Chương 513: BECMI Chapter 512 – Unfalling Glory

Cirruluxul shook her blue-black hair.

"A race like that would definitely be among the lore passed down, especially if they Cast at the magical Apex that only humans seem to be able to reach otherwise, and even their non-Casters having magic? That would be an apocalyptically dangerous enemy!" she stated firmly.

"So, they are other-planar or other-worldly, at least," I reasoned.

"Likely cooped up in some pocket dimension only these Emblems of the Realm Lords here can open up."

"A lock with seven keys… but it does have the keys. And obviously mortals who are tough enough could go ahead and claim them, and open up the prison of the Carnifex, by the words of the Lord and his knight."

"And Daskad's team passed the trials and opened up the Seal, then failed to stop the Carnifex and left the way out open. Mortals messing where they should not and setting up their own doom."

"You should have realized the Henge was so close to the borders of the Ringland, and did not," she pointed out.

"You eventually saw even the Annelids. You did not miss this, did you?" she inquired of me seriously.

"Cirru, that whole plateau was not there six months ago, or at least did not seem to be." I flicked up a Holo of how that valley was supposed to look, wide and forested, not with a plateau rising up out of the stone suddenly.

"And yet not a single dragon flying past batted an eye at it." She nodded slowly. Dragons would not forget such details of their hunting lands.

"Immortal Magic, putting our doom close to us where we could fall to our own machinations," she guessed.

"An insult, really. Whoever lured Haskad and his Urtho brethren here played upon the reflexes he learned as a Delver AND his urge for exploration and being the first to discover a new area, quest, and treasure, as well as underestimating the threat facing him since he had no foreknowledge of this quest, yet thought he could take it on the same way." I swooped in on the iron keep, my face grim.

"It might even have been Grimr himself, tweaking our noses and expending his faithful to spite us, although I believe Sonr is more likely. Thematically, he's setting up Ragnarok, the ending of days and the Twilight of the Gods, given the carnage that is likely to follow now."

"We need to alert the others," she agreed swiftly.

"Aye, including the dragons. I will do so as soon as we exit. We don't know the numbers of our enemies, but we know it is not small, and that many creatures with powerful magic is a devastating threat smaller communities are not prepared for." It was time to unleash some of our preparations for this moment, particularly from the Stairway to Heaven realms and their time-accelerated production facilities.

With a click and a hum, the silver Star of the Rainbow Realm fit into its place above the Dolmen Gate. All seven of the shimmery particle effects seemed to solidify and turn into bright mirrors. Reflections on their surfaces targeted the altar at the center of the formation, meeting there and swirling together to form a mirror-like oval of shimmering iridescent blackness bound in silver.

"Huge ambush on the far side?" Cirru asked fatalistically, eyeing the aperture in space.

"It would seem appropriate. It might also be overkill. If that is a prison plane sealing them in, and despite being apex magi they could not escape, exactly how motivated do you think they are to go back inside and set up traps after realizing they couldn't actually destroy the gates… and that's if they realized they didn't destroy the gates?"

"Ah," she nodded once, and without further ado strode forward and leapt in ahead of me. I was only a step behind, Duum tensing on my shoulder as we went in. I could feel the brushing past of an incredibly strong planar Veil, definitely not something that could be broken by a mortal without incredible amounts of power behind. Magic was tweaked, planar rules were wrenched about, and then I was through and set foot on a wide open landing.

Directly in front of us, a good mile away, an enormous, mountain-sized castle floated in empty space, dark clouds strangely above, white clouds strangely below, both sets of clouds coming to a point at the horizon that was only maybe ten miles away.

"Duum, can you fly?" I asked him as I looked back. The landing we were on seemed anchored to a point in space where the entry portal was. Ahead of us, a bridge that seemed narrow because of its length, but in actually was over ten paces wide, stretched over over yawning emptiness, looking for all the world like it was holding up that castle out there by itself. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Duum jumped up, flapped his wings, and fell back to my shoulder.

"Stillflight effect," he said shortly, having naturally been exposed to it many times.

"The air is fleeing from under my wings, as if it didn't belong there." He glanced quickly at Cirru, who nodded back at him. If he couldn't fly, neither could she! I hopped, Primus trying to allow me to keep going… and I came right back down to the ground. My celeste Wings snapped out, suns and moons in a starry night sky, but I couldn't rise off the ground an inch more than my Footsteps of the Mage allowed.

"This is a bound plane, looks like about twenty miles." I looked up above us, the sky beyond the dark clouds above occluded." I think the clouds above us are the same as the clouds below us, actually."

