The Archmage

1121.27.4 Post Singularity; Battle of Tellurides, 15:36 Solar. Bridge of the Covenant Capital Ship
Terminus Prime, Admiral Thomas Bergar Commanding.


Bergar frowned as he studied the holographic images in the generator before him.  The enemy ships
were few and far between, and many had already been rendered inoperable.  There were no capital
ships; they could only be called destroyers, though most were the size of corvettes rather than actual
destroyers.  That didn’t prevent them from being as well defended and destructive as the Covenant
destroyers; more often they had defenses and offensive capability the equal of most carriers and not a
few capital ships.  A mere seventeen of them had accounted for over thirty percent of the massed
Covenant warships, which had once numbered in the hundreds.


Their troops had accounted for the other twenty-two percent of the destroyed fleet.


The tragedy of this was that it was all a ploy.  Bait, to draw out the real target of the operation.
Thousands of lives sacrificed in the name of a potential victory.  The admiral did not approve, but the
necessity of it was clear.  If – when, he corrected himself – they had taken out that target, there would be
far less problems eradicating the rest.  Their morale would collapse and they would scatter, seeking
refuge and hiding in their lairs and dens, to be hounded and eradicated where they hid.


Humanity would be safe to evolve and grow in relative peace.  He personally doubted the Covenant
would survive for long after; only the threat of the alien menaces enabled the cooperation that currently
existed.  Not that it mattered; humanity was a fractious lot at best, and that was part of their charm.  As
long as there was a semblance of order maintained, as long as one could master the rules of cultures
and societies, survival was assured.  The enemy was a threat to all three and could not be tolerated.
Not in a sane and stable universe.


Commanding Officer Thorfin Graaf stepped close.  “Admiral, we’re picking up gravity waves off the
starb-“


The ship shuddered.


There was a single klaxon and the shuddering of the Terminus Prime faded into a tooth-rattling
vibration.  Not even the elastin heavy muscles and carbon composite reinforcement of his skeletal
structure could counteract the intensity of those vibrations.  He could only imagine what had happened to
the crew and marines in the section of the ship that had suffered through that ‘attack’.


“Intrusion on deck twelve, starboard side!”


“Deploying countermeasures and autorepair!”


The commander turned.  “Send out three platoons of semiautonomous arm-“


“Belay that order!”  The commander recoiled and looked at the admiral in shock.  “Full Com!”  The
communications officer placed him on a priority override so he could speak to the entirety of the ship’s
crew.  “All hands:  secure all slaved AI, semi-autonomous armor, and dedicated bioroids in autistic
shutdown mode!  Only free willed sapients and non-autonomous robots to be deployed.  Execute.”  The
commander stared at the admiral, who accessed the commander’s neural-audio relays remotely.  This
enemy can subvert any non-free willed intelligence that has any form of autonomy, and can do so at
range.  This information had to be concealed until they arrived.  He trusted his XO to understand the
reasoning, and he was gratified to receive near-immediate and non-verbal acknowledgement. If the
enemy had seen no such units aboard, the trap would have been obvious.  They had a mere quarter of
what was typical, with the remainder being disguised autonomous bioroids, cyborgs, and fully sapient
robotics.


Fodder for the trap.  A waste.  Necessary waste, but a waste.


As the commander delivered new orders, the Admiral glanced down at one of the small army of
communications officers; this particular fellow was leaning back from his viewer in confusion.  The
Admiral pulled up an internalized image of the man’s screen and took a look at what the doomed fellow
was alarmed by for himself.  He did double verify his buffers and neural barriers were on full active,
however.


A tall, svelte woman with long black hair stood on the ruins of the starboard shipyard, her eyes
shimmering unnaturally even at the distance the viewer was at.  Tiny glittering objects circled and wove
about her, glowing and shifting forms in uncanny ways, like shift-matter jewels in suspensor fields.  Three
half-meter wide black orbs that seemed limned in a soft, long wave ultraviolet glow slowly circled her,
and a vague shimmer of violet light seemed to seethe along her figure.  No less than thirteen demons
accompanied her, mostly females and in a wide variety of colors and dress.  Her own clothing was a
simple bodysuit in black, with extraordinary jewelry along her throat, wrists, and ankles.


