In Loki's Honor

We were plummeting into the sky. The acceleration was so big we were facing 2G forces pushing us down. I feared we get launched into space if this continued. All around us, as far as the eye could see, and with the sheer size of this planet and our height, we could see even the maelstrom swirling where the old Empire was located. Where was I? Oh, yes. As far as the eye could see, huge chunks of land were also flying up.

We had a good chance of seeing this flying island turning sunny side down and tossing everything on it back to the surface. I had to act fast.

I was left with no choice other than trigger {Suppress Curse}. I needed my full power to solve this. My consciousness and memories returned but it was as if they never left. I used my Detection and located every single living creature in our floating rock. No, getting them all off the place to put it in my infinite storage would be nigh-impossible.

Plan B. I reached out around the rock and created a stationary Force barrier shaped as an exact match for the gigantic piece of moonstone propelling us upward. Almost all of Nethe's MP was drained and I had to connect to Kel'Caldor's Phylactery, still sitting in Aquilonia's former Dungeon of Trials. The millions of MP would only hold this shit in place for a while. Even with all my discounts, the force pulling this up was divine in nature...

Wait. Divine?

"I think I can do something about it, Barbara. See if anyone needs help. I'll be back soon," I told my mistress before digging straight down.

I reached the moonstone chunk our valley used as bedrock. So, this is why the magic levels were so low. This damn moonstone was blocking and absorbing all of it. I touched it and willed to absorb this divinity. Whoever was the fucker who was trying to pull this one on me, their church was going to be eliminated from the face of the...

I wasn't draining the Divinity infused in the green stone, rather I was cycling it. Why? Only two kinds of Divinity existed which I couldn't drain. Mine and Loki's. This wasn't a prank by the Norse guy. Not his style. It was my own Divinity. The power flowed from the stone to me, to Pandora and then back, albeit in a smaller amount. If I had to guess, Pandora was sending Divinity to all chunks of moonstone in equal amounts. Like interconnected pools of water, if I were to pump water out of a single one and then pour it upstream, the water would spread to all pools but some would come back here.

Regardless, the drain eased the force pulling the bedrock up. I could feel the drain on the Force construct lessen and ease. Though over time, it would saturate with Divinity again and start pulling up. I needed a permanent solution. Fortunately, Haru had solved this issue thousands of years ago.

I started drilling holes in the green rock and pushing immovable rods into it while I kept draining Divinity from the stone. I would need to craft and enchant a lot more rods than this if I wanted to keep it from rising indefinitely. My hour was almost up when I ran out of rods.

Going "upstairs", I flew around the edge of the floating island and dumped the heaviest things I could find in my item box. Castles from old Pekothas, stolen by snowdrop. Cathedrals to Bundeus (I was in a hurry so insults have to wait), dragon corpses hundreds of feet long. The top of a mountain Haru had sheared but not used, pointy side up. Gigantic chunks of blue iron smelted from demon carapaces I never got to forge into Adamantite.

With seconds to spare, I shifted back to Nethe and wrote on my pages some instructions for my other self.

Then it was over. I went back to being just a book mimic.

*

*

Mom had stalled the land from going any further up. It was a stopgap measure but at least we weren't in immediate danger of getting thrown into space. The other huge chunks of green moonstone were already just tiny dots in the sky, floating toward the spinning ring. It was like seeing a reverse meteor shower in slow motion.

Barbara and the Aspects went around, tending the wounded and soothing the scared hearts of the people. I stayed on top of the [Lost Sage's Encyclopedia] floating above the now flying island, seeing if it would go up or down by checking on the horizon. We were actually going down at a steady and slow rate. According to mom's notes, it would invert soon enough and then we would go up again.

With the immediate crisis solved, we tried to assess our predicament. I informed Barbara and the Aspects of what happened, then we set out to do our tasks.

Clovehaven was about the middle of the moonstone chunk. It extended between five and twelve miles away from our borders, which meant some villages and hamlets belonging to the neighboring fiefs were caught in it. About eight thousand people, plus the population of Clovehaven. About half were friendly to us, a quarter neutral, and another quarter hostile.

Barbara rounded all of their leaders up and brought them to the courtyard of her castle. After stymieing their protests and getting them to shut the fuck up, she proclaimed.

"The Matriarch has imposed this trial upon us. Our valley rested on a fallen chunk of Sylvis, the green moon, destroyed during the Cataclysm two thousand years ago. Look up. The fallen pieces of the moon are being reclaimed. Those unfortunate enough to be on one of them when it happened are doomed. Our trial is this. We must combine our efforts to keep this place from going up or plummeting down. I am claiming all the land in this floating island as my domain. You have a choice. Pledge allegiance to me and help in any capacity you can or get a ticket back to the surface by air delivery. I hope you know how to fly!"

She didn't want to toss anyone over the edge but at times such as this, you don't want detractors ruining your efforts. I could sense the strain and grief from such decisions weighing on Barbara's heart.

The leaders talked among themselves, then all of them bent the knee. Barbara had Kasumi take their oaths, using her magic to sniff out those that were doing so perfunctorily.

The next day, when my {Suppress Curse} came out of cooldown, I triggered it again and activated the [Shadow Workshop]. I envisioned a construction site to build forges, blacksmith workshops, enchanter shops, kilns, that would form a permanent production line to craft the immovable rods, which I would enchant later on. With the aid of the Aspects, Barbara, and the few Halflings who learned to cast magic, we created these structures in an hour. Then we put every person who knew anything about metalworking to man the stations, and then anyone who could swing a hammer to do the menial tasks. At the end of the production line, the Aspects and I worked on enchanting the rods that were coming out.