"That means if you fall… you keep falling forever?" Cirru asked, stepping up to the edge of the unrailed landing we were on without fear.

"Wings might help you glide at most, but with no flight…"

"If they were Sealed here, the sky was likely all there was. They would have been dumped in here and just fell forever." I reached down to touch the stone beneath our feet.

"This is magically conjured stone. They managed to conjure enough and lock it to the entry point, then make it immovable, much like a Rod of the name. Then they kept conjuring more and more stone, more and more of them managing to land on the stone here, until it extended far enough away that they could start bringing in more and more of the stuff, making themselves a place to live." We both considered the length of that walkway, and the size of the castle-mountain floating immovable in the sky ahead of us.

"That must have taken a very long time, bringing in that amount of stone from nothing. Hundreds of thousands of Castings, at the very least," Cirru said, her palest blue eyes narrow and intent as she studied it.

"That is well over a cubic mile of stone there, so yes. And at least the foundation of it had to be enchanted with Immovability and Permanence, at the least, perhaps Wish spells instead." I shook my head slowly.

"This place is also Timeless. Nothing ages here. It means they couldn't have children, but they also didn't die of old age. They turned it into a home away from home… and nobody ever bothered to check on them to see that they'd done so." Cirru's sniff of scorn matched Duum's.

"Because it wasn't their problem!" they both proclaimed in unison. Taloned hand slapped tiny wing without looking.

"Apex Casters, consigned to a place where they could live forever, but not deprived of their spellcasting?! Who ARE these idiot jailors?" she had to snarl, looking up at the sky above with clawing motions in frustration at the sheer stupidity inherent in their actions.

"The ones who just manipulated mortals into dropping their problem into our lap." I pointed ahead coolly.

"The only thing which would have killed them is one another and internal politics. Remember that they have counterparts on the Far Shore. We now know they are there, although we will have to find the Septahenge back home." She inhaled deeply, nodding.

"What do you think they've left behind?"

"Nothing that they could take with them. And traps. Doubtless many, many traps. Maybe servants they won't miss. Undead or Constructs, monsters created from magic and Wishcraft." We stepped out onto that slender bridge extending out to the awesome height of the floating citadel together.

"They can't pass the Portal behind us," she reasoned.

"But if it stays open, they could use it to form their own Portal around or within it, yes?"

"If I was an Overmagi with forever to work on getting out of here, let alone dozens of them, I'd have all the tricks ready to work if someone was stupid enough to come here," I agreed with her." Mass Mind Blanks to make sure the Immortals can't Divine that we've escaped, too, although I doubt that's even an issue." Since that was a fixed part of our Oathrings, that wasn't a surprise, either.

Travel didn't take too long with our lightfoot, we could both move at four times the speed of a normal human for the same effort. In just a few minutes, we were gliding up to the great doors of the place, large enough to admit Titans and Great Wyrms without effort, with statues to the sides of what might be four castes of the Carnifex, idealized and carved larger than Titans themselves.

"They surely do not have great egos," Cirru sniffed upon seeing the scale of construction.

"The tracks I saw indicate they are only a head taller than most humans. And do they think we need to announce ourselves?" My eyes fell upon the great horn carved from some kind of bone, up on a landing with actual stairs leading up to it.

"So, they had visitors?" was my reply to her in turn. She blinked, looked at the horn, and then frowned even more severely.

"I sense no eyes upon us, especially those of Immortal wardens!" she spat at the towering doors before us, and all the many great towers suitable for jotuns with their many windows. The wind blew past us, moving up or down instead of left or right. Thermal up and downdrafts, not over the surface of a material world. The stones were dark and cold and silent, yawning empty and uncaring down at us.

"They are not even ensorcelled, as if they could not bother to be concerned about such things." I waved her on ahead grandly as I reached out and Telekinetically opened the rather cunning tri-key locking mechanism, and she flexed and rolled her neck, crashing her fists together as she strode forward. Big doors balanced enough one strong person could open them seemed to be some kind of theme… although here the person had to be plenty strong, it was true. Cirru naturally satisfied that limitation.

She didn't have all of her Great Wyrm strength in her halvyri guise, but it was a half-dragon halvyri guise, on a Perfect Template, and she wore a Girdle of Giant Power about her slender waist, too, precisely askew at an eye-catching angle and looking like nothing more than crossed belt-leathers for holding up pants and purses and sheaths and the like.

She dug her claws into the side of the door and with several grunts and heavyfoot that actually made the stone crunch slightly, hauled the doorway back and open several feet with effort, but no pause. I stepped past her and inside, my Mask down, but she kept her draconic senses and didn't need to do the same as she followed and stood at my side.