The Cataclysm - Death of a Continent

"It all fits perfectly, the equations all balance. There's virtually no risk at all."

— Manhein Descar

Spring 30899, Magetown Northern Kingdom

"What do the two of you think you're doing? Have you completely lost your minds?" Linus Dalton didn't even look up from the paper he was reading to observe the two people standing on the other side of his glossy black walnut desk. He flipped the paper to the next page. "This proposal you've made is playing with fire."
"And water, and stone and air if you want to be complete," drawled the short dark haired man, glancing around his mentor's well appointed office with its luxurious furniture. A veritable fortune of arcane and theological books paraded around the inside perimeter of the room in meticulously organized bookshelves. In the corner, his mentor's dark wood staff stood hovering two inches over the floor. He seated himself at one of the two chairs in front of the old man's desk.
"I read it, Manhein," said Dalton crossly. "I understand the technical content. That wasn't my question."
"But it's based on your theories!" exclaimed the thin sandy haired young woman in a mystified voice. "Don't you want to put them to the test? Don't you believe that they're right? All we are doing is testing them!"

by Terry Cassis using Imagine AI

Dalton shot her a look without changing the tilt of his head. "The theories are right, Leaha. They're just not quantified." the old man replied. "But you can't just set up a major arcane spell here in the city that plays with four leylines simultaneously. It's reckless. You have no idea how powerful the magic release will be." He threw the paper down on his desk and waved a dismissive hand over it, "You're both smarter than this proposal."
Manhein indicated the paper. "They most certainly are quantified. We calculated the arcane affinities - the work is in there for your review. They're well researched and the relationships are all documented. We used your own mathematical formulations to capture the interactions. It all fits perfectly, the equations all balance. There's virtually no risk at all."
Dalton shook his head. "There's always discovery when you move from theory to practice. You know that. I admit it's very unlikely, but I could be completely wrong. The magic release could be greater than my theories predict. The affinities could be off. There could be unexplored interactions that we simply haven't thought of yet. You know the models can never capture the real magic dynamics perfectly. We just aren't smart enough to get it right."
Manhein laughed. "You can't make that argument to me. You taught me yourself Linus - the model doesn't have to be right, the models can never be right - but they don't have to be, they just have to be right enough."
The old man's face crinkled with a fleeting wry humor, but returned quickly to seriousness. "Do you have to do it here?" he asked worriedly. "It's a big leap between the labwork you have done here and manipulating the leylines."
"We have to have all four leylines or we can't get the affinities balanced right, and this is the only place on the Northern Continent where we can access them all simultaneously," replied Manhein steadily, telling the whining old man in his overstuffed chair the truth that they both already knew. "We are only proposing a very low level of interaction. We even spread it out over a hundred years to make sure that if we detect any negative or unanticipated effects at all, the impacts are so low and slow that we will be able to interrupt them immediately before any damage is done."
"Dr. Dalton, there's so much potential to do good," said Leaha. "You have to let us try. Your theories can change everything. People's lives would be so much easier. We can create places where the soil is perfect for growing different foods and make it produce fruits and vegetables any time of the year, not just in summer. We can moderate the temperatures in cities so people won't freeze in the winter. We can make more effective healing spells. Don't you understand the potential application of your own work? Don't you want to know if you are right?"
Dalton looked at the young mages in front of him. He was old, very old, and they were young. Manhein had already taken Dalton's seat as head of the College of Transmutation at the The University of the Arcane. The University's Chancellor, Alaric Forsham, was an idealist, always reaching for something to make life better for people. That was... admirable he supposed, but it meant that these two knuckleheads would find funding for this project, if not from the University, from the Crown. The latest sicon of the Kohot Dynasty was firmly under the Chancellor's thumb.
He looked down at the paper again. He could send his wife Mary Ellen and their kids out of town, down to Sigurd's Craw to visit with her mother this summer, just in case. His mentees were right, the affinity alignment proposed in the paper was tiny. Even if everything went wrong, it shouldn't do more than blow up a couple blocks of the University, but he wanted to make sure all his family was safe, even the grown ones and the grandbabies. He smiled inwardly. Particularly the grandbabies.
He would send a messenger to Thala and Markus his eldest. Thala might convince her husband to leave town, but he realized that Markus was likely too busy running his newly established tailoring business and that would almost certainly keep him in Magetown. Dalton sighed. He could tell he was being silly, overcautious, but something inside him just wouldn't let him be comfortable with this proposal. He flipped the paper closed, then placed it on the table on his right.
He would argue with these two. Maybe it would do some good, but he doubted it. It had been a long time since he had been thirty, but he remembered the arrogance of it - of realizing how stupid you had been in your twenties and believing that you finally knew what you were doing. Of never thinking of the cost that the universe would require of you for doing the things you did.
Dalton's eyes drifted past Manhein to rest on the dark wood staff that stood in the corner of the room. "I'd give anything to know if my theories are right," he finally replied to Leaha's question, "even my own soul. I just don't want that knowledge to cost others theirs."

