BECMI Chapter 373 – Fated Meetings
The Followers of Fire fled the Destruction of Delpha through different means, chased by the Curses of wroth Immortals blaming them for the catastrophe. Every single Ciristi alive today would have to die before their wanderings ended, taking over a thousand years to do so, and their numbers would be vastly depleted by then, eschewing even the names of their forebears, the still-proud survivors and remnants now calling themselves the Frier.
Of the Entropic Immortals truly responsible for this travesty, one was in the Imperial Palace laughing as the Worldstorm came in, watching Delphax XXII flee as the emperor ran from the winds come to destroy him. An empire spanning worlds, a magocracy still at the height of its power, if not its culture, destroying itself as He had planned and instigated.
Thanatos didn’t escape. The Pyramid put into place a thousand years before, subtly accumulating enough temporal momentum to just slightly bend events, trapped His Avatar there, drained His Immortal Power, and as He screamed in outrage at whoever was performing this travesty, the focused power of the Worldstorm was drawn directly to Him and tore Him apart.
It would have no real effect on Thanatos, just a blip of lost Immortal Power and some lost memories sacrificed to the Worldstorm, perhaps as a result of an ambush by an Immortal foe.
A magic tore into His mind and away as vivus flared, lost in lightning strong enough to rupture mountains, and another Name was stolen away.
I watched the winds scour the surface of the planet, and then tornadoes spinning in opposite directions wrapped the whole skyworld and tore it apart. Like a giant spindle being twisted in opposite directions, the floating skyworld of Delpha was ripped apart, and only after the intact atmosphere and magnetic poles were shattered did the Worldstorm begin to abate.
One of my Sims was among the entourage of Emperor Delphax XXII, and would follow Him across the worlds to witness the ruin he made of every place he stayed, attacking and destroying distant Delphan outposts in his rage and insane need to prove the eminence of Fire, truly wiping the remnants of his empire from existence.
For his destructive achievements, Thanatos would ironically sponsor him to Entropic Immortality. Delphax would hound the Followers of Fire who had failed him, and the Followers of Air who had bested him, punishing both and causing catastrophes for innocent civilizations just to test His power out on, uncaring of consequences or anything else.
We could only watch and record, unable to interfere, for these were matters of history, and Time would let us change nothing of substance.
It was a history I was determined would not play out on the Other Shore.
But I had his mortal Truename, and with it I could learn all His Immortal Truenames. He was not going to be able to stop me when I moved.
Likewise, He could not keep me out of His home plane. When I found it, it would be His time to die… and I could rip that from His mind as well.
It was then time to go back to the future, my own time, and make certain it happened.
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It was mere days later to some, but a hundred years of investigation, study, occasional item forging, a great deal of magical research, and compiling of history for me. Cirru had spent the majority of her time there as a mostly-white, silver-banded dragon of unique appearance, largely shuffling around the Twins, as Alpha and Beta were called when they chose to go ‘human’. Their names and legends were there as unique wizardesses, but they left no mark on history to speak of, famous only for their style and longevity and their passion for history, never interfering in conflicts and starting none of their own.
That anyone caught, that is.
A hundred years was enough for Cirru to undertake another Dragonsleep, this one two years long, breathing in the monstrously pervasive air magic of the Skyworld on a nameless floating rock out there in the Void. Truly, the place was heavenly for a dragon, and Cirru asked if she could come back and undertake her later dragonsleeps there. I agreed, as it was of no consequence to Time, disturbing nothing.
I stared at the horizon, and the ‘quiet’ volcano beneath which Delphax had sequestered the greatest number of His loyal followers, which He frequently sent out to bedevil the Delphan Empire here on Nown.
I’d seen Delpha at the height of its glory, and what remained here was a quiet shadow of what it had been before. It was still the most powerful nation on this world, and could easily have conquered and subjugated all the natives here.
Indeed, they still had a history of the aggressive among them trying to do just that in the name of magical enlightenment being brought to primitives, but most Delphans had enough of conquest and had just ignored such calls to arms.
The Delphans also hunted the followers of Delphax ruthlessly, but that didn’t mean there weren’t traitors drawn to power, and Delphax well knew how to tempt His people.
“You’ve been quite grim since that trip you took. Getting ready to expect something?” Sama asked cheerfully, happy to be going to war now.
“Three days ago, Brucall’s younger sister Lylsiri vanished from the Imperial Palace in Vinndsvoll, as you know. They think it’s Siricil, and it’s a nice pretext for war.
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“There is a fleet making headway to Qeogur. Aboard it are the Baron of Qeogur and his fiancee, Imperial Princess Lylsiri. Rather remarkable that he managed to pen a threatening letter to King Taravon demanding his capitulation while he was in Vinndsvoll wooing the princess and eloping with her.” I turned my head to look at the airship Horizon Bound above us, props stashed, just keeping easy pace with the windblown fleet beneath it. The sailors down here were torn between admiring it, being intimidated by it, and being resentful of it looking down upon them. “I think it would be a very good idea for you to call the Horizon up there, have it veer off, intercept that ship, and kindly escort it to Aetla, where Brucall can throw a very public wedding for his sister and the erstwhile Baron, and show King Taravon he’s an idiot for believing that farce of a declaration of war.”
