BECMI Chapter 332 – New Immortals, New Eternal
“Did you actually plan all this, Lady Edge?” Master Lalo asked quietly, calmly basking in the cool serenity of my thoughts in the Markspace. He could sense the seething readiness below that harmony, ready to erupt into furious thought at levels he couldn’t comprehend in the past, and still couldn’t now… but he knew he could build to those levels now!
“I had Hope, and so I made plans if they came to pass,” I confirmed for him, turning my eyes to Emeril. “The captain’s Ascension was almost a sure thing, something similar happened on the Far Shore. Yours was a possibility that came about when we slew the Avatars of Nifl and Thanatos with the Doom, and the additional Immortal Power was fed through the Inn as it dispersed.
“Some would say you are both crippled, tied to the Inn and the Core as you are now. I say that you are grounded and invested, and those Immortals not tied to this world have no idea you are here.”
Both men nodded grimly. While that cost them exposure to Immortal society, that was something that could be fixed… with time!
“I can feel the Immortal Power running through me… and through the Core,” Captain Emeril affirmed. “I can tap the power of the Core to rebuild my power quickly, as I imagine you can the Portal, Master Lalo?”
Our host looked in the direction of the Portal, feeling his ties to it, and nodded slowly. “The Portal is truly the anchor of the Inn, spinning temporal energy into reality over and over. While here, I can tap it far more easily than I could without it…” His eyes widened slightly. “I could leave the Inn!…” he gasped in realization.
“You are tied to the Domains of Hospitality and Community by your own Faith and practices,” I observed of him calmly. “This is your home plane. We can all sense it growing slowly around us as you consolidate and understand your power. In time, I believe this place will be the legendary Inn that connects to all other such places, and you will be able to open its doors and be able to enter any hostel, tavern, inn, eatery, or traveler’s lodge that exists across multiple planes and worlds.
“Any such place will be friendly to you, but I imagine outside such walls will be neutral at most, and wild and barren places will be hostile to you. Although you are of Time, you have chosen Domains with your heart, not a Sphere of attunement.”
Both men dipped their heads in agreement. “For better or worse, I am bound to technology,” Captain Emeril agreed quietly, sensing his own links and Domains. “Technology and… Exploration?” he smiled both proudly and wryly, something of an irony given how tightly he was bound to the Core and the remains of the Barhund.
“Space is not the final frontier,” I told him seriously. “You took the Barhund out to the frontier to explore strange and new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no one had gone before!” He even straightened fractionally at the sheer Hope in such audacious words!
“Your mission has not changed, Captain Emeril. It has only grown. The multiverse is now open to you, not merely space! The new Federation that you grow now will cross planes and dimensions, not merely the stars!”
His eyes were shining as the future opened up before him. He was and had always been an explorer in his heart, be it from star to star or across the world, unearthing history, meeting new civilizations, hunting down the truths of existence… all with a tenacity that had eventually annoyed the Immortals who wanted certain things on their Petri dish of a magical world to stay buried.
“How do we approach this?” he asked reasonably.
“We have to grow you both strong enough to form other Avatars,” I replied earnestly. “Those are the ones you will use to deal with Immortal society, and learn what you need to get by there. Unlike them, you are both still natives of this world, which gives you unique advantages. Likely nobody will truly realize it, since they are all bound to their own home planes regardless of other matters.
“Being able to tap the well of Immortal knowledge and Patronage will benefit you, even if your own plans and Projects slide under the radar.”
Both men agreed quietly. “What specific things shall we begin with?” Master Lalo asked gravely. “I can feel the well-wishes and words of my people, although it is hard to concentrate on them. Clearly I will need practice in this matter of managing a religion…”
“You have the ability to choose who will be your Clerics, those you grant Divine magic to,” I told both of them. “Even if they have no magical ability, you are Immortals. If you want them to be recipients of the power of Faith, they can be. Master Lalo, there are many among those who follow you who have no true harmony with ki, but are still wise and devoted.
“From them, you will draw your first Priests of the Immortal Innkeeper. The doctrine is already in place among your cooks and students. It remains merely to spread it to others.
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“You will have to decide on different names to be known among mortals and Immortals, with only your Marked knowing the truth. Once you can make another Avatar, you might well have two completely separate careers that only the two of you actually know about. Plan well.”
Both men nodded as I turned to Captain Emeril. “El, on the other Shore, it was Gabriel Encheliff who Ascended during the Doom, his cyber transfer protocols supercharged by the Immortal energies of the blast and vaulting him into Immortality. He eventually became Gaebrel, the patron Immortal of my tribe of the elves… elves who are descended from the Mealyn tribes of Darkmoor who spurned any aid and offer of immigration, choosing to run and hide and rely on themselves.
