《SILENCE》 Title page, dramatis personae, fields of magic Dramatis personae The High Magus'' personal team Other Characters A note on AI-generated art This novel uses plenty of AI-generated art to illustrate its characters and locations. I realize that many artists are upset at how AI art has deprived them of business and I¡¯m sorry for that, but the truth is that this amateur project, which has no financial backing, would not be filled with real art from human artists if there was no AI art available. Instead, it would simply have been text only. I truly hope that the artists and illustrators of this world will be able to keep on making both art and a living, and I am sorry that AI technology will be a problem for you. But this technology has also enabled an amateur author to fill his novel with beautiful illustrations in a way that would not have been possible before. Should there ever be commercial interest in this novel, I promise I will add as much human-made art to it as I can afford. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. One well-known problem with AI is that it replicates the prejudices of our past ¨C especially since I have based the illustrations used in this novel predominantly on European masters from the 16th to the early 20th century. One of the main characters in this novel was intended to be non-white, but the AI made beautiful images of her as a white woman and, convinced by the esthetics of these images, I ended up going with that as her visual profile (she is explicitly non-white, or non-light pink, in the text). Another main character occasionally got an Asian look when I specified that her hair was black rather than dark, and I decided to just go with that too. If people can be gender fluid, can they also be ethnoracially fluid? There is zero mention of ¡°race¡± in this text, because I wanted to create a utopian (of sorts) future society where people don¡¯t care very much about such things. I realize that in the real world, non-attention to race and ethnicity tends to reflect white privilege, but this novel is not about the real world. Maybe a vision of a different world where the color of one¡¯s skin is of no more significance than the color of one¡¯s eyes can also be empowering. Fields of magic In Confluence society, magic is divided into nine different fields. Each field of magic is also a powerful organization that administers and protects the interests of Magi belonging to that field. These are the nine fields of Confluence magic, sorted from large to small according to the number of mages who belong to them:
  1. Mages belonging to this field are known as Transmuters and have the ability to change the form of matter and energy. Their formal robe is colored red and gold.
  2. Mages belonging to this field are known as Conjurers and have the ability to create matter and energy, either from nothing or by drawing it from a different dimension of reality (no one quite knows). Their formal robe is colored white, red, and black.
  3. Mages belonging to this field are known as Conveyers and have the ability to move themselves, others or physical objects around, either through physical space or by teleportation. Their formal robe is colored yellow.
  4. Mages belonging to this field are known as Disseminators and have the ability to operate magical lines of communication. Their formal robe is colored grey.
  5. Mages belonging to this field are known as Evokers and have the ability to heal and rejuvenate biological bodies. Their formal robe is colored blue.
  6. Mages belonging to this field are known as Invokers and have the ability to affect people¡¯s minds, normally with enhancement magics. Their formal robe is colored dark blue with violet stripes.
  7. Mages belonging to this field are known as Diviners and have the ability to gather information through magical means. Their formal robe is colored white with silver streaks.
  8. Mages belonging to this field are known as Conjoiners and have the ability to facilitate cooperation between other mages, normally those belonging to different fields of magic. Their formal robe is rainbow-colored.
  9. This field is special in the sense that the people who belong to it do not refer to themselves as Abjurers. Instead, mages belonging to this field are called Protectors. However, there are also Protectors who belong to other fields of magic than Abjuration. Abjuration magic most commonly serves to counteract other magics, either by cancellation or by obfuscating something from Divination magics. Furthermore, the field of Abjuration also includes illusion magic. Protectors wear purple robes.
Chapter 1.1 - Olz Hap Olz Hap in the style of Egon Schiele, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025. Chapter 1: Primidi Mikla metropolitan area Year 5638 of the Confluence Countdown: 22

