage has a hard time believing that the WoB could ever ‘solve’ sundering.

– –

From the desk of Knowledge Mage #Charme-B-789

Dated: 5d/5m/1453y Year of Stillness, beginning of the 5th month of the Unending Year.

Topics: Thoughts on the War, Time Shelter, Nothanganathor, Gods and Wizards, Terrorism in the Theater, Missus Bertha Berter

In previous missives, I have listed concerns over the nature of the Time Shelter as an imperfect solution to the problem of Nothanganathor and the War.

Allow me to elaborate those thoughts in full, due to a terrorist incident that occurred earlier today in the Theater District of Charme.

The incident began as a rather standard play of the news, done in a comedic fashion by Missus Bertha Berter, as she often does. She spoke of Demonic meetings happening between our rulers of Charme and some visiting demons of the 5th Sphere, speaking derisively of them, earning herself a great many laughs. The problem was that those demons were in the crowd.

This Knowledge Mage does not know exactly what happened, but I will endeavor to find out the full story as soon as I can, and amend that to this report. (Note: Full report on the incident done. See file ‘Terrorism in the Theater’.)

The results of that incident were three near-deaths, all the demons murdered and sent back to New Hell, and the beginning of a larger topic that swept the Sovereign City up in its intrigue.

1) The War is going to happen whenever the Shelter comes down.

+

2) Nothanganathor doesn’t seem able/willing to end the Shelter himself.

=

3) The only way the Shelter is coming down is if our Gods and Wizards take it down.

The Gods and Wizards wish to prepare enough to open the world and then fight.

Almost everyone else wishes the world to remain Sheltered, since that seems to be working right now.

This has, as you can imagine, caused some tension.

The full nature of this tension spans the entire world, and this Knowledge Mage can only guess at the full ramifications of it all.

I will make some educated guesses in the following addendums.

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Addendum 1 of 73

On the nature of Peace…

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From the desk of Knowledge Mage #Charme-B-789

Dated: 6d/8m/1453y Year of Stillness, beginning of the 8th month of the Unending Year.

Topics: [REDACTED UNTIL THE END OF THE WAR], Thoughts on the War, Time Shelter, Nothanganathor, Gods and Wizards, WoB, Solomon, [Silver Heart], Geodes, Stratagold, Sundering, ERASURE

Wizard Solomon of the Black Gate has requested more information on Sundering from several prominent Knowledge Mages, and one of them let slip that there is a large project underway to solve the Sundering problem.

This Knowledge Mage believes it is an attempt to solve the Erasure Problem, in steps.

That is all that I know at this time.

Personal Note: I feel drawn to this topic in a way I have rarely felt. This pull is of such a note that I feel compelled to write it down.

– –

From the desk of Knowledge Mage #Charme-B-789

Dated: 6d/8m/1453y Year of Stillness, beginning of the 8th month of the Unending Year.

Topics: [REDACTED UNTIL THE END OF THE WAR], Sundering, Erasure, Personal Files, water damaged, House Benevolence, experimental magic

I apologize ahead of time for the tears on this file, because I cannot stop them from coming. I was made aware today that I am being looked at to assist with a major magical breakthrough conducted by House Benevolence, King Solomon of Genesis, and the Wizard of Benevolence. It could mean the removal of the Enemy’s greatest weapon. It could mean… I don’t know what it means.

I am apparently the victim of an Erasure.

Through a great many confluences of events, which I am still trying to understand, I was a warrior in the army of Killtree and lovers with a woman who, if she was a man, we would have been married and had kids. I do not know her name. I had been 80 years old, alongside her. And then we got [Reincarnation]ed by the Wizard of Benevolence during his Benevolencing of the Sovereign Cities. She became a man, I became myself. I do not know his name.

That whole period of my life is strangely missing. I will attempt to reconcile… Whatever I can.

Since then, I have been living in Charme, having arrived in this land a decade ago, in a way that I thought was by myself.

But I had come here with a husband who I mourn most fiercely.

Even though I do not know his name, or face, or that he even existed before today, before my meeting with King Solomon and the Apparent King Erick Flatt, I had a husband. Both King Solomon and the WoB knew me; they remembered me from all those years ago. They saw how I held hands with the woman who became my husband, before they (Read: the WoB) [Reincarnation]d me into my current form. They knew he was gone, though the Apparent King obviously knew more than King Solomon… For some unknown reason. I had thought they were the same person, and Solomon was the WoB’s repro, but it is more complicated than that. I have included my new thoughts on this matter in ‘Addendum Solomon, Repros, and the Infinite’.

But as to the current topic:

I am preparing to participate in a study to bring my husband back to me.

I hear I am not the only one participating.

I have no hopes.

And yet, they tell me they have had some success with cats.

– – – –

– – – –

– – – –

Three months ago:

“Chaos is calling. Be back later.”

Solomon half-woke to words that lingered in the absent warmth on the left side of the bed. Destiny’s scent was still there, but Destiny was gone. For one brief, horrible moment, Solomon thought he saw Red in the air.

He panicked.

He recalled a thing that Erick had spoken of once, and done a few times, but which he had never had any luck with.

Solomon reacted anyway.

He held out a hand and put it on Destiny’s bare shoulder, right in front of his own face, where he usually kissed every morning as he got up for the day.

