TS4: Chapter 3 (Patreon)

“Explore an ancient elven ruin? Of course! Count us in!” Mina said, her eyes sparkling with excitement.

“Hold on,” Corvo said, amusement clear on his face. “Let's focus on what’s right in front of us. One thing at a time.”

“I feel like I say that to Thorn every day,” Velin said, sighing.

Thorn, Velin, Mina, and Corvo were all standing together in the World Tree’s cathedral, talking together as Athena met with Shaerra and the other elven delegates. The decision to move the elven village closer to the floating city, at least for the time being, was being discussed at length, but since Thorn had handed over management of the city to Athena, he was free to talk to his friends about the proposed adventure.

“No one is forgetting the wedding,” Thorn said, shaking his head. “We’re just excited for what comes next. But I also totally get it if you want to take some time to yourselves. We could probably push it off for a while. It's not like I have a lack of projects to work on. I’ve got training programs to develop, artifacts to craft, spell research, you name it.”

Shaking her head, Mina looked up at Corvo and then back at Thorn and Velin, her expression growing serious. After a slight hesitation, she suddenly took a step to the right, her body separating into two copies, one dressed in white and the other in dark blue. The version of her body that was dressed in blue looked unusually solemn, and lifted the wand she held, casting a simple spell construct that swirled around them, forming a barrier of stars. At the same time, her other body brandished a twin bladed dagger and cast another spell, causing the stars to begin to freeze.

“A bit of help please,” she said with both bodies, her voice overlapping.

With his increased arcane affinity, Thorn knew exactly what she was trying to do so he tapped his staff on the ground, summoning ancient runes to amplify and empower her spell. Everything around them appeared to be wiped away in a flash, leaving the four of them in a dark world lit only by the frozen stars. Realizing that they were completely isolated from the outside world, Velin gave Thorn a concerned glance and took his hand. With the spell completed, Mina’s dagger wielding soul vanished, absorbed into her wand soul’s body.

“Something dreadful is coming,” she said, causing both Thorn and Velin to look at each other in confusion. “It's hard to explain, because I’ve only seen a little bit, but it's like a shadow is being cast over everything. My divination is not the strongest, but it is accurate.”

Pausing, she looked at Corvo, as if wanting him to confirm.

“She’s right. That loom that she uses is one hundred percent accurate, or at least has been so far.”

Biting her lip, Mina took a moment to organize herself while the others waited, eventually continuing in a subdued voice.

“What I can say has restrictions that I am not strong enough to break, but despite the consequences, I will say what I can. The loom accurately predicts both what is happening right now, in real time, and what will come in the future. However, it's impossible to tell when that future will appear. The problem is, the weave ends.”

“You mean it stops working? Or runs out of thread?” Thorn asked, scratching his head.

“No, it's destroyed,” Mina replied, choosing her words with exceptional care. “There is a point in the future, the near future, when the loom is destroyed, because there are no more people to record.”

Velin’s eyes rose in surprise and she let go of Thorn’s hand, getting out her notebook.

“A mass extinction event?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that the loom is predicting that there will not be any people to record. There are no other details that I can determine, and trying to find out more puts tremendous strain on the loom. Even talking about it with you is going to cause problems and I won’t be able to use the loom for a long time. Without being stronger, I don’t think I can learn any more. But one thing is for certain. We, and I mean all of us, have to get stronger. A lot stronger. And quickly. We could be looking at an event within the year, or maybe ten years at the latest.”

Mina’s words ended in a rush and a shiver ran through her as Thorn thought he heard a faint snapping sound. Her face paled and she began to collapse, grabbed by Corvo before she hit the ground. With a pained expression, Corvo held Mina tight and looked at Thorn and Velin.

“It's worse than she is letting on. When she first saw it, she and the other witches tried to make a divination. All of them died from the backlash. If she hadn’t had a second soul, she would have died too. As it is, every time she talks about it, she falls unconscious for weeks.”

