Ends of Magic

Khachi regarded Nathan squarely, considering the question of industrialization. “You speak of these dangers from the past. Are they in your past, or the distant past of Earth? Is it possible to do this alchemy without it burning those who use it?”

Nathan tilted his head from side to side before answering hesitantly “Yes. It's possible. But every time - over and over - the harm was done first, and only then did we figure out how to prevent it. People died, lots of people, before things got better, and it's still not perfect. It’s easier and cheaper to do it without being safe. The same thing with the toxins. We killed whole ecosystems, and poisoned a whole generation with lead. We banned whole categories of weapons that are too inhumane to use.” Nathan had to stop and take a breath. He was working himself up into a frenzy.

“Weapons too inhumane for use against people. Your world has no monsters,” Khachi replied. “Every weapon is to be grasped, so long as it does not harm the wielder. If you would share them.”

“Can we trust people with every weapon?” Nathan asked, gesturing to Stella. “It’s like the Insights I refuse to teach Stella. They’ll change everything, and probably not for the better. If every mage can destroy a city, then soon enough there won't be any cities. I want to help people live healthy and safe lives, but I don't want to provide the means for people to wipe each other out."

Khachi dipped his head. "But those are not the Insights you plan to share. You plan to share deeper Insights of technology, that will enable our crafters to reach new heights. They will change things, and you wish to ensure the change is positive."

Stella spoke in an exasperated voice. “It’s already all changing. Giantsrest falls and Gemore expands, and now an Ending is a hundred years away! If Gemore doesn't change it will die, sure and certain."

Khachi held out a calming hand. “Would you strip these abilities from your own people? Return Earth to the time before such Insights were Developed?’

Nathan shook his head sharply. “No. They’ve done too much good. Child mortality alone... But I wish it could have been done without so much damage.” He’d long been a believer that science and technology were good, but could do massive damage if applied irresponsibly.

“In your world these Insights have done more good than evil, with no warning of the harms,” The wolfman said quietly. "Do you trust us to act us with more care, if we are provided warning of the dangers?"

Nathan broke eye contact with Khachi's intense stare, giving himself space to really dive into that argument. To a large extent, Khachi was correct. Gemore already managed the dangers of Davrar fairly well, and the Adventurer training course had hammered home the importance of responsibility and not waking a dungeon unnecessarily. But now Gemore - and the continent as a whole - faced a terrible danger that he was partially responsible for. He could give them a way to prepare themselves against it and he was hesitating because he thought they might misuse it. But if he wanted to help Gemore, to improve the lives of the people living in his adopted home, then there was little excuse for not sharing.

With a sigh, Nathan looked back, reconnecting with Khachi's gaze. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, or Gemore.” he said softly. “I will share many things. But I have a responsibility to balance the good against the potential harm. I could share limited Insights like I did with the guns, or I can give Gemore a broader base to build off of. But I don't know which is right."

Khachi’s golden eyes were kind. “This responsibility is not yours alone to bear. If you warn us of the dangers of the Insights and still we err, then the fault lies with us. You are not to blame for trusting us. But today, Davrar kills most before they can reach old age. If you wish to change that, if Gemore is to survive and thrive, then I ask that you share your knoweldge. Gemore has struggled against Giantsrest for generations, and now we secure their territory without their Insights. Give us the power to fill that void."

“I’ve seen the power of your Insights, even the dangerous ones,” Stella said steadily, following up Khachi's point. “They aren’t a prophecy of doom. They’re power, and power is dangerous. But Gemore has dangerous Insights already. The Adventurers guild exists to control dangerous people."

Nathan looked around, seeing the resolve in his friend’s eyes. “Alright, let’s talk through this. But remember, this isn’t just personal power. It's the power to conquer, to destroy, and we'll be responsible for the consequences. If we come back and find Gemore has become everything Giantsrest was by using this power, then that will be our fault."

“Tell it to the council. We don't rule Gemore," Sarah said, sitting down nearby and pulling out some paper she’d looted from Giantsrest. “For now, let’s get started.” She looked up at him. “How long is this going to take?”

Nathan shrugged. “I’m not sure. A few days?”

Khachi nodded towards him. “We can spend some time here. This place is safe from assassins, unless they can track us into dungeon-infested mountains and fly.”

“We’re still keeping watches,” Aarl replied.

Nathan snorted. “Thanks. Well, let’s get started. Let me draw you a diagram of the basic chemical supply chain, then we can talk about what each thing enables. I want to hear your opinions on what things to include.”

Tutoring 6 achieved!

—

The next day came and went, and they stayed hunkered on their secluded ledge while Nathan discussed the Insights he wanted to share with his friends before writing them down. There was more than he’d expected, though his knowledge had some clear holes. He had the entire process for producing nitrate fertilizers written out with multiple options for many of the steps, but he couldn’t remember for the life of him how phosphate fertilizers were made. Perfect memory didn’t help if you’d never learned information in the first place.

