Remi-chan's Writing Snippets~

[Remi-chan]

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Mystic Eye // Calamitous Sands

An apocalypse came from the ancient king's curse. Waves of sand eclipsing the titanic structures of the desert would rise to consume the Desert Jewel of Nordia. Nikki Hirogashi, a young girl lived here... her family lived here. It is where she was raised. An empire of dirt, soon to be reduced to even less than it.

For millennia, the Nordols paid tribute to the mad king, for fear of invoking the fury of the sands. Fed their freedom and integrity to the very jaws of the beast, thousands of lives lost-- in service of sating a weeping monarch who wept not for aught but his own prestige- fighting for a memory none wanted to keep. A God of nothing, a despot disdained.

All this effort, bloodshed and devotion, for LESS than nothing.

The Nordols had paid forward in a cycle of blood and broken spirits, and it could not go on. It would not go on. The Magister of the Moons: Nikki Hirogashi would see to the cycle's close. The princess of Nordia would not allow this wretched cascade to continue. Seeing the defiance of his descendant, the mad king unleashed his horrific storm, saying that only if she were to continue the cycle would the sands spare the kingdom.

Nikki would not be cowed. She refused to sit idly by as the flood came to devour her home. Calling all of the commonfolk to the jewel-encrusted capital for their safety. Nikki Hirogashi devised an utterly insane plan. A massive area spell with one goal...

Turn that which flows free to that which cannot. She intended to freeze the waves via stoking the flame. It is knowledge in Nordia that when superheated, sand turns to glass. What better an irony than caging the captor of her people, freezing his legacy in the heat of his own ambition? Delicious, cruel irony- oh so sweet, oh so bitter!

When the sands melt into solid, so too does the fear of the fallen king, and so will his memory at last be allowed to fade. Forgotten and weeping in solitude, a fitting end for a fascist egomaniac.

And so to protect her people, and save her pocket of the world... To stop the weeping monarch's curse in its tracks, she would utilize the heat offered by all three of the archanul moons to turn the forgotten sands solid. A kingdom of glass to replace a tomb of sand.

A cursed construct replaced with a solid settlement. On any other world this consideration would be one of logical impracticality, given sunlight, a land of glass would turn into a superheated hell, but Terra had no sun. It could prosper equally well as a sheet of glass than as a land of sand.

The other highmages were initially against the idea... For even in death the specter of the weeping monarch instilled fear in them. Beyond that, so directly harnessing the power of the Archanul Moons might have been seen as a heresy.

However, when even the skies weren't safe from the sands of time, what heresy is not worth comitting if the alternative is complete extinction? Mayhaps if the Gods deemed it heresy, they would deny it's foregone conclusion through intervention? There is no time to consider dogma, no point in relishing tradition. Lives are on the line, and with no time left, the Council of Highmages acquiesced to the Princess' plot, activating all three of the Sandspires and redirecting the energy they'd collected from centuries of Lunar collection to be harnessed by one girl. A spell of impossible magnitude, now considered possible- heat amplification area magick that would be hot enough to liquidize silver or melt sand to glass. An arcanum to fry an entire desert region. The other Highmages focused their power on erecting a shield from the heat around the capital which all Nordols at this moment dwelt within.

The people of this vertical city looked to see the end times beyond their walls, cataclysmic waves raced towards the city as if several world-ending tsunami's had converged with the sole intent to crush them into the abyss.

As the unknowing masses watched in horror, closing their eyes in acceptance for what they thought was a certain fate- the world for a moment looked white.

People opened their eyes in synchronious action with the Highmage who had succeeded. Mere meters from their viewpoint the waves were there, but no longer undulating as sand, but stiff as glass. The Magister of the Moons floated down to address her people, and a cacopheny of cheers shook the foundations of volume itself.

The Mad King's curse had been not merely lifted, but utterly destroyed. No longer did his damned dilligence hold sway. To close the chapter for good, Nikki teleported to his tomb despite the dogma, and incinerated his remains until not even ash remained. his memory would no longer marr the kingdom he tried so desperately to ruin.

The world has forever changed, but with calamity averted, who is to say the future isn't worth the shift?

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This is an extension on the lore drop from my art thread. As a little bonus, here's a couple concept sketches I did for how the Forgotten Sands and Nordia appear after these massive waves had been glass formed.

As seen on the left image, you have one massive spire, drawing energy from three sandspires out of view all across the desert, finally all of it is being channeled into the conduit of the Mage Tower that is right beside the Kingdom of Nordia.

Right where Nikki can channel it, and does so on this very balcony!

So, enjoy that lore!