BECMI Chapter 324 – The Nown World
The entire planet of Nown reeled and could not help but wake up, instinctively grasping at the wound… and the great and mighty Runes the shattering blackrock had somehow been turned into, Truths reverberating with power only the megalith itself could sense!
Vent the force and flames against your rotation like so, I sent into the Commune with Continents at +1, buttressed with Immortal Energy, instantly gaining the planet’s full attention as I did so.
I backed it with lots of math an Immortal creature of Matter would enjoy the logic of.
It could sense the attention of dozens, even scores of Immortals watching this event, but none were taking steps to contain it. The terrible alphathaumic resonances were echoing through Nown’s entire mantle as, instead of dissipating with time and distance, the reverberations of the eruption were actually growing!
Magic and superscience did strange things when used together, after all, and it would have to take desperate steps to deal with this explosion, or it might just entirely collapse into its own hollow core if the shockwaves hit just right and cracked it open!
But the method I had just given it was borrowed from what it had done in my own timeline, only smoother, more elegant… and the Immortal Power needed was already present from the blast sites, where three Immortals Avatars had been blown to atoms and their energies released, claimed, and channeled, prepared to be used for this moment!
The planet reached out and took the imbued energies, mixed so intimately with the explosions and the forces unleashed, and used them to shape the shockwaves that were sweeping over and past it.
It was not a fast effect, as this was a megalith, an Elemental creature of planetary size, thousands of miles across and sextillions of tons in mass. But magic and Immortal Power were bent to converge, like water flowing down conduits that opened of its own will and volition, and came together against the axis of its own rotation.
The magnified forces, instead of reverberating in its mantle and threatening to shake all of Nown apart, were instead expended ‘harmlessly’ against the axis of its rotation, moving the poles of the planet and pushing the equatorial spin onto a new point and center.
This was not without disaster, of course, as fighting the momentum of the whole world was a catastrophic event of the highest magnitude. The seas, especially, sloshed and didn’t want to correct their flows, and thundered in mighty tsunami against the shores of the world as the forces of new tides and rotational forces bent the currents in the depths, while up above the skies howled and churned in apocalyptic storms as the winds, too, had to forcibly realign themselves.
Whole nations and islands were buried under the shivering land, raging seas, and howling winds. The death toll was planetary in scope, as the reverberations of alphathaumic radiation were expended far beyond the original blast site. If the land of Darkmoor was an open wound on the surface of Nown, at least it did not punch clear through the mantle and into the Hollow World below as it threatened to.
But those events the Immortals involved themselves in, as the destruction threatened their own servants and immortal projects… and Immortal Power had been expended, they could feel it rocking the whole of the megalith, so clearly it was fine to wield their own power to counter it.
Temporary expenditures of their strength could not match the power of permanently expended energy easily, but there were many Immortals, only three dead Avatars worth of permanent energy to expend, and so, while the catastrophe would go down in history… there was indeed a history to be written, because the Immortals intervened to save their faithful and the lucky.
Storms were stilled with waves of mighty hands. Waves were redirected, ocean currents grumbled and settled into new courses. The cracking and heaving of the land was a great opportunity to reshape the face of the planet, sinking islands and lifting new ones up, altering the face of continents and allowing quick-thinking Immortals to raise mountains or raze them down as they liked.
The new poles eventually settled out in the oceans now, neither of them over a landmass. This was yet another opportunity, as lands could be brought up where none were before under the cover of the ice, and treated as if they were ‘always there’ by scheming Immortals.
Indeed, the creatures of ice and snow inhabiting the far north and south of the world found themselves mysteriously transported to these new frozen lands that had frozen over remarkably quickly, while other eager Immortals were also going over the lands that were released from the arctic cold, taking care to remove anything which they did not want discovered, and opening up such places for new and exciting developments in the future!
All of that took place over many days, weeks, and months, dragging on into years as ongoing projects for many Immortals… while at the same time, other Immortals took it as a sign that their time here was done, especially when mortals cursed their names and blamed them, rightly or no, for the disaster and its effects, and not stopping them.
I personally blamed them, too, for allowing it to happen. Of course, they didn’t know just how bad things were going to be, but they could have stopped it, chose not to, and allowed it to occur.
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All of that, I shared with Nown as it worked, and I gave the planet Ideas.
A megalith was a creature of the Sphere of Matter, largely of Earth, but given its size typically having a molten core of one type or another. This particular one was hollow, so its molten core was actually a layer between its inner and outer shells, managing the pressure of the differentials and actually forming a dead magic area that nothing mortal was going to pass through easily, with great rivers of lava churning through the depths of the world in slow and endless cycles.
But it could be more, and this was an opportunity to do so. Immortals were leaving, abandoning Projects and peoples, and there was a way for it to expand its own awareness and self. For was not every single living thing upon its surface born of its own soil and dirt, water and air? Did not its atmosphere and magnetic field shield that life and allow it flourish?
