She gave a general 'Hello' and turned back to me. "The first wizard of earth." she saw something on the table she liked and picked up a container and some chopsticks. " If Earth is no longer the furthest world from the center then magic is going to start cropping up all over. I'm the first one that has shown the kind of power you see on other worlds in wizards, or shaman or whatever you want to call them."
Andre and Debbie looked up, and exchanged glances as Amy greeted Frances and Carrolton. I was glad I wasn't the only one who still had no idea what the hell was going on. I was glad, that was, until Debbie stood up frantically and looked Amy up and down.
Amy just stood there, looking at Debbie like she had two heads. She glanced at Frances, "Is she human?"
"No," Debbie growled, "She's a wizard just like you. And no no no no no no NO!" Debbie met Amy's eyes, "You're a wizard." She whirled around to Andre, "She's a wizard! Earth's development shouldn't be that far...developed!"
Panic seemed to set in to all the people in the room who weren't savvey to what she was saying. Carrolton spoke first, "So, you're saying that earth is developing faster than it's supposed to? Is that bad?"
Debbie whirled on her, "You tell me. How will the masses of this planet respond when thousands of people suddenly have magical powers? How did they react in the middle ages when they THOUGHT thousands of people had magical powers? I've read X-Men, and I've read about the Inquisition. It. Will. End. Badly. You humans aren't nearly mature enough as a race to handle that kind of thing."
"I'll ignore the 'you humans' bit," Carrolton's eyes narrowed. "What do you suggest we DO about it? Our resources are already stretched to the max."
Debbie didn't like it when people she didn't like got that closer to her, "Just what is 'YOUR resources', hmm?"
Debbie had a point on that. Carrolton had told everybody she was there for an insurance company, but I think at this point we could all drop that little fantasy. But still...Gah. A catfight. I felt like banging my head against a wall. Debbie...had a temper, and I realise now why she was never afraid to get into a confrontation with random people in the street. She could twitch her nose and turn them into dust. Thankfully, it seems that one of Amy's talents was to nullify conflicts. I didn't even notice her mumbling a spell under the veil of her Chow Mein. A strange light enveloped Debbie and Carrolton. Debbie looked at her, with a smile that seemed fake, as if she was trying to be angry but couldn't. "You used an...emotional binding spell on me?"
Amy's eyes widened, "That's what it's called? Then, yes." She got a sort of far-off look on her face, "I don't like when people fight."
Andre looked curious. I was expecting some kind of a quip, but he spoke gently, "Isn't that ironic? An empath that specializes in canceling out sour emotions in people. You're very lucky Ms. Amy, most empaths go crazy." He sighed, "Although...I did wish you would be another combat wizard. Especially with what's to come."
I did not like the sound of that. A part of me knew that Andre and Debbie wouldn't have come to this world just to save my ass. Debbie might, but not Andre. Inside I suppose I had already known that the Situation Was Bad. Still, it sucked to have it confirmed by the dark tone in his voice. I sat down in front of him on the coffee table and met his shaded green eyes, "What's to come?"
He motioned to the large, old book he was holding. It looked like one of those spellbooks in those MMORPGs. But there was an eloquent script that I didn't recognize. It was all lines, like Sanscit, with thick and over exageratted lines and dots like medival Latin letters. He flipped through the book and everybody gathered around. "I had a hunch, so I did some research on the beastie we killed earlier."
"What 'we'?" Carrolton asked, she was ignored as Andre flipped to a page with what looked like a rought black and white painting of the Lava monster.
"Garathmor," Andre read allowed as his finger traced the name. "I remember hearing horror stories about them as a child. How, during the Age of Demons, they ran rampant on the world, feeding on magical energies to sustain their own lives. They served great Demon Overlords, who feared giving magical power to humans. They stamped it out wherever they could, when they weren't going to war against each other, that is."
"Age of Demons?" I asked, that sounded bad.
It was bad. Debbie explained, "The age in which demons ruled the innermost world, and by extention all worlds surrounding it."
Andre continued, "But after the Age of Demons, when powerful wizards began to rise against the Overlords, they lost most of their power. For ages we picked them off whenever we found them. Garathmor are relatively weak in comparison to the other things around, especially without their Overlords to protect them."
Carrolton was the first to catch on, "And it took a rocket launcher to kill ours..."
"One point to that lady. It was strong. I felt the strain against my shield when it attacked. I shouldn't feel the strain unless-"
I can be smart when I need to, I understood with a sudden moment of terror, "-Unless it had an Overlord to protect it."
Andre rubbed a hand through the side of his blond locks, not disrupting his hat, "Yes. But the problem is, the Overlords were destroyed thousands of years ago. They're EXTINCT. Which means one of three things is happening." He raised a hand, and numbered off the different scenarios, "In order of what would be best for us: Setting 1, the wizards missed an Overlord all those millenia ago. It's been in hiding, gathering power, and waiting for a weak world in its magical infancy to show up and crate a new Demonic Age on that world. Setting 2, the theory has been discussed that the reason Earth is suddenly excellerating in its development is that there is another world coming to life on the outside, forcing Earth in. If that world is...something else, another primordial soup of spiritual energies, another Center world, then the Demonic Age could simply be starting again and bleeding into this world. Setting 3, last but definatly worse, is that magic, demons, monsters, is all bleeding into Earth from beyond the other worlds, but also from time and space."
Debbie looked shocked, and I felt a sick feeling rise in my stomach as I asked, "Why is that last? It doesn't sound the worst..." I was trying to convince myself."
Andre continued, "That isn't supposed to happen. Some higher beings can travel through time, but for a creature from one time to bleed across the boundaries of another time...it's not supposed to happen. There are walls, FAILSAFES, set up to prevent that. If this is what's going on then that means something far more terrible than a new Demonic Age on Earth or Earth becoming the battleground for a clash of titans, it means the walls are
breaking down."
"Well?" I said impatiently, even as the fearful bile rose in my stomach, "How do we stop it?"
Debbie reached out for my hand, "That's just it. We can't. If the walls of the universe are fading then...there's nothing we can do about it."
Everyone stayed quiet for a long time.
I was ready to fight demons, monsters, palace guards, emperors, floating clouds of gas. But if it was as bad as Andre was saying, this would be an enemy that I couldn't fight. It scared me, and I suddenly realized how, although the things I had fought up until that point scared the crap out of me, I would have given anything to have one of them. To have something I could trade blows with instead of just sit around waiting for the end of the world.
Then I considered Andre's other two, better options, both of which seemed pretty damned dismal.
Debbie was right, this called for a collective 'oh shit'.
Oh shit.
