Dummy’s Guide to The Abyss. Part 1

Even if the Rat Ogre hadn’t made it abundantly clear that knowing these things were a matter of life and ****, John would’ve been willing to accept significantly worse downsides than ‘mildly increased need for sleep’ to learn about actual, real magic. So without hesitation, he leaned in and took a deep breath of the smoke from the censer. It had the scent of hot sand and sandalwood, with a few sweet notes mixed in that John couldn’t identify. “So, how do we know when it starts working?”

“It’s working.” That was a novel experience. He could hear Qhila speak in her hiss-y native language, and simultaneously with him not understanding any of the sounds themselves, he understood perfectly well her meaning.

Whether she paused in order to get her explanation straight or to give him a moment to adjust wasn’t clear. “Fully explaining ‘Abyssal’ is difficult for a few reasons. In part, it encompasses so much that any explanation will leave things out. In part, it’s interconnected with other things, in some cases in ways that almost get circular. In part, a lot of it is going to come down to things that I’ve lived with all my life and might not realize needs to be explained unless you ask.”

John was taken aback by how much smarter she sounded, if sounded was even the right word here, when he could understand her in her native language. Sure, he’d been aware that the language barrier had limited her to shorter, simpler and oftentimes piecemeal sentences. The juxtaposition between moments ago and now still figuratively smacked him in the face with just how stifling it must have been for her to have to rely on English. No wonder she hadn’t been very talkative on the way.

After a brief pause, she continued, “The simplest way to put it is that ‘Abyssal’ is anything from the Abyss. Which in turn is the magic of the world. Magical places, magical creatures, magical people. All of it hidden from mundanes by divine intervention through the Veil of Vulgar Magic.”

John nodded. “I see. I’m, uh, probably going to need a lot more specifics than that. But I get why we need to get some of the broad strokes established first. I’m guessing the next step is the Veil?”

“Yes. In short, the Veil stifles magic when mundanes witness it. There needs to be at least two mundane witnesses to the magic for it to apply, after which the effect is stronger with more witnesses or with more vulgar magic. A few witnesses is usually surmountable if you have mana to spare, a dozen are enough to quell most unsubtle spellworks, and in plain view of a hundred, magic might as well not exist for most purposes.”

“And the purposes that it still works for are things that can’t be sensed except by the user, and maybe the target, of the spell? Like information gathering magic?” Since Observe had worked just fine in a crowd, John kinda knew the answer already. But getting confirmation still seemed like the prudent thing to do.

“Exactly. Things that mundanes can’t recognize as magical too, like if I were to be temporarily transformed to have a human body.”

“Yeah, that makes sen-” John stopped mid-word as a thought occurred to him. “Wait, what happens if a visibly magical creature like a-” John stopped himself from using ‘dragon’ as an example. “-a fire elemental or something. Anyways, if a creature like that showed up in front of a crowd?”

“It dies.” Understanding the meaning behind the words wasn’t the same as understanding the tone in which they were said, and John was no better at catching the tone of Qhila’s native language with the Babel Incense than he had been without. Still, he thought she seemed to answer grimly. “Two or three witnesses, most can survive for a minute or two. A dozen kills in seconds. A hundred will disintegrate a being of magic before it can notice that it was discovered, and before the mundanes even realize they saw something.”

“Well, shit…” John didn’t really know what to say to that. Well, except for one thing. “Sorry I was sluggish when we left the first barrier…”

Qhila shrugged. “No harm, no foul. You didn’t know.”

They were both silent for a moment before Qhila continued, “Because of the Veil, most Abyssal activity happens either in Illusion Barriers or in Kingdoms. Illusion Barriers are bubbles of magical space attached to the mundane world. They usually overlap an amount of mundane space equal to their size, and start out looking like the mundane area they overlap, except without any people or animals. You shouldn’t assume that a barrier is like what it overlaps, though, since there is nothing that keeps the areas alike after the barrier is made.”

