The Black Tower Land-Tiller's Branch

Dressed in a black Isranian women's suit that made her feel more secretive than usual, Jun made her way to the receptionist's desk. On her person was a case filled with some documents she had been working on in her spare time. At first it was just something for fun, something to occupy her restless brain when she was sick of fighting giant monsters or reading about spellcraft. But in light of the recent attacks on her homeland (undead giant dragons, myst behemoths, dark dinosaurs), her idle brainstorms suddenly seemed more relevant.

Of course something like this would require the approval of Lord Tristian. But there was a certain someone she wanted to consult first, to see if her idea was even feasible. To her knowledge it had never been done before. And she needed a true expert, a master mage whose knowledge exceeded even those in the Guardian Tower.

Grandma

"Hi." She said to the receptionist.

"Ah, Jun. You're Lady Naoki's friend. How can I help you today?"

"I want to speak with... Her."

"Who?"

"You know,  that person."

"I'm sorry I quite literally have no idea what you are talking about."

"You know... The creepy old her. How many mysterious entities that people are afraid to mention by name do you know of?"

"Ma'am, have you forgotten who we are? You'd be surprised."

"... Fair point. I'd like to speak with Grandma."

"Oh! That creepy mysterious entity people are afraid to mention the name of. Well... I'm not sure she is around but I'll do my best."

It just so happened that Jun wasn't a very imposing figure either. In fact they were about the same height. "I'm sure most of what you've heard is wildly exaggerated." She reached out to gingerly shake her hand.

Chills went up her spine. She hadn't met a magical entity with as intimidating an aura since her own grandmother.

"Uh, well, I'd love to get you know to, I mean get to know you better, if you have the spare time of course. But for right now I'd like to speak in private. Do you know a private place we can talk?"

Jun said every word with the politeness of a princess. There was a single drop of sweat crawling down her left temple.

Jun was pleasantly surprised at how well-mannered Grandma was. She couldn't quite tell if it was an act, or if being able to swallow a dragon with a flick of a wrist helps make one kind-hearted. Often times bad tempers belie a fearful soul. As far as Jun knew, Grandma feared no one.

Somewhat more at ease, Jun carefully pulled out her case and removed its contents, a series of pages filled with drawings. Grandma might recognize them as glyph diagrams. However there was no magic to them. They were just notes.

As she did this, she spoke calmly. "Well, I wanted to ask your advice, and maybe your assistance, in designing something to protect the Expanse. Recently our alliance with Isra and the Black Tower became formalized, but the truth is most of the natives are starting to feel ill at ease. There have been so many attacks lately of creatures beyond our reckoning. A chaos mage won't appear again for at least a few hundred years."

Jun sighed. "Not everyone shares my cosmopolitan view of the world. And so you understand why we might not want the Black Tower to say, construct another Kami to loom over the Expanse. We appreciate learning from other cultures but we don't want to be at their mercy. We want our dignity. And so I was thinking, what can we design that would help us defend ourselves, but be uniquely ours? Or at the very least something that feels like a true joint project."

Grandma might notice some of the diagrams had question marks on them. Jun blushed. "Yah it's a pretty rough design. Still lots of holes. Here."

She pointed to a map of the Expanse. "Our two most powerful defenses are the Guardian Wizard Tower and the Temple of Mercy. They are home to our most powerful mages. I don't know too much about the priest who guards the temple but I believe her powers are comparable to Lum'Valia. You might know her. She's a holy dragon and one of my teachers. Oh and of course the Black Tower here is... Well I know it's tougher than it looks. Can you tell what it is I'm thinking?"

Putting it all together, Jun had designed a hybrid between a scrying system and a long range spell delivery system. The idea was to use floating platforms to direct the firepower of the Phoenix of Mercy and the Guardian Tower, and maybe even the Black Tower, anywhere along the Land-Tiller's border. The spells wouldn't necessarily have to be offensive in nature. The Phoenician Lai Ban could cast a Seraphim Seal of Chastity at the temple and drop it onto a battle zone, causing a magical cessation of all violence.

"What do you think? Can it be done?"

Jun furrowed her brow. "Mm... I mean there are some powerful artifacts here and there but they are mostly being used by the tower. We could probably have a system of mages specifically trained to power the devices, but that would divert precious manpower during a crisis. And I was hoping this system would help save on manpower. Mm...

Jun's head collapsed. "It's going to be one of those isn't it? Ok. I'm going to do some traveling and see if I can acquire some smaller power sources. If you have any suggestions about where I can start, maybe an ancient kingdom or some lost temples or something. That's how these things usually go."

Jun grinned when she mentioned Grandma's lack of healing magic. "Really? You know Lum'Valia taught me a thing or too. If you ever need a tutor..." Then Jun quickly remembered who she was dealing with. "I don't mean to be presumptuous or anything! Uh, you know, even the most powerful mages have certain schools they aren't particularly gifted at. Ahahahahaha... Ha... Ha..."

