From the Aether that surrounds this particular corner of reality is plucked a single soul. Although he is not a human, he presently holds human form, because that is the form he held when a hijacked teleport flung him into the Aether in the first place. 

He's in a big stone room, on a circular platform with a pit around it (about ten feet deep and maybe ten feet between the inside and the outside). There's a ceiling thirty feet up and a lot of faintly Egyptian-esque detailing, though there's nothing representational or hieroglyphic. There's a bubble of force with a big ghostly off-white living ball of claws about twenty feet away, with its own, deeper pit around it, corridors that lead past that , some more going the other direction on a level above. A few crystals in the walls here and there give off faint light.

Everything here is magic, the air excepted. Mostly excepted. Even this small dusting of rust on the ground by his feet is faintly magic.

He is instantly on high alert. Hostile magic redirected him here — it could be a trap, another assassination attempt — but he does not see a pile of explosives, a battery of heavy guns, or a half-dozen magical girls with deadly powers. As the seconds tick by and no imminent threats materialize, he relaxes minutely. 

The magic here is not the same as his, nor does it seem to be of Earth. The ghostly creature does not look like an Earth cryptid or monster. The detailing is unfamiliar. 

All of these observations suggest a similar conclusion: He's not on Earth any longer.

Counterpoint: Neither his spells nor the magic of any magical girl allow one to traverse the Aether. But he caught a glimpse of the magic that seized his own; it looked like that of a magical girl, but there was something to it which he did not recognize. A rare manifestation? A fluke? The work of a Netherling or Aetherskimmer? Something else? He commits the pattern to memory all the same. 

(If only he'd reacted faster — but magical girls have always been his superior in that regard. Even quickened spells take a second to cast, but their powers happen at the speed of will.)

After confirming the apparent absence of imminent danger, Ipaxalon takes a moment to bow his head and grieve, once again, for those he has known and loved who are now far beyond his reach. 

It is not a long moment, but it will have to suffice. Perhaps this world needs fixing, too. 

This place is fairly large, but still a bit tight for his natural form; he remains human and begins to examine his surroundings in greater detail. He nonetheless employs a rather implausible array of magical senses.

(When one is a powerful spellcaster with access to functionally unlimited diamond dust, one has the privilege of sitting down at the Permanency Restaurant and ordering the entire menu.) 

Questions of interest to Ipaxalon include: 

• The alignment of the ghostly creature (as determined by the net effect of suffering or eudaimonia, and of legibility or illegibility, it has generated upon this world, weighted by the depth of causal responsibility it bears for same);
• The general structure of the various magics that surround him (wards will typically share some common structure with abjuration spells, summoning effects with the teleportation subschool of conjuration spells, elemental magic with evocation, and so on); and
• Whether the detailing consists of a readable language, and if so, approximately what it says.

It doesn't seem to be aligned, any more than a rabid bear is. Nothing else nearby has an alignment either.

There is definitely some abjuration in the magic in the walls, and the bubble around his neighbor is evocation and abjuration. The rust dust has fading traces of transmutation. None of it is particularly normal for schools, and all of it except the bubble of force is heavily mixed with the universal school; for the walls it's most similar to permanency and the rust and some of the breeze blowing in (also traces of transmutation) looks a bit like wish. (Though the weirdest thing might be that the crystal lights are pure universal magic, no evocation like you'd expect for a permanent light.)

Almost none of the details have linguistic content, but there's a group of indents around his platform, the one with the bubble, and the third on his other side, and they're marked with runes. Which - sort of have meanings? They're kind of like 婷 - they have associated meanings, sort of, but that's not what they're usually for. But they come in a set, and the three platforms have approximately ABCDEF, GHIJKL, and MNOPQR around their edges. Around the bubble all six are missing and the indents are holes six inches deep; around the third, all six are present and the indents are full; around him, only one is empty.

Hmm. 

What are the full indents filled with?

He also has tongues, of course. Does the creature in the bubble have a language? 

They have small regular stones carved with the same runes, inset with crystal. They're turned slightly so you can't just pull them back out of the hole, but even from a distance it's pretty obvious it wouldn't be hard to turn them back; it's more like a child safety lock than a real lock.

The Havoc is... muttering? Whispering? But it's hard to make out the words, and it doesn't seem to be coherent. At least it isn't maddening gibberish, but that's the obvious analogy.

They don't look like the runes used by the giants of Jorvasten to empower themselves, ward their fortresses, and enslave their kin, and they don't seem to radiate dangerous magic either. (Well, not any more than the rest of the room.) The place is still making him tense.

At any rate, he's not going to disturb them. This place has Dangerous Forgotten Ruin written all over it. Possibly literally. His adventuring instincts may have rusted a bit in the last two hundred years of Earth life, but one lesson from decades of raiding rune giant strongholds that has not faded in the slightest is that you Do Not Touch The Unknown Runes Without A Damn Good Reason.

As for the imprisoned creature, if he can't seem to form a coherent thought into words in its language (?) even with tongues, he'll leave well enough alone for now.

He pokes the air above the pit and, if this does not trigger some horrendous trap, hops the ten-foot gap with ease and picks a corridor to explore. 

Oh, languages, plural. If he has the discernment through tongues he can tell that there's two different anatomies being represented among them, one more human and the other more bugbear-like, but that's probably hard since they're whispering.

No traps are in evidence. Whatever was supposed to trap something on his platform either never activated or burned out.

If he goes past the trapped thing, he'll find sliding doors, in smooth channels, mostly but not entirely closed. Through there are more corridors, which are smaller than the room he arrived in but built on the same scale - for something about human-sized, but on the larger end; it would be cramped for even a pretty small giant, and he could slither through in natural form but it wouldn't be pleasant.

Some of the doors have crystal runes next to them at about shoulder height, faintly glowing. Most of these are a rune that just means 'door,' and the few others are assorted adjectives. Others have an alcove which could hold something about head-sized, and these ones have divination magic.

The general magic aura of the whole everything continues basically unchanged. The air mostly isn't magic, but faint gusts of breeze come from the direction he's moving occasionally, and those bring the faint transmutation and universal again with them. If his ears are really good he'll notice that faint thumping like a trap door bouncing against the floor when it's dropped precedes each of these gusts by a couple seconds.