“I do not think it takes much imagination for you to understand the Mealyn here were devastated by the explosion. Most of their elders perished during the cataclysm saving the lives of the younger generation. If you care to take them under your wing and use them wisely, they can grow into a formidable force that dominates the underground.”
I didn’t have a lot of mercy for them, personally. They were xenophobic arseholes with judgmental chips on their shoulders who’d refused our goodwill purely on racial grounds of distrust.
But… they didn’t have any Patron Immortal. That meant something, and the biggest thing it meant was that they could change over time.
The Mealyn were now as gone from the world as the Ceruil. Something better could take their place… but Immortals were already at work revising and expanding upon the work they’d done to give the nifloids living spaces, and all those areas I’d sealed off had miraculously opened up again as the earthquakes shook and the earth split and Immortals would not be denied their fun.
Many of those tunnels were once again directly below the Rings of Fire, where Darkmoor had been and the Bleaklands were supposed to have been. But… there was no fast-reproducing pet race down there to occupy them, as the remnants of the Beastmen were now safely ensconced in the Hollow World, where there was no genocidal elfin and her army hunting them down to eliminate them from becoming the threat they would be in the future.
But there were elves down there, elves who weren’t going to have any real competition unless some was made out of nowhere, or another Immortal vied to corrupt them!
And I definitely wasn’t going to allow the Radiance to mutate their children and beget a whole race of twisted elves or the like down there.
I flicked up a Holo of the area under the Rings of Fire, noting the current location of the tribes, miles deep and under the lava rings, and heading slowly deeper. While they had entered at different locations, the different branches of the Mealyn had found one another across the years, but they didn’t remain together for the simple problem of resources.
“I can certainly act as their Patron and turn them to a different path,” Captain Emeril agreed, appreciating the irony of the situation. The elves had been very opposed to the technology the Greens brought with them from the Federation, and having one of them become their Patron was basically a stiff finger raised in the direction of their arsehole forebears. “I trust there are instruments I can use along this path?”
I nodded once. “The greatest thing that will help their survival is gaining access to Healing magic. They don’t have an elven homeland, so they cannot learn Halcyon magic as it stands right now. They will have to build and develop an elven homeland under the ground to access Halcyon magic… or I can deliver to you enough soul crystals to endow as many Clerics among them as you like, taken from across the pond.”
“I have the feeling not deviating from the history of the Far Shore where we don’t have to would be a good idea,” he nodded thoughtfully. “Very well, I can arrange these matters.”
“I also have a surprise for you.” His burning eyes in his emerald-tinted skin glittered once. “I can bring Green survivors, those who were never released from cryosleep, across from the Far Shore and start a new colony again, if you so desire. I have verified that not a single one of them has a living temporal counterpart, so the swap can be made easily. They can join Jorg in the Hollow World, or they can be situated somewhere else, even another world.
“I would prefer that they end up in this time. The Immortals are already disgruntled that there are survivors, but feel they have been contained in the Hollow World and your troublesome technology can be slowly eliminated in favor of pseudo-magic. They aren’t going to take steps to wipe out more Greens if more suddenly turn up, unlike what might happen on the Far Shore.
“The last of them were supposed to perish in the Crimson Cataclysm’s eruption as the Core of All Magic was empowered. The Immortals responsible weren’t exactly checking up on a bunch of aliens trapped in cryostasis, and I was able to remove them from under their noses. There are 202 of them left, the very last of the surviving Greens of the Far Shore.”
Captain Emeril sighed deeply. “Well, I thank you on behalf of them and my counterpart over there. You have truly done more to save the members of my crew in two timelines than could ever be expected.”
“It was appropriate.” I turned my head slightly. “Ah, and it is time for our first lessons.”
Both men perked up. “Lessons?” Master Lalo asked, interested.
“The sun is about to rise. Follow me to the surface.”
I snapped my fingers, and Teleported to the top of Castle Doomrose’s central tower.
Thirty seconds later both of them figured out what to do and how to do it, and popped in next to me in quiet washes of Immortal Power emulating magic.
Both of them had long been adherents of the Salute to Aru, and it was considered one of the core components of the Innkeeper Philosophy for the Order of Hospitality. Up before the dawn, salute the new day, and work towards a better one.
They turned toward the brightening false dawn in the East with curious expressions on their faces, not knowing exactly what and why they were doing this. “Surely this is not so important a benefit, given our current status?” Captain Emeril had to ask.
“Patience.” They both politely fell into silence as the moment approached, and then they recited the words with me, as they had lead others in doing so, our Salute to Aru and the future ringing out over the flaming rings of lava and black fangs of the mountains that circled Castle Doomrose.
“BEHOLD THE NEW DAY!” my voice rose as the Salute finished, and we did.
Oh, how we did.