Briggs took a slow drink as the Grandmaster waited, lips turned down as he listened. "There have been no exceptions in history to the kind of cleverness you are attempting to build here. You have ignored the lore, you have ignored the wisdom of your elders, and you think that by building such a fractured nation-state you will avoid the pitfalls of what brought down your forebears.

"You are merely accelerating it. The fact you cannot see it is unsurprising. You are a man with a dream, and you are absolutely ignoring anything which could prove that dream nonviable. I understand this, and await the destruction of your foolishness, as so many fell before you, all the while you complain about how it was not supposed to happen, your plans were clearly superior, and your peers laugh at you."

Grandmaster and Prince Nathanael Jean-Arc was silent for a moment as he considered his wine. At last he said, "There are other forces at play you are unaware of."

"I doubt it. There are only forces I have not cared to mention," Briggs replied, completely undercutting the lofty and superior position. "If you won't speak of them, neither will I."

Keen eyes studied him carefully, pale violet looked back at him without fear and not much respect, either. It was very incongruous for such a strong and brutally primal appearance, and it made the Prince wary in spite of his experience.

The disquieting disruption to magic about him didn't help, capable of breaking away his illusionary disguise as if it was a breath of wind, not the working of an Overmage.

He gestured once, and the surrounding songs and merriment faded away, their own images blurring slightly to any who were watching them. Briggs didn't bat an eye at the simple spell to give them privacy from eavesdroppers and lip-readers, his ease and familiarity with magic another warning sign.

The Prince decided to test him. "What," he asked in a somber, yet challenging tone, "do you know of the Radiance?"

"The Radiance," Briggs repeated calmly, studying the man before him. "Are you certain you want me to answer, Immortal Thaum?"

Prince Jean-Arc stiffened at the reply, barely perceptibly. "That is not an answer."

"I am waiting for yours," Briggs lobbed right back at him.

Prince Jean-Arc stared at him, now aware this brute before him was far more than what he seemed. Either a tool of the Immortals, or an Immortal Avatar himself. Perhaps Clangyr, who was known to favor a more primitive form?

Although, his interactions with Immortals had been spotty at best. Since his Ascension had come via his own magic and methods using the Radiance, he had little contact with the society of Immortals out there, just enough to be aware of the Immortal laws and avoid their attention as he carried out his schemes in Zanzyr.

This was proof that others were aware of what he was doing. He found the news exceptionally disquieting!

"If you are willing to reveal to me what you know, I am willing to hear it," he finally managed, with only a little hesitation, having a rather a bad idea of what was coming.

Briggs nodded slowly. "The Radiance. The name for the gammathaumic energy field emitted by the fusion reactor of the Galactic Federation starship the FS Barhund after it was forced to crash-land on this world of Nown in the era of the kingdom of Darkmoor, approximately four thousand years ago."

Thaum had to concentrate not to suck in an appalled breath at what he thought he alone had known!

"The core and its technology survived the Doom of Darkmoor, and was located and experimented upon by Immortals of Energy, seeking a way to create Immortals of Energy more easily without the approval or intervention of other Spheres of Influence. They experimented upon the high technology of the core, but this process was interrupted by Thanatos luring an elven tribe to the site of the core, unearthing it, and messing around with it, inciting the second disaster, known as the Crimson Catastrophe, approximately three thousand years ago."

The Prince stared at the brute in complete disbelief. These were facts even he did not know! Where had this man come into possession of such knowledge?

"A combination of Immortal influence and luck managed to contain the eruption and send the empowered Core deeper into the earth, into the lands the Immortals were slowly raising back out of the crater that was the Doom of Darkmoor. That seared sea floor was eventually reformed as mountains and valleys as the world finished spinning on its very axis and resettled into the current revolution and orbit it now has, and the fusion reactor dubbed the Core of all Magic by the Immortals of Energy was left there.

"The field of gammathaumic energy emitted by the Core slowly spread out both below and above ground. It was first harnessed by the Immortal Gaebrel, who used it to empower shadenelf servants with Divine clerical magic, and who first stumbled upon the magicks of the Radiance.

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"Above ground, the field of magic attracted wizards of multiple races, including the Frier and Delphan immigrants from other worlds entire. The interactions of the energy with the normal manafield enabled these disparate wizards to stumble into uses of magic that were possible to unlock nowhere else in the world. These eventually became the Secret Schools of Zanzyr, and a foundation of its Great School of Magic.

"One hundred and thirty years ago, a mortal mage from another dimension stumbled upon the gammathaumic means to transcend mortality and become an Immortal. He successfully managed to do so, but in doing so activated the Curse that Immortals of other Spheres had quietly placed into the Core, draining the world of its magic to power his rise to power, and creating the Day of No Magic."