It's otherwise extremely quiet. He can probably go a couple minutes in this direction without hearing any signs of life. There's an occasional drip of falling moisture.

His hearing is excellent, yes. He continues heading towards the breeze; it might mean an exit. 

The thumps get louder and the gap between them and the breeze gets shorter. It opens up into other chambers, designed a lot like the first one but without anything like the containment bubbles.

There's one where one side of the room has a second level where the first twenty feet are made of a bunch of thin walls, slightly greener stone than the rest, all the same height and projecting out of the floor, and the other side has almost the same, except they're at all different heights and make up a long staircase. And another where the walls and ceiling open up, but the floor stays the same width as the corridors. To each side there's a pit, deep and dark enough that the bottom isn't visible. Looking up, the top of the shaft isn't clearly visible either. (This is true even if he has darkvision, if it's limited to the usual 120 feet.)

But if he keeps following the breeze, it just leads down the corridor. There will be some more noise, a few chambers down the way, when he's covered around half the distance to the thumping. Sounds a lot like the whispering ghost from before, but with even more voices, and more variation. There's another mostly-closed door, and it's coming from the other side.

That sure does look like it was designed by wizards. At least the geometry is behaving itself, unless they managed to fit a truly bottomless pit in that one room. (He hopes not. Bottomless pits are not a responsible architectural decision, no matter how annoying it is to haul refuse out of an unnecessarily large tower. They have an unfortunate tendency to implode.) 

This close to something that could be a threat, he casts freedom of movement on general principles. It'll last a good long while. He has other buffs, but they are shorter duration and he has a feeling this could turn out to be a very long day. 

How wide is the opening? He attempts to peer through to the other side.

The gap is most of a foot.

This room looks like a junction, probably. But more urgently, it's full of claw ghosts like the trapped one. Much smaller; these range from housecat to wolf in size, not dire bear. They vary in color, which seems to match size. The smallest are pure white, look the least agitated, and are the most numerous; there's six visible from here and it's probably not all. About a quarter are bright red, visibly agitated, and fox-sized; they seem angry, like caged predators, and there's a small aura of enchantment around them. And the largest - only looks like one, here - is blue with an aura of purple energy that looks like necromancy; unlike the little ones, it never stops moving, but it doesn't seem to be purposeful motion, just drifting around.

They float above the ground, but either they can't fly, or they really don't like doing so; none of them are hovering more than a few feet up.

Perhaps it's the Sense Motive, or perhaps it's just the extreme Dangerous Forgotten Ruin vibes of this place, but Ipaxalon cannot help feeling that they're going to attack him on sight.

As much as he enjoys a good tussle, these beings are not obviously evil, he's a trespasser in their apparent domain, and he's not sure he can subdue them nonlethally. It's best if this doesn't come to a fight. 

There's still a chance he's misjudging things, though. He backs up a bit and casts the first nine-tenths of an invisibility spell. He'll finish it the instant there's any sign of hostility. Then he slides into the room and attempts to say "Pardon me, I seem to be lost," in their human-ish language; failing that, English will have to do. 

They actually start paying attention before he speaks, when he starts casting.

The whispers all get angrier, the big one stops being aimless and moves toward him, the reds surge forward, and the little wisps all file into their wake.

(Words like 'mage', 'destroyer', 'prey', and 'cursed' show up enough to be a theme.)

And yes, as soon as there isn't a door in the way they attack. Big guy seems to be a caster.

Then he will turn invisible and attempt to circle around them with supernaturally fluid grace, until he can dart down a new passageway. 

The invisibility does not seem to hide him but they do act slightly more hesitant. He's faster, but not much; several of the red things will get within aura distance, and the caster will throw projectile spells at him.

(They're trying to en-rage him and slow him, respectively, but he may not notice the specifics because they are unaccustomed to the existence of spell resistance and do not succeed at all.)

If he doesn't do anything else, he'll get a couple clawings on his way and pass through the necromantic* aura before he gets clear. But unless those're nasty, he will get clear.

(*actually, also some divination?)

Even in this form, he's moderately difficult to hit, between the bracers of armor that work even against incorporeal attacks and his skill at dodging. He takes his scrapes and moves on. 

Once he's clear, he takes a few moments to heal the scratches with cure spells.

As he passes through the necromantic aura, his freedom of movement ends, and the Malice acquires a shiny new abjuration effect that looks very familiar to arcane sight. It doesn't get any faster, though, so he still pulls ahead of them, and after a while they give up and stop pursuing.

The next stretch of corridors has some octagonal insets on the walls that have some crystals in their centers and strong conjuration magic. They have swirling energy inside them that looks somewhat like the bane, and there's divination magic laid out in a wide arc around each of them, along the floor. They're spaced out about every thirty feet here, though the first and the third from where he enters have the magic missing, the crystals cracked and half-shattered, and no swirling energy visible.

Spell stealing. Usually rare, dangerous to casters. Mostly an inconvenience to him — all his spells are replaceable, none critical — but it's still fortunate it got one of the non-permanent spells. Given the divination effect, perhaps a mind blank would block it in the future? He can experiment later, though. 

The conjuration effect makes sense if they're binding outsiders. Divination, less so. He'd have expected abjuration. Can he skirt the divination magic as he traverses the room? If not, best to spend the energy on a mind blank after all. 

If he's careful, he can definitely do that. It's pretty much just an alarm each.

There are more of those conjuration traps past this corridor, but they're thinner, in clusters about that dense but covering less of the other corridors. As he progresses it's becoming clear from the occasional thumps that whatever's producing the wind and noise is off to the right, and not very far to the right - maybe half again as far as the furthest wall he's seen in that direction, at most.

Which is relevant because after a few of these trapped corridors, there's a decision. He can turn left along a clear corridor that then turns forward, or go forward into a comparatively cramped chamber that looks mazelike. Goes up and down several times, a few bridges over visible-bottom-less pits, and a lot more doors than most. Most notably, straight ahead, there's stairs down, and a gap straight ahead, with a particularly large door with two of the empty alcoves. And next to it, a partially mummified corpse and a large yellow glowing crystal in a runic shape from the same alphabet as before, of appropriate size to fit in the alcove.

