World Seal, Ch 34: Awakening (Patreon)

At the Moonlight Relic

Another of Sam’s avatars looked toward the peak of Sky’s Descent and the Hall of Transcendence, feeling a surge of exultation in his heart.

“Aster Fall Rises,” he said aloud, speaking to the air and the elemental pools of the golems in front of him.

Then he turned back to working on the Chamber of Caelus.

All around him, a current of astral quintessence was appearing, transferred from another of his avatars that was busy gathering it in the Void. It sparkled with a thousand silver reflections of what it could become.

The quintessence spiraled around the golems’ creation pools as he studied the underlying enchantment.

The relic was an open book to him these days, so it was only a matter of deciding how to fuse the quintessence and Stellar Infusion into the process.

In the end, it was not very hard.

The golems were designed to be forged from raw materials, which were broken down and fed into the pools, where they formed the crystalline structure that made up their bodies.

All he needed to do was add the quintessence as an additional material and slightly modify the enchantment to incorporate it.

Then he could add a new enchantment of his own to infuse the chamber with the force of Stellar Infusion, altering it enough that the golems it created in the future would all be seen as his creations.

After that, they would be able to increase in level.

When he was finished in the chamber, he teleported away and visited a number of other sites to do the same thing, including the Heart of Magma that he’d created for the dwarves at Runekeld.

It had been a while, and he’d promised it that he would be back.

A blast of heat from lines of magma flowing along the floor greeted him as he arrived.

The Heart of Magma was a brilliant red ruby shining as it floated above a pool of liquid fire. Three garnets rotated around it, each of them a different shade of fire. One gleamed like gold, another was a mix of golden red, and the last was a deep and bright red.

They rotated around the ruby like three moons, creating a miniature model of Aster Fall.

“Hello, little one,” he said as he reached out a golden hand and patted the shining ruby at the center of the formation.

Creator, the artifact’s word rang in Sam’s mind. You returned!

Its voice was a pleasant chime in Sam’s mind. It still sounded young, but it was much more developed than before.

The last time he was here, the Heart hadn’t been able to speak in words, just impressions and emotions.

The garnets orbiting the ruby swept out and bumped into Sam one after the other, and then they kept at it, light bumps as if it were making sure he was really there.

“I told you I would be back,” he said with a grin as he patted the garnets. “How have the dwarves been treating you?”

They come every month to see if I will bless their work, the Heart replied cheerfully as it continued to bombard him with bumps.

When I have enough energy, I assist them. They have not forgotten you, either. They speak of you every time they visit and they’ve carved the wall over there with a record of how you created me.

One of the garnets swooped out over to the far wall, which was carved with intricate dwarven runes that detailed the challenge Sam had accepted to show the dwarves the meaning of Fire.

It also recorded his conversation with the king, the agreement to provide support for rebuilding the Moonlight Relic, and a mutual defense agreement between the kingdom of Runekeld and the relic.

The dwarves were careful historians, and they had done their best to make sure no detail of the day was forgotten, especially the obligations on either side.

The runes were carefully inlaid with a tracery of glowing mithril, ensuring that they would endure the passing of time. The mana imbued into them made them glow with a subtle blue light.

As the garnet swooped back, it paused over a table that held stacks of rare metals, from raw ore to refined bars of mithril and embradium, which was used frequently in enchanting.

Each of the bars was small, about an inch wide and five inches long, but it was a large amount of wealth for most inhabitants of Aster Fall, a collection worth thousands of gold.

It was enough to create a dozen powerful artifacts.

They left these for me, but I saved them for you, the Heart explained as it hovered over the table. They believe I need the powerful ore around me to grow stronger. They also say that having rare metals nearby makes for a pleasant environment.

They hope that I will be able to grant them greater blessings one day, so this is an investment. I don’t need them, but they insisted.  The Heart paused, as if considering the matter.

I suppose it is nice to have decorations.

The garnet flew back to Sam and bumped him on the shoulder and then began circling him again.

Sam chuckled as he looked around.

The Heart was at the center of the dwarves’ ancestral forging chamber, floating above a magma pool within the protective circle of runes he’d created.

The room was divided into separate forges, each of them linked to a line of magma from the earth below, which was brought up by a system of runes and earthen conduits to heat them.

The entire space was filled with a strong aura of Fire and Stone from the earth.

The Heart absorbed energy from the magma directly, as well as from the ambient aura, so it didn’t need the metals to grow, but Sam agreed that they did add some ambience.

The little fellow had its own treasure trove already.

“I brought you a few things,” he said as he began to pull out materials from the Void.

There were elemental cores, rare Fire-aligned metals, scales and crystals from elemental beasts, dozens of different raw ores, and even a stellar core from the Vos’Rekan.

