BECMI Chapter 385 – Atop the Clouds
Returning to the cloud island was a non-event. Nobody seemed to notice us coming in on the misting mass of solid cloudstuff, the winds slowing and merging into the slow breezes around the cloud island as the severed chunk nestled back up against the main mass.
Altering Rock to Mud to its Air-based version, Casting it, and then Dispelling the spell effect was enough to bind the severed mass back into the greater whole. From there it was just a matter of traversing the cloud to her clan’s home.
The cloud had a flat top and nothing on the bottom, a proper cloud island, but was still immense, a good twenty miles across. The vegetation growing upon it was likewise huge in size, intense magic scaling it up to be suitable for the Thunderborn, so much that even stalks of grassy fields rose up higher than Duum’s head afoot, and he could perch at full size on tree branches towering a thousand feet above the misty soil of solid cloudstuff beneath the rotting leaves larger than wall paneling.
Invisible and scentless, I glided along atop Duum as he followed Liisianali through gardens whose single fruits could have fed a hundred men, both of us commenting silently on the incredible and magical fecundity to places that giants seemed to bring to them. The goats and sheep and cattle we saw? Twice as tall as those found on the Eyeland, with the mass of elephants!
Our Thunderborn giantess drifter was looking around with increasing unease, but not calling out, plainly growing more anxious as she saw none of her kin. Little meditation glades, ornate pools, serenity ponds, towering ornamental stone pagodas and little plazas only a thousand feet across… none of her family were visible.
As we closed to within a mile of the great central mansion, however, we could hear the rumbling voices of giants raised in laughter and delight, enough to bring Liisianali to slow halt, clutching her fists at her sides.
“I have been missing for at least three days, and they are throwing a feast?” Her voice trembled in shock, outrage, and distress at the idea that they might actually be celebrating her being gone.
“It’s a symptom of minds being played with. They are overacting in accordance with the magic, trying to do something so outrageous their conscious minds instinctively rebel and can snap the magic working on them.” I had my spells ready for her as I Whispered the words, totally audible to her and only her. “Let’s investigate.”
With her strides over ten yards long, it didn’t take too long to make it up to the front door of a proper Delphan-style mansion, built with cleanly carved stones of white jade, molded and sculpted by masters who knew their craft and delighted in both artistry and strength. Great doors made from some of the colossal trees were thrown open, and Liisianali barged into the main hall with force and pride, coming to a halt before a massive table seating a score more Thunderborn giants.
The women were of a size with her, the men were even taller. Gargantuan white-furred, black-maned lions coiled around their feet like housecats, prowling for scraps. They were all laughing and feasting on grapes the size of basketballs, steaks large enough to satisfy a regiment, loaves of bread large enough to serve as weapons, and goblets of wines in radiant hues holding nigh a barrel’s worth of liquor within them.
All eyes turned on her as she crashed into the place and stopped, staring at them in hurt suspicion and disbelief.
“Father!” she called out, staring at him as they looked blankly back at her, as if shocked to find her still alive. “What are you doing?!” she demanded.
“Daughter! My Liisianali!” The huge chieftain, easily topping seventy feet, rose up suddenly, looking utterly baffled at her for a moment. “Did you, did you return with your guests?” he suddenly asked hopefully, his hand closing around a fork that would do easy service as a long trident for a human warrior.
“Guests?” Liisianali repeated, staring at him and his twisted expression. “Why would I have guests?” she asked, feigning confusion with remarkable ability. “Why have you all started a feast without me?”
All of the giants looked confused, and shuddering. “We, we were told you would be bringing the main course!” her father replied, something dark and unwholesome in his face and tone. “Where is the rare meat?” he pressed her eagerly, and all the faces of the giants began to darken as they rose.
Okay, that was enough.
The Spellflare lashed out as I popped into visibility, standing on Liisianali’s shoulder. Arcs of wild magic tied to Argent magic followed the bolt of twisting, magic-rending force as it slammed right into the chieftain’s face, and detonated there.
For just a second, everyone could see the fiendish face backlighting the chieftain’s with malice and dark hunger, just before its eyes widened and the magic came for it.
The detonation was blinding and powerful, drawing a howl of combined mental and physical pain from the colossal giant chief. However, none of the others noticed it, because the Chains reaving off the Spellflare hit them in crisscrossing flashes of magic-rending power, and more shadowy images howled and died as the interior of the feasthall exploded in pyrotechnics and eruptions of force. The lions, at least, had the good sense to immediately flee out the secondary chambers from the explosive blasts that lit the place up so savagely and loudly.
