Nym didn’t trust any of the other ascendants at this point. Niramyn would no doubt send new hunters after him, and if Myzalik ever learned that someone had witnessed his god killer spell, Nym was sure he would immediately jump to the top of the priority list there. Even supposedly neutral ascendants like Hozim were willing to sell him out for the right price.
Maybe if he knew any of them better, he might have considered it. They might be fair in their dealings with him, but they also had no loyalty to him, and Nym couldn’t think of a good way to know who he could trust and who he couldn’t. Even the ones who didn’t owe any favors to Niramyn could be bought. No one was going out of their way to side with the new ascendant who had nothing to offer but time.
Time, and a spell that had the potential to radically alter everything, but of course he wasn’t going to tell anyone about that, so it didn’t count. He’d given it further consideration, tried to find a way to make it work for him instead of against him, but no matter how he looked at it, knowing that spell made him a target. The only way he didn’t… well, not die, but imprisoned or something, was if nobody found out he knew it. Or if he spread it around so quickly that everyone knew it, but that came with a whole host of drawbacks he wasn’t prepared to consider.
That left the option of him becoming a hermit, at least temporarily. If other people could figure this stuff out though, he could too. He even had an advantage in that he’d seen the spell being cast. There were still pieces he didn’t understand, but he had an unlimited amount of time to work on that.
The new sanctum had to be abandoned, of course. Ferro and Valicin had gotten way too close, but at least he’d proven his prophetic and scrying wards worked. It was actually a bit surprising that they’d worked so well, given that he knew they weren’t actually invisible. They faded into the background arcana of the sixth layer, but surely a powerful and clever ascendant could spot them anyway.
Except that they hadn’t. Whether that was blind luck or a truly ingenious piece of spellcrafting on his part, Nym didn’t know. He suspected the answer was more mundane than that. Ferro hadn’t had time to see them, or maybe even had seen them, but Myzalik’s interference had focused the ascendants firmly on each other. Simply put, they were too busy to look.
Nym took every precaution he could think of, including trying his hand at seeing into the future. It was a lot harder in the outer layers where time worked differently and he had no anchors spread across it. He couldn’t manage more than a few seconds, which wasn’t ideal, but would do for his purposes. Once he’d finished preparations, he scanned those few precious seconds to confirm he wouldn’t be interrupted, then willed himself away.
Over a hundred jumps through random locations later, Nym started building his new sanctuary. It was almost exactly the same as the old one, except bigger. He needed some room to do research and practice in, after all. That made it slightly more exposed, but the real defense had always been the fact that it was hidden well away from the hub of ascendant activity in the layer. If however many dozens or even hundreds of ascendants could hermit out in the void, he could do it too.
In all fairness, they probably had less people looking for them, but Nym was still confident in his preparations. They weren’t impregnable, but they were the best he could do. He’d taken every precaution he could think of, and now there was nothing left but to do the work.
Nym split himself into four teams of two, each part in charge of working out a different piece of the spell. Every now and then, they’d all merge back into one being to consolidate what they’d figured out and see if one team had come up with something that would help another one. Then they’d split back apart and repeat the cycle. In that way, Nym felt his progress was sped up significantly.
It had another side effect, one that he hadn’t anticipated but which he was happy to exploit. For some reason he didn’t yet understand, having all of the copies of himself in close proximity working together seemed to be, for lack of a better term, cracking the membrane between layers. He had no clue why that was happening, but it was.
So Nym did what any good researcher would do. He split off two more copies to investigate that. That, of course, made the cracks worse. Presumably, that was a good thing. If he could break through into the seventh layer, he’d be that much more likely to survive.
He did have one final concern with the whole project. He wasn’t an Exarch, and twenty-two spells at one time was above his limit. He could do fourteen, no problem. If they were simple spells, he could reasonably expect to double that. But the god killer spell was anything but simple, and he needed a parallel process devoted to each and every spell in order to cast them all at the same time.
That meant he needed to start digging into new modifications to his physical form, which meant more experimentation. Sadly, the brain was the most dangerous place to work on. It wasn’t that he was in any physical danger of dying if he messed up, but if he scrambled his brain too hard, he would have to obliterate his avatar and start a new one from scratch.
There was some leeway though, so he pushed himself to his limits and spun out one final pair to start messing with that. His little sanctum was quite crowded at that point, but none of the Nyms seemed to mind. They worked together in harmony, shared knowledge with each other, and got just a little bit stronger with each passing hour.
