Interlude 4: Mystrix Pallas, Part 2

 

Previously: The plan, our only plan was escape! We had theorised the existence of not just other worlds but also other planes and if there was nowhere for us to flee to in this world we would make the gamble of fleeing elsewhere.

The algorithm of a spell can be complex and navigating its path through the many roots and branches of the weave of magic is a difficult task. Even more so with a spell of this size. For a teleportation spell of this size we broke It down into an immense number of small but achievable parts. Each magi responsible for one part of the greater whole like the cogs of a great machine fuelled by the nexus of ley lines below us.

We had begun the casting by the time the gods had made landfall. Even in the early stages the spell began to destabilise the island as it drained the many ley lines of magic and encapsulated the city and the rock it was built on. Tremors began underfoot and the city’s hot spring baths boiled into steam.

The island was already destabilizing below us, there was no going back if the Gods didn’t destroy us, the island would. The only remaining chance for our survival was in finishing the great spell and placing our hopes in its success and a safer destination.

Then the city was thrust into the unknown, tearing through reality itself in the process and plunging us into darkness. The veil of darkness was ripped away as swiftly as it had descended revealing a new land that lay beneath a green sky. 

We would come to call the place we arrived at The Wild Dimension. Superficially it was like Earth. There was ground beneath our feet, a sun above, plants and animals, mountains, seas, but rather than a sphere in the void, this world was an endless flat plane, where perspective shifted and couldn’t be relied upon. There was no moon or stars, the sun’s position always seeming to stay in place relative to the viewer and not their location in the world. Distances deceived the eye in this realm, and seemed to shift in ways that were beyond our understanding.

It was a land with boiling with far more magic than Earth had possessed, and it was equally rich in resources. Despite being far far more dangerous than our old home it was filled with so much more opportunity.

At first we merely contented ourselves to repair that which had been damaged in our escape, you can’t expect to transport an entire city and not have shifted foundations, toppled pillars, cracked plaster and broken sewers.

Once our beloved city had been restored to its pre-war glory, we turned our attentions to the exploration and study of this new land. We learnt much of this new home, a plane where the land was influenced by and shifted under the observations and consciousness of sentient beings. It widened our imaginations and broaden the scope of our experiments and knowledge. 

It wasn’t long before we again turned to expansion, not just of the city, but also our magic and other sciences. The fusion of our magic and technology allowed for industrialisation and miniaturization of mass fabrication of ready-made spells to grown gems and metal spell-circuits. 

Magi-tech. Devices that could contain the labyrinthine and intricate pathways for as many spells as required and the means to fuel and cast them. No longer would mages be limited by their ability to remember and navigate the casting of spells in the moment or the complexity of multilayered and multistaged spells. Instead magi-tech devices specific to the task could be crafted and the complexity could be programmed away.

It was many years, perhaps centuries after our arrival that we encountered another of the Wild Realms denizens, the Echni. 

The Echni in some ways were our mirror image. They too were refugees that had prior to fleeing here, been an enclave of knowledge and progress in a sea of fear and ignorance. Their magic and technology rivalled ours and they were great builders. Their empire here was our equal in both power and avarice. Perhaps our greatest difference was appearance, where as we looked like any human back home, half of their number looked like hideous inhuman monsters to our eyes, while the other half were strange graceful beings of shy curiosity.

A relationship of tentative peace was established with the Echni, based on wary respect and mutual admiration. Agreements of mutual assistance were made and the trade of knowledge and resources started. For a great time this peace lasted.

The other race we encountered, if they can be called such, were the demons. I understand that name has certain connotations on Earth and that it is best if you set them aside for now.

The Demons were the natives of the Wild Dimension and shared much with the plane. Demons were formless beings of magic and the very forces that shaped the Wild Dimension. Their thought processes and consciousness was alien beyond understanding. 

They did not stay formless though, Demons had a tendency to create their own physical forms based on whatever took their fancy. Often these forms were even more inhuman than the Echni as they imitated and blended the forms of anything and everything. Atlantians, Echni, beasts of the wild, insects, flora, rocks, rivers, dirt, ice, clouds and fire. Some however managed to constrain their form to a base that was mostly Atlanteans or Echni and a smaller number of those managed to imitate our thought processes. 

Though we rarely came into contact with the Demons, those we managed to capture and put through the rigors of experimentation, yielded many discoveries of great theoretical merit. 

It was during this period Atlantis came into its peak. The term utopia had been bandied around many times in the past, but if there ever was a time it applied it was then. Atlantis was experiencing its longest period of peace and expansion since its founding and we could want for little. All the menial labor required for the running of the city, production of food, power, management of waste, transit, communication, cleaning, construction and even defence were now handled by devices and machines comprised of magi-tech.

Citizens could spend their endless days in leisure, study or hobbies. Work was something to pass the time, pursue goals or build a name for yourself.

It was not to last. 

Many of our people had begun to attribute all our successes to our leader Atlas, especially those born after the war. In the eyes of many he had become something more than the first among equals, more than a king. A God King in name and power. God in the sense that he was an existence apart from and above us. 