Why are wizards like this. They might have items that let them fly for hours a day, but their servants probably don't. (The magic seems different here, but still.) 

He goes forward. It's fine, he can make a fog cloud and just walk across the gaps. 

Who leaves a mummified corpse in the middle of a main junction. 

...is the corpse Evil and/or powerfully magic?

Nope, it's the least magic thing here. Utterly ordinary nonmagical mummification without wrappings or anything. The robes are still recognizable as clothes, not that there's any recognizable insignia or inscriptions.

The crystal's unusually magic, though. Unsurprisingly.

It's probably not an undead guardian. He's not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. 

There are two empty alcoves the crystal could fit? Also, what school(s) of magic does it seem to have? Does the noise/breeze seem to be coming from behind the (presumably closed) door?

Crystal's got two signatures. One is basically the same as the walls and floors, but more concentrated. The other is universal and evocation, and it's pretty clearly reminiscent of an arcane mark. (Only mixed with light like an ever-burning lantern because this tradition of magic clearly does not believe in separating schools.) The alcoves have divination auras, and there's an obvious circular inset in the bottom of each which matches the size of the base of the crystal.

The breeze is definitely coming through the cracks of this door, though yes, it is closed. Actually, when he looks closer, he'll see that there are vertical stone bars sliding from the wall above and below into the door, so that to slide it open you'd need to break the stone bars reinforcing it. (At least one set from above and one from below.)

Could it really be as simple as "crystal go in hole"? Who leaves their keys just lying around? ...maybe this poor dead soul is who. One wonders what caused their demise, in that case, and how they ended up partially mummified. 

He probably could break the door down, or brute-force it with magic. But that might be construed as an act of vandalism if this place isn't as abandoned as it seems. 

He may as well first attempt to put the crystal in the nearest alcove, but he'll accomplish this task from forty feet away with a mage hand, because WIZARDS and RUNES. 

Half of the bars slide up/down and partially release both sides of the door. Now you only have to be tiny,* not gaseous, to slip through the gaps the breeze is coming through.

*Fine, technically, but who's counting.

...he levitates the crystal into the other alcove. Just in case that works. 

The bars slide back in when it leaves, and the other set do not slide out.

No thank you, he is not combing this entire fortress for another magic rock. It is time to get creative. 

He patiently casts a clairvoyance aimed about a thousand feet above his current position. 

Three thousand feet is enough to be well outside the fortress, but it's not as clear a view as you'd expect. The sensor is in the middle of a storm.

There's constant gale-force winds, irregularly gusting up to 'extreme even for hurricanes.' And there's some rain, but mostly there is dust. And rust. There are fragments of iron and bronze as powder and fragments everywhere you look, except the places they've been pulverized into plates, shields and armor battered into planks and walls of mixed metal.

Some places it looks like these battered walls of metal have been braced into covered camps that might hide people, but no people are immediately in evidence; the winds are too strong right now.

Looking straight down, there's thin enough dust and rust clouds to see the Oldwall snaking its way along the landscape. There's a section that looks damaged nearby, a piece of the outer wall hanging unnaturally and leaning on the rest.

Well, that's...deeply alarming. But he got what he wanted from the test. He finds a slightly less claustrophobic space to adopt his natural form.

Thanks to his vest of the shapechanger, a popular design among dragons who routinely interact with humanoids, some of his clothes and items meld into his natural form, leaving only an aura of transmutation and an array of passive benefits. A few remain worn on his person, however. 

Greater teleport, aiming for high enough that he won't be immediately slammed by hurricane-force winds. (He can handle hurricane-force winds, but why take the chance?) 

Now he is above the storm. It's one seriously ugly-looking storm. There's a hurricane, over five hundred miles across and only about half over land, spinning in place around some kind of fortress. A few enormous stone towers (dark stone, like the dungeon he was in) poke through the cloud cover, a ways to the southwest along the coast and maybe twice that far to the southeast. It seems to lose its force unnaturally fast along a wavy line not far north of here.

And that cloud cover is some of the ugliest you've ever seen. It's like someone ripped apart a hundred rusting scrapyards and tossed the remnants into the storm, and then it played keepaway with them rather than letting them fall to earth naturally.

Looking straight down, the clouds don't entirely block the sight of the Oldwall snaking its way along the landscape. It's big, and clearly stretches a long way east and west.

Heavens, what happened here? Not even the Font of Power unleashed devastation at such a scale. It looks like some kind of magically-induced catastrophe from the age of gods and titans. 

That fortress looks like the epicenter. Perhaps he can get some answers there. With an inward sigh, he sets out in that direction.

Ipaxalon hopes that the Pax Corps can carry on without him. They have a lot of training and contingencies, but his absence will still be a shock. And there's the worrying possibility of Netherling involvement, which could be a prelude to invasion.

If it were, though, it's a mystery why they would wait two hundred years instead of striking earlier. It doesn't seem likely they would take that long to make a move against him. Perhaps time does indeed pass relatively quickly in Earth's universe, and this influenced when the Netherlings arrived or chose to act? 

Alas, he has very little to go on. It's possible, perhaps even likely, that his unwilling travel was an unrelated fluke, and the Netherlings were not involved at all.

MEANWHILE

The ripples in the Aether caused by Ipaxalon's latest involuntary sojourn have the denizens of the Well in a frenzy of excitement. It's not often an Aetherskimmer is foolish enough to drag an entire magic system across the Aether, rather than adapting to the laws of their destination reality. Now it's happened twice in the same cluster.

There is wariness also, of course. Their agents in his previous world haven't succeeded in opening a breach in two hundred years of local time. Something is clearly amiss.

Nevertheless, this new opportunity is too delicious to pass up. They will send a variety of agents this time, with the usual arrangement: Those who succeed may partake. 

Three factions bid highest for the privilege. 

The Inhabitor prefers to scatter Its spores in search of hosts. It attempts to open a number of micro-breaches across Terratus, sending a handful of spores through each, and a single corporeal Reclaimer as well. They will seek places of power, where the mighty and the hungry may be found.

The Elder Shoals, among the most disciplined of the factions, choose the opposite path. They pool their energies and open a temporary breach for their vanguard in a relatively unpopulated region, modestly distant from where the Aetherskimmer landed. Securing territory in which to open a proper breach will be their first priority.

