Silver Stars, Ch 15: Titan Gate (Patreon)

Caelus was a bright blue moon. Crystalline waves of its aura washed across the surface as Sam arrived above the teleportation gate. 

The entrance was on the side opposite Aster Fall, which hid it from casual view. It looked like a valley between two mountains, a feature no different than many others on the moon.

Even to his senses, there was barely anything there, just a trace of old astral energy that could just as easily have been left behind by starlight hitting the surface.

After the hint in Asenya’s records, it had taken him a while to find this place, but the Will of the Path had eventually helped, once he managed to unlock its memory of the location.

Caerlon had sealed the records during the First War to keep it a secret, since the gate was one of the major strategic advantages of their side, allowing quick access between Aster Fall and the settled half of the galaxy, which allowed Titans to reinforce the world quickly and to gain the advantage of time compression for their work.

Even with it to help, the war had been difficult.

It was secret enough that not every Titan had known about this location, just those most central to the war. 

Even with how important it was, only a couple hundred of the Titans had participated in the war, about fifteen percent of their total number. 

There had been barely 3,000 of them in the entire galaxy and they were a far-walking race. Even with the Path of Stars to connect them, not all were able to come back easily. Others had been engaged in pursuits they thought were just as important.

It made him wonder how many other powerful artifacts were scattered across the Deep Wild or in the dark beyond the stars.

The others probably would have stepped in if the war had spilled over to the rest of the galaxy, but the most intense part had been fought near Aster Fall. 

Caerlon and his allies had managed to contain it. The Three Demons had been blocked here and the Outsiders who reached other parts of the galaxy never made much headway without them.

Sam shook his head, but then he dismissed the thoughts as he stepped onto the surface at the base of the valley and looked around. 

Caelus was different from the other moons, smaller and older. Its aura had a feeling of great age even against the backdrop of the Void. The Titans had brought it here from somewhere else and it made him wonder where it had been before.

Like the other moons, it was a carefully chosen natural law to counter the influence of one of the Three Demons. Shattered Skies, in this case, but she was long dead.

Now its aura helped to balance the elemental energy of Aster Fall, keeping them from clashing with one another.

He looked around the area, studying the valley for traces of the gate. To his regular senses, there was nothing here, which showed how well Caerlon had concealed it. 

Only with his law could he see the entrance. Faint runes floated at the edge of his vision, appearing from the stone wall of the mountain to his left.

It was a remnant of Caerlon’s law, which he had used to hide the wards. He had channeled a trace of chaos to rewrite reality.

It was an interesting thing to see. 

Studying the runes told him that they had been designed to conceal the entrance, but Caerlon had taken things a step farther and made the stone absorb their energy, turning it into the moon’s own natural aura.

The stone farther away was different, but he could only tell by seeing how the runes avoided it. There was a line where they met and the runes curved back.

If his law had been something else, he wouldn’t have been able to see it, but it was close enough to Caerlon’s to let him. 

He finished studying the design as he raised his hand. A field of astral energy appeared around him and sank into the stone, targeting the ward keys that he knew were there.

They didn’t feel like anything at first, just regular stone, but as he continued to pour energy in, he felt a reaction as his aura suddenly took hold of the enchantment inside. 

Five points of silver light began to burn within the mountain.

A dry voice rang out in his mind, its words brief and quiet.

Authorization Requested.

There was a moment of silence.

Authorization Recognized.

Runic keys detected from Asenya and Cerei.

Connecting to the Path of Stars.

Updating gate information.

Caerlon not detected.

Titan signature confirmed as present. No enemies detected.

Contingency activated. 

Codename: Stragglers. 

“You are late, but not forgotten.” A voice rang in Sam’s awareness. It was deep, authoritative, and kind. “Come and find us. There are so many new things to see.”

He recognized it instantly as Caerlon.

The titan’s voice disappeared and the original voice took over again.

Caerlon’s Key granted.

Titan Gate system access granted. Connections are active.

Gate opening. 

