With almost bated breath Leon stared out into the dust storms of the Sundered Lands. The wall of sand whipped up by the palace’s defenses was thick, obscuring all view of what lay within. Even the odd lightning bolt from deep within gave no hints as to what the palaces looked like.
Flashes of opulence raced through Leon’s mind, visions of the great works that his Ancestors might’ve wrought in this once beautiful land filling his mind. One moment, he envisioned a larger and grander version of Argent Palace, and in another, something similar to the Elder Hall in Stormhollow took its place. In every imagined scene, Leon conjured the image of a great monument to the power of his Clan, the strength that had borne them across the Void to the Divine Graveyard, to Aeterna.
Of the power that had gone to their heads, making them arrogant, and leading them to their near-total doom.
He was the last of the Thunderbird Clan—that thought began intruding upon his imaginings of what the palace might look like, causing his mood to shift from one of excitement to something more melancholic and contemplative.
Whatever he saw, it wouldn’t change the fact that his Clan had nearly ended thanks to Jason Keraunos’ decision to come here. It wouldn’t change the fact that he was alone in bearing the Thunderbird’s power.
‘Nestor should’ve come,’ Leon thought with no small amount of bitterness. As grating as the dead man could be, Leon would’ve appreciated not only his insights but also his understanding of Leon’s situation. Nestor was the one ‘living’ person who had a connection with the old Clan that Leon could share his thoughts with, the one man in the whole universe who might understand the thoughts running through his head.
As if sensing this melancholy, the Thunderbird subtly made her presence known in his soul realm; a single bolt of lightning illuminated his Mind Palace, reminding him that he wasn’t as alone as he thought. She started the Clan, after all, and he silently castigated himself for taking so long to think of how it might feel for her to see such a place.
But he didn’t bring anything up at that moment. He’d save that for when they actually reached the palace instead of just staring longingly at the dust storm protecting it.
On the edge of the storm, on a huge stone outcropping sticking out of the dunes, Keeper’s people had established one of several base camps that wound their way through the Sundered Lands—though, in truth, calling what had been established a ‘base camp’ implied far more than what it was in reality. To support such an important expedition, Leon would’ve expected large, if simple, structures to have been built, for a village to have grown as hundreds of people were brought in to lend the expedition their expertise. The logistics alone Leon thought would’ve warranted such.
However, the rocky outcropping was populated by only a few dozen relatively powerful mages, and no real shelter had been erected. The mages were there sitting, meditating, and training on rocks out in the sun, not caring at all about how their skin baked in the sandy desert. Not even a tent had been set up to protect equipment—probably because they set up no equipment at all. If any tools or transportation items were needed, Leon could only hope that the Sentinel mages had what they needed in their soul realms.
For his part, there was no way in any hell he was going to have his people slumming it like that; this was exactly what his portable villa had been built for. So, taking up almost half of the rocky outcropping was his portable villa, all of the modules set up to house his entire entourage. None of the Sentinels occupied it, but neither had any of them asked to share his space nor seemed at all jealous of his shelter. If anything, when he started breaking out the pieces of his portable villa, they seemed to judge him harshly for it, though they at least did so silently, and so long as that continued, Leon didn’t care at all about their opinions on the matter.
So, when he tore himself away from watching the swirling storm, it was to his portable villa that he walked. It was almost time for them to begin, after all.
Out in front of the villa, Cassandra was waiting for him with Keeper, Alix, and a ninth-tier Sentinel mage. In the center of the small group was a large rock, upon which had been placed a map of the Sundered Lands. Leon noted that the map was incredibly detailed, save for the area covering the northern Sundered Lands.
“Leon Raime,” Keeper gravely intoned as Leon joined them. “We are ready to proceed.”
“So soon?” Leon asked.
“Few people means few preparations,” Keeper simply replied.
Leon shrugged, not finding too much fault with his logic. Besides, with the restrictions Keeper had saddled him with, Leon didn’t think they needed a large expedition, either.
‘Wouldn’t want so many people traipsing around in the Clan’s palaces, anyway,’ he thought rather uncharitably.
So, they decided that only the five assembled around the map would journey into the storm. While Leon, Cassandra, and Alix were gone, the rest of the Tempest Knights would remain in the portable villa under Gaius’ command, while Cassandra’s small personal guard would retain its own independent command.
“So,” Leon said as he stared covetously at the empty space on the map, “how are we doing this?”
---
They took the easiest approach, flying in from the south. Keeper extracted from Leon a promise to keep their first foray at the storm brief and risk-free, and Leon reluctantly accepted, so that also meant no fancy routes such as trudging through the mountains to the north or west or trying to fly above the storm. Besides, Leon figured that such simple methods had already been tried before, and yet the palaces had apparently remained empty for the past eighty-thousand years.
Cue his surprise when, as they approached the edge of the storm, he felt a subtle hint of a familiar kind of magic brush over his body.