The deck at her feet was warped, melted in strange wavelike patterns, almost honeycombed.  The

bulkhead behind her was twisted around a perfectly circular hole three meters in diameter, which

penetrated the ablative armor, the carbon crystal plating, the force field projection systems, and the high-
density kinetic armor. The inner and outer edges curved inwards, as though the effect had been

spherical which was impossible as that would have required the target to have been inside the wall.  The
sorceress looked to one side and one of the spheres grew to a full two meters wide and surged away from
her.  A weird explosion of ultraviolet light and black ‘radiance’ erupted from that side.  She glanced
another direction, and several of her demons vanished in shimmering rainbows or multicolored smoke.
A few others took flight, their wings expanding to take them deeper into the ship.


As if feeling the eyes upon her, the most dangerous being known to the combined governments of the
galaxy looked up at the monitor unit.


“Commander, I-“  Even as the poor, doomed soul tried to communicate his concerns to the commander,
the commander was calling out orders to place ECM and EWF systems at highest priority.  It only helped
so much – they were already running at maximum capacity, and the additional energy could only make a minimal difference.


Golden light lanced out from the figure and the screen went bright gold, strange patterns of light erupting
around a number of other screens and engulfing a half dozen technicians and communication officers.
Three immediately died screaming, their neural systems overloaded by the weird energy that had taken
no time to transfer from monitor to viewer to operator.  Two others went into violent seizures, their bodies
fighting off the alien signals that were invading their brains and bodies.  The sixth lifted a hand and
pointed at his neighbor, only to be shot to death by the marines stationed closest to his console before
he could trigger his integral weapons systems.


No one was startled or alarmed by the summary execution of their comrade.


Using his personal command override, the admiral hooked into his soldiers’ neural-audio relays.
Assume all shipboard communications are compromised at this time.  Isolated neural-audio system or
physical audio and visual communication only from this point forward.  Execute.  Admiral Bergar
frowned.  More necessary deaths.


“Drone tanks and marines deployed across all decks to probable access areas, Admiral,” the
commander relayed, his voice tight and his expression hard.  “Indirect telemetry indicates the demons
are spreading through the decks and-“  A deep thud shook the ship.  Once.  Twice, and the third almost
simultaneous to the second.  “Tenth and thirteenth decks breeched, invaders spreading.  Damage is
taking eight times longer to repair than calculated.”  It was four times longer than the scientists had
projected.  One demon for each deck, plus the monster that was leading them.


The self-repair systems and their stocks of base materials were being depleted at a sustainable rate, but
the increased drain of the repairs on the ship’s reactors was slowly moving the power usage indicators
from yellow towards red.  More strange sensations through the hull caused the crew to look around
nervously.  The marines stayed steady and calm as ever.  Good men, lost to the cause already.  They
knew it, even without being told.  Yet they held.  The finest examples of humanity.


“Breaches in decks ten and fourteen, twelve compromised to the main corridors.”  The commander
frowned as he received more intel.  “She’s coming here.”


“Understood. Clear the upper bridge.”  The commander gestured, sent silent orders through the isolated
networks, and he and the senior staff quickly vacated the upper bridge.  The admiral sighed, looking at
the horror of the fleet’s state.


The demons made war with flames that burned through molecular bonds, stuff that was more like acid
than fire; claws that could tear through carbon composite materials and hull metals like they were paper;
musculature and bones as dense as starship armor and possessing the strength of robotics; and they could
manipulate reality in a myriad of impossible ways.  They could think as fast as computers, could modify
the atmosphere around them, and could move through hyperspace under their own power.  All without a
single augmentation.  Platoons and divisions with tank support and maximum augmentation were a fair
fight; the Covenant had numbers on their side and still it was even odds.


The sorceress was worse.


For every legion of demons, there was a sorcerer or two, sometimes as many as three. One sorcerer could
compromise entire crews, platoons of marines, could devastate starships and cities, could suborn entire
governments.  Or so the propaganda claimed.  In truth there were very few that capable.  Their demons
took care of most of that work.  The problem was that the sorcerers could do much of what was claimed, if
given enough time and power.  This battle had been years in the making, and they had been preparing
for a very long time.  Undoubtedly blood had flowed by the kiloliters, and there would be entire planets
whose populations had been decimated as sacrifices to empower the sorceresses and sorcerers to fight this
battle with their demon legions in tow.


