BECMI Chapter 395 – Chalcedony is a Fine Stone
“I literally do not care much if he does or does not. At some point I believe we are going to have to fight, because the Immortals aren’t going to let us get away without fighting someone. At the very least, I am certain the Merchant’s Guild doesn’t want us using the Mists of Infinity and thus showing all the other Remnants that it’s possible to use it to go to other worlds without their permission and skills, and they will take action to protect their monopoly,” I informed Captain Manswor icily.
“Why did you bring up the fact the ancient Followers of Air and Fire are there, then?” The dread on the Omicran officer’s face was quite real. “That news will truly fan the flames of war! Nobody wants them to return!”
“Do you think the agents of the Immortals have not been whispering that into the ears of the people in authority here?” I inquired of him calmly, amused. “What better way to stir up their paranoia? And the fact it is true makes it all the more delicious.
“Of course the rulers know by now. Their advising Clerics are likely all but screaming the news into their ears, I imagine. Invading fleet from the world of the exiles, coming back to conquer and reclaim their homeland after all these millennia! Woe is us! We must kill them before they can act!”
My delivery was not very agitated, but the tone was perfectly on point.
“That will mean my own superiors are likely preparing to fight you,” he judged cautiously. “Even if I go before you as an emissary and vouch for your goodwill, they may well ignore me!” he warned me urgently. For some reason he likely had some deep forebodings of me actually taking an active role in any fighting… which was pretty wise, all things considered.
“That will not be an issue here. I have already spoken with my sister’s disciple, and have been assured that she will be quite wroth with any navy man who dares open fire on us.”
He blinked in surprise. “Your… sister’s disciple?” he asked hesitantly.
“Ah, you might know my sister as Jaderose?” His eyes bulged and his face turned an interesting shade of pink, given he still had the artificially pale complexion. “I believe her disciple is named Chalcedony, and has a spot of influence in your homeland.”
“You, you know Mistress Chalcedony?” he managed to get out in almost a squeak of a voice. “And Grandmistress Jaderose?” He sounded like he was going to strangle himself.
“Of course I do. Actually, I was making a point to stop by Omicra to take care of a little project of Jade’s that needed to wait until the proper time. One thing led to another, I’ve been rather busy, but now is a fine opportunity to put it into action.”
His mouth was trying to work at this news. “I, I should get back to my ship and report this immediately, Lady Edge!” he said urgently.
“Oh, of course. Let’s get your skin back to normal, and you back into your uniform…”
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The Grand Formation of Elemental Alignment.
Jaderose and her own Sims had worked on Omicra’s for a lot of centuries, while Hydrosa and her Sims, including Vitae, had done the same for Iotar. Both had reached the apex of Elementalism and gone on to become Elemental Lords, while Chalcedony and Vitae gained their own souls and succeeded them as powerful Earth and Water wizards of their host nations.
It turned out that opposition to wizards in general and Air and Fire wizards in particular wasn’t quite as strong for Geomancers in a nation of hills and mountains, and Hydromancers in a land so dependent on the sea and its rivers and lakes. Naturally it was impossible to teach the Secret Schools here without the Radiance touching on greater magic, but the basic spells and specializing in the appropriate Element? That was completely possible, sure.
So, my Sims, their Sims, and so forth had simply succeeded one another as the quiet teachers of those Elements in their respective countries, outliving their detractors, and training up the best of the new generation of Wizards, full of civic responsibility and the like.
The problem was that the manafield of this place unabashedly favored air and fire magic. It was simply a part of the skyworld’s nature.
That could, of course, be locally changed, if one had the time, knowledge, and the power. They just didn’t dare to do so until ‘present times’ came around, and my Sims moved from living in history to living in the present.
The Rune of Time had quit warning them of anything untoward a few years ago, once things reached ‘the present’. Naturally that meant Chalcedony and Vitae could finally take a more active hand in things, although they remained circumspect and subtle in deference to the hostility that could flare up so easily as regards wizards meddling with things.
As for Omicra, Jaderose’s face was all over that place. After all, she had been a tireless builder of fortifications, streets, sewer systems, grand buildings and monuments, housing for people and business, the harbor and docks, aqueducts, the works.
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She had overseen thousands of engineers and workers who had made Omicra the most progressive of the Remnant Kingdoms here, shaping the culture while working with its community and proud warrior traditions without overshadowing them.
The great sprawling and very clean harbor of Omicra had a hundred-foot statue of Jaderose in the middle of it, carved by loving citizens after she passed. ‘The Lady of Omicra’ welcomed all ships to the harbor she had designed and helped build, which had helped make Omicra the most successful of the Remnant Kingdoms.
It was really funny what you could gradually mess with over time once you became part of history, and Cast the Rune of Time every day.
