Surviving Arkadia

I was still staring at the horrific illustration of Robber Crabs digging up human corpses when Gertrude returned carrying a huge book. It was part of a set of books that I’d seen in the archive. Dark green leather binding and gilded letters. They were the many volumes of the Moonstone Chronicles, the official history of the city. This one was volume three.

Gertrude was also holding a children’s book. It was a large and expensive children’s book with thick pages and bright illustrations but it was still for children. Younger children at that.

Gertrude sat down on one of the stone benches and opened the Moonstone Chronicle to a bookmarked page. “This is the official record of the first Defence of Moonstone,” said Gertrude. “It’s one of the most frustrating records in the entire archive because it does not explain what caused the attack, and it’s kind of vague about where the attack came from. It lists the losses of the city and next to the name of every person who fell in the defence in the city it gives a little bit of information about how they died, who killed them and at what stage in the battle. The people who compiled it just assumed that we’d know who these people were. Fortunately we have a volume of annotations. One of my predecessors had the idea of collecting information from people who came to look for their ancestors’ names in the book.”

Gertrude handed me the children’s book. I tried not to be offended. “Most people from across the continent learn about the Founding in school or from their parents so the only books we have that cover the basics are for children. I keep this one in my office for Outlanders. Sorry that I don’t have anything more advanced.”

There had been three Founders, according to the book, but the first ruling council of the city had been the Council of Four. The three Founders were all mages, one from Talia in the south, one from Ostia in the East and one from the Brutish Isles to the west of the continent. Two of them were physically frail but masters of complex magics. The Ostian had specialised in the School of Air and the Talian in the School of Earth. The Mage from the Brutish Isles was a Battle Mage of the Spell Sword type.

I examined the Spell Sword skill tree. It was a combat speciality with a lot of prep. They could learn Spells from many schools and store them in their blades so that the Spells were triggered as they fought. There was a huge synergy with Enchanting. Enchanting was the skill of imbuing magic into any object and a Spell Sword who unlocked the synergy would level Enchanting as they stored spells. In theory they could level as fast or faster than a dedicated Enchanter.

“Oh this build is so broken,” I said.

“Spell Sword?” said Gertrude.

I nodded.

“It suffers from the same downside as every combat mage career,” said Roly. “The very high chance of getting stabbed in the face before you’ve levelled enough to just tank the damage.”

“The key to combat mage careers is how hard you train the basic combat skills,” said Gertrude. “If the basics are sound then it's as viable as any combat career.”

“Surely the key to combat mage careers is never going anywhere without a tame heal-bitch,” said Trudy, not looking up from her notes.

Looking at the further reaches of the Air and Earth magic trees I could see how those could be combined with Enchanting to build a floating city. According to the book they created what we now call the citadel dome but it made them unpopular with many of the cities across the continent. The people of the cities believed that Moonstone was nothing more than a platform to launch raids from and so an army was raised from all the cities with an Ostian general in charge. The army chased Moonstone halfway across the continent before it finally stayed in one place long enough for one hundred mages to perform a ritual that chained it to the ground. Then the army could mount a huge attack.

The people of the city defended themselves. It was already a city of learning and so there were many Academic Mages. A lot of experimental magic was thrown around and as a result there are still patches of the plains outside the city that are completely barren, or are fenced off and only visited by parties of high level adventurers, or teams of researchers accompanied by elite bodyguards.

When the army finally reached the streets of the city, the Council of Four went out to meet them. The civilians fled the army, and hid in safeholds cut into the crags beneath the city streets. The Council drove the army off the citadel. The fourth member of the Council wasn’t a mage of any kind. They were an Outlander and some kind of Holy Warrior. The book didn’t name their class, but they seemed to be some kind of healing tank type with a bunch of protective auras, shielding skills, and endurance for days. Not enough to keep their friends alive though, as both the Osian Air Mage and the Talian Earth Mage died in the defence.

However the defence was successful in convincing the army to negotiate a peace treaty. Moonstone would stay in one place and would guarantee not to attack any of the cities, and the cities would end the attack and pledge to defend Moonstone if any other force attacked it.

The book was oddly coy about a whole bunch of details. It didn’t name any of the Council of Four, it didn’t identify the Class or Career of the Outlander, there was no map of the Cities that sent troops, it was vague about the terms of the treaty and it didn’t really explain what the safeholds were or why they existed.

“There’s hardly any names in this,” I said, waving the book at Gertrude.

“That’s because we don’t know all the names and the authors took the decision not to bring attention to that by just not naming anyone,” she said.

“How can you not know?” I said.

“I did say that the Moonstone Chronicle was incredibly frustrating,” said Gertrude. “Throughout the first four volumes it only refers to important figures by their titles. When it does use names, in the rolls of the dead, it doesn’t use titles. The two members of the Council of Four who died during the battle are named in the rolls along with all who died, and they’re all interred in the same Ossuary beneath the Temple of the Source. The two who survived the battle are known by their names because they got individual memorial stones listing all their titles and achievements. The Spell Sword from the Brutish Isles was George Drake. The Outlander was called Tariq Iqbal. Historians think his career was Knight of the Faith, which was rare then and is now defunct.”

Gertrude opened the Moonstone Chronicle at the beginning of the roll of the dead and searched through it, “Here she is, this is my pick for the Ostian Founder, Natalia Ivanova.” Next to the name was a note that said Cast unto death in the defence of Moonstone. Gertrude went on, “It’s an Ostian name and the few records we have of her suggest that she was the right age and the right specialisations. Of course, it’s always possible that the Ostian Founder brought colleagues with her and Natalia is one of those. It’s much harder to pin down the Talian Founder. There are a lot more Talian names in the roll and the School of the Earth was an even more popular School then than it is now. There are six people with Talian family names who died in the Defence and four of them have the same Cast unto death note. Legend has it that the two founders who died in the battle kept casting offensive spells, repairing the city, and holding off the enemy until they dropped on the battlefield mid-spell. A couple of Historians have argued that the legend is wrong because such legendary mages couldn’t have been Fever Touched, with the subtext that there’s something wrong with the Fever Touched, but those Historians are horrible people and are rightly shunned by almost all scholars.”