“Mama…”
The little girl called out, looking up at her mother as they stood in the long food line. Her eyes fell on her mother’s wrist, purple splotches peeking from under her sleeve.
The little girl took a few deep breaths, shifting uncomfortably underneath her wool cloak. The incoming winter had demanded heavier clothes but the girl was feeling its weight more than usual.
Regaining her breath, she called out again, louder.
“Mama!”
“What? What is it, dear?”
The mother finally looked back, her own breath laborious. Her face was worn despite her young age, more discoloration showing near her neck.
The girl looked down, pulling up her sleeve and exposing some black spots around her elbow. Her face mirrored her nervousness, her eyes keeping away from her mother’s.
“This morning, I-”
“It’s okay, dear.”
The mother quickly pulled the girl’s sleeve back down, giving her a hug.
“Stay warm. We almost have our food, and then we can go back to our house.”
“...Yes, Mama.”
The girl just nodded, the two waiting in line a bit longer before suddenly turning their heads.
A short distance away was a commotion. They recognized the sight of the town guards, a once welcome sight, now feared with the outbreak of disease.
Now there were dozens of them marching through the streets, weapons drawn and citizens running.
The little girl hugged her mother.
“Mama…”
“It’s going to be okay.”
The mother continued hugging her child, seeing a group of guards marching toward them.
The mother’s breathing quickened, adrenaline shooting through her body and yet only making her weaker. She was still in the early stages of disease, still on the upturn of weakness, but not weak enough to be bedridden like her husband. Still, moments like these hit her the hardest, her legs and arms becoming soft despite her demands to move.
Those nearby started to cluster in fright, the guards shouting.
“Start moving! Everyone who is infected, get to the other side of the town, right now!”
“B-But we’re still getting our food!”
One of the men stepped out and called back, earning a backhand that sent him to the floor.
The soldier that hit him pointed his sword at the others.
“This is an order, not a request! Marquess Verks has passed down the decree to prepare for quarantine and isolation! All infected are considered a lost cause and must be corralled where they can’t infect the healthy! So start moving, or defy orders and give us a reason to simply move your corpse instead!”
Everyone started to scramble. Infected or not, there was little room to reason that didn’t risk being met with the end of a blade.
The mother grabbed her daughter and started running as fast as they could.
“C-Come on, dear!”
The little girl, looking back at the guards as they marched forward.
Then she looked back at her mother, seeing her labored breathing after just several seconds. Like many others with the disease, they all felt their weakness overtake them after passing just a few buildings. Some started slowing down and falling, their legs too weak to carry their own weight.
The guards moved forward anyway.
“Get up and move! You diseased are lucky to be alive! How far do you think you can push that luck?! Do you think my promises are a joke?!”
The mother kept trudging forward, some of those who fell crying out as the guards shoved, then kicked, then sliced. The little girl noticed her mother slowing significantly, barely walking after some time.
Then she suddenly tripped, the little girl dropping with her and feeling the fear of the oncoming guards.
Even if they wanted to resist, all the guards had Authority, powers beyond them, the ordinary people. There was no possible way for them to even wound them, especially behind that armor.
The lead guard set his eyes on them, a badge on his chest displaying four chevrons, the sign of an Authority 4 Magus. He wasn’t quite on the level of the Guard Captain, who was Authority 5, but he was still capable of razing the entire town by himself. The citizens knew that well.
The little girl started crying, shaking her mother.
“Mama! Get up!”
“Keep going, Nina…”
The mother tried pushing her daughter forward, failing.
“Nina, run!”
“Mama!”
The little girl yelled, looking back up at the guards approaching.
The lead guard stepped forward, Nina screaming as she was suddenly grabbed.
The guard lifted her arm, exposing the black splotches under her sleeves. He clenched his sword, scoffing.
“Filthy infected. All of you are just carriers of disease. We should slaughter you all and be done with this disease! If ordinary people simply living threatens Magi, then all of you should be put down!”
“Nina!”
The mother called, crawling to the guard and Nina.
After some seconds of silence though, she looked up, confused.
