Arcane splendor begins with the throne

Chapter 209 Postscript: Two
It is too late now, both for me and for time itself, to look back on my life for the first time, not to mention that the act itself is far less meaningful than its content.

However, now that I have sat down calmly, I have placed the book of spells, scrolls, all kinds of familiar potions, and the last hourglass on the table...

So why not have one last savor of the vaguely happy moments in the little time before it happens?

The wonderful thing about memory is that it is indeed a secret treasure of mankind - my secret treasure... the secret treasure of the past.

For the past, it can be recalled, but not entangled.

Without colorful memories, life must be bleak, curled up in the right and wrong of the past, will bear the burden of going far away, and be alienated from the scenery close at hand.

If we start from the beginning, then I would like to mention the mountain village where I was born, but it is not worthy of praise.

The mountain village itself is not special, but there is nothing ridiculous—our great empire was nothing more than seven dilapidated fishing villages at the beginning, but now its power has spread throughout the entire continent—I mentioned my mountain village, maybe it’s just because of this.

Although it took me six years to learn my first trick there and hurt my eyes because of it, it was the beginning of my life, and I cannot and should not forget it.

- Netherese Calendar, Age of Dawn, 886.

Iolum once again proved his worth, and the floating city of Sinrenal, the first floating city of the great kingdom, was launched.

The Empire has since been divided into Upper Netheril and Lower Netheril.

In the year when the first floating city rose to the sky, it seemed to be the last red moon night.

After I finished my studies, I returned to my birthplace, a remote village.

Thinking of the woman I love, I thought it was an unexpected and beautiful night.

Night, as scheduled.

Heart, but silent but sad.

All that's left of me are dead bodies, rubble, and orc footprints all over the place.

Uncontainable tears dripped through the burnt rock beneath his feet.

I set the whole village on fire with magic, burning everything, including my heart, to ashes.

Since then, I have really learned to grieve, and just as deeply to its futility.

For a long time afterwards, it was difficult for me to control my helpless emotions, and my nerves were so weak that I would tremble all over when I saw the fire.

So, I left my hometown, the great Netheril Empire.

When I left, I took with me nothing useful, especially money—a fact I did not discover until much later.

I've tried many, many means of subsistence, and nothing particularly successful or particularly unsuccessful.

In those days my body was still in good health, but my mind was almost irrevocably weakened.

I found that it took longer and longer for me to memorize spells, and it took more effort to use them. Sometimes, I even couldn't understand what I wrote down in my book.

When it was the worst, I couldn't even perform the simplest tricks, and I almost became a useless person.

I couldn't understand it, I was terrified... I ran around like a fear spell, I fled the town, I fled to places I didn't know, but it didn't help.

I soon fell ill, and refused divine healing, which I knew would save my young life, but not my wretched soul.

I know that no one will come to rescue me, I can only persist with my own strength.

Like a bereaved dog, I came to a desolate sunset fishing village aimlessly - the coast of the Sea of ​​Fallen Stars, the origin of the Kingdom of Cormyr.

I myself built a shelter from the weather, hunted, fished, cooked, traded game and crops for money, bought what was needed, and grew old with dignity as a subject of a great empire.

I am a Netherese, my past has been lost in darkness, I was an arcanist, with a thirst for knowledge and a heart of inquiry.

The mediocre years in the sunset fishing village are sharpening my soul, just like the strong wind sculpts rocks into vicissitudes of art.

All good things have slipped away from my life, my youth and vitality are gone, leaving me alone day and night.

The wind and dust of the years are mixed with frost, carving hope into the coming late autumn.

The cold wind swept across the fallen leaves, and the prosperity fell silent in an instant.

Since then, the situation has become inconceivably the opposite. My health is deteriorating, but my will is getting stronger day by day.

I feel my strength growing rapidly.

- Netheril Calendar, Silver Age, 1101.

Due to the urgent need for resources, the empire began to send people all over the country to explore for minerals.

One of their main mines was discovered by miner Dekenter.

He found a great vein of mines rich in gold, silver, iron ore, mercury, and platinum ore.

According to preliminary estimates, it is enough for the empire to mine for thousands of years.

Compared with the thriving empire, in the far east, another great country is declining.

