Disintegrate magitech le.., p.1
Disintegrate: Magitech Legacy Book 6, page 1
Disintegrate
Magitech Legacy Book 6
Chris Fox
Chris Fox Writes LLC
Copyright © 2021 by Chris Fox
All rights reserved.
Contents
Cast of Characters
Previously On
Prologue
1. Larva
2. Set a Course
Interlude I - Necrotis
3. Council
4. Harry
5. Tagged
6. The Protection Package
7. Breaking Rules
Interlude II - Voria
8. Miracles
9. Catch Up
10. Finally
Interlude III - Frit
11. Come With Me
12. The Art of War
13. Snipe
Interlude IV - Vee
14. The Wrath of Xal'Aran
15. Choose
16. Greater Void Magic
Interlude V - Voria
Interlude VI - Frit
Interlude VII - Necrotis
17. Into the Storm
18. Old Friends
Interlude VIII - Tuat
19. Hit and Run
20. Didn't See That Coming
Interlude IX - Necrotis
21. Damage Control
Interlude X - Kurz
22. New Crew
Epilogue
Note to the Reader
Cast of Characters
The Magitech Chronicles are vast, and we now have a dizzying array of gods, demigods, drifters, Shayans, planets, and other stuff. Below you’ll find a mostly complete list to remind you who’s what.
If you find anything missing, please shoot me an email at chris@chrisfoxwrites.com and I’ll get it added!
This list is massive, so if you’re listening to the audio version feel free to hit next track if you don’t want to hear it all. For the rest of you I put it at the front so you’d remember there’s a list if you get lost keeping track of all the names.
Kemetians & The Vagrant Fleet
Briff- Dragon hatchling tech mage and Jerek’s best friend.
Dag- Jerek’s father. Former Arena sensation.
Jerek- Relic hunter and captain of the Word of Xal. Also a self-styled historian and has been to Sanctuary, the city of the gods that no one has seen in tens of millennia.
Kurz- Vee’s brother and a soulcatcher.
Miri- A personal shopping assistant and all around badass Jerek met on the Inuran trade moon. Hopelessly in love with Jerek, but would never admit it.
Seket- A paladin of Inura transported through time from the height of the dragonflights to serve under Jerek.
Vee- Inuran artificer and member of the lurkers descended from the Vagrant Fleet’s technicians, who stayed behind to tend to the fleet when it went dormant. Sometimes love interest for Jerek. Currently in love with Inura.
The Confederate Pantheon
Malila- The guardian of Xal. A demon queen who rules the Skull of Xal.
Kazon- Brother to Voria and son of Jolene. Kazon was mindwiped alongside Aran.
Xal- One of the eldest gods in the sector and also one of the largest repositories of void magic.
Bord- Bord is a lower-class Shayan born in the dims at the feet of the great tree. Kezia’s boyfriend.
Ducius- Thalas’s father. Current Tender on Shaya. Hates Voria. Kind of a lot.
Kezia- Bord’s girlfriend and Confederate tech mage.
Thalas- Son of Ducius. He was executed by Voria for insubordination during the Battle of Marid.
Voria- Daughter of Jolene and Dirk. Sister of Kazon. Currently life goddess.
Nara- Former space pirate, now powerful demon god.
Pickus- Pickus is a freckle-faced grease monkey turned tech mage who has somehow found himself as Voria’s right-hand man.
Aran- War hero and powerful demon god.
Sergeant Crewes- The guy who trains war heroes and demon gods.
The Remnants of the Dragonflights
Drakkon- The Guardian of Marid. Dwells on the world of the same name.
The Earthmother- A Wyrm of tremendous power. Sibling to Virkonna and Inura. Killed by Krox during the godswar.
Inura- The undisputed master of air in the sector. Inura was the chief architect of the Spellship. Sibling to Virkonna and the Earthmother.
Krox- One of the most ancient gods in the sector. Nebiat is in control of Krox.
Marid- Wyrmmother of the water flight. Devoured by the Ternus ships that formed Nefarius.
Nefarius- Nefarius is a void Wyrm of immense power who ascended to godhood in the earliest days of the godswar.
Neith- The first arachnidrake and the eldest of the draconic siblings. Sister to Virkonna, Inura, and the Earthmother, but much, much older.
Shaya- A mortal raised to godhood by Inura in order to defend her people. Died doing exactly that. Now entombed under the great tree on the planet Shaya.
Virkonna- The Wyrm of air, sister of Inura, Neith, and the Earthmother. Virkonna is known as the mother of the last dragonflight and helped Inura build the first Spellship.
Necromancers & the Unseen Fleet
The Devour of Hope- Daughter of Necrotis and powerful necromancer. She devoured her own name and now eats the names of others.
Necrotis- Necrotis’s true identity is unknown, but she is a daughter of Inura and was a long time Outrider during the height of the dragonflights. Now ruler of the Maker’s Wrath and possibly the most powerful necromancer in the sector.