Obviously it starts with phosphorus, which I think needs to be mined. But what does the ore look like? Can you extract it from manure? I’m not sure. You'd need to oxidize the inorganic phosphorous to phosphate, but I’m not sure how to do that. It might just be sulfuric acid and heat. That's kind of the universal oxidizer in organic chemistry, but I'm not sure it would work for this. Then you’d need to neutralize the acidity, which you could do with ammonium. Is that all that’s needed to make diammonium phosphate? The chemistry makes sense, but I don’t know the details of how you’d make it work.

He shrugged and looked down on his summary of phosphorus fertilizer. He’d just need to leave a lot of question marks throughout the document. He could at least note down his guesses and make sure to clearly mark it as uncertain. His memory was infallible, but his suppositions were not. Then he passed it off to Aarl and picked up a clean sheet for the next topic. They’d spent quite a bit of time outlining the important knowledge, and he scanned down the list for the next topic. It looked like he’d just finished the last part of chemistry.

Darn. I like teaching intro chemistry, and I doubt I'll get many more options.

They’d covered the basics including the periodic table, some basic physical chemistry and oxidation & reduction. It was basically just the highlights of an undergraduate chemistry textbook with every detail Nathan could remember of the most important reactions - producing sulfuric, nitric and hydrochloric acid, sodium carbonate, the Haber process, aluminum smelting and portland cement.

The next topic was metal forging, and after that was steam power, though Nathan had been debating even including steam. The Heirs had been fascinated by the idea when he’d explained it, but they didn’t expect steam engines to make much of a difference on Davrar, given the prevalence of dimensional enchantments. You didn’t need to build a train when a person with a pouch could carry thousands of pounds of goods. Still, Stella had urged him to include it because it might lead to some powerful Insights they couldn't imagine.

But heat enchantments seem really easy. It might be easier to use steam to convert magic to motion than force enchantments. Somebody will probably figure out an Insight to build a steam-powered mech.

Beside him Aarl scrutinized the latest paper and then rewrote it on a fresh sheet, cleaning up Nathan’s handwriting and the places where he’d scratched out one explanation to write a different one. The resulting product was clean and precise. When Aarl was done he carefully threaded the corner of the paper through a ring so it would be in the proper order.

Sarah and Stella were working together to write down the supporting magical Insights that Stella had developed. That had started with the details on how to use air magic to separate different gasses from each other, but now she was working on distilling down her electricity Insights into something the average mage could understand. They couldn’t exactly plan to teach calculus and magnetism to every mage so they could make electrical enchantments. It seemed to be slow going, but Stella thought she could get a weaker version of her own understanding across, something that would be sufficient for enchanting if not battle.

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Khachi was keeping watch, meditating on the edge of the ledge overlooking the vista beyond. They’d been attacked shortly after noon by a pack of silver darters, but Stella had chased the venomous birds away with a few gusts of hurricane-strength wind. Some loose notes had been blown away and had to be hunted down, so now everything was being stored in dimensional bags when it wasn’t being actively worked on.

Nathan frowned down at the sheet of paper with the word “cannons” written at the top. He knew something about American civil war cannon manufacture, but that wasn’t really what Gemore needed. They needed something closer to world-war one artillery, able to hurl a large explosive multiple miles and strike an unseen target. But he didn’t know how to make a WW1 artillery piece.

Start with what you know, then make educated guesses. The Gemore crafters are smart and practical, if they know the basics and the goal they’ll figure it out. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if I come back in ten years to a bunch of mecha held together with Insights and spit.

He got back to work.

–

They were done on the afternoon of the third day.

Sarah held the tome carefully, looking down at it with something akin to awe. She’d looted a couple of reams of blank paper from Giantsrest because they were a valuable commodity in Gemore. Most of them had ended up in the book or been used in the various drafting steps, but she hadn’t complained. “Well, it’s done.”

“What do we call it?” Aarl asked, reaching out a hand to stroke the spine. He’d stitched the cover together out of some spare leather and bound the spine with glue he used to fix clothing. “A book like this needs a name.”

“The Book of Natural Law,” Stella said with a yawn. She’d stayed up late into the night to work on more general versions of the purification spells and see if she could make them work with earth mana for metal as well as air. She’d also tried to distill the full electricity Insight down into something that could be understood by regular mages, but hadn't had a lot of success.

Nathan considered the name. It was good, but didn’t feel quite right to him. “The Engineer’s manual? No, too far the other direction.” He frowned, thinking about what kind of thing this was. “I think this needs something more classic. Let’s call it the Liber Physicae.”

Khachi scrubbed at his ear. “Was that a different language?”

“Yup,” Nathan replied. “It means ‘physics book’ in one of the old languages of Earth, the one usually associated with scholarship in my part of the world. Seems appropriate to me.”

Sarah voiced her approval. “It’s a book of Earth knowledge. It should be labeled in an Earth language.”

Aarl asked Nathan to help him emboss the book’s name into the cover. When they were done he examined the strange Latin letters on the surface, sounding them out. “Liber Physicae. They’re probably going to just call it Nathan’s book, or maybe the Book of Insights. There’s enough in here for a dozen builds, and a hundred crafters. I can’t believe there’s a full process to make explosives from airand water. That seems like a dungeon's trick.”