The gods believed by the slaves plundered by the Imascar Empire from the outer plane successfully bypassed the barrier of the crystal wall system. Under the guidance of the ancient god Ptah, the saints came to Toril through the endless void.

Imaskar's slaves rebelled against their master.

In the second year, Yuvalaj, the emperor of Imasca and the king of artificers, was assassinated. With the fall of the city of Inoplas, the end of the Imasca empire was quietly approaching.

I will never forget that icy cold morning as I greeted the rising sun on a hill overlooking the city.

Suddenly, a blinding flash of lightning pierced the sky and splashed on the square of the city, causing the crowd to panic.

I turned around and saw a beautiful creature that only appeared in legends, and I couldn't help but hold my breath.

"I am Antonia, the servant of the gods of the other world, and the mortals call me the final judge." The celestial being said:

"Believers and preachers, I have good news for you."

Slowly raising her mighty sword, she called out to the growing restless crowd below:
"The jaws of sternness are coming. In Tyr's name, all evil and chaos in this land shall be cleansed." Then her stern gaze returned to me.

"The germs of chaos must be quenched. Beware of evil in your hearts—Tyr's judgment is merciful and swift."

At the height behind the 8-foot-tall alien, a huge vortex slowly opened, and a group of celestial warriors lined up.

I struggled to get rid of the chaos in my head, fleeing the hills like a stray dog.

Doom must be watching me, a Netherese outcast, an arcanist who never believed in any gods, shrieking and laughing.

I was expelled, and left forever this hometown that was not my hometown—the capital of the Kingdom of Cormyr today: the city of Suzal.

Damn Remnant God, I had to leave this land.

——Netheril Calendar, Golden Age, 1652.

The great nation has entered a golden age and its power has reached its peak.

Arcanists started large-scale construction, and every year a floating city was completed.

In the blink of an eye, countless magnificent magic cities appeared in the sky, suspended between the flowing wind and floating clouds.

Some of them stand still, while others slowly fly along the ever-changing borders of the empire.

Every Archmage who established a private floating city followed the precedent set by Iolum, promulgated his own laws in the city, and made them strictly obeyed.

Time passed day by day, and the people gradually lost their right to speak.Their voices, whether it was the change of the political system or the adjustment of the tax rate, were all swallowed up by the grandmasters' ambitions full of power.

Flying cities soon became tools for grand arcana to extract funds for spell research, and bases for fighting against other arcanists.

They also serve as flight bases for travel to the demiplanes and superelemental planes.

That year, my own floating city flew into the sky, and took away my inextricable ties with the world.

I started digging into magic itself and trying to find ways to use it more effectively.

— Netheril Calendar, Age of Darkness, 3263.

The coming of the Year of Darkness seems to herald the doom that will befall the Netherese.

Because at that time, the shadow of destruction had long been lurking around the empire, and it was silently protruding its claws towards this beautiful land.

In this era, a series of major events happened one after another: the arrival of Felin's magic sunflower, the birth of Olostin, and the birth of more powerful magic.

The incarnation of Karthus, an unprecedented and unprecedented magic, the moment it is cast, it finally announces the end of the entire era.

Year of the Seven Indian Wars:

Grand Arcanist Uzi has dominated the area near the Legion of Gods' mountains and built powerful floating fortresses, which carried armies through cat portals in an attempt to conquer the inhabitants of Outland.

But those plane beings far more powerful than the Grand Arcanist in turn sent their armies through the portal and into the Empire, sparking a century of conflict.

The Year of the Fearless Pioneer:

The Faerim Sorrel began to cast spells that would eventually lead to the birth of the Great Desert of Ennork and the abandonment of the Netherilian populace on the surface.

The Year of the Storm:

Felin Mokui's magic shot down two defenseless floating cities without any warning, and other floating cities set up spell barriers to resist this attack.

The Year of the Dark Road:

As the life-stealing spells of the Faerín Sorrow rapidly plundered the heartlands of the Empire, some arcanists began to give up their domains.

Residents of many surface cities felt uneasy, and countless residents living in towns migrated westward, and the immigration wave of the empire reached its peak.

