The Restored: Chapter Forty-Eight

Despite the excitement of Hadiya’s news, and the fact that I was certain that she’d have continued working herself to death on them in the mere hopes she could get her plans in working order, the efforts of the city didn’t end there and then. I forced her to go take a break and have her foot looked at, and even had to make it an official order and get a pair of constables to guard the piles of her work before she was willing to listen to me. 

“There are good odds they’ll need to amputate the foot, and even if not, I’ll likely never be able to walk fully normally without mobility aiding enchantments!” Hadiya scowled at me as I had her carried to the medical tent. “There’s no sense. I can work more now.” 

“You got stabbed. I don’t want you developing tetanus and catching ill. At least get it disinfected, cleaned, and treated,” I called out, before sighing and asking Jessica to come by and use her perfect memory arch-star to memorize the spells in the chair – just in case. When it came to city improving technology, it was impossible to be too careful. 

With that sorted, I swung by to meet with the growing collection of engineers, enchanters, construction crews, and other workers who had gathered together and were discussing the re-construction efforts, stepping forward to direct them. 

“Thank you to everyone who showed up. I know that all of you are likely representing a hundred different corporations, businesses, sole proprietorships, and more. I can’t put a number to it yet, but I can promise everyone that they will be compensated for the work they put into reconstructing the city. I’m going to suggest that we create a temporary Rebuilding Corps together in order to find a reasonable chain of command and get things sorted, but I can’t and won’t try and set that all right now. What I will dictate is the mission statement that we’re going to be operating on. How many of you are, in some way, familiar with the self-sustaining nature of enchantments on board a military airship?” 

As I spoke, about a quarter of the people began raising their hands.I nodded and started to cast a metal shaping spell. It lifted a large slab of copper from the ruin and flattened it out into a board, where some diagrams began to take shape. They were fairly simple, at least to me. I’d been working on variations on this principle ever since I graduated, after all. 

“The primary unique factor of military airships is that, due to their mobility and initial combat use, they are never able to draw on much, if any, ambient aura. After all, if they did, then taking that ambient aura away from them would cause them to plummet to the ground. That’s why we saw so many of the civilian ships crash, and so many of the military ships, like the one commandeered by the late, great Archmage Davalier, stayed  afloat.” 

That was a bit of an over-simplification. For one, many civilian vessels were built on the same principle, and once Alyphize’s drain had gotten going, it had been able to drain aura from anyone not paying attention, or who didn’t have the ability to shape their aura – like an unshielded aura generator. But still, for this, it was enough to illustrate my point. 

“In our rebuilding, we are going to have to completely restructure the power grid, for both security and practical purposes – a lot was destroyed. My goal is to build a new system, where each building is powered by its own generator, self-sustaining, like an airship. Only, unlike an airship, they’re all connected. Self-sustained, but together. If one fails or is broken, then they can pull from their neighbors, who can pull from their neighbors, and so on and so forth. Spare power can be picked up and redistributed.” 

“That’s going to mean dedicating an absurd amount of space to aura generators!” one of the engineers called out. “Not to mention, so much power will go to waste!” 

I pointed at the skyscraper sized chunk of aura crystal. 

“That’s a storage crystal. Storage was what our previous system was built on. We don’t need to throw it away. Excess power can be distributed into the large aura crystals, to be drawn on in times of emergency, and for funding research projects. As for size, that’s an excellent point. Ladies, gentleman, and my other distinguished craftspeople, we have a unique opportunity here. Up until now, Elderglass was perpetually stretching at the borders of its own size. It was built not with a unified design that could allow for a slow growth and eventual stable population size and power drain, but a 

“That’ll slow our growth,” someone pointed out and I rolled my eyes at him. 

“I was in EC-Six. Our growth was already slowing. Minerals aren’t infinite, we can’t construct them forever. The mountains are already being hollowed out year after year. We’ve been raiding Saxum for materials and aura and space. This will slow our growth and eventually create relative stasis. But nothing can grow forever. That’s a cancer that will kill its host.”

There was a moment of grumbling and silence, so I decided to throw in a bone. 

“Plus, for any mages out there, this plan would reduce or even eliminate an aura tax.” 

I didn’t mention that it was likely going to be replaced with a soulstuff tax, if Hadiya’s theory about using soulstuff to transform aura back and forth was correct, but that was something that could be years out. 

The news did go over fairly well, and I spent a bit more time talking about methods that were used in an airship for negating power loss in transference, and creating enchantments that could maintain themselves on a budget before Jessica found me. 

“The senators and parliament are here. About thirty of them, all in all, which we think is the sum total of all who survived. I’ll go with you.” 

She sparked her aura as she did so, a subtle reminder of her ability to trigger wards without making them appear to be active, and I nodded, thanking her. She led me through the rubble and to a conference hall in a hotel that had remained largely undamaged. As I stepped in, she shut the door behind me, and activated the wards, using her demonic power to ensure that none of the senators would notice. I straightened my back and stepped forward, surveying the group. 