Nathan chuckled. “That’s the great thing about science. It doesn’t care how you feel, it just works. Or doesn’t, as the case may be. But it's always your fault.”

Stella scrubbed at her eyes. “I should send something to my parents. They’ve been sending me worried [Message] spells all day. I just told them I was busy.” She looked around at the Heirs and then longingly towards her bedroll. “Should we head to Gemore? We could make it by morning.”

Sarah shook her head. “Talking to our parents will be a prophecy of death. Let’s do it fully rested.” She looked towards Stella. “You haven’t told your parents that we’re planning on leaving the continent, right?”

Stella replied with a snort. “Not for a dragon’s hoard. They won’t believe my power until I show it to them, and even then they’ll try to deny me.”

“I worry the same of our father," Aarl said, sharing a complicated look with Sarah. “He's given us more freedom than your parents, but my bones say he’ll fight to keep us nearby.”

Everybody glanced at Khachi. He replied nonchalantly. “Kia will ask if I am certain. I will tell her I am and she will not obstruct us.” He tilted his head up, his aura spreading around him to illuminate the ledge. “I anticipate seeing the light in her eyes as she feels my power.”

Stella shielded her face from the light and crawled into the pile of blankets that was her bed. “It’s a fight for tomorrow. Can I skip my watch? I didn’t sleep last night.”

Nathan glanced towards Khachi. “Want to split her watch? I won’t have a challenging conversation waiting for me tomorrow.”

Aarl cut in with a wry comment. “You’ll just need to prevent the council from tearing you apart trying to get that book once you tell them what it is.”

Khachi nodded his acceptance. “I must meditate to replenish my Faith for the flight tomorrow. We do not all possess infinite resources.” He shot a mildly sour look at Stella.

—

The next day, Stella confirmed that he was scheduled to speak to the council of Gemore soon after they arrived. She’d expected it to be harder to schedule the seven guildmasters on the council, but as soon as she’d mentioned that Nathan needed to speak to them they’d cleared the time. It was a good thing too - the Heirs were planning to spend as little time in Gemore as possible to lessen the risk of Assassins. They’d fly to the city, do their business and then head south to Litcliff to find a ship.

I’m surprisingly nervous about the meeting with the council. There’s a lot to go over, and I worry they won’t accept that the Endings are coming. Or how important the Liber Physicae is.

Nathan sighed, closing his eyes for a moment and telling himself that the meeting would go fine. Sudraiel was on the council as the Guildmistress of the Adventurers, and he’d heard Herdin had taken over the Crafter’s guild again after the impact of the firearms Insights. That was good. They’d listen to him and appreciate the Insights he carried. And he would be able to release Herdin from the oaths he’d had her swear on using his Insights.

Still, there are seven guildmasters total, and they vote on courses of action. I hope the rest will take my warning seriously.

They were getting close to Gemore, and Nathan looked down on the foothills. He could just pick out the place where the Grave Tangle had almost killed him, the Giantraiders and the Vanguard. He’d been saved by the Heirs’ parents, the Guardians of Gemore. It had been his first introduction to how dangerous the world really was.

Now I’m confident I can kill a Grave Tangle myself. So can Khachi. Stella could probably handle one if she had somebody to distract it. We’ve outgrown the Guardians.

They came over the final foothill and Nathan looked down upon the giant ruin of Old Gemore, with the mountain in the center that bore the living city of Gemore. It was still an impressive sight, but less so now that Nathan had seen the Ascendent Academy. The first time he’d seen the massive city he’d wondered what could have destroyed it. Since then he’d seen dungeons and the armies they could spawn. He no longer had to speculate what could destroy a city the size of Old Gemore. He knew.

Status of Nathan Lark:

Permanent Talent 1: Arcane Nullfield 7

Permanent Talent 2: Immortal Body 5

Permanent Talent 3: Airwalking 7

Class: Void of Magic level 709

Deepened Stamina: 21570/21570

Void of Feeling

Antimagic Momentum

Raging Thrill

Implacable Inertia

Unarmored Resilience

Magic Anathema

Airborne Agility

Hand-to-hand Expertise

Voluminous Aura

Denial of Wizardry

Mana Severance

Class: Spellslayer level 488

Regenerative Focus: 4980/4980

Catastrophic Blows

Battle Stealth

Mage Infiltration

Forgettable

Sneaky Blow

Antimagic Stealth

Magical Manipulation

Lethal Index

Wizard Resistance

Magic Jammer

Controlled Failure

Utility skills:

Wizard’s Meditation 9

Inspiration 8

Acceleration 10

Wizard’s Detection 7

Alertness 10

Wizard’s Understanding 10

Effortless Dodge 10

Mental Vault 5

Tutoring 6

Parkour 8

Visibility Control 4

High-tier Disguise 3

High-tier Battle Cry 2

Aura Control 3