Immortal Thaum stared expressionlessly as the truth of his rise to Immortality, which he'd thought so subtle and secret, was laid out as merely another plan of greater powers than he. Even his discovery of the Radiance was preceded by another Immortal he was barely aware of… and it was all designed and set up by greater Immortals of Energy!

"There are currently seven mortal practitioners of Radiance magic on the surface, with considerably more underground among the Shadenelves. Those on the surface engage in uncontrolled Radiance usage, and the gammathauma energies they wield slowly eat away at the world's magic.

"Those in the depths use the power rarely, and its use is offset by Gaebrel's Immortal power, so as not to damage the field of magic, tapping other, deeper sources of power so as not to fray at the manafield with their coarse use of the energy.

"Currently the Immortal Thaum, who has no training in and is completely unfamiliar with high technology, is messing around with the Core, trying to find ways to weaponize it directly and possibly reduce its erosion on the field of magic. He built his Great School of Magic directly atop it to benefit himself and his studies, and protect it from all who might come looking for it. As a side effect, he formed the magocracy of Zanzyr above it, creating more wielders of magic who might give him more insight into the powers and potential of the Core with their inspirations and aspirations to power."

Briggs finished up by emptying his wine. He held out his flagon, and mutely, the Prince brought in another bottle to fill it up.

"That is what I know about the Radiance, Immortal Thaum. A fool of an Immortal wizard is messing around with powers his betters in his own Sphere do not fully understand or control, endangering the whole world with a potential repeat of the Crimson Catastrophe, or ensuring slow and steady depletion of the manafield of the world by allowing mortals to directly tap the Radiance in pursuit of power.

"What do you have to say about my judgment of yourself and your piddling magocracy now?" he inquired grimly.

"Who sent you? Who do you represent?" the Prince asked urgently.

"You have no need nor right to know the answer to that," Briggs replied coldly. "Let us simply say that what you are doing here is not secret, and your idiocy is going completely according to the plans of the rivals of the makers of the Core. Your untrammeled desire for power is breeding Immortals who will collapse the magic of the world as they ascend, destroying the ability of Energy to raise up Immortals here entirely as they do, hoisting them on their own petard. Congratulations on being a successful puppet, Immortal Thaum."

The Avatar's eyes crackled with blue-white fire for an instant, and the pale violet ones didn't blink in the slightest, completely unfazed by the hint of Immortal power. "I am, I am not-!" he began.

"You are a wizard sitting in isolation in a remote location of the world, thinking you are a master manipulator, when in truth you are a frog at the bottom of a well, completely unaware of the true world about you," Briggs said flatly, his gaze level and cold. "Nothing you have done is a secret. You have acted just as those watching you have thought you would. You are completely predictable and thus very disappointing, so you have been left to stew in your own delusions while you do what everyone expects you to."

Thaum was bristling, and the air was starting to ripple with Immortal will… and his power was finding itself being defused and fighting against a static field that was completely defying his approaching energy, nullifying it completely.

To say Prince and Grandmaster Nathanael Jean-Arc, the Immortal Thaum, paramount Overmage of Zanzyr, was perturbed by these revelations was putting it mildly. He was also aware that the man across the table didn't consider himself to be in any danger. Logically, that meant that he himself was in great danger if things should turn for the worse.

It was a very uncomfortable situation to be in. That he couldn't discern the nature of the energy field that was interfering with his power did not encourage him, either.

"And will your masters move against me?" he asked coolly, finally realizing that his view of his place in the world had to be massively adjusted.

"My job is to recruit mortals without magic and who can never have magic, not to speculate on the plans of others," Briggs grunted. "You'll have to get those answers elsewhere, probably outside your tiny little holding of mortals."

"It is indeed my holding, and you are a visitor here, sir," the Prince replied stiffly.

"I never claimed otherwise, Your Highness," Briggs agreed immediately. "I certainly have no incentive to remain in a place with such a heavy doom hanging over it."

The Immortal Thaum simply didn't know how to proceed here. This brute was plainly extremely well-informed, yet definitely not a spellcaster, and expressing only disdain for the threat he himself presented. The man also had knowledge that simply should not be available to others… or else Thaum himself had miscalculated very badly, indeed…

But other than the shocking information that others knew far, far more of his deeds and matters going on in Zanzyr than he was at all comfortable with, all he was doing was bringing base commoners away with him to an undisclosed destination, presumably to educate and train them further in mundane events and affairs.

He truly didn't care much about the fate of commoners. His goal was to increase the variety and strength of magic in the world by the births of more wizards, and the education of as many as possible!

"I will raise no hand against your efforts in my domain, this time," he warned the hulking fellow opposite him. "In the future, however, please limit your activities to just outside the borders, or I may have to get directly involved in matters. Even wizards need some manner of servants to handle lesser tasks, and I simply cannot permit you to take them all."

"Your viewpoint is understandable," Briggs acknowledged, and that was all. No agreement, only an acknowledgment.

It was what it was…

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