For the Glory of Rome: Chronicles of an Isekai'd Legion-Epilogues: Mage, Entity

Far away, nestled high in the far reaches of the Glimmervein mountains of the north, stood a tall tower of iridescent stone. Its sheer walls seemed to shimmer in the light, bestowing an almost dreamlike quality on the entire thing. It was enough to make most who ventured to the area doubt their eyes—after all, who would build such a thing here, amongst the barren peaks of the mountains?

The man in question stood atop the tower, his comically frazzled beard whipping in the wind. His resplendent robes were completely soaked through from the deluge of rain that threatened to wash him clean off the edge and into the howling abyss below. Nevertheless, he remained firmly in place, giving no indication that he was so much as bothered by the weather.

He held his hands up high. In them was clutched a clear crystalline rod, its many faceted surfaces carefully engraved with arcane symbols. A bolt of lightning flashed nearby, followed soon after by another, their earsplitting cracks echoing across the mountains. The man remained absolutely still, not even flinching as the bolts struck the rod and caused it to flash shades of brilliant blue. He stood there, simply observing until—

—The rod's glow flickered almost imperceptibly. At the same time, the lightning strikes intensified, redoubling in strength for a handful of seconds as the clouds churned overhead. Then, they stopped altogether as though they'd exhausted themselves, the lighting dissipating altogether.

The man's eyes widened at the sight. A massive grin stretched across his face. Suddenly, he whipped around and strode across the roof, making a beeline for the large box being tended to by one of the apprentices scattered about the roof.

"There it is! Did we catch it?!

Even though the lightning was gone, he still had to shout to be heard over the wind and rain. The boy nodded as he looked over the delicate arrays of metal and crystal within the box. "Yes, Grand Mage Claude!"

The boy quickly stepped aside to let the mage see for himself. Claude scanned the arrays himself, reading the collections of lights and liquid levels as though it were simple text in a book, cackling all the while. It made his apprentices uncomfortable when he expressed mirth at the strange coincidences the cosmos threw his way, but how could he not?

"I knew it," he gloated. "I knew it was no fluke!"

The first time his grand experiment had been disrupted, he'd chalked it up to a fault in his equipment or an apprentice's stupid mistake. Such things could happen, after all, though Claude rather prided himself on his attention to detail.

The second disruption had occurred shortly after, despite his confidence that he'd checked and rechecked all of his calibrations personally.

So this time… this time, he'd made preparations.

It had taken weeks for another fluctuation to appear, a stark contrast to the mere hours that had elapsed between the first two. Yet Claude hadn't given up, hadn't stopped watching. And now, his vigilance had paid off.

Weather manipulation was a rather tricky school of magic and especially prone to interference—especially with the tests he was doing. The calibrations needed to be just perfect, and any sort of minor disruption of the ambient magic could show up as noise in the data.

However, what had happened wasn't just some random disturbance or noise. Those he'd seen plenty of times before. This was a wave, the remnants of a singular burst whose ripples had reached all the way out to his tower.

For the most part, such things were imperceptible and inconsequential to people. But when one was in the business of handling long-running channeled spells that utilized precision equipment—tuned to the exact eccentricities of the weather in order to adjust it—well, that was a different story. And considering that even the most powerful skills and spells rarely produced such fluctuations, and even then only at close proximities… that certainly piqued his curiosity.

Claude combed through the fleeting scraps of data left behind by the disturbance. After the first couple of incidents, he'd taken the time to set up sensors for another occurrence. Most importantly, he wanted to know where they were coming from. There wasn't quite enough data to perfectly triangulate the origin point, but he was able to get a direction. The source seemed to be located somewhere east of Novara.

That piqued his interest even further. Were the elves dabbling in something strange and exotic? Perhaps. Or perhaps there was something entirely different at play.

The mage practically vibrated with excitement. He should have found it a nuisance that experiment had been ruined once again by this strange phenomenon. But instead, he couldn't have been happier. An experiment could be prepared again and replicated. This… this was far more valuable.

He let loose another cackle. "Ronston, fetch me a map! I need to write this down."

"Yes, Grand Mage!"

As the boy scurried down into the tower, Claude absentmindedly wiped the rain from his face and held back another cackle. He'd always seen the possibilities inherent in weather magic—the power to create or deny rain to entire regions, trigger droughts or floods, bring nations to their knees or usher them into a new age of prosperity. Such things weren't simple, of course—most mages could only call a single bolt of lightning out of the blue or manage a small, temporary manipulation of the clouds, and that was with a build specialized in such things and enormous power expenditures.

His grin widened. Whatever the source of these fluctuations was, it was certainly powerful on an almost absurd level to be detectable at the distances that it seemed to be reaching. That alone meant it was worth investigating. But with the effects it had just had on his spell… Perhaps it could even be leveraged to empower them more consistently? It could be the breakthrough he'd been looking for.

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"Um, master… can we go inside now? It's cold out here."

The whining tone of another apprentice interrupted his excited musings. Looking over, he saw one of the newer boys shivering in sodden robes, his expression that of a stray puppy's than a supposedly accomplished mage's.

Claude barked a laugh. "There's no time for that, boy. There's work to do! We must move the equipment to the other side of the tower, just in case it happens again. Quickly!"

"I'm not a boy," the apprentice muttered. "I'm old enough to have grandkids…"

Claude paid him no mind. To him, they were all young enough to be boys—not to mention inexperienced.