Olz Hap

¡°Magi of the Confluence, we find ourselves at war.¡± The High Magus paused meaningfully, gazing out over the Confluence Hall. She straightened her violet-striped dark blue robe, then inclined her head towards the Protectors¡¯ circle at her left. ¡°In concord with the Lord Protector, I hereby declare a state of emergency.¡± Stunned silence greeted her words. The Representatives of the Confluence Assembly knew that something was afoot, obviously, but most knew nothing of where it was going. There had not been a war for almost fifteen hundred years. This would change everything. For the past week, people had been losing energy. Many were listless and tired, and the problem was growing; while most still managed tolerably well, some citizens were now unable to perform their duties. Occasionally, but at an increasing rate, people would collapse from exhaustion. There was endless speculation as to what was going on, and of course the Protectors were hard at work trying to understand the phenomenon, but so far nobody knew for sure. If the Energy Blight, as some had started calling it, was truly a magical attack of some sort, it was an extremely threatening one. And it would probably grow worse. Dissemination fields transmitted the session in the Confluence Hall to anyone who wanted to follow it, which these days included almost everyone who could muster the energy to pay attention, and the news spread across the world. Although frightening, many found strength in knowing that there was someone behind this, some malevolent actor who could be resisted and perhaps counter-attacked. Putting a face and a name on this enemy would have further boosted morale but, alas, no such identity emerged. Of course, people looked to history for precedents. In the ancient era, before the world was united under the Magical Confluence, war had been a commonplace phenomenon, although generally non-magical in nature. Back then, only a few people had realized their magical potential and, tiresome as it might seem today, wars were usually fought over material resources and societal power. It was hard to relate to such a foreign and barbarian era, and it did not seem to hold any particular lessons for society after Unification or, more to the point, for the current state of war. Since Unification, all wars had been magical, and it had never been straightforward to identify the enemy. Most obviously relevant to the present crisis were the Demonic Wars, which were a series of engagements over a period of almost six decades where non-material beings would rip holes in space itself and, apparently at random, suck individuals out of existence. Records indicated that more than a hundred thousand people died in this way, but the Confluence fought back and eventually managed to banish the demons from this world and confine them to whatever hellhole dimension they originally emerged from. This happened in the year 4153 OFC, and since then no new attacks occurred. Were the demons back with a new line of attack? Some saw it as the most likely explanation, although the Energy Blight was obviously a very different phenomenon from demons ripping holes in the fabric of space. Previous enemies included the Glitter, which were tiny specks of luminous material that manifested in the air and attracted people to touch them. Those who did touch the Glitter were rewarded with what seemed like a boost to their intelligence and magical potential, but then invariably went insane over the next few weeks. It was never clear whether the Glitter were beings of some sort or weapons Conveyed to our world, but in any case, the war only lasted a few months before the Glitter stopped arriving. Only a few hundred people were harmed. This was back in 2901. Perhaps because it made them easier to think about, the Glitter were generally remembered as beings, although the official Diviner investigation appeared to indicate that there was some faceless entity or entities behind them. Whatever the truth was, the Glitter ¨C as this enemy was always referred to ¨C obviously had means of countering Divination magic, and not much was known about them or their motivations. Some believed that their arrival here was not maliciously intended, but that they were rather an alien species who wanted to visit us and were dismayed to discover they had such a negative impact on our mental health. Finally, two older magical wars were known to involve the same enemy, which manifested as contagious virus strains. Ordinary strains of harmful viruses had been wiped out by Evokers as far back as 53 OFC, but the strains of the Virus Wars in 612¨C13 and 891 had abundant magical protection and managed to infect several billion people before being eradicated. Of those infected, around 14% in the first war and 8% in the second died from their illness, making the Virus Wars the by far most lethal of any post-Confluence emergency. But this was a long time ago, and the world had never again experienced a virus harmful to humans that Evokers could not easily deal with. The Energy Blight was not in any way related to a virus or, as far as one could determine, to any physical manifestation at all, and Evokers appeared helpless in dealing with it. --- As they were about to depart, Olz Hap assessed her personal team. Agata Tong Namma, her Evoker, stood in the center of the group, looking ready for anything. Agata¡¯s primary task was the healing and physical restoration of her team in general and of herself, the High Magus, in particular. Olz had always trusted her. Next to her was Takashi Satoh, Conjurer, who was responsible for shielding and was now busy maintaining the shimmering sphere around them. His group of Conjurers had been shielding her day and night for the past week, and he had insisted on joining her in person for today¡¯s meeting with the Lord Protector. Before the Energy Blight arrived, shielding was not often seen as necessary, and she did not know her Conjuration team very well on a personal level. But they had held impeccable levels of professionalism over the past week, and Satoh was turning into a trusted advisor. Conjuration shielding did not protect against the Energy Blight, but one suspected some other attack might be forthcoming and nobody was taking any chances. Her Disseminator now went under the name Uliaz Grey, having recently declared themself gender fluid. Grey provided a secure line of communication to anyone Olz might want to get in touch with, as well as a means of impromptu broadcasting, if that should be necessary. So far it never had been, but you never knew. They had known each other for a long time and might reasonably be regarded as friends. Her team also included a Protector, whose abilities were indeed of fundamental importance in resisting the Energy Blight, even if the Protectors had so far failed to come up with highly effective countermagics. Nevertheless, her Shieldbearer, as the Protector on her team was entitled, employed magics that blunted the edges of the Blight¡¯s energy draining effect, both for herself and for her team. This was highly welcome. Olz suspected that her Shieldbearer was loyal first of all to the Lord Protector, but that was based just on a general understanding of how the Protectors functioned, and she did not have any specific reason not to trust him. Olz Hap herself was an Invoker, which was useful in the present crisis since the field of Invocation included various enhancement magics that, among other things, allowed the caster to feel rested and energized. These days, most Invokers were requested to invest their magic in a collective effort, set up with the Conjoiners, to distribute enhancement magic countering the Energy Blight throughout society. This effort appeared to reduce the draining by a substantial amount, although nobody knew exactly what the situation would have been without it. At any rate, Olz was High Magus and did not personally participate in this Invoker-Conjoiner program; instead, she could direct her enhancement magics entirely as she wished. A High Magus from a different field of magic would probably have a dedicated Invoker in their team, but Olz preferred to do this job herself. She knew better than most that allowing an Invoker to enhance you gave that person a lot of influence on you, so it had better be someone you could trust. This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. That was the curse of Invocation: Invokers had all these marvelous magics that everybody loved being subject to, and which it indeed would seem selfish to keep to oneself, but people from other fields of magic were often reluctant to hand themselves over, as it were, to the Invokers¡¯ blessings. The fact that only a few people had reserved themselves from the recent Invoker-Conjoiner program was an indication of how serious a threat the Energy Blight was. When the Office of the High Magus was first instigated, it had been decided that their personal team would include only Magi who performed practical functions for the High Magus. Olz¡¯s team therefore did not include any Transmuters, who were usually employed in production and construction work. It also did not include any Conjoiners or Diviners, although of course the Office of the High Magus collaborated very closely with both of these fields of magic in order to run the government. On a governmental level, Divination was always a collective effort, and it seemed unnecessary for the High Magus to have a Diviner on her personal team. Olz thought having such a person around would actually have been very useful, obviously assuming it was someone she could trust, but she had not attempted to break with precedent and recruit one. The fact that the fields of Transmutation, Conjunction, and Divination lacked representation on the High Magus¡¯ personal team had never been much of an issue. One thing was that Olz held regular meetings with the High Transmuter, the High Diviner, and the High Conjoiner where they could express their views and interests. The real reason the people in these fields of magic did not care very much about being represented on Olz¡¯s team, however, was that the Office of the High Magus was largely a ceremonial function. Olz Hap was the official leader of the Confluence government, but the truth was that her portfolio was slim. The fields of magic largely governed themselves, and the role of the High Magus was just to facilitate cooperation and take care of representative functions. Or at least it