The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (81 page)

“When Prince Mark and his family emerged from the time-bubble recently, they revealed a Void-Proofing spell that Princes Six and Kragorram had devised, usable by dragons but primarily designed for humanoids.  We examined it and found it to be superior to the spell that we had designed in several ways, including the energy cost and endurance of the spell.  It was also far more complete, allowing far more exact temperature regulation, regulated humidity, a water supply, and an automated variable transparency that allows the user to adapt quickly to the extremes of light and darkness found in the void.  We did not modify and improve their spell, as has been erroneously reported, rather we were inspired by it to improve the Draconian void-proofing spell that we had already designed.  We duplicated their groundbreaking techniques of spell compounding and spell automation, and applied them to Draconian Sorcery-Magecraft.

“We duplicated the improvements that they had achieved, and added many more besides.  Our spell now allows for permanent living in the void, while being completely unnoticeable to the user.  Eating, drinking, and elimination of wastes are accomplished as easily as on the lands of Kellaran.  Even the instinctual Draconian act of flight is exactly the same, the spell makes one feel the wind against your wings the same as always, seeming to direct the air while flying in the void by means of a clever adaptation of the unicorn Flight spell.  Even normal speech and being heard across distances are duplicated by a Speaking spell integrated into the compound spell.  It is very easy to forget that one is not in air, so complete and comfortable is the spell.”

She paused, and cast a great Revealing above her, illustrating what her words then described.

“With this spell, we of Xervian Draconia have in the past three days begun military operations in the void, including combat training, large scale exercises, and the construction of fortresses on the moons of Kellaran, complete with layered defenses and caches of food, water, weaponry, projectiles, and fully-charged batteries.  As we speak, almost fourteen thousand dragons are living and working in the void, preparing for the war.  We have been doing all this while maintaining every effort to hide our activities from the demons, in case they should be able to see so far with sufficient acuity.  We keep the moons between us and the demons whenever possible.

“We offer our void-proofing spell design to the researchers of other races, and will give what assistance we can in adapting it to their use.  In five days we will be ready to begin adding qualified fighters of other races to our void-warfare preparations.”

She fell silent for over three minutes as the soundless Revealing showed more scenes of the training and construction she’d described.

When it had run to its end she cancelled the spell, and announced;

“Emperor Osbald of Thon.”

He appeared on the stage as she left it, and he turned to his left to face where she now was in the audience among The Ninety-Nine of Xervian Draconia, and gave her a slight bow before addressing the gathering.

“We of the humanoid races outside Serminak; the nations of the humans, dwarves, gnomes, and giants, have been mightily occupied of late.

“Since The Transformation of Hilsith was introduced we have cast it upon three billion of us, and more every day, each of whom is regaining their youth and no longer aging.  But more importantly, they all now have the ability to use magic.  Now theoretically, every one of the elves already has the use of magic and does not age, but the fact is that many elves have very little magic power.  We have found that those elves’ power can be improved by having The Transformation cast upon them, so even the elves are busy casting it.  That discovery led us to decide to cast it on every one of the other humanoid wizards who also had very little power, so one-third of all of our wizards will be significantly improved in ability.  Those wizards who are already more powerful than the bottom third of human magic users show no improvement in power from having The Transformation cast upon them, but most have previously been unable to end their own aging, though many had slowed it.  So almost every humanoid alive wants to have The Transformation of Hilsith cast on them, which requires some organization.  I’ve heard the situation is similar among the Selkies and the Mer, for whom The Transformation is equally effective.

“Our researchers are working with those from the non-mammalian races and with Hilsith and her team to adapt The Transformation to all races who could benefit from it, and we think we’ll achieve success with all of them.  The Southernmost are showing especially encouraging progress, and expect to have a version of the spell that works for them within thirteen days.  Hilsith also plans to return to the Hiliani time-bubble for the remainder of it’s duration with a mixed-race team, so they should have ample time to solve the problem for every affected race.

“Above and beyond all of those huge and urgent projects is the task of training billions of new wizards in the use of magic.  As a matter of practicality, the first things they are trained with is the bare minimum needed to join a Command Link and contribute their power to the Draw spells of battle wizards.  Though they are hard lessons for a novice wizard to learn first, rather than the more usual basic spells, it at least makes their power available to our military effort very quickly.

“We humanoids have vast populations, and when the processes of applying The Transformation to all of us and completing the magic training of our new wizards are complete, the power of The Just Alliance will be vastly increased.  But until that time we are falling behind many of the other races in other areas of endeavor.  Hilia and the nations of Xervia and Serminak are ahead of us in military training and in preparations for warfare in the void.

“To those races we say; press on, continue to advance as quickly as you can.  There’s no need for us to duplicate the development of the advances you’re making.  When  we’re finished developing out new capabilities to the point where it’s practical to do so, we’ll join and adapt to your new systems, and quickly.

“On another matter; the spells known as The Healing of Valentia and Valentia’s Workspell have been cast by Valentia on many billions of beings, all of whom are engaged in full-time military training, at the request of The Assembly of The Just Alliance.  Her ability to do so is a wonder of spell automation.  No one else has been able to duplicate her ability to cast them.  However, most of the remainder of the population feel that it is unjust that they cannot share in the benefits of these spells.  After all, almost all of them are fully dedicated to preparing for the war, all of us have too much to do and too little time to do it in, and a few people continue to be injured or killed by occasional accidents and mishaps when they would have been saved by The Healing of Valentia if they were enrolled in the new training programs.  But many cannot enroll in those programs for various reasons, be they parents or children or infirm or needed more elsewhere.

“Therefore, I add my voice to a petition of almost a billion citizens from almost every nation asking that these two crucial spells be universally applied to every citizen of The Just Alliance, at least until the war with the demons is over.  It is only just.”

