Saying that space belongs to Archmage Marcus Sepsimus Lannoy would be inaccurate. Yet it obeys him before any other, and he in turn understands it more so than any living mage in history.
There have been strong Archmages, and there have been Archmages that crafted artifacts of near divine power. But rarely is an Archmage both personally strong and able to leave a physical legacy behind, with many calling Archmage Balthazar the first to do so.
Marcus is the fourth, Horzo the third. Both are, as of yet, alive.
I shudder to think what combining their specialties might produce.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK p^o^q REPLACE WITH LINE BREAK
Vistus took another look at the gaggle of spatial mages behind himself, withholding a sigh. They, grown men and women all, looked nearly sick with nerves. And Marcus was a fine, level headed young man, so there was nothing to be afraid of.
Saying so had earned him quite a few incredulous looks, though.
And yes, the two of them had fought, and Marcus was quickly earning himself a reputation of… impressive destructive might, but really, they should be more scared of Elly.
Insulting Marcus might earn you a glare. Doing so in her presence earned one a knife through the neck.
The same went the other way around, of course. Ah, young love. It was good for his old bones to be around it.
But when they actually got to River Reach, neither one was easy to find. Oh, their army was there, and so was a pair of Legions, but no one quite knew exactly where the King and Queen were. Damn, he really missed his flying ship. Not that he would need it, or so the Empress argued.
'You're going with a spatial Archmage', she'd said. 'That'll be faster than any ship'. Bah. She just wanted it for herself, he just knew it.
He finally managed to track down a nobleman, Duke Helios, which brought him here. Standing in a wheat field which wouldn't be ready to harvest for months, and that was assuming the Hounds didn't get to it first. But standing here he was, trying to simultaneously not laugh at some fifty professional spatial mages having a panic attack and figuring out what was going on.
There was a druid standing in the wheat field, which was normal enough, but usually they didn't travel in packs of twenty three. And that wasn't a comment on Imperial druid availability, either. One druid could, and frequently did, increase crop yields, eradicate pests and prevent disease.
What they didn't do was speed up growth itself, at least not significantly. And most certainly not directly, because it had been proven time and time again that doing so depleted the fields. Rapidly.
But Vistus supposed the city needed food now, not in six months. And the fact these fields would be essentially barren next year didn't mean much to hungry peasants.
It was somewhat of a moot point, what with him being able to mass produce whatever the city needed, but he had learned better a long time ago. Just because he could fill their warehouses with grain and ore and more, didn't mean he should. Doing so only created a reliance on his power, and bound him to that place in the process.
Vistus pulled himself back to the present, feeling the lead druid—Kleph, that was it—start the not-quite ritual. It was more along the lines of repeated spells with overlapping areas of effect than a true ritual, but the difference was academic.
The result wasn't. Over the next minute the barely germinated wheat sprouted up, flowered and finally filled with grain. Now, he wouldn't have chosen grain, since it needed another few steps to become digestible, but he was sure there were plenty of good reasons.
A small mob of farmers got to work while the druids left, druids who clumped together rather than dispersing. Kleph seemed to be directing them towards another field, but that wasn't Vistus' problem. Neither was the hundred or so Hounds being slaughtered a few hundred feet away.
No, his problem, which wasn't in fact a problem at all, turned towards him. The spatial mages behind him grew even more nervous, some of them literally shuffling, and Vistus rolled his eyes. He supposed the transmutation mages had been just as bad, once upon a time, but he'd had time to work on those.
"Marcus," Vistus greeted, receiving a nod in return. The man could be somewhat reserved in public, so Vistus took it in stride. He waved behind himself. "Meet fifty of the Empire's best, and perhaps more importantly available, spatial mages. They're here to stay behind and operate the portals once we've created them."
Marcus hummed, looking them over before turning his attention back on Vistus himself. "Gates. I'm calling them Gates. And that's probably wise, if I'm correctly assuming what you're doing here. Having you create the physical structure and runic formations will save a lot of time, but it will also lack… depth. Depth I will have to compensate for."
"Just so," Vistus replied cheerily. He loved, loved, working with smart people. He really did. "Memorizing the schematic will take me some time, and you'll have to actually make the spell itself, but after that these fine men and women should be able to take over."
