Vol 2 – Chapter 37: The Chronicle of the Great Wizards
Translated by XianPiete
Algernon came running into the meeting room of the Council of Magic showing much more emotion than anyone had seen in months a huge grin was on his face as he called out, "I found a book!" He held the ordinary looking book up like it was a message sent from the Gods.
Olivier had his usual expression when he asked, "What kind of book? I mean, we all have books."
Algernon said excitedly, "I have no idea!"
Olivier's goofy smile disappeared and he rushed over to look at the book. His eyes lit up as he flipped it open, flipping rapidly through the pages before he turned just as excited as Algernon, "This... Is this what I think it is Algernon?"
He nodded excitedly doing a little dance in a circle, "If I am not mistaken, this is a book written by the great wizards themselves. It's from two thousand years ago, I found it by chance at a book seller's cart. It had been in a rural family home together with a book of magic that you'll have to see to believe."
Olivier looked at Algernon skeptically and then asked, "How can you be sure it was two thousand years old?"
Algernon said, "It has a spell on it that keeps it looking new, look at the back cover." He traced his finger over the spell on the back, "The spell also had a creation date, see here?" He pointed at a line in the spell's code.
Olivier sucked in a breath and treated the book the same way that Algernon had been treating it. He carefully flipped through the book and said, "Incredible, with this knowledge we can finally understand what the great Wizards were like and why Magic was eventually lost."
Algernon nodded excitedly, "It's too bad it's written in complete jibberish!"
Renée finally decided to take a peek once they said that, she peaked over Olivier's shoulder and then snorted derisively, "That's not jibberish, it's Japanese."
Algernon and Olivier stared at Renée like she was a deity. Olivier excitedly asked, "Renée, can you read from this book?"
Renée nodded holding out her hand. They handed the book over to Renée who flipped to the first page. She cleared her throat and started reading out loud, "As I write, we have been trapped here for ninety years, the first few decades we were here we wasted our time researching new magic in order to think of a way to get back home. In the end, we came up with a way to extend our lives. As we all started having children and raising families we decided that we should just make this our home instead of trying to return to a world that was heading to a war none of us truly wished to fight. I do regret that I won't be able to inherit my father's throne. I do wonder what sort of future the world will have with just one of us left behind. All of us believe that he will be able to hold off our enemies and create the world we always wanted."
Algernon and Olivier looked completely overjoyed, Algernon said the thought that was in Olivier's head, "That Wizard, if this is correct, might still be alive?" Olivier nodded excitedly.
Renée frowned as she looked over the pages, she started flipping through the book and said in a strange tone, "This book... It's like my brother wrote it. Only, it's not. He writes similar to this, just not this well." She picked out a new entry and read it, "My son had his coming of age celebration today. He was able to catch a dragon goat in the hunt, no one had ever heard of such a thing in the entire country of morons. His mother dotes on him too much, he only accomplished this feat with the help of her magic items. I can't complain too much, I am too proud of him. Those goats are dangerous after all. I told him I would have bowed down to him if it had been a goose instead."
Olivier grinned and said, "I wonder if the Great Wizards have left a treasure trove of magic items somewhere?"
Renée started flipping through the book and then scrunched up her face and said, "The people here believed that we were Gods, but how could they think otherwise when we came down from the great floating city of Laputa. Maybe I should have listened to her and not built the thing. It's just when I get an idea in my head, I just can't let it go. I have always wanted to see a castle in the sky so I had to make it. I never thought about the shade it created causing trouble for the farmers, we had to fly Laputa out to sea in the end. We can still go there, but it's just not as practical as I once believed it would be. I'll have to leave a warning about that for people in the future."
Algernon looked at Olivier again they could hardly contain the excitement as they jumped around, "Floating city, it must still be there." They said together.
Renée shook her head and then flipped to the end of the book and snorted and gave a half laugh, "I'm celebrating my two hundredth birthday here, my many grandchildren keep me company from time to time, but after she passed, I really don't feel like this world has any place for me. I suppose I'll just let myself pass on instead of trying to live any longer. I can live at peace knowing my family will continue on and that I lived a great life. I outlived that bastard, Claude, that's all that really matters in the end." Renée shook her head again and chuckled, "That sounds exactly like something my brother would have said." She turned to ask Algernon something and realized they had already left as she was reading. She shouted, "You guys are dicks!"
*****
Madeline looked at Guy and asked, "Really?"
Guy rubbed the back of his head and replied, "I had already done it, so I couldn't just put it back right? I mean, look at it, isn't it marvelous?"
Madeline shook her head and then asked, "What happens if it falls for some reason. All of these people will drop to their deaths, won't they?"
Guy shook his head, "No after I realized the weakness in the airships I added some protections against dispell. If the lighten spell is dispelled, it uses one of Algernon's nodes to reactivate itself. If the node is deactivated it uses a few other nodes to reactivate the primary node. It has redundant backups for everything. This city will float in the air forever, well, at least until someone really does their best to bring it down."
Madeline frowned and said, "Is that a castle too?"
Guy rubbed the back of his head again, "Well, I mean, it's not finished yet, but I guess you could call it a castle. If you look at it one way it's more of a large stone house with tall walls that men can walk on."
Madeline shook her head and laughed, "I am shocked you managed to get so much of this done. When did you even start this project?"
Guy nodded proudly and pointed to the groups moving materials, "I am using the young mages as help with moving materials, they all live here in on the island anyway, so it made sense for them to help the builders. It turns out that a castle isn't very hard to build if the stone blocks are weightless. They had most of the structure in place within a day. The hardest part is building the spires and other wooden parts. The carpenters are making quick progress though thanks to not needing scaffoldings."
Madeline shook her head and then asked, "I mean the floating city. I was here five days ago and it was still on the ground. You were gone for most of those days too."
Guy walked toward the castle and spread his hands out wide and said, "This isn't my work, this is my idea. The work here was done by our teams."
Madeline frowned again and then asked, "Did you stop building the airships to build this?"
Guy shook his head, "Don't be ridiculous, I simply made the airship factory automatic, if you add materials in, it makes the ships by itself. It was a waste to keep people working on the same ships all the time, so now they just dump in the raw materials and it builds the ship itself. The factory can make a ship in a day if the materials are there."
Madeline stared at him with an open mouth, "Is... Isn't that dangerous?"
"Why would it be dangerous? It's not like people are walking around with all of the resources in their pockets. Plus, it's complicated. Without someone who has magic around to operate it, how would someone steal it and make airships with it," Guy seemed very confident as he spoke he then clapped his hands together and said, "We should be coming up over the Capital here in a few minutes. I can't wait for the others to see what I have built." He grinned proudly.
*****
Algernon and Olivier were staring into the sky in disbelief as the huge floating island began to cast a shadow over the entire capital. Renée came stomping out of the room and started to yell, "Why did you guys just walk out while I was reading, did you think I wouldn't want to go with you to find this floating city of Laputa?"
Olivier just pointed up as Algernon said, "Well, that was unexpected. It seems the floating city has come to find us."
Renée looked where Olivier was pointing, her mouth was open as she just watched it slowly move into a static position just outside of the city. Nearby they could hear panic from the commoners who were scared that the Gods had come to destroy the Kingdom. Renée asked, "Wait, how do we know that is the floating city..."
Olivier and Algernon both slowly turned to look at Renée like she was joking. Olivier looked at Algernon and then said to Renée, "You mean aside from the large floating island above us?"