52.1 None Of It Matters

General Summary

Day 1052

I wake late in the morning and watch everyone slowly coming back to consciousness. Lyssa is deeply hungover and hardly remembers challenging me to a race around a nearby mountain (which she certainly lost) - it is always very endearing watching her nurse a morning headache. It is a quiet, easy morning until both Ausha and I feel a magical calling that seems to sound only for us. It is quiet, polite, but unknown and utterly unfamiliar…almost like a gentle tap on the shoulder.   With a quick word to the next most responsible adult (Bran), the two of us head North to investigate.   It doesn’t take us long to traverse the forest and find the mountain…with its top sheared off and polished smooth. It certainly was not like this before…but now it is dressed with a long table, chairs, and many servants standing at attention. Presiding over the area is an enormous phoenix-like bird that gives off a frozen, icy energy. It is fitted with a tent for riding, but does not speak up when we approach.   Cereus is there, with an opulently dressed atargrae who introduces himself as Soo Woo Zoo, the Left Crystal of the Emperor of Magic (so named for the crystal he carries, which holds a significant amount of magical energy). Unlike Zeesoo, Soo Woo Zoo’s speech is fluid and articulate, and he does not seem concerned about the contract, my presence on this side of the Barrier, or anything to do with the War of Fire.   The small atargrae offers the Emperor’s regrets that he could not come himself to meet his elder sister’s pupils. As gifts, he offers us each a heavy leather-bound tome, clearly new and addressed to Ausha and I personally. Soo Woo Zoo is evidently an academic cousin of sorts, being the Emperor’s student. Now that Rainbow has finally taken a student, it seems the most junior of Kaie’s students has decided that we should start thinking of gathering and working together again. And so he has sent ‘Cousin Soo’ to meet me and Ausha and help solve the silly problem of the Barrier itself.   After some pointed questions, Cereus looks sheepish and admits that he tried to negotiate with the Adjudicators (though Soo Woo Zoo points out that he was trying to split legal hairs), which was a mistake on his part. When pressed, he admits that he hardly found any of the signators and the few he found were not interested in speaking.   At the very least, I learn about more living Treeborn. Fabaceae turned him away, Artemisia seemed wrapped up in her own plans and simply said ‘not yet’, while Phaseoleae has ensconced himself in a valley covered in hostile grape vines.   On the subject of the Barrier, Cousin Soo has been inspecting it and producing a report with his findings, which Ausha immediately takes and inspects. His research point to original negligence by the Adjudicators but also interference from Zephyr, demons, natural happenings, and whatnot. It is no wonder that it is beginning to fail, and he thinks that its entire removal would be “problematic”.   Ausha looks up from her reading and clarifies - volcanic eruptions, avalanches, the possible disappearance of all magic in the range where the Barrier currently exists. I find this anti-hyperbole one of the most frustrating things about dealing with my fellow magically notable people, and of course Ausha is quick to detail exactly what kind of problems Soo has identified.   The Barrier is under a number of stressors, my own presence included, though I am evidently far less stressful than I was when Zeesoo met me. The proposal raised by Soo Woo Zoo is to bring the Barrier back into a state of stability by reconfiguring it to allow for some permeability. Whatever was in the original contract was never really intended to come to fruition, and so the time has come to simply…change.  

None of it matters anymore.

  The Emperor, naturally, is used to eliminating things that are are dangerous and should no longer exist. The Barrier in its current form should not exist - displacing people unpredictably and growing further and further into the sea on either side of our continent, it is a hazard.   Instead, he suggests opening up a few mountain passes through the Barrier to allow people to pass through at authorized passes. His theory is that there must be equilibrium in passage - travel goes both ways and should not allow for a great force to move from one side to the other without something in exchange. A martial force moving back to the Empire could be balanced by refugees fleeing to safety, and so we could send reinforcements to battle the Collective as we let our civilians come to safety in the Outlands.   But changes along the Barrier must apply throughout and this would also mean opening passageways in the South. It could expose the Spirit lands to the Collective and so he recommends erecting a secondary barrier to safeguard against that. With all of the connections I have made in the South, I think this is very possible, and the political matters involved don’t worry me much either.   Until now, I had thought that the Adjudicators must be neutral on the topic of the Collective, given how Zeesoo had spoken to me. But Soo Woo Zoo lets on that the Emperor and his students all view the Collective as something that must be contained (and eventually stopped). After all, a force which assimilates forbidden magic and then spreads it within their ranks will eventually propagate that forbidden magic throughout the land. This insight reveals some of the structure of their people in the Northern continent:   The Emperor (who was named ‘Pure’ by his teacher) presides over ‘magic’ and the Adjudicators’ job is simply to enforce the proper magical practices. Cousin Soo describes them as maybe…professors, or generals. Not especially powerful, but holding some authority particularly over normal people. The Left, Right, Upper, and Lower Crystals of the Emperor are his direct students and their little academic family tends to be much more nuanced about their views on magic and the geopolitical climate. It is Soo Woo Zoo’s junior brother who focuses on dealing with the Collective.   It will take a few months to improve the Barrier together, and Soo Woo Zoo is willing to travel with us to work together. So after more conversation, we invite the group back down to join what is sure to be another day of festivities with the Inferno trolls.   The ice phoenix is introduced as Shi Yen, a descendent of a phoenix who Soo Woo Zoo once rescued. Since then, one of each generation of her family has joined him as a companion. She describes it as a debt, but there is clearly a strong friendship between them.   Shi Yen notes the aura of the Osyr around Ausha and I, and expresses an interest in discussing the variations on the element of water. Dragons, of course, consider ‘lake’ and ‘river’, but she speaks of ‘ocean’ and ‘ice’ and ‘fog’ as well.   Before we depart, Soo Woo Zoo reverses the magic worked on the mountain, simply decompressing it from its flat, polished form. Once we land amidst the Inferno trolls, Shi Yen transforms into a painfully slender and tall humanoid in stark contrast to the trolls present.   The conversations we have with Soo Woo Zoo are fascinating - he comments on many of our discoveries and work with curiosity and interest even when they are things he has written off as ‘closed paths’. And those areas are typically places where we have had to be incredibly efficient with our magical usage whereas he has never wanted for access to magical strength in the Northern continent.   Soo Woo Zoo himself considers ‘life’ to be his specialty. He is interested in the paths life takes, how it develops, how it adapts.