If handing over control rubbed him wrong, Marcus showed none of it. Hells, the man probably expected it, and thought it wouldn't matter. Which he was probably right about. Vistus sure wouldn't bet on anyone actually taking these things away from him. Not in any way that mattered.
Marcus grunted in reply, a noise Vistus was pretty sure didn't mean anything but made more than one of his mages flinch. "Well, since they're here anyway, they can learn how to operate it. I'm only halfway done, and most of the runic formations are sloppy at best, but the theory should be sound."
"We kind of have to leave," Vistus said, sighing. "We're… we're not doing well. At all. If we want to make it to Strada on time, that's the Imperial Capital by the way, we need to be moving before sundown."
The man raised an eyebrow. "I know what the Imperial Capital is called, Vistus. I study geography. And by whose schedule are we traveling, exactly?"
"The Sect of Wisdrog saw fit to provide a number of locations that were deemed critical." Vistus shrugged, offering the list. Marcus glanced at it before turning to one of his guards, a muttered few words being exchanged before he turned back to the conversation. Vistus offered an apologetic smile. "I know it isn't ideal, but we got here as fast as we could."
Marcus hummed. "Nothing for it. The party is being assembled as we speak, but the Gate won't be done by evening. Not as the work has been going."
"Now that is a problem I can fix," Vistus replied, glancing at the stone dome attached to the city. It was only barely visible from here. "Bad runic formations, you said? I have made a study of those, if you recall. Recreating small sections won't be too hard, and I should have the entire artifact memorized before we reach Strada. From there it shouldn't take more than a few hours to create each Gate. What's your current limit on teleportation?"
"Depends on the terrain and weather. I can move us past rivers and enemy hordes and such, but not all day long. I hope you brought good mounts."
Vistus suppressed a smile. "We should be able to manage. Shall we get started?"
Marcus shrugged and returned to the Gate, Vistus following after the man. The spatial mages he'd brought crowded around a table full of papers, which was the kind of greed to be expected from them, but when Marcus didn't object, Vistus didn't either.
It wasn't like they could steal the thing, or anything. If all it took to reproduce an Archmage's artifacts was the blueprint, the Dungeon wouldn't be half the threat it was.
Maintenance was possible, operating them was possible, but recreation had proven thoroughly impossible.
Vistus was handed a hundred kilogram stone—about the size of his head—as if it weighed nothing, the man who carried it clearly using Life Enhancement, and he directed the thing to a side table. More a workbench than table, though, as when the stone was deposited on it, the wood didn't even flex.
The runes were interesting. Not overly complex, at least not compared to Horzo's airships, but deeper. Miniaturized in a way that simply wasn't done, allowing for an incredible number of connections between formations.
It took him half an hour to memorize, and it seemed he'd been handed a cornerstone. After that making two dozen wasn't so hard, and only took another half an hour, and by the time he was done Marcus had ambled over to inspect them.
"Good," the man said after a moment, waving at the loitering spatial mages. "Slot them into place. Donna and Barcus know where."
Vistus suppressed a snort at that. A young woman and a dour soldier, directing mages who even the Great Houses paid respect to. Spatial enlargements were always in demand, after all, and by Imperial law no mage could be forcefully employed. And yes, they skirted around those rules, but the point was that those fifty men and women enjoyed respect. Quite a bit of respect.
And now two mages, mages who most of those same men and women would barely call literate, directed them like cheap laborers. Much more amusingly, none of them even seemed annoyed.
Work moved quickly with the influx of skilled assistance, and Vistus himself busied his mind with memorization. It was a skill he'd long mastered, but even so the Gate's runic network proved vast. Very vast.
It didn't help that most of it shouldn't work, at least not to his understanding. Which made committing them to memory harder, just like how trying to memorize a foreign sentence was harder than one in his own language. His brain wasn't used to it, and overall it took some convincing.
Not that he'd been lying, of course. Two hours after his arrival the last stone slotted into place, completing the arch. Vistus hummed at the surge of energy, which he interpreted as nothing but a test, and without bothering to tell anyone, Marcus activated the Gate.