Everyone was frozen, the mother turning.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Next to the lead guard was a tall man, almost two feet taller than him. He was dressed in metal armor of unrecognizable design, his mask faceless besides two glass eyes that glowed green.
He simply stared at the guard, who stood there, unable to turn his head.
His voice only came out after several moments.
“Let go of her.”
His words seemed to carry tangible power, the guard obeying and opening his grip. The girl dropped, moving to clutch her mother on the floor.
They both looked back up, the mysterious man still staring at the guard.
More seconds passed, and blood started to stream down the guard’s helmet. It started as a trickle, before becoming a steady stream that dyed his armor red.
Then, only when the guard’s chestplate was covered and smelling of iron, he suddenly collapsed to the floor, unmoving.
The mother stared, eyes filled with horror as she tried to pull her daughter away from the huge armored man.
He looked back at her, green glass eyes making her freeze with fear.
His words came from the mask, their inhuman sound carving the experience into everyone’s mind.
“Do not be afraid, towngoers. We are Iron Legion, and we’re here to help.”
……
…
“There is little I can do to prepare you beyond how your Aura already has.”
Zirion’s voice vibrated the study, Umara standing before the massive metal grimoire. After recovering for a handful of days, she had finally returned after Zirion announced the Weaver’s readiness.
The featureless metal cover of the huge book was no more. Instead, what lay upon its cover was an impossible complexity that barred all senses and comprehension. It was the ultimate “cover” a book could have, protecting its contents from eyes that didn’t deserve.
Umara turned her eyes to Zirion, the massive Dragon looking a bit more serious than usual.
“What you are about to see, my pupil, is what’s known as the Conceptual. It is what you would naturally acquire access to upon breaking the Great Barrier. There is another world that all behind the Barrier are wholly unaware of. This is but a glimpse at that world, and unfortunately, your gaze upon the information contained within the Weaver will not come without burden. It will show you what lies beyond the limits of your spatial magic. It will make you understand what you see, the little that you do.”
“Just like Anarchy.”
“Just like Anarchy.”
Zirion responded in acknowledgement, Umara staring at the grimoire.
“Who made this?”
“My Master, may his soul find rest. He imbued his knowledge of the Conceptual into the Weaver, composing a Tapestry of the threads of reality. One of the most powerful Dragons to ever roam the Firmament, one of the true Ancient Paragons, he held dominion over the threads between dimensions. The Weaver is just one of the many grimoires he created, yet he is among the most powerful, and one of the few that weren’t destroyed in the great wars.”
“...I have an incredible amount of questions, and I know my fiancé would have dozens of times more.”
Umara sighed, making Zirion chuckle in amusement.
“My knowledge of that time is vast. I could spend ages speaking to you about the history I know, but we have not the time. Awake, Weaver!”
Zirion shouted, his roar shaking the study and spurring the Weaver to wakefulness.
The grimoire trembled.
ZIRION. I AM PREPARED.
“As am I. We will begin now. There is no need to delay.”
Zirion’s head retracted from the roof of the study. Then his claw appeared, hovering over the opening before a fissure in space manifested over his palm.
Umara heard a terrible screech as the fissure split open Zirion’s scales and cut into his flesh. What came from the wound was not red blood, but a golden conglomeration of pure Magika.
The golden essence fell from his palm. The Weaver shot toward it greedily, the essence hitting its metal cover and being absorbed without a second thought or reaction.
Finally, the book turned toward Umara, the covers opening and its pages flipping in such a way that made them seem infinite.
Its words shook Umara’s soul.
YOU ARE NOT READY. THIS IS WASTED ON YOU. I HOPE THAT YOU WILL BE CAPABLE ENOUGH TO ACQUIRE EVEN A MODICUM OF POWER FROM GAZING UPON THE CONCEPTUAL. IF IT DOESN'T MELT YOUR MIND FIRST.
“I didn’t ask for your bullshit. Hurry up and show me what makes you valuable.”
AS YOU WISH.
The pages stopped turning, and Umara’s vision blanked.