“I’ve just been scanned!” Leon called out, and the group halted in mid-air.
“How?” Keeper asked.
“I felt nothing,” Cassandra added.
“Probably something keyed into my Clan,” Leon responded.
[True,] the Thunderbird confirmed. [Nothing better than blood magic to designate friends and foes.]
[I’m surprised that any blood has remained viable so long after extraction.]
[Preservation is key in matters like these.] The Thunderbird paused a moment, then said, [Like the defenses, it’s a good sign that the blood magic wards are still working. The defenses are designed to be sturdy and withstand great stress, but these are usually less robust. Without proper maintenance, I would’ve expected most other wards to have fallen by now.]
Leon frowned deeply, now speaking aloud for the benefit of the others in his party. “It’s… honestly kind of suspicious. The storm isn’t natural, and the scanning enchantment certainly isn’t, either. That they’re both still functioning so well after so much time means at least one of two things.” He locked eyes with Keeper—though the older man’s eyes remained shut, he still turned his head to face Leon when being addressed.
Showing that he understood where Leon was going, Keeper stated, “Either the wards are lucky enough to have weathered all of this time without degradation…”
Finishing both of their spoken speculations, Cassandra said, “… Or these wards are being maintained by someone or something.”
“Keep on your toes,” Leon warned the group. “I’ve been to several Thunderbird Clan ruins, and they’ve almost all been occupied. If there’s something here, then it could very well be hostile.”
Leon gave Cassandra a meaningful look, and he knew that they were both thinking of the research lab in the Prota Forest. As important as that place was, Leon doubted its defenses could hold a candle to those placed upon his Clan’s capital on Aeterna.
“At the first sign of trouble…” Keeper said, but before he could finish the thought, the whirling sand ahead of them froze in the air, as if time had stopped. Leon’s jaw almost fell open when he realized that the entire storm around the entire palace complex, dozens of miles in diameter, had done likewise. The sand in the air didn’t fall, and he suspected if he were to turn around and leave, the storm would return to raging just as fiercely as it was a moment ago. “… we will turn around…”
Leon sensed a flare of magic, and then a circular tunnel thrice as wide as he was tall opened amidst the sand, and through it, he could catch a glimpse of buildings and intense magic.
For a moment, Leon had to fight the urge to wildly and joyously pass through the tunnel like a man coming home after a long day of work. However, in the end, his caution won out—that, and Keeper held up his hand, urging everyone to stay where they were.
“Am I seeing things?” Alix asked aloud. “This is too damn good to be true, isn’t it?”
“It makes sense,” Cassandra pointed out, and Leon had to resist the urge to emphatically agree with her. “If it scanned Leon and recognized his power, then it would open a route for him to use. But… this could also be a trap.”
“This place has been sealed off for millennia!” Alix responded. “Who would be setting a trap for us, and why?”
“Who knows?” Leon shrugged and added, “I’m sure they’d have their reasons. Still, there’s only one way to find out what’s going on here: going through that tunnel that’s been so graciously provided.”
With a twitch of his fingers, Keeper summoned a ball of light that floated over to the entrance of the tunnel, and there it hovered as if waiting for something. When nothing happened after several seconds, it began to slowly drift down the tunnel. When even this failed to provoke any kind of reaction, Keeper said, “We can go. Slowly.”
Leon grinned and flew over to the tunnel entrance. He could see a hint of what lay beyond, but he focused entirely on the tunnel itself, both out of a sense of caution—he wanted to monitor the magic in the frozen storm for any signs of a trap being sprung—and because he wanted to savor this and take in the palace in totality rather than just the small window of it that could be seen on the other side of the storm.
He hesitated only long enough to verify that everyone else was following him—Alix and Cassandra were right at his back, with Keeper following at a slight distance, and the ninth-tier Sentinel bringing up a much more distant rear—before plunging into the tunnel.
The frozen sand glittered in the light of the orb Keeper had sent ahead, and under Leon’s magic senses, glimmered even fiercer from the amount of magic flowing around the area. If the Thunderbird was right, then the Sundered Lands were dead because the palace was using all of the magic in the environment to power the defensive storm—this close to the center of the plane meant that a lot of power was now concentrated within the storm. If the storm were turned back on, then Leon figured even he would be injured, let alone weaker mages like Cassandra or Alix. So, he focused on almost nothing but the storm as he pressed ahead, wary of any changes in the flow of magic through the sand.
His caution seemed unwarranted as the light orb reached the tunnel’s exit without triggering anything, with Leon following a few seconds later. The storm had been more than a mile thick, but the relief that rushed through Leon as he emerged was quickly overpowered by awe and excitement.
The palace built by Jason Keraunos to serve as his capital on Aeterna finally entered his view, and it was, in a word, incredible. The desert outside was dead and desolate, but on the inside of the storm was light and life in abundance. A dense warren of buildings of spectacular beauty greeted him, and despite the storm that completely surrounded the palace complex, the enormous complex was still lit by four massive towers standing in all cardinal directions above which hovered relatively small suns—though each sun was still about a quarter the size of the central dome.