The Library of Fractures pens a single Sentence, a concentration of false reality so dense with power that it must be parsed into fragments before it can be insinuated, one lie at a time, into the weak places of the world. They go where they will. 

Sentinel Stand has been the home of the Regents of Stalwart for centuries. It has been besieged 44 times and repulsed 44 sieges. It is a matter of opinion whether the storm counts as the 45th, but so far it's holding out.

It hasn't stayed entirely immune to the Edict of Storms, and there are drifts of twisted metal against its outer walls and some impact craters where the metal has twisted upward, claw-like, around the edges and not been battered down to allow passage. But it looks strong, and the walls only broke in one or two places. (And in fact when he gets close enough he'll see it has faint traces of similar magic to the general abjuration on the Oldwalls. Not the same stone, this is more ordinary granite.)

The storm around it, on the other hand, is even stronger. It doesn't go up more than a few hundred feet before it dissolves into the main storm, but there is an utterly impassable wall of wind swirling just beyond the walls of the main castle. A cannon would struggle to shoot through it, let alone a catapult. Magic missile would probably work but you can really see the 'probably' on what's usually completely unerring. And that's not even considering the magic in it - the whole storm is a strong active spell effect (transmutation and universal), but the closer it gets to the center the stronger and more concentrated, and it's good and proper overwhelming here.

At the fort's gates and on its walls is an under-strength but dutiful guard in red cloth and well-made bronze armor, with heraldry bearing a symbol that looks somewhat like a snake twined around a sword. They're huddling against the wind, mostly, but when one of them does look up, they start yelling and panicking; several run for the inner keep from different directions.

Those poor people. That is an entirely reasonable and valid response to seeing an approaching dragon in the middle of...whatever this is. 

The storm makes it extremely difficult to approach the gates for a proper hail. He's genuinely unsure if he can do something about this, but it's worth a try. This calls for a freedom of movement first, though. 

He lands a good six hundred feet from the gate, braving the battering winds, and concentrates the whole of his will on control winds. The effect is strong enough to silence a tornado for six hundred forty feet around him, and by a mix of luck and magical might, he puts in enough power to handily overcome the workings of an epic archmage. 

The storm shudders.

It doesn't stop immediately. The stormwall between him and the keep wobbles, its course diverting inward and outward, and it seems like it might actually slack off.

The winds further out, for a good three hundred feet around him at least, do slack off, harsh winds blowing toward him and petering out rapidly.

But the stormwall holds. He has clearly hurt it, and it keeps wobbling somewhat. Nonetheless, it recovers, and does not fall.

(There are distant shouts of surprise and alarm from the area outside the stormwall which is now calm for the first time in a year.)

He won't try outright dispelling it without more context.

Hmm. He'd like to communicate before simply landing on the fortress, but there's a howling gale in the way.

Fortunately, he's had reason to yell at entire armies before.

His casting of mage's decree can reach up to sixteen miles, but he restrains it to a radius that covers merely the entire fortress. Then he says, to every awake creature within range, in whatever language is the most common among them:

Greetings from Ipaxalon, silver dragon of Jotenaugr, bearing no malice. I would speak with leaders. Fortress may indicate welcome by square of flags in courtyard.

And then he waits. 

It's a little hard to see what's going on in the fort, the stormwall makes it like looking through a raging waterfall, but there's motion.

There's also motion on this side of the stormwall, from two directions. The first to approach sneaks along the parapet of a badly-damaged wall that was probably part of the outer defenses of the fortress, looking out between the crenelations at the enormous beast-archon with trepidation. He's pretty stealthy, but he's used to having the constant noise and dust giving him cover, and also used to hiding from people whose senses are at most a little better than the normal human range, rather than an ancient dragon.

He's outfitted somewhat like the red-coated guards in the fortress, but his armor has seen much more recent use, his clothes are more camouflage than colored, and rather than red his insignia are dark brown.

Further away, and taking more time to ready themselves, a blonde woman in heavy iron armor over purple, and a small squad like her, are forming up in a square and marching toward the center of the still patch, spears and shields held ready.

A silver-scaled dragon, about thirty-five feet long from nose to tail with an even larger wingspan, awaits them patiently on the ground. There's a faint outline of cabochon sapphires on his brow, gem bracers like unmelting ice around his foreclaws, and bone anklets around his rear claws. Across his chest and along his back are strapped a couple of white leather bags with strange metallic bits. 

(They're actually two different kinds of highly overengineered zippered duffel bag.)

Then the scout will break the silence, standing carefully by a parapet and bowing as he speaks. He's probably thirty with greying hair and tanned skin that used to be pale, obviously a veteran soldier with weather-beaten features and scars to prove it. No weapons visible.

"Hello, Archon Ipaxalon," he says, clearly hesitant about the title, "Are you only looking to parley with the Regents? And on your own behalf, or others? I am Janos, captain of scouts for the Unbroken of the Blade Grave."

"I am unfamiliar with that title. Ipaxalon will suffice, for now." He recognizes that an "Archon" is not a kind of celestial, at least. "At present, I speak on my own behalf." And sometimes on behalf of thousands of friends and allies, a fact which is irrelevant because he will likely never see them again. He desperately hopes his people are safe. 

"I am from a distant land, and know very little of this one. I seek context and understanding. To this end, I intend to speak with the leadership of any faction that will agree to it, and with ordinary citizens of this realm besides. I can offer one-time healing of the sick and wounded in exchange."

Janos is currently the focus of aura sight (passive), arcane sight (passive), a number of redundant or irrelevant senses, and a discern lies from Ipaxalon's circlet (active, DC 20). 

(Those sufficiently skilled at controlling themselves can lie without the usual disturbances in their aura, and thus fool the spell, but unlike most Will-based spells, discern lies does not alert the target even if they succeed.) 

Janos has nothing magical about him except the dust from the storm, which is fading in magic like the dust did inside the Oldwalls. No alignment detected, which given his stated position (which is at least mostly true) probably means he's actually True Neutral.

