David, Niala, Rinka and #67 sat around a small table, with Niala having called it a day after nearly twelve bells of work. While she had been working, David had limited himself to answering the Reign woman's questions about the current world. She asked about the countries, the people, the general level of technology, and so on.

  Mirroring the woman's curiosity about his world, questions about the reign burned on his tongue, but he had waited for Niala to be there. He knew just how curious she was, and there was no way he'd spoil her fun in this case. You didn't get to grill a millennia-old woman about a long-lost civilization every day.

  Rinka was more than happy to answer their questions, though she could only cover publicly available knowledge, and whatever David's status as a scion allowed him.

  While David and Niala were generally inclined to respect her boundaries, they did ask if anything was actually stopping her from talking about restricted topics. Rinka had answered that the central consciousness would stop her, as it was very pedantic and a stickler for the rules, as were all central consciousness.

  And when they asked how it would stop her, she revealed she had an enchanted implant under the control of the consciousness, which would shut down her vocal cords. Seeing their horrified faces, she reassured them by explaining that, although it was required to become a Magister, it had been a voluntary choice on her part. She could have occupied any number of positions which didn't come attached with that kind of string.

  It didn't exactly convince David or Niala, but at least the woman seemed fine with it.

  Niala also asked about the alchemy room, wondering why an archive had such a top-notch installation. Rinka admitted that, technically, it didn't. It hadn't really been meant to be used; instead, it was akin to a museum piece. At the height of the Reign, traditional alchemy had been, for the most part, relegated to artisan craft and hobby. Modern alchemy made use of machines to measure, process and combine ingredients. Much more precise, faster, and scalable.

  And no, the Archive didn't have a set of those machines.

  Various other “light” topics were broached, but, eventually, they had to ask: what were the mana eaters from behind the humming barrier?

  Rinka winced as she heard the question. “There's a lot to unpack there. What do you know about the humming barrier?”

  Niala scrunched her mouth as she remembered Jordo's lesson. “A mysterious, murderous wall to the west, with even more mysterious buildings and things behind it.”

  The Magister snorted. “That sounds about right, at least until the barrier came down about twenty years ago. Well, twenty of my years. I was still a young girl back then, just finishing up my vocational prep school.”

  Her tone shifted down. “I was coming back to the commune that day, and I was wondering why all the police and army vehicles were going crazy all over the place. When I got to a public display, I understood why. In all of recorded memory, the humming barrier had stood. And now, it was down.”

  She looked up at them, a sad smile on her face. “You can probably guess that there was a lot of panicking going on just under the surface.”

  David hummed. “What happened then?”

  Rinka snorted. “Oh, not much at all; the flying whales landed at the capital, and the white freaks walked out of their mouths, and demanded that all of the Reign's scions be presented to them.”

  “The... scions? The people, scions?”

  She nodded. “Yep. A perfectly reasonable demand, right?”

  Niala looked aghast. “Did- did you actually...?”

  “What? No! The Reign wasn't perfect, but one of its core tenets was that the people served the state, and in exchange, the state served the people. We refused, of course! The white freaks said the council of Lights had three days to comply, and walked back into their whale's mouths.”

  She angled her head back. “I wonder what it was like inside one of those things... do you think the chairs were made of flesh? I bet they were, and they made squishy noises when you sat on them.” She wondered, looking back at them. “Can you imagine how silly you'd look, sitting all regal-like, only for your chair to squish?” She asked, snorting.

  David narrowed his eyes. “No. What in the pits are whales? White freaks? And what happened after the reign refused to give up its scions?”

  Beside him, Niala's eyes and ears were fully locked in on Rinka.

  The Reign woman looked at David, sighing. “Can't you just try imagining sitting on a meat chair?”

  He stared back at her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Ok! Ok! Fine. So, the whales, that's what we called them. You told me you guys had airships, right? Think airship, but made of meat.”

  “I... what?”

  She nodded. “Meatships. They looked like flying whales, though the videos I saw of them in the air just showed them floating around. Nobody knows if they were living things or just... made of meat.”

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  David scratched his head while glancing at Niala, who nodded, as if flying meatships made sense to her.

  She spoke next. “And the white freaks?”

  Rinka turned her head to look at her. “Just... people, but they were very white, hairless, and very lanky. The strange part is that they all were the exact same height, 230 centimetres. The first theory was that they were somehow clones, but they showed some individuality, and their features weren't the same, so...”

  She looked back at David. “As for what happened, well, after the council said no when the freaks asked again three days later, they climbed back into their meatships and left. And then, the next day, reports of scions being attacked and kidnapped started coming in.”

  David quirked a brow. “Weren't scions protected by golems or guards? Golems like Jordo?”

  Rinka dipped her head. “They were, but that didn't stop the Hummers. Huh, that's how we called whoever came out from behind the barrier. Anyway, they had weapons strong enough to disable or outright destroy blood metal golems. Eventually, the remaining scions were all gathered in strongholds and bunkers.”

  “I'm guessing that led to escalations?”

  “Exactly! The Hummers really wanted the scions, apparently, so they went and outright attacked those strongholds, and that's when the Reign officially declared war on the Hummers. Troops were deployed at the border and at the strongholds to guard the scions.” Rinka's mood soured as she slumped into her chair.