Sama looked up at the ship, back at me, and frowned. I glanced to the east, at the foul clouds there that had been poisoning Taravon’s lands, and she pursed her lips.
A minute later, the Horizon announced its escort duty was over with horns, bid the fleet good luck, and fired up its props, heading south at flank speed.
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Dread felt the Immortal Magic at work before we saw them. The combined fleets of Eiscall’s voyage of vengeance and ego-bolstering were skirting widely around a rather massive iceberg on our course when there was motion atop it.
Clambering up the ice were three White dragons of astounding stature, easily the size of Golds. They were clearly visible to the entire advance numbers of the fleet, and when they rose up and spread their wings in challenge to us, a Dragonfear effect larger and more powerful than any that I’d ever beheld blew across the ships with terrifying, primal strength.
The effect on the ships was instant panic. The entire forward line of vessels scrambled in terror to turn their ships back and away from the utterly horrifying sight of those magnificent Whites. The armada’s formation shattered completely.
That was very interesting, because the Immortal Power at work bolstering this Dragonfear was that of Oroyosam, who was ostensibly an Immortal devoted to Peace.
The Dragonfear hit the Scampering Wave, and shattered against Sama’s Warlord effect and Null like brittle glass. The entire crew felt it, like whispers of fear trying to grab at them, but it was held at bay simply by Sama standing there and staring with undisguised contempt at the three dragons that had just messed up the fleet’s progress.
A quick glance behind us made it bloody apparent that the ships following us were hoving to as well, unwilling to advance in the face of the three terrifying dragons.
“What Immortal fuck is pulling this shit off?” Sama asked me directly, thoroughly unamused. The fact our vessel was not changing course naturally attracted the attention of all three dragons, too.
“Oroyosam.” She sent me a glance of disbelief. “The only people who have died are the idiots who jumped overboard in fear and froze to death,” I pointed out.
She grimaced. “Right. An Immortal playing nice, terrifying an entire armada because He doesn’t want us going to Qeogur for some reason?” She thought it over. “He thinks it will lead to war with Delpha. He’s trying to stop a war,” she reasoned out. “In other words, He thinks we’re idiots.”
“Well, at least King Taravon,” I said under my breath, knowing she’d hear.
“Three of them. You’ve got range, you want two of them?” she asked, as if fighting unnaturally large White dragons was today’s warm-up. She put her hands up and bent left, then right as if her spine was a Slinky, clearly totally unimpressed by the dragons, who looked to be making ready to get airborne and swoop down after us, making an example of us.
“Nah. Two of them, one for each of us.”
Cirru popped out of Linejump thirty meters behind the rightmost one, and slammed into its backside in a thunderclap and crackling blur of lightning and blue scales. The White was larger than she was, but not by much, and she had it completely by surprise. The thundering bell of her roar as she smashed it over the edge and toward the ocean waters below rang out over the ocean, and shattered the huge Aura of Dragonfear as the other two dragons whipped their heads around in shock.
“That was stupid of you.”
Both dragons, about to leap after the clawing, writhing ball of static that was Cirru mauling the unprepared White, whipped their heads back down to look at Sama, standing right in front of the rightmost White, Tremble’s flaming length inserted full-length below the heartscale of the wyrm.
Oh, and I was standing there, too, a coruscant sphere of radiance Burning a whole lot of Fires as I touched it to the chest of the middle and largest wyrm.
Sama’s target convulsed as Lightning across the Field, carried by a Linejump from Tremble, punched the charge directly into its heart after instantly crossing a half-mile of open sea for an instant kill… except Mercy was up on Tremble, and all the flaming agony and blackness was just that, not death.
Ditto on the layered Shards turned Orb and administered as a Touch Attack, no saves, lots of Fire for double damage, maxed out, and with Mercy on them as well.
Fires glowed beneath the scales and eyes and erupted out the mouth of the one, blinding light fractals did the same on the other.
We both stepped aside as their legs collapsed, long necks came down, and both wyrms crashed to the surface of the iceberg, completely unconscious.
I tore apart the Immortal magic there with a deft wrenching from Dread, who drank in the power with a sniff for being so little, and these two dragons immediately shrank to half their size.
Tremble withdrew and fell back to blue-black adamantine from Firephasing, a DING!, TING!, echoing across the ocean in triumph, and completely dispelling any lingering effects of the Dragonfear.
Cirru blew up out of the surface of the sea, white-streaked scales still sparking, defying gravity with casual ease as she beat her wings and zipped across the sky back to us, aloft and arrogant and totally domineering.
“Still alive, Mistress, Grandmaster,” she informed us calmly, setting down almost daintily next to us, sniffing at the unconscious White wyrms, now of a size with her. “If all is well, I think I will remain here and relay to these elder fools the words of the Great One about dealing with Immortals.”
First the Sun Dragon had approached her, her unique appearance and abilities (and doubtless a word from the Great One) spurring His interest in recruiting her as a follower.
I had left the decision to her, trusting in her judgment that we wouldn’t come to odds and the things that I had taught her would be used responsibly.
She had sent the Sun Dragon off without a second thought. What had He ever done for her, or her family?
Then the Great One Himself had approached her, interested in her becoming one of His rare Dragonpriests, able to use Divine magic as well as wizardry, albeit from the same spell slots, instead of a whole new Matrix.