The third vicennial Mage Games were a huge hit. The population of Durus,
across the seven towns, was booming. The number of people applying to become
town mages was unprecedented. The number of mages needed to protect the
towns was lower than expected. The number of people who performed
excellently was incredibly impressive. The inception of the fourth town,
Hardtland showed that a pattern had formed. The number of towns was rising
proportionately to the growth of the population. People were moving out to
new places, and over the next twenty years, it was becoming clear that the
ability to do this was an expectation. In 2070, the only ones applying for
mage selection were those born on Durus. They had never known what it was
like to live on Earth, besides the stories their parents and grandparents
told them. They fully understood why it was so important that the
competition happened, and that the people who were selected knew what they
were doing. So they trained. And they trained, and they trained. They
prepared their whole lives for the chance to prove that they had what it
took to be part of security. Some just wanted cool powers, but it was easy
to weed them out, because they lacked true heart, and the dedication that
was required to succeed in the contest. Still, there were more winners than
there needed to be to serve the towns. Both Hidden Depths and Distante
Remoto required fewer mages, because of their strategic locations. Engineers
had made the technological solutions surrounding Springfield stronger, and
more reliable over the years, even after their original inventor left the
planet, so they didn’t need a whole team either. The source mages could not
decide who they would select out of all the people who deserved it. They
didn’t just want to raise their standards higher; they wanted to reward the
people who had dedicated themselves to the cause. So they did something new.
They built an entire town in a day, and nearly everyone in it would be a
mage. There were a few families, but for the most part, the ones who moved
there were single, and ready to go out into the world without their parents’
oversight. They called it Astau. This was based on the root for eight,
because it was the eighth town on Durus. They weren’t going for originality
here.
It was really important to the founders that this mage town not be seen as
elitist, or separatist, but there was always tension. They tried to
alleviate these problems before they began by situating the construction
site as equidistant from the other towns as possible. Of course, Distante
Remoto was farther away than anything, but they found a pretty good spot to
be in the middle of everything else. They encouraged people to visit, and
their residents to travel to other places, but the friction remained. Things
weren’t any better within Astau’s borders. Everyone there thought they were
too good for menial jobs, so no one wanted to work in the fields, or on the
repair detail. They wanted to use their time powers, and sometimes, they
weren’t necessary. They didn’t really feel the need to keep any border
security, because when a monster came by, there would always be someone
around with the necessary skills to get rid of it. So there was no one
working, and no one in the other towns who liked them. They weren’t real
mages, because they weren’t protecting people who needed it. They were just
there, hanging out by themselves, not contributing to the community, or even
being capable of supporting themselves. It was the first major failure since
the Mage Protectorate rose to power, and an embarrassment for all involved.
In less than a year, many of the residents moved back to the towns they had
come from, or requested assignments elsewhere. Some stayed, formed the usual
border patrol, and allowed regular people to come in. It became just like
any town. In fact, it was probably considered to be the most normal out of
all of them. It wasn’t original, like Springfield; tech-based like
Splitsville; well-irrigated, like Parade; forested, like Hardtland;
militaristic, like Fort Frontline; concealed, like Hidden Depths; or far
away, like Distante Remoto. It was just a town in the middle of Durus, with
regular people, who were trying their best to live their lives. Perhaps that
was what made it special. On Earth, most towns didn’t have some kind of
niche, or defining characteristic. They were just places that people lived,
instead of living somewhere else. And that was completely okay.
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