This particular sorceress only appeared once in a great while, when the demons and sorcerers might be
completely defeated.  The rumors and propaganda were true in her case.  Gravity, energy of all types,

the entire electromagnetic spectrum, physical matter, biological processes and substances....they were
toys for her to work with and manipulate.  She could rip space-time fabric apart and reweave it with a
thought and she could think as fast as an augmented human.  Only the batteries of force-effect shield
generators and gravity control weaponry kept her from doing so to entire ships.  Whatever source of
energy she possessed, it wasn’t on par with a properly functioning starship reactor system.


The key words being ‘properly functioning’.


Every bit of damage done to the ship, every device linked into the ship’s systems, every integral weapon
used was a drain on that critical device.  When the amount of drain became too high, systems would
start shutting down, and then those powerful fields of force and gravity control would start to collapse.
Then the ship would be lost, no matter how many troops and tanks they had left.


Three intruders neutralized, Admiral.  Two more have escaped.  That was a surprise; normally they
would fight until death.  Did they know something?  Had the supposed spy been real?  The admiral took
a deep breath and pushed such thoughts out of his mind.  It did not matter.  Five intruders neutralized,
Admiral.  They weren’t necessarily dead – they would have to find their cores and destroy those, which
was just as hard as destroying a technological core.  His own cortical stack was here, present in his
body; the prime sorceress wouldn’t have come for anything less.  His backup was prepared and planetside on a nice agrarian world that was well out of the way of any strife, and if this worked, he would not need to
fear reprisal from the sorcerers and demons at all.


The starboard wall buckled, the force fields and energy shielding holding for almost an entire four
seconds before two-meter-wide area simply imploded, a tiny black dot squirming and causing the fields
to spark and short out instantly as the dot vanished.  The sorceress stepped through, coils and swirls of
golden light slashing and halting for microseconds as it blocked energy bolts and kinetic rounds.  The violet aura ate what got past her lively protections.  A wave of ultraviolet light washed out from her, igniting the view-screens and causing any white clothing to glow under the effect.


Crew and marines alike were hurled back and thrown willy-nilly throughout the lower command deck of
the Terminus Prime and the sorceress stepped through the ruined bulkhead.  One sweeping gaze took in
everything; then her gaze returned to the centerpiece of the bridge.  She frowned at the battle maps,
which flickered uncertainly in her presence; she was clearly reading much of what the admiral did. The
sorcerers and demons were only just winning.


She turned to the admiral, who looked at her calmly.  She was beautiful, and it took all the suppressors in
his augment-heavy body to prevent the purely biological reaction his body demanded of him upon seeing
her in person.  The marines were trying to collect their wits and weapons, though few had lost them,
another mark in their favor.  He had selected his men well.  The most feared sorceress took one step and
was suddenly in the admiral’s personal space, looking up at the powerfully built man who towered over
her, having traversed an entire deck and a three-meter rise instantly.


There had barely been a ripple in space as she’d shifted positions.


“If you call a full retreat, I will send all of them home.  All the sorcerers, mages, witches, daemons, and
servants.”  Her voice made his loins ache even through the powerful suppressor systems, and it took
everything in him to answer calmly.


“I am afraid I must ask for your complete and unconditional surrender, ma’am.”  The admiral stood tall,
looking down at her with every ounce of stoic determination he could muster.


“Admiral Thomas Bergar.  I have heard of you, you know.”  She gestured without looking, annihilating a
marine who was preparing to fire a particle beam weapon at her.  Blood and metal and glittering carbon
composite sprayed across the screens he had been standing in front of.  There wasn’t any solid flesh
left.


Chances were good that it wouldn’t have even penetrated her first line of defense.


“Stand down, marines.”  They obeyed, but only just.  Everything in them screamed to either kill her or
obey her; her presence and their implanted programming conflicting as long as they were not under
orders.  “I am flattered, but I must repeat:  your total and unconditional surrender.”


