Worldbuilding: Magi Fauna
Wyverns
Wyverns are flying reptiles the size of an average car. They have two hind legs and two wings, which they use to walk on while on the ground. They can shoot fireballs out of their mouths at predators. It is possible to tame, ride, and domesticate wyverns.
Dragons
Dragons are large reptiles a little bit bigger than an elephant. They have four legs and two wings for a total of six limbs. Like wyverns, they can use magic to shoot fireballs out of their mouths, appropriately scaled up to their larger size. Just as with wyverns, these fireballs are formed via regular mana, as opposed to fire mana. Dragons are highly intelligent animals and occasionally bond with humans or other intelligent life. A dragon and rider pair become close friends throughout their lifetimes.
Elemental dragons
Unlike regular dragons, whos' primary magical ability is only a mouth launched fireball, elemental dragons can each manipulate one type of elemental mana. All dragons, however, can still shoot fireballs from their mouths. Fire dragons can use much more powerful fire magic in addition to the standard fireballs.
Ogres
Ogres are former orcs corrupted by the REDACTED. These creatures have no free will of their own without the REDACTED to control them. They are nothing more than ravenous animals capable of wielding REDACTED.
Fire rat
Fire rats have the body of an unusually large rat, or a small cat, and the ears of a rabbit. Their whole body is covered in fur resembling flames. While generally timid, they can breathe fire as a defense mechanism. They are attracted to sources of heat, such as fireplaces, but scare easily around people. They are mostly harmless if handled with care.
Magi lemur
Peaceful herbivores that mostly eat magical plants and can cast powerful illusion magic to hide from predators. They live in all types of forests and some grassy areas.
Stone crawlers
Stone crawlers are small silicon based lifeforms roughly the size of a grapefruit. They bear no biological relation to crawlers or desert crawlers. Stone crawlers have four powerful spear tipped legs extending from the corners of their diamond shaped body that help them dig and climb through caves and mountains. They can use strong but simple elemental earth magic as well. They live in rocky or stony areas such as mountains, caves and some deserts.
Mana locusts
Mana locusts ravenously consume magical plants. They are regarded as pests since the valuable archwood trees are their favorite food.
Mana leech
Mana leeches are native to wet areas with lots of magi fauna to feed on. Once a mana leech attaches itself to a magic user or magic creature, it will drain the host's mana, consuming it for sustenance. However, it won't drain their mana to the point of mana exhaustion and the host won't suffer anything other than a minimal mana pool. Mana leeches are sometimes used to imprison mages or as a weapon to weaken powerful magi fauna.
Forest ghoul
Forest ghouls are an amalgamation of tree branches, moss, mushrooms, plants, animal bones and other forest matter. They roam through forests and can use powerful life and dark magic against anything they deem a threat. And they deem everything to be a threat.
They reproduce by collecting biomatter from their native forest and performing an archaic summoning ritual. No one has ever seen this ritual take place, so exactly how forest ghouls are formed is unknown.
Dark ents
This species of ent has adapted to absorb so much mana so quickly, that it has corrupted them to the point of becoming mere animals. Dark ents are much larger than forest ghouls, but also less aggressive unless provoked. They wield a very powerful combination of life and psionic magic. They are less common than forest ghouls and typically live in dense tropical regions, although they've occasionally been found in temperate forests as well.
Wraith
Wraiths are small quadruped mammals with very wide tooth filled mouths. Their eyes swirl with psionic mana. They have weak arms with boney human-like hands with sharp claws, making them excellent climbers.
Wraiths are known to prey on magi fauna, but they prefer sentient lifeforms. They use psionic magic to mentally stalk their prey from a safe distance for several days. Then, they unleash a powerful psionic attack on its victim's mind. If the wraith is successful, it will subdue its victim's mind and force it into subservience. The wraith then forces its prey to wander out to where it is waiting to devour it. If a wraith's attack is unsuccessful, it will usually flee without ever being seen physically.
