Larkbridge's Defense

In the city-state of Larkbridge, off the coast of Vinopae, there is a saying: never give a time mage nothing to live for.

As sayings go, it’s a simple one. In these days, few enough even know its origin. It’s even shortened to ‘never give nothing’, as nonsensical as that is to the ear of those not raised in Larkbridge. 

Even those etymologists who care to trace sayings have only managed to put together an approximation of the saying’s origins. Some of it may be myth – despite what many penny novels say, language changes a good bit in a scant two centuries. None in Mossford, save perhaps those few immortals and historians, use the term sockdolager any longer. 

But, from what etymologists have managed to put together, the story goes something like this…

Two hundred years before the modern year, there was a woman. Her name was Rebecca, or perhaps Rachel, or maybe Ruiza. For the sake of the story, we’ll call her Rebecca. 

Rebecca was an excellent mage, especially for the era. In those days, mage academies were far more popular than the modern model of combining career certifications or degrees with mage training. 

Though in the modern day, it’s seen as little more than a local school with some history, in those days, the Institute of Larkbridge was one of the more respected mage academies in the world. It had produced many Spellbinders, a respectable share of Arcanists, and no less than four Occultists, though all had taken the Heaven’s Gate Elixir for their ascension. 

Rebecca’s parents had saved enough to have her mana and legacy tested. It was somewhat expensive in those days, the sort of thing the poor could only afford through debt or sacrifice, but that middle class and above families could manage well enough for a single child. 

There is some dispute as to her legacy. Most sources agree that it was some sort of heat amplification legacy, letting her flames burn with more intensity. Some claim it was flame resistance, or improved ability to command fire. What is known is that it was a moderate legacy, the sort of thing that was helpful, but couldn’t carry a person to greatness alone. 

She, as many or perhaps even most do, had two gates: Solar and Temporal. And so Rebecca departed for the library.

In those days, the Library was respected. Its political sway was strong, and having publicly executed The Red Mind and opened his spell research to the public a mere half century ago, they were feared. 

But respect and fear are limited, and much as now, few donated their best spells. They donated enough to not be accused of hoarding knowledge, and no more. 

So Rebecca began her career with average spells. Today, she might have had Enhance Flame, Harvest Flame, Flamethrower, and Analyze Flame, as well as Internal Pocketwatch, Capture Moment, Temporal Basin, and Lesser Image Recall. 

Of course, she didn’t have those exactly. Push Flame, Intensify Heat, and Restructure Cone had not yet been merged into Enhance Flame. And that’s to say nothing of the fact that the spell she might have called Internal Pocketwatch wouldn’t be synced with planetary temporal flow for a century and a half. 

But even an etymologist likes a clean story. 

With these spells, Rebecca made a name for herself, bit by bit. She battled lawbreakers, won a competition for first gate pyromancers, and even burnt down a smuggler’s ship. 

And with the last, she received her offer to the Institute. With proper tutors on spellform construction, mana manipulation, and advancement theory, Rebecca went from swimming to soaring.

Her time gate leapt forward in leaps and bounds as she mastered and ingrained spells. She spent hundreds of hours in the library, working through their collection of millions of full-gate spells, looking for the perfect fire magic matches. 

Eventually she settled on the Sea of Flame, a growth spell which created a vast pool of fire within her spirit. It could be drawn on and infused into her other spells, to catch them on fire, or to double the intensity of the flames she already had. 

Much like her legacy, and much like her first spells, the Sea of Flame was no legendary technique. Many derivatives of it still exist to this day. The reason it took her so long to find was that the version that Rebecca picked would interact with her legacy in a beneficial manner. 

Again, her legacy is not known – perhaps the Sea of Flame condensed its fire hotter, which multiplied with the heat intensification. Perhaps it was a design too ambitious for a normal mage, but one she could manage due to her fire resistance. Perhaps something else entirely.

At third gate, Rebecca mastered the spell which all solar mages who fight seem obligated to learn: Fireball. She learned other spells too, of course, and her time magic grew in both breadth and depth, but the raw, visceral power of Fireball has helped reshape wars since our ancestors crafted the first spellforms from the corpses of dragons. 

And as all spellbinders may, Rebecca bound magic: Capture Moment was bound to solar and the Sea of Flame to temporal. 

Roadside songs and sea shanties in the area claim that this gave her every fire spell an automatic Captured Moment for no mana cost, and put her full-gate spell under a permanent spiritual haste, growing and recovering far faster. 

The veracity of this is unknown, but it seems plausible, and oral history is too often overlooked by intrepid young researchers. 

Whatever the case, Rebecca continued to grow, and in time even came to be fifth gate. She lost something in that final advancement, though, as many do, and became stuck. For a few years, she sought to undo it, but eventually came to accept her fate. 

