The Dao of Magic

27 - Topics

Let me recap what I learned about this planet from my students. The dungeon city has a name, Neutalinn, but is commonly referred to as the Tower by everyone. That's pretty self-explanatory. I am currently in the Shi-eit kingdom. Best name ever. The first part is pronounced like shie from shield, followed by eit, which sounds like the last part of bite. The Capital, it has a name but nobody bothers with it, is to the north, right where the nobles table map said it is. The king is called the First Defender and loses his or her own name upon taking the crown. It sounds pretentious as fuck, but the name flows nicely in the local language. It sounds like a catchy commercial jingle.

The Capital is a coastal city, with beaches running from east to west. Further north are the pirate island states. This world's mages have made their headquarters on these islands, and any ship that is flying a mage flag receives safe passage. Any ship with a mage flag without an officially sanctioned mage on board will become a floating pile of driftwood and corpses very quickly The mages and pirates must be working together. The same goes for any ship without the mage flag. It's a pretty good system of controlled trade extortion, called the magos tax. I'm slightly impressed.

The beastkin have their countries to the east. They are heavily divided based on their origin animals, creating multiple tribal kingdoms with their own rules and law. The moment a beastkin is born, they are placed in a caste or class that is set for life. You will never see a goat beastkin ruling over other beastkin, only predators have that right. The only exception are mana sensitive beast people, but they are so rare that it rarely happens. And why is the image of a horned goat farmer tending crops so funny to me?

A lot of raiding, slaving and fighting happens on that border, from both the Shi-eit kingdom and the beast people. Centuries of aggression building itself up in a vicious cycle of violence. I will have to teach each of my disciples some sort of body changing or disguising techniques if we ever want to traverse those lands.

Food comes from the dungeon thus explaining the lack of any farms. There are other dungeons scattered around the lands. If a dungeon isn't farmed regularly the beasts inside will spill out and make a danger zone. Big swathes of land are made uninhabitable by such uncontrolled dungeons. Any new dungeons found are claimed by the Kingdom and if the contents of said dungeon are profitable, a city will spring up around it very quickly. There have been no publicly known cases of people finishing a dungeon. Their origin and how they work remain a mystery to the populace.

The massive walls around the Tower are there to defend against autumn. Why autumn?

"So all the beasts roam around in autumn?"

Tess answers me swiftly. "Yes, the all-rain drives the beasts out of their dungeons."

"All-rain? Does it rain everywhere in autumn?"

She looks at me weirdly again. I've been here for just about a week, please be a little more understanding.

"It rains everywhere in Autumn."

I focus my attention on my real body on top of the tower. The sun does indeed seem to be growing smaller. This planet must be on an elliptical orbit. Earth has seasons due to its axial tilt, this planet is rotating on a straight axis, the seasons must thus come from the difference in proximity to the sun. I want to slap myself for not noticing the sun getting bigger and smaller, my excuse is that... I have no excuse. I love anything space related, damn it.

Worldwide seasons seems pretty neat though, I wonder if this planet knows about skiing and snowboarding yet? I focus back on my clone and continue asking questions.

"And it's cold and snows everywhere after that?"

"Yes, winter is followed by spring when new life blooms, followed by the current calm season, summer."