Omicra had the best school system, the highest standard of living, and the best architecture of the Remnants, that was certain. The other kingdoms held their hats in their hands and came to Omicra to hire their stone workers and Geomancers for their own projects, which tended to be vainglorious monuments and edifices to their own grandeur, rather than anything useful for their populations.
Of course, success brings pride, and Omicra’s warriors naturally thought they were the best equipped and most suitable to unite the Remnant Kingdoms back into one under their benevolent rulership. While they had never, ever been seriously threatened at home, it turned out that stone magic didn’t make you masters of the seas, and quick alliances between the other powers had always been successful in curtailing the power of Omicra to project its might elsewhere.
Try as it might, Omicra couldn’t overcome both Iotar and Thatallix at the same time, especially with the Merchant’s Guild working against them and profiting marvelously from any conflict, too. On the other hand, all of the other powers knew that trying to invade Omicra was insanity, and taking on its stoneship dreadnoughts in its home waters was also the height of foolishness.
The Grand Formation of Elemental Alignment was pretty simple. The Pyramids and Obelisks involved transformed the disrupted magical field over the skyland continent of Omicra to an Earth bias. This meant the wizards who were born here would have a strong bias to geomancy instead of the historical air or fire, which would even more completely sever their legacy from Delpha.
The similar formation in Iotar would do the same for hydromancy.
However, once both were up, they would resonate, and the effect would encapsulate basically this entire small world and all of the Delphan Remnants, meaning everyone would have that Earth or Water bias…
And the two greatest Schools for such would be in Iotar and Omicra, but they’d be attracting students from the whole world.
Whether it would lead to another Elemental division in magic was debatable, especially with my Sims as the head of the schools, but we’d just have to see.
For now, it meant I had contact with some very powerful members of their societies, and word about that contact was going to proliferate.
I did NOT have such contacts and connections with Thatallix and the Merchant’s Guild, which was going to make them understandably nervous.
What the pirates did is what the pirates did. Did he have the balls to turn on a nation run by thieves and assassins, likely with fairly deep ties to his clans? I doubted it. It wasn’t like the other nations would help when they came hunting for the Free Clans in revenge.
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Captain Manswor asked for a six-hour head start on us, and I obliged him. Really, I had no huge desire to stop in Omicra with the fleet, although one last resupply would have been great. We could do without it if they really wanted to be arseholes.
Or, you know, their families didn’t want a huge windfall in boating supplies sold and all that.
If they got violent, I would apologize to Chalcedony, who would cuff the people in government who were making the knee-jerk judgments and humiliate them so badly they’d retire. Unlike most storybook heroes, I was painfully aware of the importance of both money and authority and my Sims did not ignore the accumulation of both to get things done.
Allegiance Monarchs were supposed to be Monarchs, not retiring patsies, and some people were going to abruptly find out how powerful and influential my former grand-Sim was.
“Lady Edge, we’ve got sails on the horizon, trying to stay as low as they can!” the lookout called down, pointing to the northeast.
I glanced that way. Thatallix vessels would be coming from the south and east. “Interesting. I think our pirate captain got a little original and decided to report our target and goal to the Merchant’s Guild, inspiring a reaction. Lookout, eyes southeast. Sails?” I inquired calmly.
He turned that way, scanned the horizon. “Yes, ma’am! Gray sails!” he called out after a moment.
“So, white sails ahead, between us and Omicra. Gray sails of Thatallix to one flank, mercenary ships of the Merchant’s Guild from Iotar probably chiming in hoping to take us. Why, it’s like we stirred up all three powers with our horrible invasion and they are takings steps together to wipe us out. Whatever shall I do?”
Lightning crackled in a stroke ten miles long. The air churned into a spreading dark cloud, spreading out like a grim dark cloak above us. The wind behind us picked up sharply, and the sails snapped eagerly.
“Sailors of the Armada, it appears we are going to have a spot of excitement today. Our targets will the fleets closing in on us from the north and east, specifically those ships of the mercantile kingdom calling itself the Merchant’s Guild. Their objective is to prevent us from reaching the Mists of Infinity and getting off the world, a secret they’d prefer to keep to themselves.
“Do not worry about the ships ahead of us, they will know better soon enough, if they haven’t figured matters out yet, and I’m sure they will be happy to deal with the opportunistic fellows seeking to hit us from the south.
“Get ready for a bit of a fight. Do not worry about the ships of Iotar. They will not dare to harm us.”
Battle preparations were soon underway, from watering down the decks and sails to setting out ammunition for the ships’ armaments, securing all items and issuing weapons for boarding and ship defense.
I watched and I waited as the black clouds boiled crimson deep inside, and pulsed with power eager to be unleashed and put to the test.
The regular cracks of Thunder breaking over the fleet were neither ominous nor fearsome. They were a beating heart waiting to be unleashed upon those who wanted to stop us from going home!