Mana ball
Mana balls are swirling clouds of dense mana. It is unknown if there is a physical creature at the center of a mana ball, but they are generally passive and harmless to people. Mana balls come in all varieties of mana and can use their specific type of mana to defend against predators. They will flee if approached, but otherwise don't seem to do much.
Chapter 12: Lord Kushmon
July 3rd 2053
Duremar Plains, Fort Roanoke, 11:00 AM
Because of his leg, Daniel was given light duty for the next few days. He didn't have much to do himself, so he was on his way to the science lab to check on David and Elmot.
They were working on samples of mithril and mithril ore. Elmot had offered his magical expertise, once again, to help study mithril. He was genuinely curious how the Americans would approach studying magic, being completely foreign to the concept of it.
He was also eager to learn more about magicless technology. He was, by trade, a magi-artisan; someone who built magical contraptions. Some of the devices he's seen the Americans use have similar magical equivalents, but he couldn't fathom how they could be built without magic. His curiosity was peaked, to say the least. As was David's, regarding the so-called magical devices Elmot spoke of.
Together they were trying to figure out how mithril was able to kill the demon. To Elmot, it was simple; mithril had both magical and physical properties and thus it could kill demons. David wasn't satisfied with that answer, but Elmot doubted there was more to it than that. Daniel wondered if they'd made any progress.
As he walked past the road that led to the portal, he saw a semi-trailer truck emerge from the portal. As it drove down the road and turned to its right, towards the undeveloped part of the base, he saw that the trailer had the iconic black and yellow radiation symbol on it. It was a portable nuclear fission reactor.
Fort Roanoke was about to become fully self-sufficient in terms of electricity. The reactor onboard the truck would be enough to meet their energy needs without resupply for several years. The truck made one thing clear: The United States was here to stay.
He arrived at the science lab to find that the small triangular building was very crowded. Lieutenant General Reed hadn't appropriated more construction equipment to scientific research yet. The unexpected arrival of thousands of refugees had also set back their construction schedule by several days. The scientists, however, were too impatient to wait for proper facilities to begin their research. They jammed as much equipment as possible into what limited space they had.
Every room in the building was crammed full of scientists studying everything they found on this world so far. Some were analyzing biological samples from native animals, while others studied maps of the night sky to try and figure out where the planet was in the universe. Others still were analyzing the demon's remains. Everything out of the ordinary about this world was subject to intense scrutiny.
He made his way to the loosely defined materials testing area, which was really just a bunch of field equipment piled between some local plantlife and a complex array of beakers, test tubes and bunsen burners. As Daniel approached, he overheard David and Elmot arguing.
"This 'scientific method' of yours is quickly becoming the bane of my existence!" Elmot exclaimed. "Why do we have to run more tests when we've already done them dozens of times?"
"Because we need to account for every possible variable!" David argued back. "We need to make sure there aren't any defects in the samples or the machine that would affect the results!"
"But we've run the same test so many times already! Don't you have enough 'data' by now?" Elmot mocked.
Walking up to them, Daniel interjected, "What's going on guys? Having trouble?"
David explained what they'd found out so far. Mostly they've just been doing simple physical tests on small samples of mithril. "Tensile strength, bending strength, shear strength, they're all on par with most general purpose steels. We'll have the results of the fatigue tests in a few hours, but I suspect they'll be consistent with what we've seen so far."
"We've already finished some of your 'fatigue tests' and you said it did match the strength of your steel," said an annoyed Elmot.
"But we haven't finished running all of them yet," David said exasperatedly.
"Why must we do each one of these tests so many times!?" Elmot proclaimed more to himself than to anyone else.
Ignoring Elmot's disdain for thoroughness, David continued, "Here's what's really interesting though." He took an unused sample of mithril, handed it to Elmot and said, "If you wouldn't mind..."
Elmot begrudgingly took the sample, giving David an annoyed look as he did so, and clasped it in his hands. Light blue magic particles swirled around his hands for a moment. Then, he handed the sample back to David, who screwed it into the tensile test machine and said, "Watch this!"
