THE FIRST GREAT DIFFUSION

By the 1240s, magic had once again reached the height of crisis, a crisis that was finally resolved, or at least temporarily avoided, by the First Great Diffusion. The most detailed accounts of this event, which ended the Second Age of Magic, can be obtained from the writings of the seventeenth century chronicles and schoolteacher, Mavis Peepers.

This Great Diffusion was to be the second attempt at the absolute end of evil magic in the land. Since the defeat of the Inquisition in 1067 GUE, magic had been deregulated. Having been used irresponsibly throughout the land, evil magic had gotten the upper hand. Every fool with a wand called themselves a magician. The other magicians had their hands full just controlling them.

The good wizards realized that they had to get power out of evil and the evil out of power, even if they lost their own in the process. This extinction of evil once and for all could only be done if all magic was dispersed.

To plan for this Great Dispersal of all magic, all the most notable wizards, holy men, and clerics of the time gathered in room number two at the Inn of Isenough. Many factors had to be taken into consideration: all evil artifacts, regardless of rarity, has to be destroyed; all doers had to be eliminated; powerful magic items had to be dismantled or destroyed; and existing magic had to be diluted and made useless. The underground empire also had to be sealed off.

They discovered that they could not dilute or destroy the magic, and they certainly did not want to try to capture it in a receptacle such as a coconut (as was first attempted before the Age of Science). So they developed an alternative plan that required the union of all good magical powers to scatter all magic throughout the known land. All magic and magical devices, whether mechanical or enchanted would be destroyed, including the Frobozz Magic Company and off of its inventory. They hoped that with dispersal of magic into the atmosphere would weaken the magical structure and eventually enable its power to fade away—evil magic would be vanquished forever. The members of the group knew that the procedure would leave some of them powerless, but this did not deter them from their obligations.

The enemies of these good wizards placed an evil spy in the midst of the good wizards in basement level number six while they were plotting the Great Diffusion, but they knew about it. The good wizards, being clever wizards, talked in code and fed the spy false information. The spy was led into thinking that they were going to hide all the magic in the world behind a Wall of Illusion. And the good wizards created a Wall of Illusion as a decoy, so that the evil wizards would have evidence to believe that all magic would in fact be hidden behind it.

The only thing that can shatter a Wall of Illusion is a Flying Disc of Frobozz. After learning of this impending event and being tricked into believing that all the magic would be hidden behind his wall (as well as these discs), the practitioners of evil broke one such powerful disc up and hid all six pieces before the good wizards could destroy it.

They also built a diabolical mechanical forge to put the pieces back together. This forge was secretly fashioned by renovating the ancient shrine of the Muses of the Arts located near Bel Narie Temple, the same one that was built around 966 GUE. Part of this project involved adding a new statue, known as Lib, the Catcher. This statue was designed to hold an orb, needed to focus light onto the broken pieces of the disc—the final phase of the reforging process. The other statues were also converted, each one requiring at least one additional external component required for operation:

The evil ones planned to wait for the right time, with the hope that any survivors of the Great Diffusion could gather the pieces together, reforge them, and shatter the Wall of Illusion to get the magic hidden behind it.

In a spectacular display of combined magical power, the Great Spell was cast in 1247. There was a great explosion!  The good wizards vaporized all the magic, both good and evil, scattering it to the four winds with the hope that evil magic would be vanquished forever. Even the Frobozz Magic Company and all its inventory did not escape the dispersal. Whatever was not destroyed was dismantled. During the explosion, with the rest of the magic, the decoy Wall of Illusion went too. The vast caverns of the legendary subterranean world of Zork were hidden away as well.

As a result, most wizards and mages lost their powers in the process for a long time. Both the mage Canuk and the wizard Trembyle participated in the destruction of the evil magic. Knowing that their powers would be drained from the ordeal, they both cast themselves a long-life spell ensuring that they would have enough time to recover their magic. When the other wizard’s eventually aged and died, Canuk and Trembyle became the only two survivors of Great Diffusion. A popular board game called Survivor was later invented in their honor.

As planned by the evil wizards, both the disguised forge and the disc pieces survived the diffusion. But since the good wizards never planned to hide the magic behind the wall, this action was in vain—however, ironically, their error would be a tremendous benefactor for the defeat of the evil many centuries later.

Thus, the Great Diffusion ended of the Second Age of Magic. Everything went according to plan, except for the diluting of the existing magic. For magic and evil cannot be destroyed. They can be diffused but there will always be resurgences.

At the time, the Great Spell seemed to have been highly successful, and for now at last magic had been put to rest for a second time. The evil magic that had been scattered into the atmosphere and carried by the winds, gradually settled in tiny specks over the landscape. The specks settled and were absorbed into the soil and every living thing. Over the next four hundred years, plants and crops flourished, cows got fatter, people began to resettle in the valley, and peace settled throughout the land. Magic became but a legend, the Coconut of Quendor was dismissed as rubbish, and a cyclops was but a fairytale.

Over the years the evil magic had seeped down into the soil. Deep in the ground, the tiny specks of evil dust began to shift and move. The particles percolated down through the soil, and formed veils, much like gold veins. When they pushed their way into certain rock formations, they produced light. One of these new materials would be called illumynite, while the other, which could be made translucent, would be called translumynite. Both of these geological formations continued to attract the scattered evil magic. This fusion was not felt above ground in the valley, but underground. Throughout the hallways and mazes of the old, forgotten Empire, the effect was monumental. (see Feebo, the Cluster, Illuymnite, Translumynite for more information)