BECMI Chapter 370 – Crones at Work
I had these three ageless old biddies, once the ageless beautiful advisors to emperors and generals, on the back foot.
They would have been even more shocked to find themselves similarly unconstrained in front of Sama and Briggs, because they weren’t subject to Law or Chaos, either.
They were effectively Crones, Immortal Creatures, but not Immortals themselves. They had existed before Darkmoor, so their origins had little to do with me… but I was sure that the words that they had spread had contributed to the fouling of the legend of Darkmoor.
Mmmm, I was going to have to do something about that on the Other Shore.
“We cannot tell you of the dealings of Immortals,” began Maebala, seemingly the senior of them as the representative of the Neutral powers.
“That is a lie,” I interrupted her icily. “You fear revealing such things,” I corrected her ruthlessly, and all three of them actually shuddered. I had clearly broken a few thousand years of blind obedience to doctrine, and this discovery had clearly shaken them. “You need not worry. If there are any inquiries, you only need reply that you are unable to contest the mandates laid down upon you, and cannot reveal anything that mortals aren’t meant to know. That has not changed.”
They all considered me, weighing what I had said. Unsurprisingly, it was the Chaotic, Vikenshe, who suddenly grinned and leaned forward. “You are not mortal!” she breathed out. “Nor Immortal! Even as the likes of we have been so gifted…”
“Or cursed?” I replied to that, and watched all their eyes flicker. “Is it time, then? Tools to Immortals, lost and forgotten until it is time to be used again? Condemned to stay in this wretched excuse for a home, never to wander the world and see the life and light and breath of the passing years? Never to see what has become of your descendants? Ah, you don’t even have descendants, that was denied you as well?”
I regarded them with neutral apathy, even as I saw the resentment and regrets long suppressed welling up in their souls. “You sacrificed everything for the Immortals, and they could not even leave you your beauty, could they? A new generation of Immortals, picking you up and dusting you off like old artwork that has gone out of style. None of the ones who made you even using you now, so many thousands of years later. Mortal civilization moved as the world changed, and you are bound to your little oracle in the mountains, cold and frozen and of no importance.
“Are you even aware it has been four thousand years since Iberon fell?” I finished flatly, and this time they couldn’t keep the grimace off their faces. Immortal beings, years flowed by like water, and with nothing to do they basically sat here and dreamed, barely able to keep their own living area clean, their once-great power fading with the ages.
“Four thousand years,” Agnescia whispered, clearly caught up in a memory from very long ago, indeed. “We never thought we would be the Oracles for so long…”
“You have seen everything, but you have missed it all,” I observed knowingly. “From Oracles to Crones now, just a step above Hags. Will you sink as low as they when the Immortals currently having fun with you finally tire of their old toys and let you fall into obscurity again?” I stepped forward and lowered my voice. “Or will you decide that it is time you had your own voice, too, and a Patron that might just value you more than the Immortals?”
They glanced at one another, eyes narrowed, aware they were on dangerous ground now. “Whom do you speak of, elf?” Maebala said harshly, her long nose elevated. “Your pretty little tree lord is of no importance to any save His own!”
“I am no follower of Corellin, His trees are merely a useful tool to unite my people and hold their reverence to the Land in my eyes.” I tapped Dread upon the stone floor, the sound ringing like a bell. “I speak of Nown, as the Immortals call this world, this living megalith, that we dwell upon!
“I speak of the Land, and not some puerile interpretation of Nature as decided by some feckless Druid fed nonsense by a Neutral Immortal!
“The Land, at least, never forgets its own!”
“Why would the Land take notice of us?” Vikenshe cackled knowingly, her long white hair swirling about her furiously. “We have done nothing to earn its grace or attention in the slightest! Immortal words pandered to mortal men has ever been our lot, elfin!” she hissed at me.
“It will notice you because I am here to draw attention to you, and subverting a tool of the Immortals who treat it as scenery to be abused is precisely something it should like to do,” I stated with utter confidence, my cold demeanor in utter contrast to hers. “And you, I imagine, have a few thousand years of spite and scorn stored up that you would like to vent, as well as secrets of history lost to all others that you would like to finally be able to release, and see that the arrogant finally get everything that is coming to them!
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“I doubt there is anyone else alive who understands being denied justice and just how much it completely and utterly grates on the soul as do the three of you!”
They all glared at me, but it was so, so true, and I could see it in their eyes!
“Giving voice to the secrets of the Immortals is a good way to be destroyed forever,” Agnescia finally uttered softly.
“If any of you fear dying after all this time, I am severely overestimating your resentment of those who abandoned you, and the ones who have picked you up and treat you like dishrags, to be thrown away when no longer needed. I doubt you can even kill yourselves if you wanted to.” Their eyes all dipped tellingly for the same second...