had been so for the past fifteen centuries of peace. Olz nodded to Corto Pratt, her Conveyer, friend, and lover. Corto opened a portal ¨C a shimmering flat oval that manifested at the far end of the shimmering sphere that surrounded and shielded the group, but without interacting in any noticeable way with that sphere. Olz noted that while they both shimmered, they did so in slightly different ways and, while she could not describe the difference, her Conveyor¡¯s oval always seemed more esthetically pleasing to her. She supposed it was because of their relationship, or perhaps because the Evokers¡¯ shield was associated with the present crisis. Satoh went through the portal first and immediately set up a new shield in order to protect the High Magus and her team from the moment they arrived. Take no chances during wartime, he kept insisting. They arrived at The Chalice, long regarded as the best restaurant in Mikla, and often used for informal high-end meetings. It was not the first time Olz found herself The Chalice¡¯s arrivals area, but she had never seen it from the inside of a shield before. For this meeting with the Lord Protector, her people had booked the terrace, which was a garden area covered in a translucent material on all sides including the floor. It looked like a park floating next to a tower, but although you could perceive everything that happened on the ground 111 floors below, the people below could not see what was transpiring in the garden. From the meeting area you had a splendid view of the center of Mikla, including especially the Citadel but also the Old Town with its Confluence Hall and a number of other prominent buildings. The Lord Protector and his team, all dressed in their purple Protector¡¯s robe, were seated on the western side of the meeting area, so Olz took the leader¡¯s chair on the eastern side. ¡°Greetings, Lord Protector.¡± ¡°Greetings, High Magus.¡± ¡°I hope you are doing well in these dark times.¡± ¡°I manage well enough, thank you. I trust the same is true for you.¡± As an Invoker, Olz had the means to counteract the effects from the Energy Blight. ¡°Indeed. But the Confluence is struggling. Our latest reports indicate a 26% drop in overall productivity. Cases of exhaustion have quadrupled over the past three days. I am not convinced we will manage well ¨C or at all ¨C for much longer.¡± ¡°It is a serious situation. Rest assured that the Protectors are doing everything we can to understand the nature of this attack.¡± ¡°We are certain that it is enemy action?¡± ¡°What else could it be? As you yourself have declared, the Confluence finds itself at war.¡± ¡°At your instigation. I understand the Diviners are still unable to identify the nature of the threat. Why are the Protectors so certain it must be an enemy attack?¡± ¡°Simple reasoning. The Energy Blight is a phenomenon under ample magical protection. It therefore cannot reasonably be assumed to be a natural occurrence. A philosopher might argue that we cannot know at present whether this phenomenon is the product of hostile intentions, but given its negative and very serious consequences, we must assume that to be the case. Even if this is just somebody¡¯s bumbling attempt at reaching out to us to say hello¡± ¨C the Lord Protector was referring to an interpretation of the Glitter that had never gained much credence among Protectors ¨C ¡°we must nevertheless regard it as enemy action. This is not a time for philosophical doubt, High Magus.¡± ¡°Your arguments are reasonable, Lord Protector. I would have preferred to know more about the nature of the threat before making declarations about it, but its serious nature indeed precludes such philosophical niceties.¡± ¡°And the people need strong leadership during times of crisis. We must show that we are equal to the challenge confronting us.¡± ¡°Well, are we? So far, it might seem that we have accomplished very little.¡± ¡°Our investigations are proceeding as rapidly as possible.¡± ¡°So, the Lord Protector¡¯s advice is that we simply continue as we have? Despite the fact that the situation is growing more critical every day and we seem utterly unable to stop it.¡± She watched the Lord Protector carefully now. The conversation was already reaching its climax. ¡°I know it must be frustrating that little seems to be happening, but I have full confidence in our ability to understand and counter this attack.¡± ¡°Nevertheless, to inspire the people¡¯s confidence, we must show strong leadership. I have decided to assume personal control over the investigation of the Energy Blight.¡± The surprise attack did not produce any effect on the Lord Protector¡¯s face. There were no twitches or flushes, no widening or narrowing of eyes, no furrowing brow or dropping jaw. The Lord Protector considered her statement in silence for a few moments, looking as if she had suggested sandwiches for lunch. Then his lips tightened slightly before he smiled his most charming smile. ¡°What purposes would such interference in our work serve, High Magus? You would only delay what you are seeking to expediate.¡± ¡°It will allow the executive branch of government to coordinate our defenses, Lord Protector. This is why the office of the High Magus was created in the first place.¡± Olz was not exactly incorrect, but no previous High Magus had assumed personal control over such an investigation. Not even during times of war. ¡°We have declared a state of emergency, which allows and indeed necessitates drastic measures.¡± ¡°I must protest, High Magus. This is unprecedented.¡± ¡°Nevertheless, the restructuring will proceed. We need to move forward against this threat. I will hold a press conference about the matter this afternoon.¡± --- The Protectors held a unique position within the Confluence. The organization went back to the first years after Unification, and as its name implied it was tasked with protecting the citizens of the Confluence from danger. Since its inception, the organization had essentially governed itself, which meant it also defined its own mandate. The Protectors protected the people against whatever the Protectors regarded as dangerous. They were not doing a very poor job of it. The Confluence had lasted 5638 years, and although there had been serious crises along the way, it stood stronger today than it ever had. Or at least it did so a week ago, before the arrival of the Energy Blight. The Protectors were unique in several ways. Most Protectors had affinity for the field of Abjuration, which predominantly involved magics counteracting other magics, but they never referred to themselves as Abjurers. Nor were there any Abjurers outside the Protectors. Furthermore, the Protectors also counted people from every other field of magic. Thus, you could never know whether a given Protector belonged to the field of Abjuration or to some other field such as Invocation or Divination. The Protectors never divulged information about their field of magic to outsiders, nor did they divulge any other personal information including their names, indeed assuming they even had names. Any Protector you might come across had a specific title you might use to address this person, while novices could, apparently, not be individually addressed at all. Novices were in any case kept apart from society in special Protector strongholds, and basically never talked to outsiders. --- The rest of the day was filled with frenetic activity. The news that the High Magus would take personal charge of the investigation into the Energy Blight, which only this morning had been declared an attack by unknown enemy forces, was greeted by much interest and, so it seemed to Olz, support. People were tired of being so tired all the time, and any sort of bold action by the government was widely applauded. At the press conference, Olz¡¯s team had managed to summon the Excession Investigator, which was the title of the Protector leading the investigation into the Blight, and he claimed to look forward to cooperating with the High Magus in combating this enemy attack. Despite his protests, the Lord Protector had obviously decided to play along, probably because the prospect of a public dispute with the High Magus at a time when his organization had little to show for seemed unattractive. From tomorrow, the Excession Investigator and his team would be based in the Tower of the High Magus, just a floor down from Olz¡¯s office. It was odd to realize that the response team to a global emergency involved just a few dozen people, but apparently what was needed here was not ¨C at any rate, not yet ¨C the kind of force that might be obtained from a large number of coordinated mages. Instead, what the present situation mandated was a team of specialists who could probe carefully into the Blight phenomenon without triggering the defenses and countermagics that one must assume were in place. A small and highly coordinated team of experts now working under the supervision of Olz. But there was a loose thread. Assuming personal control over the Blight investigation was something she had discussed only with her personal team ¨C which did not in this case include her Shieldbearer. Yet the Lord Protector seemed entirely unsurprised. So, either he was using Invocation magics to enhance his control over facial expressions, or he already knew. Or he was some kind of superman. If he knew, this implied that one of her team was compromised or that the Protectors were spying on her via Divination magic. That would be treason. If it was enhancement, this implied that either the Lord Protector was himself an Invoker, or that someone else did the magic for him. But it was a very personal effect ¨C many people would see the need for such enhancement as something of a weakness. Also, to be enhanced for purposes of subterfuge in a meeting with someone who was ¨C technically ¨C your superior was not quite in conformity with Invokers¡¯ ethical guidelines. That did not mean it never happened, obviously, but to have someone do it to you seemed risky. That Invoker would really have dirt on you, and Olz could not imagine that the Lord Protector was the kind of person who would allow people to have dirt on him. The only rational answer was therefore that the Lord Protector was himself an Invoker. But it seemed strange to Olz that the Protectors would choose a leader who was neither an Abjurer nor a Diviner. Very strange. Maybe the Lord Protector had unique personal qualifications. Chapter 1.2 - Yutten Turse