She took a position in the Larkbridge military, and became highly respected. As an island city state, what they called military is what most others called navy, and Rebecca burnt down many raiding ships that thought Larkbridge would be a soft target from her position as captain. 

But, as many do, Rebecca eventually sought companionship, and eventually found it. She had a son, and though she continued her work, as her son grew older, so too did Rebecca. She had dedicated some of her time magic to slowing aging, but not so much that she would live for centuries. No, her magic let her age with grace, but would add perhaps two decades to her life. 

Rebecca’s son was, by all accounts, an adequate mage. He was not as skilled or dedicated as his mother, but he had opportunities. He became a reasonably powerful pyromancer of his own, inheriting solar magic from his mother, and desolation from his father. 

He too joined the military, and carved out a life for himself. He found a husband in the form of a superior officer – quite the scandal – and eventually Rebecca had a grandchild. 

When Rebecca was in her seventies, Vinopae attacked Larkbridge. They were, as so many at the time, caught in the strange in-between of rule by kings, Occultists, and any others who could muster raw power and the rule of those who are actually selected for their skill at governance – or at least, their skill to make the public believe they’re good at governing. 

The attack wasn’t calculated because of Larkbridge’s magical resources. It wasn’t a dispute over trade routes. It wasn’t an ancient rivalry between the kingdom and city-state. Indeed, Larkbridge and Vinopae had been allies for many decades prior to the attack. 

No, the war, as so many are, was born of the ego of petty men. In a desperate attempt to cling to their power for a little while longer, the royal line of Vinopae had sought to conquer Larkbridge. 

Their opening naval attack was a harsh one. With so much more coastline than a small island, and with so many more people, Vinopae fielded a fleet several times the size of Larkbridge’s. They circled the city, sieging it from all sides and striking at any ships on the water or who dared to leave the city. And there they began launching occasional probing attacks into Larkbridge.

Rebecca’s son, still active in their military, was killed in the initial attack. Nobody knows what exactly happened, only that he was aboard one of the ships that the Vinopaen fleet sank. 

His husband, who had been suspended from command, was recalled into service in order to help repair the city-wide wards. As a single father, however, he was kept far from the front lines. His death came from nothing but bad luck – while hoisted on scaffolding, repairing a ward, a bombardment shook the ground, dislodging the attachment struts. He fell, and if he’d landed on his legs, might have lived. But he struck his head, and was killed on the spot.

Rebecca, a woman in her seventies, was the only one able to take on the child. And she adored her grandchild. Over the following month of the seige, they grew even closer, as she forewent meals to ensure their rations were enough to keep her grandchild growing well. 

And then a bombardment broke through the wards and struck a school, leaving no survivors. The force and fire was so potent that there were hardly even bodies. 

To this day, Vinopae claims it was a regretable accident. They had been aimimg to merely break the wards then target a ship repair outpost, but they had miscalculated. It’s unlikely that anyone will ever be able to know for certain. After all, almost nobody in in Vinopaen fleet survived that day.

When Rebecca heard the news, something within her broke. Her husband had passed a decade prior, her parents long before that. She had no cousins she was close to. She had put up with the fleet killing her son, and her son-in-law. But now they had killed the only person left in the world that mattered to her. 

Rebecca was getting old then. Thanks to her time magic, she might have fifty years left, but she had no reason to live them. So she stretched out her old muscles, lifted her old bones from her chair. She dressed herself in her old uniform, and drew her old staff from her mana-garden. She marched herself out the door, then she activated her Arcanist’s tower and rose into the air. 

As she did, she began to cast another spell. A spell that every good parent or mentor hopes their student or child will never learn, but a spell that nearly every time mage does regardless: Burn Future. 

Rebecca drew on fifty years of her future, and she rose into the sky like an angry Magi. She shot over the opposing fleet, pouring so much power into her flight spell that even their anti-flying spells were left in the dust. 

Flames poured from her hands: Flame Pillar, Fireball, Burning Lance, and Flamethrower. Each and every one of them ripped through ships, burning soldiers and ships like wheat. 

The Vinopaen fleet quickly martialed a response, spreading their ships out to launch attacks from all sides. 

And Rebecca lit the sea on fire. 

Echoed spells burst to life as fifty years of mana was spent in less than an hour. Assault spells were melted in the sheer intensity of Rebecca’s fire as fifty years worth of the Sea of Flame poured out from her in a single instant. The ships were rendered little more than floating piles of ash, and those few left were quickly mopped up by Larkbridge’s own navy. 

Though this is likely more myth than truth, the story supposedly ends with Rebecca having just enough mana to stagger back to shore and collapse. As she lay dying, she was asked how and why And so she said: “I am a time mage. I had nothing left to live for.”