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Eh, 10d6 damage to each of them, tops. Not much worse than getting their ears clapped, or something.
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Ah, if only I could clap some other ears. Novel Bind and other sites are scraping my stories (and others!) without permission again.
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Still, the blow to their psyches seemed to be impressive. Titanic ivory-skinned giants in fine fabrics and jewels staggered like drunkards, their heads smoking, reeling and falling as their eyes turned up, and they fell to the ground with crashing impacts that overturned giant chairs and tossed more than a few goblets in hand around, with a couple ending up face-down in their own food.
Liisianali stared at the suddenly still tableau, turning her head to look at me in both astonishment and wariness.
“Alignment change magic combined with a Suggestion spell. Likely it would have been permanent without me acting,” I informed her coldly. “They are fine, just knocked unconscious as their true selves throw out the magic imposed on their minds. The light show was just theatrics.”
I remained hovering in mid-air as she moved quickly to check the nearest two giants, then rushed over to her father, who was sprawled on the floor out cold, the sinister expression on his face vanished and replaced by a wise regality that looked far more natural to him.
“They, they will be fine,” she breathed out as I looked on calmly. She seemed to come to a decision, and snatched a purse off the belt of her father, hurrying back to me and holding it out for me. I eyed the bushel-sized thing bulging with metal, and my Disk spun out of my Masspack to form a surface for her to drop it on.
“I will tell them what has happened, but it would perhaps be best if you were not here when they awoke… just in case.” Liisianali’s eyes glanced skywards tellingly, and I realized she was probably right. If I stuck around, the twat might just decide to reinstate the magic… not that the breaking of an Immortal spell hadn’t hopefully alerted Delphax’s rivals that something had gone on here.
Leaving was likely a good idea. Their mental states should still be frazzled, and even though I was the target of Delphax, it was because of me and mine that they’d been drawn into this mess.
Easier to depart after freeing them and spare everyone a blame-game.
“Very well. I will also mention that the Eyeland where the giant beholders dwelled? It is clear of them now. You might want to expand to that island.”
“What? The Eye Tyrants are dead?” she repeated in shock. “How?!”
“I killed them all. Farewell, Liisianali Thunderborn. Keep your heart true, and great things will come to you!” I gave her a solemn wave with Dread, then turned as my Wings flared out, full of bloody stars and ghostly moons, and swept back for Duum outside the main doors.
Wasn’t going to risk my Bat in close combat with a bunch of oversized Cloud Jotuns, I was not!
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Getting back to the fleet was simplicity. The doorframe I’d placed against the captain’s cabin was also a Teleport Focus for me. With Duum shrunken down to my shoulder, it literally glowed and I walked on out of it without incidence.
Calls rang out promptly that I was back, eyes on the bulging sack riding on the Disk beside me.
I took a look around, and zeroed in on the great cloud ahead of us, dozens of miles tall and wide… and with a great glowing tower perched on the top of it.
“That looks interesting, Captain.” The doorframe glowed a different starfield hue behind me, then opened up onto my Sanctum, a space behind it that wasn’t there if I didn’t want it to be. I waved the Disk with the stuff atop it inside, and it sealed shut with a hiss and fading of light, no need to get the crew involved in whatever was in the thing, I could test it out later.
“Ah, Lady Edge!” he greeted me warmly. “How did events go?”
“The Twat throwing storms at us mind-raped a bunch of noble cloud giants, turning them into mortal-eating brutes we were supposed to fight and flee from, leaving them enslaved to His insanity.
“I broke the mind-reaming and they will recover.” I stared at the cloud ahead as he contemplated that fate I’d helped them avoid. “Good weather the whole way, I gather…”
“Yes, remarkably so. There were threats to the flanks, but they either rolled off in another direction or dissipated.” He was studying the tower we were coming in toward, the area about it another cloud island, but this one almost park-like, with carefully manicured greens and walkways covering about ten square miles, clearly artificial, clearly maintained through magic to a pristine state.
“I may have the scale wrong, but that looks larger than human as well,” he said softly.
“It’s a thousand feet tall, and built like a ten-story lighthouse. The math says you are correct.”
“Ah,” was all he had to say to that, picturing how tall the resident was likely to be. “A… Titan?” he asked carefully.
“Won’t know until we get there, and I don’t think anyone’s outside. We are definitely inside his Domain, however. The way those storms dissipated and were diverted? That’s because of whoever lives in there, and I think I know who it is.”
Why Venton had moved His tower here was strange… but that all depended on how long ago He had done it.