Jace was sitting on the throne watching the king and his sister dying a horrible death. He couldn’t even decide if he felt bad about the situation he just felt tired like the weight of a mountain was bearing down on his shoulders. He was looking at the faces of everyone present. Most were watching the king and his sister die. The rest seemed to be too afraid to look at him. The slaves, both from the harem and even the menial slaves seemed to be rather happy at this turn of events.

Verna however was looking a little ill. Looking for a source of her discomfort it took a few moments to notice the moon mark above her eyebrows, it was faint but it clearly was forming. Frowning Jace was about to say something when he suddenly felt some foreign power assaulting his body. It was a strange sensation, almost as if little tendrils of “something” hair like, were crawling through his body, moving toward his heart.

There was a complete sense of defilement which seemed to follow in the wake of these tendrils. Almost as if his very essence was being bound, his fate robbed and future stolen all at once. They left a painful and dull ache as they went and seemed to feed on the power of his life flame.

Cursing under his breath he was able to put two and two together. Apparently removing an incompetent and corrupt ruler of a human kingdom was enough to trigger the curse. He looked at Verna and saw the bleak hopelessness now on her face as she looked at him. He hadn’t come this far to lay down and die.

Standing up he felt an ache in his body as he moved, ignoring it, he knew he had little time. Mind thinking as fast as he could he barked at the people in the room. “Backup, clear the center of the floor immediately.” The Fairy girl caught his eye, he saw a faint moon tattoo forming on her forehead right alongside of Verna’s. It took him a moment to remember her name.

“Verna, Easol, stand right there.” He pointed to two places on the floor, then using air started to carve a 3 layer circle around himself then carved the outline of one around Easol and Verna. Three layered circles around each of them. The circles overlapped in the middle of the formation, then he created a separate pair of circles around the screaming nearly dead bodies of the kind and his sister. He channeled power into those circles and returned to the larger far more important circles.

He already had a feeling for this curse. It definitely was a curse of fate. He could tell immediately, all the time he spent playing around with scrying and with the fate glyph made it pretty clear how this curse worked. He knew this was probably known to most of the major powers, the thing was, curing or affecting the curse would curse the person who tried. So of course, no one ever bothered to try.

The fact he could feel the nature of this curse made him more confident the existence known as gods, were only an existence one step beyond grand sorcerer. They likely were bound by the same rules as every other mage in existence, meaning they likely were originally normal creatures which had taken magic to it's extremes. The problem he had is this curse was cast by an existence beyond a sorcerer, and a wizard like himself couldn’t affect the magic of a sorcerer.

Why was that? It clearly was the same magic. Yet something in it’s construction made it basically immune from outside interference.

He could feel the progress of the curse slow down, as his circle extended the life of the king and his sister. Clearly he would be fully cursed once they died. And they were too injured for him to repair. He had destroyed the skin to rip it off them. So, he was going to extend their flame of life as long as he could while he worked on this problem.

This overlapping multi concentric circle design was something he had pondered in the past. The problem was making the circles link. On reflection, he added two more giant circles around the outside of the formation, with the inner walls of the inner circle brushing along the outer edges of the 3-inner concentric circle formation. He had to make this work the first time.

He sat down in the middle of the whole formation and tried to picture the glyphs he’d need to add to make it work.

‘First make the circles work together. That was the first step. In the standard concentric circle design, the outermost circle was designed to capture the power of the heavens, the middle one to capture the power of the earth, the glyphs used were those for moon, sky, power, beg, move, praise. It’s pretty obvious the design is wrong. ‘ He talked to himself puzzling it out

Speaking out loud he said “The problem with the circles we’re using is it is asking for permission for the world to borrow its power. This implies we have no right or control over it. This is where a sorcerer and wizard is different. A sorcerer has the acknowledgement of the world as being part of it, whereas the wizard is basically begging or forcing the world to comply. This is why I needed those focuses for those girls. They couldn’t sense the pulse of the world, because the world didn’t accept them. By making the focuses, they could sense the pulse and their power increased rapidly. Becoming one with the world still implies the world has dominion over you, but it also implies the world has accepted you as part of it. This is why a wizard cannot affect a sorcerer.”

“What about a god? Is a god part of the world or has dominion over it? I suspect it’s the later. So, a god has control over the world itself rather than being part of it they are back to the original relationship, however their relationship is one of master not one of slave. This might be why the grand sorcerers think gods are killable. They’re very powerful but they no longer work in harmony with the world. As a result, a sorcerer’s magic CAN affect a god. The problem is it’s probably only magic the god has dominion over. So, it’s a limited control? Maybe?”