The collection quickly filled the room.

When it was all piled around the Heart of Magma, Sam waved his hand and a hundred Fire and Stone auras appeared, all of them Heroic.

With a swift gesture, a spatial distortion appeared in the air, swifting warping into a storage space. A series of silver runes linked it to the Heart of Magma.

“These should help you to grow for many years,” he explained as he sent all of the materials into the storage space, which closed with a gleam of ruby light.

A tiny river of astral quintessence appeared next, swirling around the Heart, and then it poured into the runes on it, quickly disappearing into the depths of the ruby and the three garnets.

“Now let me see what I can do to make you a bit stronger,” he said. “Hold still for a moment.”

His hands swept out as he gathered up the wandering garnets and held them close together with the ruby. A wave of Stellar Infusion and Intensify Aura flooded out of him and into the artifact.

The Heart of Magma glowed brightly as its aura improved, becoming denser and richer by the moment.

At the same time, Sam reached out to the World Core and established a link between it and the Heart of Magma. The World Core was the best choice to advise the artifact and to help it grow if he wasn’t around, and this way, the two of them could talk to one another.

After that, he reached deep into the core of Aster Fall herself, down through the magma layers and to the great rivers of elemental Fire that flowed beneath the surface.

Each of them was a leyline of Fire as well, holding a vast amount of energy.

He swiftly established links between them and the Heart of Magma, anchoring it to Aster Fall’s core energy.

When he was done, he patted the ruby on the top and then moved his hands away. The Heart glowed like a small ruby sun, its facets leaping with flames.

Its quality had leapt forward by leaps and bounds.

“Now you have a nearly unlimited future,” he explained as he gave it a grin. “The Ice Sylphs have a massive Gate of Winter to keep them busy, so why don’t you become the Fire version of that,, the real Heart of Magma for Aster Fall?

“Between the two of you, it should stabilize two of the main elements on Aster Fall. It will make it harder to break the world apart, and your ability to help the dwarves will be a thousand times greater.”

He patted the gemstone again. He was very content with its improvements, especially its ability to speak.

“Let’s not tell them yet,” he said. “Grow into it first and see what you can do. I have a feeling that the blessings you give in the future will be truly special. You might become the heart of this entire dwarven kingdom.

“Runekeld is known for its crafting and its army. With you here to support them, they will become much more. But never forget your purpose is to help Aster Fall. Don’t let the dwarves become arrogant, and don’t become that way yourself. There has to be balance. You are a guardian of the world.”

He could spare a little time, so after that, he pulled out a bottle of wine and took a seat beside the Heart, keeping it company for a while as he began to tell stories of the Void.

It was still young, and it listened intently.

The garnets hovered around Sam’s head, occasionally zipping across the room and then back as it imagined what was happening.

“Once upon a time, I ran into a region full of Fire,” he said as he looked up toward the distant sky. “Fire exists in the Void as well, you know? There was a unique Fire ore there that I wanted, but it was guarded by Firesail Void Lizards. Terrible things, a dozen times larger than this entire hall.”

Runes for Fire filled the chamber as he continued, shaping them one after another as he wove an illusion for the Heart to see.

Some of the runes were for the red suns in the lizards’ system. They were so powerful that it felt like the cavern would melt around him, but the silver veil of Sam’s domain kept them contained.

He continued telling the story as he explained his first battle in the Void, as well as the mistakes he’d made, but he focused the most on the laws of Fire, showing them to the Heart one by one as he shared with it the truths of the Void.

As one rune joined the next, spinning across a distance that could not possibly be contained by the walls of the cavern, all that was left was a starscape of Fire and force, where elemental forces roared across the heavens and the earth.

Stone joined in with vast expanses of meteors born from passing time, enduring and endless. Where they met the stars, magma erupted in torrents that covered the Void and formed the foundation of new worlds.

The Heart listened intently, shimmering with waves of heat as it absorbed the laws.

***

At the City of Portal

Another of Sam’s avatars appeared near the center of the city. There was a second plaza here, not far from the dimensional gate.

As he raised his hand, columns of black astral stone rose out of the earth, swifting turning into a copy of the Altar of Oaths.

When it was finished, he looked out across the city, his words rumbling across the sky and making the buildings resonant.

“This city will be the headquarters of the Army of Aster Fall. From here, we will invade the World Seal and drive back the forces arrayed against us, until the mountains crumble or Aster Fall stands on her own.”

His words carried a wave of power across the city and it changed in response.

Everything shifted as it began to take on a martial appearance.

A symbol for the army formed above the doors to mark out official army buildings and on the paved streets, imprinted directly onto the surface of the smooth stones.

It was a world in blue, crossed by a silver sword.

Three moons were full above it, each of them at a slightly different position over the top half and shining in their individual colors of purple, green, and blue.