The stone shifted, flowing into the shape of a gate with pillars on either side, and then the entire side of the mountain began to change. 

The stone poured away like water until there was a wide platform where it had once been. When it was finished, there was an enruned platform five hundred feet across. It was set three hundred feet deep into the mountain, but at Sam’s height that was only a single step down.

The back wall of the depression moved forward, turning into arcs of stone that curved around the platform. Astral energy ran along the surface. When they settled into place, they marked out the lines of a rune themselves, one that Sam recognized immediately.

Gate.

It was an ancient Titan rune.

There was a feeling of age in the style, but the platform looked as new as the day it was built.

Time had no hold here.

As soon as the platform had taken shape, the arcs of the Gate rune began to react with the chaos winds. They glowed as they swiftly gathered power.

Gate active. Set your destination.

The voice was flat and had little personality, which meant that it wasn’t a real artifact spirit. It was a form of instructions carved into the enchantment here to make the platform easier to use.

Sam studied it as he considered how it had reacted to him. 

Hearing Caerlon’s voice was a surprise, but only a small one. His memories of the older Titan said he’d always liked to plan ahead. 

That planning had gone wrong with the state of the World Seal, but Caerlon must have thought Asenya could handle it, which was why he’d left. It was unfortunate that she’d been captured not long afterwards.

Sam shook his head as he focused on the gate. 

He was working on getting her back.

As he suspected, he had two keys for this gate already. One came from Asenya, which he’d probably gotten from her memory at the Wild Tree, and then one from Cerei and the Moonlight Relic, but it was nice that Caerlon had added one just in case any other Titans showed up here.

He’d probably decided that the war was over and if a Titan found this place, they might as well use it.

He studied the options in the gate enchantment and then he spoke.

“List available destinations.”

There are 79 available destinations in the settled galaxy, the gate replied, including 14 Titan worlds, 9 core worlds, and 56 lesser worlds.  There are 25 available destinations in the Chaos Wild, including three on the stellar edge.

The list of locations appeared in Sam’s mind, along with a vast map of the galaxy. The gates available were represented by varying status colors. Some of them were red to indicate that they no longer functioned or were blocked.

They were also marked with individual notations that explained where the gates were located on each world and how to access them. A steady pulse of astral energy said the status conditions were constantly being updated.

The system was old, but comprehensive. He scanned the names of each gate location.

Titan World: Celeste.

Titan World: Highfrost.

Titan World: Sevea.

Titan World: Eos.

Titan World: Astra.

Titan World: Journey.

Titan World: Hearthstone.

Titan World: Haerune.

Titan World: Emris.

…

The list continued, including the rest of the Titan worlds and the nine core worlds. 

The Titan worlds were in the section of the galaxy that the Titans had settled. They were unique or interesting natural worlds within a sector that was about ten percent of the total area. No other intelligent races lived on them, but there were many beasts.

Unlike most other worlds, the Titan ones were still in their natural condition, almost entirely unmodified except for a few halls and palaces. They liked them for the view and as a change of pace more than for anything they could find there. 

The Will of the Path blocked access and travel to them without authorization, which meant they were some of the most protected worlds in the entire galaxy.

The distance meant that traveling there under one’s own power was difficult, and teleportation was easy enough for the Path to stop. If someone did try to fly there, they would find themselves facing the Titans’ defensive shields, which were designed to handle Vos’Rekan and higher threats. 

Attacking them wasn’t advisable.

The nine core worlds were very different. 

They were some of the most heavily settled worlds in the galaxy. They included the home worlds of the eight races the Titans had found first and then the jointly held ninth world that was the hub of government for the High Council of Nine Stars. 

It was called Council.

The other locations within the settled galaxy were a mix of important worlds and useful travel connections. Many of them were in barren areas similar to this moon to avoid drawing attention whenever a Titan appeared.

A hint of a smile crossed Sam’s face as he saw the possibilities. 

His mood was much improved now that the emissaries were gone. Their presence had been an unnecessary risk.

With this gate, things would proceed even faster.