Qhila paused, likely to give John a moment to digest the information if he needed it. He nodded, after which she continued, “Kingdoms are self-contained, separate realities. They vary in size, but they’re smaller than Earth. They are usually much, much bigger than Illusion Barriers, though. The one I’m from is of middling size and is about the size of…” she paused, seemingly trying to remember. When she did, John didn’t need the Babel Incense to understand. “Texas!”

John had waited to let her finish, but couldn’t resist interjecting any longer now. “Hold up, you’re telling me you are from a different world?”

Qhila nodded, though she seemed slightly hesitant. “Yes. Most demihumans are from the Kingdoms, either personally or their ancestors.”

“Cool. What’s it like?” John couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice as he asked.

Qhila, meanwhile, looked down in her lap, fiddling for a bit before answering, “I… I would rather not get into it if that’s okay… I don’t think knowing about that Kingdom will be useful to you either…”

That immediately deflated John’s excitement. To make matters worse, her RS had dropped by 1 point while she answered. Even if it hadn’t, however, John would still have said what he did, “Sorry. I didn’t think that through, and didn’t realize that it could be a touchy subject. Of course you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

Qhila let out a relieved sigh as her RS climbed by 3, for a net gain of 2. “Thank you…”

That was followed by a long moment of awkward silence before John picked things up again. “When you talked about Kingdoms, you sounded like Earth isn’t one.”

Qhila nodded slowly, then shook herself as if trying to physically shake off whatever memories John’s earlier question had dredged up. After a moment, she seemed to collect herself and regain focus on the explanations. “Yes. That’s because Earth isn’t a Kingdom. It’s… special. The Veil only exists on Earth… well, it may exist in space above Earth too, I don’t know about that. But it doesn’t exist in the Kingdoms. Illusion Barriers don’t either, at least mostly. I don’t know if the Fateweavers can make barriers in a Kingdom.”

“The what now?” John asked as soon as he saw an opening.

“Fateweavers. It’s an organization of barrier specialists. I don’t really know much more about them, except that hiring one to put a lock on my barrier,” Qhila gestured at the room in general, “costs way more than I can afford.”

John nodded, having not really anything to say to that, and Qhila continued, “It takes powerful magic to enter or leave a Kingdom. Most people who do make such a trip go as passengers of some multi-Kingdom trade guild or mercenary company. Or stow away with one of the two.”

Qhila said the last part almost too quietly for John to understand. When he didn’t comment, she quickly moved on, “The point is, you probably won’t have to worry about Kingdoms unless you went to one on purpose. Illusion Barriers are much more numerous, overlap reality, and people make them all the time. In fact, when the Supreme Deity divided the world in mundane and Abyss, and granted mundanes the Veil, Abyssals were given the gift to easily learn the basics of making Illusion Barriers. Which means basically everyone knows how. I’ll teach you, if you’d like.”

Well, that was going to be awkward with the new skill he just got. There was something else as well, though. Something that he could conveniently use to stall the awkward bit a little. “Hold up a moment. The ‘Supreme Deity’, is that the capital G god from mundane religion or is that going to be an ‘unlearn what you know’ kind of deal?”

Qhila sat there for a bit with a thoughtful expression, tapping one claw against the scales on the back of the other hand, before answering, “That’s… I can’t really say. I know next to nothing about mundane religion, and I don’t know that much about the Abyssal side of things either. But I can tell you the basics as I know them and then you can decide if it sounds familiar?”

John nodded. “Sounds good.”

“Okay, so. There are the ‘regular’ gods and the Supreme Deity. And then there are some cases where people worship something that isn’t a god as though it were one. The regular gods are extremely powerful entities, capable of ignoring most rules of magic, harnessing Faith and bestowing Faith powered gifts on chosen champions. Despite all of this, though, they are still physical creatures, and are limited by the scope of their divine dominion and the need to be present in person to wield the full extent of their might.”