The same symbol formed in a shimmer of runes at the top of the dimensional gate and its support pillars.

At the same time, one of the key support gates at Portal spiraled open in a blaze of dimensional energy, opening a gate directly to the Hall of Transcendence.

All they needed to do was walk through.

As soon as he established nodes around the rest of the world, Portal would be linked to everything.

The Storm Plains had raised him.

Although they’d been long abandoned as a home for monsters and wild mana, they would soon be one of the most important places in the world.

With a nod to the gate, he teleported away again.

***

At the Hall of Transcendence

Sam’s attention returned to his true body and he looked out across the crowd.

“This will be the symbol for the Army of Aster Fall,” he announced. His words spread across the hall as he created an image of it in the air. “We will launch our counterattack from Portal.”

He let the symbol shine there as he turned his attention to Uncle Snake.

“I will grant you access to the gates at Portal, a city I built on the Storm Plains. There, you will find the entrance to the World Seal, as well as access to other parts of Aster Fall.”

He pointed to the far side of the hall, where a dimensional gate had just opened to the Storm Plains.

On the far side, the shining buildings at Portal were clearly visible.

He sent a silver rune flying through the air, one that corresponded to the dimensional gates in the city and its defensive enchantments.

It disappeared into Uncle Snake’s aura, where it marked him with the correct authority, just one step below Sam’s. It also gave the assassin the ability to appoint lower commanders with their own control.

They needed the ability to operate on their own.

One of his avatars would stay nearby to coordinate their efforts with the World Core, as well as to retrieve them if they got stuck in a strange region of the Seal, but there was no telling what might happen.

They needed all the capability he could give them.

Several of his avatars were traveling across the world already, establishing nodes for Portal. Once he opened them, it would allow the army to cross the world swiftly to deal with Flaws, as well as for more standard travel.

For thousands of years, Aster Fall had been divided into dozens of small kingdoms, but now, for the first time in recorded history, it had the potential to be unified.

They had a common enemy.

He would do what he could to make them see that.

The people who had come to the conclave weren’t the only peak fighters in the world, but they were most of them. Once they went home and told everyone else about the events here, he was hoping that the world would swiftly come together.

After that, he nodded at Uncle Snake and then left the organization of the army to him as he returned to the dais to oversee the rest of the auction.

One by one, he freed the remaining Level 399s who won the bids.

The enthusiasm for the bidding was less with the army nearby, but it was still respectable with close to 5,000 people bidding for the remaining spots.

Dark scowls from the army landed on every bidder.

He didn’t personally accuse the winners of fleeing the world when it needed them, but the grim expressions on their faces said they felt it anyway.

When the final one was released, he stored away the materials they’d paid with, both in the relic’s storage rooms and in his own spatial bracelet for Silverguard.

They had brought millions of elemental crystals and other rare items.

It was more than enough to finish the repairs.

The core of the relic ran on astral energy and moonlight, so these would be useful for the surface-level elemental pools and the exterior buildings, which needed their own enchantments.

The rest could be used to strengthen Silverguard and to forge artifacts for his armies.

“In a moment, I will transport all of you to Silverguard,” he told the ones who had won. A good number of them had already departed on their own to explore the Void, but some were left. “You are welcome to stay and defend the fortress or to go out and explore. Strong enemies are on every side, so be careful in your actions.”

Then he teleported them all to Silverguard, where they could begin their journey. He left them on one of the outer courtyards that was shielded from the chaos winds to familiarize themselves with the Void.

The Silver Army quickly appeared at key points, towering over the crowd as they guarded the fortress and kept order. He’d made the same offer to everyone he released from the World Limit, but in the end only ten percent of them took him up on the offer to live on Silverguard.

The rest chose to travel into the Void on their own, looking for the freedom that they wanted.

He offered them all tracking artifacts so that he could find them in the future, as well as beacons that could call for help.

Most of them took one.

They were optional, and if they wanted to discard them, they were able to, but at least it was a lifeline.

There was no guarantee he would have the time to rescue them, but at the rate they were able to travel, it would probably only take a moment.

He didn’t have to do that much, but it was possible that one of them might be useful to Aster Fall in the future, or return as a strong guard for the world.

A little investment sometimes went a long way.

When they were dealt with, he left them to their own devices and then teleported away.

He reappeared in one of the underground caverns beneath the fortress, where he unleashed a storm of elemental forces as he began to create a new golem workshop.

He modeled the chamber after the relic’s, but he made it ten times larger with two hundred elemental pools.

Seventy percent of them were devoted to assault golems, twenty percent for defensive golems, and the final ten percent for utility golems to help around Silverguard.

The relic’s Chamber of Caelus had never been designed to fight a war, just to make a few golems to be servants and general security.