  David and Niala glanced at each other, with Niala leaning forward, speaking with a soft voice. “I take it that the war didn't go well?”

  Rinka snorted. “That's like saying tripping and falling on your face is walking badly.”

  The Magister went on to cover hostilities between the two nations.

  Unlike the Reign's magitechnical tools, the Hummers' were made of flesh, or crafted from flesh, with very little non-organic material used. Beyond attacking with means that the Reign had few effective defences against, the nature of their weapons also demoralized their troops.

  It became very apparent to the Reign early on that their ability to resist the Hummers was limited. Whatever number of troops the Reign deployed only resulted in their aggressor bringing to the front greater and more terrible weapons.

  They unleashed swarms of small, weak flesh golems whose flesh, if left to rot once dispatched, would sprout sacs in which new golems grew. Monstrous beasts of burdens with acidic cannons fused to their flesh, or maybe grown from it. Flying clouds of gnats which would latch onto living things and drain them of blood within minutes. Mutated humanoids, twice the size of normal men with four times the strength and resilience, and more.

  To support those abominations, white-skinned warriors, clad in living armour, strode the battlefields, wielding weapons which spew exploding spines.

  And, at the core of their forces, were two more kinds of troops. The more common beast-masters, short and stocky individuals who could summon creatures of all shapes and sizes to fight at their side, and the second, much rarer, mana-eaters. Tall and gaunt-looking, their touch meant death. They drained the mana out of their victims within seconds, leaving them either unconscious if they were only looking for victory, or dried-out husks if they were out for a meal.

  A fort, filled with infantry, mana-shielding, military golems and weapons emplacements, would last a day or two at the most.

  Early on, victories came at the cost of unsustainable numbers. People and equipment were thrown at the front lines, and at the same time, large parcels of land were booby-trapped with explosives and abandoned. Often, volunteers stayed behind to draw the enemy within blast zones. Sacrifices all, to buy time, in the hope that the luminaries and researchers could come up with effective defences and weapons.

  Sometimes, the hummers would pull back, completely abandoning whatever land they had conquered. This allowed the Reign's forces to regroup, rest and re-arm, and prepare new defensive positions, new deathtraps.

  The Reign shifted all of its efforts to the development of new tools of war. Its industries devoted themselves to their production. Battalions of mana-shielded golems walked out of every production line, supported by augmented and enchanted armoured troops and heavy vehicles carrying heavier ordinance. New mana shields were developed, more terrible explosives were concocted, and when the Hummers returned, again asking for the Scions, and again refused. Each time, the grinding wheels of war spun.

  The conflict lasted an unimaginable nineteen years before the Reign, exhausted and depleted, its younger generations having known nothing but war, made a desperate plea. They turned to their long-time foes to the North: the Whispers.

  Under white flags and peace offerings, delegations were sent to each of the city-states, carrying words of the invaders to the west, images of their atrocities. They asked for help, they offered riches, land, power; whatever they desired, in exchange for help.

  The details of those discussions were never publicly revealed, but the results were; surprising everyone, even those who had organized the appeal, the Whispers joined the war against the Hummers.

  For a short, fleeting time, hope was rekindled. They now had an ally; they could still fight, and maybe, if not outright win, at least force their foe to a standstill.

  But that hope was soon snuffed out when the Whispers' forces barrelled through the Reign's lands, uncaring of the damage they caused, just to throw themselves with a ferocity and savagery they had never displayed.

  They ignored all calls for the coordination of troops or caution around civilian presence, often leaving more damage in the wake of their battles than the Hummers would do.

  Each time the two forces met, the same sequence of events would play out; the lines would smash into each other, and whenever one of the mana eaters was identified, a swell of Whispers troops would pierce through to them, capturing them if they could, ripping them up in pieces if they couldn't. These charges were often borderline suicidal, but the troops didn't seem to care.

  And, as the number of mana eater casualties mounted, the Hummers brought out even more terrible weapons, deploying them without reserve against the Whispers. In turn, they did the same, and a terrifying escalation of violence gripped the battlefield.

  The reign realized, with horror, that they had only ever been children playing at war. If the Whispers had truly wanted, they could have razed the Reign flat decades ago.

  Now, they could do nothing but watch as their lands were dissolved or vaporized under the feet of the two armies.

  The Reign, as it was, was already dead, gasping its last breaths. As society crumbled around them, the council enacted their last contingency; preservation for the future.

  Whichever repositories of knowledge still stood had their stores of mana crystals filled up, and their defensive enchantments powered to full. Where possible, volunteers were put in stillness chambers to be awakened by a cadre of custodian golems when the time came.

  The civilian population was evacuated to the south, toward the dozens of small, backward kingdoms which populated these lands. The remnant of the Reign's army helped as many as they could to escape, paying with their lives in many cases.

  And then, one day, the skies above the Reign darkened. Large flying metal machines hummed toward the Hummers' lands, only to be met with winged creatures who darted like fish between the Whispers' machines.

  Trails of fire erupted as the two fleets met, and death and flames claimed the sky as it had claimed the land.

  The last thing Rinka saw from the top of the Archive's spire was large, billowing explosions in the distance, in size and numbers large enough to warm her face, even as far as she was from the front line.

  She decided this was it, and made her way underground, stepping into the stillness chamber, and bidding goodbye to her nation.

  And then she was quickened, and met David, Niala and their group.