BECMI Chapter 321 – Doom Comes to Darkmoor II
Cirruluxul’s spellbook was getting impressively large, or, more precisely, her internal Wall of Spells was as she formed her Eidetic Memory, allowing her to eschew a clumsy spellbook with searingly perfect memory able to hold the magic instead. Considering it was just an outgrowth of a Sorcerer’s Spells Known, she hadn’t had that much difficulty figuring out how to set one up.
With Sorcery rapidly taking over her frequently-Cast spells, she was now able to use her ancestral Wizardry spells to adapt to special circumstances or downtime, giving her incredible versatility and adaptability compared to normal Dragons. If she had time to prepare for an enemy, they were going to have a very dangerous time with her.
Downtime among mortals instead of dragons. The irony was not lost on her that if she had instead spent time with dragons doing dragon things and building a place in dragon society, she would be far, far weaker than she was now. The dragons she did run across she tended to fight strongly upwards into, able to battle well above her age level, and she had triumphed over older, stronger dragons with a combination of ferocity, skill, and power that had spread her name among dragons as one to watch.
“I’m assuming most of the dragons chose to ignore you, thinking that you or I are trying to set them up to have their hoards stolen while they run away.”
Cirru nodded shortly, a grimace stealing across her sharper, almost queenly features. She was over a head taller than me, but she had a predator’s acute awareness of the power in our relationship, and never loomed on me or played mind games of power and prestige with me, acutely aware of just how poorly I’d receive those games. “I gave them fair warning, and they can only regret it when the Doom comes for them.” She paused a moment. “Thank you for allowing that warning to more than the Golds and Rubies. I know our species have differences with the mortal population, but they are also innocents in this matter.”
I waved it off. “It comes from you, not from me. You can expect your fame to increase among those who survive.”
She inhaled, finding the notion appealing, but not fixating the way it might once have been. Small dragons with small notions of the world and the possibilities one could pursue within it. Why should a dragon who understood greater things be limited to such small drives?
“I would like to think the dragons of our own era are much more evolved and intelligent than many of those here, after so many years of contact with humanoids and watching them evolve and change and grow so quickly… but even they lag so far behind.”
“Mistress,” Duum said from his perch atop Dread, his magnificent speaking voice completely unchanged despite the reduction in size, “how long are we planning to remain behind? I know you are going to remain behind to watch the Doom and see the effects upon the land, and I know that if we are but the last, it will still only be ten minutes passing when we come through.”
“There was a full fifty-year gap between the Doom and the full and proper re-ignition of the Portal inside the Inn, so it will be at least that long.”
“I will have another Dragonsleep, then,” Cirru nodded shortly. She would be closing in on two hundred years old after all these years in Darkmoor, generally trading thirty days here for one at home over all this time.
“Indeed. I will definitely be busy, as unlike at home in the past, I am not limited to non-interference like my Sims, only able to watch history unfold passively and forced to keep their involvement in it to a minimum to satisfy the vagaries of time. I have a somewhat exhaustive record of the things that Immortals are going to be doing during this time period, and I intend to turn their game on its ear… and I will be using the Doom to do it.”
Cirru did glance down at me. “I knew it!” she declared under her breath, not looking at me. “You are going to use this chance to attempt to become an Eternal!”
I only nodded slowly as she put it together. “Yes,” I said softly. “I am going to use the Doom to get this world’s attention, and I am going to forge a path through the Immortal restrictions on mortal power with Nown’s permission.”
Cirru hissed in excitement. If I could do it, that definitely meant that a dragon could do it, too! “I assume there are a great number of implications I do not truly understand to this,” she admitted quietly. “How many times have you been approached by Immortals over these decades?”
“Multiple times, by nine different Immortals. They truly are not used to mortals saying no to them, especially when they can’t figure out my sponsor. They don’t understand the implications of the Doom on themselves, either.”
“Oh?” Cirru did glance at me, her pale sapphire eyes dancing with glee.
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“Yes. The combination of the Fall of Iberon and the Doom resulted in almost the complete annihilation of the mortal populations beholden to and serving many of the Immortals in this age. Without them, their interest in this world wanes rapidly, and they lose their anchors and ties to it, going off into the cosmos to explore things. The fact Clangyr steals the dwarves from Harnadin is as much about self-preservation and keeping a strong tie to this world, while conveniently removing a competitor from play. A lot of nations and cultures are going to die because of the Doom, and the Immortals who came from them will take much of the blame for it, stirred up by Entropics feeding the need to blame something for this disaster.