If this reverence and worship had just been a thing of words and attitude we might have been fine, but his control and political power over our people grew too. No longer did he ask and reason with us via impassioned speech, seeking our agreement to follow his will and vision, now he commanded us.

We had a tyrant and most were blissfully blindfolded to it. Those close to him could see the changes in him. The growing arrogance, hubris, greed, callousness, paranoia and delusions, but it was already too late. Perhaps it had always been there and was only now coming to the surface. None dared confront him and worse the corruption of his character seems to spread like an infection. Many of the elder disciples began to change too and from there it spread through the population engulfing whole streets and city rings in the madness. 

Our utopia changed into a dystopia, a despotic nightmare of insane magi and technophiles. So much of our knowledge and institutions of scholarship were turned to the creation of new weapons. The systems of prosperity no longer reached everyone. Slavery returned and both criminals and those who faulted on debts were gangpressed in to slavery. Others received worse.

Human experimentation returned and new cruel weapons came of it. The new Anubii, modelled after the God’s servants who fought alongside us in the past, were a vicious example of the era. The Anubii were bipedal wolfen magi-tech constructs, with a slave implanted at their core. 

Standing a head taller than most humans, Anubii were strong, vicious and enduring. Their signature jackal like masks were equipped with a host of implanted devices to enhance their senses and allow for commands to be conveyed directly to the slaves inside. For combat they had their reaving claws and could be equipped with shields and a variety of magi-tech based close quarters and ranged weaponry.

Stray Echni and Demons began disappearing within Atlantis’s borders in increasing numbers. Out of growing fear, the Echni closed their borders, severed all communication and prayed for Atlantis to turn inwards and consume itself.

By this point my eyes were opened, I could see how everything had lead to this point. I wondered if Circe was here, would she have scolded me for having taken this long to see it? A number of Atlanteans like myself had begun meeting in secret. We would talk of how to turn things around, how to undo the shadows that had fallen over our people, how to restore our hearts. 

Revolution was not an option for us, we were too few and our opponents had all the numbers and weapons. A coup was proposed, cut out the heart of the sickness and work on healing the society from there. Atlas was the greatest of us and well protected, any coup would be long in planning.

Atlas however was not sitting idly. Only a hundred of so years after the Echni had closed their borders to us and to the sound of cheering, he ordered the invasion of the Echni territories.

The war was on a level of brutality beyond that of the war on earth. Two civilisations of great power, technology and magic throwing everything at one another with abandon. That isn't to say the sides were equally matched. No. In the face of the Atlantean’s horrific use of weapons and engines of war that were as dangerous and otherworldly as the Wild Dimension itself, it was all the Echni could do to not be completely overrun. 

And they would have been overrun, if not for the appearance of unexpected allies of desperation. The first of which were regarded with great suspicion, as they were Atlanteans. The very same Atlanteans, who had been planning their coup in order to save what we saw as our people’s soul. The second had been patiently waiting hidden, for such an opportunity for revenge. The Gods of Earth.

These gods who had once surrounded Atlantis had found themselves torn from Earth by the wake of our great teleportation spell and stranded on this world. They were not the first to be stranded here and like other such gods including a number of Echni gods, they had been sought out and taken in by the native gods of this plane.

With the aid of the gods on the battlefield the odds not only evened, but slowly swung against the Atlanteans. For us rebels, we continued to look for openings to launch our coup, praying it be soon enough to end the war before Atlantis was razed to the ground. That said we did not neglect our allies, any goodwill we cultivated had the potential to sway our new allies into sparing non-combatants and preserving what little we could. 

To that end we began exporting intelligence to our allies, sabotaging our own people’s war effort, the abduction and assasination of war-magi officers and others vital to the war effort. Other plans were also made, secret tunnels and bunkers beneath the city as well as leading out of it were prepared to protect and evacuate as many of the non-corrupt citizenry in the event of the war reaching the city.

Curfew was declared within the city followed by patrols and raids, getting caught out after dark or declared suspicious was a quick way to end up in an Anubii or worse. Naturally our activities became more difficult, and if not for the growing network of tunnels and secret rooms we might have been forced to stop.

In a flash of ill-timed lucidity, Atlas noticed my long absence from his court and his side. Guided by his paranoia my movements were investigated and my suspiciously frequent visits to the cities various barracks, weapon depots, labs and factories were discovered. A summons to court was issued. A trap in order to capture and confront me, refusing the summons would instantly mark me as a fugitive. 

A trap I almost walked into, if not for the wavering loyalty of another of Atlas’s disciples and a masked warning passed on to me. Fleeing the city, I made for our allies and began assisting with the planning of the coming siege. 

Unlike the past during our war back on Earth, the walls of Atlantis were not something to be breached. Not without losses equal or more than the number of souls within. Built tall and thick prior to the invasion of the Echni, the walls of Atlantis were reinforced with spell barriers that reached the sky and armed with the most devastating magi-tech engines of war we had developed.

It was here I was able to prove the value of our rebellion. Opening our tunnels to a force of alliance infiltrators and saboteurs, we provided guides and lead them behind the walls to a series of targets that if destroyed would render the artificial ley lines powering the wall’s defences inert. Once the impenetrable Shield of Atlantis had been stripped away, the walls fell in a matter of minutes that left the Atlantean defenders in a state of shock, unable to react. 

