Food. In the end, it's all about food. No one can eat gold, water is plentiful and literally falls from the sky, so food is the ultimate restriction on population expansion. Magic and organization has seen to it that only every fourth person needs to be a farmer, but farmers need farmland.
And where is the most fertile, desirable land? Near the Dungeon. Crops grow quickly, grow healthy and plentifully, and the area is mostly flat. Better farmland could not be asked for. This is separate from the wealth and resources collected from the Great Hole, but in the end it is all about food.
The Empire exists because the Dungeon threatens all life, yet the Empire can only thrive because the Dungeon provides nearly limitless resources. Should the Dungeon vanish, the Empire will collapse. Should the Dungeon remain, humanity will eventually die.
There is no escape. No permanent solution. We are all apes scrambling away from thunder, from fictitious gods we invented to explain what we could not understand, and I am tired of it all. Soon I will see what is at the bottom of the Dungeon, or I will die trying.
Excerpt from The Beasts of the Dungeon.
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Marcus handed Vistus a cup of wine, the Archmage taking a sip and sighing. "Good vintage. So, the Beasts of the Dungeon. The version everyone else has access to has been… altered. Corrected as the truth changed, information grew more solid, all of that. It is a guidebook every soldier reads, a warning every child looks upon. That is not what you have."
"Then what do I have?"
"A diary. Unfiltered truth, wrong as it may be. The Empire learned long ago that keeping Archmages in the dark brought nothing but strife and foolish decisions, so now we give that to all the newly awakened. You are welcome to add to it, provide corrections or record events. We only ask that you allow a copy to be made on a yearly basis, which is stored in the Imperial capital."
A hum was his reply, Marcus slowly taking a sip of his own wine. Had to force himself not to flinch, though by the way Vistus sighed, he hadn't been successful. Marcus tsked. "I'm working on it."
"I'm not your father," Vistus replied, rolling his eyes. "Please, develop an eating disorder if it pleases you. Try not to let it impact your combat efficiency, but not like we mages really need muscle. It's useful, and keeps us alive, but our power comes from the mind. What I can say is that I know how it feels. Cleansing spell?"
Marcus grunted, keeping silent for a few seconds before giving in and weaving together the healing technique. Pain, then peace of mind. "Fourth tier."
"Thorough," Vistus approved. "Quite a few beasts from the Dungeon carry venom, so it's a good spell to have. At fourth tier, though, and assuming my perception hasn't failed me, that spell hurts like the Hells."
"Better than the paranoia."
Vistus hummed. "I hear that. I once spent four months in the hospital after being injected by a poison so obscure it still doesn't have a name. A poison that attacks both the flesh and magic in your body, eating away and growing until it consumes you whole. I wouldn't be surprised if you never encounter it. But pain beats feeling your own organs slowly shut down, an increasingly large and desperate group of healers attempting to cure you."
"Did they?"
"I'd say obviously, but it's good you're broadening your opinion of what's possible. They did, in the end, but not before I attempted to replace my blood with, well, new blood. Can't recommend the experience."
"Did you ever find who did it?"
"Oh yes," Vistus replied, a hard grin flashing over his features. "I found them. Not the Silent Gods Movement, if that's what you're thinking. No, just an old man who blamed me for failing to save his daughter, a woman who I'd never met. But old doesn't mean stupid, and that one spite-filled soul knew how to graft magical plants without so much as a drop of arcane talent."
Marcus hummed. "A madman, a fool and a visionary for every cultist."
"Page one hundred and four," Vistus offered, snorting. "Never did find out who wrote that chapter, but they sure liked their artistic liberties. Not that they were wrong. I've memorized the book, if that wasn't obvious. Centuries of knowledge unfiltered by smaller minds, some of it indecipherable until things just click."
"Well, at least my own poisoning made me aware of that particular weakness."
Vistus shrugged. "We can usually think of a dozen ways to avoid past mistakes. The trick is to develop skills that actually help in the future. I can 'feel' everything around myself, and trained my brain into recognizing things that are off. If this lovely vintage had been altered, for example, I would have known. Makes me very hard to kill."
Of course he could. Marcus fell silent, twirling around his cup and taking another sip. Forced himself not to spread cleansing fire through his veins, a small table rising from the dirt as he looked for somewhere to put his drink.
Marcus sighed as he put the cup away, letting the silence stretch before he spoke. "It's going to be bad, isn't it?"
"Yes," the man confirmed. "Yes it will be. You won't understand until you've seen the Dungeon, but it's vast. A hole stretching so far down only darkness gives it a bottom, darkness that stretches down and down and down. Things crawl out of it, scaling the sides or running through dog-sized tunnels, and hordes of flying Hounds stretching so far you'd think it's the end of the world."
"If that's what it's like normally, we might as well go to Parna. Elly's homeland sounds inviting by comparison."
Vistus hummed. "Oh, the Dungeon can be beautiful. At its calmest there's barely a few thousand monsters, and whole armies of miners descend to extract resources. You'd think after six centuries we'd have run out, but no. Always more, always another side cavern the Burrowers unearthed. Another layer of material harder and tougher and better than you can get anywhere else. Stuff I can't make, because it's so infused with magic I wouldn't even know where to start."