Tuat- Eldest son of the Wyrmmother, and self-styled God of Death. Tuat was banished and his name removed from all official histories.
Utred- Annoyingly smug necromancer and son of Necrotis.
The Shipmother- The legendary lich-god, an unliving who is at least eighty millennia old.
Siwit- A bright rising star within the necromancer ranks, Siwit wears three centuries, a child among his people.
Shipfather Uldris- A minor demigod and tutor to Siwit.
The Krox
Frit- Frit is an escaped Shayan slave, one of the Ifrit, who were molded by Shayan slavers into beautiful women made completely of flame.
Kahotep- Son of Nebiat and grandson of Teodros.
Nebiat- Daughter of Teodros, granddaughter of Krox, and mother of Kahotep.
Teodros- Son of Krox, father of Nebiat.
Everyone Else of Note
Reevanthara- Annoying Mary Sue god who has, like, every power imaginable. Reevanthara architected the Great Cycle, and is perhaps the oldest surviving god and the only known one who remembers the creator being.
Talifax- Guardian of Nefarius. Talifax’s age and race are unknown, but he is rumored to be nearly as old as Xal.
Jolene- A powerful Inuran matriarch. Mother to Kazon and Voria.
Skare- A powerful Inuran patriarch, who worked with Talifax to raise their dark goddess.
Previously On
You know that annoying feeling when you pick up a sequel and have to make that monumental decision? How well do you remember the previous book in the series? Do you dive right in or do a reread?
I always tell myself I’m going to do the reread, but I can never wait and so I jump right into the latest book. Sometimes I can’t remember what happened, so my solution for my own books is to write a Previously On, delivered just like the recap before most of our favorite TV shows.
Here’s what happened in Eradicator, told from Jerek’s perspective.
Last time on Magitech Legacy…
Hey, there, uh, random person. Don’t make it weird. Last time you made it weird.
Here’s the short version.
Necrotis sucks. She wiped out Colony 3 and poisoned Yanthara, and now our whole sector is starving. Worse, she created a social media account and is using it to steal worship from Voria.
She lured Frit into a fight, and then Frit got om-nommed by Necrotis’s death dragon buddy, Tuat (which is the Egyptian word for death. Or maybe they named death after the dragon).
I popped into the battle aboard the Word of Xal and used my brand-new implode spell to drive her off. But at the end of the day, we got wrecked, and we’re hurting.
However, there’s one important bit I left out. I got to go to fun town with Miri, so there’s that. Don’t knock aerobic stress relief.
How about the long version?
Necrotis dropped the hammer on Colony 3, and she did it right when I was having my Big Moment (TM). See, after the whole Sanctuary incident where I walked away with Super Cleanse (totally the real ability name), I figured I finally had an answer to that pesky sea of madness living inside the Flame of Knowledge.
I’m not stupid though. I brought gods. Lots of gods. Frit, Ikadra, and Voria escorted me through all the old scariness, plus brand new nightmares you’re better off not knowing about.
We made it to the bridge, and my buddy Kek had gone off the deep end. The madness had him fully, and he was about to attack me, but then realized I was there to cleanse the ship.
He didn’t believe it was possible, and he let me try. So I did. And it worked. We cleansed the madness, and saved Kek, though he’s still got quite a few psychological scars.
We turned the Flame of Knowledge over to Frit, the new captain, which seemed fitting. Fire ship with fire goddess.
Right around then we got word that Colony 3 had been hit. Casualties were total, and the loss of food meant many outlying stations and colonies are doomed to starve.
&n
Necrotis took Kurz to a necrotech Tormentory, where she showed him how angers and spites are made. Spoilers, it’s torture.
Back to me.
Frit rewarded me with spell amplification which makes all my spells hit harder. I’ll take every bit of it I can get, and I have a feeling it still won’t be enough.
Anyway, Frit agreed to allow me to train with the eradicators in the Nebiat system because everyone agrees that when we face Necrotis we want her eating my disintegrates.
I headed into the Erkadi Rift, which is a total mystery to the Confederacy. No human vessel has ever been allowed, much less a Great Ship, and we received an appropriately tense welcome.
Every level of Krox society, from the guards on their leader Kahotep’s ship to the Kamiza’s where I “trained”, treated me with hostility, either thinly veiled or undisguised. I should have expected that kind of treatment going in, but I’m still naive I guess.
They sent me down to one Kamiza to train, while Briff went to another to learn how to master hybrid form now that he’s a full Wyrm. We were forbidden from flying a ship down to the planet, so I got to ride on Briff just like we’d talked about since we were kids.
After we hit atmo, I broke off and met the Krox’s warm welcome. They sent fighters after me in a live fire exercise, and I was told to reach the ground in the training facility if I could. I used camouflage and blinks to get past them, and managed to make it in one piece.