Was not everything that lived and died upon its surface naught more than an extension of itself, in its own way?
Its existence in Matter meant Thought was difficult, Time was meaningless, and Energy was slow and turgid, leaving it only able to respond slowly, move even more slowly, and seldom with power or imagination.
But if it extended its awareness up into the world of biology, that infinitesimally tiny layer of life growing on its surface, then it could establish layers of Thought and Energy that could make use of Time, and leverage the power of the independent living things there to defend it… and do so without the Immortals being much aware or really caring where such power came from.
It could take over the entire Druidic movement slowly and completely, separating it from the clerical concerns of the Immortals and making it truly a faith of the Land, of the Nown World, and not merely a specific clerical splinter faith of some nature-oriented Immortals and their concerns.
It would have mortals working for it. The same kind of mortals who had built the basic tools, enhanced and warped by Immortal Power, that had done such damage to it.
Mortals… like me.
Mortals who could rise to Immortality, and throw off their dependency on the world of their birth, treat it as a servant instead of mother and father, and not acknowledge any debt or binding of blood.
Or, a Mortal like me, who sought another path.
I showed it the methods used by Immortals to test their mortal aspirants, that it might look for them in the future and have an idea of what it might want to foil and make sure could not become Immortal, fairly requiring it to take a more active role in its own life and expand its consciousness into the mortal, organic sphere to do so.
I then showed it what I had accomplished.
I was at the mortal limits in real ‘Levels’, but my combined Theurgy had already well surpassed it, as had all my physical and mental capabilities.
I had designed Pyramids more powerful than anything the Sythians had ever put up, unique and powerful and capable of killing Immortals. I had destroyed Entropic Artifacts in opposition. I had founded a kingdom of elves, but accepted other races with them, and my Pyramids’ Domains covered a vast area of Eislas on the Far Shore. I had done likewise with Darkmoor, and turned it in the blink of Nown’s eye into the finest and most harmonious kingdom on its surface.
I had killed not just Immortal Aspirants, many of them gunning for me here, but Immortal Avatars of those behind what had just been done to it.
I had raised whole armies of noble warriors ready to defend the world and its peoples to power, fostering a love of the land and living with it with the inclusion of noble Rangers, and the Forsaken who could rein in the unchecked power of spellcasters.
I had mastered the gammathaumic power of the Radiance, and the betathaumic power of Cryptomancy. I could wield arcane, druidic, and clerical magicks interchangeably, it was all one to me.
What I could not do was break the mortal limits the Immortals had slapped down on mortals, holding mortals back from being able to challenge them, and requiring the Immortals to admit them, gatekeepers who could stifle and stop mortal progress at their own whim, and only allowed their own paths to power.
I had another way.
I wanted to become Eternal, and I was wondering if Nown might not want to help me do so.
I couldn’t do this on the Far Shore. Nown was not awake there, at this time. I’d been born there too late, and by the time the Portal was working again, Nown there had slipped back into the timeless mindflow of a megalith once more. Even the Crimson Cataclysm had not really Awakened it there.
But here, on this side, as an Eternal, I could remain with Nown and see it grow, grow into something it had never considered.
Also, it was fucking infested with goddamn Annelids, and I had to goddamn kill them all!
Nown looked at the slumbering things of Entropy that had wormed their way through its stone and lava, held in sleep only by Immortal power and certainly capable of eating it out of existence.
I was born of the Far Shore, but still born of Nown. The choice was easy to make!
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My conversation with Nown took weeks. It was not that Nown was gaffing me, but it could only react so quickly, and it had a great deal of things it was paying attention to as it fought off a massive blow that could have collapsed its body entirely, destroying the Hollow World within and probably crippling it for eons.
Cirru and I had not been idle in that time, of course.
Entropic Immortals were everywhere, gleefully adding to the chaos, turning mortals against Immortal Patrons, bringing down nations and religions, fomenting civil war, rebellions, riots, assassinations, going after champions with their own pawns, trying to strike from the shadows and blame others so as to intensify the madness that seemed to be sweeping the world.
It was soon known that I had survived the Doom of Darkmoor. Probably seconds after that became known, I was the target of a whole lot of killing attempts and almost a planet-wide campaign of blame was heaped upon my shoulders by almost every religion and cult in a concentrated attempt to make me the enemy of all, with no place to run or hide and every hand turned against me.
Cirru’s infamy for serving an elf grew right along with me, although the dragons had very different views on such matters than mortals needing someone to heap blame for all their misfortunes upon. That I had survived with her was a testament to power, and that I was surviving those attacks upon me with her was, as well.
Also, there was a small problem with the propaganda, and that was Truth.