Well, finally a limit. The man was starting to seem somewhat, as Elly would say, like total bullshit.
Before Marcus could think of saying anything in reply, Xathar returned. Was holding an egg in his mouth, showing it off as he approached. "I found one of the unborn. Praise me, bush mage, for I am the greatest hunter on this mortal plane."
Marcus scratched the demon as the egg was consumed, barely managing a few murmured words before the horse was off again. Looking for more, since apparently the unborn traveled in packs.
When he turned back Vistus was shaking his head, a somewhat odd look to his face. "He likes you."
"I like him." Marcus shrugged. "I wasn't great with people when I was young, but demons I understood. Simpler, in some ways, though the fact I held significant power over them helped soothe my trust issues. What others find disturbing barely phases me, and Xathar and I just… work. His annoying habits don't really annoy me, my annoying habits are harshly criticized as deep character flaws but his actions betray his fondness, you know how it goes."
Vistus sighed. "I do. Forgive an old man his wishful thinking. I was young once, and you remind me of that kid. Strong, smart, different. I wasn't royalty, but all the same. Nor was I married, actually, or commanded armies before I even turned twenty. So not that similar."
Right, well. Marcus had no idea how to respond to that. Actually, Vess had been teaching him some platitudes. Ahum. "Age is a bitch."
Silence, then a surprised laugh. More a bark than laugh, but he'd be generous just this once. Vistus shook his head, draining his cup and handing it back as he stood.
"That it is, my young friend. Now, enough plotting. I'm here to give you the exact location we'd like your army to dig in, and I also have a small gift. More a location than a gift, truthfully, but I think you'll like it."
Marcus tilted his head, taking the slip of paper the man handed him. The Academy of Ethereal Arts. Why did that sound familiar?
"The first Imperial Academy, and still operating today. Nearly unchanged since the early days of the Empire, though the ethereal bit came later. Right, this is awkward. I know you spend time there in the School of Life, what with me spying on you leading up-to and during the invasion. Anyway, maybe you'd like to see it. If you take a small group you can visit while your army gets into position."
Marcus' eyes widened, looking back at the paper. "Unchanged?"
"Nearly so. Are you interested?"
Nora.
"Yes, yes I am."
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"Ḑìşęct śpąçę, ąş mőther ḃrėąķş ŧhę ğlöőm. Ethųn's ƅőųņđąřìęş ųphőłđ, ąņđ hųņŧ ƭìṃę ęŧęřņąl, Į śąý. Ķìłł, flŷ, ƅřęąłķ ąņđ şmőthěř. Ąřçhmąğę Śpąƭįął, ęąřŧh wę ƅřęąķ, ĄVĘ!"
"Can you shut him up?" Xathar barked, glaring at the increasingly stressed Barry. They raced over the countryside, never slowing even for a moment. "I'll fucking eat his legs if he keeps interrupting a perfectly good hunt."
Marcus left them to their bickering, too busy holding five matrices in his mind. Space distorted again, his thirty strong party skipping forwards nearly a thousand feet. The Hounds kept coming closer, running and running away, and apparently the Demon Knight was having some sort of religious moment.
"I don't know what's going on with him," Barry answered, more clinging to his mount than riding it. The summoner turned to his summon, tone panicked. "Ầḫą! Ḑąňɠệř, įň ňőňę wě! Čąľm, Ƀřǒţĥěř."
The Demon Knight didn't respond verbally, though he did take the bow from his back. An arrow was nocked smoothly, drenched in darkness and reeking with power, and Marcus watched it spear one of their targets.
The other four Hounds kept running, uncaring for their dead comrade. Marcus sighed. "I have what I need. Barry?"
"Kill," the summoner barked, tone growing hard. His flock of summons shot forwards, Xathar slowing as Marcus pressed his knees together. "Bring one alive."
They weren't even halfway to the Academy of Ethereal Arts when they'd spotted the group. Far from the Dungeon, though closer every day, and Marcus had decided he'd wanted to see them up close. See what they looked like outside drawings, and see how they acted first hand.
Animals. Warped animals. Barry's summons slaughtered three and brought the fourth, a pair of wind elementals keeping it caged as a Boanon hovered between it and the party.
Marcus hadn't seen one of the Boanon before. A vaguely humanoid pig with wings, and fiercely loyal. Something about their code of honor. Good hunters, which was why Barry had called on him. Her? It looked more masculine than feminine, but then again it was rude to assume.
Wow, holding the fifth tier spatial spell for that long made him loopy. Either way, the captured Hound. Not a hound at all, more cow-sized than anything, and bovine overall. Thin, with teeth like a shark and piercing yellow eyes.
About fifty Imperial Kilograms seemed right, though converting that in his head took a moment. Definitely a Hound of the Dungeon. And running away from him, too. Not as mindlessly aggressive as he'd assumed.