A shimmering barrier of energy snapped into place, matte black and vaguely bubbly. Marcus stuck his hand inside and nodded, and Vistus wasn't sure why, but the man seemed pleased.
"It's done," Marcus said. It caused a small cheer to rise up from the gathered mages, which seemed to confuse him, and Vistus shook his head. Marcus moved on after a moment. "Yes. Congratulations to all of us. When I build the second Gate in Strada I'll link it to the network, at which point the designation operator can switch as needed."
Marcus pointed to a mage at random, who blanched, and Vistus resisted the urge to laugh at the man. It really was good to spend some time away from the battlefield, and especially so with Marcus.
The Empress was stressed, Horzo was busy, and Vistus simply didn't have many equals left after that. And not for a lack of trying, either. But even his closest friends treated him with a certain deference that was impossible to ignore, something entirely absent in his young friend.
It was heartening, and also quite possibly why Elly and Marcus got along so well. And why Elly disliked him, for that matter. But bah, no one could have everything, and this was a time to be joyful.
The Gate network was their largest increase in logistical might since… ever. Vistus could create anything—some limits might apply—but he couldn't outproduce an entire Empire. And even what he did make, like rare materials, medicinal plants and crystals, still had to be transported.
Logistics won wars, and nothing boosted logistics quite like instant transportation.
If he had to guess, Marcus fell closer to someone like Balthazar than himself, though there really weren't many Archmage's that could craft artifacts. At least not well enough that their creations stood the test of time, which admittedly the Gates hadn't proven yet either.
Marcus approached after scribbling a piece of paper full of instructions, which the spatial mage he'd been talking to took with shaking fingers. Vistus suppressed another snort. "I finally understand why everyone found my interactions with transmutation mages so amusing."
"I'm no one to them," Marcus complained. "I don't know any of them nor am I likely to meet them again in the future. Yet here they are, falling over themselves to shake my hand. It's madness. Worse, it's annoying."
Vistus shrugged. "It's power, and so far you've done nothing to assuage their beliefs."
"What?"
"What what?" Vistus asked, raising an eyebrow. "I mean that you're shockingly lethal, are highly mobile and are now displaying an aptitude for artifact crafting. What did you think was going to happen? Apathy?"
"You're way stronger than I am."
Vistus waved his hand. "I'm at the pinnacle of my power, and transmutation is good at killing in the first place. And every Archmage is dangerous, but on a scale, I'm near the top. Someone like Balthazar was close to the bottom, but there's a good reason everyone remembers his name. You're a good distance over halfway, and still growing. So yeah, those mages might find it in their good interests to behave, considering you might be around for a long, long time."
"More politics." The man sighed. "Great. If you'll excuse me, I have to make sure my party gets assembled. And have Elly make sure everything is in order with the army, for that matter."
"She's coming with us?"
Marcus glanced at him, his eyes every so slightly infinite. "Is that a problem?"
"Not in the slightest," Vistus assured smoothly. "I'm only making sure."
The man relaxed, humming. "Excellent. I think she's mostly coming to stab anything that is even remotely a threat to me, which might include you. Apologies in advance."
"You just seem so broken up about it. The smile really sells your regret."
Marcus cleared his throat, wiping his face clean in the process. "Go be old and alone, then. See if you're happier than me."
"Now now," Vistus chided mildly. "No need to get snippy. I'm happy for you, I really am. And while I would normally caution against a power balance that skewed, you don't have that problem. For all that you've been born in a hard, shitty time, you did get some fortune to balance it out."
"I'm seen as his fortune, am I? How sweet."
Vistus used his decades of experience to not flinch at the noise, sharpening his will. Elly faded into his magical sight, stepping around him to join Marcus. But not before making it clear she had just gotten behind him, and even if he'd not been paying as much attention as he could have, that was troublesome.
Ah, an enchanted cloak. A good enchanted cloak, and one focused on stealth. Lovely. "Elenoir. That was impolite."
"So is you expecting us to drop everything to go on a continent-spanning rescue mission," she replied with a shrug. "I need to steal my husband, if you don't mind."
Well, that was one of the most not-questions he'd heard in a long while. "Of course. I shall see you both tonight?"