The Olympians having held the greatest grudge against Atlanteans, elected to lead the center vanguard. Like a wild hunt of legends, they drove through all resistance aiming straight for the heart of the city with the fury of a natural disaster.

As much as they still terrified me, I had to follow them. I had to witness the fall of Atlas for myself. I had to be there to try and save as many Atlanteans as I could in the aftermath.

Such was the faith my people had placed in their walls and so swift was the Olympian vanguard’s advance, Atlas’s forces had been unable to mount an organised defence until we reached the city’s heart. At the center of the city’s concentric circles of streets and canals was its heart the former temple of Posiedon, now a shrine to the worship of Atlas. 

The Atlantean defense had managed to regroup and reform new battlelines comprised of Magi and their Anubii defenders. It mattered little. To the vengeful Olympians and the Wild God host following, no defence would hold them back from claiming Atlas’s head as wergild for his crimes.

It was a rout, how could it not have been? The war was decided the moment Atlantis’s wall defenses were breached, all that was left was to see how it ended and if a surrender could be made. Surrender would not come; the defenders either Atlas fanatics or afraid that surrender would mean their deaths, clumped together in loose pockets of defiant resistance as they made their last stands.

It was then my former mentor made his appearance. Atlas the narcissistic showman had emerged from the temple. His robes, his posture, every gesture, every movement, designed to project the image of a God King. It worked. For a moment the entire battlefield paused and went silent as every eye locked onto him, then a roar rose up as every Atlantean yelled and chanted his name. “Atlas,” they cried out. Atlas, my mentor, our great leader and the one who had damned us all.

I remember my confusion at this point. I had been his student, his disciple for uncounted centuries, but his sudden appearance and attitude baffled me. Why? Why was he revealing himself now? How could he be so unphased while the Divine Host slaughtered his followers? Did he think he still had a move left to play or had the delusions left him unable to comprehend the reality of his inevitable defeat? 

One magi, even one as powerful as Atlas, couldn’t turn this tide, it was over! 

Looking back I think my confusion came from being unable to see my former mentor’s true nature. His desire to be worshipped, his lust for power at all costs and the absolute hatred he had for the Gods. I’d been deceived by the charismatic and charming face he put on for the world and even when his mask had begun to peel away, I had been unable to comprehend the full measure of his true self. I’d made excuses to myself and buried every warning sign he accidentally let slip.

He was right to feel confident. From within the billowing sleeves of his robes, he produced the impossible. A Godmaker and not just that, but one that had been miniaturized enough to be held in the palm of his hand. None of the assembled Divine Host recognised what it was and fear had stolen my ability to warn them.

A Godmaker reality engine, a theoretical magitech device first conceived during the peak of our Utopian years, the pinnacle of our studies into this dimension and its native inhabitants. A device left as only theoretical due to the near unassailable difficulty involved in crafting it, the immoral and unethical requirements involved and the lack of need for one. 

Its purpose was the control and manipulation of reality in every way conceivable including creation, destruction and alteration. Mass fabrication from thin air, ending hunger, endless energy, transmutation, altering the laws of reality, even creating life. The only limit was the user’s will, scope of thought and imagination.

The Godmaker as it was initially conceived was a sphere as tall as an aged olive tree or in terms you my reader would understand, a sphere with a diameter of 7 meters. About 23ft in the local weights and measurements. It would have filled a small room. The device like an onion, working inwards was a series of layers of magitech devices and components for functions such as controlling the device, directing and regulating its effects, as well as containing the energies that fueled it.

At the device’s heart was two cores. One for the absorption and storage of the Wild Dimension’s energies, another for the acquisition and storage of magic The first was made from the essence of countless Demons native to the dimension. The second from the magic core gems of countless magi. The act of making either had been unthinkable.

Atlas had made one and beyond belief miniaturized it. How such a small device could contain the vast energies it required, was something I could scarcely comprehend.  Not only that, he had somehow done it in secret. Completely unknown to our resistance, to me. The Godmaker was never intended as a weapon, but at that size it could easily be turned to such a devastating purpose.

And that was how Atlas used it. Light as bright as the sun, pure white yet containing every colour of the rainbow, cut through the ranks of Gods tearing them from existence in swaths. He could have in an instant, emptied the entirety of the Temple Square we were currently fighting in of enemies, if he chose to. Maybe even the whole city and his surroundings, but he was reveling in the devices power, in the satisfaction of a more personal touch. 

He was playing with his food. 

If a few words could describe the history of Atlantis it would be an idiom I have come upon since my return to earth, “Pride comes before the fall,” and if it fit the history of Atlantis, none embodied more than Atlas himself. His pride, his hubris snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Zeus the patriarch of Olympian clan of Earth Gods, wielding one last bolt of lightning targeted the device itself, even as it’s terrible light tore him from reality.

What happened next occurred in mere seconds. Damaged, the device began to crack apart under the strain of the titanic energies contained within. It then exploded, a furious storm of magic and the wild dimension’s energies shredding everything in its path. And what it shredded was carried on the explosion’s waves like flotsam.