He analyzed the gate’s structure and was glad to see there was no real damage. Its repair enchantments were strong. The gates in the rest of the galaxy had existed for hundreds of times as long and most of them were still functioning.

This one had just needed to survive the battles around Aster Fall. Caelus was a good place for that. The moon’s aura was a strong protection.

It was time to test it out.

A moment later, an avatar appeared and stood at the center of the platform. Sam gave himself a nod as he stepped back and reached out to the enchantment.

Activate transfer.

The ancient gate hummed with force in response to the command. Silver lines ran along the stone arcs of the rune and then across the platform below the avatar. 

The space around the platform twisted, spiraling inward as it was pulled toward the lines.

A bright wave of astral energy rose up around the avatar, enclosing it in a sphere.

Then the twisting space folded around that sphere, obscuring it from view in a silent whirlwind of power.

Sam felt a massive draw as the platform pulled energy from Caelus’s core and then demanded it from him. 

He poured over a hundred thousand points of essence into it before it was satisfied, as well as the force of his law.

Runes flared through the twisted space and his domain pushed on reality, bending it back toward chaos. His power resonated with the Gate rune and he felt the Void changing. 

An imprint of Caerlon’s law rose up from the platform and there was a sudden feeling of primal chaos in front of him, as if all the force of the Void had returned to its origin.

The center of the gate turned misty and grey, swirling slowly as a great sense of weight pulled everything toward it.

Laws bent around it, breaking apart as they flowed into the area and dissolved. Runes flared and broke apart, their lines shattering as they turned to flecks of grey light. 

The sense of space and time dissolved into the area as well, like a bottomless well.

Then a bright silver flame of Caerlon’s law burned at the center.

Deep in Sam’s awareness, a primal rune rang like a bell. 

It was one of the most powerful runes. It might have been called Chaos, but that was too changeable to be reduced to the lines of a rune. 

It was called Origin.

Colors faded and substance turned ethereal as the platform made a quarter turn, shifting around everything inside. 

At that instant, the whirlwind of the gate suddenly stopped. The sense of time, distance, and power all disappeared, as if they had never been. 

The avatar and all of the energy around it was gone. 

The platform was empty. 

The lines of astral light on the stones dimmed and the platform shifted back to its original position. 

Then it was still.

Caelus rumbled quietly below him as energy refilled the vast internal caverns that were similar to the other two moons, and Sam’s own essence began to regenerate.

Sam looked at the empty platform and the dimming runes.

There was no great flare of energy or massive celestial event to mark the transfer, just the sense of primal chaos and a nearly instant teleportation. 

Caerlon’s law had warped the point between this gate and its destination to become one and the same, both a part of the original chaos. All of the power the gate needed was to make that real for a fraction of an instant. 

When the platform turned, it was just a step between this place and the other, like stepping across a room.

It was enough to transfer the avatar.

The weight of what had happened was only noticeable through his connection to chaos. This gate wasn’t designed to draw too much attention. 

His connection to his avatar sprang into his awareness as he felt it arrive in a very distant location. 

He let its perspective fill his awareness as he looked around at the arrival platform.

He was standing on a similar-looking platform one-quarter of the way around from where he’d been standing, exactly where it had stopped. 

He’d felt the platform move, but the chaotic energy was much more significant.

The storm of power around him was gone, absorbed by the transfer, leaving the faint scent of something hot and aromatic in his nose, like sun-bathed fields.

Or the core of a star.

The silver lines of the stone Gate rune were moving back to their original positions, leaving the way off the platform clear. 

Everything seemed stable.

He scanned the area, studying the differences as his aura flooded outward to gather information.

This gate looked almost the same as the one he’d just left, but the environment was different, as was the presence of the stars.

The first thing he noticed was that he was standing on another moon. 

With the way the gate functioned, it was safer. The twisted space was well contained, but if it got out, it was less likely to cause a problem.

That type of dimensional vortex could cause massive storms and disrupt weather patterns on a world, which would lead to natural disasters. 

There was no need to risk it.

