BECMI Chapter 61 – Of Kings and Things
“Bring those displacer carcasses down here for butchering!” I ordered, before turning to look at the ice-skinned and black-haired clearly non-human figure of Sim Four in a barmaid outfit, standing there behind the till absolutely motionless as all of this was going on.
She glanced at me and winked knowingly.
“We have a civilian, looks like a cook!” Hargold shouted out from in back.
“What is this?” Speaker Eryis asked for everyone, down in the taproom where most of the guards had been, gesturing to the faintly smiling Sim Four.
“That is one of my Simulacra. If you notice, the till is empty.” Her eyes shot in that direction immediately, widening. “This is approximately ten years into my own future. In my time, I turned the Inn into a usable base of operations, and plainly I still hold onto it. If you go outside, you’ll see there’s a ceiling up there at the height of the Inn, where I have a large library and laboratory built up.”
Everyone looked at me, then took turns running outside the open doors in the walls.
Guy came down from the elevated tower room, escorting a familiar man with dark hair, intense eyes, and a natural air of command. He looked a bit worse for wear, but was not dead, just underfed and abused.
Behind him, the displacer corpses were heading down for the tables here to be skinned and butchered.
“Number Four!” I addressed her, and she promptly turned to me and smiled.
“Mistress! It is good you made it back!” she said cheerfully. “I have been cooking for these men for some time, and they are very stingy with their tips!” she sniffed.
King Antius of Darkmoor was ushered to a seat, Buck running up with a full bottle of wine and an expertly layered sandwich. The king looked at both, took a drink of the one, and then began to devour the other, his eyes popping open at the melange of tastes that lit up his mouth as he did so. Six different sauces, four kinds of meat, and three kinds of cheese, along with lettuce, onions, salt, pepper, and vinegar combined to make a Buck Special a really good sandwich.
“Who are you people, and how did you find me?” he asked directly, attempting to assert some control by speaking in Elvish, confident that the elven teams who were already starting to drain the displacer beast and skin it could understand him.
Prince Ukker stuck his head in from the stable entry. “Ho, Lady Edge! Are minotaurs good for aught?” he called out.
“Cut off the horns and save the hearts, and the blood is always worth something. Yvryn, oversee!” I pointed, and the elven huntess grabbed two of the other elves, long knives sliding out as they headed out towards the stables.
There were no actual survivors, save for the wizard in charge of it all. That fellow was sprawled across one of the tables, hands lashed behind him and his robe stuck in his mouth, still sprawled unconscious, while all his belongings were scattered on a table nearby.
Sacks of coins, chests, purses, and coffers started coming down from above, were stacked on waiting Disks to the great approval of the men. Whatever their faults, these men had been well-supplied in some ways.
Another Disk was heaped with magical items, sussed out by elves who had long-known every single nook and cranny such things could be found in.
“Your Royal Majesty, we are time travelers most recently from Darkmoor, and will return you to your time and kingdom as soon as our sweeps and salvage are done,” I assured him calmly. I strode over to the Disk of magical items, an array of Weapons, Armor, Jewelry, Potions, and Scrolls, touching each one shortly, and Identifying them.
One of the Potions and one of the Scrolls were handed off to Rusafiel. The elf took them and hurried off to the kitchen’s midden, where he would pour the one out and tear the other into little pieces before dropping it in there.
Cursed and malfunctioning magical items were not tolerated and were meant to be disposed of with all speed. We’d had nearly a dozen pass through our hands during our trip to the past.
The Staff of the Wizard was not cursed, but it was revolting, basically a negative-energy Staff of Healing! “Number Four, run this upstairs, please.”
“Yes, Mistress.” She took the Staff I tossed to her and headed outside to the stairs going to the upper level. It would be ground down for mana crystals/crystallized Karma there.
The king looked at the doors in the wall, at me, then slowly stood up, long hoagie in one hand and half-empty bottle of wine in the other, and walked over to the southern door near the stairs. He stepped outside, and looked up in disbelief, then around, shaking his head. He even looked in the window, seeing us inside, then walked back to look through the door. “Am I visible through the window, Lady Edge?” he asked shortly.
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“No, the glass ties directly to the matching point on the outside walls. Someone outside these walls can peer into here, but those within only see the outside… which I’m sure you know is miserable and depressing, Your Majesty.”
“Yes, quite the barren landscape. Do you mind if I?” he asked, gesturing about.
“As it pleases you, Your Majesty,” I waved it off. “Bjorn, it will be at least a half hour before we leave. If anyone wishes to take a quick swim to clean up, I will have Number Four clean up all the gear while you do so, and bring out the towels.”
The Northman grinned and hurried off to spread the word, while those not busy at work quickly moved to follow him.
The king ambled off out of sight, although I heard his expression of amazement when he saw the pool in the back of the place, and the comfortable patio and dueling area.
