Ends of Magic

The Heirs ate a leisurely breakfast, with Aarl breaking out some of the precious supplies they’d saved from Gemore for a taste of home. They’d all spent several days awake and in combat mode, and there was a lot of temptation to stay in their underground hidey hole for a day or more to come down from that level of anxiety. They probably could stay on schedule regardless, since Stella’s new wind spells would accelerate their travel.

They did spend some time relaxing, breaking out various pastimes they hadn’t been able to give any attention to in days. Sarah read a book, Aarl played with an enchanted puzzle box from the vault of Esebus that looked like a masterpiece of wizardry complexity. Khachi and Nathan chatted about religions and philosophers from Earth, and Stella poked around some enchanted objects Aarl had loaned her from his newly massive collection.

But eventually, they all started to feel like the cave was claustrophobic instead of comforting, and decided to continue the journey. The landscape was still dark and dead. But the haze in the air was dissipating, and the clouds were breaking up, revealing the sun overhead.

“How long will it take for the Seal to purify the land?” Aarl asked, looking down at the lifeless expanse of dry rock studded with the occasional band of undead.

The Heirs looked to Nathan, and he pursed his lips. “I’m not sure. It depends on a lot of things. Based on what we saw back there, at least years. At most centuries. It depends on whether the rate stays constant or slows down at longer distances.” Follow current novels on novel※fire.net

“We may be able to accelerate the process,” Khachi said, pointing downwards and raising his voice. “Let this land be healed. The source of the evil is slain, and purification follows.” His hand glowed, sending a shaft of light down to illuminate a random patch of dusty ground. Stella killed the wind spell, and the rest of the Heirs slowed down to let Khachi conduct his experiment. After a minute of sustained light a patch of rock a hundred feet across was a visibly lighter shade, more grey than black.

The cleric cut off the flow of divine energy, examining the ground below. “The taint has soaked into the land deeply. It would take significant power to purge it completely.”

“It’s more than I could do,” Stella admitted. “I can see the death mana infused into everything, but I don’t know how I could get it out. Maybe by melting the rock first.” She cocked an eyebrow at Nathan. “Well, aren’t you going to try? This is your dungeon.”

Nathan unfurled his aura expectantly. It had grown ever easier to control his antimagic with the development of Aura Mastery, and it was next to no effort to keep it compressed close to his body. But now he let it out and directed it downwards, bathing the land in his antimagic. The blight was tightly tied to the landscape, and drawing it out felt like extracting pus from a wound. It reminded him faintly of the blightmind. Over the course of half a minute, the land healed in a radius of several hundred feet. The rocks reverted to their natural color, the soil turning a shade of healthy brown, though no plants sprouted. But now the potential was present when it hadn’t been before.

“Don’t smother my fire completely,” Khachi said, more amused than grumpy. "An impressive demonstration."

"I'm not done yet," Nathan answered, looking around at the distant expanse of blackened terrain. "I've got a new Development to try out." A thought struck him, and he reached to his side to grab the adamantium dagger. "Aarl, can you hold onto this for me? I'm not sure it'll survive this. In fact, go ahead and hang onto it until I ask for it back."

"Another weapon for my collection," the fighter said, accepting the weapon and sticking it into his pouch.

With that out of the way, Nathan dropped down below the Heirs, feet touching down in the center of the area he’d already cleansed. He extended his aura, making it more diffuse. This way, he would cover a bigger area, though it would take quite a bit longer to fully purify it. But that wasn’t his goal - he wanted to test the other mode of his antimagic, the version where it destroyed all magic. His aura stretched for miles, encompassing a large swath of the labyrinth of jagged ridges.

He took a deep breath and flexed his aura to its full potential, smoothing out the background of wizardry and draining the ambient magic from the land. It funneled into him, bringing with it a feeling of addictive power. There was magic here, and Nathan was taking it, drawing something vital from the land and into himself. What was there was corrupted and warped, but it still held potency that went beyond normal resources. His stamina was overfull, but he felt something more, something associated with the base magic of Davrar. It was a power without an outlet, and to Nathan it felt like the potential for an Insight.

The land lightened, losing the blackened coloration of the blight. But the difference was more obvious to his magical senses. It was like he’d created a vacuum in the background magical energy, cleansing the magic from a chunk of Davrar. It wasn’t the same resource as the mana somebody used to cast a spell. Instead, it was the source of the mana that refilled a mage’s mana pool and encouraged the propagation of magical effects. It would be harder to cast spells in this area, and a mage’s mana pool wouldn’t naturally refill while inside it.

But nature abhorred a vacuum, and magic was already beginning to creep back in at the edges. This wasn’t a permanent state of affairs, and the Seal would slowly replenish everything Nathan had just taken. But it would take just as long to heal as if he'd left it blighted.