A dying realm rarely had rain. Yet clouds packed and rolled over the ancient ruins, unleashing a thin breeze of droplets. That bare cold veil of water had drowned the ruins of Medantai.
Wanting to be above others, humans had floated platforms in the air to hold their homes and fields. Wanting to avoid feuds, they had then anchored them on high spires and thus came the city of Medantai.
Against the mana drain, its inhabitants had molded slopes and pillars that turned the city into cascading hills. And then the drain had erased them all the same.
Now the small rain was filling what had become flat craters, turning the ruins into as many basins from which the water poured, ever weaker until it only trickled in the desert. Marshes grew in the basins, the slopes remained bare.
Monsters abounded.
It was there that the bird priestess, carrying the secrets of Earth, had decided to hide.
I had just come out of the hatch. Even with the armor incomplete, I could still at least equip the arms. Hide the scratches on my clay plates. Nasse and the human had already gone ahead. That teenager felt better with a magnal monster than with me.
If really that bird could use others' potency for herself, then bringing along a human, the most powerful being in the realm, was as savvy as fighting cavalry with a dagger. But he wanted to explore and I could not oppose him.
We were here for more than sightseeing though.
Further ahead the pair had encountered a nest of larvae. What had been a cross of bees and porcupines used to the vineyards, when faced with the drain, had devolved into this story state. They needles only thin whiskers on their sides.
Still, they were coming out of their holes to attack. The human wanted to flee, saw Nasse retract into his scales. The lizard could be fierce but knew better, so the teenager swooped back in to carry the monster away and into the heights.
I had taken a different path, almost opposite. There were patterns brimming of magic that suggested a mass ritual.
Either a certain snake had lurked all the way here or that bird was planning a battlefield.
Most basins were just bare, with rushes and bushes emerging from the shallow, putrid water. There lurked mostly greyhounds, felogs and a few copperheads. Plus rapts. In other places trees filled the space, their roots bathing and rotting. Here hid red beaks, hippocs and magnals. Plus rapts.
But to be honest? Even with all the magic the human had brought to this place, none of them were much of a threat. What few wanted to attack me I pushed back with shockwaves, hurling them away. Most took the hint.
A couple did not and even for those, I didn't feel like killing. Confusion and blindness left them defenseless. Another could enjoy the blood.
I had climbed all the way to the fourth basin. Two thirds of it were eaten by a slope that covered it in shadow. That slope in turn opened to a vast cavern with hundreds of pillars to sustain the weight. The stench was particularly strong in that space.
And along the edge of that underground lay wooden poles with torn banners.
Somehow the human's presence had brought those back to the realm. Wards erected to protect the survivors from hordes of monsters. Those banners had each the colors of a human family.
If I restored them, whatever ritual the bird had prepared would get disrupted.
"Eh, Nasse?" The human asked, far away.
They had reached the highest basin on their end and, meeting more such flags, had stopped there. Nasse had come up to the same conclusion and was busy restoring them.
"Are you and Kaele friends?"
"Kaele only cares for humans."
"That's not true!" The boy retorted. "He keeps that dark thingy in a cage!"
"He is a golem. Golems obey humans. That's all there is to it."
Exactly right. That was the only reason I could not allow anything to happen to the magnal. He was helping me serve humans.
But that teenager stubbornly denied it.
"Then what about when he seems sad? You can't tell me that's tied to some human order!"
"He has been serving long before I was born. There is no telling what conflicting instructions he has."
Collecting mana. I was mostly sure that this was my only duty. Still, even I didn't know what inscriptions were on my stone tablet so... yes.
Regardless, I was done with the banners.
With that safety in place, it was back to tracking the heart of that ritual. That was where I would find the bird monster and end it all.
A touch of telekinesis warned the fire lizard of my new direction. His duty was to try and keep the human as far away as possible, distracted elsewhere because again, I didn't like losing.
By disrupting the ritual and keeping the main source of power out of reach, that was two out of three problems solved. The last was the bird's escape but our big friend the wyvern skeleton was keeping guard outside Medantai to prevent her from even opening a portal.
She was trapped. All that remained was to beat her.
Down the slope I reached a valley formed by crumbled platforms. Either the drought's effect or some recent battle. The ritual's patterns pulsed on a downed spire. It was already active?
Or it had just activated.
That bird had felt the disturbance and chosen to act. I could still not make out what mass spell she was trying to cast but given she had been able to summon skyfall, I was not eager to find out.
And yet, once past that spire I stopped before the new cavern.
Caparaces.
There was no way, no way such a place had records. But the handful of insects stood there, hanging above the entrance near more pole banners.
So I entered. I lacked time but knew better than to ignore their presence.