"Far enough you haven't heard of Archons. Or... of Kyros the Overlord? -I don't have much time, his soldiers will be here soon. There's a camp near the eastern edge of this bubble of calm, visible from the air. We're still fighting to repel Kyros's invasion, and do our best for Stalwart's people, but as long as the First Regent and his son live, Kyros's Edict of Storms will stick around ruining us, and healing would be appreciated but starvation's our killer."

"Correct, I had heard of neither. Thank you, I intend to visit this camp to hear your side of the story. Kyros the Overlord is the mage responsible for this storm?"

(WIZARDS. Phenomenal arcane power, and they just can't keep it in their sleeves.)

"A mage? True enough, I suppose, in the same way this thing is a breeze. No one else can cast Edicts, even Archons can barely even come close. Normal mages can only imitate them. But yes, Kyros did this by magic."

"I see. I do not wish to endanger you, if it is indeed your foes that approach. Is there aught you would want me to urgently know, before I meet with them? Rest assured, I shall not act rashly after hearing only one side."

"If it comes to a fight, nothing short of death will keep them down; I've fought Iron Guard with half their guts split and spilling out. And they charged the walls for the last time less than an hour before the Edict hit. While they knew it was coming, and when. Either their 'great general' Graven Ashe, Archon of War, is a much bigger and dumber bastard than our spy reports ever gave him credit for, or they're fanatics to the point of suicide. And they're definitely zealots."

He glances to the side, where a drawbridge is being lowered.

"Best I depart. Just because Rumalan knows I'm around doesn't make it safe for her to know when. Until another time, Sir Ipaxalon."

"Heavens lift your soul, Janos of the Unbroken." 

He salutes and disappears behind the crenelations, sneaking off away from the approaching squad.

There are six of them, with the leader, the blonde woman, in the middle of the front row, and the only one without a helmet; she's also in more decorated armor, which is moderately enchanted and has purple smoke gently wafting from her shoulders like they're magical braziers, and has a greatsword instead of spear and shield. All of their armor is matching in appearance and similar in construction, mostly bare steel with dark blue and purple sheen on some pieces, and faceplates that appear skull-like. The shields are full-length, almost big enough to be pavises, and all decorated uniformly in rich purple with a black design that has been deliberately, identically defaced as if claws ripped through it. The shields, though not anything else, are faintly enchanted.

"Hail!", says the leader, "I am Iron Guard Rumalan, representative of General Graven Ashe, Archon of War, Kyros's instrument in the Blade Grave. Do I address Ipaxalon, and the architect of the storm's abatement here?"

"Hail and well met, Iron Guard Rumalan. I am he. I have indeed diminished the storm for a time, to better facilitate communication. I am newly come to these lands; I presently seek to orient to an unfamiliar context and to understand what has transpired here. I offer healing of the sick and wounded in exchange for non-secret information, shared without deceit."

Alignment of those present? Discern lies will be focused on Rumalan, on general principles rather than any particular suspicion. 

Lawful Evil for Rumalan and the two flanking her (she a bit more strongly), the ones behind them don't seem to be visible.

"There are no lands we know of that are not under Kyros's rule," (True, assuming you don't count that fort right there as enough to be a 'land,' which she mostly doesn't, or places that have been rendered uninhabitable by Kyros as outside Kyros's rule, which she definitely doesn't.) "though the School of Tides fled hoping to find another continent rather than fight for their homelands. Nor have I ever heard of such a large creature as yourself with intelligence. Or a beastman with half the manners." (Straightforwardly true.) "How did you come to be here in the Blade Grave? Or perhaps I should say, on Terratus?"

"By an accident of magical planar travel which, alas, I do not expect to recur in the near future. The kind of creature that I am is a silver dragon, though I am not particularly surprised that you have not encountered my like before; I might be the only one of my kind on the planet. 

"I have met humans before. I know little of Kyros, Terratus, beastmen, or the School of Tides. I would like to learn. I seek knowledge of the geography and history of Terratus, of its peoples and governance, and of the nature and origin of present conflicts, among other topics."

"Rufus, you're better read, tell him about the things everyone in the Tiers would know."

"Of course, commander," the man to her left says, pushing back his faceplate to reveal a black-haired, pug-nosed man, "Kyros the Overlord began his empire in the east of the continent," (true), "starting in what's now Year Zero," (false), "432 years ago now. Sometimes by diplomacy, sometimes by conquest, sometimes by attempting one or both, being betrayed, and levying an Edict against the oathbreakers." (true) "All known Archons in the world, except Occulted Jade if she's still alive, bow to Kyros and administer a region, army, organization, or more than one of the three; Kyros has few immutable laws, but the most important are the ones for delegating power, when sentence can or can't be passed, regulating magic and knowledge, and the promise that food and goods will be moved to where they are needed and no loyal subject shall starve. Terratus can be either the continent or the planet; the big moon is Terratus Grave. No sea expedition to find any other land has ever succeeded, and just about everyone considered Occulted Jade summoning her school and all its Tidecasters to go look for one to be a fool's errand, trying to save face by dying out of sight instead of standing with their neighbors and families in defense of the Tiers." (All true.) "Shall I clarify anything, or move on to other questions?"

"I have a few followup questions, yes. Has Kyros written or spoken about his motives for conquest? Where might I find a collection of his laws? Is it known how or when the Archons came to be?" 

"Archons come to be occasionally, most of them were probably ordinary men and women before, and they generally consider it an attack for anyone else to attempt to determine the specifics. Parts of the Great General's history are widely spoken of but he won't answer questions from even his legion about the details and so we don't ask." The implication 'and he absolutely would not lie to them, but they therefore don't know if they're true,' is probably not hard to pick up. It seems very sincere, and is all true as he knows it.

"All the histories are clear that the continent before Kyros, especially in the east, was ruled by cruel warlords, some of them near-Archons, and near-constant war; the Northern Kingdom where Graven Ashe's line and ours lived was well-ruled, but an exception, and still often at war with its neighbors. Rebellion against Kyros is rare and war between Archons likewise, either quickly finished or quickly crushed. And the law of sharing does its job. What's the words from the law of peace, um, 'Loyalty is freedom from hunger, hostility, and hopelessness,' I think that's right. And he's done it. If he had some other goal, well, he doesn't talk to his Archons much, let alone anyone else." (All true as far as he believes. At least in those exact words.)

