CONTENT WARNING: Violence, language, images with blood.
Nine Days Ago
The Bernardino Estates were a staple of life for a few people for so many years. The giant mansion, hidden behind a hill surrounded by green grass on the edge of a lake. The land was crested by a forest that led into distant mountains with snowy peaks in the winter, all in some off corner part of Medieval Rhy'din, just outside a small town that was half a day's walk from Rhy'Din's city.
The Mansion, three stories tall with several thousand square feet of livable space, sat dead in the center, and it's where Magus had been for several days. The basement of the Mansion was a small complex of tunnels and rooms all meeting in a main chamber, the library Magus had been curating for however long he'd been there -- centuries at least -- though time was a concept lost on the family, at this point.
Magus was under the dome window wherein light of the sun spilled in from the lake, seated at his desk - a large, older piece of furniture, made of hard wood and stained a cherry color. The tube he'd recovered from the small world several days ago was beside him, and it's contents a small parchment, in what appeared to be near pristine condition compared to its container, was laid on the desktop, held flat by his hand, as he looked between it and the book under his right hand. Fingers held the page preparing to turn it to the next while he looked between the parchment and the book.
What he had recovered was a map, clearly, but not one of land masses, but of planes. Circles drawn out side by side with lines drawn between them. Each circle was lettered, along with each line, foiled in something titanium colored, giving each character a shiny vibrancy that twinkled with the fluid filtered light above.
Magus turned the page of the book, traced a finger down the page before he sighed and closed the book with a gentle thump.
Magus say back in his chair. Armor stripped away, his hair was tied back into a ponytail with a piece of black silk, he wore a loose fitting gray shirt with a deep v-neck line, and loose, cotton pants. Relaxed home attire. He lifted a hand and rubbed the edge of an eye with his middle finger, drawing in a breath. "I knew this wouldn't be easy..."
A knock came to the door that led to the basement, filling the room, and giving Magus a sense of feeling out his surroundings, focus having taken him so far from the moment.
"Magus, are you down here?" The voice belonged to Mikael -- the man who'd raised Magus and lived now in one of the distant buildings upon the Estate, in the forests on the outskirts, seeming to prefer his solitude after so many years of the chaos that was their lives. Originally like a father to Magus, they now felt more like brothers, an unbreakable bond of friendship in spite of the little time they spent together in the current age.
"I'm here, Mik," Magus answered, sitting more upright. "What is it?"
Mikael stepped through the door fully, crossing the length of the room from the stairway hall, toward Magus, his desk and the huge dome window that wrapped behind and above Magus, the sun's rays filling the room. Mikael had affection for this, remembering the struggles they had building it many lifetimes past.
"I went to go do the routine maintenance on Escar's island with Giles," he trailed off as if to figure out how to proceed. "Something's happened there," he added, moving to one of the chairs across the desk, from Magus and sitting. "I only have part of the story, but they need our help, everything has been upheaved at the compound."
Magus stiffened a bit, "wait, Giles had that running like place running fairly well, what happened? Is he okay?"
"No," Mikael said solemnly. "His brain trust has been damaged, one of his brains is trying to work, another one is alive, but... He is gone, Magus."
"I..." Magus railed off, in response, eyes searching for nothing, and just drifting away as he took it in. "An attack?"
"Yes," Mikael answered.
"A dark haired boy... then... more? Familiar faces?" Two places unknown to almost all of existence, not affecting much of anything at all. Suspicions they were related were already in place and needed only be confirmed..
"How did -- wait..." Mikael was also putting things together. "This isn't the first attack..." spoken underneath a wave of realization. The Mansion was intact, so... "Not here... So, Cameron, or Battle Realm?"
"Battle realm, but we might want to find Cam, too," Magus answered.
"We may not have time, right now," Mikael said sullenly. "Their reactor is down, I still don't understand how it works. The food was synthetic, the water needs pumps, they were starving when I got there. The tribe in forest was helping, but they don't have enough and it's pretty ugly."
