BECMI Chapter 404 – From Mists to Steam
I had access to X’s, so I wasn’t worried about getting us all home. Conversely, the notes and books recovered from the Merchant’s Guild had indicated that an illusion spell, reshaping the uncertain reality here into a bridge and link across realities, was the key to turning the Mists of Infinity into a great Portal to elsewhere.
Returning here similarly required a Gate spell to forge a connection to the Mists from elsewhere, and then the Illusion spell to reform the link back to home, it seemed.
Of course, spells at Valence X or Immortal Power could also do the work, or even a custom spell at IX… which also was located in a set of spellbooks fetched off one of the Merchant Guild’s powerful mages whose head I was able to interrogate.
Thinking others would not have the spell after Chalcedony and Vitae had lived here for a couple millennia was rather dumb of them, believing they were so clever and had outmaneuvered the two most powerful spellcasters of the Remnants for so long. Perhaps they would have been really demoralized to learn Hydrosa was the actual inventor of their custom spell over a thousand years ago, and had just never passed it on among the Aquaria’s magi because she didn’t want them to be stumbling into hostile alien cultures, a reservation the overeager and Immortal-sponsored Merchant’s Guild didn’t have as their Immortal Aspirant founder stole the spell and made his Immortality on it.
Having an Immortal handy to make sure enemies didn’t track you back to your homeworld was a decent trump that Hydrosa and Jaderose weren’t going to equal, and they were plenty willing to let the Guild do it for them.
But now that it was the present, well, things could certainly change for all nations concerned as to the relationship and interplanetary trade going forward. The Guild was going to have an interesting time of it when Omicra and Iotar, prompted by their wizards, started bypassing them, and it was revealed just how much the Guild was responsible for the cold war amongst themselves.
Neutrals and the greedy, getting what was coming to them.
----
The spiraling field of the Mists shrouded the Pole, seemingly leading off into the stars and empty space. The combined armada behind me was drawn up unusually tightly and in good order, sails ready to come up… and everyone, including the surprised Free Clans, clad warmly for what would be a subarctic environment when we arrived.
Thankfully, the Free Clans had just come into a rather large supply of fine fur clothing, which they took to unpacking and using with great glee. Seeing formerly shirtless tropical islander sailors running around in cloaks and fur coats worth more than a year’s pay was quite amusing, I had to admit.
Open the Mists at IX, since we were certainly being watched at this point. As it finished, and the Mists began to sparkle and swirl and the waters seemed to rise and recede into the infinite distance, Control Weather surged.
“Sails up!” With hearty cries, the white cloths surged up at all speed, and the ships began to carry forward. “To home, and the world of Nown!”
Cheers rose up, oars dipped on longships to help race ahead, and the armada dashed for the opening between worlds, driven by a very stiff wind, indeed.
The Scampering Wave was the first to enter, naturally, my will firm upon the road as I pictured the end destination with crystalline clarity. Around the ships, skulls began to materialize, ghostly spirits in the garb of sailors and marines appearing out of the ether. They gathered together in formations, clearly escorting us onward, and more than a few sailors called out in disbelief and amazement when they recognized fallen comrades among those flying between us.
Even the Free Clans were staring as they saw those they knew to be dead flying alongside us on the sea of starry mists, escorting them to a new life and world, sometimes even nodding to kin or loved ones they might have recognized.
Palgermas looked a bit nonplussed, because he had three ghostly maidens with him on the deck, all in proper piratish attire, all standing with him as he piloted the Haughty Gift onwards and looked towards a new world with him. His first mate looked plenty amused, too, standing next to the one that looked to be her mother with a wide smile upon her face as we sailed on.
I smelled a familiar brine before I heard the waves, I heard the waves before I saw anything, and I saw a clouded light before I felt the mists blue and give way to water. The spirits around faded into a sudden fog, which was very dark for a key moment, and then peeled away as we surged forth into leaping seas.
The fresh, biting air of salty waters blew past us as the Scampering Wave surged out of a wall of ethereal fog.
Ten miles ahead of us was a familiar volcano belching out dark gray poison, squat and gray and… I could see the red lava of magma coming from its peak now from here.
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
The cloud of Immortal influence and power around us peeled away and vanished with the fog. I looked back as ship after ship came out of the fog behind us and tore through the seas under full sail, making for our former target once more.
A target that seemed to have undergone some tough times.
We were home, and what Immortal games were playing seemed to have finished. At least, something else was going on.
-This is Edge, back from the Remnant World of Delpha, of all places. Most of the armada is with me, largely intact, and actually bearing quite a lot of plunder. We are coming up on Delphax’s volcano with full sails. What’s our situation?- I /sent out into Markspace, the fact letting them know I wasn’t under direct observation.