Her smile was genuine, and curiosity glimmered in eyes that had glowing irises made of galactic stars
across red and blue clouds.  “Or?”


“Or I must destroy this ship, all aboard, and you, ma’am.”  He delivered the ultimatum with aplomb.


The witch looked at him curiously, seeing no lie.  It was true; and this time not even she would survive
this weapon.  “It would take something you couldn’t even imagine to kill me, admiral.  I can’t see how
sacrificing the ship and crew would make a difference.”


“I take it that you are refusing to surrender, ma’am?”  There was no stopping it of course.  The instant her

weird powers had been detected on the bridge the trap had been set off.  The outer force fields had been
set up and the gravity control devices had been triggered, along with a hyperspace pre-slip field, isolating
the ship not only from the battle, but isolating reality as best they could from the device that rested in the
commander’s chest.  Since she and her legion of demons had been focused on penetrating the ship’s
core and reactor, they had been largely unaware (or, much more likely, hadn’t cared, he believed).  The
ship had begun repairing the outer hull to the exclusion of all other power drains, and the ship started
shaking violently as the demons had their way with troops and tanks and the hull itself with no effort to
minimize damage.


The prime sorceress looked at him carefully, then focused her glowing eyes, the shimmering starscapes within her irises brightening momentarily.  She looked down to his chest, and her eyes widened significantly. “Oh, how clever.... That might work after all.”


The magnetic shells between the kilogram of antimatter and the kilogram weight casing of stabilized
unnilquadium in the center of his chest had started to collapse.  Her outer defenses were not between the two of them; only her inner defense, that shell of violet mist that surrounded her body, remained between the
so-called Archmage and utter destruction.


Her last word gave the admiral a chill that he took to the nonexistent grave he and his people had been
consigned to.


“Maybe.”




1121.27.4 Post Singularity; Battle of Tellurides, 15:47 Solar.  Covenant Capital Ship Terminus
Prime, Admiral Thomas Bergar Commanding, destroyed in an antimatter-matter reaction
explosion.


1121.27.4 Post Singularity; Battle of Tellurides, 16:24 Solar.  Covenant forces rout the demon and
sorcerer legions.  Victory is claimed.


1121.15.5 Post Singularity.  Demons and Sorcerers hunted to apparent extinction.


1123.2.8 Post Singularity.  Covenant dissolved.  Consortium formed to deal with multicultural
trade issues.  All governing bodies return to previous states, with treaties and alliances
maintained should the witches and demons ever become a significant threat.


1435.10.31 Post Singularity.  The Archmage awakens.







Your eyes open first, and even that slight movement makes the surface above you ripple.  Motes of
multicolored light waver and dance above you, as you struggle to make sense of the intense sensations
that your body is delivering to your mind.  The sludgy thoughts of your brain plod through your mind like
vast herd-beasts through a planetary swamp: sticky, heavy, things that touch strange, quick thoughts
within the muck around them only to scatter or crush them inadvertently.


You need to stop reading the old master’s works, really. He is far too verbose for your own good.
Sliding your hands up your body introduces a wash of sensations that is so close to overwhelming to be
nearly orgasmic.  Forcing yourself to stop when you reach the undersides of your breasts because that
makes all sorts of reactions happen inside that you are in no way ready for, you take one more deep
breath of the liquid medium you are suspended in and exhale as much of it as you can.  There’s no easy
way to do this, honestly, but this is the least distressing in your experience.


Hooking your feet under the bar at the far end of the container, you pull yourself up to a sitting position by your leg strength alone.  The thick, wet stuff sloughs off and you immediately begin coughing, your body trying to clear out the last remnants of the medium before you take your first breath in what feels like a long time.  That first breath is sweet, stinging oxygen flooding your fresh new lungs and allowing your brain to collect the scattered thoughts and to push the ones already present into sleeker, faster forms.  No, you don’t need to breathe, but it does help.  Your heart beats heavy in your chest as you cough up the last of the liquid, a slow and stately pulse of three beats a minute.


So much power, gone.  That’s going to be a trial.