Slowly, Mina’s body and dress began to change, shifting over to her dagger soul. Once the change was complete, her eyes snapped open and she sat up with a gasp.

“Wow, that isn’t very pleasant,” she said, trying to smile and not quite managing it.

“Thank you for taking the risk,” Thorn said, his expression serious. “This certainly puts a different lens on our activities.”

Nodding, Velin looked down at her notebook and then back at Mina.

“Indeed. We need to approach this on two fronts. First, we need to identify possible threats. Second, we need to ensure that everyone gets as strong as possible, as fast as possible. And the best way to do that is the tower. Once people are in the sixth, seventh, and eighth tiers, they can begin to climb Intra Mundum, but before that we need to get them to that point.”

Once Mina was feeling a bit better, she canceled the isolation spell she had cast and the world around them returned to normal. Apart from a few strange glances from Athena and the elves they were able to act as if everything was normal, but Thorn could feel the weight of the information Mina had shared. He was no stranger to potentially world ending events, but what Mina was talking about was on a scale beyond that. If she was right, there was a threat coming that wouldn’t just end the world they were on, but would eliminate life altogether. Though he didn’t know if it would be possible to change it, Thorn knew that he couldn’t just stand by without trying to stop whatever was coming.

“Everything okay?”

Seeing Athena’s concerned look, Thorn gave her as reassuring a smile as he could muster, which only seemed to make it worse.

“Just talking about priorities,” he said. “We can chat more later.”

“Fine. I’ll hold you to that. We are going to settle the elves on the mountain north of Cloudstone city, near the Cathedral of the World Tree. They’re pretty nervous about being out of the forest, but once I made it clear that we were not going to be able to help them if they were not closer, they decided to make the move. Is that something you and Velin can help with?”

Considering it for a moment, Thorn nodded.

“Yes. We should even be able to move some trees over as well. The World Tree has a pretty serious acceleration ability on the local flora, so I think we’ll be able to come up with something cool. I don’t know if we’ll be able to do it before the wedding ceremony, though.”

“Give it your best shot,” Athena said, patting Thorn on the arm. “Speaking of the ceremony, things are getting a bit out of hand, so I need to go and make sure that no one is getting into a fight.”

“Fight? Why would they be fighting?” Velin asked, joining the conversation.

“Because we put the different guilds in charge of different sections of the city, and it's turned into a competition. And in typical fashion, someone thought it would be more efficient to just sabotage all the other guilds than make their own area better. You know, Thorn, I’m starting to regret ever agreeing to do this. I mean, I knew the day would come when I wished I hadn’t taken you up on your offer, I just didn’t expect it to be here already.”

Lifting both his hands in a shrug, Thorn took a step back.

“No take backs. You’re stuck with it now. But if people are stepping out of line, let me know and I’ll be happy to whip them into shape for you.”

“I’m going to take you up on that,” Athena said with a smirk, “but hopefully just the threat will be enough to keep everyone in line.”

Waving, she hurried off, leaving Velin and Thorn standing together. Taking a deep breath, Thorn’s smiling expression slowly vanished, giving way to a focused look. Next to him, Velin was the same, and without speaking, they both stepped into the Earth Step doorway that Thorn summoned, reappearing in their home. From there, they stepped into the portal to the Great Forge, sharing a kiss before they each went about their tasks. More and more, they were finding themselves acting in concert, not needing to speak to share their intent. Heading for the forge, Thorn looked over the artifacts he had been creating, picking up a bracelet at random to examine it. He was in the process of producing as many dimensional artifacts as he could, and though it was a time consuming process, he was hoping to finish before the end of the week.

“Eve, how do the engravings look?”

Melting out of Thorn’s robe, Eve appeared in her fairy form, hovering in front of Thorn.

“Not as good as yours, but passable. I’d estimate that they’ll be able to hold the enchantment for at least a few years, but beyond that, it’s going to be hit or miss.”

“That’s fine. By that point, other people should be making them as well. There will be plenty to go around.”

“About that,” Eve said, her forehead furrowing, “I’m not sure that’s the case.”

“What do you mean?”

“Thorn, I’m starting to put together a hypothesis on why everything is so… low tech. The upper worlds used to have a lot of technology, right? But it’s all been eliminated, or at least, suppressed. I think it was a safety measure.”

“You think that technology mixed with magic is too dangerous?” Thorn asked, making the logical jump. “Can you explain that a bit more?”

“You are wearing a portable dimensional space, right? The utility of something like that is insane. But what is more insane, is what sort of discoveries it is going to lead to. Being able to bend the fabric of time and space is an insane power, and what happens when we hand that power to everyone? In your hands, it's fine, but frankly, I don’t trust other people. Between me and Alph, we’ve already developed plans for half a dozen super weapons. And not just like regular super weapons, but like world ending weapons. It would have been impossible if we only had magic, but once you start using magic to interact with physics, things get wibbly really fast.”

“Wibbly? Is that a technical term?”

“I’m being serious, Thorn. Do you know what happens if one of those rings or bracelets ruptures?”

Taking the ring from his finger, Thorn looked at it curiously and shook his head.

“No, what?”

“In all the simulations I’ve run, it obliterates everything within ten meters by unleashing a void tear. The bigger the space, the bigger the void tear. We’re literally creating bombs. And these bracelets? When they fail, they'll do the same thing.”

“Huh, that’s probably not safe,” Thorn said, his forehead wrinkling.

“You think? The only thing I can figure is that if we use a void gem to tie in the enchantment, we can avoid the void tear, but at the cost of the gem being destroyed. That’s going to send the price of these interspatial devices up to the sky.”

Pondering the issue for a moment, Thorn shrugged.

“That’s not a bad thing. At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with taking things slow. And even if the bracelets or the rings get loose, having a natural expiration on them will help keep the technology from being replicated by others. Obviously, it will be impossible to keep it hidden forever, but instead of trying to focus on that, let's try to make it as safe as possible. Besides, I bet most people will be excited to hear that they have a potential last resort weapon, even if it means losing all their stuff.”

Rolling her eyes and sighing theatrically, Eve floated over to the void extractor.

“Humans are so strange. But whatever. If we’re committing to this path, then let's get a move on it. We still have a lot of these bracelets to make.”

Grinning, Thorn joined her, watching as the nanites began their work. They were replicating the enchantment for the dimensional pocket on hundreds of bracelets at a time, but Thorn quickly began to see the difference that Eve had mentioned. It was more of a feeling than anything specific, but there was something brittle about the devices they created, a brittleness that did not exist in his own work. Picking up one of the newly created bracelets, Thorn puzzled over it for a moment, but couldn’t figure out what the difference was. To his knowledge, the nanites were copying the initial bracelet that he had made perfectly, but there was still a subtle gap between their work and his.

Wondering if it had something to do with his will, Thorn threw the problem to the back of his mind and started work on the next set of rings. It was his hope to have three hundred of them completed before the ceremony started, and though it would be tight, he was confident that he could do it. Soon, his thoughts and concerns with everything going on melted away and he was lost in his work, his mind entirely focused on the delicate challenge at hand.

**STATUS**

Name: Thorn, Master of the Void

Race: Titan - Voidforger

Speed: 53

Destiny Points: 1

Physique: 56

Strength: 66

Dexterity: 48

Quickness: 53

Presence: 41

Charisma: 49

Empathy: 30

Intimidation: 43

Intellect: 63

Wits: 63

Perception: 63

Resilience: 63

Tier: 9

Milestones: 0

Abilities:

Fear Immunity

Voice of Power

Master of the Great Forge

Heart of a World

Moon Wolf Transformation

Mental Mastery

Martial Mastery

Echoing Will

Divine Heart

Fiery Charm

Void Forging

Background Tags:

Legendary Monster Hunter: 3

Hero of the People: 3

Ruler of Angoril: 10

Arcanist: 8

Life Force Challenged: 6

Runemaster: 4

Saint: 3

Dragonslayer: 1