“At the very least, I could give you the tools to make the Immortals so angry they would destroy you. The fate of your souls, however, I cannot speak for.” I paused significantly. “The Land, however, could. I believe Reincarnation before you automatically Resurrect at the dawn would free you from your Oracle status, if backed by sufficient power…”
Maedala led the others in leaning forward instantly. “What would you have us do, elfin?” she rasped without an ounce of regret in her voice. They certainly had no loyalty to the current Immortals who were using them, it seemed!
“First of all, tell me what Immortals are involved with you right now. The visions and messages you have been sending have conflicting themes. You are definitely aware of multiple powers moving, some for ill, some for not. I would know who.”
“Of Chaos, that powers that be making moves here in the North be the ones called Gulguz, a Lord of Energy what fancies himself Lord of Ice and Fire, and Delphax, the explosive fool of Entropy who wants only to bring down all that is of Delpha, by any means that is possible,” Vikenshe spat, and still looked startled that she’d managed to say anything. “’Twas Gulguz who lured Pearl into acting, but ye’ve killed the Moon Dragon, so doubtless ye know that.”
Maedala’s dark eyes wavered, then firmed as she made her own choice. “Tenya, once the battle maiden of Siricil’s three tribes and that empire’s favorite goddess, wants war. She cares not how or why it happens, who is buried or who rises, certain that the result be worth the expense in lives and materials, making a stronger and better people out of whoever wins! She goads Siricil for war, and it must come…” she trailed off with bitter resignation.
Surprise, surprise… I was definitely going to have to tell Sama that.
“The Immortal of Law most directly involved with Eislas is Oroyosam, the one who preaches Peace above all things,” sighed Agnescia at the last. “He is a noble, dogmatic, unimaginative fool, who thinks talk and negotiation solve all conflicts.”
Given some of the shit that Delpha was involved in, He should have cleaned up His own house before messing in ours, too.
“The Immortals of the Urtho tribes are also perturbed that your allies managed to convert all of the Frokki Freeholds and so many of the barbarian tribes away from them with such breathtaking speeds. Grimr has been taking particular note of the Eismoor secrets of steel, while Sonr Nalljar is incensed that you eliminated one of the great strongholds of His faith in Newport.”
Eh, throw them a bone. “You can earn some respect from Grimnr with a tidbit, and help out the North by stirring up problems elsewhere. The Master of the Nomads in the north and west of Sind is nominally a hidden Avatar of Sonr.”
All three Crones stared at me for a moment, and then began cackling low in gleeful anticipation. “Ah, so far beyond our remit, we never thought to look to such distances! But what are such miles to an Immortal?” Maebala chortled under her breath, reading how that could go very badly for the Master, indeed.
“Grimnr is a fool who has kept His people at the same level of advancement and lack of strength for nigh-on five thousand years. His people lived right next to Darkmoor, and yet retain no benefits of that culture, by His own remit. He saved some of them, and cursed them to live their ancestor’s lives in doing so,” I spat acidly. It was something that was not happening the same way on the Other Shore, I was making certain of that.
They looked absolutely scandalized that I would insult an Immortal directly that way, especially one of such power as Grimr, whose faith was little changed since their own day. His name was known to them… and His Ayenser Pantheon had raised itself under their eyes afterwards, Immortal after Immortal coming to serve Him!
I, too, had saved some of His people on the Other Shore. Those who had followed my words had lived, and those who hadn’t… well, most of those who had survived were now down in the Hollow World. It would nominally take thousands of years for them to rebuild. They were ripe for being lured from Grimr’s service simply by pointing out how many of their kin He had let die… and how many I had saved.
I had Mercy on my side, and grim ol’ One-Eye did not.
Delphax and Tenya. It appeared I was going to have to take direct action against those two. Happily, I could do so first by taking indirect action.
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-1500 years Before Crowning…
I materialized onto the hills of Cronveigh, where the reports of my Sims indicated that a mortal woman called Mauruva had become a warlord, slave revolt leader against the Hellenic Empire, and finally a queen and ruler of a people not her own purely by the exercise of her battle strength, cunning, and skill.
Her tomb in the future was considered a holy site of Tenya, the site of her mortal death and remains, her Church and the Teuthonic Order having searched for it for years.
The Immortal had been kind enough to include some manner of Immortal Relic within that was responsible for empowering the Teuthonic airfleet. It gave the Siricilans the potential to contest the skies with the Delphan navy, although they were at least a century from having the magical power and economy necessary to build a fleet sufficient to do so.
I was going to find this mortal woman. I was going to study her. And while she was still mortal, I was going to discern her Truename, lock it in before she became an Immortal, and I was going to have power over her.
Then, then I was going to take it into the future, I was going to give it to Sama, and Sama was going to kill the shit out of that bitch of a consort to Emperor Magni.
All’s fair in love and war, after all…