* * *
“We think we’ve figured out the membrane crack,” Nym said to the group. They weren’t due for a merger to redistribute information for another week, but the membrane project was the one they had the highest hopes for in terms of an immediate jump in power. The parallel processing team had practically stalled out while they waited for it.
“It’s a bit early, but if you’re sure, it’s worth coming back together to share that knowledge,” another Nym said.
“No! No. That’s the opposite of what we need. We know it’s being caused by so many of us in close proximity, right? Remember when you guys were trying to hook pieces of the spell together and passing it back and forth the other day? Well, the cracks got… deeper, I guess is the best way to put it. The spells are putting pressure on it. The more we have going at once, the harder it is for the membrane to hold against them.”
“We know it had to be something we were doing. It’s not really that surprising that it’s the magic. That’s all we’re doing here. But what are we supposed to do, just make more magic until the membrane gives completely?”
“No, you’re not listening. It’s not that we’re all doing magic, it’s the magic being shared and passed back and forth.”
“Why would that make a difference?” one of the Nyms asked. “It’s the same amount of arcana either way.”
“Must be the motion of it,” another Nym said.
“Maybe the positioning is relevant.”
“Our theory,” the researcher Nym said, interrupting the speculation, “is that because we’re all one Nym manifesting in multiple bodies, when we start working together, drawing arcana in group projects, it’s acting as a sort of pseudo-conduit that’s connecting two parts of ourself.”
“It couldn’t really be that simple though, could it?”
Nym shrugged. “Why not? Have we met a single ascendant who’s stuck at the sixth layer?”
“No, but we haven’t met all that many.”
“Let’s say we’re wrong,” Nym said. “What’s the worst-case scenario? A couple of copies break apart?”
“It could disrupt all the spells hiding us and lead Niramyn or Myzalik straight to this location. That would be far worse than having to remake a few copies.”
“Maybe we could do it without the original here,” one of the Nym’s said.
“I don’t think that would work. Without the original as the focal point, even if we manage to break through, I don’t think we’ll be able to access the other side.”
The arguments went on for another hour before everyone agreed that it was better to reconcile all the information, make a decision, and then reform the copies. It generally took Nym some time to get everything sorted out once he pulled himself together, but he still considered it a net win if he got twelve times as much work done but had to take a day to figure it all out once every few weeks.
Once he was done, he was pretty sure he had a method to fully break through the membrane. What he wasn’t sure of was what was on the other side, or how to prepare for that. Personal experience told him that every layer was different, but all he had to go on was that the ascendants called the seventh layer the Crushing Void.
How something could be both an empty void and crush at the same time was beyond Nym. He assumed it was some colorful language rather than an accurate description, but for all he knew, it could be literal. With that thought in mind, he set about building himself a sort of arcana-pressurized cage, something that he could shelter in while he explored. It had pinprick holes in it, designed to let only a little bit of arcana in at a time so that he could study it in relative safety.
If he was lucky, it wouldn’t even be necessary. Nym fully intended to use a planar scry on the seventh layer before he fully entered it, and it was possible all his preparations were a waste of time. Every one of his copies agreed that it was better to be safe though, so he built the box anyway. Once that was done, his copies got into position and started passing arcana back and forth around him in the pattern they’d deemed to have the biggest impact.
The membrane cracked, then started to split, and finally the barest hint of a fissure tore open between the layers. Nym had a moment to peer curiously into it before something black and heavy blasted out and slammed him into the ceiling. The arcana pattern was immediately disrupted and the fissure sealed itself closed.
“Ow,” Nym said as he willed himself back down. “So, that could have gone better. Ideas on what went wrong?”
“I don’t think we did anything wrong,” one of the copies said. “We just didn’t make adequate preparations for defenses against the new environment. It’s obviously not like this one.”
“That was raw arcana that struck you too, so I think it’s safe to say that being fully immersed in it is going to require considerable willpower and defensive capabilities.”
The various Nyms continued to toss theories back and forth, argue over spells, and refine the cage Nym had built. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to use it, but they all agreed that it felt inadequate, knowing that even the slightest opening between layers caused arcana to erupt like that.
Further testing was necessary, but Nym had proven to himself that he could break through the membrane. He supposed that technically made him a seventh layer ascendant, but until he figured out how to safely tap into the arcana and control it, he planned to hold off introducing himself that way.
Still, it wouldn’t be much longer.