Well, it was aggressive now. Kept snarling as air-made hands pushed it to the ground, clawed hooves digging into the ground uselessly. Barry was rapidly talking to the Demon Knight, which left Marcus to inspect the thing.
Well, him and Xathar.
"Disgusting," the demon condemned, spitting out a chunk of its flesh. "Far too over seasoned. Pull off a leg, I wish to taste its marrow."
The air elemental obeyed before anyone could stop it, not seeming to care in the slightest. A rip, a tear, and Xathar was licking at a bleeding stump as Marcus suppressed another sigh. Demons, honestly.
He was almost sad Elly wasn't here. Oh, who was he kidding. He was sad Elly wasn't here. But still, she would have probably come up with something appropriately admonishing. As it was, it was just him, Barry, his guards and Xathar.
Only Xathar would talk to him like a normal person, and Xathar was currently too busy torturing the cow Hound creature thing.
That left… no one. His mages were just going to panic if he made a joke, the Life Enhanced soldiers only really responded to orders and he wasn't that close to them besides, and Barry's summons were either weird—like the Demon Knight—or spoke in a language he didn't understand.
"Still disgusting," Xathar grunted, returning from his taste-testing mission. "I had hoped a live specimen might not have spoiled, but their magical mutations ruin all flavor. I am displeased."
Marcus scratched the horse and inspected the Hound himself, not seeing too much he didn't know. There was more magic the deeper one went into the hole, which was apparently fine so long as you didn't live or have children there, but it didn't actually stop either act. Just made these things, and in great quantities.
And there was something. Something he found oddly familiar as he turned his perception to the Hound, gesturing to stop the elementals from killing it. There was something, but even as he delved deeper it grew known. Usual. Nothing for him to get excited over.
Marcus grunted, pushing past it. Will pressed against magic, and then distance. This Hound had come from very, very far away. Up and up and up, for years and years before it reached the surface. Climbing, climbing as it ran, never stopping, only resting.
These were not undead with their needless vigor, but they were relentless. They had to get out, had to go upwards, and if it took a hundred human lifespans, so be it.
Distance. Space. But more. The Hound vanished from his senses, and now he was just looking inwards. In and in and in, an endless universe in the depth of his core. Reality didn't matter, physics didn't matter, and with a tiny push he was floating in a void of nothing.
What?
Marcus tilted his head, the thought being his own yet not. It reminded him of the School of Life, in his last scenario. Exploring the boundaries of that reality, meeting another him in something he'd then called a mirror dimension.
He'd assumed it had to do with the School of Life. With the thinning boundaries of reality. But if not, then it was because of us. Because of space. Spatial magic is a high order branch for a reason.
Exactly. Wait, who had thought that? Me. Us. We. This place is confusing, isn't it?
Marcus focused, and stability returned. A mirror's cracking spread in all directions, and this time he was not thrown out. Did not recoil as he had back then. We are an Archmage now. A Spatial Archmage. Killer of Elenoir, invader from another continent. And this place is us. We.
What? He, him, killed Elly? Why? She came with ships and fire, two hundred thousand soldiers behind her in a fleet so large even the sea monstrosities hesitated. The Survivors of Parna, united under their Steel Queen.
Well, alright. That sounded… like an event. It was. The Empire brought forth thirty Legions, but Mirrania burned even if we were victorious. I am sitting in the Imperial capital now, a refugee with enough power to be treated like a King. Where are you?
On the way to fight the Dungeon. Visiting the Academy of Ethereal Arts while the army gets into position. Seeing if their libraries had any interesting books, and then stealing them, that sort of thing.
A figure emerged now, him but not. A little older, scarred and hardened, but with curiosity burning in his eyes. Marcus leaned left, and the figure mirrored him. This is strange, even for us. With what do you seek help?
Spatial travel. The continent was big, his kingdom remote, and he was this close to figuring out a way to create proper tears in space. Stable tears, able to be used by others. Portals.
Show me. The figure thought, seeming to focus for a moment. Speech emerged, a satisfied smile on the man's face. "Show me the spell, brother."
"Twin?" Marcus hummed, copying the twist of will his other self had figured out. "No, brother works better. Here."
He crafted the fifth tier spell, and the other him inspected the weave. Pushed some strands into smoother lines, the magic so thick interacting with it felt almost physical. Marcus shook his head, moving them back and pointing at the stability matrix, and the other Marcus hummed.
Marcus didn't know how long they worked. Not that long, but an understanding was reached. A sixth matrix was needed to keep folded space stable, and without it the spell wouldn't work. The other-Marcus sighed. "Well, that's something. Vess will have opinions, I'm sure, but for no-"
Speech vanished, and the other-Marcus glared into the dark. Not too many, you fools. Us-fools? Idiots. If we all come here at onc- place is unstable enough as it i-
Marcus reeled as reality reasserted itself, returned, finding himself back on the grass. Not quite having fallen, but only Xathar's nudge stopped him from having to take a steadying step. The Hound was dead, his guards seemed surprised at his reaction, and not even Barry seemed to notice anything wrong.
At least his thoughts were his own again, and a small smile spread over his face.
Interesting. Very, very interesting.