THE BOOKS OF MAGIC [modplot]

[letsgolegion]

Who| Everyone who signed up
What| The Books of Magic Plot
Where| All over the DC Universe
When| The same time as "Out With the Old"
Warnings/Notes| N/A

Their mission had brought them to Sorceror's World, which led to their first lead -- a strange artifact that, if completed, would allow them to find how the Spectre had been imprisoned the first time. After the golden device had been activated and revealed this, they all suddenly found themselves teleported in teams of two to new locations.

Strange, weird, and magical new locations.

Comments

[isthisapidge]

Pidge looks up and then starts, immediately bringing the piece of metal up to protect her vital parts and moving in front of Miku to protect hers too.

"Zombies? They look a lot like zombies."

But of course, she can't really make that judgement call as long as there are aliens about. But she's also not a damn fool, so she adjusts her grip on the metal and moves her hand to her bayard.

"Hello?"

[letsgolegion]

"I^xa^ji^kl^ekⁿa^fi^g," it says. Then it mimics Pidge. "Hello?"

It tilts its head in the other direction.

"You are from Longago?"

[ghost_bait]

Longago? Long Ago? Miku cast a look at Pidge, "In a manner of speaking, yes." She nodded slightly. The creature really was unsettling; Pidge's assessment of a Zombie wasn't far off from what Miku had been thinking. "Who are you?"

[isthisapidge]

"We're here peacefully!" Always an important thing to clear up. "And...accidentally. Where is this place?"

[letsgolegion]

"This place is called M^ri^fi^ca. I am unsure of the words you would have for this place. I know only one tongue from Longago because it was taught to my ancestors by a man who walked through time. He had undertaken a long walk from the end of days through the past, and was trying to get back to his own time in Longago. Then I myself met another man and a boy who walked from Longago to the future. Such a strange thing for people to walk back and forth when the rest of us must go the long way."

The creature tries to remember everything it was told.

"The only placename I know in his ancient tongue is 'Earth.' He said it was the word the people of Longago had for the world. We call the world Dⁱs^ri now."

All is suddenly clear: this isn't an alien planet, this is Earth, millions upon millions of years in the future. (Or at least in a possible future.) The creatures are what's left of Earthlings. Perhaps they look alien because of evolution alone, or maybe all the genetic mixing of humans and aliens have had a part to play. Maybe it's a combination of both.

In any case, the two are looking at what has become of mankind, in the time leading up to the end of days.

"The man who was with the boy said there are only fifty thousand of us in today time. Somehow he knew our number. He made it sound as if there were so many in the past. It's hard to imagine how you have enough food in Longago. We can only catch 3 or 4 sea spiders a day."

[ghost_bait]

Miku's brow furrowed. It would be a little silly to say this sort of thing had shocked her, after everything else in the last few weeks. And as little offence to the human-not-humans before her, they were bound to join in the vestigial nightmares left behind by her previous mission. "There are lots of people, yes... though I can't say much on things like food production, that's beyond me. Ah, but... but getting back to the subject at hand; we're rambling..."

She glances at Pidge and smooths a hand over her skirt. She has no desire to see a sea spider. Or any spider, for that matter.

"Do you think you could show us the way the man went, coming from the end?"

[isthisapidge]

"Millions of us. Feeding everyone was...complicated."

Pidge still isn't sure what to make of these people, and she's not totally trusting of them. They seem as curious about the world that came before them as Pidge is about the world that will come after her. Has come after her?

But they have no idea what ground they're treading on. OK, they do, it's a beach of the future. But they don't know what these people are like or anything about their culture. She can follow Miku's lead on this one.

"That's right. We need important information from him."

[letsgolegion]

The creature points off in the distance.

"He and the boy walked that way, past the dunes. The man had a great power, it was enough to pull the boy along in his wake. The world is still...thin there. We have stayed away out of fear of walking too far into the future, but you may be able to find your way to the future by walking the same path."

He shakes his head.

"But you must be careful. Whatever brought you here, if it was supposed to take you to the end of all, and failed, then if you reach the future some other way, it may also be too weak to take you back to Longago. The old man and the boy that walked forward -- we haven't seen them again. And the one that walked back from the future, that spoke with my ancestors, he said he was walking back to Longago, but was forced to walk back the Slow Way. One flipper at a time."

The creature seems genuinely concerned. It's a nightmarish thing, walking back billions of years one step at a time, and it seems the kind of fate worth warning others about.

[ghost_bait]

Flippers? Miku's brow furrowed some, and a little part of her hoped that they wouldn't suffer the same fate.

It was very had to do any kind of good cleaning with flippers.


"We shall we, don't you worry." Miku smiled at the zombie human(?) as best as she could. "I have the highest confidence that we'll get back home."

[isthisapidge]

Pidge tries very hard to hide her nervous gulp. She doesn't do it very well. Do they mean that time...resets and they have to evolve into humans again if they mess this up? What a horrible thought, one that she's not going to share with Miku before they're alone.

"Thanks for the tip. We'll try to avoid the...flippers." She finally lets go of the metal, letting it fall from her hands and onto the sand below. Part of her wants to take it back to study but...it's just too big. A dream deferred.

[letsgolegion]

The direction that the being pointed in shimmers and warps. The dark void of something that isn't quite space is visible beyond, except... it looks like the stars are falling out of it.

[ghost_bait]

That... doesn't look very safe. Still, she bows respectfully and straightens up. "Thank you, very much, for you advice and direction. We'll be going now."

She glances in the direction of the shimmering, shooting star void and nods to herself. "We should go, Paladin..."

[isthisapidge]

Pidge nods at Miku, turns back to give a quick wave to the people who helped them, and then starts off in that direction.

It's difficult to tell what exactly they're walking into, but Pidge finds herself enthralled by the way the space warps and glimmers in a way that dark matter usually does not.

"It's really beautiful out here. I mean, for being so desolate."

[letsgolegion]

All of a sudden the ground is gone and they're somehow walking among the stars as they fall out of the sky around them, even though there's no ground.

The end of the universe should be the stars simply turning into black holes and maybe they are. Maybe, in a more grounded version of reality, the universe is simply cooling down, as entropy causes it to creep into heat death.

But this universe is ruled just as much by magic as it is by science, and so, even as the stars turn into black holes and dissipate, they also cascade around, falling from nowhere into nothing.

Also magical: the strange crystalline palace that they suddenly see in the distance. Reality is compressed here. All of time and space caved in at a single point. This palace is all that's left of the entire universe.