The sounds of whoops and laughter and splashing water were coming in before the king wandered back inside, looking quite mystified at all the additions done to the place, although he’d not been able to get into the true upper floor. “This… when did all of this happen?” he asked, mystified. “I thought it passing strange that the woman-construct was here to help with the cooking and cleaning, but this…!” He waved at the doors in disbelief.
“I expended a Distance Distortion spell upon the Inn, expanding it to double the dimensions in all directions. Then I rebuilt an identical version old Inn within my version, set the spell Permanently in place, and have been using it ever since. Based on my Detect Time, it is now ten years into the future after I did so. Which is to say, four thousand years into the future of your own time, King Antius.”
The man blinked, and slowly set down his bottle of wine. “That… is a very large number, my lady,” he said slowly, trying to process that.
“Darkmoor is only a place of myths and legends in my time, King Antius. The books and tomes of the Inn here actually form the most complete picture and history of your land in modern existence. After the Doom of Darkmoor and the subsequent Ruin, your kingdom fell into the dust of history, almost nothing known of it, along with many other lands and peoples of that time.”
He considered me somberly for a long moment. “So,” he finally said, “it could be said that I am in your kingdom now, instead of mine?” he smiled slyly.
I just lifted an eyebrow. “I keep up illusions around this place, but the territory here is a bleak wasteland of desolate hills, dry mountains, and patches of scrub warred over by savage humanoid tribes, wandering monstrous creatures, dragons seeking prey, and the occasional wild magic event or elemental wizard weather. The only kingdoms here are underground, and as you might guess, they are guarded jealously as the shelter from the surface that they are.
“I rule nothing but an empty crater, Your Majesty. It is a base of operations that four thousands years of disasters weren’t able to destroy, and so useful for my purposes.
“Also, this is ten years in my future, and so I will have to take steps to make this place available for your captors when the time is appropriate, or risk destabilizing the timeline.” Which was equally obviously why Sim Four was here, calmly misdirecting everything by being the perfect programmed help until I could get here. I would have to set up things properly in the past, which is why I had not actually spoken to her, so no causality loop was put in place, i.e. no telling me the instructions I had given her in the past, meaning the source and cause of the instructions were one and the same!
“And how has Darkmoor fared in my absence?” he asked urgently.
“There seem to have been no overt moves by your enemies and your companions and vassals have endured without you, although they eagerly hope for your return, Your Majesty. None have been able to replace you, if that is your concern, although I did not socialize or learn much of the political climate during the time that I was there. There did not appear to be any active moves made by your belligerent neighbors.
“Do not fret. We will return within minutes of leaving, you are not my prisoner here. Eat, get cleaned up, and return in style and strength.
“I will take this time to enumerate the applicable details of the intelligence I learned from the spies of the Iron Graf.” I flicked a stack of paper out of my loose sleeve that it could not possibly have held, and he blinked at the casual display of magic. At my touch, writing began to scroll rapidly across the pages, which definitely intrigued him, scholar-king that he was. The memories I’d sifted off the three traitors, if colored by their occupations, all grudgingly accorded him the respect due a hard-working and intelligent king looking out for his people… which was contrary to the needs and demands of the Iberon Empire, so unfortunately he had to die, the barbaric fool with delusions of grandeur, et al.
“That is an extraordinarily useful bit of magic to have,” he said, watching in admiration as fluid words in his own language scrolled across the page.
I now could speak and write his language in about twenty different accents, and three other languages native to his time period, too, courtesy of the highly-trained spies. Polyglot was pretty useful that way, as was an Upcast Probe Thoughts.
I flicked out the Amulet everyone thought I had destroyed. “Have you seen this before, Your Majesty? Do not touch it.”
He bent over to peer at it closely. “It seems… familiar. Something about the design. Like it’s trying to not look like what it is?” he hazarded.
“This one is highly magical. It is a combination of a thought projector and magical siphon of great complexity, and it is not of human manufacture. It was being worn by a fellow of your acquaintance, a Master Druewal?” He blinked and frowned, nodding slowly. “The man was a traitor working with the Cabal of the Arcane, paid by the Iron Graf, and this thing,” I just flicked it the barest amount, “was whispering into his mind with thoughts and dreams from the Ei of Hazz.”
“The Ei…” he murmured, clenching his jaw. “Its agents are everywhere…” he cursed quietly.
“You should look for signs of this pattern and amulets bearing it or similar devices.” I set aside a sheet of paper and images drew themselves sharply in dark lines across the ink, as clearly as line painting, some variations of what devices or even tattoos of such might look like. “Depending on intent, they can be vessels for telepathic communication, or outright mental dominance, reducing those who have them to merely puppets without incentive of their own, waiting to be controlled and commanded without sense of self.”