Ghora, my new teacher, was not impressed. She chewed me out and told me I could have done it better, and then she stopped being nice.
Over the next few days, I dodged two assassination attempts, which came from one of the factions splitting the Krox. The followers of Nebiat were the ones after me, while the followers of Frit just hate me. The only people on the fence were the Followers of the Earthmother, who I gather operate as peacekeepers between the other two factions.
My first big test was retrieving a ghost mushroom from a cave at a spirit Catalyst, where I had to sneak by a banshee. I got the mushroom, but of course, then came assassination attempt number one. One of my classmates slipped and accidentally rammed a poisoned dagger into my spleen.
Unfortunately for him, I have life magic now, and I just healed myself and broke the fool. I can say that because you weren’t there to verify any unmanly shrieks that may or may not have occurred.
We flip to Necrotis doing dastardly things in the Ekara system. For those not familiar, this planet is locked off from the rest of the sector by a sea of rock shards called the Razor Belt. These shards apparently drain all magic, and thus attempts to reach or communicate with the planet have failed.
In our realm at least.
Necrotis entered the spirit realm, where she approached Tuat, one of the last surviving Wyrm Fathers of the dragonflights. The spirit Wyrm was banished from our realm, probably for being a prick, since he is a prick, which is why Necrotis wants to hang out with him. Wyrms of a scale congregate well, as they say.
Tuat agreed to join Necrotis’s pantheon, giving her someone who can stand toe-to-toe with any god the Confederates can field. They say Tuat is every bit the swordsman Virkonna was, which might mean he’s the only one who can challenge Xal’Aran.
I don’t believe it.
Every god who’s gone up against Aran with a sword in hand has died.
Unfortunately, Yanthara held a vote, and despite testimony from Linus Crewes, the guy the sector assigned the title God of War, they refused to allow the demons to aid them in the battle against Necrotis. Aran has millions of demons, and a nice Great Ship to deliver them with, but we’re just asking him to sit this one out for…reasons. Politics are awesome.
Back to my not-training on Nebiat.
Ghora, my trainer, sent us to assault a war mage Kamiza. Our test was to each kill one of them, and they were given the same test. Fast forward to the end of the night, and only Anu and I made it.
As a reward, Ghora brought me to see the Shade of Nebiat. I’d already had a dream where I saw the Wyrm-goddess’s version of the events surrounding her death which are, ah, quite different than official Confederate history.
Nebiat feels she was wronged.
Anyway, she offered me a covenant and wanted me to make a documentary sharing her side of the story. I declined as politely as I could, and she just as politely launched a second assassination attempt, which I barely survived.
Anu and I were in a rough way when Ghora came in and found us standing over the remains of three other students. She kicked our asses, and I thought we were dead since she was also a follower of Nebiat.
Turns out she was just instructing us, and while she does follow Nebiat, she doesn’t always do what her goddess commands. Ghora let us go, and sent us packing to the temple where Briff was studying hybrid form.
The Earthmother is neutral, which meant we were largely safe there. Plus I was reunited with Briff, who’d mastered hybrid form and was a bit of a celebrity among the hatchlings.
This annoyed their leader, Atum, who nevertheless took us to witness the memory of the Earthmother, which is a giant dragon egg. They allowed me to Catalyze, and…I can’t really describe the peace and serenity. It sounds epicly cheesy, but it’s unlike other Catalysts.
They weren’t going to let Briff Catalyze, but the egg took matters into its own hands and leaned down to touch Briff. Given how quickly he mastered hybrid form, and that the egg was interested, I’m starting to wonder if Briff is connected in some way.
Anyway, Necrotis has the ancient draconic map of the galaxy and knows where all the skeletons are buried. She started flying around to various planets, either conquering them through fear or killing them all and taking the souls as fuel. We have no idea how many planets she hit, but it’s a safe bet we wouldn’t like the real number if we knew it.
The real reason for this chapter, though, was to teach you, the reader, about divinity, a spendable currency gods gain from worshippers. Necrotis is getting more and more of it, while we can see Voria has less and less.
Back to me.
Briff and I got to go home to the Word for a single night. He spent it with my sister, and when I say ‘spent’ I mean, like…I-could-be-an-uncle kind of spent.
I can’t really complain, because Miri and I took a trip to fun town ourselves. You don’t need any more details, perv. Vee and I ended things first, so I don’t feel guilty.
Anyway, the following morning Briff and I left for Krox flight school and joined one of their fighter squadrons. This introduced us to the third faction, the Ifrit. Shockingly, they hated me. Seriously. I’m so shocked.
Want me to sum it up? They tried to kill us and failed, and we left. That brings our stay in the Nebiat system to a close and made the whole thing feel like a waste…except for the part where I got earth magic, which will be important in this book, as it’s required to unlock the greater path of summoning.