Yutten Turse in the style of Egon Schiele, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

Yutten Turse

When Yutten Turse arrived at the investigators¡¯ building, she headed straight to her boss¡¯ office. Z?rgiebel had summoned her via a Disseminator message this morning, which was unusual, and she suspected he would not appreciate unnecessary delays. ¡°Good morning, Z?rgiebel. You wanted to see me?¡± ¡°Investigator Turse. Please sit.¡± She complied, noting the frown on his face. ¡°Somebody broke into our records last night. Presumably to remove some piece of evidence or information. Apparently, they just walked right into the building, took whatever they came here for, and walked out again the same way.¡± ¡°Huh. And our security?¡± ¡°Constable Czerwinski was on duty. It seems he observed the intruder ¨C or intruders, more likely, although he remembers only seeing one. He thought nothing was amiss and let them continue their way.¡± ¡°Are you saying he was addled?¡± Addling was the general term for a variety of enhancement magics that did the opposite of enhancing a person. It was forbidden except in emergencies. Using such magics on a constable on duty was practically unheard of. ¡°It would be unusual for Czerwinski to observe strangers in this building in the middle of the night and assume everything was just fine, don¡¯t you think?¡± She was silent for a few moments. ¡°Whoever is behind this is sending us a message, then. They are telling us they can do whatever they want.¡± ¡°That¡¯s exactly what they are saying. And I¡¯m saying fuck them.¡± Z?rgiebel was the kind of person who used swear words to show that he was serious about something. ¡°You¡¯re my best investigator, Yutten. I¡¯m putting you on this case. I want you to solve it. I want you to fuck these fuckers over so thoroughly they will never fuck with us again.¡± Very serious, then. ¡°Anything more I should know?¡± ¡°Yes. I have them on videocamera. But blurred.¡± That was fun. Using videocameras for security was so old school it was positively antiquarian. Any Transmuter could mess around with such equipment easily, and there were lots of Transmuters around. Conjurers, also plentiful, could blind or destroy surveillance equipment with bursts of energy. But Z?rgiebel had insisted that you would only take such precautions if you expected there were videocameras around, and nobody was using the old tech anymore. Score one for him. ¡°Blurred in what way?¡± ¡°The recordings are fine, it seems, but the person recorded is blurred. A countermeasure that appears to have nothing to do with videocameras as such.¡± ¡°You mean they used obfuscation magic?¡± Only Protectors had obfuscation magic. ¡°Look for yourself.¡± He gave her a videoscreen. An exquisitely blurred person ¨C the kind of blur that would not strike you as blurred at all until you became aware of your utter inability to provide even a single detail about the person¡¯s appearance. High skill. ¡°Wow. If we go public with this ¨C¡± ¡°We can¡¯t go public with this, Yutten. That¡¯s not possible.¡± ¡°Of course. Of course.¡± Embarrassed, she changed the subject. ¡°Why is there just one person on all these recordings? There would have been several.¡± ¡°Obviously. An Invoker for the addling. Presumably a Transmuter for the locks. And ¨C¡° He did not say it aloud. A Protector for obfuscation magic. ¡°So, at least three people. Where are the other two? Did they know where the videocameras were?¡± ¡°I have hidden them well, Yutten. And with this level of competence, blurring three people instead of one would not have been very difficult.¡± ¡°So presumably the person we are seeing is the Transmuter, and the other two are waiting somewhere where there is no videocamera? Outside perhaps?¡± ¡°I suppose so. Seems weird to split up like that. I can¡¯t explain it.¡± ¡°Isn¡¯t it harder to run obfuscation from a distance? Addling people you can¡¯t see can¡¯t be easy ¨C if they split up like this, they must¡¯ve had a Diviner with them as well. Right?¡± ¡°Maybe they are so good at what they do that the extra difficulty didn¡¯t matter. I don¡¯t know, Yutten. Maybe ask the guy you know up at the University.¡± Z?rgiebel was referring to magister Chandrian Rothfuss, an old friend of Yutten¡¯s who had specialized in magical theory and had been helpful in a number of previous cases. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡°I will. You haven¡¯t tried any Divination yourself yet?¡± ¡°Thought it best to leave it to you. Never know what I might set off. But we could do it together if you like.¡± ¡°That might be wise.¡± Yutten was known to be one of the most powerful Diviners in the investigator force, in Mikla at least, but it was always helpful to collaborate with someone. And there would be countermagics to deal with. ¡°This afternoon perhaps?¡± ¡°Sure. Come up here at two. I¡¯ll make time for it.¡± Z?rgiebel was a busy man and did not often take the time for investigate efforts himself. ¡°And Yutten?¡± It was like a thought suddenly occurred to him. ¡°Be careful. Somebody with serious resources is behind this, and they are expecting us to give up without a fight. They would probably not be happy to know that we know so much about them already. I will front the Divination. You stay hidden.¡± ¡°Z?rgiebel.¡± She never addressed him by first name. ¡°That seems excessive. Surely they wouldn¡¯t ¨C¡° ¡°We don¡¯t know who they are and what they will and will not do. We don¡¯t know what we are up against here.¡± --- Yutten spent a few hours reviewing and pondering the case. She visited Czerwinski, who opened his door visibly exhausted. He was not happy, obviously, and although he wanted to help, he basically had nothing to say, which frustrated him a great deal. Being addled was not only extremely disrespectful but also a violation of one¡¯s rights as a citizen of the Confluence. She left him to his well-earned sleep. She sent a personal message to Chandrian and set up a meeting tomorrow. In some ways it would have been preferable to use the investigators¡¯ Disseminator and thus get a high-priority and secure line of communication, like Z?rgiebel¡¯s message to her this morning, but then it would also be official and on the record. When she contacted her acquaintances during an investigation, she usually went for low-key personal messages via the generic messaging system on the ether, which was the name most people used for the general Dissemination field employed to transmit information across the globe. Such messages might not be very secure, but they were also not very conspicuous. Eventually she went back to Z?rgiebel¡¯s office. He still wanted to front the Divination, so she would stay in the background contributing energy. Z?rgiebel put a ¡°Do not disturb¡± sign on his door and locked it, then they sat in chairs facing each other. Most people close their eyes when casting magic, but Yutten had found that it made no difference and preferred to keep her eyes open. They had a number of issues to investigate, but decided to start with the perhaps most obvious question: who was the person on the videocamera? Since the person they were looking for had access to high-level obfuscation, they weren¡¯t really expecting to find anything with this head-on approach, but it seemed like a good way to test the waters and see what they were up against. The typical thing to do when setting up such an investigation was to power it minimally at first and spend most of your energy looking for countermagics, which could take several forms. Diviners, for instance, might leave detection magics that would warn them when someone tried to access a certain piece of information. Ambitious versions of such detection engrams would also try to identify the person seeking access. Invokers for their part could leave magic engrams that would make you feel that it was pointless to go on with the Divination, because the subject is so well protected you don¡¯t have a chance. They had other shenanigans, too. Most difficult of all were the Abjurers, however, because they had magic to cancel your magic. The field of Abjuration also included a specific class of magic called obfuscation that directly countered Divination attempts. Since obfuscation magics had already been deployed against visual recognition, it seemed likely that such magics would also protect against Divination, and Z?rgiebel and Yutten were not surprised to find several nested levels of obfuscation magics protecting the information they targeted. Probably too much for them to penetrate on their own, especially since they had very little experience with Protector magic, but they decided to try anyway. Maybe they would get lucky. Besides the obfuscation magics surrounding the identity of their target, they could not find anything else lurking around even after spending a full hour scouting the area. They decided it was time to empower the main Divination. Z?rgiebel set up the schema for the engram, and Yutten directed her flow of energy into it. She was quite powerful, and didn¡¯t mind demonstrating this to her boss now that there was an opportunity for it. He contributed too, of course, but they both knew she was the main energy source. As they slowly turned up the power, the outmost layer of obfuscation first budged, then collapsed. The second layer followed suit soon after. The third layer was more robust, but after some time it too started dissolving at the seams and then the decay spread inwards until the whole layer seemed about to ¨C Something clicked. A separate engram hiding between the third and fourth layers of obfuscation sprang into action, moving very quickly. Z?rgiebel¡¯s lips were still forming the initial f-sound of his favorite expletive as the hostile engram scanned him and sent off messages in several directions. He did not have time to finish the exclamation before something approached them at high speed. ¡°Hello.¡± It was a nondescript, standardized voice. ¡°Ah, Mr. Z?rgiebel, is it? Pleased to meet. You are trying to access classified information. May I enquire as to why?¡± ¡°Um. Uh. Who the fuck are you? Why did you break into our records? ¡°Mr. Z?rgiebel. Was it not obvious to you that this was a matter it would be best to leave alone? I believe that message was intended to be obvious.¡± As the voice spoke, something attached itself to Z?rgiebel. ¡°You have no right to ask questions or Divine into our purposes. Please desist at once. This will be your final warning.¡± The voice cut off, and a field of cancellation magic swept away their Divination as if it were nothing. ¡°Yikes. Are you ok?¡± Yutten looked at him with alarm. ¡°Fuck. I think so. Except that something attached itself to me. It feels like a piece of tape glued to my brain.¡± He paused for a while, apparently casting a Divination engram. ¡°It¡¯s a surveillance engram, Yutten. It¡¯s reporting back what I learn about this case.¡± ¡°What? That¡¯s outrageous. They have jurisdiction to do that?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know. We don¡¯t know what this is, Yutten. I¡¯ll file a complaint, obviously.¡± He paused. ¡°It didn¡¯t feel like they were onto you, though. I don¡¯t know if you want to work anymore on this case, but I know I can¡¯t. But if you do ¨C I hope you do ¨C you can¡¯t tell me anything. They will know what I know. Don¡¯t tell me anything, Yutten.¡± Chapter 1.3 - Raistlin Upadesa Raistlin Upadesa in the style of Egon Schiele, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