A Year of Courage:

Arcindor, the Earthseer, was last seen before arriving in the floating cities of Karthus to warn the goddess of magic that Mystril was about to face her greatest challenge, one that could change the Netherese understanding of magic forever.

The Year of the Broken Weave:

Iolum abandoned his floating city and disappeared. At the same time, the panic of the people living on the surface reached its peak.

Grand Arcanist Lokmah rescued me from the ruins of my own floating city.

He foresaw the future of the doomsday in his hometown, and denounced the great arcanists in the sky as a group of arrogant, ignorant, and stupid people.

Following in the footsteps of Lokmar, we lead many peoples who live on the surface and were abandoned by the arcanists in the sky, and travel south in a spaceship.

Finally, they settled in the Harua Basin in the southernmost part of Faerun, a beautiful and rich country filled with only shepherds and wild sheep.

We decided to build a city here to accommodate the people of the empire who then fled.

But they never appeared, and what followed were the invasions of many neighboring countries.

We fought a lot and killed a lot of people.

The remnants of Netheril have always been peace-loving. They never take the initiative to declare war on people, but there are often bandits of Dambrath, pirates, barbarians of the Mohorr Jungle, and some people who think that Halrualen has grows on the trees. Magic-hungry alien mages came to harass.

Being constantly attacked made us very defensive, and also belligerent and rigid.

But our strength also made them understand one thing: as long as the wizard of Harua is here, the invaders will never set foot on the land of this new magic kingdom.

On the eve of the fall of the great Netheril Empire, I felt that my life had little time left for me to continue to squander.

In fact, there is no need to count the time, I already know that tomorrow is my bedtime.

It's just that I use magic to borrow the previous day every night to resist the irresistible power of 'tomorrow'...

It's the same tonight, I lay quietly on the bed, sending away the light, with infinite melancholy in my heart, unable to fall asleep.

Suddenly, I felt the signal that the alert was broken: someone entered my house!
The strange thing is that I didn't feel a crisis, but on the contrary, it was a familiar and friendly feeling, just like my parents, my lover, my friends, which made my stubborn and restless soul feel a burst of peace and warmth.

I sat up, touched by this sudden awareness, but quickly disgusted because its nothingness made me feel lost and I didn't know what to do.

There's no one in the room... but people are in my heart.

A night alone, my heart, where should I put it?

I sat at the table, staring up at the night sky, tears flowing silently like pebbles in the overflow of the Galaga River, my hands unable even to put the quill on the parchment.

I saw the endless vast starry sky, just like my unfathomable heart.

A fleeting thought flashed through my mind:
"Can magic allow me to find or change these emptiness? Can magic allow me to re-experience and understand my broken life again? Can magic fill the loneliness in my heart? Can magic change everything? Magic is really eternal. Is it endless?"

I don't know, at least I think so now.

However, if given time, maybe I can really do it.

I am convinced of this.

So I made the following decision almost without thinking:

In my room full of magical books and objects, I gave my life to the goddess Mystrelle, and offered my memory for her safekeeping.

I voluntarily transformed into the undead creature of the lich, and let the torment of the years be engraved on me twice.

In return for simplicity, all I seek is farther time and more powerful knowledge that will enable me to recognize it more clearly and without regret at the moment when I find myself in the distant future.

The day after I successfully transformed into a lich.

The spell Avatar of Karthus was cast, and with the death of the goddess Mystril, the Weave was disrupted, and almost all of Netheril's floating cities fell to the ground and were destroyed.

The body of the fleeting god Karthus fell into the Dire Forest in the east of the High Forest.

I stood alone on the highest peak of the Halrua's Wall Mountain Range, and witnessed the whole process of the whole incident with magic:
I saw floating cities falling to the ground and turning into ruins, one by one arcanists who died due to the failure of their longevity spells, and the few surviving arcanists were distorted by magic power into powerful undead creatures...

I can't help but think: when the great Netheril Empire was at its peak, countless arcanists were keen to explore the lost lands and find the lost magic mysteries.

Well, someday in the far future.

Will the young and vigorous adventurers also trample on the ruins and bones of the lost empire, pick through our ashes, and search for lost treasures.

If so many innocent deaths had to be used to create ruins for posterity to explore.

