BECMI Chapter 372 – The Floating World of Delpha
The skyland was a long distance away, at least a thousand miles, and took up a fair chunk of the horizon ahead of us. The only way to judge its scale was to notice the clouds hanging around the mountains on it, approximate size and miles and well, yes, it really was a long way off.
It wasn’t ‘round’, although it was rounded. It looked to be several thousand miles across, and maybe three hundred miles thick, at least from this angle. A literal floating island, although there were definitely living areas on both sides of it.
The rounded edges looked pretty gray and sparse compared to definite green growing things. At first glance, it looked like the leading edges took any incoming storms and disrupted them enough so the shield mountains of the main levels would be enough protection.
“I am not seeing any Airships,” Beta mused from behind me, having Cast Eagle Eyes and looking over everything. “Tons of microstates and random floating landmasses of small size at the fringes.” She pointed to the left side. “Judging by the cloudfall on that side being down, and the other side being up, it looks to be rotating on a regular basis. They have a night and day.”
“I confess to being interested how gravity works through a gravity plane like that, but have the feeling Elementals are at work and it doesn’t have to make physics sense,” I commented.
Both Sims nodded agreement with that. Magic world, why bother with non-magical hydrodynamics? It was already disobeying aerodynamics, air pressure, and reasonable weather. Best to go right to ‘Eh, it works’ and keep right on going.
There was a pressure of something’s gaze passing over us, and on cue, all of us looked over to the left.
It was an Elemental creature of Air, a big one, in the shape of, eh, a wing-shaped jellyfish? Easily a few hundred feet across, so wider than Duum’s wingspan, with some absolutely massive tentacles hanging down below it that were sort of twitching in our direction.
It was also drifting in on an intercept course, seemingly lazily, even though we were doing over a hundred mph.
“Hmmph.” I whipped up my Shards around Dread, and for the second time in a very long time, I absolutely restricted my natural Domain and displayed no visible alterations to my magic.
My Shards were the classic array of patterns and colors as they hissed out, crossing over a mile of distance and slamming into that mass like javelins made of starfire.
The whole side of it erupted in ignited flames, gaseous flesh ignited and consumed in an instant. A half-dozen pale tentacles were blown off the front of it and went whipping away wildly in the wind like they had life of their own.
The creature, its entire frontal area cratered with the impact points of the Shards, veered off and fell away with remarkable speed and prudence, predatory inclinations giving way to feeling like prey about to be harvested.
“We are not to display the goth theme at all, Prime?” Alpha asked calmly, noting my magic.
“No. We cannot be seen to have any relation to my future self at all, I don’t want them recognizing me. I will have to change my appearance to something more classically elven. Duum here is going to have to be in disguise, too.”
“I want to be a noble and primly proper firebird… except they’d probably try to kill me for my feathers!” my Familiar piped up knowingly.
“I was thinking a nastily dangerous roc-like warbird of some kind, sure. Big fierce eyes and frill, cruel beak, some nasty talons.”
“Eh, Mistress, why not just a big griffon, then?” he asked reasonably. “I can, ah, do without the fascination for horseflesh, however.”
“You also realize you’ll have to lose your Hat and Monocle?”
“Perhaps I should go home and wait for you to come back in ten minutes?” he promptly bemoaned that choice. “You know I get stronger if you do, Mistress, so I figure you’ll just come back and poof! I will be fully roc-sized and can look down at Cirru again!” he reasoned.
“While admittedly that does sound hilarious, Cirru might be coming here, too, we just need a decent disguise for her. I am pretty sure there are dragons hereabouts, given how casually Delphans treat them, and given the time we’re going to be spending here tracking Immortals, it’s a good opportunity for her to get more years in.”
“It is indeed unfair if I get bigger than she does. Fun, however!” he considered. “How long are you planning to stay here?”
“Personally? Until they Cast the spell that tears apart the world, and I can catch Thanatos in it. I also want to Truename the bastard emperor who starts the process, and I’ve got to track down at least six other Immortals who might have been mortals on Delpha. I can dart home in between and skip eras if the Sims are handling it. I figure we’ll be here at least a hundred years across over two thousand years.”
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“Mmm, all because Delphaks is messing with us in the future.” He nodded along with that, as did my Sims.
“And because Thanatos sponsors him to Immortality.” Just another reason to kill that bastard. “I can’t kill him back here, but someone isn’t going to like it when He gets offed in the future!” I promised, clenching my fist.
“You have His home plane, Prime?” Alpha asked instantly.
“No, but I will. We’re going to follow His insane arse right though His Descent, find His home plane, and He’s not going to like it when someone comes calling on Him when He’s not prepared for visitors.”
“Indeed.”
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Hours passed in my own time. Two thousand years passed in Delpha.