He powered up the machine and Daniel waited with curiosity for something to happen. A few minutes passed before the machine abruptly ripped apart the sample. David pointed to a graph on the computer screen and exclaimed, "Can you believe it!?
Unimpressed by the rather anticlimactic turn of events, Daniel asked, "Believe what?"
"This sample, enhanced by Elmot's magic–"
"Infused with a small amount of mana," Elmot corrected.
"Failed at a load over 5 percent higher than uninfused samples!"
"And that means...?" Daniel asked, losing interest.
"That sample was infused with just a small amount of mana," David explained. "These are only preliminary findings, but do you have any idea what this could mean? Theoretically, we could infuse it with much more mana and increase its strength even further!"
"It becomes more and more difficult to add more mana, though," Elmot explained. "And I do not have the knowledge or the mana capacity to infuse any more mana than I already have."
"What about those mana crystals you mentioned?" David asked, as he turned back to Elmot. "Could we use them to..."
David and Elmot seemed to forget that Daniel was there as they went back to theorizing about more experiments with magic and science. Daniel noted that Elmot and David seemed to annoy each other, but they nevertheless worked extremely well together. They had only been working on this for a few hours but already had significant results.
July 3rd, 2053
Duremar Plains, 15 kilometers from Fort Roanoke, 1:00 PM
Lord Kushmon was trotting along on his horse at a steady pace towards the American base. He did not know what to expect when he got there. It's possible they would just kill him from a distance, like they did to his army. He shuddered at the thought of the American magi cannons being pointed at him. Death would be instant and unavoidable.
If he successfully made contact with them, Lord Kushmon thought about what he would say. Before leaving Rontak's Reach, he spoke with the slave master overseeing the Americans. They apparently had every confidence that their army would come to their rescue, despite the absurdity of an entire army being sent just to recover a few hundred slaves. Still, the Americans themselves had many absurdities about them, so it was not outside the realm of possibility.
If their army had indeed come to steal back the slaves, that was something he could exploit. He could feed them lies about where the slaves were sent. Or he could tell them that the slaves would be killed if they made any attempt to besiege Rontak's Reach. His goal was to stall them for as long as possible.
Lord Kushmon saw something in the distance, interrupting his thoughts. It was hard to tell what it was from so far away, but it was kicking up a small cloud of dust and definitely getting closer. As it approached, he saw that it matched the description of the enemy war beasts, or rather their metal wagons.
It was heading right towards him. How did they spot him from so far away? He still had quite a ways to go before reaching their base. Perhaps they had scouts carrying mana comms scattered throughout the plains? Rontak's Reach didn't have enough mana comms to do something like that, but the Americans, with their tremendous magic power, probably did. After what he saw yesterday, he found their claims of not having any magic to be increasingly absurd.
The Americans stopped their carriage about 10 meters in front of him. Then, he heard a voice, just like the one Ulmok described from the battle.
"This is the United States military. Identify yourself."
Mustering his courage, Lord Kushmon responded, "I am Lord Kushmon, governor of the Duremar Province."
The voice was silent for a moment, but then he heard a noise come from the sides of the metal wagon. Two men jumped down from it on either side. As they turned and walked towards him Lord Kushmon saw that they weren't men at all, just golems. Each of them carried some sort of short two handed black staff with no obvious mana crystal on it.
One of the golems said in a strangely deep voice, "Dismount your horse and surrender all weapons."
He had never heard of a golem that could speak before. There was something strange about the way it talked, but he couldn't quite figure out what it was. Lord Kushmon did as he was told, though, fearing the consequences if he did not obey.
The four golems came up to him and took every weapon he had, they even found his personal dagger. He tried to hold onto it, but the golems ripped it out of his hand. They were clearly summoned with great strength. After they thoroughly and silently checked for any more weapons, he heard another noise from the metal carriage.