The Affinity Spell

While the Cataclysm has always been known to have been caused by Humans using magic above their skill level (most commonly thought to be a terraforming spell), the exact spell that caused the Cataclysm was only recently discovered by Egiten Aizuain intrepid adventurer and historian, on her travels to the Northern Wastes. Aizuain traveled into the heart of the Northern Wastes to the original site of Magetown led by guides of the Izotza people. There, as part of an archaelogical dig, she found a paper explaining the theory and formuation of the spell, in the personal library of Linus Dalton, a former Dean of the College of Transmutation at the University of the Arcane. The Affinity Spell, as it was termed in the paper, was designed to prove a (at the time) new theory of magical temperament (referred to as affinity), moving it from a Magic Readiness Level (MRL) of 5 (demonstrated prototype in a Laboratory Environment) to MRL 7 (demonstrated prototype in Relevant Real World Application).

by Terry Cassis using Imagine AI

The Affinity Spell evoked a severe and unanticipated reaction in the leylines that converged at the site of the Affinity Ritual at the University's central quad. The mathematical formulation of the spell projected a 97.96 percent probability of success, with a probability of a catastrophic reaction of 1.043 x 10-6. At first glance, it is not clear exactly what went wrong in this trial, as the theory of magical temperament in the paper has, in modern times, been concusively validated and is used in some of the most common life enhancing magic items we have today. The "Dalton Paper" (actually written by Dalton's proteges Manhein Descar and Leaha Conttriel) is now being extensively studied by experts throughout the arcane world, as understanding what went wrong with the spell may offer some hope of reversing the magical gridlock caused by the Cataclysm, and restoring the Northern Continent of Arrhynsia to a habitable state.
What is known for certain is that when humans initiated the Affinity Spell, reality instantly tore and leyline magic mixed in uncontrolled interactions. Within minutes the region was in flames. Stone burned with fire, fire consumed water, water crystalized itself about stone, and wind, the most agile and adaptable of the magics, danced around the edges of the rip in reality, attempting to freeze the world and stop the ferocious battle of elemental magics. These elements are now locked in a burning, frozen stasis, their magic blocked from use by normal means from either school of magic, wizardry or sorcery.

The Reliquaries

by Terry Cassis using Imagine AI

The Human Kingdom prior to the Cataclysm was a major magic based economy and industrial force. Humans have no Magei System, and thus no inherent magic working ability, however that did not appear to hamper their enthusiasm or even accomplishments in the utilization of magic. The techniques of human magic or wizardry use tools to harvest magic, and infuse that magic into physical items. When the Affinity Spell was triggered and the magical chaos storm erupted, several areas where large numbers of these human made magical artifacts were known to be present seemed to collaspe in time and space, forming a portal to a multi-dimensional repository known as a Reliquary. The most famous of these is the Reliquary of Ergela (picture left) located at the former location of the University of the Arcane in Magetown. Other notable Reliquaries are located at the former capital of the Human Northern Continent at Cairne (the Reliquary of Cairne), and another at Greyville (Reliquary of Grisa). It is believed that the magical artifacts from these human communities are located within each Requiary, and can be retrieved should an adventurer be so bold as to enter. Unfortunately, few dare the violent magic currents that cover the Reliquary portals, and even fewer of those who dare enter have ever emerged alive.

The Aftermath

The History of Arryhnsian Humans
The effect of the Cataclysm on the environment and human population of Northern Arrhynsia has been well recorded, and is a pivotal event in modern history. The Cataclysm dramatically cooled the world's environment, blocked large portions of land mass from effective utilization by sentient beings, and killed millions of humans. The human survivors of the Cataclysm formed the Fifth Wave of human immigration into the mainland, and settled eventually in the area formerly known as the Desolate Wastes, south of the Draak'thor Massiff. The Fifth Wave has made uncomfortably close neighbors of the short-lived, violent and unreliable humans, and tensions between sentient species on the continent have been heightened as distrust for humans born from the foolish destruction of their own granted homeland has only grown.

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