Marcus nodded, and the pair vanished in a flash of nothing. But that wasn't quite true, and Vistus snaked a tendril of his magic towards the spell to see if he could trace them. Which he couldn't, since according to his senses, the pair might as well have disintegrated.
Vistus abandoned the attempt with a sigh, beckoning the lurking Bilal closer. The Felid demon stalked towards him and spoke in a low tone, his expression even. "Clarissa and Brogus have found a Calamity. They're isolating it now. Pina is standing by with your remaining guards."
They had, had they? Very good. Vistus nodded and followed his friend back into the city, almost immediately having to pause at the company of Mirranian soldiers marching along the street. Vistus tracked their progress with mild curiosity, eyes drawn to the bone daggers on their hip. Some even had shields studded with scales, or axes carved from vertebrae.
Not even the Legions had enchanted equipment in that quantity, and it would explain the army's military success. Or at least partly so. But while interesting, it wasn't that interesting, and the Calamity took priority.
Hells, even a group of necromancers had to be ignored, and he always liked to poke around their works. If there was a single magical discipline with the most potential against the Dungeon, that was it. If only Tyno hadn't fled like a Godsdammned coward, they could have—
Vistus pulled his mind away from the subject, following Bilal away from River Reach. Once they got clear of the city he dismissed the demon and wrapped himself in carefully controlled air. It enhanced his speed tenfold, even if it was draining, and the situation called for it.
Finding Clarissa was never hard, not with how old their contract was, and only took about an hour. That meant the threat wasn't close, necessarily, but it was far closer than he preferred.
Unfortunately for the stealthy Calamity, he and his friends had been doing this for a long, long time. Vistus arrived at a burned down clearing to find a bored Clarissa roasting a massive Orc Champion, one that Brogus was currently salivating over, and she waved her hand north-east-ish.
Vistus nodded, honing his senses. Hunting Calamities was never easy, but there was a trick to it. A trick he'd long since given up on teaching others, since it relied on a sense of the world no one else quite had.
But he did, and so the Calamity was found, tracked and confronted in short order. Now, Vistus had seen a great many Calamities before. More than any other Archmage currently alive, and even amongst the dead he would rank himself highly. He had fought hulking beasts, cunning humanoids and mind-warping illusionists.
And this one, contrary to what one might expect, wasn't special, and Vistus judged it to possess a middling intellect. Its sleek feline body watched him from the trees, gleaming eyes tracking his every move, and against someone who couldn't feel every atom around themselves, the ambush might have worked.
Vistus wasn't here to play, though. He wasn't here to glean information from its corpse, nor was he here to save River Reach from its malice. He was here with one purpose, one the Empress herself had given him.
To remove any and all obstacles that might hinder the work of Marcus Sepsimus Lannoy, and to do so at any cost.
Power flooded the forest and the Calamity pounced, proving as highly resistant to magic as usual. But the air around it wasn't, and Vistus grabbed the creature with an iron will. The mutated panther froze, trashing with all its might, and Vistus emptied half his—not inconsiderable—reserves to keep it in place.
Threads made from a tungsten-titanium alloy wrapped around the struggling monster, one that Vistus had spent a very long time perfecting. The razor-thin wire wrapped around and around its flesh, and though its skin was tough and its muscles durable, Vistus was an Archmage of Transmutation.
He pressed his will against the metal, and ordered it to shrink. The howls of rage turned to yelps of pain, and second after second, the Calamity was being sawed into four dozen pieces. Inch after inch, through skin then muscle then bone, Vistus contracted the cage of living alloy.
Four long, tiring minutes later, a mess of flesh was all that was left. Clarissa had joined him by then, burning what little remained to ashes, and Vistus wiped a tear of blood from his cheek.
Vistus could not make Gates that would change the world, nor could he create airships that defied gravity. He was not the Empress, to manage an Empire alongside a hundred of her illusionary clones.
But if there was one thing he could do, if there was one thing he excelled at, it was killing. And when the whole wide world seemed to want humanity to end, when those who could change the future were building their miracles, Vistus would be doing the same thing he had been for decades.
Hunting nightmares.
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