History is littered with the failures of those who thought 'Conquer everything' was a workable solution to the problem of there being wars. He can't fault the motive, exactly, it's just that things rarely work out so neatly. And if this is what happens when a province rebels...

"Can you say more about Edicts and how they function? Are there well-known examples?"

"Oh, there's plenty. These days the Overlord writes one and delegates it to the Archon of Law, who hands it to one of his Fatebinders to deliver - though I think in the Bastard City he delivered one himself during the Conquest. Or he might just be able to crack half the city into ruin as a judgment on their profiteering on his own. Not counting that, there were four during the Conquest, I think? The Edict of Storms - I forget the wording - but it's something like 'Let the prideful who refuse to bow be ground down with their land and the so-called Unbroken be broken by the storm of our rage, until the last blade is broken or the line of the Regents ends.' Hit as bad as the stormwall across the whole of Stalwart for half an hour before it died down to - well, that," Rufus says, gesturing over at the stormy sky. "Setting-Sun, one of the cities along the coast, refused to join the Empire, and there was an Edict of Waves - the bedrock tilted to sea and a massive wave wiped the city off the map. The other three surrendered pretty quick after that. The Sages wouldn't bend to the Law of Forbidden Knowledge, so the Edict of Fire called a volcano up into their citadel and turned it into the Burning Library, and won't stop until... there was some specific forbidden archive Kyros demanded be removed."

"And the Edict of Stone," he says, scowling fiercely, "Was when that traitorous fuck Cairn, Archon of Stone, defected from the legion mid-Conquest, not even to Azure, but to the bloody savages who attacked them as much as us. Soil turned to stone and stone turned to tremors, and the land cracked open into canyons and turned him from a stone giant of a man to a massive near-living sculpture, and it won't let up until the Archon is properly dead. Anyway, they're always to a place, with a sentence, and a duration. Sometimes it's 'right now,' but usually it's until the problem is dealt with. There's some where it never is, there's a city in the east where everything falls apart and anything you try fails far too often, and no one's tried to resettle it in three centuries. Edict of Misfortune, I think. Some scholar would know details, probably."

Of all the trigger-happy petulant needlessly destructive wizard shit

On the plus side he gets to fight an evil empire 

Maybe routinely obliterating cities saves lives in expectation

It looks like Ipaxalon will be very busy for a while.

"What knowledge is considered forbidden? And can you say more about the Conquest?" 

Rufus looks at his commander, who shrugs. "The Conquest of the Tiers is the most recent, and probably the last, since there's nowhere else left - the Northern Empire, where the General killed the last Archon of War and then surrendered and became the new one, were the one before that, a century ago. This one's been complete for about a year, took about three years from when we knocked in the door of the Bastard Tier until everything either surrendered or had to be hit with an Edict. Unfortunately, the Overlord didn't see fit to let the Disfavored take care of it; he also sent the Adjudicator and his Fatebinders, which was entirely sensible, and the Scarlet Chorus, which is an abomination against discipline and all good sense just to exist, though at least their mad hordelings slowed down the Tiersmen with the sheer weight of their corpses. Why they recruit locals, and not even the soldiers, only Kyros knows, and only that madman the Voices of Nerat understands. 428, we took the trading city of the Bastard Tier, which wiped out the mercenary companies, most of whom the best that could be said is they usually stayed bought and had more discipline than the Chorus. Spread from there into northern Haven, there's a big town under the Sunset Spire and its waterfall that - was helpful. 429 hit southern Haven - they had no leadership to speak of - and most of the Free Cities, two got crushed by Edict and Archon and the rest surrendered. And Apex, who fought well, but surrendered as their casualties mounted up and ours didn't. Well, the Chorus's did, but unlike the Queen's Royal Army they didn't care. 430, we were all here in Stalwart, maybe half the legion, and it was a slow grind of a war, slowly pushing the Unbroken back. If they had anything half as good as the General's protection they'd have had a chance. But we got - pretty nearly here, at the gates of their capital, and besieged them, and it stalled until the Stormcaller got sent with the Edict. The Sages was mostly a Chorus operation, but I heard it was mostly a matter of spies, trying to catch out the Sages betraying the oaths of loyalty to Kyros they all pretty much knew were false from the start. And Azure turned a mess, but didn't start that way, or so I hear - breadbasket of the Tiers, ordinary enough campaign, making steady progress and little resistance from the local farmers except when the Chorus ran wild. But then Cairn showed his true bastard face, and it was a three-way war against savages who won't even stand and fight, and the farmland was getting torn up badly even before the Overlord decided on the Edict he wanted to punish the oathbreaker and his followers."

"I don't know too much about what's forbidden. Talk of gods is the one that comes up enough we need to watch out for it, I'm told that's true everywhere new to the Empire for a few generations. Anything out of the Oldwalls. I'm sure there's plenty else I don't hear about."

"Thank you. I'd like to summarize to make sure I understand. The Disfavored serve under General Graven Ashe, the Scarlet Chorus under the Voices of Nerat - also an Archon? - and the Fatebinders under the Adjudicator. They and some number of additional Archons, including Cairn, were sent to conquer the Tiers, and did so. During this Conquest, Kyros wrote several Edicts which were delivered verbally by Fatebinders to crush resistance or punish lawbreakers; one also condemned Cairn when he changed sides. The last holdouts here in Stalwart are - the Unbroken? - and those who serve the Regent and occupy yonder fortress, and the Disfavored here maintain the siege?"

War is always an Abyssal ordeal, but what an unholy mess this is.

"Nerat is the Archon of Secrets," he confirms, "And Tunon the Adjudicator is Archon of Law. The Archon of Song was involved as well, serving under Nerat. 'Delivered verbally' doesn't really do justice to it but it's not incorrect. Both the forces inside Sentinel Stand and the ones outside it are Unbroken, but they're sharply divided; the ones inside are too loyal to kill their master Herodin, and the ones outside hate Herodin more with every passing span for not taking his own life to spare his people. The rest is correct."

"Hypothetically, what do you expect would transpire if the Stormwall fell and Herodin lived?"