“In time, they turn that blame onto Darkmoor entirely as racial xenophobia, which lingers on our side to this day. But it appears that without a mortal population to anchor their interest, Immortals turn off to explore their own interests and leave Nown behind. Many Immortals who were widely served before the Doom are just barely known anywhere on the Far Shore, and many who rose up since have also faded back into obscurity, and may even have lost power if they invested too much in their people instead of their own independent power.”
“Ah, that we should be so lucky?” Cirru mused aloud, returning her gaze to the flow of people. “I admit that I find it interesting that you are going for Eternal status on this Shore…”
“I’d rather not have an event like this in our own Shore take place just to break the mortal limit, Cirru.”
She considered that, and nodded slowly. “It was inevitable. Making use of and turning it against them is eminently reasonable. It will not strand you here, will it?”
“No. Unlike Immortals, I have no temporal duplicate here, nor do you, so we can move back and forth smoothly. An Immortal can move up and down a timeline if they have the skill and power, but they can’t occupy multiple timelines without tearing apart their own existences. Perils of being solid in five dimensions instead of merely four, and they still can’t occupy the same timeline twice. An Immortal who does not have an existence on one Shore could potentially go to the other, however, if they know what they are doing. For most, that means if they existed prior to the Doom, they cannot come here… and that includes in their mortal lives. To reach here, they’d follow the Portal’s loop back to the point of divergence, for instance, and could go no further if they exist then.
“Someone from here going there doesn’t have the same problem, as everything of Darkmoor was basically annihilated back then.”
She tilted her head slightly. “What of Gaebrel, then? He still exists over there…”
“Yes… and the Professor will be annihilated if he tries to emigrate. He feels safe in the protection of the Barhund and is not aware of the extent of the coming devastation.”
I didn’t trust the man enough to move him elsewhere, and was pretty sure Immortal Aspirants would be commissioned to hunt him down anywhere, as they had almost all survivors of this disaster in distant places on our own Shore. My Sims had been forced to watch the quiet killings take place across the world, unable to interfere as Done Deeds, and the Immortals had made sure magic couldn’t bring any of the Greens, Moorians, or their technology back into play.
Nown was their playground, no competition allowed!
“Your Traps?” she asked.
“In place. Thanatos has sabotaged the force field that would protect the city, and Nifl has subverted the aerial defenses. They were moot, anyway, as Gulguz was backing the Ei and has doubtless made the missile being prepped for launch unstoppable, not that we are likely able to deal with it, regardless. The former two are on duty and just waiting for the disaster to come before leaving in triumph.
“They will get an unpleasant surprise.”
“Given how many years you worked on those surprises, I sincerely hope they work. You participated in three other killings of Thanatos Avatars, right?”
“Correct,” I nodded. “This is the one my Sims could not help with, and the most important. When I complete this one, there will be one left on the Far Shore, and the Delphan Worldstorm. I’ve been avoiding planar travel because the Immortals closely watch all mortals who wander worlds, given the things they could learn and how disruptive that knowledge can be.”
“And as an Eternal you will be able to hide those movements,” Cirru postulated. “What of myself? Do you have plans for me?”
“I could not bring you along on previous kills because you are too recognizable, and you don’t have the Rune of Time to protect you from temporal consequences. It also means you would be recognized by Immortals if you encounter them in the past, and they would be most discomfited to find you here in the present day.” I narrowed my eyes. “But just because events took place on the Far Shore doesn’t mean they have to take place on this one. I know many things that are supposed to take place that I can prevent. I even know how some Immortals are supposed to Ascend, and I can stop them from doing so, if I dare… and I most certainly dare!”
“Ah. So, we could visit Delpha on this Shore and stop the Worldstorm here, as well… and thwart Thantos, and prevent the rise of Delphaks?” she reasoned out. “That sounds like great fun, Mistress!” she smiled grimly.
“You’re going to be five hundred years older before we head to Delpha. It’s just a scattering of floating islands within a cloudworld at this point, not a great magical Empire, but it’s evolving toward that state. There’s no way to get to the right time on this side but the slow, ordinary pace of living long enough to get there, unless we want to go into suspended animation and skip the intervening years, which would be a waste for both of us. I’m aiming to become Eternal because even my own lifespan isn’t going to be long enough to pull off plans against Immortals who ignore millennia if they care to.”
“And even a dragon won’t live long enough to get from this age to that of Siricil,” she agreed slowly. The oldest dragons lived to be about two millennia old, which far outlasted even the oldest of elves, but was nothing to Immortals. The only way to exceed that limit was to challenge and defeat one of the Ruling Dragons, an extremely unlikely event… and the violent lives of the Ruling Dragons indicated that they probably weren’t going to see more than another millennium or two, even with such a promotion…