Raistlin Upadesa

Raistlin Upadesa had never been a morning person, and the Energy Blight was not helping. He briefly opened his mind to the ether. Almost ten thirty. He groaned and got up. His tiny apartment had a few small windows facing the backyard, but it was only on the 12th floor of the 300-floor circular tower and not much light got in. It was the kind of place one could get without connections and employment status, though, and he could live here anonymously. He skipped breakfast but drank a cup of stim while considering his next move. Quite a few of the people living in this rather unglamorous tower, at least below floor 200 or so, were Devotees of the Citadel, which generally meant that they spent their time investigating, speculating and ¨C especially ¨C arguing about the nature and purpose of the Citadel rather than engaging in any straightforwardly productive work. Raistlin had joined the Devotees and were indeed quite like them in some ways, although he was also very different from them in some other ways. Joining the Devotees seemed like a perfect way to do his work while avoiding attention. Raistlin had become very good at avoiding attention, which was indeed necessary for survival. Rule number one was to survive and carry on the work. He was the only one left from the group. If he did not complete the work nobody would. In order to survive, he first of all had to avoid the detection magics that kept scanning the population for suspicious behavior. Such scans sought to identify unregulated magic use in particular, which meant that Raistlin, who was something of an adept in unregulated magics, had to be circumspect. His work was complicated by the fact that he always had to hide what he was doing behind several layers of obfuscation ¨C one hiding the thing from present-day observers, another hiding it across time, a third hiding the concealment effort itself. So many things to pay attention to. No wonder he was feeling a bit worn down lately. He also suspected that there were scans for renegade thinking ¨C that certain thoughts or combinations of thoughts might set off alarms. Indeed, he had good reason to believe that was the case, and therefore he needed to avoid certain subjects altogether. The best thing was to not think very much at all, because that minimized the chances that his mind would accidentally stumble into dangerous topics. Maintaining such mental silence required high levels of discipline, which used to be hard work. But over the years he had been getting better at it and it was now second nature to him. Although he had to be careful not to spell things out in his mind, there was another layer of mind where he could know things, could see how something related to something else, without having to engage in the ponderous activity of spelling the knowing out in linear thinking. Raistlin found that this more subtle level of mind provided him with better understanding and insight than the ordinary thinking mind. He also believed ¨C it had worked this far, at least ¨C that this subtle level was too quick, too slippery, for detection by the scans. Scans took many shapes and forms. Most common were the iterative scans that worked their way through every individual on the planet to check if they were up to something suspicious. Usually such a scan would reach him around early afternoon, and then again at some point in the evening. They were predictable and not, or so he believed, any great danger to him. Occasionally there were also deeper scans that stayed with him for a longer time in order to probe his mind more thoroughly, but those spent quite some time getting through the populace and they only reached him once every two weeks or so. He never had any problems dealing with those probes, but then again, they had never reached him while he was fully occupied with something else. If the probe arrived when he was in the middle of a major magical project, he wasn¡¯t sure how things would turn out. Finally, Raistlin suspected there were passive scans involving activities rather than individuals. He was sure some of those searched for nonstandard magics and suspected others would look for specific topics of thought. Raistlin believed the passive nature of these scans might render them invisible to his own detection magics, but so far mental silence and obfuscation magics had always sufficed to keep such scans in the dark ¨C the proof of that being, of course, that no one had not come for him yet. He was pretty sure that whoever was running these scans did not have him in their sight. Today Raistlin was meeting with his Devotee friend Genry, an old Transmuter who had grown tired of his manufacturing duties and quit his job in order to, as they say, investigate the secrets of the Citadel. To Genry, as to so many other Devotees, this mainly involved being in the physical proximity of the Citadel and talking to other people who were also hanging around in the same area while reveling in its beauty. So that was where Raistlin was going. The Citadel was the greatest mystery of all time. This, of course, meant that most people saw it as a waste of time, while a vocal minority spent every waking hour formulating theories about its purpose and nature and arguing over those theories with other people of similar inclinations. Raistlin had never heard any such theory that interested him, but he also did not agree with the majority opinion that dismissed all concern with the Citadel as a waste of time. There was something to be gained here, even if everyone who tried was going about it in confused ways. He did not believe there was any particular benefit to being physically near the Citadel, at least not every day like most Devotees tended to, but going with the flow afforded him with a way of staying out of sight while preparing his real work. And the Citadel was undisputedly beautiful. To get there he went to the nearest Conveyer node, and after queuing for some time was transported to a similar node just below the Citadel. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. Looking up the hill it rested on, he was once again transported, this time emotionally, as he gazed upon its inscrutable shapes and curves. It was a structure of some kind, or at least appeared to be, made of a material that no one had ever been able to replicate. In sunlight, it positively glowed and might blind your eyes if you gazed upon it directly, while on cloudy days it shimmered like a gemstone in a half-lit room. You could see it clearly even on dark nights, although its color was something in the vicinity of black and silver. In some ways it resembled a defensive structure, but then it had inspired architects of such structures throughout the ages, and it was impossible to intuit its purpose without being influenced by this history of architectural tributes. More than anything else, perhaps, it was the perfect example of a thing you had to see for yourself. No description could ever give it justice. While it glittered like something constructed only yesterday and not yet the least besmirched by dust or mud, it was in fact the oldest structure ¨C probably the oldest constructed object ¨C in the world. Ancient tribes settled these lands because they wanted to be close to the Citadel, or whatever they may have called it back then, and their settlements eventually became the city of Mikla, which is today the capital of the Confluence because the Citadel has always been regarded as somehow constituting the center of all things. No one knew where it came from or who had built it, if indeed there was someone behind it. Modern society knew as little about its purpose as the earliest hunter-gatherers, or in a sense even less, since those early people undoubtedly believed that they knew the Citadel was a message from the gods or perhaps itself a divinity, while modern people were not quite sure about such things. It was the unfathomable mystery at the center of everything, a brute fact of the inexplicable that simply lay silent on its hill for millennium after millennium, resisting every attempt to penetrate into it and doing absolutely nothing. Would the Citadel one day awaken? Many people believed so, not least its Devotees, most of whom saw it as the world savior. This line of thinking had gained traction with the arrival of the Energy Blight, but historians noted that similar revivals of devotion had accompanied the Demonic Wars, the Glitter, and the Virus Wars back in their day. In the end, these crises came and went while the Citadel remained as silent as ever. There had been endless attempts at penetrating into the Citadel, using physical force or magic or elaborate rituals or any other thing you can imagine, and not one of them ¨C that anyone knew of, anyway ¨C had so much as scratched its surface. Idioms saying that something was as impenetrable or silent as the Citadel had been in widespread use in various past eras and expressed a fundamental truth about the structure, although today such language was regarded as flowery and quaint. The same might be said for being interested in the Citadel in general ¨C most people believed the Devotees and anyone sharing their curiosity should just accept that no answers, reasons, or explanations would ever be forthcoming, so maybe invest your energy in something useful instead. Normally, Genry would be engaged in lively debate about something Citadel-related with some group of Devotees, but the Blight had dampened peoples¡¯ enthusiasm for such activities. Instead, he spent his time resting on the ground while gazing longingly at the shimmering structure in the distance. There were lots of other people around, but Raistlin knew where to find him. ¡°Greetings, Devotee of the Citadel,¡± he said half-jokingly to the prone Genry who had not yet noticed him. Genry looked up. ¡°Raistlin! How are you?¡± Without waiting for an answer, he pointed towards the Citadel. ¡°I was just looking at that odd bit there on the left side. Doesn¡¯t it seem different somehow? Like the shade of color is not exactly the same as the rest.¡± Raistlin gave the appearance of studying the specified bit for a while. It looked weird and beautiful like the rest of the structure, but otherwise he saw nothing noteworthy about it. However, he never challenged his well-meaning but overly enthusiastic friend very much. ¡°I think your eyes are better than mine, Genry. Perhaps you are right, but I can¡¯t really put my finger on how that part is different.¡± ¡°Ha! Always the diplomat, aren¡¯t you. Well, sit down, I think you will notice it if you look more closely.¡± Raistlin spent the early afternoon sitting next to Genry, listening to his ideas and not saying much in return, although he remained generally agreeable. As always, he paid just enough attention to Genry to follow the conversation, while otherwise being engaged in something entirely different. In this way, the first scan of the day would usually find him listening to some novel and often fanciful theory about some aspect of the Citadel, his mind giving the impression of being a pretty dull place. Beneath the surface, he was experimenting, learning new ways to do things, honing his magical skills. It was subtle and complex work, especially since he had to hide everything behind several layers of obfuscation magic. And on top of it all he had to maintain his detection magics, which in turn also needed obfuscation. So many things to take care of. Whenever one of his detection magics alerted him to an incoming scan, he dropped everything he was experimenting with, maintaining only obfuscation. As long as he was just practicing and experimenting, he could afford to let go of his experiments at any time, because none of them were doing anything important. It would be different if he were doing something for real, something that mattered, especially if the incoming scan was not the ordinary surface thing but a deeper probe. It was never not funny to Raistlin that so much of his time and energy was spent dealing with scans, and he didn¡¯t know a single other person who so much as knew that scans existed. True, he did not know many people ¨C not many who were alive, anyway ¨C but still. He was a nation of one. Had it ever occurred to him that he might be suffering from psychotic delusions? It had. Mostly as a sort of intellectual exercise, because it was interesting to him to consider how, if your understanding of reality is fundamentally different from everyone around you, you might prove to yourself that you are not under the spell of psychosis, which is what those other people would say that you are. It seemed like a very difficult thing to establish. There were certain facts that did not fit the notion that his whole understanding of everything was delusional, but these facts mostly related to past events. How can you prove to yourself that your recollection of past events represents ¨C probably not exactly so, but in an overall sense ¨C something that actually happened? It amused him that such proof generally seemed elusive. Nevertheless, there was one thing that would prove that his understanding of the world was, in a fundamental sense, more correct than other people¡¯s understanding, but for reasons of practicality ¨C meaning survival ¨C he could not actually establish this thing. How convenient, no? The thing was this. Raistlin had once been a Conjurer. He had training in the field of Conjuration, which involved manifesting energy or matter. This was his field of magic, and according to the general understanding, it was impossible for a person to access other fields of magic than the one they had an affinity for. But that was not impossible for Raistlin. He could for instance do obfuscation and detection magics, which belonged to the fields of Abjuration and Divination, respectively. But these magics worked on a mind level and were therefore unconvincing as evidence, since a psychotic person might imagine their effects. Now Raistlin could also do other forms of magic that had more material effects ¨C something related to the field of Transmutation, for instance ¨C but he hesitated to prove to himself that he could do so, because he was afraid the scans might register such magic use. Proving to himself that he was not psychotic seemed too frivolous a reason to engage in magic use that could, if he made a mistake or was unlucky, threaten his survival. Anyway, it was not exactly true that conventional understanding held it to be impossible for a person to access fields of magic outside their own. More precisely, conventional understanding held that a person doing so would go insane. Corto Pratt, Conveyer, in the style of Egon Schiele, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025. Chapter 2.1 - Olz Hap Olz Hap casting magic in the style of Gustave Moreau, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025. Chapter 2: Duodi Mikla metropolitan area Year 5638 of the Confluence Countdown: 21