You pull your hair back from your eyes and gaze at the dimly lit cavern, the polished boulder opal that makes up the walls and floor a rich bronze, with veins of shimmering blue and green streaking everywhere.  Directly above your sarcophagus this gives way to a large, polished plane of black opal; the star-like
motes of red, yellow, blue, and green shine down upon you like the space you revere.  The sarcophagus
itself is made of the same material, chipped roughly into a container-like shape on the outside and polished smooth and rounded within.


Turning your head lets you feel the comforting weight of your long hair sticking to your back.  It is entirely

possible that you worried that it would have been blasted short in the reality bending explosion of
matter-antimatter reaction.  Well, perhaps you would have if you had been given the time to do so.  That was clever really, put you in the epicenter of an explosion of strange matter combined with heavy matter. The scientific nature of it probably didn’t hurt their cause either.  It would have been interesting if you’d been killed; Chaos knows what would have resulted from that mess!


When you catch your first look at your breasts, you blink several times in succession.  You even lean
forward a little, to check between your legs.  That’s....inconvenient.  What could have possessed you to
waken so soon after rejuvenation?  Your hair is long enough though; it wouldn’t be this long if you hadn’t
stayed in for at least a few years.  Maybe a decade or so, even.  Slowly you get your feet under you and
stand, somewhat unsteadily.  Yes, that’s about right; this is going to be another trial.  Hopefully your body
is mature enough; you definitely don’t need to be randomly hormonal, as opposed to predictably
hormonal.  Not even being dead prevents Selene from having her many-faceted way with you.



As the liquid slides from the rest of your slim body, you look to the side to see a beautiful daemon

sleeping on a small pile of soft furs.  Her dark skin is smooth, almost bronzed, and she shifts
uncomfortably, sensing your regard.  It takes effort to see the magic of her, much more effort than you’re
used to.  How much power did you lose, all of it?  No, there’s enough there to start with.  Still....she’s
mature, but not an elder.  Not even close to an elder, much less an Elder.


“You,” you inform her unnecessarily, “are not Bael.”


The daemon’s eyes open, pools of silver glitter with only a faint demarcation between her pupil and her
iris, the iris a shade lighter.  Her glassy horns are backswept and ridged, recurved as well.  They're mostly transparent with a blue-green core, like deep water or slightly tinted glass.  The tail that rises from her makeshift bedding is very thin, tipped with a wickedly sharp looking arrowhead that is at least six inches long.  Her claws are glossy, the same glassy blue-green as her horns, while her wings are very basic, no talons at the end of her struts.  She smiles and her eyes tear up.


“Master,” she whispers softly, reverently.


Which is very odd because you don’t recall her being one of your legion.







The powers of a sorcerer are based either on the natural forces of the universe or the alien powers of other dimensions.  In the Archmage’s case, this is even more true than for others.  However, because she has just regenerated after being ripped apart in a reality breaking explosion of unusual materials used in a manner that defies reason and extends into mysticism, she has been stripped of a great deal of her power.  Thus, she starts off with limited access to her potential.


Eventually she will need to collect more servitors or daemons for her legion, as well as allies and
contacts.  She will also need to regain her power, which can be done in several ways to be revealed
later.





The Archmage may start with her choices of the following.


One Great Power


Or


One Major Power and One Lesser Power


AND


One Locus, A Base of Operations


AND


Three Additional Servitors From the Following List


Or


One Artifact From the Following List





Powers come in two forms:  White Magic, drawn from the power of the universe and the natural magic that is part of it and that it creates; and Black Magic, magic drawn from the twisted dimensions beyond the universe that is known and familiar.  Good and evil are irrelevant to the type of magic that is used.  How it is used is what determines whether it is good and evil.

GREAT POWERS

ADRESTIA:  Gravity and the Void, combined with Force and Light, it was once the most powerful of the Archmage's magics.  It still is, but only one or the other may be accessed at any given time.  The Void contains mostly offensive and control magics, while the Light offers the best defenses and utility powers.  The fact that these powers are still combined is a definite boon, though being only able to use one or the other is a difficulty to be overcome.  Fortunately neither one is completely defense or offense, and both have a certain amount of utility that may be accessed.  Adrestia is the single most potent force of Black Magic available to the archmage; if she begins without it, it should become one of her highest priorities to reconnect with that power.  Naturally, the ability to affect gravity, tap into and move through the voids of hyper- and sub- space, to generate and affect both inertia and momentum in the form of force and kinetic energies, and the power of light as defense and weapon gives a great deal of stopping power and destructive potential to the Archmage.