This time, four people came around from the back side of it. They wore strange and very ugly green and brown uniforms and carried the same two handed staves as the golems. They also wore helmets and pieces of strange black glass over their eyes; Lord Kushmon wondered how they were able to see. Aside from the helmets, which didn't cover much of their faces, they weren't wearing any armor at all; no plate metal, no chain mail, nothing. The Americans continuously proved themselves to be an enigma.
"I demand you take me to your nobility!" Lord Kushmon boldly declared.
Completely ignoring him, one of the Americans, presumably the one in charge, held up a rectangular metal tablet. He looked back and forth a few times between the tablet and Lord Kushmon.
Lord Kushmon was angered by the American's outright dismissal of him. They may have been powerful warriors, but they were still just common soldiers. How dare they show him, a nobleman, such disrespect.
One of the other Americans asked, "Is it him?"
"Yeah, it's him, alright," he replied, and then nodded to one of the golems.
It immediately restrained him while another secured his wrists in some sort of shackles. They were the smallest and flimsiest shackles he had ever seen, but he couldn't help but marvel at the incredible craftsmanship.
At the same time, the American lowered the piece of metal, stepped forward, and said, "Lord Kushmon, you are under arrest."
July 3rd 2053,
Duremar Plains, Rontak's Reach 2:00 PM
Princess Maribelle was alone in the keep's war room. There was a knock on the door and one of her knights came in, escorting one of the American slaves.
"Princess, this is the slave you requested," said her knight.
"Thank you, Glovak. You may go," replied the Princess.
Glovak nodded and exited the room, closing the doors as he left.
Princess Maribelle turned her attention to the slave before her. She was an exceptionally old woman, too weak for hard labor. Normally the slave masters would have just killed her as an example to the rest, but this one was different. She claimed to be the mother of an American noble with the title of 'President'. Maribelle had never heard a noble title like that before, but that's why she brought the slave here: to learn about the enemy.
"What is your name, American?" Maribelle asked the slave.
"M-Martha Bennett," she answered timidly.
"And you claim to be the mother of an American noblewoman? That your daughter is a 'President'?"
"The President... Your Majesty," she added the honorific as an afterthought.
Maribelle was surprised at the slave's cooperativeness. General Rallek was right about their willingness to answer questions.
"What is the standing of this 'President' in your nobility?"
If the President was high enough, perhaps Maribelle could use her mother as leverage to halt their invasion.
"T-The President is the leader of our country–Your Majesty." This time Martha added the 'Your Majesty' much quicker than before.
That certainly explained things! They had inadvertently taken the mother of their President (presumably their title for Emperor) as a slave. No wonder they responded with such overwhelming force. Now that Maribelle was aware of that, she could find out who she was really fighting. What was the President like? Was she always this aggressive with her army? What kind of ruler was she? How does she think? This was what she set out to find on her mission.
"Tell me more about your daughter, the President of the Americans," Maribelle commanded.
July 3rd 2053
Duremar Plains, Fort Roanoke, 3:00 PM
Lord Kushmon was sitting in an American dungeon. Or rather what passed as a dungeon among their people. There was bright magical lighting, clean floors, a table and even a high quality mirror on the wall to his left. It wasn't really a 'dungeon' in any sense of the word.
They had locked him in this room for over an hour now. He had yet to meet with the enemy general, or anyone of nobility for that matter. He was becoming more and more irritated at the Americans' lack of respect towards him. They may be enemies, but he was still a noble, a Lord no less, and they were still lowly commoners.
The door to the room suddenly opened and two men came in. One wore a similar outfit to the soldiers who brought him here, but with a few extra minor adornments. The other was wearing a well made black suit. It was a simple outfit, but clearly made by a master tailor.
They sat down at the table across from him, with the well dressed man on his right and the soldier on the left.
"It's about time!" Lord Kushmon exclaimed. "Did your underlings not inform you of my nobility?"
Ignoring what he said, the man dressed as a soldier said, "I am Lieutenant General Reed, United States Marine Corps. I'm in charge of all US operations on this side of the portal. And this is Agent Vanderhoff from the Central Intelligence Agency."