Then, maybe one day, I should also leave something for them when I am dying...

——Dedicated to all the stubborn people who desire to sublimate their souls with knowledge

…………

Brian closed the books and looked at these silent and silent bookshelves, where the mountains of books were lying peacefully, like corpses sleeping in the tomb.

He sighed, and for a moment, as he looked at the books, it was as if he had been sucked into the flow of time.

But for a brief moment, he wished he'd been sucked somewhere else.

In this way, he can avoid the predicament in front of him.

Brian got up and stayed in the room. He always felt as if his whole body was surrounded by ghosts and ghosts, and he felt uncomfortable all over.

What am I upset about?He knew it well, but felt sorry for himself.

In the end, before he was about to leave, he couldn't help but look back at the room with nostalgia.

The owner's room of the wizard tower is located on the top floor of the tower. The shelves on the walls of the room are filled with various books and scrolls, which makes the small living space in the middle have a musty smell and smell It's like a mausoleum that has been closed for centuries.

There is very little furniture displayed in the room, and if there is any, it is very simple.

A wooden chair with rough carving and hard texture, which is uncomfortable to sit on.

Next to the window is a low table without any decorations on it, the black smooth surface only reflects the light of the setting sun.

Everything in the room is so organized.

Even the campfires next to the northernmost hearth are impossibly neatly lined up.

The neatness reminded him of a funeral pyre.

Although the whole house exudes a sense of simplicity, orderliness and indifference, compared with the beautiful woman in the room who folded her hands on her knees and waited quietly, this indifference and orderliness seem to be just to correspond to her. and exist.

Hellist, the psion of the Whispering Moon family, waited patiently for him, not stumbling, sighing, or staring at the still functioning hourglass timer in the corner.

She didn't read to pass the time, and she didn't look at the magical ornaments in the dark corners of the bookcase.

She sat upright in that uncomfortable wooden chair, her clear, bright eyes gazing at the afterglow of the sunset over the Essebra desert, as if she was seeing the world of Asno for the first time—or the last. sunset.

She was watching the sunset so intently that Brian got up and came to her without her noticing.

"sorry to keep you waiting."

Brian sighed and faced her, "We can go."

As always, she has silver and bright hair, like the silver light of the bright moon shining on the snow.

She wore a pure white one-piece dress, plain but made of fine silk, with no decorations except for a silver belt that encircled her slender waist.

"Are you finally leaving?" Helisite slowly got up, stroked her hair on her forehead, and sighed softly.

She looked at Brian, her bright eyes gradually dimmed like extinguished lights.

"Isn't this exactly what you've been looking forward to for a long time." Brian nodded slightly.

He looked into the psion's eyes, and for a split second he caught a glimpse of a fleeting sadness in Haliette's eyes, like a starlight shining beneath a layer of ice, which came and went so quickly, Brian suspects she doesn't even realize it.

After all, they are about to leave this world and go to the main material world to find a way to save it. It is obvious that she has little confidence in her unknown journey.

Brian understood, and he finally found a word to describe Helliste's mood at the moment: despair.

"The long-awaited..." Helisite repeated in a murmur, a bit of bitterness flowing down her eyes into the depths of her heart.

"But..." Her voice carried an inexplicable fear of the unknown, "I can't see the future of this world, Brian, I'm really worried that this is a farewell trip."

Brian froze in place.

Whether it was in the game world or now, Hellist had always been in his impression a beautiful woman with a scary rationality.

The feeling she gave him was calm, and all that was left was the indifference that put an end to everything, like a piece of cold marble.

Only the marble would at least be warmed by the sun, and she wouldn't.

However, what Helliste presented to him at this moment was an unimaginable weakness and sadness.

"The future that can't be seen shows that there is still a turning point in fate." Brian brushed away Helliste's long hair, gently stroked her cold cheek, and comforted her:
"Maybe, the road ahead of you is ever-changing, but you have to understand that this is your own choice, whether it is for the world or for yourself, I hope you can carefully and carefully make the choice you think is right."

He left the room and never looked back.

…………

PS: That's it. The next story of the main world will be unfolded in the new book. If there is no accident, it will be uploaded after passing the review tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)