Nym didn’t trust any of the other ascendants at this point. Niramyn would no doubt send new hunters after him, and if Myzalik ever learned that someone had witnessed his god killer spell, Nym was sure he would immediately jump to the top of the priority list there. Even supposedly neutral ascendants like Hozim were willing to sell him out for the right price.
Maybe if he knew any of them better, he might have considered it. They might be fair in their dealings with him, but they also had no loyalty to him, and Nym couldn’t think of a good way to know who he could trust and who he couldn’t. Even the ones who didn’t owe any favors to Niramyn could be bought. No one was going out of their way to side with the new ascendant who had nothing to offer but time.
Time, and a spell that had the potential to radically alter everything, but of course he wasn’t going to tell anyone about that, so it didn’t count. He’d given it further consideration, tried to find a way to make it work for him instead of against him, but no matter how he looked at it, knowing that spell made him a target. The only way he didn’t… well, not die, but imprisoned or something, was if nobody found out he knew it. Or if he spread it around so quickly that everyone knew it, but that came with a whole host of drawbacks he wasn’t prepared to consider.
That left the option of him becoming a hermit, at least temporarily. If other people could figure this stuff out though, he could too. He even had an advantage in that he’d seen the spell being cast. There were still pieces he didn’t understand, but he had an unlimited amount of time to work on that.
The new sanctum had to be abandoned, of course. Ferro and Valicin had gotten way too close, but at least he’d proven his prophetic and scrying wards worked. It was actually a bit surprising that they’d worked so well, given that he knew they weren’t actually invisible. They faded into the background arcana of the sixth layer, but surely a powerful and clever ascendant could spot them anyway.
Except that they hadn’t. Whether that was blind luck or a truly ingenious piece of spellcrafting on his part, Nym didn’t know. He suspected the answer was more mundane than that. Ferro hadn’t had time to see them, or maybe even had seen them, but Myzalik’s interference had focused the ascendants firmly on each other. Simply put, they were too busy to look.
Nym took every precaution he could think of, including trying his hand at seeing into the future. It was a lot harder in the outer layers where time worked differently and he had no anchors spread across it. He couldn’t manage more than a few seconds, which wasn’t ideal, but would do for his purposes. Once he’d finished preparations, he scanned those few precious seconds to confirm he wouldn’t be interrupted, then willed himself away.
Over a hundred jumps through random locations later, Nym started building his new sanctuary. It was almost exactly the same as the old one, except bigger. He needed some room to do research and practice in, after all. That made it slightly more exposed, but the real defense had always been the fact that it was hidden well away from the hub of ascendant activity in the layer. If however many dozens or even hundreds of ascendants could hermit out in the void, he could do it too.
In all fairness, they probably had less people looking for them, but Nym was still confident in his preparations. They weren’t impregnable, but they were the best he could do. He’d taken every precaution he could think of, and now there was nothing left but to do the work.
Nym split himself into four teams of two, each part in charge of working out a different piece of the spell. Every now and then, they’d all merge back into one being to consolidate what they’d figured out and see if one team had come up with something that would help another one. Then they’d split back apart and repeat the cycle. In that way, Nym felt his progress was sped up significantly.
It had another side effect, one that he hadn’t anticipated but which he was happy to exploit. For some reason he didn’t yet understand, having all of the copies of himself in close proximity working together seemed to be, for lack of a better term, cracking the membrane between layers. He had no clue why that was happening, but it was.
So Nym did what any good researcher would do. He split off two more copies to investigate that. That, of course, made the cracks worse. Presumably, that was a good thing. If he could break through into the seventh layer, he’d be that much more likely to survive.
He did have one final concern with the whole project. He wasn’t an Exarch, and twenty-two spells at one time was above his limit. He could do fourteen, no problem. If they were simple spells, he could reasonably expect to double that. But the god killer spell was anything but simple, and he needed a parallel process devoted to each and every spell in order to cast them all at the same time.
That meant he needed to start digging into new modifications to his physical form, which meant more experimentation. Sadly, the brain was the most dangerous place to work on. It wasn’t that he was in any physical danger of dying if he messed up, but if he scrambled his brain too hard, he would have to obliterate his avatar and start a new one from scratch.
There was some leeway though, so he pushed himself to his limits and spun out one final pair to start messing with that. His little sanctum was quite crowded at that point, but none of the Nyms seemed to mind. They worked together in harmony, shared knowledge with each other, and got just a little bit stronger with each passing hour.