AKASHA:  Combining the most the most terrifying aspects of White and Black magic, Akasha is the use of magic to emulate picotechnology, surpassing the effectiveness of technological nanotech by affecting matter on the atomic scale rather than the molecular scale.  While the power can scale up to micro- and nano-technology, the effectiveness of this power can be best described as being able to work with atomic structures to alter matter and life forms.  The power of Akasha can create clouds of 'nanotech' tools or weapons and infectious diseases that act like nanites, but since they are effective at a lower order of magnitude, much of the materials and tools that would be able to protect people and objects from nanites and nanotech simply fail to function, though gravity and force manipulation can still protect people.  Healing, DNA and RNA genetic therapies and alterations, mind control, even mind and AI and daemon Cores can all be accessed, influenced and manipulated by the substances and powers of Akasha.

ARMAITI:  The most potent White Magic available to the Archmage, Armaiti is the culmination of everything understood about terrestrial magic, regardless of where one is.  Command over earth and stone, crystal and metal, plant life and simpler organisms, and weather or atmosphere, even aboard spacecraft these powers can be put to vast uses.  As deadly and potent as they are, there are still many utilitarian uses for the Archmage to tap into, and the healing that is available with the power of Armaiti is not to be dismissed lightly.  While a few major powers can duplicate some small aspects of Armaiti, the fact is that the sheer scope of the Great power makes it a tool worth having.

NEFER:  Ancient beyond remembrance, Nefer augments the mind of the wielder to insane levels of potency, allowing them access to dimensional manipulation and warping effects that can be used to simulate telepathy, clairvoyance, telekinesis, apportation, and even to form subspace dimensional portals that contain objects and tools and potent energies hidden in these weird places from long ago.  Another ability that crosses lines from White to Black Magic, Nefer is the ancient magic of psychic energies and potentials, older than most civilization.  It uses a vast amount of energy, however, and this limits how much can be moved from the subspace dimensions, both energy wise and material wise.  What may be in the depths of the subspaces that Nefer has access to is another question, to which answers would have to be sought.


MAJOR POWERS

ANAHITA:  The uninitiated would refer to it as hydrokinesis and cryokinesis, but those barely touch upon the true power of this White magic.  Able to conjure, manipulate, and affect ice and water is the basic ability, but using the power of the magic to liquify oneself and move as liquid, to transport one's consciousness through water or even water vapor, as well as liquify and store others consciousness and bodies, to say nothing of cryogenically freezing and reviving them makes this power capable in a variety of ways.

APAREKA:  Though it is Black Magic, manipulating the universe through the energies and substances of other dimensions, Apareka allows control and manipulation of photon energies and waves, and to utilize the pervasive presence of them to control and manipulate objects and people.  It also allows access to hyperspace in limited fashion, allowing one to enter a localized reality outside of the physical universe - and this includes the ability to manipulate people's bodies through a similar manner to a hyperdrive manipulating a ship's substance, effectively allowing the user of Apareka to possess someone through the medium of hyperspace.  Naturally, the use of it as a weapon not only allows for laser light effects, but also hyperspace wave motion generation, slow but implacable force waves that can push improbably large objects.

ESHNE:  Surprisingly, the manipulation and use of stellar plasma is White Magic, but highly destructive and often explosive.  Streams of flame, massive explosions, and manipulation and control of heat and fire, all basic abilities, but immensely destructive.  The defenses provided by the power extend to protecting one from most kinetic and energy attacks, as well as enabling flight and creating personal weapons and attacks.  Despite its potency, it is one of the least energy intensive powers.