Lord Kushmon was surprised that the Lieutenant General dressed in such an unfashionable manner even away from the battlefield. He did not recognize the other man's title or what the phrase 'Central Intelligence Agency' meant. Perhaps it was their army's scouting division?
"Why don't we start with something simple," said Lieutenant General Reed. "No one we've met so far has been able to give us a name for this world. Can you tell us–"
"HA!" Lord Kushmon interrupted, feeling emboldened by the downright pleasant conditions of his imprisonment. "What use would commoners have for a name of a world that is not theirs to conquer? This world is called Tempestia. We are on the Kraffnia continent, which will one day stand united under the banner of the Rontak Empire!"
Agent Vanderhoff ignored his pompous showboating and skillfully pried for more information, "And how much of Kraffnia do you already control?"
"Our borders are vast!" Kushmon proudly proclaimed. "Our territory spans all the way from the Western Sea to the Eastern Sea! From the Vushfall Mountains to the Southern Cliffs."
"Can you quantify that territory for us, please?" Agent Vanderhoff asked.
The Map Maker Guild claimed to have surveyed the entire Rontak Empire with wyverns, but their maps were not exactly known for their accuracy. The truth was, he simply did not know exactly how big the Empire was, only that it was very very big. Lord Kushmon was not about to let himself be humiliated, though.
"I see little point in that. All that matters is that you cannot hope to defeat us," he said, and then remained silent.
Seeing Lord Kushmon start to close up, Lieutenant General Reed changed the subject. "Let's get down to more important business, shall we?" He asked. "Why did you surrender yourself to us?"
"I am here at the request of the Emperor himself to speak on behalf of the Rontak Empire. To inform you of the gravity of your transgressions and to give you a chance to return through the portal before we force you through it."
It was a complete bluff and a bold faced lie. That was what he came here to do. But judging by Reed and Vanderhoff's reactions, they weren't buying it.
Agent Vanderhoff, almost mockingly, asked, "And I don't suppose you'd be willing to tell us how you plan to go about 'forceing us back through the portal', would you?"
"Even as we speak, our armies are mobilizing against you. You may have defeated my army, but in doing so, you've stepped on a pit vine, and now it will drag you down and swallow you whole. We are assembling a massive army to meet you on the field of battle and put you in your place, beneath our boot."
In truth, the Emperor would do the opposite and avoid a large-scale battle at all costs. This was going well so far. He was giving them real, but useless, information mixed with deceptions that could help the Empire later on. He was also putting on a charade of being less than competent so that they would think less of him and not regard him as a serious threat.
Clearly not getting anything useful, Lieutenant General Reed changed the subject again, this time being more forceful. "When you attacked us through the portal, you abducted nearly 1,000 innocent civilians. We demand their immediate release."
Lord Kushmon let out a loud and obnoxious laugh. "Bwahahaha! You can't be serious!"
Reed and Vanderhoff's stone cold expressions did not change, indicating that they were indeed serious. The slaves seemed to be correct about their army coming to rescue them.
"By now, they've been sold at auctions and are on their way deeper into our territory. They're so far out of your reach that you have no hope of ever retrieving them."
If the Americans were here to rescue their people, perhaps he could convince them it would be a futile endeavor and not worth the effort. That too was a lie, though. He had heard how quickly the Americans traveled to Miretan from the portal.
"Is that so?" Agent Vanderhoff asked. "According to our operatives inside Rontak's Reach, Princess Maribelle has halted the sale of all American slaves so that they can be interrogated. Is that not the case?"
Lord Kushmon couldn't believe what he just heard. How did they know so much about the city and the Princess? Before he could think better of it, he blurted out, "How could you possibly know that?
Both Americans remained silent.
Continuing on, Lord Kushmon said, "Regardless, how can you expect us to give up slaves we rightfully conquered?"
