A Subliminal Echo
The mage needed a solution.
He’d never come across a magic-resistant problem.
He was in a deep, reflective quandary when Saul scooted into his hall of rooms, demanding action. Demanding his staff in the sky; a deflection at least, against the spinning forces of evil that clung to their land like a bane.
A curse, he reckoned.
But not one he’d witnessed or knew about. It was utterly perplexing, because he was a student of history and had studied all the major forces of darkness.
No, this was progressive , multi-faceted, inter-electrical; a subliminal enigma.
He needed to ponder…
“Master, reports are just in. New reports, nothing is working, the Inter-divide is static, no magic, my master. Absolutely none.” Saul looked terrified and he felt his pain.
But, he was at a loss - lost in the abyss of the ordinary, separated from all he was, all he had ever been ( and anything he might possibly become.)
Magic had been stripped from the world and no one had the vaguest idea why or how the abomination had been conjured.
He looked from one giant wall-wide screen to another; his hall was fashioned as a receptor. The massive digital “eye” displayed an array of ever twirling white and gray static.
The world was lost.
Then he heard the strangest blip, an echo that sliced through the dying screen.
We have it, we’ve captured the rain, the clouds, the sun that shines in your skies. We’ve stolen the fish that swim in your seas. The lions that feed in the Savanna and the eagle that swirls in your midsts. We’ve replicated your plants, but destroyed those you had. You have your machines, your technology and your “divide”, but we have your means of survival.
What can you pay?”
He raised his hand in supplication and realized that he had nothing...