MIKUZUME:  Most claim it is Black Magic, but it is a combination of White and Black magics.  Mikuzume is the power of affecting the body and blood of the enemy and your own flesh and blood as well, manipulating, forming, and destroying it.  The power to use it upon the inhuman races as well as the mortal human races is what makes the magic Black, for it takes extradimensional energies to affect immortals.  In addition to affecting their bodies, it is one of the few powers that provides a physical weapon to the user, allowing them to form a monomolecular blade from their own flesh and blood.  While it has no shielding or protective auras, it does allow the wielder to manipulate their own flesh and blood, toughening and healing themselves effectively.  It is also very difficult to prevent the power from affecting someone - only the most severe levels of augmentation would allow someone to avoid their flesh and blood from being manipulated, and even then they can suffer terribly from the effects without a fully cybernetic body.  This has unpredictable effects on bioroids.

PARAGON:  The lesser version of Adrestia's powers concerning force and light, it is almost entirely defensive in nature, though it is a form of Black Magic.  Force shields of varied sorts (kinetic, force, inertial, and even flexible ones that can act as space suits, given an air supply), bolts of kinetic energy, short ranged and disruptive waves of force, and protective layers of energies imbued into the body and around the body are its specialties.  Simple yet potent in effect.

SEMIRAMIS:  Another peculiar truth that the manipulation of the mind and body are natural forces, the White Magic of Semiramis affects the minds of those around the wielder, controlling and manipulating them utterly. The effects can be pervasive, or specific, can be temporary or long term, or in some cases made permanent if the wielder is unscrupulous in its use.  The power provides several mediums of use - physical touch, pheromones, visual displays, audible noise....any and all can be used separately or in conjunction to strengthen the effects and potency of the power. Though modern technology can provide buffers and defenses, these can take time to effect, and they can be overwhelmed by the power of Semiramis if focus and power are poured into the effort.


MINOR POWERS

AERO NORTE:  The ability to manipulate and create air, fog and wind, both as weapons and defenses.  Some atmosphere must be present for this power to be truly effective of course, though the power can create enough air to sustain a person inside a poisoned atmosphere or a lack of atmosphere or pressure.  This minor shield of air is also effective in dispersing or blocking nanite clouds, microbots, and other nanomechanical assaults until a more powerful force of wind or air drives them away.  White Magic.

ANNIHILLATION:  Not nearly the powerhouse that the name implies, it is a limited but effective magic that shatters bones and twists flesh, immortal and mortal alike.  White or Black Magic, depending on the target's nature; it has no purpose other than destroying physical bodies.  It is effective against any organic flesh, including heavily augmented cyborgs, but not robots.

APATHY:  The simplest of void magics, Apathy allows for minor gravity effects and powers:  levitation of others, flight for oneself, clumsy telekinesis, bolts of gravitic energy, and momentary shields of void energies.  Black Magic.

LEYLANI:  The use of sound as a weapon and a defense, as well as soothing or exciting the minds of those around you.  Requires some kind of atmosphere to function, though it can be used effectively through audio transmission (but not neural-audio implants).  White Magic.

NIL:  Simple but effective mind control, that lacks the finesse and permanence of Semiramis.  It can be fought off eventually, and cannot be maintained for too long, but it is intensely effective as long as the user is present.  White or Black Magic, depending on the target.

POTENTIAM:  Brute force puppeting of another's body, invading their neural networks and forcing their body to act as you wish.  It is strictly temporary, but it is effective against humans, immortals, bioroids, and cyborgs.  It is effective against robots, but it takes much more energy to use it on them and heavily augments combat cyborgs.  It is actually a White Magic, relying on natural substance and forces to affect the targets.

FLOW:  The power of movement, this White Magic energizes and empowers the physical body of the Archmage, granting incredible speed, even more prodigious strength, incalculable endurance, and the ability to regenerate, it is considered one of the most potent of the Minor Powers.  It is Black Magic, calling upon extradimensional energies to boost the immortal sorcerer's alien flesh.

RUINATION:  Similar in nature to its cousin Annihilation, it is a simple but effective Black Magic that delivers a violent and terrible dimensional pulse into the body of the enemy, tearing large wounds in their flesh and literally shredding flesh or mechanical systems from bone or core structure.  It will even work against non-organic bodies, but there must be a mind within, even if that mind is a simple artificial intelligence.  While it does not break bone or core structure, it will ruin hydraulics and myomer or elastin muscles (artificial musculature).