Olz Hap

One thing the Protectors did not like about the High Magus taking personal control of the Blight investigation was that it would reveal the investigators¡¯ fields of magic to Olz and her team. Most of them would obviously be Diviners ¨C this was first and foremost an attempt to understand the threat they were facing ¨C although, as it turned out, there were also quite a few Abjurers involved and, perhaps more surprisingly, two Invokers. Finally, a group of Conjoiners were responsible for coordinating the investigators. The Excession Investigator briefed Olz and her personal team on how the investigation proceeded. One obvious question was how, exactly, people lost their energy. This was the main Divination project for the present stage of the investigation: by what dynamics did energy disappear. Along with this main task, however, other Diviners searched carefully for enemy attempts at detecting their probing, for any sort of triggers and traps that the main Divination team might set off, for various types of countermagics, and for obfuscation magics hiding any of these measures. There were so many things to look for that most of the Diviners involved ¨C more than four out of five ¨C were involved in these secondary searches rather than the main task. If and when any countermeasures were discovered ¨C so far there had been plenty of detection and obfuscation magics ¨C Abjurers moved in to nullify them. The Excession Investigator was proud to report that so far, no detection magics had been set off ¨C everything had been properly nullified. The enemy should therefore be none the wiser about the capabilities of the Confluence than they were before their attack. This was a great benefit. While serious, it was quite possible that the Energy Blight was only a probe, and one had to be very careful not to divulge information about the state of one¡¯s capabilities. Being careful to the point of covering all eventualities took time, but the worst thing one could do in a situation like this was to rush it and make mistakes benefiting the enemy. It was better to do nothing than to do the wrong thing. The role of the two Invokers, meanwhile, was to keep investigators alert yet relaxed. When people got afraid ¨C especially if they panicked ¨C they made mistakes, and it was therefore important to stabilize investigators¡¯ emotional states. Via the efforts of the Conjoiners, the Invokers could be present in the Divination action itself and monitor the emotional state of the people involved. Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. Things were moving forward, the Excession Investigator assured them. Perhaps not at high speed, but in a safe and controlled manner. They would get to the bottom of this, and they would get there without feeding information to their enemies. --- There was some sort of special relationship between Diviners and Protectors. Nobody knew exactly why it was so, but everybody knew that it was so. Maybe the reason was simply that to protect against danger, one needed information about how things might be dangerous. Knowledge production was therefore a core aspect of Protector operations ¨C probably even more so than cancellation magic or anything related to the field of Abjuration. Another thing that seemed obvious to Olz, even if she never talked much about it, was that Diviners have the capacity to observe what Protectors are up to. Doing so would be ethically and legally problematic, to say the least, but Olz did not recall any Diviner ever standing trial for attempting to spy on Protector secrets. Surely some of them must occasionally be tempted. And even if Diviners are as respectful of others¡¯ privacy and as focused on ethical conduct as they always try to convince people that they are, it would seem out of character for the notoriously secretive Protectors to base their operational security on trust. No. Some sort of arrangement here. A power-sharing agreement serving the interests of both parties. The other fields of magic knew that there was a special relationship of some kind, even if they did not know the details. When it was time to elect a High Magus, the fields of Conjunction, Conjuration, Conveyance, Dissemination, Evocation, Invocation, and Transmutation always agreed on one of their own. Never a Diviner, and never (of course) a Protector. This had become standard practice and might even be said to be an unwritten constitutional law. Diviners and Protectors had always protested their innocence, but the Majority Alliance, as it was referred to among magisters of politics, persisted across the millennia. Apparently, the alliance went all the way back to the first Confluence assembly in year 1, although the office of High Magus itself was first established to facilitate a coordinated response to the Virus attack in 612. Anyway, as Olz understood the situation, the Protectors had eventually outmaneuvered the Majority Alliance by turning the High Magus into a largely ceremonial figure. --- After work, there was a dinner with the Invoker leadership she could not really skip. Invokers were generally doing alright under the Energy Blight, although the imposition of new duties ¨C the Invoker-Conjoiner program to counteract the Blight¡¯s effects on Confluence citizens ¨C was taking a toll. More mundane tasks including psychological counseling were postponed, leading to increases in mental unhealth and Invoker frustrations. Of course, Invokers had their own ways to deal with such problems, but these days they were kindly requested to invest most of their magical energy in the Blight counteraction program. Denna Laureline, the High Invoker, was not critical of the administration¡¯s work as such, she just informed Olz that even among the ranks of the field of Invocation ¨C not the most vulnerable part of the populace ¨C the Blight was having a pronounced detrimental effect. Chapter 2.2 - Yutten Turse Yutten Turse casting magic in the style of Gustave Moreau, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