* * *
“We think we’ve figured out the membrane crack,” Nym said to the group. They weren’t due for a merger to redistribute information for another week, but the membrane project was the one they had the highest hopes for in terms of an immediate jump in power. The parallel processing team had practically stalled out while they waited for it.
“It’s a bit early, but if you’re sure, it’s worth coming back together to share that knowledge,” another Nym said.
“No! No. That’s the opposite of what we need. We know it’s being caused by so many of us in close proximity, right? Remember when you guys were trying to hook pieces of the spell together and passing it back and forth the other day? Well, the cracks got… deeper, I guess is the best way to put it. The spells are putting pressure on it. The more we have going at once, the harder it is for the membrane to hold against them.”
“We know it had to be something we were doing. It’s not really that surprising that it’s the magic. That’s all we’re doing here. But what are we supposed to do, just make more magic until the membrane gives completely?”
“No, you’re not listening. It’s not that we’re all doing magic, it’s the magic being shared and passed back and forth.”
“Why would that make a difference?” one of the Nyms asked. “It’s the same amount of arcana either way.”
“Must be the motion of it,” another Nym said.
“Maybe the positioning is relevant.”
“Our theory,” the researcher Nym said, interrupting the speculation, “is that because we’re all one Nym manifesting in multiple bodies, when we start working together, drawing arcana in group projects, it’s acting as a sort of pseudo-conduit that’s connecting two parts of ourself.”
“It couldn’t really be that simple though, could it?”
Nym shrugged. “Why not? Have we met a single ascendant who’s stuck at the sixth layer?”
“No, but we haven’t met all that many.”
“Let’s say we’re wrong,” Nym said. “What’s the worst-case scenario? A couple of copies break apart?”
“It could disrupt all the spells hiding us and lead Niramyn or Myzalik straight to this location. That would be far worse than having to remake a few copies.”
“Maybe we could do it without the original here,” one of the Nym’s said.
“I don’t think that would work. Without the original as the focal point, even if we manage to break through, I don’t think we’ll be able to access the other side.”
The arguments went on for another hour before everyone agreed that it was better to reconcile all the information, make a decision, and then reform the copies. It generally took Nym some time to get everything sorted out once he pulled himself together, but he still considered it a net win if he got twelve times as much work done but had to take a day to figure it all out once every few weeks.
Once he was done, he was pretty sure he had a method to fully break through the membrane. What he wasn’t sure of was what was on the other side, or how to prepare for that. Personal experience told him that every layer was different, but all he had to go on was that the ascendants called the seventh layer the Crushing Void.
How something could be both an empty void and crush at the same time was beyond Nym. He assumed it was some colorful language rather than an accurate description, but for all he knew, it could be literal. With that thought in mind, he set about building himself a sort of arcana-pressurized cage, something that he could shelter in while he explored. It had pinprick holes in it, designed to let only a little bit of arcana in at a time so that he could study it in relative safety.
If he was lucky, it wouldn’t even be necessary. Nym fully intended to use a planar scry on the seventh layer before he fully entered it, and it was possible all his preparations were a waste of time. Every one of his copies agreed that it was better to be safe though, so he built the box anyway. Once that was done, his copies got into position and started passing arcana back and forth around him in the pattern they’d deemed to have the biggest impact.
The membrane cracked, then started to split, and finally the barest hint of a fissure tore open between the layers. Nym had a moment to peer curiously into it before something black and heavy blasted out and slammed him into the ceiling. The arcana pattern was immediately disrupted and the fissure sealed itself closed.
“Ow,” Nym said as he willed himself back down. “So, that could have gone better. Ideas on what went wrong?”
“I don’t think we did anything wrong,” one of the copies said. “We just didn’t make adequate preparations for defenses against the new environment. It’s obviously not like this one.”
“That was raw arcana that struck you too, so I think it’s safe to say that being fully immersed in it is going to require considerable willpower and defensive capabilities.”
The various Nyms continued to toss theories back and forth, argue over spells, and refine the cage Nym had built. He hadn’t even gotten a chance to use it, but they all agreed that it felt inadequate, knowing that even the slightest opening between layers caused arcana to erupt like that.
Further testing was necessary, but Nym had proven to himself that he could break through the membrane. He supposed that technically made him a seventh layer ascendant, but until he figured out how to safely tap into the arcana and control it, he planned to hold off introducing himself that way.
Still, it wouldn’t be much longer.
