Earlier, during the night.
Barbara tossed and turned in her bed. The luncheon at the Royal Palace was today, and she couldn't screw up.
"Barbara, are you paying attention?" Elizabeth asked with a stern tone. "As I said, At a tea table, there are two people of interest. The host, and the 'crown', the person with the highest open status at the table. Please rember this. It's the most basic and most important lesson. The further you sit from the crown and/or the host, the lower your perceived station at the table. Should your real station be higher than the perceived one, it's an insult."
"In your case," Eleanora added as she glanced at the living book resting on the table. "You'll be the one with the least status, so don't mind it."
"I won't," the [Crystallomancer] stamred.
"If people knew of your origin, you'd be the Crown, though," The bubbly girl lanted.
"I really don't mind. Nethe doesn't mind either."
Nenandil nodded. Rosalinda almost never manifested, instead of letting Pandora act on her own. To the mother who lived eons trapped in stone, just being next to her daughter, just that connection was enough. "Thank you," the fairy said with a sniffle. Small ice beads flew from her face.
"How so?"
"Is that what happened to the Empire?"
"Windere?"
*
*
*
*
Two thousand years ago.
Panic struck the streets of Windere. Dragons struck and caused as much damage dying and falling off the sky as when they rampaged. The Academy's teaching staff [Wizards] were exhausted, out of MP. But the battle was over. They'd won against the dragons.
Marlowe looked up with his gem eyes. The last surviving dragons lost heart and fled to the mountains. They would be hunted down viciously in the next centuries. He had more than enough funds to bribe enough Adventurers to go comb the mountains for dragons and their treasures. He sighed. The [Archmage] was forced to swallow his pride and tap into [Kel'Caldor's True Phylactery]'s reserves, draining it almost empty.
It was necessary. Windere had to survive. But now it was over.
That's when he knew he fucked-up setting the flag. A beam of pure power struck the viridescent moon. Sylvis, the Green Moon broke in slow motion, the pieces cracking more and more as the beam of light split to strike each piece of the moon...
And drag them onto the world. A rather large chunk ca straight in their way. It ignited as it crossed the atmosphere, and brought early dawn to Auvanini.
Marlowe cast a few spells from his specialty. Despite knowing general magic enough to claim he didn't have one, he was a [Diviner] first, and [Wizard] second. He knew for centuries that the events of this day had enough divine magic seeping into the lattice of reality to make any magical prediction impossible. But now, seeped in the scattered divine energies himself like anything else existing at this mont in ti, he could use {Clairvoyance}. He cast his spells and soaked in information.
The third biggest chunk of the destroyed moon was coming straight for Windere. It wasn't a coincidence. The dragon Goddess must've done this out of spite, to destroy sothing Marlowe's mistress held dear. He sighed and sagged as he gathered his resolve. Windere couldn't fall. Not on his watch, not while he, Marlowe the cloth golem [Archmage] still could use magic.
The animated doll of a caster cackled. He knew exactly what spell to use. The sa that he, then a human serving the King of Virturia, fighting against rmaids, did. Marlowe lifted his hands and the diagrams sprung to life. He had improved on that spell over the centuries, as he did diligently with all his signature magics.
The diagrams spun and split, forming more sub-diagrams as he tapped into his [Layered Complex Arcane Networks] fourth-tier Perk. The purplish-brown energy of Disintegration magic shone along the lines, converting raw MP into aspected magic.
But he was out of MP and the magical battery sitting a continent away was tapped out. It left the cloth golem only one choice. He connected the diagram to his own animated body. Marlowe was dead for thousands upon thousands of years. This body was but a gift from his mistress, one she could gift again and even improve on.
He regretted losing the high-level {Living Silk} body and starting again from level one but that too could be fixed. He knew better how to guide the rudintary consciousness in his cloth body to earn the Perks he knew were best for him. The current one did... so mistakes out of ignorance, to put it lightly.
That's how Marlowe t his second death. Though his body was consud by the spell, his spirit would linger on. He still had a {Soul Servant Contract}, after all. He belonged to his mistress, to his Goddess.
Thousands of years of service and the opportunity to study magic beyond what his human life could fathom were more than enough to make him absolutely loyal. To trust his deity completely.
The strands of {Living Silk} dulled and faded as the cloth golem frayed. The fully-powered diagram shone and then discharged his deadly energies up. Disintegration magic of the likes none have ever witnessed in this world and that would give Siren Arista the Dolphin rmaid Princess's barriers trouble t the falling chunk of the moon and did its work.
Dull gems struck the battlents atop Windere's Academy main tower. Marlowe floated, a disembodied soul unable to affect the mortal world, watching the falling piece of the moon, as large as a continent, shrink as it was disintegrated.
Yet a chunk, small in comparison to the initial extinction-causing planetoid but still big enough to destroy the nation kept coming. The diagrams vanished into motes of magic, its work done. Extrely solid, this core of celestial bedrock survived disintegration.
The flaming petard then struck sothing in the skies above Windere. The Goddess' floating island. It hit the Force panels acting as railings around the island first, losing so kinetic energy but utterly unraveling those. Then thousands of enchanted floating rods groaned and broke, the weight pushing against their magic too strong. But the Goddess' enchantnts, especially those who could level up on their own like the floating island's lattice of enchanted immovable tal dowels.
The orchards, gardens, and priests living in the lofty abode perished. The island ca down pushed by the inexorable chunk of moon, albeit severely slowed down. So enchantnts held, and Marlowe sighed with relief. Not enough, however.
That much mass crashing straight on Windere wouldn't destroy the continent but the country was dood nonetheless. Marlowe's ghost, without any other choice, prayed.
And so did the people of Windere, the cradle of the Matriarch's faith. They raised their voices, clamoring for deliverance.
The Goddess, at least the [Wisp of Creation], obliged. Golden light enveloped Windere, From Vugh Tarim's underground vaults to the port at the end of the Uroko Gulf.
Windere and its people shone goldenly, then vanished from the face of the planet.
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