Yutten Turse

¡°Hi Yutten! Great to see you.¡± She responded in kind and sank into one of Chandrian¡¯s office chairs like it was a refuge from a storm. They talked for quite a while about their families and mutual acquaintances. Except for the Blight and the threat of further attacks, everything was fine. ¡°So, what can I help you with?¡± ¡°I am working on a strange case. Very mysterious. Promise me you won¡¯t say anything to anyone about what I have to tell you.¡± ¡°Of course.¡± ¡°But it¡¯s more important than usual. There may be Protectors involved.¡± ¡°Sounds intriguing.¡± ¡°Apparently, they broke into the records at our office. And when we tried to Divine it, we triggered something and a voice chastised us for not leaving the situation alone. They slammed some kind of surveillance engram on Z?rgiebel.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°What I said. And Z?rgiebel has recordings from his videocameras. One person walking down the corridors like he owns the place. Blurred with exquisite skill.¡± Chandrian stared at her in silence. She looked back at him. ¡°That¡¯s some heavy shit,¡± he eventually offered, regressing back to the person she had known twenty years ago. ¡°Both heavy and shitty, I¡¯ll grant you that.¡± Another pause. ¡°Obfuscation magics. You are sure?¡± ¡°Impossible to pinpoint a single detail about what this person looked like. But in the sense that you wouldn¡¯t notice it until you tried.¡± If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°Protectors, then. And not hiding it.¡± ¡°Yes. But they probably didn¡¯t expect it to be recorded on videocamera.¡± ¡°Old tech, so easily fooled that nobody¡¯s using it anymore. They should have brought a Transmuter.¡± ¡°Oh, they must have. Mechanical lock on the archive door.¡± ¡°But just one person on the videocamera you said?¡± ¡°This is what I wanted to ask you about. It seems there must have been at least three, maybe four or five. We had a constable on duty, who was apparently addled. Then there¡¯s the lock and the obfuscation. And possibly a Diviner and a Conjoiner.¡± ¡°They addled a constable on duty?¡± ¡°They don¡¯t seem to be playing by the book very much. Our constable is upset.¡± ¡°I imagine. Everybody who has been exposed to it agrees that being addled feels like a violation. Not at the time, but afterwards.¡± ¡°I know. One thing I¡¯ve wondered about, though. Seems like an unlikely option, but maybe we can clear it off the table. What are the odds that there were two other people accompanying the person recorded on videocamera, but they were obfuscated to such an extent we can¡¯t even see a trace of them?¡± ¡°You¡¯re asking if they can do that with obfuscation? I suppose it¡¯s possible, although no one really knows the limits of such magics. Protectors are not exactly forthcoming with information on Abjuration.¡± ¡°But it¡¯s possible?¡± ¡°Maybe. I guess it would have left traces of some kind. Not something you would notice in real time, perhaps, but on a recording it should be possible to see. Although I suppose the visual traces would be inversely correlated with the level of skill.¡± ¡°So maybe if they are extremely high-skilled?¡± ¡°Who knows. But, you know, why would they hide two people completely and leave the third observable but unrecognizable?¡± ¡°Yeah. Why not just do the same thing on all three. Seems simpler. Unless, I don¡¯t know, they wanted to deceive us with regard to their number?¡± ¡°Mm. Although there were obviously several people involved, they went out of their way to make it look like it was only one person? What¡¯s the point?¡± ¡°I agree that it seems unlikely. But the only other possibility is that the Transmuter and the Invoker waited outside or something. Wouldn¡¯t it be really hard to addle someone ¨C and open a lock ¨C you can¡¯t see?¡± ¡°Opening mechanical locks is not difficult for a skilled Transmuter, but they would have to see the lock. And you can¡¯t addle someone without having a clear idea of exactly where they are. So yes, a Diviner seems necessary, and a Conjoiner so the others can see what the Diviner sees.¡± ¡°At least five people, then.¡± ¡°I think so. And your archives are probably shielded against Conveyance, right? Or they might have just jumped right in there or transported out whatever they wanted. Do you know what they were after?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t know yet. But probably shielded, yes. I don¡¯t have any details, but Z?rgiebel is careful with such things.¡± The conversation went on for a while, but in the end they both agreed the whole thing was just mysterious. Before leaving, Yutten once again asked him not to tell anyone anything. Chandrian promised. She went back to Z?rgiebel to look at the recordings once more, not telling him why. There was not a trace of any other people. She spent the rest of the day thinking. Chapter 2.3 - Raistlin Upadesa Raistlin Upadesa casting magic in the style of Gustave Moreau, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