Looking at Verna he spoke up. “Correct me if I’m wrong please. You heard what I said.”

She spoke slowly, “I don’t know enough about it to theorize.”

Jace winced, how could he base his, no not just his, but their futures on speculation? He could feel the curse twisting its way through him slowly. Ignoring the fear caused by this curse, he closed his eyes and started his breathing exercises, he felt the pulse of the world. A strange impulse took him and he sunk deep into the throbbing pulse. He felt it wash over his mind like crashing waves on a shoreline, then let go of his hold on his body, letting the pulse take his mind with it.

Easol was standing where Jace had indicated, she watched him carve out some massive concentric circles then a pair around the three but he never carved any symbols. The future was gone. She couldn’t see it almost as if it didn’t exist. She wasn’t sure what that meant. Though she could feel the tendril of the curse already intertwining with her fate. Its progress had ground to a near stop once he started to prolong the wailing of the king and his sister. That horrific torment seemed to go on forever. She wasn’t even sure if they were conscience anymore. Their moans sounded more like that of a dying animal now, there were no words or conscience thought behind it.

She could see everyone in the throne room standing up against the walls looking on in terror, afraid to actually leave. She didn’t blame them, had she not suspected this Jace was giving a last gasp chance to avert the curse she probably would have taken this chance to flee. The problem was her people sold cursed Fairies to other races. She had nowhere to flee to.

She watched him close his eyes and stop muttering, then she started to feel radiating power coming from this Jace. It was an oppressive might, something quite similar to a sensation she once felt before. She looked over at the Kindred woman Verna. Her eyes were locked on Jace, a look of disbelief on her face.

“Ah so she feels it too.”

Jace drifted with the pulse, it was so powerful he couldn’t imagine how most others couldn’t feel it. It was the pulse of the world. It was in the breeze, in the air, in the soil and sea. He could feel the whole world thumping with this pulse. The pulse was the world and he was the pulse. He was both part of it and it was part of him. Everyone was part of this pulse. He could feel the disharmony in his left leg, it was not part of the world. It was something unnatural. The pulse was misaligned within it; it was an affront to the world.

The harmful dissonance from his leg was irritating. So, he ignored it and simply enjoyed the pulse as it was. There was something otherworldly about this flow. Almost as if the world and heavens were painting on a canvas, only the canvas was the pulse itself. The world and heavens were one not two. However, they interacted with each other creating power in the interactions. The enlightenment from this revelation was like a change in his very being. He could feel how every creature was connected, every person and every plant. It was strange how he never felt this before. It was so obvious now. Almost like a world truth he always knew but never considered. What was amazing was though he had never been born here, how every bit of his body was separate from the people here, how the pulse, the very flow of this land saw no difference between him and the world.

There were things more important than the atoms in the body of the person and where they came from. This was the first time he actually felt welcome or even home in this new land. He felt a kinship with the humans in this room. He could feel their terror and hope. He could feel the cold souls of the cursed slaves who had no hope or future. The tiny flickering flame of hope in some of the younger ones as they looked at him, He could feel the bone numbing terror in the hearts of the nobles. He could feel the dead sad acceptance from the Fairy girl, and the waves of hopelessness crashing against Verna’s heart, while a small spark of hope warred within. He also started to feel the pain of the king and his sister, suspended in their endless hell. For the first time, he found himself regretful for what he was doing to them.

The pulse made no judgements about the hearts of men. Good or evil, it didn’t particularly care, but it did care for the health and wellbeing of the people. He could feel the pulse’s empathy for those cursed, and how the curse was something foreign to it. Something malevolent and against the very nature of the world. He could feel the pulse trying to reject the curse, and almost the world crying in pain at being forced to empower the curse.

Slowly he opened his eyes, the world was silent, no one moved, he looked at Verna, he could still remember that small thread of hope within her heart, and now thought he could see it in her eyes. He gave her a small smile.

“A sorcerer? You’ve broken through to become a sorcerer?” Verna’s words seemed to wake up the people watching from the walls.

Jace simply nodded, and strode over to the pair floating and suffering in the air, and designed a new circle around them, igniting it was simple, this was something he felt he gained insight to he wanted to try. A spherical shape formed around the floating pair, and time was locked within it. He knew that he couldn’t maintain this for long. The world was already rejecting this stasis type magic, but it seemed to have worked. He couldn’t keep them alive as long as he needed, through normal means, he could feel the warping of reality in the area around the globe. He knew it was a matter of time before that resonance would start to tear apart reality near it until the stasis bubble was dispelled. He could already see the magic circle starting to burn.