"I would have hoped that you would want to expedite the safe return of your own people," Lieutenant General Reed said with a sly smile.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lord Kushmon asked. Were they threatening the peasants outside the fort? He cared little about them. Without his army to feed, they served little purpose now.
"Thousands of your soldiers are being held as prisoners of war," Lieutenant General Reed explained. "We would be willing to negotiate their release in exchange for the civilians you abducted from our side of the portal."
"Y-You mean there are survivors from the battle?"
That came as a huge surprise to Lord Kushmon. He couldn't imagine anyone surviving the Americans' magi cannons. Were they trying to trick him into revealing something?
"That's right. We have almost 16,000 POWs in our custody," Lieutenant General Reed explained.
"If what I've been told about your magi cannons is true, then that is a lie," Lord Kushmon asserted. "No one could survive such weapons."
"Would you like to see them?" Asked Lieutenant General Reed. "I assume you'll want to make sure they're being treated fairly."
"Enslave them, torture them, kill them, it matters not. They are your battle captives, it's your right to do with them what you please. Just as it is our right to do with your people as we please."
Lord Kushmon watched as the two Americans shared a concerned look with each other.
Agent Vanderhoff worryingly asked, "And does their abuse include torture and execution as well?"
"When a powerful army shows up on your doorstep, of course you torture your prisoners for information! And naturally, some slaves just won't accept their servitude and must be made examples of." Lord Kushmon chuckled. "From what the slave masters tell me, your people scream and cry quite a lot! I'd like to think that none of my own men, if any of them truly are alive, have been so weak under your interrogations."
If he tried to make any sort of deception here, they would have seen right through it. What he said was true; you do torture your prisoners for information, and a few fresh slaves always need to be killed to make the rest fall in line. It was just common sense; nothing worth lying about or concealing.
Lord Kushmon watched Lieutenant General Reed turn his head and glared at himself in the mirror mounted on the wall. Then he turned to Agent Vanderhoff and said, "Unless you have anything else you'd like to ask, I think we're done here."
"I don't have anything else, sir."
"Very well. Thank you for being so candid with us, Lord Kushmon. You've been very informative."
That was the last thing Lord Kushmon wanted to be. He couldn't help but feel tricked by the Americans. How did they already implant spies in Rontak's Reach? Anything he hoped to mislead them about, they seemed to already know otherwise. Despite his best efforts, his meeting with the Americans left him with a sense of defeat and failure.
July 3rd, 2053
Washington D.C, White House, Oval Office, 6:00 PM
President Bennett was in the Oval Office, about to sign a bill into law. The President thought back to the day of the attack; it was hard to believe that it was only a month ago.
Since she last spoke with representative Burk, the bill they were working on managed to pass. She was about to sign it into law. In light of recent events, the political victory felt hollow and unimportant, though.
She signed the bill and was about to move on to the next item on her enormous to-do list when Secretary of Defence Denning came into the room and said, "Madam President, there's been a development on the other side of the portal. General Thompson would like to speak with you in the situation room immediately."
The President immediately got up and went to the situation room. Rescuing the people abducted to the other side was her primary concern; everything else could wait. When she arrived, she took her seat and General Thompson briefed her on the disturbing information provided by Lord Kushmon.
"How reliable is this 'Lord Kushmon'?" Asked the President.
"He's the highest ranking noble governing the region on the other side of the portal," replied Director Delano of the CIA. "He attempted to mislead us about the whereabouts of our citizens, but we know from our operatives in Rontak's Reach that the majority of them are still being held there. We verified with the refugees that torture is not an uncommon means of interrogation in the Rontak Empire. Despite Lord Kushmon's attempted deceptions, we have no reason to doubt the mistreatment of our citizens."
"Madam President," began General Thompson, "We've eliminated the so-called 'demon' threatening our operations. With it out of the way, we're ready to move out and assault Rontak's Reach as soon as you give the word."
The President took a moment to mourn the suffering of the people who were abducted through the portal. But only for a moment. She looked up at the General and said with a tone of finality, "Do it... Bring our people home."
Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading! I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.