“He wouldn't live much longer," Rumalan says, "He still has Disfavored captives in there and we don't leave them behind." (This is technically true.) "There isn't anyone in the Blade Grave outside those walls who doesn't want him dead." (Hyperbole, but intended as truth.)

And if the fortress somehow manages to hold out despite this, they probably starve; and if Stalwart negotiates for independence, they don't get food from Kyros and they probably starve, since all the farmland for hundreds of miles has been scoured by the Edict. 

"I see. Do you happen to have a map of Terratus and the Tiers?" 

"We might have one of the Tiers at camp, but probably not a broad one." (False.) "The Oath Bound scout team, maybe. I'm sure the General does, back at Iron Hearth." (True.) She waves in vaguely the direction of where Ipaxalon teleported up, a little way east.

"This is all helpful context, thank you. I propose that I accompany you to camp, if it is near enough, to provide the offered healing and continue our conversation. I would appreciate a look at any map you are willing to share. I do hope to speak to General Graven Ashe once I am better oriented to the region, if he is amenable, but I suspect that will take longer to arrange." 

Well, she can't actually keep him out, not if his flight was real and it doesn't really seem like he could fake it... Unless it's all an illusion? But an illusion this good would be Archon work, probably, and then separately stopping part of the storm...

 "What kind of things can you heal? Most of our wounds heal themselves, and those that don't, usually need a specialist for healing magic to not cause lasting harm."

"At the moment, I am offering to heal nonlethal non-amputation injuries and cure infectious diseases. The kind of magic I would use does not, as a general rule, cause lasting harm unless the target is undead, a type of creature animated by necromantic magic." He already suspected they might be concerned about inviting strange dragons into their camp, so he clarifies, "I would also be happy to heal at a nearby location of your choice, if you are comfortable moving those who need treatment. If you have no need of either kind of healing, of course, then the point is moot."

"If an ordinary person has a bone that's broken and started to set in the wrong spot, will your healing re-set it properly? Disease cures would be appreciated, but the Sigil of Healing, where it's used, is inconsistent on bone and in cases typically only the Legion can survive are significantly worse about things like causing ingrown intestines when healing a local injury, rather than rearranging things back into the proper order before restoring working condition. Therefore the specialists. ...I don't think there are any present security issues with you entering the camp over overflying it, so we can return there now if you'd prefer. Please don't take that as an assumption for the future or for other camps."

Her squad stands slightly more flexibly, ready to turn and move.

"It depends how far along the healing has progressed, and in extremis one can re-break the bone and it will heal properly in the vast majority of cases. I don't know if your Sigils operate on the same principle as the symbol of healing that I would use, but mine provides a surge of positive energy that is generally quite good at putting organs into healthy configurations. Remove disease is not guaranteed to work on the first try, especially against particularly stubborn or magical diseases, but it works on most infections and I can make more than one attempt." He's not going to burn a heal on this, he may need the spells later, but he has a couple symbols of remove disease in his bag. 

He will acknowledge the one-time nature of this invitation and follow the squad at a walk when they set out. (The winds outside the Stormwall will obediently calm themselves at their approach. It sometimes takes him a couple attempts to get a control winds to stick, but as an innate ability he can put quite a lot of power into it. He gives no visible sign that this requires effort on his part.) 

En route, he will ask: "What would be considered common knowledge about magic in Terratus?"

"It all comes from Kyros or Archons, ultimately. Some bookish mages work out the basic sigils from studying the Archon directly, or sometimes their history later. It can't duplicate everything they do, but it does something like it, and - Rufus, can anyone learn sigil magic?"

"Anyone with the head for it, commander. Literate, good memory for the events and complex sigil diagrams that go with them."

"So, most people who are interested, at least. Not me, that's for sure."

"Interesting." It sounds much more like his brand of magic than Earth's did, at least in learnability. "From their history, you say? What sorts of things can mages commonly do, with sigils?"

At some point he should check if these people have souls, but he's not asking the Iron Guard. It might not be wise to risk introducing the likes of Kyros or the Voices of Nerat to the concept of necromancy.

"Pretty varied," Rufus says, "And if you get a dozen clever ones together it's hard to say what you can't do, those Sages left some crazy things in the Burning Library. As I've heard it, any reproducible effect, you need to keep events from the life of the sigil's Archon, appropriate to the effect, in mind as you draw it. Magic comes from Archons, even if it stays in the world after they die. I've seen... illusions, manipulating fire or creating it, same with ice and lightning, moving stone, strengthening the limbs or the skin, weakening bodies... whatever that is that the Chorus Blood Chanters do that causes frenzy and panic. I've never seen gusts of wind but I'm sure you could, unless there's never been an Archon of Wind to trace it from."

Everything he learns about the Scarlet Chorus makes them sound like some kind of horrifying Abyssal death cult. 

"Are there factors that limit how frequently one might use sigils? For instance, could a mage repeatedly move stone or cast lightning for hours at a time, and if not, what problems would they encounter if they tried?"

"I think they tire, but recover quickly."

"If they're not very good, lack of focus makes them make mistakes," Rufus says, "And that gets worse over minutes of battle or hours of work, like any craftsman's work."

"I've never seen it. But then our mages are very good. And barely-trained enemy mages getting all the life drained out of them in seconds, or swallowed in a bonfire, if they didn't have the control they thought they had, that I've seen."

It's probably not a good use of his time to try to learn this magic from scratch unless he's here a very long time. For now, though, there are more pressing problems, like all of the everything going on in this place. He'll stick to the basic practical knowledge for now, with liberal application of discern lies to whoever's speaking. He doesn't particularly expect them to lie, but that makes it all the more informative if they do.

He has a few more questions about the common-knowledge limits of magic before they arrive at camp. Ballpark power and range of a typical combat spell, whether the Blood Chanters seem to be doing some kind of ritual sacrifice, what feats the Archons have been publicly observed to perform which other mages could not match. 

They argue a bit about whether there's ritual sacrifice. They conclude that probably the sending a wave of new conscripts to die and then painting blood on the ones who live when they're inducted into the Chorus properly wasn't actually magic and that's the only time they've seen them deliberately do anything that involved killing their own people. One of the others suggests that's just because they don't keep slaves around to sacrifice, but Rumalan 's confident that Nerat would have them take slaves if it actually benefited his mages, he can't actually care about it. Anyway they've never seen anyone else do it, enemy or ally.