Silverguard was different.

It needed as many as he could create.

These pools had a terrifying rate of consumption when it came to materials, one that would have bankrupted most people in a matter of weeks, but it was a problem he could afford.

Unlike the relic, these pools ran on astral quintessence.

They looked like pools of quicksilver shimmering in the light of the runes he was weaving around the cavern.

He had enormous quantities of raw material that he could convert into astral quintessence, and a handful of his avatars were already working to gather more from the Void around Silverguard and channel it here.

His advantage was incredible.

Even the other Astral Titans might not be able to compare to him in this. Elemental Mastery was from Shattered Skies’ bloodline and Stellar Conversion had turned it into a force of pure creation.

He wasn’t limited by materials, only by time.

The gains from the auction went a long way to cutting that down. There was a lot of energy condensed in each of the elemental crystals and ores.

He used them sparingly to speed up the construction of the chamber. The rest would be better as a reserve.

As he worked, a dozen of his avatars appeared in the Void around Silverguard. They raised their hands and reached out to the chaos winds. An ocean of silver stars appeared around them, burning wildly against the dark.

Slowly, a shimmering river of astral quintessence began to condense, curling through the Void like liquid starlight.

With a flicker of his will, it moved toward the fortress, where it touched the walls and began to spread outward, bathing everything in liquid silver.

Everything here was something he had built or overseen. The nagas had helped with their elemental abilities, but he had fused most of it together on his own.

Silverguard was his creation.

With Stellar Infusion, now he could improve it directly.

The quintessence spread across the walls and the foundation, ran across the buildings, and sank into the runes that covered every surface.

Then it disappeared, leaving just a tracery of bright silver behind at the edges of the runes and the corner of the walls, like it had gilded the surface.

A wave of Stellar Infusion swept outward from Sam across the island, pouring into all of the available material.

In its wake, the silver of the quintessence faded away, replaced by a richer hue in the stones and an internal radiance.

He felt the fortress shift around him, as if it had shuddered, and then a flow of elemental energy began to pour into the walls from the Void, swirling through the structure as it headed for the core.

He reappeared in a different area at the center of the fortress.

This cavern was about fifty feet across and heavily inscribed with runes that formed interlocking enchantments. Strands of condensed elemental energy drifted through the air, curling around a silver crystal sphere at the center.

Astral quintessence was there as well, drifting along with the elements and being absorbed by the crystal, which hummed with force.

The crystal was a bright star about thirty feet in diameter at the center of the cavern. It had thousands of small facets covered with runes, from which arcs of astral energy rose. Energy hummed around it, resonating with the enchantments across Silverguard.

This was the heart of the fortress.

Silverguard itself.

The crystal was a sentient artifact spirit that governed everything here. It just needed a bit more energy to fully integrate with the enchantments he’d laid and to wake up.

He drew a stream of quintessence from his avatars outside and sent it toward the crystal, allowing it to absorb as much as it could.

Then he waited.

Outside, his avatars continued to infuse the fortress, while others worked on the golem chamber. It wouldn’t be long before it was ready.

The crystal hummed at the center of the cavern as it bathed in the quintessence and it slowly grew brighter. The arcs of astral energy around it became larger and smoother, flaring as they formed runes and began to send commands to the outlying enchantments.

It was releasing an incredible amount of heat across the cavern as it warmed up, enough to incinerate most people at the Fourth Evolution, but Sam ran his hands through the flames, enjoying the ambiance as he checked on the runes.

The heat pressed against the Vos’Rekan stone that formed the walls of the cavern, but it made no mark on them.

The beast had eaten suns.

This bit of heat wasn’t able to melt it. It was barely even warm to the touch.

Time passed as he laid the final series of runes into the core enchantment of Silverguard. Then he stepped back.

Sam’s domain flared with power as a massive wave of Stellar Infusion and Intensify Aura poured into the crystal.

“Awaken.” The word echoed across the cavern and outward, its force resonating in the Void.

All of the energy in the crystal compressed into its center and then it exploded out in a sphere of power.

This time it wasn’t a wave of heat, but a direct aura connection to the rest of the fortress.

The energy passed through the walls and in its wake, Silverguard began to shake.

Runes appeared everywhere, from the foundation to the walls, the highest towers, and the assault artifacts on the battlements. They were the interlocking enchantments he’d imbued into every part of the island.

Now, they were connected to the core.

Within an instant, everything was alive and flaring with energy.

The silver crystal let out a soft chime that was very different from the explosive force it had just released.

The enchantments across the fortress dimmed, fading away until they were invisible.

“Welcome home, Silverguard,” Sam said as he placed his hand on the core. “On this first day of our beginning. ”

A pulse of recognition came from the artifact spirit.