Silver flashed.

And then Destiny was there.

Between panicked thought and quiet action maybe a thousandth of a second had passed. No time at all, really.

Solomon breathed out against Destiny’s shoulder, relief filling him as he shuddered, pretending that Destiny had been there the whole time, and maybe if he pretended enough it would be true. “Oh gods, I think I had a bad dream.”

Destiny hummed.

And then she rolled over to look Solomon in the eyes. Her blue eyes stared into his platinum ones, and she leaned forward and gave him a peck on the lips. She pulled back, saying, “You seem to be the reason for my Chaos spiking today, lover. Do you know what you just did?”

Solomon paused.

He reviewed his memories.

His heart fluttered in his chest and his core vibrated with an unseen flow as he teetered on the edge of something deep.

“… I think I pulled you back here.”

“Like how Erick did to that Shackle guy, and then to those five demons who tried to escape after demolishing Greendale’s palace last week,” Destiny said, “I think you can go further with it than him, though. I think you can bring back anyone you wish.”

Solomon almost burst out laughing at the preposterousness of it all.

But Destiny’s words struck a chord, and Solomon felt something deep within call to him. Of memory, and Genesis, and Destiny here, with her hand on his face, and her eyes glittering platinum, just like his. She smiled.

And Solomon had a part of the answer.

He launched out of bed and rushed to his workrooms, saying, “It’s not [Teleport Other]. It’s completely different because it—”

Destiny laughed a chiming, wonderful sort of laugh, saying, “Drag me back to you, lover! Get it right in the moment; leave the written words for later!”

Solomon turned, and then he…

He…

He desperately wanted to kiss Destiny again, so, several meters away from her, Solomon put an arm out there and bent it, making a palming motion—

The world flickered with silver.

And then Destiny’s face was up against his, and they were kissing, their chests pressed against each other, and Solomon’s hand was on Destiny’s perfect ass, just like he had planned. Destiny giggled into Solomon’s mouth, and Solomon laughed against her neck as he held their bodies together—

A series of blue box creation messages interrupted him. He ignored the normal ones, but he did notice that he had gotten another 3 ability points.

His new spell was… different.

Solomon’s heart was racing. Everything was…

Was a lot.

Destiny smiled, her eyes twinkling gold in the platinum of her irises. “Tell me the good news, Solomon.”

Solomon had ten thousand thoughts, and then he focused. “I need to do some experiments. A lot of experiments. Probably sundering experiments, too.”

Destiny patted his chest. “It’s pretty deplorable, but we can sunder some mice.”

– – – –

A month later:

Erick stepped down onto the entrance roof at Solomon’s Black Castle, where Poi stood waiting by the door, along with one other.

Tasar the Summoner stood beside Poi, with her little Spatial chipmunk [Familiar] upon her shoulders, Sengaralo. The green and black adamantium wrought smiled upon seeing Erick; her words were as solid as her, as she said, “We have results.”

Erick’s heart beat hard.

For the last month Erick had been doing politics with practically everyone the world over, giving them assurances and demonstrations of his power here and there, but not too much. People got scared when there were 3 kilometer long dragons in the area.

Which was understandable.

They got even more scared when Erick wanted to practice war with them, to train with people. There was a lot of pushback, but Erick would get to that practice soon enough. He’d let that idea percolate for a while, before it was ready.

When he wasn’t running around the world, getting everyone war-ready as much as they could be, he was experimenting with the valkyries inside Veird’s Authority, to get them ready to work with all the other parts of the army he was gathering. Erick had a few plans for the upcoming war, but his strategy was mostly described as ‘leafs on the wind’, and played to the strengths of the fact that Nothanganathor was sun-sized and everyone else was mostly Erick-sized, or smaller.

While Erick had been doing that, Solomon had been working on the Erasure problem.

Honestly, Solomon’s contributions were likely going to be more important. He had recently invented a spell that Erick had shown him a few times over, but done in a way that the Script had been able to codify, for Erick certainly hadn’t tried to codify it at all. He hadn’t even thought to codify ‘[Summon]’; that was just something he did occasionally. It was not Spatial Magic for Erick, and it wasn’t even Spatial Magic for Solomon, or rather, it wasn’t Time Magic, for Spatial Magic was all really variations of Time Magic. [Summon] was Genesis Magic that did a very good job of looking like Time Magic and thus Spatial Magic.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it’s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Thus, Tasar, former Spatial Mage, had become involved. And also the whole wrought angle was important, too. Maybe even more important.

Erick contained himself for as much as decorum demanded, and then he asked, “What kind of results?”

Tasar smiled, and then she turned to Poi and bowed just her head, saying, “Tea was wonderful.”

“Anytime.” Poi said, “I’m headed back to the dungeon.” He turned to Erick, grinning. “Don’t get your hopes up so much.”

Erick laughed. “You have no idea where my hopes are right now!”

Poi smirked. “Don’t need to be able to read you to know you’re somewhere past the heliopause.”

Tasar tried to contain her excitement, too, but she also failed. She said, “[Gate] to the Project, Erick!”

Erick rapidly opened the [Gate] and went through with Tasar at his side.

– – – –

Erick stood upon a white crystal road that was minimally lined with gold, in a land known as Human Copper Neighborhood 97.