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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 2884561" data-attributes="member: 63">Chapter Twelve, Part Four“I saw destruction. No, not exactly destruction. But there were places where people should be, but instead there were just ruins. It was like radioactive fall-out, like 28 Days Later before you realize there are zombies.”The group assembled looks at Nathan.“I’m sorry,” Ian says. “This is starting to overload my Crazy-Sh*t-ometer. What are you talking about?”Nathan leans back in his chair and takes a breath.He says, “While we were watching the images that divination spell showed us from Terry’s past, just when the coffin fell from the sky, I had a vision.”“Coffin?” Terry asks. “You mean the chest she was doing the escape artist trick in?”“Well it looked like a coffin to me,” Nathan says. “Just as it hit and exploded, I saw a flash of . . . I think seven locations. First there was Paris. It was quite distinctive. I saw the Eiffel Tower and the Champ de Mars. The sky was a dull orange-brown, like there had been fire recently, but there was no sign of any people. The ground, where there should have been gardens, was gray dirt.“Then there was some sort of Japanese style castle. It looked like a pagoda. Then I saw a city with strange-looking buildings, things I had never seen, that looked like it was in the arctic. Fourth was a small ruined town built on . . . it looked like giant steps that were cut out of the top of a mountain.“For the fifth one, it was like I was flying past the Great Pyramids in Egypt, like where I was looking wasn’t actually there, but somewhere nearby. Either way, the Nile river wasn’t there at all. The sixth one looked like . . . I can’t quite pin down why I think this, but I distinctly remember feeling like it was something out of The Lord of the Rings.”Ian interrupts, his tone serious, “Movies or books?”“Movies, actually.” Nathan sounds surprised at himself.“Good,” Ian says. “I never could get into those damn novels.”Jenny asks, “What about the seventh place?”Nathan glances at Terry. “Oh, the seventh place was fairly obvious to figure out. Terry, I’m sorry old chum, but it was Chicago. I saw the Sears Tower, looking like it hadn’t been kept up in centuries, and the whole city was covered in brown and gray dust.”Ian claps his hands. “It is the f*cking Lord of the Rings. We’ve got ‘two towers.’ He apparently saw Weathertop and the pass through the Misty Mountains, and. . . . Well, I got nothing.”Nathan says, “It wasn’t quite like that.”Robert asks, “Well, then what was it? That’s not really, y’know, something we can do about. Normally you have visions that are pretty straight forward. Most of them involve bombs. And we go, and we stop the bombs, or actually you stop the bombs since they’re usually trying to blow up some of the rest of us, but the point is, the bombs get stopped. By us.”“No bombs here,” Nathan says.“Right,” Robert says. “You just got this crazy, make-no-sense vision in the middle of another crazy make-no-sense magic spell. So, hey,” he turns and look at the Chief, “do you think you can help us out here? Enlighten us a bit?”John sounds stressed. “Don’t piss him off. Whatever’s going on is pretty big, right?”A slightly hesitant Michael interrupts. “Chief, do you think this fits with the World Mage theory?”The group gets quiet and looks at the Chief. He nods a few times too many, then says, “The divination, yes. We’ll have to look into the vision. Give them the overview.”The group settles back into their seats, awaiting another long story.“‘World Mage’ is an old term,” Michael says, “one of those ‘myths of the magi’ we were talking about before. The stories say Merlin and Morgan le Fay were world mages, as well as most famous magicians of the ancient world. The specifics about the title are unclear, but the core element of the story is that world mages control the connection between Terra and Gaia.”Robert laughs. “You’re just now bringing this up? Hey, Scarpedin, didn’t you know Merlin?”Scarpedin frowns. “I dunno. Did I? Um, yeah, yeah I did. He was an ass. I don’t remember liking him much.”“Pardon me?” Michael says.Jenny waves him off. “Scarpedin claims to have been a knight from King Arthur’s time, sent through time.”The casualness with which she passes along the information amuses the group. She seems to get where they’re coming from, where the rest of the Bureau doesn’t.Michael blinks, and continues.“There are other stories about people who could easily travel between Terra and Gaia. The original keymakers, the gatekeepers, countless fey who claimed they were more than they actually were – demons and angels and such. But the world mage story is one of the hardest one disprove, because all of the main characters of the tales were powerful mages who were adept at travel, and who became devoted to hiding after the fall of Camelot.“The story goes that there were many world mages at a time, one for each continent, and that they could draw power from the connection between the two worlds. When King Arthur died and Camelot fell, the surviving knights started a secret crusade to destroy the world mages, thinking that they had helped the fey attack humanity.”Scarpedin nods. “Makes sense.”“Most of the world mages,” Michael says, “went into hiding, but a few were killed, which is said to explain why the two worlds are not as close together as they were back in more mythic times. Like I said, the specifics of the magic are unknown but are extremely powerful, capable of affecting entire continents at a time. One explanation we considered was that the last world mage died or was killed-”Bonnie interrupts, “Wait, they’re just dying now? They sure live a long time.”Ian’s ghost Giovanni hisses, “Stop this woman’s pointless speech. She wastes air with the obvious.”Robert looks over his shoulder at the ghost like he’s about to pick a fight.“Oh,” Robert says, “I’m sorry. Maybe some things aren’t as obvious to those of us who don’t,” he waves his hands in the air dramatically, “do magic.”Ian mutters, “If I could shut him up, I would.”Jenny quietly encourages Michael to continue.“Again,” Michael says, “if the last world mage was killed at a moment to coincide with the attack on the Bureau, that might have been how the worlds were separated. Unfortunately, we don’t know what it takes for someone to become a world mage, or if you even can, so we have no idea how to fix it. The group that we sent sailing to England intended to contact the Fey Court and see if they have any answers, but the fey are hard to deal with, and might actually like it if humans can’t interfere with them.”John scowls. “So we know nothing still.”The Chief stands up. “That’s not correct. We know that Terry Abrams was killed, and that he was able to travel between the two worlds. We don’t know whether the young lady, Lin, was killed because she had the same sort of power, or if it was an accident, but we’re going to find out. This is old, secretive magic. What we’re going to do when we get back to Terra is arrange quick, discreet contact with every hermit, scholar, archaeologist, cryptozoologist, cosmologist, cosmetologist, and Scientologist who might know something.“We’re looking for world mages. Let’s get to work.” He looks to Robert. “Meanwhile, we should discuss you handing us over that bracelet, so that we can get to fixing this mess.”The group looks to Robert. Terry wishes they were looking at him, since it’s his fate their deciding.“I think,” Robert says, “that we’re going to stick with Terry for right now. Maybe once we see you’re not the colossal screw-ups you appeared at first glance, we might trust you.”The Chief takes a moment, then nods. “That’s fair. Let’s head back to the transit room. How many can you get at a time?”Robert hesitates for only a moment. “Ten. We, ah, we don’t want to risk any more than that.”Ulwelf stands. “I will stay here, Chief.”“Why? We just have nine.” Robert counts with his fingers. “You, me, Jenny, John, Nathan, the new guy and the new girl, Scarpedin, and Balthazaar.”“What about the fey?” Jenny asks. “He makes ten.”Wiji-wiji, silent for what seems like ages, smiles and says, “You not supposed to remember me. Robot-san, kochira onna ga totemo mezurashii, yo?”“Exactly,” Robert says. “No, sorry, I just forgot he was here.”It sounds believable, the way he says it.Nathan stands and stretches. “I do rather hope we’re able to work together on this. I’ve never saved the world before.”</blockquote>

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