Val and Six appeared on the stage, as did Somonik a second later.

“What says the Assembly?” Six called, and was answered by a wave of approval.

“Let the record show that all have agreed.” Somonik pronounced.

“All right.” Val simply said, and cast.

Mark expected a great flash in his vision, most of which would be blocked by his Visual Attenuator spell.  Instead, her casting showed as an ever-expanding wave of multicolored sparkles as the complex automated self-powered compound spells multiplied with incredible speed.  Soon the wave of them was beyond the room and gone from his sight.

It was so beautiful that he wordlessly shared the experience with his family.  Six and Fire then shared it with everyone else at the gathering in an effortless display of psionics.

“Amazing.  Thank you.” Osbald stated with a sincere smile as the gathering responded with many quiet exclamations of amazement.

“You’re welcome.” Val responded with a proud smile.

She and Six went back to their places with their family, then Osbald bowed to the assembly and resumed his place as well, leaving Somonik alone on the stage.

“To present the recent military accomplishments of Hilia and Serminak, I give you Kragorram, Prince of Serminaki Draconia.” Somonik stated, then left the stage to the huge crimson dragon.

“Thank you.” Kragorram acknowledged, and without further ado cast a huge Revealing above him.  His voice and Six’s provided narration, alternating with each scene that was presented, beginning with the design and construction of The Void Hunter on Hiliani, continued with recordings of tests and training in the new craft, and ending with views of hundreds of voidcraft being built in the massive shipyards of Serminak.  The first of the completed vessels those shipyards would produce would be finished within the week.

He thanked the assembly and gave the stage to Fire.

She showed a six minute Revealing of the intensified training systems they had instituted on Hiliani, Serminak and Hilia, detailing the improvements they were showing since recruiting both mortal and divine senior strategists to conduct their training exercises.  At this point almost all of the Sylvan and dragons in Serminak were enrolled in the new training programs full-time, and they were beginning to conduct very large-scale exercises involving tens of millions of them at a time.  Most of their combat was aerial, and some of the exercises were done at night and set up to simulate warfare in the void.  The four completed voidcraft had taken part in a few exercises, but were mostly occupied day and night by training crews.

Since it seemed to be the thing to do, she simply thanked the assembly upon completion of the Revealing and Translocated back to her place.

Visinniria; Elven Goddess of War, took the stage.  “With the facts and figures that were revealed here tonight, combined with what was already known, we can begin to take an accounting of our abilities.  In order to do so we will institute a military effectiveness rating system, and we have chosen as a standard of power The Smingan Journeyman Battle Wizard.  The military of Sming is unique in that their ranks are completely decided by standardized measures, and candidates are given the rank immediately upon attaining the prerequisite abilities and powers.  A newly-promoted Smingan Journeyman Battle Wizard can carry five hundred and sixty kilograms by Movement, has mastered the use of the forty-nine most useful spells of his profession and the six most useful psionic spells, and has achieved by training and testing the skills and rank of Corporal as a conventional combat soldier in the Smingan military.  A Smingan Journeyman Battle Wizard is therefore a capable all-around military entity whose abilities are completely quantified within the fighting circumstances that he has been trained to work in, and that level of ability has been assigned a score of ‘one’ in the new military effectiveness rating system of the Kellaran-Triax alliance.

“By this scale, a new elven recruit who has completed only basic training is likely to have a score of point two three, and by this you can deduce that we expect it would require on average five new elven recruits to convincingly defeat a single average newly-promoted Smingan Journeyman Battle Wizard.

“The scale can be further specified, for instance; a given warrior will deserve a different score for their ability fight on land, in the air, on water, in water, and in the void.

“The same scale is used to indicate the strength of cohesive military units composed of many individuals.  For instance, an average Shoal of Warriors of The Kag composed of twelve hundred and sixty individuals will have a sub-aquatic warfare effectiveness score of twenty-seven hundred and fifty.

“We expect that most of the combat in the upcoming war with the demons will be fought in the air and in the void.  In those arenas, an average fighter of The Triax has a score of one point eight, and there are around sixteen billion of them here in our void, plus another billion of support personnel and non-combatants.

“An average god of The Triax has a score of ten million or so, and most of them score between five and fifteen million, though they have a few with scores as low as four hundred thousand.  Their most powerful is First Aquamarine, Triax God of Power, with a score of at least sixty million.  There are seventeen thousand, three hundred and three gods of The Triax.

“An average god of Kellaran has a score of about forty million, with most scoring between thirty-five and forty-five million.  Our extremes range from a low of two hundred thousand to the highest score ever achieved in the experience of The Triax, held by Amirgath; First God of Draconia, with a score of about one billion and two hundred million.  There are three hundred and twenty-three experienced gods of Kellaran, and we expect there to be at least another one hundred and forty-six new gods when Prince Mark initiates The Great Ascension.  He may find more candidates when the occupants of the time-bubbles emerge.

“All of these figures are now available on The Comprehensive Listing of Military Assets, a document which will be constantly updated as our might and our accounting of it improve.  All our vessels, physical weapons, supply sources, supply chains, and other assets, as well as every military unit’s state of readiness, are also available in The Comprehensive Listing.  With this document in hand, we can now begin planning our first completely comprehensive and co-operative training exercise.  It will simulate an attack by one quarter of all our void-capable forces on the demons’ vessel, at the time when we have decided we will attack it, being approximately eighteen months from now.  We should be prepared to conduct the exercise within a week.

“The planning for the exercise will be lead by Prince Yazadril; Supreme Commander of the Military of The Just Alliance, First Crimson; First of the Triax Gods of War, and myself.  If those two will join me here, we will begin organizing everyone else who will contribute.”