They're a little tighter lipped about range and power of sigil magic but it's pretty much all sounding short range, though you can get catapult-level artillery with preparation. Nerat's made of green flames and floating bronze, and he eats people. Their minds, their souls, who knows, the bodies are never seen again - the General would love to prove he's done it to the Disfavored, specifically to - someone important they won't describe, but they can't. Bleden Mark, Headsman of the Court of Tunon, can travel through shadows and no one's quite sure what else, or how far. Many miles, at least. The Triplets of Winter up north were all born stillborn and still aren't any warmer than that, and it's always winter in the Northern Empire now, except the parts set aside for the Disfavored's families.

Could they elaborate on the Triplets of Winter, that...does not sound like a natural phenomenon, but he's not clear on what events are supposed to have caused what, there.

"That might be a myth," Rufus says, "I'm pretty sure there's another Archon who had power as a child, because she's barely an adult now and her title isn't new, but it's not a common story about any others. And asking too much about how an Archon earned her title - or their mutual title - isn't wise. But Ranna, Nirabel, and Slayr are all ice-cold, they act like one person rather than three sisters half the time, and one of their holidays is about honoring their mother for dying of chills delivering them."

What an awful way to be born into power. Tragedies like that are not unheard of in sorcerer families, but still. 

He'll ponder what he's heard on the remainder of the trip to camp.

There's a camp! It's got several fortified compressed-metal 'tents', and walls, and a dozen more people visible. Most of them are outfitted the same as Rufus and the rest of Rumalan's squad; a few of them are in colorless linen, wearing metal collars and doing menial labor.

"Stadius fixed up yet, Ludovicus?"

"No, Guard Rumalan, still the messy fracture. We sent a messenger to the Oath Bound but haven't gotten a reply."

"They'll be a little busy. This is Ipaxalon, the one blocking the storm; he offered healing in trade, which isn't from the usual Sigil. Also curing diseases - Lysus still has that lingering lockjaw, and check if anyone else has something they could use help throwing off. Bring 'em over."

"Yes, commander!"

"Sir Ipaxalon, if you could join me there?", she says, indicating the largest lean-to.

Ipaxalon obliges.

"I notice your laborers do not wear the same uniforms as what I assume to be enlisted soldiers," he observes. "Under what arrangement are they employed?" 

"Prisoners of war we've kept as slaves. They're more fragile than us, but still useful even treated honorably," she says offhandedly, unconcerned.

"Stadius! Show me the bad leg, would you? This Ipaxalon says he can heal without the usual problems we need surgeons for."

Stadius is on a cot, and his armor is neatly piled on a camp table next to him, though his sword is still sheathed at his side and the large shield in reach. He pulls back the blanket, and indeed, his right leg looks pretty shattered, bare and with bone cutting through skin. There's no blood, and the skin's been washed - no dust, unlike the blanket and most other surfaces.

"Go ahead, sir, if you're offering."

Again with the slavery. Somehow he doubts this government will have a burgeoning abolitionist movement on the cusp of key political victories. 

Ipaxalon opens the pack fastened to his chest with a cantrip, and levitates out a small stainless steel plate on which is engraved a permanent symbol of healing. The burst of positive energy it provides is usually more than enough to bring a wounded ordinary human from the brink of death to full health, sans any missing limbs.

(He could use claws instead of magic to retrieve the symbol, but magic is both more convenient and, he suspects, more impressive. He doesn't plan to reveal too many of his capabilities to a group he may end up fighting, but it is also useful to be seen as powerful and competent when one is attempting to negotiate with those who primarily respect power and competence.) 

They have pretty good discipline, but the brief signs of surprise in their expressions still show.

And when the bones almost instantly withdraw into the skin and the skin heals over good as new, Stadius looks very surprised. He flexes the leg.

"Feels good as new, Commander Rumalan. Thank you, Sir Ipaxalon."

"It is my pleasure." And he means it. There's a strong possibility he'll be at war with these people within the month, but that doesn't make their suffering any less important. He will heal whoever they bring him.

There are only three people here with disease enough to be impairing them but they assume magic on offer is only limited by time to repeat it so five others follow them when Rumalan nods them in. They're all very thankful, and though they're probably thinking about how they'd fight him, they don't show those thoughts overtly.

Thinking about how they'd fight him is of course their prerogative. In the meantime, he is happy to casually outperform their expectations in a field that isn't even his specialty. 

...speaking of which, may he magically diagnose a few of them to improve his understanding of local diseases? He is careful to stress that this request is in no way tied to his offer of healing, that it does not have any effects other than identifying important traits of the disease in question for later study, that any individual may refuse for any reason or no reason at all, and that he will not take offense if they do. 

It's not that medical diagnosis is completely unheard of, but it's abnormal and thinking about it as there being diseases which are a separate thing that can be identified is pretty weird. And they're somewhat leery of anyone getting a magical look at how their bodies work. They'll all decline.

"Thank you for your assistance," Rumalan said, "I hope you can speak with the General some time soon."

"I expect so. Likely within the next day or two, if he is willing. I intend to speak first with the other factions here in the Blade Grave, thereby to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the situation here. I intend to make them the same offer I made you, of healing in exchange for information.

"I am doing this because - in addition to wanting to heal people for their own sake - it would seem the current situation is an urgent crisis, and it is important to me to orient as rapidly as possible. I hope to resolve this crisis with a minimum of additional bloodshed and suffering, but it would be foolish in the extreme to meddle without consulting those who might be harmed thereby. 

"Is there anything else you would have me know before I speak with the Unbroken?" And is it a lie, that part's important too.

"There is a prisoner we are fairly sure has been in the inner keep since well before the Edict. Iron Guard Amelia. We know she is alive. If you parley with them, please ask to speak with her."

The only part of this that's a lie is the name.

Now why would they lie about that? It's something to bear in mind when he visits, at least.

"I will take that under advisement, thank you. Do please note, the abatement of the storm is temporary. I estimate it will only last another two hours without my active attention, and may resume suddenly thereafter." 

After polite farewells, Ipaxalon departs for the Unbroken camp.