The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2 novel Chapter 130

Part 19

“I’m sure your better magic users are capable of Translocation, Linking, Pull and Draw spells, Movement, Flight, and Shielding, as well as some kinds of purely magical attack. They may need to learn some of the spells, but I’m sure they’re inherently capable of casting them. That gets them up to where we were in the last war.

“As to what we’re capable of now, we won’t really know that until the time-bubbles open. Most of our world’s best researchers and engineers are in them. The newer techniques that we here use, being more advanced psionics, automated spells, and more intense and advanced training techniques, we developed most of that in the time-bubble. Including ending death by aging and giving magic use to all our citizens. Then, when we left the time-bubble and gained access to all the minds and resources out in the world, and began integrating what we’d developed with the outer world, we experienced another sudden and drastic burst of discovery and achievement. We expect a similar pattern of advancement when all the other time-bubbles open, and of far greater magnitude.

“I’m sure you know that my father has discovered how to become a god, and that he’ll do so after the bubbles open, and give the gift of divinity to many others as well. And I’m sure you know that we four have gained almost all the abilities of gods, while remaining mortal. Our new Healing techniques and Work spells are already making a huge difference in our world. We’re not sure we can teach you these newer techniques, but we’re ready to share them with your leaders, and we hope you’ll be able to utilize them.

“Right now, the three tasks of preparing our world for the war, and of making tactical and strategic plans for it, and of coordinating our plans with you of The Triax, are all vastly complicated by the fact that everything on Kellaran and everything about the Kellarani are all changing faster than ever in our history, and the pace of change is still accelerating. Our world is only recently united for the first time, it’s being rebuilt as a fortress, and vastly improved new techniques for doing almost everything are being introduced every day. It’s difficult to make plans when we have almost no idea what we’ll be capable of even two months from now.

“Still, we must begin with a complete exchange of information, reflecting our respective capabilities as they stand now. We need to know each other’s military structures completely, how many personnel they have, what equipment and capabilities they have, how they’re organized and commanded. We need to supply each other with every spell and engineering technique that we have. We’ll have to free up a lot of researchers to go through it all and decide on what each of us can use of the other’s techniques, then we’ll have to integrate it all.

“The area of expertise that your people have that we lack is obviously tactics and strategy in void warfare. As I’ve said, things will be different in this war because of the new techniques that we’re introducing, so a lot of what you’ve learned of void strategy and tactics might not apply, but the rest of it will be crucial, we’re certain of that. We know that no new techniques can completely replace the fundamentals of warfare in the void that your people have developed over your millennia of fighting in it. You’ve shown us what your generals know so well from hard experience that they take it for granted, and it’s very important, but so is what your sergeants know, so to speak. And since it’s impossible to predict which of the hard-won lessons you’ve learned will be crucial and which will be irrelevant, we recognize the necessity of learning your entire body of knowledge in the subject.

“Our gods have already exchanged much of what they know with yours. Now it is time for our mortals to do the same.

“This is so much work that we strongly suggest that the majority of it be done in a new round of time-bubbles, beginning a few weeks after the present ones open.

“At the same time, we have to work with what we have now, and what we know now. Properly preparing our militaries to work together should take a lot longer than we have available to do it, so we have to get started on it now, and modify things as we go along when we introduce new methods that we’ve developed or learned from each other. Not only are we pressed for time to get as much done as possible before our planned date for attacking the demons, I also think it’s irresponsible to completely disregard the possibility that the demons will find a way to attack us before then.

“This immediate work of exchanging information and beginning military integration will be done tomorrow, at the meeting of The Assembly of The Just Alliance, between your leaders and ours.

“I think we’ve accomplished much of value here today. Before we bring this meeting to an end, we propose that we try to Link with you. Our researches show that psionics are fundamentally the same among all races that use them, no matter the source of their power. After all, we first became aware of you when Zarkog found you far out in the void with the Psionic Distant Listener. If we can Link with you, we should be able to teach you a great deal of what we know about magic, and learn a great deal of what you know, in a reasonably short time.”

“Among us, only The Transformed, whom you would call gods, use what you would refer to as Linking.” First Mauve interjected. “Our mortals do use a technique that is functionally similar to your Speaking spell. It is useful for communication in the void, but of little use for the direct transfer of knowledge and skills that you are suggesting.