She swallowed. "Right. Chaos mages. It's a bit of a convoluted story. Actually we only recently figured out the mysterious bits when Van'ei the Earthwarden appeared last year. Basically the Land-Tiller's Expanse has an unusually high concentration of mana, and therefore many skilled mages. Its because Va'nei blessed the land 10,000 years ago. As long as we live in harmony with and respect nature, the land will bless us with its bounty. Every few hundred years the land will choose a particular person to be blessed with abilities far above average. This person helps bring balance and justice to the land and ensures its long-term survival... By any means necessary. Sometimes they are viewed as good, and sometimes their actions are more... Controversial. My grandmother fortunately was on the good side. She died recently, and so we won't get another one for a few hundred years at least. That's just how it goes."

"That sounds reasonable. I think I could get Lady Naoki to let me dip into her vast treasury, especially for the sake of providing an entire nation with its very own border defense system. Seems unfair Goraia and Isra should get to have all the fun."

Jun had never heard of Steelscape before. It sounded interesting. She'd probably start there.

"Riiiight... Well, uh, if you ever undergo a change in nature, let me know." She chuckled. She was a bit too frightened to ask for further details even though she was deathly curious.

"Well, supposedly she died of old age when I was 12 but, recent events have convinced me her death may not have been natural. I don't know the specifics but I supposed my grandfather was, shall we say, a bit further down the not-so-good spectrum of things. My grandmother was resurrected via powerful necromancy and turned into a deadly weapon. But my grandfather had a change of heart, and he and my grandmother sacrificed themselves to slay a dragon. Doesn't sound very impressive except the creature was over two miles long. Plus I'm fairly certain they wanted to die."

There was a flash of light. Jun held with her now an artifact. it was a set of gauntlets attached to a strange harness via chains. The harness was silvery and had a multichromatic gem set in the middle. "She designed this. It's like a staff, but much more efficient. Funny thing is, my grandmother had a magical learning disability. She used this to overcome it until she could grow out of it. This is a newer model I found in the aftermath of the battle I just told you about. My old one is lost somewhere in Goraia..." Jun said the last part with melancholy.

"Well, anyways, thank you for taking the time to meet with me. If I can find the artifacts, would you be willing to help me refine this design? I'd also like to get Lord Tristain's support in helping to construct it."

Jun nodded. "I appreciate all your help. You're welcome to explore anywhere in the Expanse. Er, not that anyone could stop you but, you, just putting it out there. I'd recommend starting with the Temple. It's got an, interesting story."

Jun promptly took her designs and walked out of the Black Tower Branch with Grandma. When they went outside, they went their separate ways. Jun released the shrink spell on her crow, allowing it to grow to full size, and flew off with a wave towards the entity known as "Grandma".

She then inhaled and exhaled forcefully. "Guess she's actually pretty nice. Almost pissed my damn pants though."

Blackbean cawed in reply, and they flew off into the horizon.

<Exit>

As soon as she spoke to someone, she would be informed that a package had materialized in the structure's landing area and that it was apparently meant for her. Then she would receive the powerful artifacts in a neat Equinox package. If she opened the package she would see it was from Jun, with a little happy face next to her name.

A few minutes later Jun would arrive in the teleportation room, sweating somewhat, her hair disheveled. She'd find Grandma sitting down in a visitor room.

"Grandma!" She instinctly rushed in for a hug, then quickly remembered she was dealing with a being who likely inhabited the nightmares of lovecraftian horrors themselves. Thus she smoothly transitioned her posture to that of a jolly hand shake instead.

Jun grimaced. "Oh dear. Ya, seems like someone else wanted the orbs. As soon as I left Steelscape I was attacked by several mages and orcs. They weren't too tough but I accidentally killed all the orcs. When I checked their belongings I found a weird symbol on them. Something tells me I'm not going to Steelscape for a while."

She reclined on one of the meeting chairs. "How about you? You said you were gonna travel the Expanse. Find anything good?"

When Grandma informed her that she could expect further attacks in the future, she let out a sarcastic "Woo."

"Oh that's cool. I guess that means you'll be staying in the Expanse more often. And yes, I've heard interesting things about the priestess. Her power supposedly rivals the chaos mages'."

Although she was enjoying her rest, she knew she wanted to get started on her idea. One again she pulled out her schematics. "So, since we have a few of those power sources to work with, how about this. We create a network of scrying devices across the expanse. These devices can alert the Black Tower, the Guardian Tower, and the Temple of a major threat. Then we distribute the beads to those three locations, and each of them creates a platform from which they can access the scrying network and find the threat. Then they use the platform to fire their spells into a one directional portal, which opens up above or near the target. Then bam. Target eliminated. The strongest mages in all the Expanse will be able to project their might anywhere in the Expanse at any time, including you if you want." She grinned devilishly. "We might even be able to project anti-magic through it."