4th May 2013
13:51 GMT -2
I fly across the Atlantic towards the newly-risen Poseidonis wearing my formal robes, Professor Sephtian's best work affixed to my under-armour. Ahri'ahn is an individual I tried to research; a hugely powerful magician and the founder of the modern Atlantean magic traditions. But that was in antemergi Atlantis, and right after their entire civilisation sank and they had to adapt to aquatic life wasn't the best time for making and preserving written records.
What records they have contain mentions of him up to a certain point, and then he's only referred to in the past tense. The usual assumption is that he died; the best ways for a magic user to extend their life involved making some sort of pact with a magic-based life form, and that would have been contrary to everything he believed about mankind's place in the world. And the other methods…
I don't want to condemn someone from that long ago for their cultural biases. Not out of hand, anyway. The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there, and all that. So let's just say that if vampires existed back then he would have considered undergoing the transformation to be 'polluting his body' and leave it at that.
But I remember the 'Camelot Falls' storyline in the Superman comics where he could step from one point in time to another. Leaving an Atlantis that he thought was in good hands in order to explore the future is certainly something that an archmage of his generation might do…
Ring, status of
William Knightley?
Unknown; unable to locate.
Send a message to Johanna. Ask her to get hold of him and tell him not to do anything stupid while Ahri'ahn is around.
Compliance.
"
There a reason why we're flying this slow?"
"Ahri'ahn comes from a-.
" Huh.
"I was going to say 'more violent time', but given what's been happening lately that's probably not true. More
sporadically violent, perhaps? Casually violent? The shields might have been removed, but I'm pretty sure that he'd have made certain that Poseidonis would be resilient enough to stop any reasonably probable attack before raising it out of the water.
"
Lantern Stewart nods. "
You want them to see you coming."
"It's more that I don't want to fly face-first into multiple layers of wards. Especially as we're over the old continent of Atlantis
now.
"
He thinks for a moment. "
You think he couldn't bring the whole thing up in one go?"
"I think he's a classist. Which is to say, he believes that lower social classes should know their place.
"
He snorts. "
And that place is under water."
"According to Adom, Queen Gamemnae did something similar. Though with her it probably
was a power limit which prevented her from raising the whole place.
"
"
Am I gunna regret asking who the Atlanteans considered 'low class'?."
"Poor people, foreigners, the ritually unclean, the seriously religious.
"
"
Why the religious?
I thought ancient societies were all about religion."
"Ahri'ahn thought that supplication to supernatural forces is something that mankind should rise above. He didn't claim that gods don't exist, but… You don't worship
gravity, do you?
"
He smiles. "
I guess not."
"Even today, people who are a little too into gods are considered to be a bit mentally slow. There was one poor guy at a thaumaturgy party I crashed who got roundly mocked by the entire gathering once they found out what his speciality was.
"
"
How long ago was Ahri'ahn around?"
"Assuming it's actually
him and not another poser,
a while. He's older than Adom, but not older than Doctor Mist.
" I frown.
"Unless he's been spending time in suspended animation, or jumping forwards in time like Max Mercury. I would also advise against assuming that he's unfamiliar with technology; viewing the future is well within his power. Who's he talking to now?
"
"
Doctor Mist."
"Makes sense. I think that Doctor Mist is one of his ancestors.
"
He regards me sceptically. "
They don't look much alike."
I shrug.
"With enough generations in between, that doesn't matter much. With four generations a century, and most of their partners having paler skin-. Did I ever mention that he's one of Mister Zatara's ancestors?
"
"
No."
"If there's a person born with access to more raw magical power than most people, most of the time he's one of their ancestors. He's literally the progenitor of a magic-focused human subspecies.
"
"
Given how long it's been, I guess he's related to just about everyone in Atlantis."
"Not necessarily. There are a lot of other genes in the mix, and people didn't often mix between different city states. Except possibly the rulers, to maintain alliances.
"
"
Still, it's a long time."
"I never really looked into exactly which genes carried the trait. Conventional genetic analysis isn't reliable with magic, anyway.
"
Coming up on the city proper now. There's the palace, which… I think the outline is mostly the same, but they've increased the amount of the exterior covered by walls rather than left open to the water. There's the Conservatory of Sorcery, which… Seems to have been expanded. The main body of the city looks…
Really different out of the water. As with the palace they've walled up some of the higher doorways, and there've added rune-inscribed obelisks at major intersections. Probably a security measure. I-.
Dolmen Gates! They've added Dolmen Gates! They can't keep using their biomantically-engineered swimming creatures for transportation-. And the cities were individually shielded, so normal travel between them was impossible. Dolmen Gates bypass that, though-. They've have to have teleported between them the hard way to assemble the other terminus…
Calm down. Quick check…
Yeah. Can't see a single Atlantean who isn't a Pureblood.
Which is a
problem, because while an aristocrat of Ahri'ahn's era might regard peasants as being comprehensively beneath him that's
nothing compared to how he'd view foreigners. I think-.
"Ah!"
A.. long haired and pale skinned man-. Translucent projection of a man appears in the air in front of us, smiling broadly. He's wearing a richly embroidered coat over a plain white shirt and tan trousers. I slow, but the projection keeps relative station so I accelerate again. "There you are! I understand that we've you to thank for expunging the Anti-Life!"
"The plan was mine, but many people worked to bring it to fruition.
"
"Oh, come now." He frowns. "No false modesty."
"Alright. It was all me. I'm brilliant.
"
He smiles. "Please, come to the palace. We've a great deal to talk about."