Inside, walls and pillars alike had been covered with messages. Definitely those insects' work.
We said: Alone we die. The monsters said: Let us live together!
This was written like a record, yet failed to contain knowledge in those words. But the monsters? Where had they copied that from?
We said: Magic kills us. The monsters said: Let us cast magic away!
That... Nobody said that. Ever.
Had the caparaces lost their mind? If they had one? Magic was life - and admittedly death too. Monsters lived for mana! And the monsters certainly didn't... live together...
I knew where those insects had seen the message. The next one confirmed it.
We said: Killing is good. The monsters said: Let us preserve the oasis!
We will survive and when humans bring magic back, we will feast!
The oasis had been a place where deluded monsters had hoped to survive the drain by being friendly to each other. I was reading a copy of record of that place.
There was so much wrong with any of this!
Beginning with why caparaces would copy it elsewhere! They were servants of Veleter, practically his body so that void monster must have had a motive. I had to believe that.
But there was no time to question any of this. I had to find that bird. The clouds above were starting to swirl, meaning her ritual was gaining in strength. The monsters around could feel it too. Their rage had fights breaking out around.
And while I ran, the human had landed again, put the magnal down and sit near a waterfall.
"What about you?" He smiled to the monster. "Are you my friend? Are you Kaele's?"
He could feel the storm getting worse, the monsters agitated behind him and below. But the realm was different to a human.
"I do what he says. I get mana. That's all there is."
"Come on! You two can read each other from a kilometer away! And you're telling me you are just his familiar?"
"Min-Seok, imagine you are dying of thirst in a desert. When a sorcerer comes with a lake worth of water, you say yes."
Found her! She was still far away, hiding under the basins in a vast pillars cave. And with that I could start to discern her whole ritual.
Mana leech?
"Calisle." I called out loud. "She is casting mana leech. Why for?"
That spell was the wyvern's specialty. Practically his signature, beyond bending reality.
His rumbling voice answered: "A city is a pool of mana. That vulture wants to siphon it to her lair. It will hurt you when you fight, but it should affect her equally."
To each their own answer: this was hers against the mana drain. To steal what little was left and trickle it back, probably to her dungeon near Hashal. The starved taking crumbs from the already impoverished.
All she was likely to achieve in the end would be a mana sickness.
Regardless, I had a bird to stop and mana to spare.
Instead of a drizzle it was now pouring harshly, with winds battering the slopes. The clouds swirled to slowly form a maelstrom.
Lightning started to lick the slopes. All the magic pulled in a single point, a new kind of drain that eroded the living and the matter alike. All monsters were no engaged in furious melee with each other in an attempt to stop that feeling of death.
Those slopes were only a dozen meter thick at best, often less. As the mana pressed, they started to fracture. A mountain of basins above the bird was cracking and bursting, blocks falling afar and water pouring down.
She was holding in mid-air, one foot on the talon and the other leg bent, her scepter in her back. One hand served for the ritual as she chanted.
Her priestess attire had turned damp, yet she was still bright in the surrounding darkness.
Then the moonlight flashed from the vast patterns she had drawned on the pillars around and a furious clay golem appeared, leaping on her with his polearm!
"Nadjal!" I yelled.
She blocked me with her scepter, the curved blade just centimers away from her warded eyes.
"Kaele."
Shockwave! I got pushed back just far enough to cast my own spell. Holy spears fell on her and once more crashed on her impenetrable shield.
"Your spell will turn the basins to dust!"
Her cold voice stated: "Less for them is more for us."
Okay, fair. Fair, she was a monster, she was doing was monsters did. Absorbing mana. She was just doing it a whole new scale.
But yes. Point taken. The less cities there were, the more mana for the ones left. In theory, if she wiped every place but one, all the magic in the realm would be concentrated there.
And now for the counter-point.
Adhipatya crashed through her shield, got locked on her scepter again but not my fist! She met me with a kick from her leg that I parried and then, when she jumped back in mid-air, after-image!
Her warded eyes had perceived my trick, blocked my swing in her back and the bells on her scepter cast weakness. Bad call, I had been weak the whole time! Another swing that my armored arm blocked before the sphere of dying light above my hand crackled.
She ate that punch right in the face and her whole ritual shattered.
"How dare you desecrate a human tomb!?" I screamed.
She blocked my second punch, failed with the next. Black blood gashed out.
"You think the realm is yours?!"
Her weak barrier formed an instant, broken in a swing my weapon and then my fist hit her directly in the chest with a crack of bones.
"What happened to being human!"
Chains! I had not lowered my guard, I had pressed and yet she had been able to cast a spell to restrain me. I could feel the invisible links holding me tight.
"Humans want the realm to die, Kaele."