On the second day, the island stopped descending. It was saturated with enough Divinity to gain altitude again. I unleashed Mom and she once more went around installing immovable rods and draining Divinity from the moonstone. This went on for two months as we also needed to reinforce the moonstone to keep it from breaking the island apart.

*

*

A year passed in which we worked hard to secure our home in the sky. We stabilized the island two miles above sea level. The underside was covered in Adamantite armor plates like one of Earth's modern warships, welded to a cradle of steel beams that both kept the Adamantite from coming in contact with the magical bedrock and anchored the armor to the moon stone. The Adamantite plates were there to stop any attacks from the surface. We didn't trust people on Pekothas to not attack us.

The rim of the floating island was half a meter above ground level, to keep matter or people from falling down. It had no railing but a dozen yards of sloping steel with warning signs. The moonstone chunk was saturated with Divinity and it still didn't move. The force pulling up was about double that of the planet's gravity. Enough to cancel the downward force and then make it fall upward. Unless the pull up inverted, the immovable rods would keep the island anchored in place.

We had ourselves a flying kingdom. With the moonstone finally saturated, it no longer drained the ambient Mana and even raised magic levels to above average.

The buildings mom dropped to weigh down the island were dismantled and rebuilt into a series of fortresses to defend against aerial attackers. Dissent among the absorbed settlements was kept low through Alloralla and Arista's diplomatic efforts and the simple fact they couldn't put a scratch on any of us. Popular revolutions didn't exist in this world. Kings and rulers were too ensconced in their superior power to fear the rabble. Whenever a nation fell, it was due to attrition between the ruling class or intervention of foreign powerhouses.

At the bottom of the island, right underneath Barbara's castle, mom placed an observatory. A disc of quartz, a foot thick and a hundred feet in length, with a slight convex just to avoid optical distortions. It was enchanted to be nigh-invulnerable. We often went there to watch the war unfold in the peninsula below.

*

*

"This seems like the final battle," Snowdrop said. "The Loyalist faction is almost spent. They were cut off from the north and east trading routes for too long."

"Margrave Hamilton controls the northern half," Alloralla added. "The season Queens entered trade accords with them. Sariandi sent me a letter a few days ago."

"Even if he doesn't win this battle, all that will happen is that the Peninsula will split between two Kingdoms," Snowdrop continued. "And honestly, it is too big anyway."

"Everything in this world is too big," I retorted.

The Pekothas peninsula was the size of Africa. The Barbarian plains were bigger than Eurasia. The former Empire was as bit as Russia and China put together. And these three regions together were about half the continent. Pekothas was the biggest continent of the three but still... it made no sense.

The whole planet was artificial and non-Euclidian, that's the truth. The reports about the Age of Eclipse didn't make sense. How in tarnation would the Sun only shine for two hours only every day? Did it turn on and off? Worse, sunset and sunrise were still a thing. It doesn't make any sense. Unless the world wasn't a sphere. Ish. I knew planets are distorted by rotation and tidal forces.

"If they take the capital, the Loyalists will have to give up," Snowdrop predicted. "The puppet heir they have will be captured and executed. If they take it out of the capital, Hamilton will just declare them dead and move on."

"What will happen after they win down there? Will they cast their gaze at us?" Lily asked.

"Let them," Barbara said. "They left us to fend for ourselves, we owe Hamilton's faction nothing but a tenuous friendship with their scions. I reached a conclusion."

"Yes?" Everyone stopped to pay attention to the diminutive [Crystallomancer].

"We should declare independence. I won't be [Queen]. We have two perfectly able [Queens] and two [Princesses] here. But I'm tired of these stupid games. I want to research my magic, not rule over people. But I won't abandon those who look up to us."

She glanced at Alloralla and Snowdrop, then moved to Arista and Lakerta. Apricot snickered and nudged Lily with an elbow. Kasumi hugged the werecat, the earliest of my interactions. It was inevitable that the power scale would put her as the weakest. I didn't even think I was the strongest here. The massive crunching of my Perks into combined versions left many abilities behind.

"We need three, then." Alloralla said. "A triumvirate to rule this land. There's a third among us who knows how to rule a nation."

I had to remind myself that they didn't share the memories of past lives among one another. A summons was sent to the other side of the world via Arista, who took to the ethereal pathways. While Rosewise took her time to answer, we set out to build a Kingdom in the sky. One that could survive the test of time. Not that the others wouldn't, without cataclysmic intervention.

*

*

We built tall spires, supported by magic and ingenuity. Clovehaven's valleys were mostly preserved, from the flower valleys to the grassy hills. But we opened roads, carved new buildings that blended well with the surrounding nature. Vines were encouraged to grow on the walls, blooming with an explosion of colorful flowers.

We set enchanted water generators to sustain the springs and keep our rivers flowing. They ended up falling down on the world below, a perennial rain to fill the massive hole left behind. If there was only one thing, I was good at, it was making new lakes and oceans in this world. Give me a few more thousand years and everything will be underwater.

The war down on the surface reached its end. We didn't participate, they didn't bother us. Margrave Hamilton crowned himself [King] Hamilton I and apparently Isaac became the new Crown Prince.

When Arista returned with Rosewise in tow, we prepared ourselves to go down to the surface pay our respects to our former sponsor, the new [King]. It was a diplomatic visit, to establish our claims of independence.