The next thing he noticed was that the chaos winds were barely present. Only a calm background susurration of energy from the nearby blue-white star filled the space. 

It was a sign that he was on the other side of the Great Divide, in the settled half of the galaxy.

He was on the back side of the moon, but he could feel the unmistakable presence of a world nearby, so he stepped into the Void and stood above the moon as he looked around.

There was a large blue world in front of him. Its surface was covered in sparkling oceans and bright white clouds. A strong sense of elemental Water and Wind came from it, as well as the familiar signature of the Path of Stars.

Welcome to Celeste, one of the core Titan worlds. In front of Sam, the figure of the Will of the Path began to appear, outlined in starlight. It has been a long time since I last welcomed a Titan on this moon. I do not have access to the gate system that brought you here, but it seems you figured it out. 

“Some areas need to be repaired, but this one works.” Sam nodded at the figure as he continued looking around. “This opens new paths.”

If you wish, you have the right to build a home on any unoccupied part of Celesta, the Will explained as it waved its ethereal hand toward the planet, or any of the other Titan worlds. There are also rare resources that can be found on our worlds.

Use only what you need, but do not hesitate to take advantage of it. 

It is your birthright.

“This avatar can set up a workshop here,” Sam agreed. “I can feel the time differential. It will be useful. But now it’s time for the next step.” He gave the Will of the Path a grin and then he disappeared in a streak of silver light, heading for the world.

Back on Caelus, his true body chuckled, and then he sent a thought to Sleset.

“Sleset, gather an honor guard. It’s time to visit your home world.”

“Yes, my lord!” Sleset’s voice was a shout of delight. “Everyone will wish to come, including those on Aster Fall!”

“Then bring them all, even the children,” Sam agreed. “Let’s make an entrance that everyone will remember.”

With the time differential, Silverguard would be fine. They wouldn’t be gone for long. 

His avatars and golems could keep an eye on things.

“We have dreamed of this day!” Sleset’s response was a hiss of pure excitement. “We are ready! We will show the Emerald Clan the majesty of the Silver Lord!”

A flicker of movement in Sam’s awareness told him that a team of nagas was racing toward the Vos’Rekan head they’d just stuck on Silverguard. Within moments, they had grabbed it and were pulling it into the Void.

Below, streams of armored nagas were pouring out the fortress and flying up to join the others.

Sam raised his hand and Silverguard’s enchantments burned across the island, brightening to a wave of silver light that passed across it.

As it passed, the nagas disappeared.

Then they were standing in the valley on Caelus, gathered into orderly ranks. 

Sleset stood in the air at the head of the twelve champions, holding the Vos’Rekan head. 

It was so large that it dwarfed the size of the army, larger than the entire formation below, and its fangs hung open in clear threat. Its scales were so dark they absorbed the light and cast everything below in shadow.

The nagas looked up at it in delight, hissing as they saw its dark eyes and threatening appearance. To them, the best trophy was one that terrified their enemies and demanded obedience from their allies. 

On that scale, a Vos’Rekan was at the top.

Each of them was bright with their silver scales, like a flame keeping the shadows at bay, and their armor was newly engraved with the design of intricate scaled serpents that twisted around a massive silver star on the chest and Vos’Rekan skulls on each shoulder. 

Just like the real head, the beast’s fangs were open to threaten anyone who saw them.

It was something they’d been working on as a badge of the Silver Army. 

A moment later with the help of Sam’s avatars, the rest of the nagas appeared behind the warriors, all of the ones who were still on Aster Fall. Some of them still had the emerald scales of their heritage, since they hadn’t yet sworn to him. 

Sam gave them a nod and then he pointed at the platform.

The nagas marched forward, carrying their trophy, and he took his place at their head.

The stone platform came to life again, enclosing them all in a field of silver light and energy began to gather.

The Void shifted around them.

One quarter turn to cross the galaxy.

There was a feeling of great weight from the energy of chaos and the flicker of sparkling stars. It was accompanied by a sense of shifting suns and cold dark. 

Then space resolved around them.

Sam’s aura expanded and his senses brought information.

