Magic: Paying with your Mind

 

Remember when I said it was “nice” to know important dates but not necessary? Well, I lied. There’s one date everyone needs to know: December 24, 2011. That’s the day the Sixth World started. According to the academicky types who like to sort things into boxes and put the boxes in order, this planet of ours has seen six ages, by which they mean six different levels of magic. The previous age, the Fifth World, was an ebb in magic. Magic was shady, disreputable, a bit slatternly, hiding out in dark corners and back alleys, very rarely coming out in the light of day. Then, on December 24, the great dragon Ryumyo flew out of Mount Fuji and darted alongside a bullet train full of very surprised commuters, pretty much putting the world on notice that the ebb was over.

 

That was just the beginning; magic coming back meant big changes for the world.

In fact, some of the changes had kicked in months before, just nobody understood that’s what was happening. They called it Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE)—a scientificky-sounding name for children being born who looked like the elves or dwarfs of legends and folktales.

Only they didn’t just look the parts; the new dwarf children grew to be unnaturally strong and could see in near darkness, while the elf children had preternaturally quick reflexes and moved like dancers. For ten years these kids were freaks. Then, in 2021, they became average. That’s when Goblinization struck. And it was not pretty. Where UGE had created interesting-looking newborns, Goblinization
struck people of all ages. The most noticeable symptom was blinding, mind-numbing agony that came in waves. This lasted twelve to seventy-two hours while the victims changed shape, grew tusks and/or sprouted horns, and maybe quadrupled their body mass. Which is how the orks and trolls came back. Not that they’d been gone—elves and dwarfs and orks and trolls had always been here, but in the low magic ebb of the Fifth World, they’d looked just like ordinary humans.

In the wake of these changes, it became clear “humanity” was too narrow a term to cover all the types of people roaming the Earth, so now we call ourselves metahumanity. Turns out the different races don’t like each other any more now than they did in all those legends and fairytales. But we’re all stuck on the same rock spinning through space, so we deal with it. It didn’t take too long for people to start trying to get a handle on how to use all the new magic floating around for themselves. Turned out some people had a knack for it. While the rest of us were wondering what they were looking at with glazed eyes and weird expressions, they were figuring out how to channel and shape streams of mana—a sort of magic energy that seems to be just about everywhere. Turns out, if you can suss how it’s done, you can use mana to set the air on fire, make people do things they’d never do, or things that are truly esoteric and/or insane. And mana wasn’t just for the spells and stuff we think of as magic. It gave some people the strength to punch through walls. Others can shame a cobra with their reflexes, there are some who can outrun a cheetah, and that’s just scratching the surface. And you know all those magic goodies from legends and fairytales and myths? We got ‘em all. Enchanted swords, magic rings, wands, amulets, mojo bags, every potion you can think of all exist. Not that they always work the way they did in the stories. Don’t think you can just grab the sword of a legendary warrior and expect to slice and dice like she did, for example. But the point is, magic is out there, and people are using it. The Atlantean Foundation, the Draco Foundation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Thaumaturgy—they’re regularly researching how to do the impossible with a twist of the wrist and a wink.

Now, let me be straight with you. The vast majority of us have no talent for magic, which means we’re likely to look on those who do  with some combination of fascination and mistrust. We love them because they can do the things we’ve only dreamed about, and we hate them for the exact same reason. So if you’re Awakened, get used to folks eyeing you with interest and suspicion. And be ready for anyone with a gun to aim it at you first. It’s the Sixth World way.

One last and very important thing you’ve gotta understand about magic: Dragons. They’re large, they’re dangerous, and they will mess you up. Ryumyo of Mount Fuji fame was the first but definitely not the last dragon to have an impact on the Sixth World; they have their
claws everywhere. The great dragon Ghostwalker reigns over the divided city of Denver. The great feathered serpent Hualpa does likewise in Amazonia. A dragon named Dunkelzahn managed to get himself elected the president of the United Canadian and  American States, only to get blown up on the night of his inauguration.

 

And don’t overlook the corporate dragons—Celedyr directing research at NeoNET, Rhonabwy managing a supremely massive stock portfolio, and the great dragon Lofwyr directing the largest megacorporation on Earth, Saeder-Krupp.

 

Which makes this a good time to talk about the megacorporations... but we'll save that for another page.