Had he tried this as a wizard nothing would have happened. The world never would have let him go this far outside of the natural way of things as a wizard.

With time bought, he quickly went over to the huge circle and started to carve out the symbols using air. He could feel the very world tremble as he created this circle. This circle would rewrite the world if he had it right. He started to smile just thinking about what type of chaos this might cause.

Easol watched a new sorcerer enter the world. She never thought she’d get to see something like this. More so from a young human man without grey in his hair. The difference between a wizard and sorcerer was like the difference between the dirt on the road and the world itself. She could feel profound ripples in reality when he created that sphere around those two humans. The power of the formation was stunning. It felt like the world itself was crying in pain. He created something like that without thinking about it. The nonchalant way he did it caused her to gasp, and look over at Verna. Verna’s eyes were shining in anticipation.

“Pay attention little girl.” The kindred woman was watching Jace with a very hungry and proud look. “The world will change today I think.”

Easol watched as Jace carved one glyph after another into the circle, he seemed to think about each one he added before adding it. As he added each new glyph the world seemed to warp under the weight of what he was creating.

It took almost an hour for him to ring the whole formation in glyphs, by this point in time the world seemed to be fracturing around the bubble containing the king and his sister. Now Jace seemed to move quicker as he used air to carve a number of glyphs in the three-layered circles only slowing when he neared another circle, leaving parts blank. She tried to figure out what he was carving but when she looked at the symbols she realized he was carving symbols over each other in such a way she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.

Verna seemed to quote something quietly while watching him work. “… the heavens shall shatter from freight.”

Jace felt the pressure of the world bearing down on him. Even carving the glyphs was causing some tremendous feedback, the problem seemed to be the leg now. He could feel a strong resonance coming from the leg, the pain was growing rather intense. He had spent his whole life half assing everything. He even attacked this keep in a half assed way. He probably should have just flattened it.

It was too late to regret.

Too late to keep doing things half assed.

So, he created a blade of air and severed the leg right under the knee. The pain that bloomed was fairly impressive. He saw Verna start to move toward him, balancing on one leg he held out an arm with his palm facing her.

“Stop”

She came to a dead stop. Concern on her face

He closed his eyes and channeled power, following the flow of the pulse of the world, pain bloomed from the leg he just let the power flow through the regrowth glyph springing into life, as a new limb grew where the old fake one existed. It felt exactly like his old leg. Flexing it he placed his weight on it then laughed.

“ah, that floor is cold.” He muttered before continuing his work

The power of the world no longer fought so hard against him, though he still felt a deep pressure with every glyph he made. He was weaving together almost thirty separate glyphs, carving them on the circle as if the circle were a transparent 3-dimensional object, so there were two layers of glyphs all interconnected. It was a complex formation and it might not work. But he could think of no other way to shatter this curse.

Now he moved onto the parts of the circle where he had left the glyphs blank. It would be very difficult to merge all these circles into one. He spent nearly an hour pondering how he wanted to merge the structures before trying. The glyphs came together as envisioned, however the pressure from the world grew greater. It took more and more effort to carve the symbols. Eventually as he got down to the final glyphs, he was unable to continue carving it with air. He got down on his knees and using a crossbow bolt he reformed into a type of chisel, he started to scratch out the final glyphs.

On his hands and knees, completely oblivious to the time required to do this he was absorbed in the creation of these final few shapes. A gentle "scratch scratch scratch" sound echoed through the hall. his sweat dripped from his nose down onto the floor, it was a muggy night, and a storm seemed to be rolling in. He could hear the thunder in the distance, and the rising wind. The wind was icy cold in direct opposition to the hot muggy air. Rain started to fall, it was cold rain, he imagined most of the people in the hall wanted to leave yet no one did. The rain didn't stop his efforts to carve the circle. On his knees with water puddles forming around him, the icy cold in the air making his hands start to shake he kept working at it. If this didn't work Verna would never forgive him for making her stand out in the rain like this.

He finished the final glyph, the circle he just carved seemed to be resonating with something deep within the world. Lightning was flashing wildly in the sky, and the peals of thunder caused the ground to shake. He looked at Easol. She looked like a drowned rat. Her hair no longer floating on the air unnaturally, but rather hanging limply, soaked. She was shivering in the icy cold. He could see her breath in the faint light. Then he looked at Verna. Verna, contrary to his fears was looking at him almost expectantly. She seemed to be ignoring the icy cold and tolerating it much better than the Fairy girl. Their eyes met, green eyes and yellow, as lightning flashed in the sky. He smiled as he channeled a tremendous amount of power into the circle, the world seemed to turn white as the heavens themselves seemed to crack.