Everything around her turned to darkness, her consciousness suspended from her body and floating within a new plane. She sensed everything around her, finding exactly nothing.
That was, until a point of light made itself known. Umara became wholly aware of it when it manifested, but because it was just one point, a one dimensional point in reality, she felt no burden from it.
Until that point suddenly bridged dimensions, turning into a string and spindling itself through the space around her. The burden multiplied, enough for Umara to notice, still not enough to give her burden.
Then the string flattened into a plane. Two dimensions, the burden increasing in magnitude accordingly.
Then it exploded into a three dimensional cube, expanding endlessly around her. Now she finally felt a noticeable burden on her mind, similar to when she was casting magic and absorbing information about the world around her.
It looked like a grid, the space around her being codified. She could finally see how the gravity of her body pulled in the grid around her, warped by her form, shifting with time.
After that though, the space suddenly exploded once more.
Her mind nearly blanked, another dimension being added, turning infinite, unable to be seen with her eyes or comprehended with her senses.
The fourth dimension turned every instant of the grid into an entirely new gridspace. It was an infinity layered upon the universe, and by itself if offered infinite possibilities.
Within that higher dimension, space twisted, punctured, and warped across the three dimensional plane endlessly and without limit. It allowed one to “go around” the third dimension, vanishing from one point and appearing in another.
More than that, it could take any amount of time. It could be an instant transportation, or it could be an infinitely long transportation. The deviation from the normal timeline depended on the degree of warping. For things like teleportation, the degree was extremely small, causing little to no deviation from the normal timeline. Paradoxically, that also meant that teleportations were usually instantaneous from the perspective of the third dimension.
Umara was overwhelmed by the layers of dimensions around her, because it wasn’t simply a matter of multiplying the planes. They all had their roots in each other. The dots and strings that reached across dimensions filled her mind with their information, but mere fractions were absorbed. Seeking to protect itself from the influx of higher forms of information, Umara’s mind only took from what it already knew. Only information that lacked complete uniqueness relative to what was already within her mind and comprehensions remained.
It only got worse when the fourth dimension rose into the fifth, and then the sixth. Every infinitude that ingrained itself into her mind left behind wounds that transformed into scars when the next dimension manifested.
Umara wasn’t able to keep track of it after the sixth, her consciousness overwhelmed wholly, still trying to make sense of itself.
After that, time simply passed despite time itself becoming an abstraction, a mere suggestion instead of a law at some point up the dimensions.
Then, everything came crashing back down, collapsing back into that singular point. Umara regained her own consciousness, and then she was kicked out.
Her senses returned to her body. Her mind operated as if nothing happened, but the scars upon her comprehensions remained and tried to overwhelm her.
She fell to the floor and vomited, coughing while attempting to feel anything. Despite her senses working, she couldn’t make sense of them. She could see, yet she had no vision. She could feel, but there was no touch upon her skin.
Her Aura flared, completely uncontrolled. It morphed every which way, attempting to map every point of information across the dimensions around her, mimicking the knowledge infused into her forcefully, and failing miserably. Reality held far more than she could ever take for herself. And yet she kept trying, kept retracing the information without end, like an addiction hardwired into the brain, an instinct engraved into DNA.
Her body could do nothing but groan, a mess on the floor, unable to even pass out.
Zirion looked down at her, nodding.
“It worked. Better than expected.”
JUST BETTER THAN IT DID FOR YOU.
“She is talented, and most importantly, she seeks solace for my Master’s Soul. She will use these tools toward that end. You gave her the spells, right?”
I DON’T BREAK PROMISES. YOU PAID THE PRICE, SHE REAPED THE REWARDS SHE COULD, AND ALL ELSE WAS WASTED. SHE DIDN’T DESERVE IT.
“Oh, but she did.”
Zirion chuckled, Mana pouring forth and wrapping around the Weaver.
“Go back. Someday, you may become hers.”
I AM OF NOBODY EXCEPT MY PARAGON. JUST AS WITH YOU.
The Weaver went silent, disappearing from the room.
Zirion watched Umara continue to tremble on the floor, remaining silent, but ever observant.