Cirru joined me after I had constructed my allotment of Sims and placed them around the great skyland that was the Delphan ‘world’.
I had not joined the Delphans too early in their history. They were already on the rise at the time of Darkmoor, and their conquest of the Frier’s ancestors, the Empire of Cirist, was already underway.
Delphan civilization was built on mastery of Air Magic. Wizards were as commonly born as warriors were on less magical worlds. They rose to power by mastering the weather and the winds, building skyships that could sail between the landmasses on the great rivers of wind, and erecting skygates that could take them across the face of the world in flashes of powerful magic, enabling them to cross vast distances in an instant.
The Ciristi Empire that were their rivals were built up on a lower Skyband. The Delphans conquered the copper-skinned, red-haired rivals and thus established their unmatched Empire with the power of their navy, overcoming the numbers and aggressive style of the fire-loving Ciristi peoples.
My Sims folded into both populations easily enough, becoming historians, teachers, sages, and advisors with little trouble. After their identities were established, a Wish to become fully mortal was certainly in their grasp, but they never involved themselves in tumultuous moments, and traded combat and conflict for magical research instead… although if circumstances allowed it, they and I were far from hesitant to make sure certain individuals with more power than moral fiber vanished into the pages of history, their fates unknown.
The two human bloodlines gradually formed the true Delphan Empire, but they never really assimilated. The more energetic and fiery Ciristi people continued to out-number the Delphans over time, but the Delphans held onto power with their magical knowledge, discipline, and elite status, continuing to dominate in number of Overmagi and the power of their navy, as well as their generally finer lifestyle. They did keep the lower orders safe and fed, if not happy at being literally looked down upon by their lords in the sky.
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Dread thrummed in my hand, drawing my attention to one of the Ciristi students behind Caparihano, who was addressing an enthusiastic university crowd of wizard students with his exhortations on the power and majesty of fire, their ancestral arts.
The fellow was rather plain of face, cheering along and goading his fellows to do the same from his position behind the demagogue who had sparked the great ‘debate’ of Air and Fire between Delpha’s wizards.
The Avatar of Thanatos was here, a good friend of the fiery rebel against the Delphan aeromantic domination, planting seeds… and this one would grow to destroy an Empire.
But for today, I knew who He was!
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Immortal Power crackled and split the air. I watched one being divide into two, as one Immortal devoted to peace and harmony split off the parts of Him which interfered with his pursuit of such, and banished the essence away and out of his mind and path.
He didn’t watch it gather essence and power to itself, siphoning at the strength He gained from His own servants through their mutual connection, forming its first Avatar body and immediately departing in fear and hate. She did not know who She was linked to, only that She hated Oroyosam, and would devote Her existence to creating conflict and trouble as an Entropic Immortal who would come to be called Mizanotha.
He would try to create peace with His other Avatars, trying to mend the rift between Ciristi and Delphan, unaware of the greater Entropics at play. She would sabotage him at every turn, rendering His efforts mostly fruitless.
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The proposal of the Great Debate between Air and Fire, to take place with open minds and hearts, intellects over emotion, was a masterful, moving piece of scholarship and earnest entreaty for their understanding and love of magic. It was a magnum opus for Oroyosam, a testament to the ways of peace and a roadmap that could inspire honest diplomats and peacebringers across time and space.
It was the eulogy for an empire about to die, as Thanatos’ latest Avatar already had access to Emperor Delphax the XXII, a spoiled and willful brat of a ruler of an empire three millennia old, and a fervent follower of the Fire.
One year after the scholarly debates started on the natures of Air and Fire magic, he issued an Edict that Fire had won the debate and was the superior Element, making his pronunciation final and the ruling into Law, thereby guaranteeing his eternal status in Delphan history as the one who had settled the conflict forever.
Or so he thought.
Within a week, the first magical duels started between the rival camps.
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The skygates had been ruptured. Out of the Plane of Elemental Air surged a storm so mighty it was warping the whole skyband of the Delphan skyworld. Blues were swirling together, icy winds torn from the neighboring bands were joining the temperate air currents, and the temperature conflicts were creating internal tornadoes and violent lightning storms the likes of which had never been seen before.
The Followers of Fire had no answers for the Worldstorm as it came to devour their world, and could only watch as it finally solved the question forever of which was stronger, the Followers of Air or Fire.
I watched the Delphan Followers of Air depart through the ruptured Skygate, heading first into Elemental Air, then meandering across random worlds until their Immortal Patrons finally brought them to Nown, a different realm in the mortal plane with magic, but not so powerful as the Delphan Skyworld had possessed.
It didn’t matter. There were still hundreds of Overmagi among the survivors, and their magical tradition of Wishcasting and raising their students, friends, and family to power was still intact.