Raistlin Upadesa

In the evenings Raistlin focused on penetrating into the Citadel. He did so from bed. The main mistake people made about the Citadel was that they thought it was predominantly a physical structure. In reality, it was predominantly a magical structure, and the way to access it was via magic. People had tried to do so a great number of times, of course, but the reason they had gotten nowhere was that the correct way of penetrating into it involved a form of magic that did not correspond to any of the established fields. Raistlin had discovered this type of magic during his many years of experimentation and had gradually developed it into one of his specializations. It was a type of magic targeting the life force itself, and Raistlin used it to project his life force away from his physical body. This life force projection could then penetrate into the Citadel. Of course, projection of the life force was just one aspect of this field of magic. It seemed to Raistlin to be a very powerful, and therefore also very dangerous, field. He was a long way from mastering all its applications ¨C indeed he believed he had only scratched the surface. One reason he had not gotten very far was that he had to be careful and circumspect so as to avoid detection by scans. Progress was therefore slow. However, it did occur to him that being forced to move slowly was in some ways a benefit, since he was then less likely to mess around with his life force in a way that might be harmful. Raistlin waited until the evening scan had passed, then focused on projecting his life force away from his body. The first step was the most difficult one, but by now he had mastered it well. When he crossed the threshold, he found himself hovering near the far wall of his bedroom. From there, he could move about easily, ignoring physical obstructions entirely. He could also move instantaneously to any location he was familiar with. Nevertheless, it was possible that there might be magical obstructions to contend with ¨C most obviously barriers, but also detection magics and possibly traps ¨C and he was not taking more chances than necessary. Of course, he had never seen any such magical obstructions, and as far as he knew he was the only person in the world who practiced life force magic. But he had not come all this way by taking unnecessary chances. To minimize risk, he jumped straight to the Citadel. It looked different from a non-corporal perspective, but it was not the kind of difference he could have described very well. The coloring was different, for instance, but here it took on a hue that does not exist in the physical world, and which therefore has no name. There was also a particular glowing quality that Raistlin had never seen with his physical eyes. He entered the Citadel by its gate. This gate had no physical counterpart, so while his friend Genry would have been ecstatic to hear about it, he did not know that the gate existed. Maybe one day Raistlin could teach life force magic to Genry, but for now he suspected his friend was not the kind of person who could move carefully into this while controlling his mind and avoiding detection by scans. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Passing the gate, Raistlin found himself in the first Citadel chamber. It might be called the chamber of distractions. Whenever he entered this chamber, anything and everything in his life that might seem interesting would come to his mind, and he could follow this interest on a long, winding road that might seem promising, but which would lead, basically, nowhere. These days, the Blight was the primary such topic of interest, but Raistlin did not follow it. He had been here many times before, and he knew that to move deeper into the Citadel he had to focus on the far door and not be tempted by distractions. The second chamber was not entirely different. One name for it might be the chamber of insight, but like the first it was essentially about distractions. Here, however, the distracting element was some sort of insight into one of his personal interests. Furthermore, the specific insights were often both relevant and useful, sometimes even deep. Nevertheless, to move forward, Raistlin had to dismiss those insights, but without using much force. When he used much force, he found himself getting attached to pushing away the insights, leading to a process of having insights into how to dismiss insights. High-intensity force produced high-intensity reactions that were able to distract him because the application of such force implied to his mind that there was an important struggle going on that he had to invest himself in fully. But this struggle was itself a distraction. Low-intensity insight dismissals were therefore the path ahead. Don¡¯t make a big deal about distractions, because big deals are distracting. For the past few months he had been spending time in the chamber of memories, which he suspected was also basically about distractions. The difference was that Raistlin had many traumatic memories that distracted not only his mind but also his emotional state. For this reason, it seemed to him that he could not simply dismiss them and move on. Instead, he had to engage in a process of integration. This involved touching a traumatic memory, allow it to affect his emotions, and then just stay on the roller coaster, following the process with acceptance. He would be triggered ¨C these were traumatic memories ¨C but not triggered by being triggered. In this way, he relived the memory without adding anxiety to it and without pushing it away ¨C these two reactions being basically the same thing. Each time he touched a difficult memory and accepted the way it triggered his emotions, it dried up a little and lost some of its stickiness. Eventually, the energy that had been trapped in this memory in the form of anxiety and trauma was released, and then it did not trigger his emotions anymore and he could move on. But it was a long process. Maybe it would take years before he reached the door on the far side of this chamber. --- It is a rainy afternoon, and Raistlin is on his way home from work at the generator. More precisely, he is on his way to his girlfriend Ykka Rogga, but she has insisted that they keep the relationship secret, so officially he is on his way home. He takes a different route every time he goes to her. Today he is hurrying, because something feels wrong. There is a knot in his stomach. As he gets closer to where Ykka lives, he hears signs of commotion. His anxiety increases. He rounds a corner and sees a group of people. Protector robes. Other people in ordinary clothes watch in silence. Ykka is in the center of it all, with some sort of dark cloud hanging over her. She looks straight at him for a moment, her face expressionless. Then she looks down, and they take her away. He never sees her again. His heart is pounding and the dread is almost overwhelming. But slightly less so than before. He accepts it. Chandrian Rothfuss, magister of magic theory, in his office in the style of Gustave Moreau, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025. Chapter 3.1 - Olz Hap Olz Hap casting magic in the style of Caravaggio, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025. Chapter 3: Tridi Mikla metropolitan area Year 5638 of the Confluence Countdown: 20 Olz Hap The morning briefing from the Excession Investigator took a long time, but Olz did not feel that she learnt anything new. Most of the time, he was either just stating the obvious or plodding through a full range of possibilities that needed to be settled before it would be possible to do anything useful. It was funny for Olz to juxtapose the Lord Protector¡¯s insistence that this was not a time for philosophical doubts with the Excession Investigator¡¯s review of potential unknowns, many of which seemed possible only in a philosophical sense. The Protectors had hurried to the conclusion that the Blight was an enemy attack but then proceeded to counter this attack at a very leisured pace, emphasizing the importance of never jumping to conclusions. Then again, Olz had always had misgivings about the Protectors. The state¡¯s security apparatus really should not be a self-governing body ¨C this seemed to her like maybe the most basic principle of government. The pre-Confluence world was full of examples of how security institutions like what they called the military and the police took direct or indirect control over governments, and the results were never pretty. One of Olz¡¯ strategic ambitions was to cut the Protectors down to size and bring them under control, but she had never been able to find a way to accomplish this. Maybe this Blight investigation would give her an angle? After the briefing, Olz had an informal talk with Agata, Takashi, Uliaz, and Corto about their impressions of the Excession Investigator. She summoned them in such a way that her Shieldbearer would not notice that he was being excluded ¨C she did not want to have a Protector in the room when her team was discussing another Protector. Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! ¡°What is your take on this?¡± Olz asked. ¡°Seems like they¡¯re stalling,¡± said Corto. He shared Olz¡¯ views on Protectors. ¡°Well, they are certainly being careful,¡± offered Takashi, who was himself often careful and tended to provide moderate perspectives on things. ¡°He talks very much but doesn¡¯t say a lot.¡± Uliaz favored economy of expression and had little patience with people who did not tell the truth. ¡°I agree. There¡¯s something not right about him.¡± In a different world, Agata would have been a warrior or some sort of combat medic: she was unafraid, straightforward, and bold. She would not last five minutes as a politician. ¡°You say that about every Protector,¡± observed Takashi, being right as usual. ¡°Well, there¡¯s something not right about them.¡± ¡°Ok,¡± said Olz, ¡°but if they are stalling, why would they do that? The Blight is a threat to us all.¡± Nobody said anything for a while. Then Uliaz suggested ¡°Maybe they are just stuck in their bureaucratic nonsense.¡± ¡°Could be,¡± Takashi agreed. ¡°They have protocols for everything and probably have zero experience with deviating from established procedures.¡± ¡°That would at least be a rational explanation,¡± said Corto. ¡°I can¡¯t see any other rational explanations. You don¡¯t play politics with something like this, especially when you have just insisted on declaring it an enemy attack.¡± ¡°Sure,¡± said Olz. If she wanted to use this investigation to get an angle on the Protectors, was she playing politics? ¡°But there¡¯s something unhurried over them, isn¡¯t there? Like it¡¯s not really a big deal.¡± ¡°You¡¯re the psychologist here,¡± said Agata, ¡°but if I had a team of people looking so relaxed while dealing with an emergency, I would say something was wrong.¡± Corto¡¯s eyes sparkled for a moment, like an idea popped into his mind. ¡°They said there were two Invokers on the team keeping the others relaxed, right? That probably means the investigators are under some form of enhancement, doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°I would have noticed if they were under active enhancements, but something could have been set on pause.¡± Olz laughed. ¡°Maybe they¡¯re Mellowed when they do the job. That could explain the calmness and dawdling.¡± --- The Tower of the High Magus was where Olz lived and worked. It was a tall, slim cylinder ¨C the tallest building in Mikla with plenty to spare ¨C and was constructed from a material closely resembling ivory, although far more durable. At regular intervals throughout its height, sections of the outer wall were both transparent and luminescent, so the Tower could light up for special occasions. In principle, this lighting function might be used to alert the people of Mikla at times of emergency ¨C you could see the Tower from almost anywhere ¨C although this would only make a meaningful difference if the ether went down, which had never happened. The non-luminescent sections were also transparent, but only from the inside ¨C seen from the outside they were fully opaque and looked exactly like ivory. Olz¡¯ personal quarters, known as the High Magus Residence, were located at the top of the Tower, while the offices for herself and her team were a few floors down. Further down there were other government offices. An elevator shaft and a stairwell filled the center of the structure, and of course the High Magus had a separate elevator, constrained to the top floors, all to herself. Chapter 3.2 - Yutten Turse Yutten Turse casting magic in the style of Caravaggio, as interpreted by DALL-E in January 2025.

Yutten Turse

Overnight there was another unauthorized entry into investigator offices. This time, Z?rgiebel¡¯s videocameras were completely disabled. Every copy of the previous recordings, including several backups Z?rgiebel had hidden in safes, was stolen. Yutten first thought Chandrian might have talked to someone, but Z?rgiebel insisted they picked the information up from him. He was enraged and despondent at the same time. Yutten left in a hurry. She supposed it might still be possible to access the recordings via Divination, although that might depend on whether their material basis had been destroyed. Anyway, there was probably nothing further to learn from them. The only remaining lead was the archive, she thought. Presumably something had been removed. Or maybe just examined? No, that seemed unlikely. Then again, it also seemed unlikely that their old archive might contain anything that would justify the extreme measures taken here. Anyway, if they only wanted to look at something, they would probably have gotten a long way just by sending a formal request. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. She knew that a direct Divination into the (presumed) burglary itself would be too risky, but indirect searches should be safe. When she tried general archivist magics such as getting an overview of archive activities during the past month, however, there was no entry for the night of the intrusion. It was not clear to her how obfuscation magics work, and she was dismayed to discover that they appear to hide specific events from general information gathering magics, making it seem as if it never happened. Annoyed, she went down to the basement and entered the archive. She thought that if her magic wouldn¡¯t serve her maybe her eyes would. This was quite optimistic, because the investigator office in this part of Mikla was several thousand years old, and the amount of stuff that had been archived over the millennia was quite impressive. They never threw anything out, but on several occasions, Transmuters had been brought in to expand the archive another floor into the ground. Afterwards, a Conveyer team transported everything one floor down, so the oldest stuff was at the bottom and the most accessible floor was available for recent cases. Yutten knew it was a shot in the dark, but she was angry and needed to release some energy, so she started walking around. There was a huge central staircase, and after a few hours she had walked down several floors, her anger starting to dry up. This was pointless. Then, down a corridor she saw a slightly ajar cabinet door. She walked over there and saw a row of ancient electronic storage devices. One missing. Gotcha. It was a section of material relating to the era of the Glitter. The remaining storage devices contained information about various cases where people had touched the Glitter and then gone criminally insane, creating lots of trouble and lots of work for investigators. There were seven remaining devices, each relating to one specific person who had been damaged by the Glitter. But when she dug up information about the Glitter cases belonging to this investigator district, she found eight cases. The device with documents and media relating to one Benoit Canardo was missing.