A cackling laugh of greeting washed past me. -You’re a bit late, Edge! If you’re heavy with loot, alter course back to home. All that’s left is the last looting of the city.-
------
Sama looked out over the cavernous entry to the underground city of Delphaxia, the illusions that once masked it quite riven.
The underground harbor was quite busy at the moment, crammed with Qeogur hulls being packed full of the belongings of the city and some civilian refugees. Skilled seamen were navigating the tight confines as they loaded up and headed out back for their own island home only twenty miles away.
-You must be coming in from the west, or you’d see the volcano had blown out its east side and is pouring down to the sea. Delphax tried to blow the entire thing up in a snitfit, but we redirected the explosion out the dawn side and actually saved much of the city. They kind of lost all morale when they realized their Immortal Patron had just tried to kill them all, and failed. Quite a few ran into the lava flows coming this way through the city in despair.-
-Issuing orders to turn around. Back to Seacall? Oh, and I’ve got some rather piratical clans hoping to emigrate here from Delpha, looking for a new world and some actually livable lands for themselves. The islands they come from had fishing, nice beaches, and not much else to live on.-
-Is the plunder yours or Seacall’s?- Briggs /asked reasonably, a hint in there.
-There was some discussion over this in our final meeting. It seems even the more loyal seamen believe that their plunder has been their wages for the last month or two, and believe it all belongs to them, King Taravon can keep his wages for them. Ah, how long has passed here?-
-Three days is all,- Briggs /said. -I brought in three airships to load up the good stuff and what few Good people we found, including a good number of enslaved beings and others awaiting sacrifice.
-You’ve got immigrants and plunder to unload? Set course for the new settlement at Eiscrofton. I’ll get the construction crews to start putting together the settlement properly and redirect some of the Moorian settlers elsewhere. Numbers?-
-About three thousand with the women and children. Approximately a thousand households. Delphan-blooded,- Edge /informed them. The Free Clans ships were pretty loaded down at the moment.
-Potential spellcasters and Forsaken. A potent combination,- Sama /commented, her heavens-blue eyes glowing. In real time, she was continually shouting orders with Warlord’s Voice, managing the traffic going in and out with the lash of her tongue, while Briggs was organizing the looting and evacuation of refugees, all of the fighting having largely stopped.
It had probably helped that the Priest-King and Mage-Queen of the city, two liches of Overmagus status sworn to Delphax, had died rather explosively when she and Briggs had cut through their hordes of Summoned creatures and the Fiends Delphax had dispatched to protect the two, ripped through their protective spells, and put them to vivus with incredible speed and brutality.
Sama had enjoyed that their astonishment at their fate was absolutely complete when some of the native non-Delphan barbarians hewed them down with a big Hammer and a Sword, instead of dying nobly in arcane fires or somesuch hogwash, then coming back because their Phylacteries would let them revive in other bodies.
Vivus ate the shadows of their souls, and that was that.
Their True Deaths had spurred Delphax to try to blow the volcano, but Firerose had circumvented His machinations a long time ago, and the eruption, instead of leveling the city and filling it with a super-heated pyroclasmic Hell, had blown out the opposite side of the island and drained the force away to nothing more than a deafening explosion and earthquake here.
Sama was absolutely sure Delphax was angry, but that was bloody fine. It was time for the twat to die, regardless. The absolute destruction of His greatest center of power on Nown was a cutting strike to His position and power He had very much intended not to happen, but here it was.
Let Him wallow in it. They had a list of Immortals who should be wiped, and He was right on top of it.
That damn bitch Tenya actually helping Him try to start the war with the Font of Time, now, that was unforgivable, too. She was of Time and supposed to be working against Entropy, not helping it along!
And that fucking peacenik Oroyosam did nothing, not even warning other Immortals to intervene, as that ‘might create more conflict between Immortals’, which was far more important than lots of hapless mortals dying.
Arseholes, the fucking lot of them!
That fucking Font was now packed up in a nihilor box and awaiting Immortal Power perma-drain courtesy of Edge. She would use it to enhance one of the Pyramids that protected the major towns, no doubt, and likely utterly annoy whatever elder Immortal had created the thing in the first place when it was sucked dry and destroyed forever, depriving Time of another of its inane time travel relics.
Like they needed more of that crap around trying to bend the timestream, and running into a Source and Null who said otherwise!
-Fuzzy, Edge, I’m giving some serious thought to heading down to Siricil and expressing my opinions to Tenya’s Avatar there personally. Is that something you are opposed to?- she /asked directly, making up her mind on this subject.
-Try not to kill Magni. He’s blameless as far as Immortal crap goes, he just wants a legacy and is being manipulated. Killing the emperor will prompt an invasion, and we would rather not do that at this time,- was her Fuzzy’s only restriction.
Mainly because they’d annihilate it.
-Is the slave revolt work ready to be implemented?- was all Edge /replied, clearly not caring about such a move. Siricil was waiting to be shattered in her eyes, and they all knew it.