This time, they were not near Celeste, but one of the minor gate platforms in a far distant sector of the settled galaxy. The stars were different, forming other constellations.

He matched up the location with information from the Path of Stars, and then he gathered up the army of nagas in a wave of silver light, bringing them with him as he stepped onto an astral thread.

Stars streamed past as he headed toward their home world.

***

Silver light appeared in the Void above a bright green world, followed by Sam and the ranks of the Silver Army.

The oceans were small but deep, and the continents were covered in humid jungles that were full of life. 

Cities rose in many places, blending with the edge of the jungles. Pyramids of carved stone and jagged monuments were prominent among them, marking out centers of government, temples, and more.

Sam’s eyes picked out the bones of long-dead Great Coiling Serpents that formed their own mountain ranges on the planet, running beneath the jungles and along the edges of the continents. 

More were in the depths of the seas and curled around the cities, forming defensive hills. 

They were miles long and a quarter that in height, large enough to be terrors in life, but in his sight they were still small. 

Much smaller than a Vos’Rekan. 

The ones that formed mountains and the higher hills were stacked on top of one another and sometimes twisted vertically, their bones locked together in battle. They must have been a fierce race, living only to struggle against one another. 

Their presence still filled the world, but there was no sign of vitality to them, just dusty age.

They were the original Oathlords of the Emerald Nagas, long dead in wars for dominance, but they’d left their mark on the people.

The nagas had been their infantry and servants, followers to hold the land that the great serpents seized.

“The world is called Emerald,” Sleset said as he stepped up beside him, his voice reverent. “It’s been centuries since I last saw it.”

He pointed at one of the greatest mountains, which was clear even from the Void above the world. It was made up of a pile of at least ten great serpents, all of them locked together until their bones were nearly indistinguishable.

“That is the Sacred Blood Mountain, the site of the last great battle between the Oathlords. My people still travel there in the hope that a drop of their blood remains and will be discovered, or that a new Oathlord will one day appear.

“It is forbidden to any criminal or outsider to walk upon the slopes or even to touch the stones that come from the mountain on pain of death. Any trespass is considered the gravest sin. Every year, there is a ceremony to hunt and kill anyone who does. I have been forbidden from touching that mountain ever since I was exiled.”

Sleset paused for a moment, his eyes bright.

“There is no better way to get attention. That is where you should announce your presence, my lord. They will come in force to stop you, and you will crush them with your might! The world will bow to you.”

Sam considered the idea and then nodded.

“I will give you this victory, old friend,” he agreed. “Let them come. You will have your chance to show them who you are and to crush any who oppose us. They will see the might of the Silver Army and its First Fang.”

He trusted Sleset to limit his kills to those who deserved it and to not tarnish his name.  

More importantly, he understood the nagas. 

In their society, might always made right. 

They would believe nothing without bloodshed, and the stronger the battle that proved it, the better. 

The only justice system they had was trial by combat. The rest of the society’s order was based on kinship ranks, with the eldest sibling in charge.

If he wanted them to follow him, he needed an explosive entrance and a demand to submit or die, the same as one of the ancient serpents would have done.

When he first met Sleset, he’d done that by accident.

The nagas had been bandits back then, including Sleset’s older relative who was in charge of their group. They’d tried to ambush him and he’d killed two of them in an instant. He’d only spared Sleset because he submitted instead. 

If he tried diplomacy instead and invited the nagas to come and see whether or not his blood worked to change their race, they would think he was weak.

More importantly, they would feel cheated, like the reality of the Oathlords was less than they had always dreamed.

Then he would have to kill more in the end to show the truth.

What he needed to do was come down like the hammer of the gods, crushing opposition and giving them no choice but to believe. Then their belief would become a strength.

Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem.

Even if he had to pound them into a smear on the ground, as long as he warded the area with healing and stasis runes, he could bring them back from the brink of oblivion.

He looked down at Sacred Blood Mountain and then he gathered all of the nagas into a field of astral energy to bring them along. 

“Let’s make an entrance.”