LOCUS

CORPORA AMARA:  The most complex of the loci, Corpora Amara is a set of hyperspace dimensions that connect to one another through a central Crown area.  The crown can be used to create gateways and portals even to places the Archmage has not been, and can be accessed from anywhere that is not in subspace itself.  The most important factor is that it can be used - when connected to a proper power source such a star, a fission or fusion reactor, or a mana batter of equivalent power as well as matter to manipulate (much more easily obtained) - to fabricate physical materials and objects, ranging from nails to vast obelisks and platforms to airtight containers and living spaces, including monomolecular substances and objects.  The hard part is connecting it to those power sources, of course, as it currently lacks such connection.  The more powerful or magical the source of energy, the more complex and useful the objects may become, including weaponized drones.  The multiple dimensional fields can be used for many purposes, and can be slowly but effectively altered to suit any purpose needed - if the power and materials is available to do so.

ENNUR KALIA:  One of the rare starships the sorcerers and daemons used, the Ennur Kalia is a corvette sized ship that is the equivalent of a stellar navy capital ship, both in power and utility.  Able to enter hyperspace, the starship is capable of moving across the galaxy at speed, and possesses the weaponry and defenses of a ship several thousands times its size.  The interior is modifiable and there are limited 'fabrication units' that use magical energies and materials rather than matter and technological power sources.  Unlike other ships, the Ennur Kalia draws its power from dimensional energies, and has no technological systems within it.  Though not alive in the normal sense of the word, it does have an awareness and desires, and will aid the Archmage however it can.  It can summon a 'docking area' out of subspace that has living quarters and potent defenses, which can remain in existence as long as the Archmage has need of them, but they are basic in design and lack the great power and weaponry (and the fabrication facilities) of Ennur Kalia itself.  Such a dock cannot exist in hyperspace by itself, but if Ennur Kalia remains with it the dock can also remain indefinitely.

LOCUS PETRAM:  The most simple of the loci, Locus Petram is a hidden bastion of power and safety within an asteroid in an unknown location.  It has a gate or teleportation system that can be activated by the Archmage to travel there and to places she has been before, but unlike Corpora Amara the gate/teleportation system is simple and cannot be held open or moved.  Despite this it is a near impregnable safe place with the ability to provide food, atmosphere, water, furnishings, lighting, and power enough to generate a small star.  The interior can be modified to the archmage's preferences and it has a vague awareness of the Archmage's needs, though nothing like Ennur Kalia's intellect.  With enough power it can supposedly create some kinds of servitors to assist and satisfy the Archmage's needs; if certain materials and substances are provided, and/or rituals and/or sacrifices are performed, it can supposedly create dedicated and lasting extradimensional beings to serve the Archmage.

SENSURET:  The other side of the starship coin, Sensuret is less a starship than it is a mobile fortress.  Unlike Ennur Kalia, it cannot travel through hyperspace, but instead moves through subspace, teleporting from one location to another.  It can move through physical space as well, but either slowly, or at a phenomenal sub-light speed - it has no 'in-between' speeds.  While it lacks the more sophisticated fabrication and weapons systems of Locus Petram and Ennur Kalia, it can create and support drone ships and weapons to assist the Archmage in battle or defend itself, and its defenses and weapons are more similar to those of a space station.  The thing that makes Sensuret different is that unlike the other loci, the Archmage can tap directly into Sensuret's energies, utilizing the powerful energies as weapons, teleportation effects, drone summoning and utilization through direct control, and to capture and contain others.  The Archmage can even use the power of Sensuret to augment their own awareness, using the sophisticated radar and optimal systems of the ship to investigate starships, planets, cities and other locations from a personal perspective, so long as Sensuret is within range (usually, orbital range of a planet).


SERVITORS

BAEL:

DARKNESS BORN OF BURNING STARS:

ISKELA:

MARDUK:

VERMITHRAX:

XIHUAN MEINU:


ARTIFACTS

THE SHINING TRAPEZOHEDRON:

MEDEA'S ATHAME:

THE BOOK OF EIBON:

THE CHAINS OF FENRIR: