The Greatest Sin [Progression Fantasy][Kingdom Building]

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Empire. Brothers and Sisters. Sons and Daughters. Soldiers and civilians, witches and wizards. Today, I make you aware of what I am sure most of you are already aware about, and if you are not, then you will be soon enough. When Tartarus came to our world, when they sent their unworthy apocalypse to come and destroy us, we sent them back.

And now, in their sick minds, they gaze upon us. They fear us. They are jealous for our strength. They look upon the soul of a single man and they weep! And so, they came. For the second time now, unasked and uninvited, and they planned to snuff the flame of life on this planet. And they could not destroy us on Arda. Now, they plan to destroy Arda itself.

I have nothing else to say, save for the fact that I am certain that even the depths from which they crawl will no doubt be ashamed of them. Is this Second Arc real? Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, yes it is. I will not lie to you. And I will not pretend that Arda is not under threat. Yes, indeed, this image you see behind me is real, and it is true, and whether it will impact Arda, I am unsure, although I am certain that it was launched with that purpose, because a demon cannot win a war heroically, through the spilling of blood.

So I stand here, and I do not ask you to not be afraid. I do not ask you to pretend everything is alright. I do not invite you to ignore the issue, and I will not humiliate you by making you live in ignorance. No. Arda is under threat. Arda has been under threat. Just last year, Arda was being choked out by Ashen Skies. Where are the Ashen Skies now?

I ask you to remember. I ask you to remember the sacrifices made to get us this far. And I ask you to take more sacrifices for what is happening. Because that is what it will take. Citizens of Arda, the night is always darkest before dawn and we will not be taken quietly into the night. We are already preparing a response, we will be piercing the skies, we will plant trees under whose shade our children will rest.

I ask you to remember, and I ask you to pray. Pray to Empire and pray to Arda. Since forever, until now, for forever, Arda stands.

- Helenna’s “Second Arc” Speech.

“Do you know why I called all of you here?” Kassandora asked. She never began like this unless there was something to report. And right now, there could only be one thing to report. Of War sat down back into her seat as Arascus sighed, tapping his leg. Something bad was happening right now. He was being talked about. He didn’t know where, or who, or what, but he could tell it was happening.

“I assume we have an image.” Anassa said from her side of the table. It was a small… well, for humans it would be large, but for Divines, and especially for Divines of their size, it was a small coffee table. Coffee probably had never touched it though, the only drinks were whiskey and wine. The former for Arascus and Kassandora, the latter for Anassa and Elassa.

“We do.” Kassandora crashed back into her seat, her black uniform out of place in Arcadia’s archaic fashion. Although Arascus supposed his suit was too. But neither of them cared enough to fix the issue, maybe if this was a formal visit, then there would be a reason to wear fashion more… Arcadian.

“That was fast.” Elassa said. She rings and chains, her necklace with that fat white diamond, all twinkled and then jingled when she moved to lean back from the table. There were sets of maps arrayed there, one of the Solar System as it was known, others of Arda, then Anassa’s half was covered by ritual circles and spell names.

“It’s hard to be slow when you where to look for.” Kassandora said, opening the folder she had just received at the door and then inspecting it inside. She didn’t show a reaction to the photo, nor the massive numbers listing the size of it. “They caught it near the Sun, Allasaria was correct, it will hook back at the angle it’s going and it will more than likely intercept Arda.” Elassa and Anassa and Arascus all stared at the image she had thrown.

It was a black rectangle, darker, the camera had some filter on it. Space was just a measly static-filled grey. The Sun itself was pure white. The number said 78,000 kilometres along the long edge. “That is it.” Elassa said quietly.

“That is indeed it.” Kassandora announced. “My original math was not far off, it is roughly seven times larger than Arda at its widest point.” She leaned back. “Extinction level event. If it was Divine, I wouldn’t even be able to categorize it. This is not something we can reasonably fight through.” Arascus’ eyes met her red ones and she shrugged. “Those are the facts, everything combined as it is now, it would hit Arda and not leave much standing.”

And still Kassandora went on, even as Elassa looked as she was about to be crushed. “Whereas I do not know if it is a world-rupturing event, because that depends on the strength of the Second Arc as it stands right now, I am fairly certain that it would knock off its orbit around the Sun. Our current orbit would be impossible to return to, we would either shoot off, past the asteroid belt.” Kassandora stared at. “In which case the planet freezes. There’s a potential survival scenario of hunkering deep within the surface of the world, near the World Core I suppose, but we’re looking at a civilian casualty rate of ninety-five percent.” She paused. “Or it knocks us closer, towards the Sun, no survival rate scenario.”

Kassandora finished laying out the facts and leaned back. “Ultimately though, there is one good thing here. The Second Arc is not terribly thick. At points, it is two hundred kilometres wide, the average is roughly half that. That means when it hits and ruptures the surface open, it will not slice the world in half.” She finished and shrugged. “That is all from photo reconnaissance, we are still able to track it, currently I have a team on it to track and predict the course. Nevertheless, it will disappear behind the sun next week. After it reappears, then we’ll know for certain.”

“We’re working under a crash scenario.”

“And if it doesn’t happen?” Elassa asked quietly. Anassa shook her head.

“If it doesn’t happen, and the Second Arc misses us, then we happen to waste some time.” Arascus said. “Otherwise no, we operate under the assumption it will hit. This is the biggest threat to Arda.”

“I actually have my own confirmation scenario.” Kassandora said. “Which is Allasaria’s presence. Whereas she’s not questioned yet, I am certain Paradeisius didn’t want her coming back. Why?” She looked around the room. “Allasaria can lead us back to them, the longer they wait, the bigger there is a chance for us to find them. They should be opening portals in the sky yesterday. Not now.”

“Unless they’re preparing.” Arascus said.

“I am fortifying with the garrisons too. I would be doing it more were this not going on, but basic protocol is being established. All cities are being assigned their own guard Division.” She talked quickly and coldly. “Fact of the matter is that they are too large to wall off, we could potentially shield them, but that is a long process too. Local garrisons combined with a specialist quick response force is a stop-gap measure, but it is better than nothing.”

“How does them not attacking us prove the Second Arc is going to hit us?” Elassa asked dryly. Behind her, through the window, Arcadia was launching another castle. The first of today’s pair. Both would be floating to assist in Eparika’s cleanup. They were massive structure, entire islands, chunks of Arda’s crust ripped straight out of it, complete with a palace on top and alit with white diamonds on the bottom. The room went as the sound of the world rumbling rolled through them.

“Assume you’re at war with a city, and a hurricane is going to hit it next month. Are you going to throw your men at the walls?” Kassandora asked and Elassa didn’t reply. Her blue eyes just went back to the table as she shook her head. “Well it is what it is, this is a problem to be handled.” Kassandora looked to Arascus as the floating island slowly blocked out the sun. Anassa snapped her fingers and a small finger, fashioned entirely out of opaque sorcery, pressed the light-switch.

“In regards to that, that is what we are here for.” Arascus said. “This is not a job for anyone else but for us.”

“For us.” Elassa said with a sigh.

“Well magic is the greatest art on Arda.” Anassa said slowly. “But I do not see how it will be done. There isn’t such a thing as a planetary incineration spell.”

“I have discussed this with Kassandora already, there are two main strategies we can do.” Arascus said leaning forward. He nodded to Kassandora, who brought a pair of papers out of her folder. “You or me?”

“You.” Kassandora said.

“First then.” Arascus said. “Is the scenario I am against.”

“Likewise, however it is theory, and we need to here your opinion.” Kassandora said.

“The Ardan Shield scenario.” Arascus brought attention to the first piece of paper. “On one hand, it seems reasonable, it was our original idea, which is to generate a shield around the entire world.”

“That…” Elassa said. “You’re talking about a million-man spell.”

“Both spells are million-men miracles.” Kassandora said.

“The issue then?” Anassa said. “It could work with sorcery, we could layer shields, have reality-sweeper bubbles too. What breaks through a shield gets erased.” Anassa continued and started drawing. One dot on one side of the page. Then a line. Another. Another. Quick strokes of an artisan’s hand until there were countless. “Erase, push, erase, push, erase, push, so on, as long as it doesn’t come at us long side first, then even two hundred kilometres is feasible.”

“There are two identified issues.” Arascus said. “One is a shift of the orbit. A slight one could potentially be fixed.” He had already thought about planetary movement engines. The timeframe just made it impossible though. And the recalibration back into orbit was even worse. This wasn’t a spaceship, they had no second chances. “The other is the moon.”

“The moon.” Anassa said.

“Even if Arda breaches through the Second Arc, we would still lose the moon. The atmosphere would be thrown into haywire and it wouldn’t be reversible.” Arascus said. “However, it wouldn’t be extinction.” He tapped the paper that said Defence Plan. “Thus, it is an option we are willing to consider.

Elassa looked to the other piece of paper. Offense Plan. “And that?” She shook her head. “You know how that reads from here.”

“It gets worse when you open it.” Arascus said. “But it is what we have thought of. It is a resurrection of the thirty thousand mile ritual idea, which you have tried.”

“And failed at.” Elassa said dryly.

“Because we rushed the war.” Arascus said. “But now, we have ICDT boosters, there is no war, we can push, we can bring the required material into space to make a flat ritual loop around the planet.”

“That is insanity.” Elassa said.

“Insanity works.” Anassa said.

“Not on scale.”

Kassandora leaned forward. “Either way, both plans can be proceeded with. They are semi-independent. The Defence Plan relies on magical manufacturing for the first half, the Offense Plan only needs magicians once the world-ritual has a floor.” Elassa sighed, then leaned back, the shook her head. “Do you disagree?”

“I don’t.” Elassa said.

“Well we’re saving the world here, of course it isn’t easy.” Anassa said, crossing her arms. The sun returned as the floating castle passed over them.

“What do you even want to do? It is…” Elassa said. “Well, it may be possible, but under these circumstances, I don’t know. What do you want done first?”

“I want to measure it, to calculate the trajectory, and then to cut it into two.” Kassandora said. “And have Arda fly through the gap. And if the gap is large enough, we bring the moon with us.”

“That’s why it’s the better plan.” Arascus said. “But it is what I want you to concentrate on.”

“Do you understand the scale of the magic? The amount of materials required? You’re building more than a loop up there. You need an entire lattice. Ritual upon ritual.”

“That is a problem of engineering, not of magic.” Arascus said. “The Sashai texts talked of something you would enjoy. A theory, untested, Kassandora and I have skimmed them and there’s a part that stands out.”

“Sashai was a madman.” Elassa argued back. Arascus didn’t even listen to her, this was just how she always was. The fact she was still engaging and had not left the room meant that there was feasibility. “What?”

“A communion transfers command of one mage to another. It requires perfect organisation and thus they’re naturally self-limiting.” Arascus said. “But other than that, there’s no complexity within them. Kass.” Kassandora brought out the relevant piece of paper from Sashai’s works. Both Elassa and Anassa leaned forward, eyes going wide as they read the paper. Arascus didn’t even glance at the paper, he just looked at their expressions.

And their expressions were answer enough. Anassa’s lips curled upwards. Elassa’s brows furrowed as she read, her eyes like hungry sapphires reached the end of the paper, then went back to the start to re-read it. Anassa leaned back and chuckled to herself more so than to anyone else. “I don’t see the issue in that. I told you insanity works.”

“In theory.” Elassa said under her breath. “Give me that.” She snatched out her piece of paper and started drawing a diagram on a clean sheet of paper. A circle with dots. Each of those circles with their own dots, each of those dots with their own circle. “Theoretically.” She said. “Theoretically, yes, it could work.” She sighed and shook her head, then turned to Anassa. “It’s obvious really, isn’t it?”

“It’s actually shameful we’ve not thought of this first.”

“Well it’s overkill.” Elassa said. Arascus tapped the table in between them, just as the world started to shake and rumble again. Arcadia’s second castle today.

“So a communion of communions could work?”

“You could push it down three, four levels deep even. Or ten.” Elassa said, looking down at Sashai’s works. “How did he think of this?”

“Well he was trying to destroy the world.” Kassandora said dryly.

“I take it that the power limitation is now gone.” Arascus said.

“If this is true, and it works, then yes.” Elassa tapped the piece of paper. “I will have it confirmed in Arcadia by tomorrow afternoon. It’s not even advanced, it’s just organisation.” Kassandora crossed her arms and leaned back. “Don’t say anything.”

“I’ve never thought of that.” Kassandora admitted. “One communion is enough for anything on Arda so why have more? It wasn’t a question that needed to be answered.” Elassa shook her head.

“The issue then becomes of spell for us.” Anassa said. “Because we would need a reality sweeper. Or a blast of pure mana to incinerate it.”

“Potentially, it could be moved.” Elassa said. “Given enough power, we could just levitate it, his maths doesn’t add up.” Arascus let her keep that one, what did he know of magic anyway? “Whether that’s true or not, if it was this simple, students would have tested and discovered it already. There’s most likely backlash involved.” She tapped the paper. “But theoretically, this is still the problem.”

Arascus looked at her diagram. Kassandora did too and shook her head. “That’s what it would look like?”

“In theory, a ritual is circular so the large circle is non-negotiable. In practice, we teach that an even load is easier to handle.” She looked at them dryly, and then at Anassa. “I know what you’re going to say.”

Anassa laughed to herself. “Even loads are just deficits in terms of skill.”

Elassa continued as if Anassa hadn’t spoken as the planet shook. This time, Of Sorcery turned the lights on pre-emptively. Kassandora turned to look out the window at the floating island, complete with palace on top, as it began to rise out of the ground. “Ignoring that statement, a failed ritual results in a backlash. We don’t have enough mages on the planet for two attempts. So an even load would be preferable. Is this doable?”

“I will have to get back to you after we calculate the amount of materials required to build it.” Arascus said. The core design of the ring around the planet was set already, that was possible. But with the amount of secondary and tertiary circles Elassa had added. “Is this the final design?”

“No. I just drew that two minutes ago.” Elassa said. “The final design will be worse because it’s intricate.”

“So we can easily estimate a tripling of the materials required for the problem then.” Arascus took his whiskey glass and drank the whole thing. That was a problem of engineering, and the issue with engineering was that there was no real way to speed it up without new inventions, and those weren’t definite. They could expand industry, but how many could physically be stuffed into factories to produce structural beams needed for shuttles and…

And fuel. Arascus sighed. That was the other big loss on this, rocket itself was not infinite. And the Empire could not sustain what would will be tens of millions of launches into space. “The engineering issue will be difficult.” And outside, the sun started to be eclipsed again by another tower. The peak of a palace that bore crenulations and flags and a crane, which would go off to clean the Eparika. If Arda was going to be destroyed, it would be destroyed clean.

And then…

Surely that was impossible. Surely. Kassandora turned to Arascus with a nod as Elassa and Anassa both looked out of the window. Some things were magnificent, an island being sent into the clouds was one of them. Arascus thought back in history. They had an upper limit, but that upper limit was defined by air quality. After a certain point, mages passed out, unable to breathe. Hadn’t they solved that now? “Elassa.”

“What?” Of Magic hissed. Oh she was not happy right now.

“Those castles.” Arascus pointed at the marvellous construction. The bottom was all jagged rock, made even more jagged by the presence of crystals sticking out in ways. Fat white diamonds, specially transmuted from the massive amounts of crystals which were being collected throughout where Ashen Skies once choked Arda. They shone as brightly as tiny comets, or lighthouses. “They fly, right?”

“Float.” Elassa said. “What do you want with it? Should I tell it to move out of the sun oh mighty lordship?” Arascus didn’t even care. That answered his question. If they floated, then they couldn’t…

“Float on what?” Kassandora said, standing up to walk to the window. She pressed one hand to the glass, then turned to Arascus, her eyes shining. They were thinking of the same idea, weren’t they?

“Float on magic!” Elassa curled on the table. “What? You’re asking me if flying islands float on air? Throw a rock up and see for yourself how well that works!”

“Do they have a limit?” Arascus asked.

“Magic is limitless.” Elassa finally sat up as Anassa went about drawing another diagram. Kassandora turned around to Arascus, mouth the final word that Elassa had just uttered: Limitless.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She asked. Arascus nodded, he was.

“We have our space-shuttles”