The heart of the complex was a massive dome, the roof gleaming with gold, and if Leon’s eyes weren’t deceiving him, etched with intricate designs that were just too faint for even his tenth-tier eyes to make out. Surrounding the dome were gardens and small forests, showing the beauty of nature both tamed and wild—and the mastery of Leon’s Clan over both worlds. The flowers filled the spaces between the buildings with vibrant color, and through these areas snaked marble paths that looked designed more for leisure than facilitating travel.
Beyond the gardens were hundreds of buildings large and small, all with either marble or travertine facades and gilded roofs. Colonnaded pavilions abounded, and twelve main thoroughfares cut through the complex each wide enough for an army column to comfortably march upon. Beams of shimmering golden light arced above and between buildings whose purpose Leon couldn’t fathom, adding their light to that of the four hovering micro suns. The leaves of many of the trees closest to the buildings glowed with varying shades of color, casting the white facades into all the colors of the rainbow.
In all four corners were arkpads, while adjacent to them were some of the largest buildings of the complex, which Leon took to be logistical and support buildings. He even saw three towers just like the Hexagon in Occulara, with hovering buildings set between tall towers. He knew that these were essentially watchtowers used for observation and communication—the hovering building in the center of the towers could rise into the Void, and from there the occupants would be able to monitor the Void and ensure that patrolling arks could stay in contact with the plane’s surface.
The buildings seemed to follow the pattern of being shorter when closer to the center of the palace complex and taller as they moved closer to the perimeter. The central dome was the sole exception, rising above almost all the other buildings save for the watchtowers, but even then, no other building in the palace complex rivaled it in overall size. Leon estimated that an entire Tribal district in Stormhollow would fit comfortably beneath that dome, and it certainly dwarfed his palace in the city.
[City planning in line with what the Clan has always built,] the Thunderbird observed. [Notice how the city is circular? And how the buildings closer to the perimeter rise above those in the center? The land itself has been reshaped to ensure that it could be built in this way. Can you guess what it’s meant to evoke?]
Leon frowned in thought as the others following him spilled out of the tunnel and beheld the majesty of what his Ancestors had built. He didn’t blame their momentary speechlessness; the only buildings that existed in the Empires that could rival the majesty of this palace complex had been built by his Clan, too, such as the magnificent Imperial Palace in Ilion, which had originally been built for Penthesilea, Jason Keraunos’ only daughter.
[A nest,] Leon eventually replied.
[Very good, Leon,] the Thunderbird almost cooed in pride.
The palace complex was almost bowl-shaped, and Leon almost answered as such, but the dome gave it away in his mind—it was like an egg sitting in the nest of an eagle.
[Get used to this sight, my boy,] the Thunderbird said. [This is how the Clan has always built its cities. And now you get a glimpse of the power of the Clan at its peak. The cities of Minos, Tiryns, and Kypros make this palace look like a slum in comparison.]
[That’s hard to believe,] Leon responded.
[Your belief changes nothing, Leon. You’ll see when you get there.]
Leon grinned at the prospect. The sound of his heart beating thundered in his ears and he couldn’t wait to get exploring, but he restrained himself for a moment. [What are those beams of light?] he asked.
[Transportation and foundations,] the Thunderbird explained. [They’re made of Lumenite, and can not only be built upon, serving as foundations for further construction, but also traveled through.]
[How does that work?]
[Spatial magic,] the Thunderbird explained. [One walks into one end of the Lumenite strand and will travel through it like a teleportation tunnel, appearing at the other end—though the strands don’t suck up magic power nearly as much as a permanent spatial enchantment since Lumenite is a physical thing.]
[No it isn’t,] Xaphan growled, annoyed enough apparently by the Thunderbird’s statement to join the discussion—or, Leon supposed, he spotted an opportunity to correct the Thunderbird on something and couldn’t resist speaking up. [Lumenite is neither physical nor non-physical. And it is also both at the same time.]
[Lumenite is physical, but it shows characteristics of being non-physical, too,] the Thunderbird clarified.
Leon’s smile grew. [Whatever the case… we need Lumenite to fix some of the Clan’s old arks, don’t we?]
[I remember the metal pigeon complaining about that multiple times, yes,] Xaphan said.
[Can it be repurposed from here?] Leon asked.
[Almost assuredly yes,] the Thunderbird confirmed.
Leon almost laughed out loud, but the laughter died in his throat when something caught his eye—motion. Something was moving down below. Something rather distinctly human-shaped running through the streets.
And then he noticed several somethings, and a moment later, many somethings came spilling from the buildings.
“Prepare to defend yourselves!” Keeper roared as his aura spiked.
The palace complex, it seemed wasn’t as deserted as it appeared on first inspection…
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