"So, we need to piece together a thorium reactor," Magus inquired.
"Yes, and I'm reverse engineering how they use their power, but it's not easy. Escar used odd voltages and I might need some inverters for the synthesizers, he seems to switch between current types throughout the factory system."
"Understood," he began to stand up, rolling up the scroll, and tucking it back into it's nearly disintegrated tube. "So, they didn't savage the people? The kids they are alive, and unhurt?"
"Only a few adults were killed, Jana, and some I don't really know very well," Mikael said. "The kids were fine minus the hunger. Whoever this Stark person is, he wanted Escar himself, and since he's dead, I’m guessing he settled for Giles."
"Wait," Magus drew in a breath. "Stark?" Magus looked a bit pale. In a split second thoughts rushed through him. He should have known; the description fit. He let the boy go without much affair, and that may have been a grave mistake. It was coming together.
"Yes... Wait... You didn't know that was his name, or...?" Mikael was a bit confused, trying to fit the puzzle together in his.
"I should have known it was Stark, and yes, I know who he is. Cameron might be in danger, but we have to get these people back on their feet," Magus said crossing the room. "I'll be dressed, and on the island with food for them in less than ten minutes, we can't waste time."
"Cameron should be able to handle himself, and it's not like he can be killed," Mikael also stood up.
"Except he can be killed, over and over again," Magus looked back to Mikael. "We have to hurry, I don't know how long it'll take me to find him on whatever plane he's on."
"This will take at least a couple of weeks," Mikael said, concerned.
"We need it to take less or you're going to have to do part of this without me. Meet me on the island as soon as you can. Slide over what you think we need, we can come back for anything we're missing, we can fill each other in when we get there," space warped around Magus, like the very air were water, lensing the light to any onlookers, with curves and ripples. It bent sharply along with Magus visage and snapped back into place and Magus was gone.
"Shit," Mikael whispered. He took a few seconds to look back at the dome. One green, natural eye, and another hued similarly and clearly as prosthetic as his right arm. Commands were coming up on a hud only he could in his right eye, then he seemed to disintegrate as his mode of transport took effect, leaving the library silent as a tomb.
The room was a favored one to all those who became a part of the family for so many years. Constructed to slip under the lake, extending past the house, it was a kind of centerpiece Magus was wildly proud of. Cameron and Vara both played in the room as children, brief as that was in the spans of their life. During the day the sun flooded the room with the most glorious light, and scented candles lit as needed, where needed at night. If Magus were home, it's most often where you would find him, reading and learning to his heart's content. Though it's various passages took you to special rooms, or vaults containing things of various import and danger, it was still where almost anyone would love to find themselves. Fish swirled in the hazy, murky distance, going about their lives as it now fell silent, light flooding the room, the desk, and the tubed map upon it.
Silent as the grave, until it wasn't. The room was not drafty, and as a bit of a draft blew through the room, rolling the tube off the desk, onto the floor where it split open and the parchment unraveled, it was a sign of something amiss.
Carried upon a pathway of Magus a figure appeared in the center of the room, near the top of the 12-foot ceiling, plummeting to a rug strewn across a stone floor. The man had white hair, red eye... yes, eye, and was hemorrhaging blood from where the other should be, along with several wounds upon his torso, and was literally covered in the sticky, red fluid, from hair to boot.
"Dad.. dammit... Dad, where are you.." Cameron whimpered out. "Fuck, why won't this heal," he asked on a raspy weak tone, he collapsed onto the floor. "Dad... Please, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to stop them," he stared at the dome window, sprawled on his back, before coughing a bout of blood up, wiping from his mouth with the sleeve of his void coat. "Dammit... dammit..." then he went still. Eyes closed. Chest heaved with gasps of air needed, wounds in his skin would start to mend, only for microscopic wisps of darkness within to fight back to keep them open. His chest rose... fell... rose... fell... then remained still.