Most of the people here were in their fifties or sixties, significantly older than I was. Only four people in the entire room appeared to be younger than forty, and Rhys, Jessica, and I made up three of them. Most of them were men, about two for every woman, and all of them were wearing expensive clothing.

“Mister Axel Font, I presume,” one of them, an older pale man with splotchy birthmarks over his bald head said, rising and extending a hand. “A bit presumptuous of you to take the title. You should know full well that law is a relic meant for battlefields.”

“Would you not call this a battlefield?” I asked as I shook his hand. “It might be presumptuous, but we’re in an unprecedented crisis. Someone needed to step forward.”

“And now that we’ve assembled a proper convocation, you’re no longer needed.”

“That’s not true,” Rhys said smoothly. “Senator Kuritz, it’s well outlined that in times of crises, the emergency powers rest in the highest position, which would be Acting Archmage Consulate Font. With a majority vote, you may repeal any of the emergency power rulings, but the powers are not removed until such a time as either a supermajority votes to remove them and a new election cycle begins.”

One of the other senators, seated a short while down, spoke up.

“Oh, sit down Lenny. Does anyone here really believe that stripping Archmage Font of his title and hosting a full set of national elections is the right move right now? Do any of you even have an Archmage to propose as a new Consulate? I certainly don’t.”

I’d had no idea about any of what Rhys was saying, but I wasn’t going to look weak and ignorant before a bunch of people whose battlefield lived in law, knowledge, and precision. 

“Thank you Senator, Mister Ermonte. I am well within my rights to continue working to help the people,” I said, attempting to project confidence. “With that said, I did mean what I said. I do not intend to hold onto these powers forever. Nor do I plan to even attempt to leverage myself into any sort of long-term political position.” 

There was a surprised round of murmuring at that, but I held firm, surveying the long table of people. 

“It is true. I have two goals to accomplish with my emergency powers, and I would hope that none of you are opposed to them. First, I wish to ensure a smooth and swift rebuilding of the city into a more sustainable form. We have an unprecedented ability to expand our aura generation, and loosen the burden on our city’s ambient aura when it comes to powering buildings.” 

That was met with a general rumble of applause, though one senator started to say something about the profit loss in the aura storage sector, I held up my hand and cut him off. 

“I am speaking. My second goal is to ensure that this does not happen again. I am sure that many of you are aware of Nexus. How many of you are aware that this entire attack was orchestrated by a rogue agent using Nexus’ plans? Nexus was intending to build a city-wide summoning circle to summon powers of its own.

“Why should we believe you? And even if you’re right, why are you speaking so casually about their plans? If they hear you–” 

“Every single member of Nexus is dead,” I said, cutting the man off. That led to a round of shocked silence, which I took advantage of, pressing my opportunity. 

“I can provide the materials, and will put them in public record, as they are my private property. But how many of you were frustrated at being essentially jerked around like a puppet by a group you could only hope to maybe influence and join? To be a member of the senate, and not be able to choose what to vote on, because the Organizer got to pick what matters were most important? To have to update lawbooks because of random cases of the Overriding Judiciary Council, which could get repealed the next time a member of a different political party took one of the lifetime slots?” 

There was a bit of grumbling in the room, and for the first time, I pulled out a chair and took a seat with them, instead of looming over everyone in the room. 

“Rhys is the son of Senator Ermonte, who was killed by a Nexus member. How many of your lives are forfeit due to voting for things a tiny handful don’t like? I’m not a politician, and I don’t pretend to be. Rhys is going to need to help me translate my emergency order into actual legal work, but I’m going to propose an expansion of senatorial and parliamentary powers. Add new members, curtail the life-long membership. Remove the power of the Chairman and Organizer to choose what’s on the docket, and have order determined by ranked choice among you all. And more firmly give the people the ability to kick out a Prime Minister or Consulate Archmage who is failing to do their duty. Break up corporations, to allow them to divest their interests, and largely rise or fall based on their merits. Increase your salaries to compensate for the loss of corporate donations…” 

I was careful. I had to frame this right, in order to get them on board. In the end, each of them would become slightly more powerful, but it would spread the power through hundreds of people across government positions, rather than concentrating it in less than a dozen government members and a few C-Suites. 

I knew, just like my previous order, that this wasn’t perfect. It wouldn’t fix the underlying problems. It wasn’t going to stop people from abusing structure for their own benefit. But… It would make things better. And I hoped, by taking advantage of radical events of today to push some smaller steps that put power more in the hands of the people, the people of tomorrow would be able to make a little progress.

It wasn’t perfect. But perfect is the enemy of good. 

I pressed my hand to the table and allowed my aura to flare, the five arch-stars of an Archmage circling my head again. 

“What do you all say?”