John had raised a hand, as he couldn’t think of a better way to indicate that he had a question but didn’t want to interrupt. He didn’t have to wait long before Qhila paused to let him speak. “Okay, two questions. First, you talked about Faith as if it was an energy or power, and not just a feeling or belief. Is that correct? Second, could you elaborate on ‘divine dominion’?”

“Divine Dominion is what they are a god of,” Qhila spoke while getting up and rummaging about, apparently looking for something. Evidently, the incense smoke had spread enough to let them talk from anywhere in the room. “For instance, a god of fire can’t command stone or create water.”

Qhila seemed to find what she was looking for and headed back to her stool, carrying a book. “The other question didn’t make sense to me. But I think I know why, I just have to look something up.”

John nodded and looked on curiously as she started leafing through the book. It turned out to be an English-’whatever Qhila was speaking’ dictionary, as far as John could tell. After flipping about for a bit, she nodded to herself and closed the book. “Knew it.” Then she looked at John, blushed a bit and cleared her throat.

“English only has one word for both faith-” she paused briefly, “-and Faith.” With the pause emphasizing the two words in question, they were very unmistakably different words in Qhila’s tongue, but John had understood them both, via the incense, as ‘faith’. “One, faith, is about belief without evidence and about trust. Things that make sense in the mundane world. The other, Faith, is a potent energy that people generate all the time. It is… flavored, so to speak, by what the person making it is thinking and feeling. Only a god whose divine dominion fits the flavor, or someone with a gift from such a god, can harness it. I would expect that concept to be foreign to mundanes.”

John nodded. “Okay, sounds like this stuff works kinda like Planescape gods. What happens to the Faith if it isn’t harnessed?”

Qhila shrugged “No idea. I don’t think anyone knows. There is a theory that Faith and Mana are different fundamental states of the same thing. Like how water and ice are. But that’s about it.”

Well, it made sense that the Abyss had unresolved questions about how things work, like how there were still unanswered questions in the mundane sciences. “And the Supreme Deity?”

“Mostly guesswork. That she, or he, or it, exists is known but most of the details are… vague. The only thing I know of that there is any certainty she did is the Veil of Vulgar Magic and making the basics of Illusion Barriers easy. She is transcendent, not a physical being. She is not limited by physical presence like the lesser gods, and her Divine Dominion is everything that exists, has existed or could one day come to exist. But she is also aloof; she doesn’t involve herself in the world, at least not openly. Except when she made the Veil and divided the world into mundane and Abyss.”

John mulled over that for a moment, before pointing something out, “You, uh, started out more or less saying that it’s uncertain if the Supreme Deity is a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ or an ‘it’. But then you consistently said ‘she’ for the rest of the explanation…”

Qhila nodded. “Yes. In the last few centuries, the Supreme Deity has mostly been referred to as a woman, largely because of the Order of the Golden Rose. In the past, she has been referred to by several names masculine, feminine and genderless. The one used in old kobold legends is Bahamut, which is masculine…”

The kobold girl went thoughtful, tapping on the back of her hand with a claw again and half-muttering to herself, “How was it Taahvin’s recital went…” This was followed up by a mix of hums and muttering that John could apparently not make out enough of for the incense to translate.

After a bit of that, she sighed. “I can only remember a few others. There is Ahura Mazda, Yggdrasil, Gaia, Durga, Ekelim-Egigi and Kuni-no-something.”

Unlike ‘Bahamut’ before, which she had spoken in her language and then the incense had translated it, none of the names she had listed had been in ‘Koboldish’. They had been in… well, not really English, since the few he recognized came from other languages, but still. He didn’t have time to do more than note that fact, however, before an achievement arrived that for some reason didn’t just go in the waiting pile.

Achievement Unlocked: Say My Name
Learn the name of your benefactor.
Yes, I’m aware that you’re not the one who said it. And if I didn’t tell you, you’d nitpick about it.
Reward: Nothing. Be grateful for my attention and what I have already given you.