The other apprentices leapt into action, quickly rearranging the top of the tower according to the Grand Mage's wishes. Meanwhile, the one who had asked to go inside continued to shiver in place, muttering darkly. That was simply no good.

"Boy," the mage called, getting his attention. "I've changed my mind. Since you're obviously not interested in our research, you may head inside."

The apprentice's expression brightened immediately. But before he could take a step toward the trapdoor leading inside, Claude jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "...But, if you must go… You'll have to use the front door."

The boy's brow furrowed in confusion for a moment before understanding dawned. He looked toward the sheer edge of the tower, rain waterfalling down its sides and rendering the already immaculately smooth surface even more slippery. Even someone with [Spider Climb] would be hard-pressed to scale it.

"So, what'll it be?" The mage raised an eyebrow. "Are you going to help, or…?"

The boy froze in place. The other apprentices, who had been around for much longer, gave him looks that were a mix of pity and impatience. After a moment, the boy hung his head and joined his fellows in moving the sensitive equipment from one side of the tower to the other.

Claude nodded and looked into the sky, the matter already far from his mind. He had a direction. If he played his cards right, he should be able to also estimate the distance of the disturbance—provided it returned. He was more confident now that it would, even if he had to wait a few months. While he could simply set out and investigate himself, that didn't seem like an efficient use of his time. Not when there were so many other experiments to run.

He let out one more mad cackle, raising his arms as if to embrace the very sky itself. What luck he had, that the cosmos blessed him with mysteries such as these.

Darkness. Endless, all-consuming darkness. An impenetrable cloak that stifled any presumption of life or movement, plunging all into a sensory prison of absolute blindness. A bottomless well of nothing.

Yet in that nothingness… there was light.

Specks of glimmering gold, like the finest remnants of shattered gemstones, filled the void like so many comets. Whether they moved quickly or slowly was impossible to tell. Yet move they did, from one end of the universe to the other.

The entity felt. He felt for the first time in... some time. Not quite forever, that he knew. But then, he had no way of quantifying how long it had been. Not that it would have mattered in this place. Regardless, as these streaks of wondrous light moved closer and began to orbit the entity, his world changed. They slowly moved inward, and wherever they touched his formless being, he felt.

And so did they.

Pleasure. Hope. Satisfaction. Resolve. Those feelings and so many more filled the entity's senses like watercolors splashed across a canvas. And with them came… a headache. Not that he actually had a head to ache, not that he knew of. But it was that same idea—a sensation as if a thousand bees buzzed within his sight, each flashing a different garishly colored shade of light as if designed to inflict discomfort. As if a blacksmith had taken a hammer to his core.

The entity expressed displeasure. To who, he was uncertain. Perhaps no one. But he felt it, and so felt the desire to display it by whatever uncertain means were at his disposal.

What was he?

It had been so long since he had had a chance to think beyond the strange, dreamless sleep that had cocooned him. Yet these little pinpricks—the little sparks of life an light fluttering about him—had awakened him. More than that, they made him wish to remain awake.

His nebulous form began to shift in response to the thought. He felt a touch of forgotten power slowly come back to him. Enough that he could almost remember his name. Enough to ward off the inky tendrils of sleep that still wrapped about him.

In the blink of a cosmic eye, time passed. Enough time for many thoughts to come and go. Most of them came and went through without note, but a few left evidence of their passing.

All the while, the pinpricks of light sustained him.

Eventually, things changed again. Something happened, an event that he'd seen occur billions of times—he must have for its familiarity. He had just forgotten.

Another mote of light approached him, this one brighter than the rest. Despite not being particularly large, it blazed with light more fervently than the rest, drawing his attention. The mote drifted toward him, and he curiously stretched out a tendril of awareness to touch it.

The light felt… different. More substantial. In it, the entity sensed something different than these freely offered bits of energy. This one came with a condition. A plea for him to fulfill.

The entity looked at the tiny stockpile within the very core of his being, where the motes of light had condensed into the smallest pools of sparkling energy. Should he expend this energy? For what? For the sake of this speck that was barely worth noticing?

Yet as he considered the mote's promise, he saw what it entailed—it was not just this small offering alone. No, it offered him more: A potential for yet more light to illuminate the darkness of his existence. A steady stream rather than the scattered specks he'd been getting.

The entity sighed and focused his awareness on the speck. Drawing a small handful of energy toward him like a pinch of glimmering sand, he pushed it toward the pleading little mote. He answered the prayer that had been directed his way.

The light rushed through him, tingling through the very essence of his being. He felt yet more sensations as hs power reached past himself, past the mote and into some unseen world beyond. He felt the effects of his interference, even if he could not see them. Yet he felt something else as well. Something not unlike himself, but… lesser, somehow. And it was resisting.

Annoyed, the entity pushed a bit more power through the connection to overwhelm the opposition. It collapsed like a piece of rotted timber. The effort took only an impulsive thought, and yet when the entity came back to himself… he realized just how dark his world had become. He had spent the little energy he had accumulated.

A deep exhaustion took hold of the entity. As he once more drifted away, he could only hope that the next awakening would come soon—as soon as could be recognized in this timeless place. Perhaps then, he'd regain more of his old memories and collect more power to influence that distant place. After all, the specks of light about him seemed to whisper softly of a coming war…

…And war was what he lived for.